The Ballad of a Small Player (7 page)

“A little higher, your lordship?”

“High as you like.”

The banker tried to dissuade me.

“Sir, we can keep the bets moderate.”

Grandma reacted strongly.

“Shut up, you idiot. You’re shooting yourself in the foot.”

His eyes were slightly panicked.

“Sir, it’s as you wish.”

“I can match Grandma.”

Fuck Grandma
, I wanted to say.

“See?” Grandma snapped.

“Put whatever you like up to four thousand,” I said.

“And they tell me you are a lord as well. A lord. The last time I saw you, as I remember, you were at that shabby place Greek Mythology. Of course I was there, too, I admit. It’s sometimes a good place, isn’t it? We shared a merry look. It sometimes coughs up a bit of profit. But as I recall, you were with a young girl. Or she picked you up. Yes, that’s it. She picked you up right at the table. All they have to do is bat their eyelashes at you.”

I poured her another glass, and then myself. I didn’t care about anything anymore. I even thought of lying to her about my system. First I was a lord, then I had a system; it was as if they were inventing me as they went along. The absurdity of the process was external to me, and so I let it carry me along for a while. And so I tried to seem calm and nonchalant as I placed the entirety of my chips on the table.

The bankers tensed.

Grandma took off her earrings and placed them in her handbag. A superstition thing. I watched the spatula move and there was a faint din in my ears, a white noise that came not from the room or from the people in it but from myself. I was dead certain that I would win right then, because I needed to win and therefore there was no question of not winning. My heart was in my mouth, beating in an unusual way, missing beats, leaping erratically, and the edges of my eyes had become glutinous and sticky.
You fucker
, a voice rose inside me,
you stupid fucker. Hurtling down into the pit with the worms
. I held back my spit and kept my eyes in their sockets and the blade turned a six for me and an eight for Grandma, and in the twinkling of a blind eye I had lost it all. The light went out in my mind and I gripped the edge of the table.

“Grandma takes all,” the banker said.

I turned to her and offered a grim congratulation.

“Thank you, young man.”

She scraped together the chips and had the boys bag them.

“I suppose,” I said, “I should be getting home.”

She lit a cigarette as if to refresh herself. “Home? What kind of man goes home?”

“A defeated one.”

“Nonsense. There’s no one else for me to play with.”

“But I have to go home. I have to get drunk.”

“You can get drunk here. Or else, go home and get some more money and I’ll wait for you. Right here at this table.”

I got off my stool and the legs were rubber.

That’s a crazy idea, I thought. A wonderful idea.

“Will you?” she said gaily.

H
ome in this case was only an elevator ride away. I passed the Throne of Tutankhamen, in which a factory boss was half asleep with a beer in his hand, eyes
trained upon
The Abandoned Mother
. The corridors were alive with transactions, with sloe-eyed girls. But I went straight to my safe and pulled out the hundred grand. I didn’t bother with an envelope. I was astir like a guitar string. My face was bloodless in the bathroom mirror. I told myself not to go out again, to pour myself a vodka and stop right there, sit on the bed and leave the dough alone. And I did so for five minutes. I thought of going downstairs to reception and settling up at least seventy percent of my outstanding bill, which would allow me to stay on for a couple more weeks without being ejected. A couple more weeks with a roof over my head. How quickly the whole thing had come crashing down around my ears. I had miscalculated everything in a fit of prolonged pleasure. Now I had only this last hundred thousand, and that wasn’t much, it was certainly not enough, but even so I was going to spend it at the New Wing because I couldn’t not spend it, I couldn’t stop the electric flow of my own irresponsibility.
I’ll win
, I thought.
It’s fifty-fifty. I’ll win and I’ll come home and have a bath and pay my bill in the morning. I’ll cover myself in glory and be absolved
.

It became such a certainty that I didn’t even need the mini-bottle of vodka I downed to steady my nerves. I went back to the New Wing in a cold state of mind, as if a meter were running inside me and clocking up lists of numbers that tabulated and measured my intensity of purpose.

Grandma was waiting for me. By now she was high
on her fizz, and the boys were bringing her oysters with toothpicks. She looked a tad more blowsy.

“There you are,” she drawled. “What kept you?”

