Inside Straight

by Ray Banks

  10

  My first conclusion was that a week wasn't long enough.

  I cancelled my holiday time, much to Jacqui's delight, and decided to get right to it, but it became all too clear all too quickly that I couldn't possibly scope the place properly in one five-night run. I started to think that maybe I should've asked Pollard what he'd originally planned and then build from there, but it was too late – I couldn't talk to him now. I couldn't even think about the man without breaking into a sick, viscous sweat.

  So I took notes, spent my off-moments scribbling on the back of a roulette card like The Professor. Mostly numbers, nothing too incriminating. Nobody but me would be able to decipher it without prior knowledge, and even then it would be tenuous. But it was necessary. I needed to see it written down in black and white. I couldn't hold all this in my head.

  Lucky for any prospective robbers, the Riverside boasted a series of obvious security issues. You had a staff door that was open to the gaming floor, where anyone passing could spy the security code that would get you not only behind the scenes, but also one door nearer the cash desk. Of course I'd give Pollard the code for the door, but the point was that it was plausible for them to have the code by other means. Anyone with an eye and an interest would be able to peek at the keypad on any number of breaks and work it out. That was good. Above all else, my job here was to keep me safe and pre-empt any wild accusations of an inside job. So, a set of breakers going off every two hours was at least three chances to clock the code, implying that they all went through at the same time. Then there was the restaurant and valet staff. Some of them didn't like walking through the kitchen to get to the staff room, so they used the staff door, too. On the first night I counted no less than twelve uses of the staff door where the code was entered; all it would take was one glance to note and another to confirm.

  I also watched security. Fester was the only one out of the three regulars who had any serious army time behind him. The other two – the perpetually dozing black guy named Jason and the one with the military moustache whose name I hadn't bothered to learn – were a two-three hitch maximum, if they'd ever been in the forces at all. Both worked to my advantage. Fester had the experience, but he was too old and flabby to use it. The other two weren't a threat, especially if Pollard and his men were emphatic and quick, which would be my immediate recommendation. As far as I could tell, Fester and his boys fell into the same old club security routine – doormen with a drunk-bouncing remit if required, but mostly there as a deterrent. If that was the case then they'd fold just as quickly as the average punter the moment they saw the fallen eight of a double-barrel.

  Even though robbing the club while it was open was a definite no-no, crowd control was still my main concern. I'd decided that the best way to keep an eye on people was to keep them in one place, but that was a tricky proposition. Even after we closed, there were still plenty of staff on the premises. Herding them into the middle of the pit was probably the best course of action – it would bring them out of the shadows and into the glare of the main pit lights, and there was enough space to keep them separated so they couldn't confer and wind each other up with heroic ideas. The only problem there was that when we closed of a night, most of the staff tended to congregate up around the restaurant area where there were comfy seats and a plasma television. So they'd have to be physically moved, which opened up opportunities for resistance which, in turn, opened up opportunities for people to get badly hurt.

  A problem, but a subsidiary one. I knew I was supposed to minimise casualties, but the bottom line was I didn't know these people. Nor did I care about most of them. They were names on a sheet and a whinging white noise. If they got hurt, then it would be their own fault. My real job was to keep this robbery as quick and clean as possible. If I succeeded there, then I'd keep breathing. Everything else was gravy.

  I swapped breakers, kept the pit sheet up to date and left the inspectors to their own devices. I'd already received some odd looks tonight. It wasn't like me to let people get on with it. I liked to keep moving, keep checking, keep monitoring the tables to make sure we weren't on any losers. I just played it off like I was growing comfortable with the place, and perhaps I was becoming complacent into the bargain. It didn't matter if we lost money tonight. We'd lose significantly more before the month was out.

  My pen ran dry. I grabbed one of the Moon Festival flyers from a pile on the pit desk and scribbled on the back of it until more ink came out. The flyers were glossy and professional, and we had way too many of them. I glanced around the tables. There was supposed to be a nice supply of flyers on each and if anyone asked, we were supposed to shove them into their hands, which threw up a whole host of potential security issues that I was the only one sensitive enough to notice.

  I turned over the flyer. There was a date written in bold white letters: Sunday 30th September 2012. Around the date curled brightly coloured dragons that carried glowing lanterns in their claws. The Moon Festival wasn't really a thing in any of the other clubs, not even the Arches on George Street where you'd expect it. According to Jacqui it was a kind of Chinese harvest festival that took place every autumn on a full moon. Whatever the occasion, it was an excuse for an all-you-can-eat buffet and cheap tables, both of which were designed to bring in the short-term punters, which also meant a boost in take for that Sunday night. That take would be added to the Saturday cash and wouldn't be banked until the following Monday, which meant there'd be tagged bags sitting in the cash desk even before the count.

  Someone laughed over at the cash desk. It was Tintin, must have been, because it was too feminine to belong to his little colleague whom I'd nicknamed Spaniel because of the two curly flaps of hair on either side of her scrunched-up little face. Her voice made her sound like a teenage boy in drag, and her attitude didn't help the comparison.

