Streaking

by Brian Stableford

  A breeze was stirring the foliage of the syringas in the garden as Canny made his way up the old stone steps, but it made little difference to the cloying warmth of the night. It seemed, in fact, to have a more tangible effect on the shadows gathered around him, which rippled and swayed in a curiously serpentine fashion. The soughing of the wind in the branches was easily imaginable as the hissing of snakes.

  Canny always tried to listen to what the shadows were trying to tell him, but he couldn’t help wondering whether Stevie’s sports-psychology symbolism was playing games with him. He still felt a little nauseous, and a little fearful, but that was only to be expected, given the violence and complexity of the streak. Sometimes, darkness was perfectly natural, even when it shifted restlessly as he passed by.

  The night-manager was waiting at the desk to see if Canny needed anything further, and Canny explained the change of plan.

  “I’ll just pack the essentials in a single bag, if that’s okay,” Canny said. “Could you have the rest packed up properly in the morning and send them on? I’ll send Bentley to pick them up at Leeds airport.”

  “Of course, Monsieur.”

  “Thanks. Can you get the stuff from the safe and have my bill ready in twenty minutes?”

  “Yes, Monsieur.”

  Canny went up the stairs two at a time rather than waiting for the elevator. He only had to go up to the first floor.

  Because it looked out on to the elevated rear garden—the monks’ garden, it was called, although Canny doubted that the hotel had ever been a convent—the room didn’t have the feel of a first-floor room. One could easily jump from the balcony to the lawn without serious risk of injury. The balcony doors were closed, of course, and the curtains were drawn, but the first thing Canny did was to draw them open and open the door to let the breeze in so that the stuffiness did not become too oppressive as he packed. He switched on a bedside lamp and then switched off the strip light, so that he wouldn’t be displaying such an obvious beacon to every moth in Monaco.

  He pulled out the smallest of his suitcases and placed the leather-bound bag from the casino in it before going to his drawers. He’d been on the move for more than two weeks, so he had a fairly extensive survival kit, but he had a reserve wardrobe at home so he didn’t need to worry too much about the possibility that his luggage might not follow him as quickly as it ought. He stripped off the clothes he was wearing, though, and put those in the case. Before getting dressed again he went to the bathroom to use the facilities and collect his shaver and toothbrush.

  When he came back again there was a black-clad figure in a ski-mask standing by the bed, pointing a gun at him.

  Canny’s first thought was that he had been an utter fool to let the intruder in, given the serpentine quality of the shadows that had pestered him on his approach—whose real symbolism now seemed far more obvious than he had carelessly assumed. Even by the muted light of the bedside lamp, though, the shadows that were actually congregated in the room didn’t seem panic-stricken. His unfocused fear hadn’t amplified itself into alarm, let alone panic. The gun-toter didn’t seem to have any immediate intention of shooting him—and probably wouldn’t form any such intention, unless he did something stupid.

  Canny tried hard to judge the expression in the bandit’s eyes, but it wasn’t possible. There was uncertainty, of course—but in a situation like theirs, there would always be uncertainty. In a situation like theirs, there would always be scope for chance to take a hand, for action to be inhibited or encouraged by a wayward whim.

  “Don’t move,” was all that the intruder said, in a voice so neutral in its quality that Canny couldn’t be certain whether it was male or female. Canny knew that the thief had already spotted the leather-bound bag in the suitcase, imperfectly obscured by a crumpled shirt. Now’s the moment, he thought, as the other moved to take the bag containing the forty-seven thousand Euros—but he didn’t move a muscle. He felt safe, as long as he didn’t precipitate another streak, and safety seemed enough, for the moment. He had already won one gamble at long odds—even if the highly-colored streak had contained some bad omens as well as bright ones—and it would undoubtedly be pushing his luck to conjure up another. He was five or six inches taller than the thief, and just as athletically built, and he had the Kilcannon luck on his side, but a gun was a gun and money was only money.

  He did as he was told, and didn’t move.

