Inside Straight

by Ray Banks

  "Stevie."

  I feigned ignorance. "Who's Stevie?"

  "He was an inspector." Nash frowned, working it out in his head, probably arranging dates and possibilities in his mind.

  "Do I know him?"

  "He left before you came here, I think."

  "What happened to him?"

  "Nobody knows. He just didn't come in to work anymore. Disappeared."

  "Interesting."

  "Yeah, his flatmates said they thought he went off on the ships."

  "They don't know?"

  "He left them in the lurch, too."

  I nodded, staring into the middle distance and pretending to think about it. "Wow. I thought I was talking rubbish." I blinked. "I mean, I still might be. It's not like I have any proof."

  No, all I had was a rumour that would be all around the club by the end of the shift. And once the rumour spread beyond those walls, it would snowball into gospel and probably find its way into the ear of one Detective Inspector Kennedy. It would, that was, if he was still interviewing staff. Worse came to worst ...

  "You should probably tell the police, Graham."

  "No, I can't do that. What if it's not true?"

  "It's up to them to investigate everything, isn't it?"

  "I'm sure they're snowed, though. And I've not really thought this through, have I? Only reason I mentioned it to you was to get it out of my head. I mean, it's daft, right?"

  The staff door opened and Blake stepped out with Dave Randall in tow. Neither man looked particularly happy, but Dave was at least pretending to smile, even though I'd seen that mask a million times before. Blake nodded at me as he passed and then headed out to the reception. Dave followed him to the doors.

  "Graham, you should tell them."

  "Really? You think so?"

  I watched Blake leave, saw the momentary slump in Dave's shoulders before he turned back to the floor.

  "I know so. What if you're right?"

  Nash was leaning forward in his seat, trying to catch my eye. He looked genuinely upset at the thought of me not grassing up Stevie Laird.

  I nodded at him. "Okay, let me think about it. In the meantime, could you do me a favour and ask around a little? I don't want to be the only one who thinks it's plausible, do I?"

  Dave returned to the floor. He stopped by the pit rope and caught my eye. He beckoned me over.

  I didn't move from the pit desk. I held up a hand. "Give me a minute, Dave?" Then, to Nash: "What do you think?"

  "I'll see what I can do."

  "Good man." I jerked my head at Dave, who had hopped the rope and was stalking towards me. "Yes, Dave?"

  "Can I have a word with you, Graham?"

  I looked at Nash. "You alright with the pit, Kevin?"

  He smiled at me, gave me a conspiratorial wink. "I think so."

  "Then I'm all yours, Dave. Lead the way."

  23

  As Dave closed the door to Jacqui's office behind him, his posture appeared to deflate. Gone was the smooth-talking Dapper Dave Randall the punters all knew and loved and the fish staff looked up to. This was the old Dave, one I hadn't seen in the flesh for a good long while, one that stood there by the closed door and stared at me for a good minute or so before he started talking. "So, it's obvious to me that we have some kind of problem, Graham."

  "Problem? No, I don't think so."

  "That's not what Jeremy just told me."

  I sat on the edge of Jacqui's desk and waited for him to elaborate. Dave moved from the door, appeared to melt into his old self. The sight of it nauseated me.

  "I understand that you're not happy here, Graham. You've made that patently obvious, not just to me but to Jacqui too. And you know, maybe it's my fault—"

  "It's definitely your fault."

  "I've tried to help you, Graham."

  "Oh, is that what you call it?"

  "How long have we known each other now?"

  "A long time."

  "Ten years, something like that?"

  "Longer than that."

  "So we're veterans, you and I. We're like old soldiers. There's a certain kind of understanding that comes with a relationship like ours, regardless of whether or not we actually like each other. And I think we can both safely admit that we don't."

  "Okay."

  "There's no reason to get into individual gripes here. They're not really important anyway. Because I know that, as a manager, I have a degree of responsibility when it comes to dealing with people like you, Graham."

