Kiss Me, Hadley: A Novel

by Nick Macfie

  “I don’t think so. Let me go on with my story. We came out of the master bedroom…”

  “The master bedroom?”

  “Then we went back to the living room.”

  “For old time’s sake. For the memories. Oh lord, Scout, think. What would your father do if he found out?”

  “My father’s dead, Hadley.”

  “Of course, I’m sorry.”

  “The wind was howling through the balcony door, the way it does when you live a window ajar, even though it wasn’t very windy outside. We stood in the doorway, and he was kissing the inside of my thigh again, when we heard a clatter of ropes. It was like Santa at Christmas.”

  “Not really like Santa at Christmas. Not when you look at it in the bigger scheme of things.” I was thinking of the inside of Edith’s thigh. The left one, very high up. Opposite the right thigh where the tattoo of the rose was. But I was sure it had nothing on the inside of Scout’s thigh. I was licking my lips in little gasps.

  “Spike came down in the gondola, but he was too high to climb on to the balcony. And it didn’t look very stable. It was tilted at about forty-five degrees and Spike looked a bit scared.”

  “What was he wearing?”

  “Who?”

  “Zeb. Spike.”

  “The same clothes. He wasn’t wrapped up in tape at the time, if that’s what you mean. Anyway, he pushed me out of the flat.”

  “Who pushed you out of the flat?”

  “The guy.”

  “The guy? What was his name?”

  “I never asked his name.”

  “You mean you did all that… stuff, and you didn’t even ask his name?”

  “What for?”

  “Oh, I feel cold.”

  “Well, what for? Tell me.”

  “Sometimes I don’t understand the world we live in.”

  “He went back in to open the balcony door wide. Then he came out, we took off the plastic shoe covers, I put on my heels and he said I could pick up the key that was being delivered downstairs. So I went down with him, but not before he went to each end of the corridor and did something with the security cameras. He stood on a chair.”

  “You went downstairs?”

  “We took the lift.”

  “That was all? You just took the lift? Nothing happened in the lift?”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, Hadley.”

  “Never mind that.”

  “He went behind the front desk. He opened a big black box on the wall and threw some switches. He closed that, opened a cupboard built into the wall and did some more electrical stuff. I saw him cut a wire with really professional-looking copper-coloured clippers. Then he smashed something with a hammer. He had tattoos on his wrists.”

  “What kind of tattoos?”

  “Hard to say, really. They looked like condoms. He took me out the front door, gave me a wad of notes and told me to scarper.”

  “What about Zeb?”

  “That’s what I said. I said I had to go up and see the man who climbed down from the roof.”

  “That’s not all he did.”

  “He said: ‘Do I look like someone you can trust?’ and I said yes and he said something along the lines of: ‘Well if that’s the case, go home and pretend this never happened and go back to work and tell them, if they ask, he decided against taking you home.’ So that’s what I did.”

  “Did you see him open the balcony door? Did you see him go out again?”

  “No. And I didn’t see him pull Spike in and drug him and wrap him up and push him back out again either. He wouldn’t have had time. But he could have gone back again after I left, I suppose.”

  “But why all the mystery? What did he do after that?”

  “He threw his bag and blue uniform into the back of a car. He said ‘Merry Christmas’ and gave me a kiss. He left me standing there.”

  “What kind of car?”

  “Big and expensive looking. A Mercedes, maybe. I can’t remember.”

  “Was there anyone else in the car?”

  “No one.”

  “Did you see him drive away?”

  “Yes. But he could have gone back. And there was someone else.”

  “Who?”

  “It occurred to me that I had to get out of there, regardless of what had happened to Spike, and I started walking down to the road. I pulled a cigarette out of my bag and realized I didn’t have a light. This woman was walking up to the building. She was a young Chinese girl and very beautiful. She offered me a light.

  “So what?”