  The intruder picked up the bag containing his winnings and weighed it carefully, but didn’t bother to open it. He—assuming that it was a he—put out his right hand to flip aside the breast of the jacket Canny had discarded, exposing the wallet in the inside pocket, but he couldn’t take it out without putting down either the gun or the bag containing the forty-even thousand Euros. After a moment’s hesitation, he left the wallet where it was and turned back to Canny.

  By that time, Canny had thought of several good reasons to justify his decision not to move. It simply wasn’t worth it; the money might be slightly more than a drop in the ocean, but it wasn’t anything he needed desperately—it certainly wasn’t a sum worth risking his life for the mere possibility of its salvation. Then again, the streak he’d invoked in order to win it might well have generated aftershocks in the fabric of reality, of which this might be one—and even if the people were wrong who believed that there was some kind of ultimate account-book to be balanced, he couldn’t take it for granted that the corollary disruptions of probability would all go his way. Nor could he be sure, now that his father was fading fast, whether the records were right to declare that his luck was heading towards its minimal level, or exactly when that minimal level would be reached. If he were now a mere victim of chance, just like anyone else, it certainly wouldn’t be a good time to play the hero or the fool.

  The reasonable thing to do—the only reasonable thing to do—was to let the thief take the money, slip through the curtains and vanish into the dark garden, saying “easy come, easy go” in the casually cavalier fashion that was, it seemed, the very essence of his public image.

  But at a deeper level, Canny understood that none of those reasons was the real reason why he was standing still. While all of that was going through his mind, he knew that he was letting events take their course because he was paralyzed by fear. In some respects, he was only human. He could be startled, shocked, frightened...even petrified. Gambling was as natural as breathing to him, but the manner in which he played with cards and chips was still an act, a role, a performance. When he was precipitated out of that public persona by an event as outrageous as this one, his habitual self-confidence sometimes deserted him, leaving him with only the same instincts and reflexes to guide him as anyone else.

  He didn’t move because he couldn’t. He was stuck.

  He didn’t even say anything. He waited in vain for chance to intervene in his favor regardless—for the thief to stumble and drop the gun, or for the police to burst in and spring a trap—but nothing happened. The flow of causality seemed inexorable, immune to the superimposition of a more generous alternative.

  After a slight hesitation, perhaps born of trepidation and anxiety rather than any uncertainty as to what he ought to do, the intruder grasped the black bag tightly, moved smoothly across the room, and exited via the balcony. The curtain prevented Canny from seeing him jump, and the monks’ garden absorbed the sound of his footfalls. It was as if he had vanished into the shadows like one more virtual serpent in a swarm.

  Canny’s thoughts immediately became unstuck. He snatched up the phone and pressed the button that would connect him to the front desk. The night-manager’s response was immediate.

  “You have intruders in the grounds,” Canny said. “In the monks’ garden. One is dressed entirely in black, with a ski-mask and an automatic pistol. He’s carrying a rectangular leather bag about fifty centimeters by thirty-five.”

  “I have pressed the alarm, Monsieur,” the manager told him. “The police will be here within fifteen minutes.” />
  “I don’t have time to talk to the police,” Canny told him. “Can you put me through to Henri Meurdon at the casino.”

  “Yes, Monsieur.”

  Meurdon was just as quick to reply. “Henri?” Canny said. “It’s Canavan Kilcannon. I think you might have a spotter in the casino—or might have had when I left. When I got back to my hotel there was someone waiting to relieve me of my winnings. Nobody knew I had them till five or ten minutes before I cashed up, so they must have worked very fast indeed. Check your tapes to see if anyone left within the last half hour—and take a close look at the crowd around the roulette table. You might be able to identify him, or at least narrow the field. I can’t hang around—I’ll have to leave it with you.”

  “I shall take care of it, Monsieur,” was all the Meurdon said. “You will get your money back, if it is humanly possible.” There was no surprise in his voice, just grim concern—but that was part of his standard performance, and what Canny had just told him hadn’t been nearly sufficient to shock him out of it.

