The Damnation Game (30 page)

At first, the money dribbled away from him; he didn’t bet heavily, but the frequency of the losses began to dwindle his reserves. Then, three-quarters of an hour into the session things took a turn for the better; horses he plucked from thin air romped home at ridiculous odds, one after the other. In one race he made back what he’d lost in the previous two, and more. The enthusiasm turned to euphoria. This was the very feeling he’d tried so hard to describe to Whitehead—of being in charge of chance.

Finally, the wins began to bore him. Pocketing his winnings without taking any proper account of them, he left. The money in his jacket was a thick wedge; it ached to be spent. On instinct, he sauntered through the crowds to Oxford Street, selected an expensive shop, and bought a nine-hundred-pound fur coat for Charmaine, then hailed a cab to take it to her.

It was a slow journey; the wage-slaves were beginning to make their escape, and the roads were snarled. But his mood forbade irritation.

He had the taxi drop him off at the corner of the street, because he wanted to walk the length of it. Things had changed since he’d last been here, two and a half months before. Early spring was now early summer. Now, at almost six in the evening, the warmth of the day hadn’t dissipated; there was growing time in it still. Nor, he thought, was it just the season that had advanced, become riper; he had too.

He felt real. God in Heaven, that was it. At last he was able to operate in the world again, affect it, shape it.

Charmaine came to the door looking flustered. She looked more flustered still when Marty stepped in, kissed her, and put the coat box in her arms.

“Here. I bought you something.”

She frowned. “What is it, Marty?”

“Take a look. It’s for you.”

“No,” she said. “I can’t.”

The front door was still open. She was ushering him back toward it, or at least attempting to. But he wouldn’t go. There was something beneath the look of embarrassment on her face: anger, panic even. She pressed the box back at him, unopened.

“Please go,” she said.

“It’s a surprise,” he told her, determined not to be repelled.

“I don’t want any surprises. Just go. Ring me tomorrow.”

He wouldn’t take the proffered box, and it fell between them, breaking open. The sumptuous gleam of the coat spilled out; she couldn’t help but stoop to pick it up.

“Oh, Marty …” she whispered.

As he looked down at her gleaming hair someone appeared at the top of the stairs.

“What’s the problem?”

Marty looked up. Flynn was standing on the half-landing, dressed only in underwear and socks. He was unshaven. For a few seconds he said nothing, juggling the options. Then the smile, his panacea, swarmed across his face.

“Marty,” he exclaimed, “what’s buzzing?”

Marty looked at Charmaine, who was looking at the floor. She had the coat in her arms, bundled up like a dead animal.

“I see,” Marty said.

Flynn descended a few stairs. His eyes were bloodshot.

“It’s not what you think. Really it isn’t,” he said, stopping halfway down, waiting to see which way Marty would jump.

“It’s exactly what you think, Marty,” Charmaine said quietly. “I’m sorry you had to find out like this, but you never rang. I said ring before you come round.”

“How long?” Marty murmured.

“Two years, more or less.”

Marty glanced up at Flynn. They’d played together with that black girl—Ursula, was it?—only a few weeks past, and when the milk was spilt Flynn had slid away. He’d come back here, to Charmaine. Had he washed, Marty wondered, before he’d joined Charmaine in their double bed? Probably not.

“Why him?” he found himself asking. “Why him, for Christ’s sake? Couldn’t you have improved on that?”

Flynn said nothing in his own defense.

“I think you should leave, Marty,” Charmaine said, clumsily attempting to rebox the coat.

“He’s such a shit,” Marty said. “Can’t you see what a shit he is?”

“He was there,” she retorted bitterly. “You weren’t.”

“He’s a fucking pimp, for Christ’s sake!”

“Yes,” she said, letting the box lie, and standing up at last, eyes furious, to spit all the truth out. “Yes, that’s right. Why do you think I took up with him?”

“No, Char—”

“Hard times, Marty. Nothing to live on but fresh air and love letters.”

She’d whored for him; the fucker had made her whore. On the stairs, Flynn had gone a sickly color. “Hold up, Marty,” he said. “No way did I make her do a damn thing she didn’t want to do.”

Marty moved to the bottom of the stairs.