  “She wished me happy Christmas. It was the way she said it. With fire in her eye. Like it was really important. Then she said something like she wanted to be warm and generous. No, she said ‘we’ wanted to be warm and generous. ‘Rules spoil all the fun’, she said.”

  “Christmas is really important,” I said, thinking of the note the general’s girl had given me in the casino. Give a man enough rope.

  “She was like a good-time girl,” Scout said. “I could tell that. Like a gangster’s girl. A moll. Hadley, why are you staring at me like that?”

  A good-time girl. The information was all too much. It was a complete turn-on. It was overwhelming depravity. Scout the victim had become Scout the girl who was up for it.

  “I didn’t mean to stare, Scout.”

  “I didn’t kill anyone, Hadley.”

  “No, I know that.”

  She leant towards me and picked something imaginary off my shoulder. Her hand was shaking. “You want me now very, very much. Am I right?”

  I didn’t say anything. My first instinct was to punish her, to say something bruising, to remind her that she had a baby back in London. But I couldn’t say anything. I kept staring and she stared back. In one quick move, she had her cigarettes and bag in her hand, scraped back her stool on the concrete and was off down the street.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHRISTMAS EVE. The sampans and junks had pretty lights strung from stanchions and someone had stuck a sprig of plastic holly in the back of the condom machine in the gents on the “Xanadu”. I had been back no more than an hour when the general, dressed in his bright purple shirt, and his moll arrived and sat at my table. The dealer clapped his hands and handed the table over with a wink.

  “Watch out for possible stroke puller,” he whispered. “Mid-table. Blue shirt.”

  “Got him.”

  “Go get the bad guys, Hadley.”

  Ha. Bad guys. Where were the good guys? That’s what I wanted to know. What was the difference between a bad guy and a good guy anyway? The general’s girl jumped to her feet, placing bets all over the baize.

  “Merry Christmas, my favourite dealer,” she said.

  I glanced at the pit boss and chef as if to say: I don’t have favourite punters so don’t worry about me pulling strokes.

  “Good evening, madam, sir,” I said. “Place your bets.”

  “I feel Christmas,” she said. “I am going to place lots of bets.”

  “Indeed, Madam.” Give a woman enough rope.

  “Brightly shone the moon at night,” the general said.

  Whoa, hold on. The general had just said something? It came out as a deep bark. I could not read any emotion on his face, half covered as always by the sunglasses. Brightly shone the moon at night. What was he on about?

  I spun the ball and watched the old man twitch and shift in his seat, apparently not really caring what was happening with the wheel.

  “I’ve carefully placed bets,” the girl said. “Now for fun see you earn your living.”

  “Place your bets, please.”

  “I am going for fun to see you earn your living.”

  “Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen.” What was she talking about now? Was she going to cause a scene?

  “I am going to see how you cope. Just for fun.” Her voice was rising. “I want all our bets on the baize on zero. Now. Please.”

  “But, madam, that’s impossible.”
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br />   “I am the customer. You are deft dealer. Deal with it.”

  The ball was spinning and slowing. The general’s red chips were all over the table, straight up ten, fifteen at a time, smaller bets on the splits and corners. About two hundred chips in all, many under other bets. It would be an impossible manoeuvre, even for the deftest of dealers, to place them all on zero in such little time. But the golden rule of the business was to make the punters happy. They should lose, preferably, but they should be content when they lose.

  “No more bets, please,” I said. Then in a much louder voice: “Chef, requesting all red bets play zero.”

  The chef looked at the pit boss. So did I, and so did the general. The woman was looking at me, smiling. All the pit boss had to do was shake his head and I would tell the punter it was too late to change the bets. After all, there was a maximum bet on each number and this was way above the maximum. But this was business. An illegal business at that. There was a lot of money on the table to be won or lost. Every now and then, the pit bosses liked to take a punt too.

  “Table one!” the pit boss said without any hesitation. “All red bets play zero!”

