Highbinders

by Ross Thomas

  Chapter Nineteen

  THEY WERE PUSHING THE roast beef at the Mirabelle that night, probably on the presumption that since I was American I would prefer hearty British fare to something French and funny. I ordered something French and funny anyhow, the blanquette of veal, because I wanted to see if they did it better than I did and, of course, they did.

  Earlier at the Hilton I had called Eddie Apex and made what arrangements I had to for the next day. Then I settled down with the Evening Standard and read all about the Marble Piano Tomb Murder in Highgate Cemetery. It was the Standard’s kind of story and it had even pushed an old standby, GUARD DOG SAVAGES CHILD, back to page seven or eight. I read the dog story, too, only to learn that the child was a sixteen-year-old girl who had been teasing the dog who had nipped her. Once.

  The Standard didn’t have too many facts on the Highgate murder either, but it had gone with what it had. One William W. Batts, twenty-seven, of some place in Islington, had been found dead with his throat cut in Highgate Cemetery, tucked up underneath the open lid of a marble grand piano. A mysterious Bulgarian tourist was helping police with their inquiries. That was about all they could dig up on the late Billie Batts, so they had turned to the other dead man, the one who lay buried beneath the piano, and I learned that my ex-wife had been right. He had been an Armenian and so there went another illusion.

  I kept seeing Billie Batts’s dead gray eyes and there was something about them that bothered me. So I telephoned the Standard, was given a sub-editor who sounded knowledgeable, and asked if he happened to know what the W in William W. Batts stood for.

  “Why?” he said.

  “Because a William Winston Batts owes me a lot of money,” I said.

  “I’ll check,” he said. After a few moments he came back on the line. “You’re in luck,” he said. “The dead chap in Highgate’s name was William Wordsworth Batts.”

  I wanted to ask some more questions, but I had already asked one too many, so I hung up. I wanted to ask if the late William Wordsworth Batts’s mother hadn’t once been married to one William Wordsworth Curnutt, locksmith, and had divorced him years ago, taking her son with her. I wanted to ask whether she hadn’t remarried and given her son the surname of her new husband. I wanted to ask those questions, but I didn’t really need to because the still gray eyes of William Wordsworth Batts, ne’er-do-well, that had stared out at me from underneath the open lid of the marble piano had been just like those equally still gray eyes of William Wordsworth Curnutt, locksmith, that had stared up at me, sort of upside-down, as their owner had lain propped up against an old anvil, dead of a broken neck.

  I sat there in the Mirabelle until ten, dawdling over coffee and wondering about the dead father and son and wondering, indeed, if they were father and son, and if they were, what they had been up to, and why were they now both dead. After three cups of awful coffee, I still didn’t know, so I paid my bill, crossed the street, walked another hundred yards or so, and entered Shields, A Gambling Emporium.

  Shields was a club, of course, as are all the gambling hells in London. At one time, tourists could join any of them for a pound or so. They still can, but they have to wait a while, forty-eight hours, I think, before they can lay their money down. I don’t know who thought up this rule, or why, or even when, but I assume it was passed to give London’s other fun purveyors a crack at the tourist dollar, or mark, or yen, before they fell to the croupier’s rake.

  William Deskins, the man from Bunco, didn’t look much like a gambler or a tourist as he leaned against the bar, a glass of beer at his elbow. Instead, he looked like a cop who wanted to go home, but couldn’t, because he had to wait for some idiot who was always late.

  The man at the door said, “Good evening, Mr. St. Ives,” and didn’t bother to ask for any membership card, which I didn’t have. I wasn’t particularly flattered that the man remembered me. He should. He was the dealer that I had tipped twenty pounds.

  “Cagle around?” I said.

  “Yes, sir. Would you like to see him?”

  “In a few minutes,” I said and moved over to the bar.

  “Hello, St. Ives,” Deskins said. “I thought you might turn up.”

  “Ah, Inspector Deskins. What brings you out on a foul night like this?”

  “I’m not an inspector and it’s a nice night.”

