The Damnation Game Part 25

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Marty couldn't get one particular thought out of his head: that she'd told Flynn all about him: spilling the secrets of their life together. He pictured Flynn lying on the bed with his socks on, stroking her, and laughing, as she poured out all the dirt. How Marty'd spent all the money on horses or poker; how he'd never had a winning streak in his life that lasted more than five minutes (you should have seen me today, he wanted to tell her, things are different now, I'm s.h.i.+t-hot now); how he was only good in bed on the infrequent occasions that he'd won and uninterested the rest of the time; how he'd first lost the car to Macnamara, then the television, then the best of the furniture, and still owed a small fortune. How he'd then gone out and tried to steal his way out of debt. Even that had failed miserably.

He lived the pursuit again, sharp as ever. The car smelling of the shotgun Nygaard was nursing; the sweat on Marty's face p.r.i.c.king in his pores as it cooled in the draft from the open window, fluttering up into his face like petals. It was all so clear, it might have happened yesterday. Everything since then, almost a decade of his life, pivoted on those few minutes. It made him almost physically sick to think of it. Waste. All waste.

It was time to get drunk. The money he had left in his pocket-still well into four figures-was burning a hole, demanding to be spent or gambled. He wandered down to the Commercial Road, and hailed another cab, not entirely certain of what to do next. It was barely seven; the night ahead needed careful planning. What would Papa do? he thought. Betrayed and shat on, what would the great man do?

Whatever his heart desired, came the answer; whatever his f.u.c.king heart desired.

He went to Euston Station and spent half an hour in the bathroom there, was.h.i.+ng and changing into the new s.h.i.+rt and new suit, emerging transformed. The clothes he'd been wearing he gave to the attendant, along with a ten-pound note.

Some of the old mellowness had crept back into his system by the time he'd changed. He liked what the mirror told him: the evening might turn out to be a winner yet, as long as he didn't whip it too hard. He drank in Covent Garden, enough to lace his blood and breath with spirits, then had a meal in an Italian restaurant. When he came out the theaters were emptying; he garnered a clutch of appreciative glances, mostly from middle-aged women and well-coiffured young men. I probably look like a gigolo, he thought; there was a disparity between his dress and his face that signaled a man playing a role. The thought pleased him. From now on he would play Martin Strauss, man of the world, with all the bravura he could muster. Being himself had not got him very far. Perhaps a fiction would improve his rate of advancement.

He idled down Charing Cross Road and into the tangle of traffic and pedestrians at Trafalgar Square. There'd been a fight on the steps on St. Martin's-in-the-Field; two men were exchanging curses and accusations while their wives looked on.

Off the square, at the back of the Mall, the traffic quietened. It took him several minutes to orient himself. He knew where he was going, and had thought he knew how to get there, but now he wasn't so certain. It was a long time since he'd been in the area, and when he eventually hit the small mews that contained the Academy-Bill Toy's club-it was more by chance than design.

His heart beat a little faster as he sauntered up the steps. Ahead lay a major piece of playacting, which, if it failed, would ruin the evening. He paused a moment to light a cigar, then entered.

In his time he'd frequented a number of high-cla.s.s casinos; this one had the same slightly pa.s.se grandeur as others he'd been in; dark-wood paneling, damson carpeting, portraits of forgotten luminaries on the walls. Hand in trouser pocket, jacket unb.u.t.toned to reveal the gloss of the lining, he crossed the mosaic foyer to the desk. Security would be tight: the moneyed expected safety. He wasn't a member, nor could expect to become one on the spot: not without sponsors and references. The only way he'd get a good night's gaming was by bluffing his way through.

The English rose at the desk smiled promisingly. "Good evening, sir."

"How are you tonight?"

Her smile didn't falter for a moment, even though she couldn't possibly know who he was.

"Well. And you?"

"Lovely night. Is Bill here yet?"

"I'm sorry, sir?"

"Mr. Toy. Has he arrived yet?"

"Mr. Toy." She consulted the guest book, running a lacquered finger down the list of tonight's gamblers. "I don't think he's-"

"He won't have signed in," Marty said. "He's a member, for G.o.d's sake." The slight irritation in his voice took the girl off-balance.

"Oh . . . I see. I don't think I know him."

"Well, no matter. I'll just go straight up. Tell him I'm at the tables, will you?"

"Wait, sir. I haven't-"

She reached out, as if to tug at his sleeve, but thought better of it. He flashed her a disarming smile as he started up the stairs.

"Who shall I say?"

"Mr. Strauss," he said, affecting a tiny barb of exasperation.

"Yes. Of course." Artificial recognition flooded her face. "I'm sorry, Mr. Strauss. It's just that-"

"No problem," he replied, benignly, as he left her below, staring up at him.