  Canny didn’t waste time wondering whether it might have been Meurdon who had tipped off the thief. Even if everything the manager had earlier said to Canny about being delighted to see him win had been so much bullshit, Meurdon couldn’t afford to get involved in anything so stupidly brutal. He couldn’t have people lurking in his casino to tip off muggers, either. Forty-seven thousand was a very tiny sum compared to the losses he might sustain if a rumor like that got around; it wasn’t as if he was short of competition in Monte Carlo.

  “Don’t worry about the money, Henri,” Canny told him. “I just thought you’d appreciate the warning, in case you do have a snake in the grass. I hope it’s a false alarm.”

  “Merci, Monsieur.”

  Canny rang off and resumed getting dressed. The most important thing of all, he thought, was not to let the unfortunate incident disrupt his plans too badly. It would be adding insult to injury if he were to miss Lissa Lo’s boat, and not just because it would save him ten or twelve hours by comparison with Air France’s flight to Heathrow and its British Midland connection.

  He carried the suitcase down the stairs; it wasn’t heavy enough now to require the elevator, although it felt a little better once he’d added the items he’d stored in the hotel safe. He signed the account and the credit card slip.

  “The intruder was about five-four—sorry I can’t do that in metric—and slimly built,” he said. “That’s all I can tell you, except for what I said before. The lock on my balcony door hasn’t been forced, although I can’t be certain that he wasn’t in the room before I opened it. You might want to check the wall and the balustrade, in case he left anything behind when he was climbing up.”

  “What did he take, Monsieur?” the night-manager asked, insouciantly.

  “Nothing of any importance,” Canny said. “I might have disturbed him, panicked him into running before he’d had a chance to go through my stuff and move on to other rooms. The bag wasn’t mine—it belonged to the casino.”

  “Ah oui,” said the night-manager, nodding his head. “Monsieur Meurdon will doubtless take his own steps to recover it.”

  “Apologize to the police on my behalf,” Canny said. “Explain about my father. I have to get down to the quay before the boat leaves, or I’ll lose half a day. That could be the difference between seeing him once more and....”

  “I understand, Monsieur,” the manager assured him. “I will take care of everything. Good luck, Monsieur.”

  Canny thanked him, and hurried out. The cab pulled away from the curb just as the police car was arriving, but the police made no attempt to interrupt its departure.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The journey downhill was even more rapid than the journey up, but it still gave Canny time to think.

  Had he noticed anyone in the casino who might be the spotter for the thief? No.

  Could it possibly be anyone he knew? Certainly not.

  In another life, Stevie Larkin might easily have become a petty criminal, but in this one he was a star; he probably didn’t know what Canny knew about the casino’s security, but that wasn’t an issue.

  Could the cab driver have been involved? No. He would have recognized the bag for what it was, and would have known that it must contain a tidy sum, but he certainly did know what Stevie didn’t about the kind of resources Meurdon could mobilize.

  It had to be someone far less obtrusive than the driver or any of the players at the table, and far more reckless—almost certainly outsiders; almost certainly nomads. What kind of accent had the thief had? Impossible to tell, from just two words, just as it was impossible to be sure whether it had been a man or a woman.

  It wasn’t until all these thoughts had run helter-skelter through his head that Canny began to curse himself, silently, for being such a fool. Even if he had done the right thing in letting the thief take the money instead of chancing the Kilcannon luck in some kind of lunatic defensive exercise, he had been a fool. He had said nothing; he had observed no more than was superficially obvious. If he had only persuaded the mugger to issue a further warning or instruction, he might have had a far better chance of identifying his country of origin. If he had only looked harder, more searchingly, at the cut of the black clothing, or the dimensions of the automatic pistol, he might have identified some telling detail that would assist in the hunt.

  Henri Meurdon wouldn’t come back to him for more information, of course—Meurdon had his pride, and his own brand of serene confidence—but it wouldn’t have done the least harm to his own image had he been able to take out his mobile phone now, call the casino, and say: “Oh, by the way, there’s one crucial detail I didn’t mention before....”

