by JR Carroll
It was hard to tell if that was a serious remark, the business about having royal blood, and wanting to be treated like a queen, but she used the word ‘breeding’ with a straight face. Her actual given name was Michelle, she told him, but she changed it to Mischa because it sounded more exotic and romantic. She wanted a slice of heaven, she said, and Danny told her she could have it. She could have her slice of heaven. Can I? she said, smiling wistfully. They talked on about the good things in life, Danny saying he’d never been anywhere interesting. But it would be a different story when he finished his studies in a year’s time. There would be no holding him back then. In fact Danny had never thought that for a second, but right now a craving for world travel and five-star hotels was uppermost.
He freshened up their glasses again, and soon the bottle was empty. It seemed to have taken about ten minutes. He was wondering about his chances of getting another one into her before he remembered the photo shoot, and then he looked over her shoulder at the people walking by and he could have sworn he saw Lewis Kenny. It was just two seconds, a glimpse. The man, who was wearing gold-rimmed round shades and a reefer jacket and had his left arm in a sling, had his face down towards the pavement and did not look into the cafe, but it was Lewis Kenny, no mistake.
8
No, she wouldn’t have another drink, thanks very much. She was already feeling flushed in the face and throat and a bit drunk. She’d read somewhere that champagne acted rapidly on women, the bubbles serving as a medium to send the alcohol straight to their brains, and she was a classic case. Anything else she could handle, no problems. And she didn’t want to be falling over during the session at Sigmund’s.
‘So what are you wearing this time,’ Danny said.
She drained her flute and said, ‘Not a lot.’
Danny felt a prickling of resentfulness. Bastards like Paul Barry had no business exploiting his Mischa, seeing her naked. Ogling her. He would put a stop to that soon. He would put Mr Barry in his place, and he wouldn’t even know it. Danny’s mind was moving ahead with his plan of attack. He was going to make him pay.
They walked back to Mischa’s house with arms around each other’s waists. She told him she couldn’t walk straight and she did seem a little tipsy, swaying about and slurring her words. Danny didn’t mind helping her along with more zeal than was needed. He himself was perfectly sober and mentally sharp, plotting and scheming his way into this woman’s life. The thing was to make himself essential to the realisation of her hopes and dreams. Everyone had them. He asked her where she would like to eat later and Mischa gave the impression of having forgotten they were going out.
‘Wherever,’ she said, waving an arm. They were near her place.
‘What about Japanese? There are a few good ones in Chapel Street.’ He was thinking, rightly or wrongly, that the closer to her house they went, the better his chances of getting into her bed afterwards.
‘That’s good,’ she said. ‘Japanese is good. Sukiyaki. Sushi, and, what is it … sashimi.’
‘That stuff, yeah. And … what’s the other thing?’
‘The other thing. Tempura, and … poison fish. Raw poison fish.’
‘Raw poison fish. Nooo, thanks. Pass on that.’ They laughed, entering the noisy gate. Danny went with her to the door before removing his hand from her waist, which felt warm and yielding under the skivvy. Mischa dug for her keys, unlocked the door and then they stood there for a second, looking at each other. She wasn’t really tipsy at all … just … happy and relaxed. A bit hazy, as if mildly stoned.
‘When will I come,’ he said quietly.
‘When will you?’ she said. ‘That’s the question.’ And she left it at that, still staring him out with her amazing, slightly smoked eyes, which were dilated and unblinking, awaiting his response.
‘I can come any time at all,’ he said, crossing his arms and legs and leaning a shoulder on the front wall. ‘Whenever you want me to.’
‘Is that right.’
‘It is. Absolutely. Just say the word and I’m right there.’
‘I believe you.’ Now the corner of her mouth curled in a knowing smile.
Danny wanted to say, What about right now? Instead he said, ‘So … what time then?’
‘About … oh, what is it now?’ She wasn’t wearing a watch. Danny had never seen her with one, which was a useful piece of information.
Glancing at his own timepiece, a gold Raymond Weil with a round analog face and a gold band which he had shouted himself for his twenty-first birthday with a lazy two thousand, he said, ‘It’s … nearly half past four.’