It took him only a few minutes to acquaint himself with the layout of the rooms. Roulette, poker, blackjack; all and more were available. The atmosphere was serious: frivolity was not welcome where money could be won or lost on such a scale. If the men and few women who haunted these hushed enclaves were here to enjoy themselves they showed no sign of it. This was work; hard, serious work. There were some quiet exchanges on the stairs and in the corridors-and of course calls from the tables, otherwise the interior was almost reverentially subdued.

He sauntered from room to room, standing on the fringe of one game then another, familiarizing himself with the etiquette of the place. n.o.body gave him more than a glance; he fitted into this obsessive's paradise too well.

Antic.i.p.ation of the moment when he eventually sat down to join a game exhilarated him; he indulged it a while longer. He had all night to enjoy, after all, and he knew only too well that the money in his pocket would disappear in minutes if he wasn't careful. He went into the bar, ordered a whisky and water, and scanned his fellow drinkers. They were all here for the same reason: to pit their wits against chance. Most drank alone, psyching themselves up for the games ahead. Later, when fortunes had been won, there might be dancing on the tables, an impromptu striptease from a drunken mistress. But it was early yet.

The waiter appeared. A young man, twenty at most, with a mustache that looked drawn on; he'd already achieved that mixture of obsequiousness and superiority that marked his profession.

"I'm sorry, sir-" he said.

Marty's stomach lurched. Was somebody going to call his bluff?

"Yes?"

"Scotch or bourbon, sir?"

"Oh. Er . . . Scotch."

"Very well, sir."

"Bring it to the table."

"Where will you be, sir?"

"Roulette."

The waiter withdrew. Marty went to the cas.h.i.+er and bought eight hundred pounds of chips, then went into the roulette room.

He'd never been much of a card-player. It required techniques that he'd always been too bored to learn; and much as he admired the skill of great players, that very skill blurred the essential confrontation. A good cardplayer used luck, a great one rode it. But roulette, though it too had its systems and its techniques, was a purer game. Nothing had the glamor of the spinning wheel: its numbers blurring, the ball rattling as it lodged and jumped again.

He sat down at the table between a highly perfumed Arab who spoke only French, and an American. Neither said a word to him: there were no welcomes or farewells here. All the niceties of human intercourse were sacrificed to the matter at hand.

It was an odd disease. Its symptoms were like infatuation-palpitations, sleeplessness. Its only certain cure, death. On one or two occasions he'd caught sight of himself in a casino bar mirror or in the gla.s.s of the cas.h.i.+er's booth, and met a hunted, hungry look. But nothing-not self-disgust, not the disparagement of friends-nothing had ever quite rooted out the appet.i.te.

The waiter brought the drink to his elbow, its ice clinking. Marty tipped him heavily.

There was a spin of the wheel, though Marty had joined the table too late to place money. All eyes were fixed on the circling numbers . . .

It was an hour or more before Marty left the table, and then only to relieve his bladder before returning to his seat. Players came and went. The American, indulging the aquiline youth who accompanied him, had left the decisions to his companion, and lost a small fortune before retiring. Marty's reserves were running low. He'd won, and lost, and won; then lost and lost and lost. The defeats didn't distress him overmuch. It wasn't his money, and as Whitehead had often observed, there was plenty more where that came from. With enough chips left for one more bet of any consequence, he withdrew from the table for a breather. He'd sometimes found that he could change his luck by retiring from the field for a few minutes and returning with new focus.

As he got up from his seat, his eyes full of numbers, somebody walked past the door of the roulette room and glanced in before moving on to another game. Fleeting seconds were enough for recognition.

When Marty'd last met that face it had been ill-shaven and waxen with pain, lit by the floods along the Sanctuary fence. Now Mamoulian was transformed. No longer the derelict, cornered and anguished. Marty found himself walking toward the door like a man hypnotized. The waiter was at his side-"Another drink, sir?"-but the inquiry went ignored as Marty stepped out of the roulette room and into the corridor. Contrary feeling ran in him: he was half-afraid to confirm his sighting of the man, yet curiously excited that the man was here. It was no coincidence, surely. Perhaps Toy was with him. Perhaps the whole mystery would unravel here and now. He caught sight of Mamoulian walking into the baccarat room. A particularly fierce match was going on there, and spectators had drifted in to watch its closing stages. The room was full; players from other tables had deserted their own games to enjoy the battle at hand. Even the waiters were lingering on the periphery trying to catch a glimpse.

Mamoulian threaded his way through the crowd to get a better view, his thin gray figure parting the throng. Having found himself a vantage point he stood, light s.h.i.+ning up from the baize onto his pale face. The wounded hand was lodged in his jacket pocket, out of sight; the wide brow was clear of the least expression. Marty watched him for upward of five minutes. Not once did the European's eyes flicker from the game in front of him. He was like a piece of porcelain: a glazed facade onto which a nonchalant artisan had scrawled a few lines. The eyes pressed into the clay were incapable, it seemed, of anything but that relentless stare. Yet there was power in the man. It was uncanny to see how people kept clear of him, cramming themselves into knots rather than press too close to him at the tableside.

