Hazard (20 page)

“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 eleven.

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.

It now appeared Badr had bought himself not only a double header but an all nighter as well. Hazard pictured his adversary bedded between the two girls, while there he was cramped and worried in the Maserati. He thought it wouldn't be so bad if he had someone to talk to. Keven. If she were there he'd be passing the time playing their old smart-ass game or something. Keven. What time was it where she was? The luminous dial of his watch said nearly five.

He was sleepy. He felt as though he could lay his head back and drop right off. How perverse. Now was a time when he wanted to stay awake, had to, and he could hardly keep his eyes open. He fought sleep by trying to ignore the back-and-forths of the wipers and by thinking how convenient it would be if he could go a few laps around the block at 186,001 miles per second, faster than the speed of light, and then, according to Einstein, he'd be able to view in retrospect how all this had turned out. Maybe he wouldn't like what he saw.

Dawn came. But with the rain darkness just changed into a dreary gray. Still, Hazard welcomed the sight of the first early riser on the street and soon there were others, all rather anonymous in raincoats and hunched down beneath standard black umbrellas. He was more alert when people started coming out of the apartment building. But after that early-day activity the street became relatively quiet again.

Hazard had the Maserati parked a way back and opposite the Rolls. However, now the space directly behind it was available so he pulled up into it. With the rain it wasn't likely Badr would notice him when he finally came out. If Badr ever did.

A small boy in a yellow slicker passed by, enjoying the rain and carrying a bag of groceries. Hazard was hungry. He opened the car door and looked back to the main way. There seemed to be a store on the corner. He decided to chance it.

He sprinted to the corner and went into the small neighborhood grocery. He bought whatever came to sight first. A box of jelly doughnuts, four bananas, and a can of beer. While paying he noticed a ball of common store string on a spindle. It wasn't for sale but the grocer was glad to take a pound for it.

This time when Hazard got back to the Maserati he was drenched, rain running down the back of his neck and into his eyes. But maybe it was worth it. He tried one of the jelly doughnuts. It looked good, dusted with powdered sugar, but tasted bad, was dry and contained only a smidgen of imitation jelly. He opened one of the beers, which after the doughnut was awfully bitter. The bananas were overripe and mealy. He ate all four.

He got out of the car again, taking the string. He tied the end of it to the rear bumper of the Rolls and fed the ball out along the gutter to the Maserati and through its right window. He got back in and whirred the window up, leaving a crack. He wound the string around his wrist and hand several times and then sprawled across the two bucket seats, his legs up and his head down against the door panel. He closed his eyes. It felt very good to be able to close his eyes. He was doubting he'd sleep at the moment he went off.