Inside Straight (31 page)

Beale's smile disappeared. He pushed his ante. Another shitty hand.

"Here," said the lad, "I said—"

Beale's fist flew up and over the lad's finger. He jammed it back with a crack that stopped conversation. The lad's mouth fell open, his eyes wide. Beale swivelled and planted his other hand hard into the middle of the lad's chest, slamming him off his stool. He discarded the lad's broken finger, slipped from his stool and brought the heel of his shoe down twice before anyone had a chance to react. There were muffled groans, the wet thump of heel against cheek, then the place erupted. The dealer lurched back from the table and the inspector reached for the float cover. The other punters snatched up their chips. Stools hit the floor. A brief glance back at Ellis and he was frozen to the spot, struck dumb with horror. The lad's mates swooped towards Beale, but he was already up and ready to windmill whoever stood in his way. I ran ahead, got to Beale just as a circle of carpet opened up around him.

"Les," I shouted, "leave it."

The lad's mate saw me now. One of them made a grab for my arm. I threw a sharp elbow at his head, grabbed Beale's arm and pulled. I was skinny and frightened compared to him, and they all knew it. But I had booze in my system, running wild with adrenalin, and I hauled Beale out of there.

Then a voice rose above it all. Everything stopped. Ellis was shouting something.

The whole place had paused like a cheap video, that barely perceptible tremor running through the crowd. Somewhere in the background, I thought I could hear The Walker Brothers.

Beale was the first one to move. He straightened up out of my grip, pulled off his tie and stuffed it into his jacket pocket. He was red, sweaty, and borderline manic. "So what is it, Graham? Am I suspended again?"

The Chinese lad coughed from somewhere behind the poker table. I couldn't see him, but there was enough blood on the carpet to tell me he was in a bad way.

Ellis bristled. "Mr Beale—"

"Ah, get fucked. Place is a shithole anyway. Look, there's stains all over the carpet. It's fuckin' disgusting." He slapped me on the shoulder and we moved towards the exit. Then he stopped at a blackjack table. He looked at the shuffling machine and shook his head. He leaned in to the dealer. "Used to be, that was
your
job. Used to be, all this was about
skill
."

"Come on, Les."

Beale lunged for the machine. The dealer stepped back, hands up. I grabbed Beale's collar and yanked him back from the table. Cash chips rained to the floor. Beale held onto the shuffling machine, the cord taut.

"Let go," I said.

"Get off us."

"Just put it back."

"No."

"C'mon, I'll buy you a drink."

He stared at the dealer for a long time, then he let the machine drop. It bounced off the table and then over the side, swinging from its cord like a hanged man.

"Fuck this place."

I agreed. And ushered him outside where we could find somewhere to lie low and drink the rest of the night into oblivion.

2

"You know what it is, Ellis needs to understand something. I'm a man, I'm not going to take that kind of abuse, right?"

"Right."

"I'm a
man
."

"Yes, you are."

"I'm a man, and he's a fuckin' prick."

"Well said."

"I remember when he was a fish in a dicky, couldn't pay a split without moving his lips. And what now, because he's got a pit sheet and a clothing allowance, he's
better
than me? Officious little bastard. He's lucky, right, he's lucky I didn't knock
him
out."

"Exactly."

Beale was decompressing, smothering his adrenalin high with Red Stripe and piss-whisky. My job was simple: agree in as few words as possible and sound like I was listening. He just needed to feel he was right. The Press was the perfect place to do it. There wasn't a single person in here, staff or drunk, who wasn't rationalising their behaviour right now. Time was, this place was open late to serve the newspaper and theatre people and it used to have a bit of style about it. At least, that was the story. All the years I'd been coming, the most stylish thing about the place was the strip of tinsel hanging over the makeshift stage in the corner of the room. As for the clientele, they were mostly casino staff and twenty-four-seven alcoholics, sometimes both.

Dead Eddie was one of them. As Beale droned on, I watched Eddie up at his side of the bar talking to his hand. Once upon a time, Eddie was a cashier down The Arches, and was eyes-deep in an amphetamine habit that had him working doubles six out of seven most weeks. There was no way a bloke could keep up that kind of work, wired or not, and so it was only a matter of time before a winner's cheque went missing and Eddie found himself out on his arse. Far as I knew, he wasn't on the uppers anymore, but he still ran through those conversations with his hand in the role of the GM until he passed out.

"And as for that fuckin' Chink, he had it coming." Beale sniffed, took a drink from his can. "Fuckin' brat. Thinks, what, because his dad owns a couple of all-you-can-eats he's well up there?" His lips buckled with a belch. "Fuckin' Triads, man, the lot of them."

There was a flurry of activity over by the stairs. A new load of drinkers just off from work. Some of them were wearing civvies, others blue shirts under their jackets. From the looks of them, they were casino staff. I took a drink, then another. I didn't want to be in here with Beale if Ellis walked in. To be fair, it wasn't likely but knowing my luck, this would be the one night he decided to have a swift half before heading home.

I watched the dealers head to the bar. The woman behind it didn't crack a smile. She'd been on shift too bloody long to give a shit about banter. Beale was peering at the dealers. I could hear his brain whirr into action, choking at the start, then slowly building up steam as he scanned faces. Then he yelled so loud I flinched.

"Stevie! Oi, Stevie!"

A skinny ginger guy in a blue shirt turned, saw Beale and his face went to stone.

"C'mon, get your arse over here, I want to talk to you about something."

Beale was drawing attention to himself. Even Dead Eddie had stopped flapping his fingers long enough to glance our way. Stevie made mute excuses and shuffled over, can in hand.

Beale grinned, but his eyes were dead. "How you doing, Stevie? Been a while there, son."