“I’m a slow walker.”

I held my dough as a kind of loose paper ball that I had to proffer with two hands, like garbage.

“All of it, sir?”

“All of it.”

“That’s better,” Grandma said. “Settle down.”

I did settle down. I unruffled my heart.

“Now we’re all comfy,” Grandma went on, “we can get down to some playing. I’ve been bored stiff waiting for you. And I hate being bored.”

“Very well.”

I put on my yellow gloves.

“I’m ready,” I said. “Ready as steel, as my father used to say.”

“Play,” Grandma barked at the banker.

The shoe went into action after I had placed half my pile on the first bet. I couldn’t say why I did it. I was just starting to feel lucky, and one knows when Luck is approaching. I lost. Grandma ordered another bottle, and we waited for it to be opened and dispensed before continuing.

“I love losing,” she said lightly. “When I was angry with my husband once, I took him to Hong Fak and I lost five hundred fifty thousand in ten minutes. You should have seen the look on his face. It made my year.”

I should have divided the remaining fifty thousand into two piles and bet them separately, but somehow this would have meant losing face in front of Grandma, and there was something about her that made this absolutely impossible. It would have been tantamount to committing moral suicide.

So I put down the entirety of the fifty thousand. The rashness of doing it released me from months of stagnant indecision. This marked a crossing of the Rubicon. Perhaps these past four years I had been progressing toward this one clear moment, because one always has to be progressing toward some kind of final moment, some revelation, and when it comes it stops you in your tracks. It might be this: total disappearance. I sat there and stared at the pile of chips and many things went through my mind as Grandma assembled her counterbet. The past came back in a thousand simultaneous images. Perhaps your whole life is a preparation for a single moment like this, and in that moment you see everything at once, the cities, the countrysides, the extinct loves. You see the grand moments juxtaposed with the ridiculous ones and you see that they are not that different from each other. You see your petty crimes laid out in a neat line, one leading to the other. You see dusty streets and idle parks where you wasted half your given moments. What did they all matter now? They were being annihilated, and I myself was being erased.

Fast-forwarding, I wondered then what I would do if I
lost. I would be penniless. Wait, there was still time. Skim off one chip and keep it to one side just in case. It would buy me dinner at least. Hamburger deluxe with fries and a glass of Yunnan merlot. I reached down and took off one chip, then two. Grandma noticed at once, and she flashed me a cruel look. She understood. Two chips were enough to buy dinner
with
a bottle of wine. I pocketed them and the banker gave me an understanding nod.

It was all over in a moment. When Grandma’s victory was revealed, she simply pursed her lips. She raised her glass and shot down the fizz. Something in her still wanted to lose, to destroy her husband, and yet tonight she was out of this perverse kind of Luck. The winds were with her. She asked me if I’d like a glass, too, and I said, “Why not, I’m foredoomed anyway; I might as well get liquored up.”

“Go on, swear,” she said.

“Zau gei!”

“That’s better. You’ll win tomorrow.”

“I’m sleeping tomorrow.”

Her bags of cash were brought over and she looked at me coquettishly.

“It all looks so impressive when they bring it over in bags.”

You know what they call a blow job in Mandarin?
I thought.
Shooting down the jet
.

“Would you like to take me to dinner?” she asked.

I had to make a prompt excuse.

“I am expected at Coloane,” I said.

She looked genuinely disappointed.

“Oh? And I can’t persuade you to pull out?”

“I am not lucky tonight,” I said. “It’s one of those nights.”

“If you need money—”

Her eyes sparkled, pure mischief.

“I always need money,” I said grimly.

She laughed long and hard. I ground the two chips in my right pocket hard between my perspiring fingers.

“I can lend you a few thousand.”

“Not necessary,” I said imperiously, holding up a hand.

I slipped off the stool and she did the same. The bankers bowed and thanked us. I nodded to them with an air of stern unconcern. I was totally bankrupt, but there was an honest satisfaction in not appearing so.

D
elicately, I saw her off in the lobby of the Lisboa itself. I had no idea what time it was and the clocks behind the reception desk all looked askew, as if they were intentionally lying to us. Grandma held her three bags bulging with cash and they threw her a little off balance. She laughed and made a small scene. Everyone there knew her. The thought that all that cash was actually mine made me anxious, and I was probably capable of doing something rash. She told me to go to bed and get some
sleep and we would see each other the following night. But of course we would not. I would be making other plans.