  I looked from the cash desk over to reception, tried to work out the distance between the two. It was too far to run without being seen, and you'd need to be Mo Farah to get to the desk before the shutters were down. Once that happened, any robber would be out in the cold unless he found a couple of spare hours and a welding kit. Even then, the shutters were reinforced, as was the door to the count room. Out of all the rooms in the club, that was the most expensive one to build, and the organisation wouldn't have skimped this time, especially if they were setting up in Salford.

  The inside of my elbow itched. I wanted to scratch it, but I couldn't go digging around under my shirt in the middle of the pit. Instead, I leaned against the pit desk, rubbed my hand over the outside of my jacket.

  There was no way you could bring anyone in through the front and get them to the cash desk without it all going pear-shaped. I hadn't timed the shutters yet, but if it was less than five seconds, I needed another way in. On top of that, you need to herd the staff and keep them under control. Meanwhile, Tintin or Spaniel or whoever it was who'd been unfortunate enough to pull that shift would hit the alarm behind the corrugated steel and that would be the beginning of the end. The only other way into the cash desk was from the staff side, and while that open staff door was a security risk, it was also placed too far away from any of the entrances or exits to be rushed.

  So.

  Think.

  The rubbing wasn't working.

  I asked Jeff to take over the pit for a second and strode to the rope. I timed myself as I walked to the staff door. Ten seconds from the middle of the pit. Another one-two to put the code into the keypad, and I was in. A sharp turn to my left, and there was the door to the count room. Beyond the count room, the cash desk. I stopped, let the staff door ease closed behind me, looking at the door to the count room and thinking. Then I remembered the camera above the door and pushed on up the corridor. I ducked into the toilets, removed my jacket and rolled up my shirt sleeve. My left arm looked raw. The air made it itch even more. I felt around in my jacket pocket until I found my cream, then squeezed a grape into my hand, slapped it onto the itchy part of my
arm, and then rubbed it in all the way down to my wrist, smothering the itch. I looked like I was about to help a cow give birth. My hand was slick, and I still wanted to scratch through the lotion. This wasn't right. I'd had skin problems before, but never this bad and not for a good long while.

  I washed the rest of the cream off my hands. My left arm was cold.

  My reflection showed me how bad I looked, sweaty around the hairline and puffy and pale of face. Normally it wouldn't have bothered me. Put it down to poor diet, too little sleep, not enough exercise, too many shifts, too much sugar and caffeine. For all intents and purposes, that was what the outside world would've seen and thought. If anyone had a mind to think differently, though, there was every chance I'd be seen for what I was – suspicious and cornered. I pulled my shirt sleeve down over my arm and buttoned the cuff before I shrugged back into my jacket.

  I wasn't sure I could think of a way for Pollard to rob this place without someone getting hurt. Not without additional on-site assistance on my part, anyway, and the thought of being even more involved nauseated me. But sure enough, it was coming to that, wasn't it? I would have to put myself at risk, not only of harm but of being sent to prison, in order to protect a majority of the staff.

  I breathed out. I felt warm. I splashed water on my face.

  There was a friend of mine, he once posted a picture of himself with a T-shirt that read: WWSD?

  What Would Spock Do?

  Spock was our Jesus. He was cold, logical, and normally correct.

  So ask the question, WWSD?

  And get the answer back, his dying words from The Wrath of Khan, that cornerstone of Vulcan philosophy which sprang from a Dickens novel: "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few ..."

  ... or one.

  Logic dictates, Jim.

  More water on my face. Jeff wouldn't be able to hold the pit for long. Any longer than ten minutes on any given task and his attention drifted.

  I needed to get back. I dried my hands with a scratchy paper towel and stepped out of the toilet.

  The truth of the matter was I liked to think I stood above the rabble, looking down. And it was true that their petty arguments and out-of-club activities didn't figure into my day-to-day unless there was an inspector/dealer relationship that threatened the integrity of the club – the staff handbook was crystal clear on workplace romance and how it was to be actively discouraged. Most of the time, though, the staff were cattle to herd from table to table and break to break, and they didn't factor into my life much beyond that. I didn't go out drinking with them, and outside of Clive I wasn't really friendly with any of them. As far as I was concerned, they were their own family, incestuous as it was, and I was the social worker.

  But it was different now. Pollard had made it different.

  You always think of yourself as a good person. Or at least, you don't think of yourself as a bad person. You always nurture that warm idea of yourself as someone who, given the choice, would do the right thing. Of course, as soon as that right thing makes itself known, you find yourself doing everything in your power to avoid it, citing your god, your health, your family, your myriad weaknesses both real and imaginary. You make excuses and call them reasons, and you do so in the knowledge that the only thing stopping you from the true moral path is your own cowardice and self-regard. And then, inexorably, you choose the wrong thing because it's the easiest to do.

  Not this time. Not me.

  If I'd harboured any fantasies about controlling this remotely, they were long gone now. I had to make sure that everything went according to plan, make sure that it was as quick and clean as I needed it to be. Not just for the staff's sake, but for my own, too.

  I knew it was the right decision to make. It was unselfish decision, really. It was the moral decision. Deep down, I knew it. Because deep down, I felt physically, violently sick.