"Fuck d'you think you're doing?"

He was a Scot. Maybe Glaswegian. But then, my brain was so fried, he could've been from Pontypridd and I wouldn't have known the difference.

Beale played hurt. "That's nice, isn't it?"

"Trying to get us shot?"

"Fuck off with your whinging, you sweaty bastard, and come and have a drink."

Stevie looked behind him, then dragged a chair over. "I'm not joking, man. See if my gaffer was in here?"

"If your gaffer was in here, he'd be fraternising an' all. Besides, you still at the Riverside or what?"

Stevie nodded and popped his can.

"So who gives a fuck about that job? Fuckin' shithole, that place. You want to get yourself on the ships, mate."

"What did you want to talk to us about?"

Beale smiled at him. "Wednesday."

Stevie looked my way, then back at Beale. I downed the rest of my Grouse and got up. I had to press my fingers to the table to stop the sway. I nodded at Beale. "I'm going to the bar."

"Good lad. Same again," said Beale.

I set off, my legs loose. On my right, the rest of the dealers were clustered around a couple of tables, doing impressions of punters and telling the same old war stories they'd told a million times before. Behind me, Beale and Stevie were almost flat to the table as they discussed whatever it was that was so bloody secret. I headed for the opposite end of the bar to Eddie. The man was an island of insanity, surrounded by plenty of personal space. I shifted up a little further away from him, hooked my foot on the rail and felt around in my wallet for whatever notes I had left. One of the drawbacks of the twenty-four hour licence apart from the ambience was the reaming you got on every round. Bastards were charging a fiver a can and more on the whisky unless its name was the same as the supermarket they'd bought it from.

The barmaid, and calling her that was me being nice, approached on thunder thighs. I ordered the same again and thought about going outside for a smoke. Mind you, that would involve dropping off the drinks, getting past the bouncers, down the two flights, out the door and having a smoke, and then back up again, and if I was honest with myself, I genuinely couldn't be arsed. I could hold on until we left.

I took the drinks back to the table. Beale and Stevie stopped talking as I sat down.

Beale reached across and cracked his can. "What you doing Wednesday night, Alan?"

Stevie pulled a face. "What did I just fuckin' say to you, Les?"

Beale laughed. "Ooh, secrets. Where I go, Alan goes."

"You don't need muscle—"

"He's hardly fuckin'
muscle
."

"Speak for yourself, you fat bastard."

"It's a question of trust. So if you're not gonna
trust
us—"

"It's not like that."

"Looks like that."

"You're laying on the drink, aren't you?"

"Aye."

"So," said Beale, a pious look on his face, "I'm hardly going to drink and drive, am I?"

"Fuck off."

"No way I'm leaving my car in Miles Platting, Stevie. Not happening."

"You'll have no bother, I already told you."

"Yeah, you said—"

"They only go for
good
motors."

"Get a cab."

"C'mon, Alan, you're supposed to be helping."

"Alright, look." Stevie reached for his can. "You want to bring your boyfriend along, that's fine, but he's not in the game."

"Okay," said Beale.

"I mean, nowhere near the fuckin' game. He can watch movies with The Waste."

"Alright." Beale looked at me. "You like movies, don't you?"

"What's The Waste?"

"Okay then." Stevie whirled the last of his Carling and then downed it. He crumpled the can and left it on the table. "I've got to get back. People'll wonder why I'm stuck talking to you two."

"Tell ‘em you're on the game."

Stevie stood, pretended to belly laugh, then turned on his heel. I watched him fall back in with his mates and reached for my whisky. I let it burn for a short while on my tongue before I swallowed it back.

"You're never buying in to dealer tables, are you, Les?"

Beale didn't say anything. He didn't need to. Fact was, he'd been trying to insinuate himself into a croup game for ages, but it'd been tricky. Dealers were skittish. Most of them were just as compulsive as their punters, but they rarely took a chance on fraternisation, because getting caught there meant an immediate boot, and if there was one thing these lads weren't suited to, it was the nine-to-five. On top of that, Beale had a rep as bloke who broke faces when he lost, and nobody liked a bad loser.

He tried to stay cool, but it didn't quite take. "It's a start."

Which was why he needed me there, to make sure he stayed on his best behaviour. Wasn't just that I was a cabbie and a cheerleader, now I had to be a fucking wet nurse into the bargain. But then, after the other night, wasn't that just a perfect measure of our friendship? He got shit everywhere, and I was the one with the lemon-scented wipe.

"Well, I can't help you. I've got something else on."

"Lying bastard."

"True. I promised to take the missus out Wednesday."

"By missus, you mean that student, right? And by take out—"

"I'm not coming."

Beale smiled. "It'll be alright. I won't say anything to your missus. And it'll be late on. You can go and fuck your teenager and then take us over the Riverside for the comp."

"No."

"No?" He leaned forward. "You serious? I get a seat at a croup game and you're going to blow it out because you want to get your end away?"

"I already told you—"

"I know what you fuckin' told us. And I know what the truth is. So why don't you just be the fuckin' white man and do us this favour, eh? I never ask you nowt, man. This is an opportunity."

"For you to get skinned by a bunch of dealers."

"Fuck off, you know us better than that. I get a decent run, I'm fuckin' unstoppable. And think about it, how good is it going to be when I take those bastards for everything they've got, eh?"

I thought about it. And I thought that even if Beale had the choice, taking them for everything they had was a bloody good way not to be invited back. But I didn't say anything, because it wouldn't matter if I did. Beale had made his decision, and that decision had been made on my behalf, too. So I'd call Lucy and I'd rain check Wednesday and we'd have to make up for it some other time.