  “It was just something that I’ve always wanted to say. I’ll buy you a drink.”

  Deskins shook his head. “You’re the odd one, you are, St. Ives. But I’ll take your drink.”

  I ordered two large whiskies from the bartender and after Deskins had tasted his, he said, “Ever hear of a chap called William Wordsworth Curnutt?”

  “Should I?”

  “Perhaps. Somebody broke his neck for him this afternoon. Over in Hammersmith.”

  Deskins was staring at me over his drink. I decided not to say anything. There wasn’t anything to say yet.

  “Billie Batts, you remember, got his throat cut in Highgate this morning. Guess what Billie Batts’s full name was.

  “William Batts,” I said.

  “William Wordsworth Batts.”

  “You’re trying to tell me, in your own wonderful way, that there’s some connection between the two.”

  “They were father and son.”

  “Why the different surnames?”

  “Billie Batts’s old mum left Curnutt years ago when Billie was only a kid. She divorced him and married a chap called Batts. He legally adopted Billie and gave him his name.”

  “How long have you been waiting here?” I said.

  Deskins shrugged. “Half an hour, perhaps.”

  “You haven’t been waiting half an hour just to tell me this.”

  “You in a hurry?”

  “I’ve got some money to win.”

  Deskins nodded. “You know where I’ve been earlier this evening?”

  “Where?”

  “Over in St. James’s Square having a bit of a read.”

  I had to think about it. “The library’s there,” I said after a moment. “The London Library.”

  “It’s hard on the eyes,” Deskins said, and rubbed his as though to prove it.

  “My column,” I said. “You were reading my column. I’m flattered that you read it. I’m even more flattered that the library would have it.”

  Deskins nodded. “I read some of the ones you wrote while you were here in London.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “You had a nice light way of putting things.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But you wrote about some right bastards, didn’t you?”

  I nodded. “Mostly.”

  “Half of the ones you wrote about are inside now.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “The other half should be.”

  “Probably.”

  “You wrote a couple of columns that I liked especially.”

  “Oh? Which ones?”

  “About Tick-Tock Tamil. You remember Tick-Tock?”

  I nodded. “I remember him.”

  Deskins smiled at me over his drink. “Old Tick-Tock could flog a gold watch if anyone could. But you know something?”

  “What?”

  “We never got a complaint. Not one. Tick-Tock was a clever bastard, he was. He never really sold them, you know. He made his victims think that they were stealing them from him and when they found out that they’d been had, well, they were too ashamed to do anything about it. But you wrote all that, didn’t you, except that you changed Tick-Tock’s name.”

  “That was the deal.”

  “The only thing you didn’t write about was Tick-Tock’s partner, the chap who supplied him with the watches.”

  “Tick-Tock wouldn’t tell me who he was.”

  “His name was William Wordsworth Curnutt. Billy Curnutt. Locksmith. Family man. Forger. Churchgoer. Father of the late Billie Batts and dead himself of a broken neck at fifty-one.”

  “Well, y
ou’ve had a busy day, haven’t you?”

  “After I left the library, I began thinking about it. I got to thinking that there’s something that connects you with it all, St. Ives. You were out at Highgate this morning where Billie Batts got his. You once wrote a column or two about Tick-Tock Tamil who was once the partner of Billie Batts’s old dad—who’d just died of a broken neck. And then there’s Eddie Apex and the Nitry brothers and God knows what you’re seeing them about. But somehow, it’s all connected, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t see how,” I said.

  “Well, I couldn’t either so after I left the library I decided to drop round and see Tick-Tock to find out whether he might know something. Tick-Tock lives in Paddington, you know.”

  “Does he?”

  “He’s always lived in Paddington. He was born there. For the past six months he’s been living someplace where he shouldn’t and they’ve been trying to get him out, but he’s got the law on his side, so there he stays and pays damn all rent. So I thought I’d drop round and chat him up a bit. But guess what I found?”

  “What?”

  “No Tick-Tock. He’d cleared out.”

  “Just when you needed him.”

  “That’s right. Just when I needed him.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “Oh, not really. I’ve got another good lead.”

  “What?”

  Deskins put his glass down on the bar. “I’ve got you, St. Ives, and I’ve also got the feeling that you’re all I’m going to need. Thank you very much for the drink.”

  Chapter Twenty

  THE TWIT DEALT. THAT’S how I still thought of Robin Styles, the overly elegant young man who just might possibly be worth a few million pounds or so within the next few days or weeks, providing I got his sword back for him.

  He had wanted to play, of course, but he had exhausted his credit earlier in the evening and neither Wes Cagle nor I would accept his marker so we let him deal the head-to-head stud game that we were playing in Cagle’s fancy office. We were playing no limit, raise-when-you-want-to poker, and we had been playing for three hours and I was nearly a thousand pounds down.

  Five-card stud, when played by two persons, is often dull, relentless gambling, even when played for very high stakes. You tend to get overly reckless or overly cautious, neither of which makes for good poker. I had been too reckless earlier in the night and now I caught myself overcompensating by playing too carefully.

  Cagle played like a machine, a huge six-foot-seven, 275-pound machine, some of it fat, that loomed over the green baize of the round Victorian table, dwarfing both Robin Styles and me. Cagle rode his luck when he had any. He rode it hard, too hard perhaps, and I kept waiting for the hand that he would have to ride because his skill and his luck and everything that made him a gambler would tell him that this was the hand that both of us had been waiting for all night—the hand that would bust one of us.

  It was a pleasure to watch Robin Styles deal. He seemed to go with the elegant room that was Wes Cagle’s office. It was Victorian, but gracefully so, with the best that age had had to offer. Whoever had decorated it had known that mauve can be a pleasing shade, if it’s done right, and Cagle’s office was done right. He had the only inlaid roll-top desk that I had ever seen and there were chairs and a couch that curved elegantly and looked comfortable. The bric-a-brac was just that, bric-a-brac, but it went with everything else and I thought that the decorator had succeeded in accomplishing what he had set out to do: create a room in which vice might flourish. All kinds of vice.

  Cagle and I were down to our shirt sleeves, but Robin Styles sat there, and dealt, looking well pressed and unrumpled, his jacket still on, but his tie loosened an inch or two to signal that he was feeling at least part of the strain. If he had fixed his tie, he would have looked as if he were all set to drop by for a noon drink at his club. Probably Guards.

  He dealt effortlessly and as prettily as anyone I have ever seen. The cards flowed from his fingers, landing exactly where he wanted them to. He probably did everything well with that same effortless grace, except the one thing that he wanted to do well more than anything else. Gamble. He still gambled like a twit.

  He had just dealt me the two and four of hearts. The four was my hole card. Cagle had a king showing. He bet a hundred pounds on it so I assumed that he had paired it. I called. My next card was the ace of hearts. Cagle got a jack of diamonds. Robin Styles called my hand for what it was, a possible flush. I checked to Cagle who bet another hundred. I called.

  My next card was the five of hearts. Cagle was dealt another king, which gave him two up, and probably one in the hole. He bet them that way anyhow. He bet five hundred pounds.

  I had a four-card flush. I ran through the odds of my landing another heart. I decided that it was worth it so I saw Cagle’s five hundred pound bet.

  Robin Styles knocked the table and said, “Set?”

  “Cards,” Cagle said.

  Styles dealt Cagle the one-eyed jack of spades. Cagle couldn’t keep the glint out of his eyes. I didn’t blame him. He had a pair of jacks and a pair of kings showing, and probably another king in the hole. He had a full house.

  Styles dealt me the trey of hearts and it stopped my heart for a second. I had the ace, deuce, trey, and five of hearts showing. In the hole I had the four of hearts. I fought back the almost overwhelming temptation to peek at it, to make sure that it was really there. But I knew it was there and I knew that I had a low straight flush and that it would beat any full house ever dealt.

  I could almost sense Cagle’s mind running through the odds to see what they were against my having the four of hearts in the hole. They were astronomical. He could beat a flush with his full house. But he also knew that I would call him: that I would virtually have to call him, if I had my flush.

  “Well,” he said, “what have we got here?”

  “You’ve got two pair showing,” I said. “You bet.”

  “So I do,” he said. “I shall bet one thousand pounds.” He shoved his chips in. They lay there and glowed a little, the way one thousand pounds will do.

  I had my hands in my lap. They wanted to shake, so that’s why I had them there. “Up a thousand,” I said and used one of my hands, the least shaky one, the right, to push two thousand pounds’ worth of chips into the center of the table.

  “Well,” Cagle said. “That do make it interesting.”

  “You know something, Wes?” I said.

  “What?”

  “You don’t much talk like a Princeton man.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “See what I mean?”

  “I’ll see your raise and bump you a thousand, St. Ives,” he said and pushed the chips into the center. I looked at the pile of chips. There should have been £6,400 there—nearly $16,000, depending on what the dollar was doing that day. It was a big pot. It was, in fact, the biggest pot I had ever been in on. I wondered whose money Cagle was playing with—his or the house. I knew whose money I was playing with—the installment loan department’s at Chase Manhattan.

  “Up two thousand,” I said, “and I’ll have to write you a check.”

  I think it was about then that Cagle got the message. “You son of a bitch,” he said and watched while I took a blank check from my wallet. My hands were better because I no longer cared whether he saw them shake. I wrote the check out and tossed it onto the pile of chips. Cagle shoved in the stack that would cover my raise.

  “You’re just calling,” I said.

  “I’m just calling.”

  I turned my four of hearts over. “Straight flush,” I said.

  Robin Styles gasped and Cagle’s lips moved as he silently counted up to five to make sure that I wasn’t lying. Then he turned to Styles and said, “Deal,” as I raked in the chips.

  “I’m cashing in,” I said.

  Cagle made no protest. Maybe he had learned his good manners at Princeton, although maybe they weren’t good manners at all, but good business
practices that he had learned in Vegas. I started counting out the chips and Cagle counted with me. Robin Styles watched fascinated and I remember thinking that I had probably ruined him for life. It had been the big hand that all gamblers dream of and now that he had seen it come true, he would pursue his own vision of it forever, no matter how far down it might lead him.

  When I was through counting the chips, I took something else from my wallet and flipped it at Cagle. “How about this, Wes? How much is this worth to you?”

  It was the torn half of a one-eyed jack of spades that I had removed earlier from the wallet of William Wordsworth Curnutt of the broken neck. I watched Cagle carefully as he picked up the torn card, looked at the face of the knave, and then turned it over as if to see what was written on the back. The only thing written there was the reversed letters that spelled out SHIELDS, A Gambling Emporium, but they were supposed to be there, and Cagle flipped the half card back to me along with a disgusted look.

  “Are you trying to be funny or something?”

  “I don’t guess it was a very good joke,” I said.

  “No it wasn’t. At least I didn’t understand it. Did you understand it, Styles?”

  Robin Styles moved the knot in his tie up until it was firmly mounted in his collar. “Well, no, I don’t think I really understood it either,” he said.

  Wes Cagle rose and stretched. He looked huge doing it. But then he was huge. “How do you want it, St. Ives, pennies, nickels, or dimes?”

  “Any way at all,” I said.

  Cagle nodded and moved over to the wall, swung back a painting, and started dialing the numbers of a combination safe. He looked bored, so I decided that it wasn’t his money he had been playing with. He counted out eight thick stacks of ten pound notes. “Eight thousand,” he said. He counted another smaller stack out. “Plus four hundred. Right?”

  “Right,” I said.

  “Close to twenty thousand bucks. Not bad.”

  “Not bad,” I agreed.

  “We even give you a doggy-bag to take it all home in,” Cagle said and put the money into a shiny black plastic bag with a zipper opening. He handed it to me. “We’ll try it again sometime,” he said.