‘That’s a nice watch, Danny. Classy bit of gear. Shit, is it that late. I gotta fly.’
‘So when?’
‘Oh … make it eight-thirty. Is that all right by you?’
‘Beautiful,’ he said. ‘See you then.’ He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. She nuzzled her face against his, scraping his light afternoon shadow, then quite unexpectedly kissed him full on the mouth, playfully, almost skittishly, before disappearing inside with a whispered ‘Bye.’
Danny aimed the Golf back towards Chapel Street, cruising until he spotted a shop that sold mobile phones. When he found one there was nowhere to park, so he ducked down a side street and left it in a tiny, illegal space. One of the advantages of owning a Golf was that it could fit just about anywhere. He hurried into the shop and straightaway an assistant was all over him.
Mobile phones were a flourishing, competitive industry and there were all kinds of confusing deals or plans on offer. Danny selected a small, expensive, state-of-the-art job, barely listening to the salesman’s spiel. All he was interested in was whether the guy could give him a number and connect him immediately, which he was assured was not a problem for a valued client like Danny. How quickly one became a valued client. Normally there was a day’s wait. He shelled out the money from one of his rolls, and in doing so he realised he was still holding all of Barry’s cash and a cheque. His and Barry’s had become mixed up and now he couldn’t tell whose was whose. He couldn’t even be sure he’d paid for the Billecart Salmon with his own money – it didn’t seem to matter at the time. His mind was wandering. Christ, he’d left the casino in such a hurry, thanks to Mr Lewis fucking Kenny, he’d forgotten to get a cheque for his later winnings and settle up for the day with Victor, even supposing he was around then.
Financially and in other ways, the situation was becoming confused. Lewis Kenny. What was he doing in Chapel Street, anyhow? It was a bit much of a coincidence, his walking past the Petite Fleur like that. Even if he didn’t look in – he may still have known Danny and Mischa were inside. He was turning up a few too many times, that intrusive bastard. When he was around there was a nasty feeling in the air.
Danny attached the phone – snug in its hand-stitched tan carry-case, emblazoned with an eye-catching Aztec motif – onto his belt so it rode on his right buttock. Now he was the complete young mover. He headed back to his car, just beating the parking officer on his rounds. Now he had about four hours to kill before the dinner date, so he decided to do it in the casino, make some more bread and at the same time take care of business with Victor Wineglass. While he drove he did some mental calculations and worked out how much he needed to hand over, give or take. The final figure gave him a skim of twenty per cent, not ten as agreed, but Victor wouldn’t know.
He sat at his chosen roulette table for an hour and a half, watching the numbers come up on the board and having a dip now and then, using his system but departing from it when he had a hunch it was going to be red or black, or odd or even. Mostly he won. It was surprising how often in a row the same colour came up. After six reds he just knew it would be black next, and backed himself with a five-hundred dollar bet. Twenty, black, the croupier announced. He took the profit and let the original stake ride: black again. And again. It was nice work. Now he switched to red, and up it came. Then he did a rash thing, put a hundred on a four-numbered corner and scored. That w
as eight to one. Settle down, he told himself, but he was running hot and the adrenalin was pumping. There was a bit of a crowd around him at this point. This is my money, he decided. I’m using my own fucking money here. Barry’s was all rolled up tightly in rubber bands.
He took a break, received a free drink of juice from a passing waiter and noticed some familiar faces in the crowd as he sipped. Even though hundreds – thousands – came in here daily he could always spot the regulars, the addicts, those who could never stay away day or night, win or lose. Then he saw one of the beefy suited men who were with Lewis Kenny when that girl was being heavied the night before. The guy was just drifting around as if he was looking for some action, but it didn’t seem he was interested in Danny. Danny watched him scratch his groin and hitch his pants up with his hands in his pockets, his little head swivelling this way and that. The man’s head looked like a pimple on a pumpkin. Soon he drifted off.