  The ball began its descent, drifting out of its wooden trough, then getting kicked about by the eight diamond-shaped brass studs. I was watching the wheel too closely, fidgeting with the salt-cellar-sized dolly, the bet marker, in my left hand. The ball was now jumping over the brass stalls protecting each number, back up on to the wooden slope a couple of times, then down for a few more hops and skips on the stalls before settling.

  “Ten black.”

  Ten black was clear of chips, thank the lord. The general sat down.

  “What expression you have in England?” he said. “Bullocks?”

  “Bollocks.”

  “Bollocks. Okay.”

  I cleared the table and the general, talkative but as glum as ever, started to place his bets again. He bet heavily on and around zero, a column of twenty on zero, twenty on three and twenty on the zero-three split. Sixty chips at ten dollars a chip each spin of the wheel. For four of five spins, he struck out. After fifteen minutes or so he started getting lucky, I was taken off the table and the wheel was made to spin more slowly and faster on alternate spins. I returned after a break to find a crowd had gathered. The old man was still winning. From one glance at the cash chips, sitting next to his colour chips, he was up tens of thousands of dollars. Maybe hundreds of thousands.

  Three security men were behind the general now, an extra pit boss had been brought in to observe every movement and the glances I was getting from the chef and the pit bosses, as I moved into position, checked the bets and fastened my black apron, said: mix it up, Percy, you fucker. As if the dealer had any influence over where the ball landed! That scene in ‘Casablanca’ was wonderful, but it had prolonged a myth.

  “I seem to be on a run,” the general said to me in his deep gravel voice. I saw the chandelier reflected twice in his glasses. The girl clapped her hands once in glee.

  “You do, sir. Good luck.”

  “Thank you, young man. The trouble is…”

  “Place your bets please, ladies and gentlemen.”

  “…that I need to go.”

  “Sir?”

  “I need to go. Quite badly.”

  “Place your bets, please. You want to leave, sir?”

  “No. That’s just it. I need to go to the bathroom.”

  “It’s one deck down. Next to the corner blackjack table.” So he really did have the runs?

  “Look young man. You seem very courteous and sensible. Here’s the thing. I am up several tens of thousands of dollars. I can do no wrong. But if I leave the table, to go and have a pee, I fear I will lose all my luck.”

  “He has to go,” the girl added helpfully.

  I tidied up some sloppily laid bets, took a glance around the table. At the far end was an American businessman playing cash chips rather than a colour, next to him was an old Cantonese hooker, then a young couple, taking it in turns to sit, and both looking nervous, then an incredibly old Caucasian, the beautiful Chinese girl and the general wanting a wee.

  I turned to the chef and said “middle table” quietly, meaning keep an eye on the fidgety young couple. Definitely potential stroke pullers.

  “What is it you are suggesting, sir?” I asked the general.

  “Well I was rather hoping you would allow me to do it here.” The old man offered a quick smile. “Under the table.”

  I again caught the eye of the chef in a way that said forget about the young fidgety couple in the middle and devote your attention to the loopy old bender who wants to have a piss under the table. I was telling them, in the words of Abba: don’t go sharing your devotion. The chef in turn called back to the pit bosses and clicked his fingers. Was it possible I had misunderstood the old man?

  “You want to… do it on the floor?” I asked. Voices stopped around the table. Someone said fuck. “Place your bets please, ladies and gentlemen.” I kept the wheel spinning, faster this time.

  “Well, into a receptacle,” the general said. “Only if you don’t mind.”

  “Sir, what is the problem?” This was the pit boss nearest the table.

  “This gentleman is on a roll, boss. And he doesn’t want it to end. He wants to urinate under the table. Into a receptacle.”

  “You have to be kidding,” the pit boss said.

  I did not know if this was addressed to me or to the general. I thought back to my training in the Silver Star and someone calling me a nob. That guy stitched me up. I didn’t think the general was going to stitch me up. Or was the general embarking on an even older trick in the book? The girl was grinning like this was the most exciting moment of her short life so far.