“Isn’t that right?” Flynn appealed to Charmaine. “Tell him, woman! Did I make you do a thing you didn’t want to do?”

“Don’t,” Charmaine said, but Marty was already starting up the stairs. Flynn stood his ground for two steps only, then retreated backward.

“Hey, come on …” Palms up, to keep the blows at bay.

“You made my wife a whore?”

“Would I do that?”

“You made my wife a fucking whore?”

Flynn turned and made a bid for the landing. Marty stumbled up the stairs after him.

“Bastard!”

The escape ploy worked: Flynn was safely behind the door and wedging a chair against it before Marty could get to the landing. All he could do was beat on the panels, demanding, uselessly, that Flynn let him in. But it took only a small interruption to spoil his anger. By the time Charmaine got to the top of the stairs he’d left off haranguing the door, and was leaning back on the wall, eyes stinging. She said nothing; she had neither the means nor the desire to cross the chasm between them.

“Him,” was all he could say. “Of all people.”

“He’s been very good to me,” she replied. She had no intention of pleading their case; Marty was the intruder here. She owed him no apology.

“It wasn’t as if I walked out.”

“It was your doing, Marty. You lost for both of us. I never got a say in the matter.” She was trembling, he saw, with fury, not with sorrow.

“You gambled everything we had. Every damn thing. And lost it for us both.”

“We’re not dead.”

“I’m thirty-two. I feel twice that.”

“He makes you tired.”

“You’re so stupid,” she said, without feeling; her cool contempt withered him. “You never saw how fragile everything was: you just went on being the way it suited you to be. Stupid and selfish.”

Marty bit at his upper lip, watching her mouth as it spoke the truth at him. He wanted to hit her, but that wouldn’t make her any less right; just bruised and right. Shaking his head, he stepped past her and thundered down the stairs. She was silent above.

He passed the box, the discarded fur. They could fuck on it, he thought: Flynn would like that. He picked up the bag containing his suit, and left. The glass in the window rattled he slammed the door so hard.

“You can come out now,” Charmaine said to the closed bedroom door. “The shooting’s over.”

Chapter 44

M
arty couldn’t get one particular thought out of his head: that she’d told Flynn all about him: spilling the secrets of their life together. He pictured Flynn lying on the bed with his socks on, stroking her, and laughing, as she poured out all the dirt. How Marty’d spent all the money on horses or poker; how he’d never had a winning streak in his life that lasted more than five minutes (you should have seen me today, he wanted to tell her, things are different now, I’m shit-hot now); how he was only good in bed on the infrequent occasions that he’d won and uninterested the rest of the time; how he’d first lost the car to McNamara, then the television, then the best of the furniture, and still owed a small fortune. How he’d then gone out and tried to steal his way out of debt. Even that had failed miserably.

He lived the pursuit again, sharp as ever. The car smelling of the shotgun Nygaard was nursing; the sweat on Marty’s face pricking in his pores as it cooled in the draft from the open window, fluttering up into his face like petals. It was all so clear, it might have happened yesterday. Everything since then, almost a decade of his life, pivoted on those few minutes. It made him almost physically sick to think of it.

Waste. All waste.

It was time to get drunk. The money he had left in his pocket—still well into four figures—was burning a hole, demanding to be spent or gambled. He wandered down to the Commercial Road, and hailed another cab, not entirely certain of what to do next. It was barely seven; the night ahead needed careful planning.
What would Papa do?
he thought. Betrayed and shat on, what would the great man do?

Whatever his heart desired, came the answer; whatever his fucking heart desired.

He went to Euston Station and spent half an hour in the bathroom there, washing and changing into the new shirt and new suit, emerging transformed. The clothes he’d been wearing he gave to the attendant, along with a ten-pound note.

Some of the old mellowness had crept back into his system by the time he’d changed. He liked what the mirror told him: the evening might turn out to be a winner yet, as long as he didn’t whip it too hard. He drank in Covent Garden, enough to lace his blood and breath with spirits, then had a meal in an Italian restaurant. When he came out the theaters were emptying; he garnered a clutch of appreciative glances, mostly from middle-aged women and well-coiffured young men.
I probably look like a gigolo
, he thought; there was a disparity between his dress and his face that signaled a man playing a role. The thought pleased him. From now on he would play Martin Strauss, man of the world, with all the bravura he could muster. Being himself had not got him very far. Perhaps a fiction would improve his rate of advancement.