Danny resumed playing until he suddenly realised he was sick of it and got up and cashed his chips. It was four and a half grands’ worth. That would pay for a few nights in the top joints in Paris, Monte Carlo or Rio with Mischa. He trousered the money, then wandered. Pausing, he found himself gazing at a Keno screen, on which ping-pong balls bearing numbers endlessly appeared. He remembered Victor saying the jackpot for matching ten numbers was something astronomical, a couple of million or more. There it was on the screen: 2.66 million. That was a lot, but it was hard getting ten numbers out of a possible eighty, a lot harder than you might think. On the other hand, eight might be gettable, and as he watched he noticed that the jackpot for matching eight numbers was seventy-six grand. He decided to stay where he was and watch the numbers for a while. Of course it was all random, everything was random, but there were still patterns. There were patterns and rhythms in a random universe, after all. That was what it was all about. The thing was to locate those patterns and rhythms, and fall into their orbit.
For half an hour he stood there remembering each and every number as it tumbled out, keeping count of the frequency with which it appeared. He didn’t need to write them down, but how he planned to use the information, even if there was anything meaningful to use, was a step he hadn’t thought about yet. Numbers rolled out, draw after draw, and Danny remembered and sorted them all. He was starting to feel as if he was connecting with this game, a game he’d never even thought about, let alone played. There were patterns, too; patterns that took the form of clusters. Almost every draw there were clusters of four or five numbers. These clusters happened anywhere on the grid, you couldn’t predict that, but you could fairly safely predict that there would be clusters. Often there were two in the one draw. He watched a few more draws.
In the time he had been watching there had not been a cluster between forty and fifty, but there had been on every other line. Picking up a card and pencil he marked a cluster of six, 41 to 46, then another two, 77 and 78. The last two numbers had not come up at all, and were therefore overdue. He put himself down for twenty games at ten dollars a throw, received his ticket and then went back to play some more roulette. He could check the Keno results later. He’d only just sat down when along came Victor Wineglass, who placed a perfectly manicured hand on Danny’s shoulder.
‘Hard at it, I see,’ Victor said, smiling with his splintery eyes.
‘I’ve been looking for you,’ Danny said.
‘Without success, because I haven’t been here.’
Victor watched him play a few spins, winning one and dropping two, then a light squeeze of the shoulder told Danny he was ready to talk turkey just as soon as Danny was ready.
Outside in the car park, well away from curious eyes, Danny handed Victor the cheque and cash totalling fifty-two thousand dollars – a profit of twenty-four thousand dollars on the original stake. Nearly a fifty per cent profit, which wasn’t bad by anyone’s reckoning. But he didn’t mention the twelve thousand dollars in cash he had in another pocket, some of which he had scammed. He genuinely wasn’t sure how much was legitimately his, so he had decided to play safe and keep it all, acting on the assumption that Victor would be satisfied with what he had been given. Victor didn’t say much: just counted out two thousand four hundred dollars from a wad in his pants pocket and gave it to Danny – his commission – smiled and repocketed the remainder. ‘Tomorrow, it’s the big league,’ he reminded Danny. ‘Don’t forget to wear the fight gear, old thing.’ They then went their separate ways and that seemed to be the finish of it.
Danny watched Victor depart in a taxi, then returned to the casino. He played a little roulette, got bored and went back to the blackjack table where he’d been stuck with Lewis Kenny earlier. He had money in every pocket and saw no reason why he shouldn’t have some fun. He played conservatively, winning a few hundred bucks with a leg in the air before suddenly upping the ante – having been counting cards – and pulling a fast grand from the house. It was so easy it was like having your own bank to play around in. Not wishing to overstay his welcome he visited the cashier after that, then remembered he hadn’t checked the Keno results. Unsurprisingly he had not won the jackpot, but had managed to pick up numerous smaller dividends along the way. In one draw he had hit the right cluster but had fallen one short of the required eight numbers for the thick end of the prize. But it was encouraging. He immediately filled out another card, using the same numbers, for the next twenty draws at ten dollars a draw.
