The Last Card (3 page)

‘Ey! Watcha now, my yout’! Wha’ gwan?!’ Blackie jumped up and the two friends embraced.

‘Good to see you, man, how’ve you been?’

‘Me a cool, you know. Me jussa try to keep a level vibe.’

‘So this is your new place?’

‘Yeah, man, me a hit de big time now, you know. I tired a run race in de Grove so me say, me a move wid man an’ man in de West End.’

‘Looking good, my brother!’ H stood back and looked Blackie over. In reality Blackie was not looking good at all. Since H had last seen him Blackie had become thinner, almost gaunt. One of his front teeth was missing. He was also sporting a long, thick scar on his forehead. H had heard this was left behind by an irate out-of-town fish who had entered Blackie’s shebeen in the Grove with over two thousand pounds. A straight thirty-six hours later, the fish had left, laughter ringing in his ears, with all his money gone, bar a crisp twenty-pound note for his cab home. The fish did not leave quietly.

‘So you come to give me a spin tonight?’

‘What, you think I’m here to watch?’ Blackie laughed and the two
again embraced. The Chinese woman who had opened the door for H now approached.

‘Drink? Something to eat?’ Blackie threw an arm around her waist, drawing her into his body.

‘H, dis ’ere is Shampa. A good woman. Shampa, dis is H.’ Despite H’s smile of greeting nothing about him seemed to please Shampa. The sullen look on her fleshy face remained as tight as ever.

‘Hi, pleased to meet you.’

Shampa ignored his greeting and there was a moment’s pause.

‘What you want to drink? Every t’ing on de house tonight.’ Blackie’s joie de vivre interceded.

‘In that case I’ll have a Jack. Jack Daniels.’

Blackie turned Shampa’s shoulders and playfully slapped her arse, sending her off in the direction of the kitchen.

‘Who’s the new girl? She looks like fun.’ The ambiguity of H’s comment was deliberate. It didn’t do to be too playful with Blackie.

‘Das my sweetheart, man. I love ’er! Love ’er to deat’!’ H and Blackie watched her take short, quick steps on her way to the kitchen. Boo, the good-natured Nigerian, piped up. Despite being in his late thirties Boo liked to speak with the florid cadences of a teenage, African-American, Harlem homeboy.

‘Yo, nigger, wazzzzzup?’ With a bear-like hug he wrapped his big arms around H, squeezing him until he squirmed.

‘Man! You need to back up!’ said H, gasping for air.

‘And look at you, man!’ Boo continued. ‘Wearing your lucky suit ’n’ shit! Yeah, boeeeey!’ He slapped H’s hand, hard.

‘I’m not like you bums,’ countered H. ‘I’ve got things to do outside of gambling.’ He turned to Blackie. ‘So these are your new premises.’ H looked around. ‘This place has … life.’ Blackie’s new shebeen could probably have jostled with The London Dungeon for
gruesomeness
and lack of life. Despite there being something of a crowd tonight, the collection of dead-beats, hustlers and petty criminals, combined with the general pall of poverty that hung over the room, reminded H of the funeral of a boxing buddy he’d once attended in Birmingham.

Stammer, the big Jamaican, ambled over and broke into the conversation. ‘B … B … Blackie b … b … business good, boy!’

H gave him a quizzical half smile. A thought, once again and not for the last time, flashed through his mind: he really ought to give up gambling. Why did he need it? Blackie was okay but there were few people in this room that H really liked. Something inside him would just not let him walk away. Always, always, either when he was down, or when Bev was giving him earache, or when he just felt like he had to get away, he was drawn back to this nocturnal world.

Shampa returned with H’s drink. The small shot glass was barely wet with the tiny measure of Jack Daniels in it. To show his contempt for her portion H reached out a hand and, with barely a pause in motion, downed the drink in one, handing back the empty glass. The Chinese woman with the Indian name surprised H with her harsh East London accent.

‘Are you firsty or wot?’

‘What’s it to you?’

‘This stuff’s expensive, d’you know what I mean.’

‘So? Are you buying it?’

‘No, but …‘

‘Well keep it coming and stop squawking!’

‘Oooo-oooh!’ Both Stammer and Boo liked that one. H glanced over at Blackie but Blackie just shrugged and turned back to sorting the chips on the table.

‘You better check the next one carefully … you might find some gob in it!’ She turned and walked away. Blackie looked up, his face creased into a broad smile.