  "People like me?"

  "Good people. Competent people. Difficult people."

  "I see. Then yes, you do have a degree of responsibility."

  "I think I've been fair with you."

  I shrugged. "Agree to disagree."

  "Okay." He folded his arms. "Then why don't you tell me where you disagree, and maybe we can proceed from there."

  "You dumped me here. You got thick and you got scared and you got greedy and you decided to sell me down the river to save your own skin. Regional asked you whose fault the Les Beale thing was and you told them it was me."

  He nodded once. "That's right. You were in charge of the pit, Graham."

  "Because you weren't anywhere near the floor."

  "I don't need to be on the floor. Everything that takes place in that pit is your responsibility. I have a number of responsibilities. I have the cash desk, I have the restaurant, the bar, the reception area, I have to deal with member issues, I have to—"

  "You should've seen what was happening and nipped it in the bud."

  "Why?"

  I stopped, my mouth open. "Sorry, what? Why? Because you're the manager. Because I was dealing with a whale on one of the roulettes and trainee staff who could barely hold the ball, let alone spin it."

  Dave smiled and narrowed his eyes. "What's that they say about a bad workman blaming his tools?"

  "I'm serious. You were the manager, you should have managed. And then you farm me off here, tell Regional I'm unstable."

  "Alright, calm down, Graham."

  "How would you like it, Dave? Being transferred without your consent, ending up here? It's all white games out here, Dave. They're penny-antes, bungalow games. I might as well be calling bingo numbers."

  "I thought you needed a break."

  "No, you didn't. You thought you could bin someone who wouldn't let you get away with your usual nonsense. Someone who would call you on your mistakes."

  "What mistakes?"

  "I'm better than you, Dave. You know I am. And now Regional knows it, too."

  Dave regarded me a moment longer, as if he was trying to understand what I'd just said. He opened his mouth to say something, then stopped, retreated, turned his face away from me just as he approached. "I think I've been pretty good with you, actually. I mean, I know you've been through a lot the past month or so, especially the last couple of weeks, and I understand the way stress works."

  "And this is where you tell me that it doesn't manifest straight away."

  "I also understand that you're not the kind of person to acknowledge it when it occurs, so I'm going to tell you this straight – you're a liability, Graham. You've been a liability for a while now. Even before the incident with Les Beale, your pit totals of a night were sub-par. I didn't want to say anything, I didn't want you to think that I was monitoring you like that, because I knew it wouldn't help your nerves. So I kept quiet. But after the Beale incident, it wasn't something I could ignore anymore. So yes, I had you transferred here, but I didn't lie to you about it. I told you that Jacqui needed someone with experience and I honestly thought that it would do you good to slow down a bit." He looked me right in the eye. "You're not well, Graham. You're stressed. You're distracted, you're making mistakes and you're overly emotional when you're called on them. And from what Jacqui told me, you were fine for a while, you know, when you were on the day shifts, and I think you had a couple of good nights after that, but there was a decline again, wasn't there?"

/>   I blinked at him. Couldn't say anything. My throat was closed; I couldn't catch my breath. I'd started sweating again. I felt that old familiar itch in my right hand. I closed it into a fist and scratched the palm.

  "The run up to the robbery. You were distracted, weren't you?"

  He knew. He had to. If he didn't know then he suspected, which was just as bad. I cleared my throat. And this was how he was going to bring me down. After all these years, I'd given him ammunition. He had to use it. "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "There's nobody else here, Graham. Nobody listening in. It's okay. I know you don't want to admit a – I don't know, a weakness. I know you think I'm going to hurt you in some way, but I'm not, okay?"

  "I'm not one of your ditzy fish dealers, so you can stop trying to seduce me."

  "Listen, Graham, I just want to help—

  He put a hand on my shoulder. It was a dead weight, felt like he was shoving me. Before I knew it, I'd lashed out, caught him in the mouth with my fist. The weight disappeared from my shoulder and he took a few steps back, two fingers pressed to his lip. I hadn't hurt him, but I'd smacked a shock into him. My knuckles hurt. He looked at his fingers. No blood.