  11

  I managed to get a doctor's appointment the next afternoon. It wasn't worth the wait or the hassle it had taken to get registered, weighed and interrogated by a nurse who seemed unduly superior, given her own weight problem and obvious alcohol abuse, but I did it. By the time I saw a doctor, I just wanted it over with. Luckily for me, he was of the same opinion. He examined my arm, the back of my wrist, the palm of my hand and sank back into his chair.

  "Well?"

  The doctor was elderly, his chin dusted with dark grey hairs that looked like ash at this distance. He wore half-moon glasses above flared and tufted nostrils, and his pursed lips looks like two squashed prunes. "Have you experienced these rashes before?"

  "No, never."

  He raised an eyebrow. "Never?"

  "Well, I mean, I had it when I was a kid sometimes."

  He nodded. "Have you noticed it changing with the weather at all? Warm or cold climates?"

  "Not really."

  "Any contact with poison ivy, nickel, wet cement, anything like that?"

  "No."

  "How is it with sunlight?"

  I smiled. "I don't really see much of that."

  He nodded. Wrote something down. "New washing powder?"

  "Not as far as I know."

  "As far as you know?"

  "Maybe they changed the formula."

  "Maybe they did, Mr Ellis. Maybe they did." He put pen to paper, but it looked like he was drawing something rather than writing. He smiled, showed a canine edged with brown. "Are you using any cream?"

  I brought out the moisturiser that I'd been using. He regarded it from behind the desk and over his half-moons, then showed the canine on the other side before he went back to his drawing.

  "Well? Is it serious?"

  "It will be if you keep using that stuff." He wrote out a prescription. "You'll want to use a moisturiser, of course, but stay away from your perfumed lady things. Thicker the better, something with petroleum jelly in it, ideally. Do you shower?"

  "Of course I do."

  "Keep them short, avoid scented soaps if you can, keep the water lukewarm." He finished writing the prescription and slapped it onto the desk between us. "That's for a corticosteroid ointment. Wait for an hour or so after you've used your moisturiser, then use that if it gets particularly bad." He pointed at me. "Sparingly, though. Only if it gets particularly bad. Also, get yourself some calamine lotion for the itching."

  I nodded, tried to remember it all.

  He leaned forward. "What did you say you did for a living?"

  "I'm a pit boss."

  "Stressful job?"

  "No."

  He clicked his pen, showed me both canines in a large grin. "Atopic eczema can be exacerbated by stress, Mr Ellis."

  "I'm not stressed."

  "I'm just saying—"

  "I know what you're saying." I smiled. "Thank you, Doctor. But I'm not stressed. No more than usual, anyway." I picked up the prescription. "Thanks for this. This'll clear it right up, yes?"

  "It'll help."

  I stood. "Thank you."

  Went to the door, but had to stop.

  The doctor looked at me. "Something else?"

  "Probably nothing, but I'm up for a job on the cruise ships, and I wondered if this would keep me from getting the job."

  "Eczema? No."

  "It's not that serious?"

  Click-click. "No, not at all. Just do your best to avoid triggers like smoking, drinking, that sort of thing."

  "I don't do either."

  "Oh really?" Another double click. "Well then, you should be fine." He nodded at the prescription. "Remember: sparingly."

  "Thank you, I will."

  I didn't. By the time I reached the chemist, I was half-insane with the itch. I was three steps out before I'd cracked the cap on the tube and rubbed a good couple of grapes into my red, irritated skin.

  Then, tired and sticky, I continued on to work.

  The night shifts grew worse as the foul weather forced more punters into the Riverside. It was hot and damp and grumpy, punters elbow-to-elbow at the tables and a
majority of the staff were too inexperienced to cope properly. There were a few kick-offs, more than a few camera checks, and all the while I kept an eye on proceedings, wondering where I was going to find that one clue that would bring inspiration. I watched the staff close up the tables for the night. Counted them off in my head. The same number, give or take, every night. And then I watched them head off to the changing rooms and staff room to grab their stuff, knowing full well they'd go up to the restaurant area. While they did that, I timed it roughly in my head as I went into the count with two dealers, an inspector and Jacqui.

  I went to close the count room door and it stuck for a second. I fiddled with it, and it sprang back open.

  Jacqui looked confused. "Graham?"

  "It's not closing." I gave the handle a quick jostle and then pushed it properly shut. It clicked. I pushed it again to make sure it stayed closed.

  "We ready?"

  I nodded and joined the dealers and inspector over by the count table. I tuned out their chatter as they dumped the boxes onto the table, counting them off. I watched Tintin and the Spaniel in the cash desk. I saw the movement on the monitors in there – they had two cameras, one outside the count room door and one trained on the gaming floor. They were covered on both sides. I shook my head. Then I looked back at the count room door. I went over to it and tried it again.

  Jacqui watched me.

  "Sorry. I just wanted to make sure it was still locked."

  "Is it?"

  "Yeah, I think so."

  I returned to the table, got on with the count.

  The inspector was holding court. "What about Jerry tonight, eh?"