‘I don’ know wha’ ’appen to she, but she ’ave fire in she body. You ready to play?’

The group wandered over to the main table and took their seats. Including H, there were eight players. All put money on the table, varying from £100 to £500. The serious money wouldn’t come out until later in the evening.

Shampa returned with H’s drink and slammed it on the table next to him. H checked it carefully as the others sniggered. Shampa then sat, picked up two new packs of playing cards and handed each to a player on either side of her. Stammer and H broke the seal on the cards and handed them back. For one with such short and stubby hands, Shampa shuffled the two packs together with extravagant skill.

As the players round the table sat quietly watching her, H dipped
his hand into his pocket and pulled out his Zippo lighter. H rarely smoked these days. A few years back he was on a seriously destructive jag and smoking was part of his attempt to give himself an excuse for losing in the ring. He was through that now but he still liked the smooth, weighty feel of the Zippo in his hands.

H twisted the lighter – or talisman as he called it – round in his hands before placing it gently on the table next to his money.

Shampa finished shuffling the cards. She dealt, gracefully and accurately, flicking the cards across the table to the eight players: one card each, face down, in the hole. As Shampa dealt, each player tossed their opening stake, ten pounds, into the middle of the table.

‘Anyone blind?’ Shampa droned mechanically as she looked round the group. The players all shook their heads. Shampa then dealt each player a second card, face up this time. As the cards slid smoothly across the table, Shampa called out the name of each one.

‘Nine of spades, queen of clubs, jack of hearts, eight of diamonds …’

H watched her deal. No wonder Blackie had latched on to this woman. She may not be the life and soul of the party, but bring her into a sleazy, all-night, illegal shebeen and boy, did she know her way around.

‘… Ten of clubs, ace of diamonds, queen of hearts, king of spades. Ace of diamonds starts the bidding.’ Shampa finished dealing the hand and scanned the players at the table.

Sammy had the ace and considered his cards. The game was on. H’s heart began to beat just a little bit faster, the adrenaline kicking in. He picked up his talisman and fingered it. This is why he gambled! It wasn’t for the camaraderie; it wasn’t for the patter; and it certainly wasn’t for the women. It was for the buzz. Something that had been lacking from his boxing for some time.

‘Twenty.’ Sammy, a conservative player at the best of times, tossed a twenty pound note into the middle of the table. Shampa deftly changed the twenty for the round, plastic, house chips. H studied Sammy’s face; Sammy’s eyes flicked up, made contact with H’s, and then dropped back to his cards. Too quickly for H. Wanker! The wanker was bluffing. Still; this was the first hand. And the first game of
five-card
stud that H had played for nearly six months. No need to go on the offensive first game back. H was going to ease himself in. Savour
the moments. Enjoy them. Luxuriate in the feeling of being back, being on holiday, indulging himself in a favoured pastime.

Hours had passed and the room was now heavy with smoke. It hung in the air, glowing red from the light in the window, white from the light above the table, blue from the glow of the silent television. The thickness of the air seemed to muffle sound as the players concentrated on their game. Movement in the room, be it the
collecting
of money, the passing of cards, the scratching of a forehead, was made efficiently, economically. The only gamblers left were those around the central table, hunched together like conspirators. As H looked around he was acutely aware of something: these people weren’t here to play; they were here to work. For the patrons of Blackie’s shebeen gambling was a way of life. H knew he couldn’t stay in the gambling world for too much longer. Maybe until he’d had one more big win. Just one. Really.

The money and chips which lay on the table had now shifted around according to each player’s respective fortune. H and Dipak were having a good night and large stacks of notes and chips sat in front of them. H’s talisman was nowhere to be seen, buried deep in his pocket.

Shampa dealt the next round of cards.

‘Eight of clubs, nine of diamonds, king of spades, jack of spades, jack of hearts. King of spades starts the bidding.’ She looked blankly over at H. H sat staring at a pair of kings with a nine card. Not bad. Not bad at all. He flicked a glance over at Sammy and the loot sitting before him on the table. Six hundred squid. H casually tossed a wad of six hundred pounds of his own into the pot. Bosh! If the wad of notes could have landed with a crash it would have. The pot in the middle of the table was already piled high with big notes and fat chips. H even noticed some funny money, some Euro notes, in with the real stuff. A big hand.

‘Maximum bet, all in. Stammer?’