  He looked at me. I stared right back at him.

  Neither of us moved for a moment. Neither of us spoke.

  Finally, Dave nodded and turned to the door. I lunged and grabbed him before he could open it. I threw one arm around his neck and hauled him backwards. A few thumping, staggered steps and then I used my weight advantage. I threw him off-balance, threw myself off-balance, and then the pair of us stumbled into Jacqui's desk, knocking it away from one wall and slamming the corner of it into another. The computer monitor tumbled and dropped into the gap between the desk and the wall and I held firm around Dave's neck.

  I didn't know what I was doing. It was all instinct. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to make him bleed. Dave struggled and twisted in my grip and I redoubled my efforts to choke him, even though I knew I was doing nothing of the sort. He threw a loose elbow into my gut, but it did no damage. I heard a scream come ripping out of me, a wretched, grating, high-pitched noise.

  He turned again, tried to shake me off. I held on.

  His voice came out hoarse. "Get ... get off me, Graham."

  I looked down at him, saw the red blossoming in his face, saw the contorted features, the spittle spraying from his open mouth. I staggered back into the wall to brace myself and then punched him in the ear with my free hand. He jerked in my grip and because the blow hurt me less than the one to the mouth, I hit him again, harder. He grunted and tried to pull away.

  "The fuck d'you think you—"

  I hit him again. And again. Each time a little harder, each time hurting myself a little more, each time caring a little less. The first time in my whole life so far that I was winning a fight and I'd be damned if I lost the advantage just yet. Dave yelled and his own struggles became more violent with each blow. One punch broke the skin and drew blood from his cheek, and the shock of it made me stop and weaken for a second. Dave shoved me away from him, one hand holding me at bay as he staggered across the office, his head down and his free hand clamped to his ear.

  I stood by the wall. My hands refused to melt; they remained tight fists that swung slightly as I watched him. We were both panting with the effort, but Dave's was the only one with pain attached. He kept moving, circling and bending double. When he turned, he was showing his bottom teeth and glaring at me. He saw me standing there and shook his head. "I don't get it. I try to help you and you're a fucking maniac ..."

  I didn't say anything. I didn't move. My hands remained balled. I was ready for another round whenever he was.

  He saw it, too. He shook his head again as he straightened up. Looked at the fingers that had been pressed to his battered ear. The only blood on him was a brief smear under his left eye, which he now rubbed away. He tugged at his jacket, tucked his shirt back into his trousers and ran a palm over his hair. Then he put a hand on the door. "Go home, Graham. Take your holiday early. We'll talk when you get back."

  "I'm not coming back."

  "Whatever you want."

  He left the office, closing the door behind him with a soft click.

  I stared at the door, then the carpet, then my own hands as I opened them and stretched my fingers. There were red marks across the back of one set of knuckles. My hands shook and I could feel the wet stickiness of spittle on my chin. When I moved my fingers, they throbbed. I put them to my mouth and sucked on them. Then I wiped my face and tugged the tightened knot out of my tie before I tied it again and smoothed myself down.

  I stepped out into the corridor and turned right towards the locker room, checking my watch as I went. Six o'clock. Too early for the night shift to come in or the day shift to get ready to leave. Chances were, if I avoided the break room, I wouldn't bump into anyone. I ducked into the locker room, grabbed my coat and did a quick recce of my locker to make sure I wasn't leaving anything important. Satisfied, I left by the staff entrance.

  "You off, Graham?"

  I turned to see Fester by the back wall, smoking a cigarette. Both eyes were black and swollen.

  "Yeah, I'm finished."

  "See you later, then."

  "Not if I see you first."

  Fester laughed politely. I went to my Corsa and got behind the wheel. Started the engine, let it warm up as I looked across the sparsely-populated car park at the front of the club. Maybe if Pollard hadn't come my way, I would still be there now.