  Mobile phones were banned from the casino, of course, but the spotter must have had one. Whether he had used it inside or waited until he was clear, he must have moved with suspicious rapidity to a place where he couldn’t be observed. Meurdon would surely pick him up on the CC-TV tape—and the casino’s system was state-of-the-art, far more capable of facilitating an identification than anything to be found in an all-night petrol station, or even a bank. If the spotter didn’t get out of Monte very quickly, the Union Corse would be on to him in a matter of hours—and he and his companions would have to travel fast and far to exceed their eager reach.

  Was it conceivable, Canny wondered briefly, that the spotter might be making his escape by the same route as he was? Lissa Lo couldn’t possibly be involved in the robbery, but she must have had her own minders at the casino, who would be with her still. She was too valuable a property, with or without her winnings, to be allowed to wander around the Monte Carlo waterfront at four o’clock in the morning without protection. It didn’t seem likely that her bodyguards would cross that kind of line, though—or that they’d have had some kind of set-up in place, waiting for an opportunity to strike.

  It took a while, but he finally arrived at the logical end-point of the postmortem, which was that he should never have placed the three fatal bets.

  Don’t bring down the lightning. Not, at least, for an item of cheap showmanship like the one he’d pulled. Even a midfielder like Stevie Larkin had been able to see that it was a stupid symbolic gesture—a silly farewell to a childish lifestyle, inspired by the fact that Mummy’s bad news had hit him harder than he cared to admit.

  He’d known that his father’s death was coming soon enough, of course, but he hadn’t been ready for it at all. The timing was unexpected, but that was a matter of detail. The simple fact was that he hadn’t been ready for it at all. It meant too much to him. He’d been in denial. This whole trip had been a symptom of his denial. In his own eccentric fashion, he had been asking for some sort of rude awakening; he ought to be grateful that it was just a common-or-garden-robbery by some idiot who should have known better, which might not even cost him forty-seven thousand Euros. Once the Union got on to the case they’d probably pay him back the full amount, less a ten-per-cent commission, even if the s
tolen money had been half-spent by the time they caught up with the perpetrators—and in spite of the fact that he wouldn’t dream of insisting that they make any kind of redemption, or make any kind of a fuss if they didn’t. The Union had an image and a reputation to maintain, and its members were doubtless even more fanatical in its defense than they had been in the days before Communism had collapsed.

  Lissa Lo’s boat was still moored at the end of its jetty when the cab came to a halt on the quay; there were still ten minutes to spare before the deadline the supermodel had set.

  Canny gave the driver a hundred-Euro tip, and thanked him sincerely for his effort.

  “You’re welcome, Monsieur,” the driver assured him. “Bon voyage.”

  Canny was slightly disappointed—but also slightly relieved—when the purser showed him to a cabin, and apologized for the fact that Miss Lo had already retired to her own, in order to rest for a while before boarding the jet. Canny tried to take a nap himself, but even if the heat hadn’t been so oppressive there was far too much buzzing in his head to let him rest, even though none of it was streaky in a meaningful sense.

  He made every effort to put the mugging out of his mind, but that still left thoughts of his dying father to clash inconveniently with images of Lissa Lo, all caught in the net of an acute awareness that his former way of life was coming to an irrevocable end, within a maelstrom of possibilities and impossibilities that was dragging him inexorably along into an unanticipatable future.

  Okay, he thought, as he tried to focus his mind. So she isn’t in any hurry to make beautiful music. Maybe she is just offering me a lift because Daddy’s at death’s door. I’d still be ahead of the game. On the other hand, if this were the beginning of a friendship that might turn into a relationship...well, there are cases to which the rules simply can’t apply. Some women are just too gorgeous to pass up, if the opportunity arises.

  He had never been in love. He didn’t know whether that was an aspect of his consistent good luck or not. If it was, the reduction of his luck to its lowest ebb following is father’s death—if the testimony of the records could be trusted on that point—might give him the opportunity to fall head over heels. If not...the opportunity might still be there. It wouldn’t be sensible to fall in love with someone as beautiful as Lissa Lo, of course, but if he were to receive the slightest encouragement, being sensible would be the last thing on his mind. How Stevie Larkin would envy him, in spite of all the groupies he entranced with every spot-kick!