A point is reached, Danny had found, when being in the casino for a long time – more than a few hours – could have a depressing effect, even if you were winning. It seemed such a stupid, pointless way to use up large chunks of your life, sitting in this vast spaceship of fools that was heading nowhere. The pursuit of money, if you stopped to think about it, was pathetic beyond words. But it became an end in itself, an obsession, for people whose lives were constructed around it, who were defined by it: corporate tycoons, casino owners, bent politicians, drug lords, mafiosi, the richest man in the universe. What were they trying to achieve once they had more money than they could ever spend in ten lifetimes? What did it mean? The answer was that there was no satisfactory answer. Taken to its logical conclusion, the ultimate objective was to own the entire planet. And once that had been achieved, what then? It was indeed depressing to think this way, so Danny scurried out of there. Sitting in his car he decided to try out his phone by ringing his mother, telling her he would not be home until late. Then he cruised through the city, passing Cricklewood Close and seeing the maroon Virago parked outside. His heart gave a little jump, and he began to think about Japanese restaurants.
The one he settled on was called Hokkaido, which was in a sort of mini-Tokyo in Chapel Street. By the time they arrived there at a quarter to nine it was in full swing. Groups of diners were laughing and clapping at the antics of the chefs, who put on a sort of culinary cabaret act at each of the tables, in the middle of which were barbecue hotplates. A perfectly beautiful young Japanese woman showed them to their table and took Danny’s bottle of Henschke’s Hill of Grace – handling it as if it were a coveted trophy – received their orders for pre-dinner drinks, then bowed and retreated. Now they were alone in a sea of din but Danny had eyes and ears only for Mischa against a backdrop of intermittent shrieks and rounds of raucous applause. Looking at her he could see she was resisting tiredness and he felt sorry both for her and himself, since it probably meant their evening together would be a shortened one.
‘Was it hard going?’ he said.
‘No more than usual. The whole thing is such a bloody strain. I wish I didn’t have to do it.’ She shook her head, making her lovely hair fan out. The waitress returned with their drinks, a Kirin beer in the half-litre silver can for Danny and a glass of Magill’s chardonnay for Mischa, and they waited in a rare pool of quiet while she emptied most of the beer into a tall glass and then went away with another bow. It was hard to imagine she was being anything but sincere.
‘Cheers,’ he said, lifting the beer glass.
/> ‘Cheers.’
They touched glasses and sipped. The beer was rich and flavoursome and had a head like whipped cream, which he brushed from his lips and the tip of his nose with his forefinger. Setting down her goblet and resting her face on her hand, Mischa gave him a warm smile and was about to speak when a roar of appreciation from a table nearby swamped them. Danny was feeling the need to share some of his secrets with Mischa, specifically those to do with Paul Sigmund Barry, but decided to hang fire. Since they had him in common it would be a subject worth talking about. In any event there was no point in trying to discuss anything serious or meaningful in this atmosphere.
They ate entrees – tasty morsels of raw tuna fish, tempura and pickled vegetables accompanied by soy, plum sauce and a green horseradish paste – then their chef, a hyperactive young Chinese man, appeared, introducing himself as Simon. Simon informed them that he was from Hong Kong, where he had worked as a second chef at the famous Orient Hotel. Now he was studying medicine at Melbourne University, and worked at the restaurant part time to supplement his income. That established, he began making his preparations, slicing and chopping peppers, mushrooms, onions and bean curd in a blur of fast hands and clashing silver spatulas while simultaneously involving them in a continuous routine of slickly frivolous chatter, signing off his punchlines with a ‘Boom boom’. He had some difficulty with his English pronunciation, so it was hard to pick up much of what he said, but Simon was very skilled at his job. Deftly and rapidly he moved the ingredients around, cleaning up efficiently as he went, seasoning and flipping over rashers of beef, cracking two eggs one-handed over the sizzling hotplate and disposing of the shells all in an eyeblink, splashing the meat and vegetables with teriyaki sauce and then tossing the sauce bottle, salt and pepper containers and even his spatulas into the air and catching them behind his back without missing a beat or interrupting his flow of semi-coherent patter.