  “The way I see it,” the general said as the pit boss pulled out his phone to talk to a higher authority. “I can cash in now and you will be down an awful lot of money, and then I can go and have a wee downstairs. Or, you could let me wee right here and play on, with the very good house odds that I will lose all my winnings and you will get your money back, plus some. Just let me do it. Here and now. Get it over with. Then let us be.”

  The pit boss closed his phone and nodded to the chef who in turn nodded to me.

  “Give the gentleman a cup,” he said. “Percy? Did you hear me?”

  The chipper nudged me. He had found a paper cup from a side table and gave it to me and I gave it to the general.

  “Now I’ve seen everything,” I said to no one in particular.

  “Pray, it will only take a second.”

  Pray? Pray? The punters waited. One was snorting into a tissue. Luckily the noise of the dice table behind drowned out the noise of the old man pissing into a tall paper beaker. He bent down and laid it gently on the carpet.

  “I’ll need another.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake.”

  “It’s all frothy,” the girl said.

  “My cup overfloweth. Only kidding. You’re a gent,” the old man told the chipper. Then, thirty seconds later: “I’m almost done. Many thanks. Let us proceed.”

  I proceeded. The ball dropped. Three red again. A three that had twenty chips straight up, twenty on the zero-three and other splits and twenty on the corners. There were twenty on the street, twenty on the six line, eighty on red and eighty on odd.

  “Zero-three is always a lucky bet,” the general said in his deep, barking voice. “It’s a humdinger. Don’t ask me why.”

  A humdinger? Where did these guys learn their English? I nervously cleared away the other bets, paid out the evens and two-to-ones (including 160 to the old man, equalling $1,600 just by themselves) and concentrated on three red.

  At this point in a game, the dealer, chipper, chef and pit boss all do the arithmetic, using the picture bets as their guide. The punter would also have a go, but more often than not he or she didn’t have a clue where to begin and would grin foolishly at the dealer. Bets around three were complicated because it was next to z
ero. What looked like a corner, between two and three and zero, was in fact a street. Suffice it to say, this was one complicated mother to add up.

  “Two thousand, three hundred and sixty?” I offered, after being off the mark twice earlier. The bosses nodded. The payout was easier than the calculation. The bigger the number, usually the fewer stacks of chips you had to hand over, as the punter would take a few cash chips, in huge denominations, for the most of it. The general’s winnings from just one spin of the wheel amounted to $23,600. U.S. dollars, that is, and not including the even bets along the edges of the table. I handed over just twenty-three $1,000 chips, and rest was shrapnel. I clapped and wiped my hands for my break in the green room where I kept my hip flask.

  “I like this dealer,” the general told the chef. “Please allow him to stay.”

  “I am afraid it is a house rule, sir,” the chef said. “The dealers take breaks every twenty-five minutes.”

  “Oh please, rules spoil all the fun. I want to play on. But I want to play on with this dealer. Otherwise I go.”

  “Otherwise he goes,” the girl said.

  The general was up close to $200,000 and he had had a few drinks, that was for sure. There was a very good chance the house could get some of that money back if he were allowed to carry on.

  The chef nodded and I stayed put. The general started placing bets. Genghis Khan, smaller than I had imagined, was standing behind him now, patting down his platinum hair and looking at me. Great.

  The general was playing the neighbours of zero - not as they appear on the baize, but as they appear on the wheel. He was loading up on zero-three, nineteen red, fifteen black, thirty-two red, twenty-six black and thirty-five black.

  I spun the ball. The girl was looking at me with those sparkling eyes, but she was standing still and saying nothing. The general, on the other hand, had a second wind, and was up and down out of his seat like he had lost twenty years. A big crowd had gathered, with people peering over people peering over those with seats. Genghis Khan was smoking a cigarette out of a holder. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking.