Hazard

by Gerald A. Browne

  “What are you going to do for money?”

  Test question, thought Hazard, and told her, “I’ve got some.”

  “I just don’t want you to go without. By the way, since this seems to be my night for confessions, I’ve got another to make.”

  “What?”

  “This afternoon I purposely put you with those boobsy twins.”

  “Boobsy?”

  “They’re notorious for pooling their assets and going to work on a single target. I wanted to see if you’d succumb or not. Did you?”

  “No.”

  “Actually, it wasn’t a fair test now that I think of it. Those two could probably defile the Pope if he granted them an audience.”

  Hazard laughed but thought he’d have to keep on his toes with her. He used an honest excuse for cutting the evening short; he’d been up since 4:30 that morning.

  At the door to his room Catherine said her good night with cheek kisses closer to his mouth than before and a bit more lingering. Also, when her lips passed from cheek to cheek they once ever so lightly brushed his lips.

  When he got into bed it was ten minutes to twelve. The bed was not set against the wall, but cantilevered by a stubby chrome column, like a giant flat-topped mushroom. Not having a headboard made him feel vulnerable and he hoped it wouldn’t keep him from getting some sleep.

  The carton of images was on the floor nearby. When his watch approached midnight he took out at random one of the small envelopes. He carefully opened it and slid out the image. He saw the one he’d chosen was unlike the drawn, outlined ones he’d worked with before. It was a color photograph and in that respect more realistic.

  A white gull in flight against a blue sky.

  Because it was more realistic it might be easier to send, Hazard hoped, and fixed his mind on it. He had trouble. His concentration was diverted by thoughts of Catherine, and also there was that question he’d been asked that afternoon: “Do you fancy birds?” He had to stop, refocus and remind his mind it was supposed to be communicating with Keven. She seemed so far away.

  After several intense efforts he gave up. He was sure he hadn’t gotten through. He wrote the day and date on the reverse side of the image card, along with an understatement: present surroundings may be a distracting factor.

  Kersh would understand. So would Keven …

  10

  THE NEXT noon when Hazard went down he found Catherine having brunch on the terrace. He joined her for rarebit, rashers of Irish bacon, a portion of sunny tranquility, and then told her he definitely should return to London.

  Catherine had other plans for him but she nodded and said she’d go into town with him. They’d have dinner. She said it with such enthusiasm that Hazard had to choose between agreeing or greatly disappointing her.

  They took her Maserati Ghibli. It only had about fifteen hundred miles on it, even though she’d owned it for over a year. She drove, said she wanted to. She drove too fast but with impressive authority. Hazard’s only complaint was she often took her eye off the road. Suicidal lapses? he wondered. He hoped she didn’t just conveniently forget to match a curve with a curve. She stopped off for a moment at her town place. It was in a Nash-designed complex on Chester Terrace, Regents Park. Then they went on to a restaurant in Chelsea, small, expensive, casual. Along with cognac and coffee she gave him his choice: Annabel’s or Tramp for dancing and looking, or her place for quiet, privacy, and well, whatever….

  Hazard told her he felt lucky.

  If he’d been wearing a tie she’d have taken him to Cleremont, but as things were she decided on the Pair of Shoes. Even there, Hazard’s open collar was an exception allowed by the proprietor, who knew Catherine and was persuaded mainly by her quick request that he honor her check for five thousand pounds worth of chips. Hazard felt a bit small-time buying only three hundred.

  First they played blackjack.

  Hazard took it slow, betting twenty pounds a hand. Catherine went for a hundred. He saw right off she didn’t know the game. She asked for hits when she shouldn’t have and stayed when she shouldn’t have. However, after three quarters of an hour she was five hundred ahead and he was down fifty. Irritated, he suggested they take a break at the bar.

  The Pair of Shoes was more intimate than most London casinos. It offered in the same room two blackjack tables, a craps table, and roulette. The place was deep red—velour on the walls and plush carpet underfoot. So much red would have been garish under normal lights but with the lighting bright only over the playing tables it created an elegantly wicked atmosphere. Standing at the bar permitted a good view of the entire room, but Hazard was turned away, paying attention to the gilt-framed sketch that hung over the bar: a fortunately endowed girl wearing only a pair of shoes. He thought the odds on anyone being that physically ideal were at least a million to one, against. Although he’d known a few who came close. Keven, for instance. Keven …

  Catherine claimed him with her hand on his arm, light, not pressuring. She told him: “I read someplace that gamblers are quite pathological.”

  “Quite.”

  “It said the urge to wager is connected to the childhood need to masturbate.”

  No comment.

  “It also said gamblers are aggressive and enjoy trouble. Do you?”

  At that moment a group of people were entering the room. Five men and four women. Hazard turned and noticed them. He almost dropped his drink. There they were, all three.

  Badr and Hatum and Mustafa.

  One of the other men in the group was also obviously Middle Eastern. He was huge, as thick-chested as Mustafa and half a head taller. His large nose looked as though it had been broken and rebroken. One of his eyes was half shut, so only a slit of pupil showed—glazed, milky, and useless. The fifth man wasn’t an Arab. Hazard didn’t get a good look at him but overheard the club proprietor call him by name. Pinchon. The women with them were young, but overstated, brittle looking, apparently paid company.

  They all went directly to the crap table, bought chips, took places around the end of the table, and began to play.

  As Hazard watched them, the back of his neck flushed hot and his stomach went hard. The same overwhelming hate he’d felt when he’d stood at Carl’s grave.

  Catherine noticed the change in him and asked if anything was the matter.

  He only half heard her but the interruption helped him regain control. It occurred to him then that their showing up here was too much of a coincidence. Were they on to him? They’d hardly make him aware of the fact by putting in a public appearance. Maybe, being typical Arabs, they just enjoyed gambling. And here in the West End there weren’t all that many attractive casinos. Maybe. Anyway, right now he’d better decide how he was going to handle this. Only in his wildest fantasies had he imagined getting onto all three of them at once. Now fantasy was reality, but he’d be crazy to try for all of them at the same time. He’d just have to play it as it fell, be ready.

  “Let’s try some craps,” he told Catherine, hoping his voice sounded calmer to her than it did to him.

  “I favor roulette,” she said, but went along with him.

  They stood at the end of the table opposite the Arabs. It was Hazard’s first good view of them. He studied them casually. He didn’t know which was which but he was sure that going up against any one of them would be more dangerous than it had been with Saad.

  “New shooter, coming out,” announced the stickman.

  Badr took the dice.

  Hazard thought Badr had the look of a loser. Against his instinct, Hazard dropped five twenty-pound chips on the pass line, betting with him.

  Badr noticed, acknowledged it with a confident grin and let fly. The dice hit the rail just below Hazard and snapped sharply to a stop with a six and a five on top.

  “Eleven, a winner.”

  Hazard let the two hundred ride, despite his hunch that Badr would next throw a craps, snake eyes probably.

  Badr came right back with another ele
ven.

  And the bastard hasn’t even gotten to the sevens yet, Hazard thought as the stickman pushed a pair of hundred-pound stacks his way. Better pull now, Hazard advised himself, and was about to pick up his winnings when Catherine tugged at his arm and said, “I want you to meet Jean-Claude.”

  Hazard turned to face the man who’d arrived with the Arabs, the one the club owner had called Pinchon. He had an arm around Catherine, pressing her side intimately against his. Obviously Catherine and Pinchon weren’t strangers.

  She introduced them, almost forgetting to use Hazard’s assumed name, hesitating for a moment to remember it was Edmund Stevens.

  Pinchon offered his hand. His smile revealed teeth so white and even Hazard didn’t believe them. The rest of Pinchon was no less indefectible. He had a fashionably gaunt enough face with ideal features, symmetrical and well-balanced. Mouth perfectly right for the nose perfectly right for the eyes perfectly lashed dark and thick. Black hair not over-disciplined, sideburns not a fraction off. A tan that was evidence of much leisure. Pinchon, taller than the average Frenchman, appeared lean in his clothes, which were expensive, meticulous, undoubtedly made for him. The only thing Hazard could find wrong with him was he was too perfect.

  Pinchon told Catherine, “I missed you by a day in Barbados.” His mouth especially expressed disappointment.

  “It was dreadfully muggy there,” she said, glancing at Hazard, hoping for some sign of jealousy. She knew Pinchon usually caused that in other men.

  But Hazard was wondering what was Pinchon’s connection with the Arabs. He was obviously out of his element with them, so what was it? Hazard noticed Pinchon’s precisely knotted silk tie and thought he was the sort who’d spend an enjoyable hour clipping the hair from his nostrils.

  Pinchon offered cigarettes from a gold case. Catherine accepted and Pinchon was quickly attentive with a tiny gold lighter. He stepped in, closer to Catherine, a tactical move that more or less excluded Hazard.

  Hazard let him get away with it. He returned his attention to the table, saw Badr still had the dice. His own bet on the pass line was now four stacks of two hundred. In the interim Badr had made two more passes and was now trying for another.

  The point was ten.

  Hazard thought in dollars and figured what he now had going was two thousand. Enemy or not he was now for Badr making that ten. For the moment a common cause. Come on ten, big ten. The Arabs urged the dice loudly. Hazard, with the composure of a pro, silently asked the dice to cooperate. After a few rolls up came a five and a five. The hard way.

  Badr got a backslap from Mustafa, a hug from Hatum. The one with the broken nose merely grinned. The girls with them received more chips as a bonus.

  Hazard picked up his winnings. Badr had made him four thousand dollars richer, and there he was now looking down the length of the table at Hazard, expecting a show of gratitude.

  Hazard didn’t smile, nodded once. Badr could take it to mean whatever he wanted. Hazard was only thankful that the line of opposition was clear again. For a moment there it hadn’t been. At least he knew now which name went with which face, from having overheard them. They’d called the one with the broken nose Gabil.

  The dice soon came around to Hazard. Normally he never touched them, preferred to bet and let others do the shooting, but he decided he’d make an exception this time, show the Arabs how the game was meant to be played, show them he was no ordinary pass-line sucker.

  He chose a pair of dice from the half dozen the stickman shoved at him. The Arabs, he noticed, were getting their bets down on the pass line. He put two hundred on the won’t pass line.

  He didn’t fist the dice but held them loosely, respectfully, with the ends of his fingers and gave them a nice easy lobbing toss.

  Pair of sixes. Crap.

  The Arabs moaned their loss. Hazard won two hundred.

  Having gotten that out of his system, he moved the four hundred to the pass line and threw a four. He paused to hand the stickman six hundred and told him, “Cover the numbers.” The stickman divided the chips with brisk competence and placed a hundred on each of the squares in a row numbered four, five, six, eight, nine, ten. Whenever Hazard threw any of those points he’d get paid. A seven at any time would lose it all for him.

  The Arabs were impatient but fascinated by Hazard’s method. The stickman knew a real player when he saw one.

  Hazard took time to make sure all his bets were correctly placed. Then, hoping for a good long hand, he started rolling.

  A six, another six, a five, a nine, a harmless three, an eight, a meaningless eleven, a ten and then a four, his point.

  “Coming out again, same shooter.”

  His new point was nine. He followed it up with a six, an eight, another six.

  All the while he was aware of the Arabs at the other end of the table, pulling for him. They liked him. He was a good shooter. They were winning the comparatively small bets they placed on the pass line. Hazard, meanwhile, had helped himself to over a thousand. Pounds.

  There are no sevens on these dice, Hazard told himself. He was only vaguely aware of Catherine and Pinchon off to the side, still talking, missing the action. No matter, Hazard had the audience he wanted, the ones he hated. He was showing them his style.

  He doubled up his bets and went on rolling. No sevens, only numbers that multiplied the chips he kept nearly arranged in the concave receptacle of the table rail in front of him. He was having a hot hand, a beautiful hand. Maybe the best of his life.

  But then Pinchon appeared at the other end. Pinchon had the attention of the Arabs. He was taking them from the play. They seemed to be leaving. Catherine came to Hazard’s side. “Well, darling,” she said, “you do very well without me.”

  Not now, thought Hazard. Now wasn’t the time for the bastards to leave. Angrily he flung the dice down the length of green baize and even then they won for him.

  He turned and saw the Arabs were cashing in their chips. The dice were back in his fingers ready to again behave as though he owned them. But the Arabs were going out, with Pinchon leading the way.

  Now Hazard had all the more reason to hate them. Reluctantly he handed the dice to Catherine and told her, “I’ll be back.”

  Out on the street he saw Pinchon, the Arabs, and the girls had split into two groups and were getting into separate cars, Rolls-Royces, a black and a white. Gabil, the one with the broken nose, was the driver of the black. Badr was behind the wheel of the other.

  No telling where the attendant had put Catherine’s car. Hazard had to wait for it to be brought around and by that time the two Rolls-Royces were down the block. Hazard kept his eye on them, and as he got into the Maserati he saw them turn left. He went after them, reached where they’d turned just in time to see them down the street taking another left. He came up behind them when they had to wait for traffic at Park Lane. They went south there, past Hyde Park Corner to Knightsbridge, Brompton, Fulham Road.

  Hazard had no problem keeping up, although the steering wheel on the right was strange to him. What gave him more trouble was having to drive on the wrong side of the street. At least wrong for him. He had to keep reminding himself to stay on the left, and sometimes when there was oncoming traffic, habit tempted him to meet it head on.

  That was no longer a problem when they were on the M–1 with its separate double lanes. After a half hour of doing eighty they came to a roundabout and the long underpass Hazard remembered from his arrival. Heathrow Airport. That was okay. Hazard had his things in the Maserati’s luggage compartment, but how would he explain his presence on the same plane with them? That would be too much of a coincidence.

  The Rolls-Royces pulled up at the terminal area designated for continental departures. Hazard stopped a discreet distance away. He watched Pinchon and Mustafa get out of the white Rolls. Hatum got out of the black one. Both cars pulled away as the three men entered the terminal.

  That solved it for Hazard. No need to fly anywhere. He now had
Badr isolated from the others. One on one was better.

  He got on the tail of the two cars again in the underpass and followed them back into town. On Kensington High Street the black Rolls turned off, the white, containing three of the girls and driven by Badr, continued on to Alexandra Gate, where it cut through Hyde Park to Bayswater. After a few short lefts and rights the white Rolls stopped momentarily to leave off one of the girls. Hazard figured as soon as the other two girls were taken home he’d have Badr the way he wanted him. Alone.

  The white Rolls continued on to Edgeware Road and then Maida Vale. There it turned off onto a side street and stopped at the curb near an apartment building, a comparatively new high rise. The two girls got out of the car. Badr also got out and went with them into the apartment building.

  Ten minutes passed. Apparently Badr. wouldn’t be coming out for a while. It was two thirty. Hazard glanced up at the building and saw a few lighted windows. Badr was up there somewhere, no doubt enjoying a double helping of what had been paid for.

  Hazard could use the time. He unlocked the luggage compartment from inside and got his Llama from the suitcase. He strapped it on under his jacket and inserted the knife down into the upper part of his right boot. To help pass the time he switched on the radio, got some Isaac Hayes all the way from Luxembourg. A few raindrops hit the windshield and soon it was coming down hard, obscuring Hazard’s view of the Rolls. He wasn’t familiar with the complicated instrument panel of the Maserati but he finally found the lever that activated the wipers. He set them on slow and as they swept hypnotically back and forth he thought about how good to him the dice had been that night. If he could have kept rolling he’d have owned that place by now, including the picture behind the bar. He wondered about Catherine. How was she going to take being deserted and her car borrowed without asking? Borrowed? Maybe in anger she’d report the car stolen.

  An hour went by. Two.

  It was still raining, a steady drizzle.

  Hazard got out of the car and went into the apartment building. An intercom panel in the foyer displayed the tenants’ names on small black plastic strips. About fifty. Only five names were obviously foreign and none of those were Arabic. It had occurred to Hazard that possibly Badr lived there rather than the girls. But no. He returned to the car, wetter and no better off.