  I wondered about what Dave had said, about how I was on a decline. I hadn't noticed myself, but then I'd seen plenty of others lose control in stages and they hadn't appeared to notice either. Life had a way of throwing so many distractions at a man that he didn't know he'd hit bottom until his legs cracked beneath him. Maybe I would've continued on that downward trajectory myself, ended up another clipped ticket in the dance of the lemons. But not anymore. Now I had plans, I had opportunities. I just had to get paid what I was owed.

  I called the contact phone number while I drove, and instead of going straight to voicemail, someone picked it up: "What?"

  It wasn't Pollard. Sounded like Jez, and he sounded harassed.

  "I want to speak to Barry."

  "He's not here."

  "Can you get him to ring me back?"

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  "Because he says he'll call you when he's ready."

  "No, well, listen. Things have changed."

  "Nowt's changed."

  "No, it has. I'm not ... I'm going to be leaving the country next Monday. I'm going on the ships."

  "Good for you."

  "Thank you. But I need the money as soon as possible."

  "You know what Mr Pollard said."

  "Yes, I do. I do know what he said. But things change, don't they? There's no danger, tell him that. Tell him I'm going to be out of the country. I'm not going to call the police. I'm not going to grass anyone up. I'm going to be in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, aren't I? So it's silly to keep the money. No sense in prolonging this any more than necessary. I can be out of your hair by the end of the week."

  There was silence at the other end. I thought Jez had cut me off until I heard something that sounded like traffic in the background.

  "Jez?"

  "Mr Pollard will call you when he's fuckin' ready."

  And then he did cut me off. When I tried calling back, it didn't even go to voicemail. I was frozen out. Made me think he was avoiding me instead of playing it safe, all those old paranoid thoughts marching back through my mind. He was edging me out of my cut, trying to intimidate me. The only way to get him to arrange safe payment was to let him know that the investigation was dead in the water, which it wasn't, because no doubt the police would start in on my carefully sown seeds regarding Stevie Laird. And when that turned up empty, they wouldn't tell me that it was over, would they? They'd tell management, and I wasn't exactly on speaking terms wi
th Dave Randall. I could ask Clive to keep an ear out, but I doubted he'd have much for me by the end of the week beyond the usual news – people boasting of their sexual conquests or else trying to deny it; people disappearing to the ships or one of the Stanley or Grosvenor clubs that promised better pay and working conditions; who was straight or gay this week, and who was pretending to be one when they were the other; just the usual flotsam and jetsam of drifting rumour that would do me no good whatsoever, chatter without substance.

  I pulled over to the side of the road and sat in the growing dark.

  Pollard wouldn't talk to me over the phone. Jez had severed all communication on that front. So I was outside the loop and would probably remain that way unless Pollard had a sudden attack of conscience and decided to pay me what I was owed, which was becoming increasingly unlikely.

  So there was nothing else for it. If he wouldn't come to me, then I would have to go to him.

  I turned the car around and pointed it back towards the Riverside, where I parked as far away from the club as possible and took the long way round to the front doors. Someone had been in to fix the glass in the doors, so the reception looked a little more inviting, but there was still no Security on the front and wouldn't be until the night shift came in. Which meant that Janine was alone behind the reception desk. She was a blonde girl with teeth the colour of her skin, which was topped up every couple of weeks with some sort of industrial spray. She was a gossipy sort, prone to shooting her mouth off with the preface, "I'm not trying to be funny, but ..." Lucky for her she was daffy with it, or else she wouldn't be half as popular as she was. She also happened to be a lazy cow, which was lucky for me.

  I frowned at her as I approached the desk. "Janine, have you been on since we opened?"

  She nodded. Of course she had. Her fellow receptionist had been on duty the night of the robbery, so she wouldn't be back for a while. "It's been chocka, Graham."

  "Well, why don't you grab a quick break, eh?"

  "You sure?"