Across the room, Marty caught sight of the pen-mustache waiter. He pushed his way between the spectators to where the young man stood.

"A word," he whispered.

"Yes, sir?"

"That man. In the gray suit."

The waiter glanced toward the table, then back to Marty "Mr. Mamoulian."

"Yes. What do you know about him?"

The waiter gave Marty a reproving look.

"I'm sorry, sir. We're not at liberty to discuss members."

He turned on his heel and went into the corridor. Marty followed. It was empty. Downstairs, the girl on the desk-not the same he'd spoken with-was giggling with the coat-check clerk.

"Wait a moment."

When the waiter looked back, Marty was producing his wallet, still amply enough filled to present a decent bribe. The other man stared at the notes with undisguised greed.

"I just want to ask a few questions. I don't need the number of his bank account."

"I don't know it anyway." The waiter smirked. "Are you police?"

"I'm just interested in Mr. Mamoulian," Marty said, proffering fifty pounds in tens. "Some bare essentials."

The waiter s.n.a.t.c.hed the money and pocketed it with the speed of a practiced bribee.

"Ask away," he said.

"Is he a regular here?"

"A couple of times a month."

"To play?"

The waiter frowned.

"Now you mention it I don't think I've ever seen him actually play."

"Just to watch, then?"

"Well, I can't be sure. But I think if he did play I'd have seen him by now. Strange. Still, we have a few members who do that."

"And does he have any friends? People he arrives with, leaves with?"

"Not that I remember. He used to be quite pally with a Greek woman who used to come in. Always won a fortune. Never failed."

That was the gambler's equivalent of the fisherman's tale, the story of the player with a system so flawless it never faltered. Marty had heard it a hundred times, always the friend of a friend, a mythical somebody whom you never got to meet face-to-face. And yet; when he thought of Mamoulian's face, so calculating in its supreme indifference, he could almost imagine the fiction real.

"Why are you so interested in him?" the waiter asked.

"I have an odd feeling about him."

"You're not the only one."

"What do you mean?"

"He's never said or done anything to me, you understand," the waiter explained. "He always tips well, though G.o.d knows all he ever drinks is distilled water. But we had one fellow came here, this is a couple of years ago now, he was American, over from Boston. He saw Mamoulian and let me tell you-he freaked out. Seems he'd played with a guy who was his spitting image, this is in the 1920s. That caused quite a buzz. I mean, he doesn't look like the type to have a father, does he?"

The waiter had something there. It was impossible to imagine this Mamoulian as a child or a pimply adolescent. Had he suffered infatuation, the death of pets, of parents? It seemed so unlikely as to be laughable.

"That's all I know, really."

"Thank you," said Marty. It was enough.

The waiter walked away, leaving Marty with an armful of possibilities. Apocryphal tales, most likely: the Greek with the system, the panicking American. A man like Mamoulian was bound to collect rumors; his air of lost aristocracy invited invented histories. Like an onion, unwrapped and unwrapped and unwrapped again, each skin giving way not to the core but to another skin.

Tired, and dizzy with too much drink and too little sleep, Marty decided to call it a night. He'd use the hundred or so left in his wallet to bribe a taxi driver to drive him back to the estate, and leave the car to be picked up another day. He was too drunk to drive. He glanced one final time into the baccarat room. The game was still going on; Mamoulian had not moved from his station.

Marty went downstairs to the bathroom. It was a few degrees colder than the interior of the club, its rococo plasterwork facetious in the face of its lowly function. He glanced at his weariness in the mirror, then went to relieve himself at the urinal.

In one of the stalls, somebody had begun to sob, very quietly, as if attempting to stifle the sound. Despite his aching bladder, Marty found he was unable to p.i.s.s; the anonymous grief distressed him too much. It was coming from behind the locked door of the stalls. Probably some optimist who'd lost his s.h.i.+rt on a roll of the dice, and was now contemplating the consequences. Marty left him to it. There was nothing he could say or do; he knew that from bitter experience.

Out in the foyer, the woman on the desk called after him.

"Mr. Strauss?" It was the English rose. She showed no sign of wilting, despite the hour. "Did you find Mr. Toy?"

"No, I didn't."

"Oh, that's odd. He was here."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. He came with Mr. Mamoulian. I told him you were here, and that you'd asked after him."

"And what did he say?"

"Nothing," the girl replied. "Not a word." She dropped her voice. "Is he well? I mean, he looked really terrible, if you don't mind me saying so. Awful color."

Marty glanced up the stairs, scanned the landing.