Part 28 (1/2)

'Marco, this is Wendy. I know I promised not to call for a while, but I couldn't resist. I'm sorry. Well, I'm fine. I got that place at St Martin's. I thought you'd like to know. I told my boss today that I was quitting. Like you said I should, I just told him. Straight out. No beating around the bush. I told him, and that was that. I know you said we should have a cooling-off period, but if you wanted to celebrate with me, I could get a cheap bottle of champagne in and I'd cook you whatever you wanted. So if you're interested, phone me. Okay? Wendy. Ti amo, bellissima. Ciao.'

Ah, poor kid. She'll get over me at art college, and learn her gender endings. One down, three possible Diggers to go.

'Ah, Marco, sorry to bother you, this is Tim Cavendish. We're having a slight family crisis. It appears that my brother's law firm in Hong Kong has gone down the tubes. It's all a bit of a mess... there's the Chinese police, a.s.set freezing, and whatnot... Erm, why don't you drop in middle of next week and we'll see how this might affect my ability to run Alfred's book... Erm, terribly sorry about this. Bye.'

Digger would have been better.

'Marco, this is Rob. I'm leaving the band to go and shack up with Maxine in San Francisco. Bye.'

No problem, Rob leaves the band once a month. And I can stop trying to write songs that feature handbells. Last hurdle, G.o.d, please don't let it be Digger. If he can't contact me he can't threaten me.

'Dear Marco, this is Digger at Fungus Hut Recording Studios. How are you? I'm fine, thanks. This is just a friendly little message to remind you that you owe us 150 and unless you pay by 5 o'clock on Tuesday, then on Wednesday I will sell your drum kit for whatever the p.a.w.n shop in Tottenham Court Road will give me for it and spend the money on chocolate chip cookies for our cleaning staff. Best wishes, your loving uncle Digger.'

Sarcastic b.a.s.t.a.r.d. All this fuss for a piddling 150! I'm an artist, for Christ's sake! I bet he isn't such an a.r.s.ehole if Mick Jagger owes him money. I'll work something out somehow.

Some evenings I like to open the windows and meditate as the room empties into the ebbing dusk. But now I needed a c.r.a.p, a shower, a joint and a nap, in that order, before I met Gibreel in the bar downstairs around 9.30.

I tried to phone Poppy but the line was engaged. Jealousy, with nowhere to put it. A pigeon fluttered onto my window ledge, and glanced around my room. Was that the same b.a.s.t.a.r.d bird whose dried s.h.i.+t I just washed out of my hair?

Pigeon paranoia.

Time for a joint with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa. The last of Josh's Moroccan Brown... Ah, the joys of being flat broke and Generation X and surrounded by women and being miserably alone.

My room is too much like a Methodist chapel. I'm more of a Church of the Feral Pagan type. What I need is a cla.s.sy chair from a more elegant century, like Katy Forbes's. Weird. I could remember her chair, her pepper-mill and the shape of her nipples, but not her face. She'd had a birthmark shaped like a comet.

I got clean, rolled my joint, and as I smoked it the ceiling lost definition. Ah! Peat fire in the hollow of the golden bough... Josh gets his hands on the very best. That Happy Gulliver-tied-down-by-Lilliputians feeling sagged my organs, and the next thing I knew the moon was framed by the window and Gibreel was standing over me. 'Put on your zoot suit, Marco boy!'

My gummy mouth tasted of an inner sole. My clock shone 21.45. When did I last get a good night's sleep? How did Gibreel get a key? I always lock the door when I smoke. 'Why? Where are we going?'

'The casino!'

I felt too mellow for my laugh to bubble up. 'You're taking the p.i.s.s. I owe more money than the government of Burundi. I can't afford to go to a casino.'

'Which is exactly why why we're going to the casino, Marco! Win it back. Pay it off.' we're going to the casino, Marco! Win it back. Pay it off.'

'Oh, just like that.'

'I got the people, Marco. I got a system!'

This time my laughter busted down the door and ran off over the hills.

'What's so funny, you stoner?'

I wasn't sure myself, I didn't feel remotely amused by anything. It was either this or sob, I guess. I la.s.soed myself back and wiped the tears away. 'Anyway, Gibreel, anyway. They don't just let anybody into a casino. You have to be somebody. I'm definitely only an anybody.'

'Don't worry, Marco. My rich cousin from Beirut is over for the weekend. My rich cousin is definitely Somebody. They run out of precious metals to colour his bank cards. Tag along. You could emerge from tonight smelling of fortune.'

'You're a very bad influence, Gibreel.'

'That's why you hang out with me. King Marco, ruler of Niceland, one day decided that he needed a bit of wickedness. And behold! Yeah, verily his plea was heard by the Angel Gibreel!' Gibreel's eyes flashed in the semi-darkness, and the darkness moved. 'Got any of that hash left, Captain Marcotics?'

We met Gibreel's cousin some time later at a wine bar in Bloomsbury. I try not to make snap judgments, but I knew right away he was a prize w.a.n.ker. He didn't even bother to tell me his name. Sometimes you meet someone, and ten minutes pa.s.s before you realise that No, they really never are going to stop talking about themselves. He was too cool to ever remove his sungla.s.ses. With him was a middle-aged Iranian called Kemal who had fled the revolution in the seventies. Kemal's smile was radioactive. He clapped his hands together. 'Let's go, if I'm not mistaken Lady Luck is in the mood for some sweet loving. So, my friend,' he looked at me, 'you are a man of the rouge and the noir?'

'I've never used rouge in my life,' I quipped, and waited for laughter which never came. Make a note of that, Marco. No transvest.i.te jokes with Arabs. 'Erm, I'm going to be more of a spectator tonight. I have a cashflow problem.'

'Creditors?' hissed Gibreel's cousin in a way which made me glad I wasn't one of his. It was the first sign of interest he'd shown in me.

'No,' I said, 'I don't have any.'

'Excellent! You have no creditors?'

'No. I have no cashflow.'

'What is this? Going to a casino, dest.i.tute and penniless?' Kemal fumbled in his shoulder bag and flung a thin stack of paper in my lap. 'This cannot be, my friend.' It quivered when it landed in a way that reminded me of banknotes. Jesus, it was banknotes!

'I can't-'

Kemal wasn't listening. He fingered his beard and smiled at Rich Cousin. 'Our friend Marco will do fine. Beginners are more unpredictable. But I insist on two to one.'

Gibreel's cousin snorted. 'Forget it. The odds are even.'

'Marco will do fine for what?' A cog clicked in a mechanism way bigger than me.

'You didn't tell him?' Rich Cousin asked Gibreel, who also had a crooked smile.

'Marco my son,' began Gibreel, 'Kemal and my cousin wish to place a bet on whether you or I come out of the casino with most money. You've just been given your stake to play with.'

I even felt my smile going crooked. 'I really don't feel terribly happy about-'

'And we get to keep any winnings, plus double the original stake. An extra three hundred.'

'Three hundred pounds?'

'No, three hundred Opal fruits. Of course pounds.'

'He worries too much,' said Rich Cousin.

'Way too much,' agreed Gibreel.

'It's just a side dish, for us,' said Kemal, 'my friend.'

'And if I lose all the money?'

'Then you lose all the money,' said Kemal, 'and n.o.body cares.'

'And Kemal loses his bet with me,' observed Rich Cousin.

So there we were. Me, Gibreel, and two dodgy Arabs I'd only known for ten minutes in the back of a taxi on our way to a casino. That made four dodgy Arabs in total.