I saw her to the door, then watched her totter down the steps toward the waiting taxis. I wanted to kill her. I turned, then, and went back up to the New Wing and cashed in the two chips without anyone noticing. That got me about $400 HK, not much, but a meal at least at Noite e Dia. I started off toward the elevator to do exactly this, but as I waited for it to arrive I began to reconsider. Four hundred wasn’t much to gamble with, but if I won a single hand I could double it and then play that. Within five minutes I’d have enough for food for a week. I thought about it. Why blow my only remaining asset on a single plate of fried lamb chops when I could use it right now to secure myself a week’s worth of fried lamb chops? The casino was thinning out and my meager bet would not be noticed by anyone I cared about. I’d tell the boys it was a joke, a formality. All bets are accepted, even the tiniest. When the elevator arrived and the button lit up I hesitated. The screw turned inside me and I failed to walk through the opening doors. I stood there paralyzed and simply stared into the empty car. Then I tuned on my heel and walked calmly back into the casino.

I went to the nearest table and sat down within a small group. I threw down both chips and lost.

SEVEN

I
went back to my room then and fell onto the unmade bed. I could not think. When I was awake again after an hour’s tortured sleep, I searched through the suite for leftover banknotes. I had remembered that that night there was a casino executive party at the Hyatt in Coloane and I could hit someone up for a loan, perhaps even one of the same people who only a few hours or days ago had hit me up for a loan. With luck, Solomon would be there and I could get repaid. God knew, he owed me. There was also an Englishman by the name of Adrian Lipett, who had borrowed five grand from me a month ago and whom I had not seen since. If I was in luck, and they were in pocket, I could get something back and then clear my wits and see where I stood. Which might be on thin ice about to crack, but one never knew and it was worth the try.

I got dressed after finding a few hundred under the bed and in the bathroom and went down to the taxi rank. Crossing the causeway, I saw the moon on the water, and
as we crossed Taipa the car shuddered with strong winds. It was much earlier than I had realized, before midnight, and the ludicrous thought occurred to me that I had actually slept for twenty-four hours and it was now the following night. The roads were empty. The wooded hills of Coloane twisted by, the moon peeping between tossing trees. By the Hyatt the small curved beach was alive with surfer waves and the volleyball nets swung back and forth. Chinese lanterns set on the terraces leading up to the hotel also rocked in the monsoon gusts.

In the forecourt of the hotel a marquee had been set up along with a small stage; a large flat-screen TV in the upstairs bar showed a Rolling Stones concert. The American casino men sprawled in the leather chairs with their Chinese mistresses were saying how good Jagger looked for his age, very agile, and it gave them all secret hope. Red streamers dangled from the ceilings with long gold ribbons inside them. The Year of the Rat was truly upon us. The stage lit up outside and a Chinese violinist climbed onto it. With impeccable classical technique, the girl launched into a few numbers from
Riverdance
. I slipped through the crowd looking for my fellow con men, and soon I was upstairs in the hotel bar with its balcony overlooking the cove. The Americans were now out in force. The robust men of Nevada in their Singapore suits and their Ferragamo ties. They didn’t notice me, because the loser always has a certain unconscious invisibility.

I threaded my way through them until I caught sight of Solomon McClaskey drinking himself under the table with a group of Chinese, and I motioned for him to follow me out onto the balcony. The group was pulling crackers and eating a roast pig. At first he pretended not to see me but was forced to acknowledge that he had and reluctantly got up from his sofa and his gimlet. He came out gingerly onto the balcony, where we were alone because of the inclement weather, and he saw the alarming signs in my face at once. The wind was loud and I had to strain to make myself understood. I said I needed the loan I had made him back. It was a sticky situation and I needed every
kwai
. I said the table he was at seemed fairly groaning with goodies and that he must have struck it good at one of the casinos, though it was none of my business. I just wanted the dough back in good order. I said it in a friendly way, without urgency, just stating the case and saying it was one of those days. One of those cursed days that must always come upon us.