He idled down Charing Cross Road and into the tangle of traffic and pedestrians at Trafalgar Square. There’d been a fight on the steps on St. Martin’s-in-the-Field; two men were exchanging curses and accusations while their wives looked on.

Off the square, at the back of the Mall, the traffic quietened. It took him several minutes to orient himself. He knew where he was going, and had thought he knew how to get there, but now he wasn’t so certain. It was a long time since he’d been in the area, and when he eventually hit the small mews that contained the Academy—Bill Toy’s club—it was more by chance than design.

His heart beat a little faster as he sauntered up the steps. Ahead lay a major piece of playacting, which, if it failed, would ruin the evening. He paused a moment to light a cigar, then entered.

In his time he’d frequented a number of high-class casinos; this one had the same slightly passé grandeur as others he’d been in; dark-wood paneling, damson carpeting, portraits of forgotten luminaries on the walls.

Hand in trouser pocket, jacket unbuttoned to reveal the gloss of the lining, he crossed the mosaic foyer to the desk. Security would be tight: the moneyed expected safety. He wasn’t a member, nor could he expect to become one on the spot: not without sponsors and references. The only way he’d get a good night’s gaming was by bluffing his way through.

The English rose at the desk smiled promisingly. “Good evening, sir.”

“How are you tonight?”

Her smile didn’t falter for a moment, even though she couldn’t possibly know who he was.

“Well. And you?”

“Lovely night. Is Bill here yet?”

“I’m sorry, sir?”

“Mr. Toy. Has he arrived yet?”

“Mr. Toy.” She consulted the guest book, running a lacquered finger down the list of tonight’s gamblers. “I don’t think he’s—”

“He won’t have signed in,” Marty said. “He’s a member, for God’s sake.” The slight irritation in his voice took the girl off-balance.

“Oh … I see. I don’t think I know him.”

“Well, no matter. I’ll just go straight up. Tell him I’m at the tables, will you?”

“Wait, sir. I haven’t—”

She reached out, as if to tug at his sleeve, but thought better of it. He flashed her a disarming smile as he started up the stairs.

“Who shall I say?”

“Mr. Strauss,” he said, affecting a tiny barb of exasperation.

“Yes. Of course.” Artificial recognition flooded her face. “I’m sorry, Mr. Strauss. It’s just that—”

“No problem,” he replied, benignly, as he left her below, staring up at him.

It took him only a few minutes to acquaint himself with the layout of the rooms. Roulette, poker, blackjack; all and more were available. The atmosphere was serious: frivolity was not welcome where money could be won or lost on such a scale. If the men and few women who haunted these hushed enclaves were here to enjoy themselves they showed no sign of it. This was work; hard, serious work. There were some quiet exchanges on the stairs and in the corridors-and of course calls from the tables, otherwise the interior was almost reverentially subdued.

He sauntered from room to room, standing on the fringe of one game then another, familiarizing himself with the etiquette of the place. Nobody gave him more than a glance; he fitted into this obsessive’s paradise too well.

Anticipation of the moment when he eventually sat down to join a game exhilarated him; he indulged it a while longer. He had all night to enjoy, after all, and he knew only too well that the money in his pocket would disappear in minutes if he wasn’t careful. He went into the bar, ordered a whisky and water, and scanned his fellow drinkers. They were all here for the same reason: to pit their wits against chance. Most drank alone, psyching themselves up for the games ahead. Later, when fortunes had been won, there might be dancing on the tables, an impromptu striptease from a drunken mistress. But it was early yet.

The waiter appeared. A young man, twenty at most, with a mustache that looked drawn on; he’d already achieved that mixture of obsequiousness and superiority that marked his profession.

“I’m sorry, sir—” he said.

Marty’s stomach lurched. Was somebody going to call his bluff?

“Yes?”

“Scotch or bourbon, sir?”

“Oh. Er … Scotch.”

“Very well, sir.”

“Bring it to the table.”

“Where will you be, sir?”

“Roulette.”