Stammer had a pair of queens and an ace showing. H thought about the cards that were already on the table, the cards that had passed through the pack, and the various permutations which Stammer might try. It was a tough decision, he could swing a number of ways with this. Stammer might not be the smartest guy on the planet but he knew how to play the cards. He was the kind of dingbat
who would happily lose two hundred pounds in a one-armed bandit in the course of an hour, but would play poker for five hours to win twenty pounds. He looked over at H, a thoughtful look on his face. H stared back at him, blank, non-committal.

Stammer, reluctantly, covered the bet. Next to go was Sammy. Sammy had a pair of tens showing with a king. Sammy let a minute go by. Sammy carefully peeked at his card in the hole. Sammy let another minute go by.

‘What are you doing? Are you playing de game or are you not playing de game?!’ Boo had a lot of money riding on this hand and the pressure was telling. The Harlem homeboy accent was gone and what H heard now was hard-core, down-town, Lagos. ‘Shit, man, I’ve seen cream curdle faster dan de way you seem to play de game!’

‘Yeah, mate, must be the cream between your toes.’ Sammy spoke but it was Dipak that laughed.

‘What did you say?!’ H looked at his watch. The game had been going for just under five hours and he could see that Boo had already lost most of his money. Not that he needed to see that. The note of challenge in Boo’s voice would have told him that. It was time for H to think about moving on.

‘I said shutcha yap, I’m trying to think here.’ This would normally pass for everyday conversation, but the note of edge in Boo’s voice should have warned Sammy to be more diplomatic. But then Sammy, a man passing through his 68th year and still driving an illegal cab for a living while gambling away anything of any value that his family had ever managed to acquire, was not the most sensitive punter around. Again Dipak laughed.

‘And wha’ de hell you laughing at?!’ Boo demanded of Dipak. Dipak, having a good night, chose to reply in Urdu. Neither H nor anyone else spoke Urdu but the words ‘drug dealer’ and ‘
motherfucker
’ needed no translation. One of the few gambling shebeen etiquettes however, over which there was no flexibility, was the foreign language rule. Blackie quickly enforced it now.

‘No foreign, my friend, no foreign.’ H thought that despite Britain’s all-pervasive class system – with the queen sitting at the top – gambling was perhaps the country’s greatest social and racial leveller. In Blackie’s shebeen, and most shebeens throughout London, you could speak the Queen’s English, Jeremy Paxman’s
English, Chris Eubanks’ English, even Jonathan Ross’s English, but it had to be English.

‘Yeah, man, speakie English! Where the fuck you think you at?!’ Boo was back to Harlem homie speak. H shifted in his seat
recognising
that the flash point had passed. Boo had regained control of his frayed nerves.

Sammy now tossed the last of his money into the pot. Boo cursed and threw his cards in, as did the casual Dipak. Shampa dealt the remaining players their last cards, face down, to H, Stammer and Sammy. The three looked at their cards and one by one they turned them up.

H now had two pairs, kings and nines; Stammer also had two pairs, aces and queens; Sammy had a pair of tens, plus a king and an eight.

‘Stammer to bid, ace of hearts.’ H looked at Shampa and had to admire her technique. Whatever shit went down at this table, she was sure as hell going to maintain her cool.

‘Check.’ Stammer knocked once on the table. Sammy did the same. ‘Check.’ H considered his hand. He lifted up his hidden card and took a peek. He thought carefully about his next move, dipping his hand into his pocket, pulling out his lighter and fingering it. And then he made his decision. He shoved the lighter back into his pocket and looked over at Stammer. He casually tossed three grand into the middle of the table. The noise of air being expelled through gritted teeth and pursed lips was heard throughout the room.

‘Godt … dammn, nigger! You cooking with gas!’ Boo’s eyes bugged from his head.

‘Three thousand pounds is the bet. Stammer?’

Stammer looked away but he knew H was still looking at him. He stood abruptly and walked aggressively towards H. As he reached him he leant behind H and picked up a heavy, black leather-hooded coat. He put it on, zipped it up to his throat and threw up the hood. He returned to his place glaring round at the others. They were all staring at him.

‘My lucky c … c … coat.’ He bent down and, lifting one of the legs of his satinny, white, Nike track bottoms, he dug into a fluffy, white, Nike sock. He pulled out a bundle of high denomination notes
and tossed them into the middle of the table. Boo let out another low whistle, whiplashing his big, rusty index finger on to the finger next to it. A loud whhap! cracked around the room.