Part 28 (2/2)

It was 150, in 5 notes so new they felt squeaky. A pert little coincidence, that. Exactly enough to pay Digger and get my drums back. Unfortunately, Gibreel's cousin and Kemal showed me to the cas.h.i.+er to exchange the dosh for chips before I could think of a way to vanish down the nearest tube entrance.

So I had to grin and bear it as I exchanged my drumkit for thirty little plastic discs.

'Now,' said Kemal, 'let us go our separate ways. I am a man of poker. We will meet in the upstairs lobby at midnight. Gibreel and Marco, midnight. Not a minute later, or the bet is void and you turn back into pumpkins.'

Rich Cousin strutted into the bar to flash money and select a woman.

'Gibreel,' I hissed, as we walked into the main roulette lounge, 'they're using us as toys. It sucks. Why do they do it?'

'Because they are bored, rich, little boys who need new toys. The money is nothing to them.'

'And anyway, doesn't the Koran forbid gambling?'

'Muhammad doesn't patrol London. With non-Muslims, on non-Muslim territory, it's kosher. Let's gamble, and may the best man win.'

I wandered around for a while before sitting down, taking it all in. The carpet, magenta plush, made me want to put on a pair of slippers and a smoking robe. Men in dinner jackets mingled with women in silk. There were some rare and exotic females here, at home under the chandeliers. Smiling characters locked away in the decompression chambers of dreams. A Hooray Henry hoorayed and an old lady cawed like a crow. The green of the baize and the gold of the wheels were stolen from the land of faeries, under the hill. The roulette wheel spun so fast that it seemed to be motionless, the ball an atom of gold. When I leave three centuries will have pa.s.sed. The glum and the bored and the quietly desperate and the manic jolly and the spectators. The croupiers worked like cyborgs, avoiding eye contact. I looked up to try to spot the cameras, but the ceiling was hidden in black like that of a TV studio. There were no windows, no clocks. Walnut panelling, prints of racehorses and greyhounds. I wandered into a room where blackjack and poker were being played. Kemal was already in a game. I came back and sat down on the side where I could watch the roulette, and asked for a coffee, hoping it was free. It was ten o'clock. I'd watch for forty-five minutes, and work out how to play.

Twenty minutes pa.s.sed. A man who looked like Samuel Beckett a few weeks before he died sat next to me, fumbling for cigarettes. I offered him one of mine. He nodded, took a couple, and sedately rocked.

'You're a beginner wondering where to begin.'

'I'm wondering how I can win,' I said.

'Let's see now,' he lit up, sucking the cigarette as an asthmatic does his inhaler. 'Which game?'

'Roulette?'

He spoke around his cigarette, his lips barely moving. 'Well, the American Table has two zeros, so the odds against you are greater. Stick to the French Table. If you bet on the numbers the odds against you are 2.7 per cent. If you bet on the colours, then the odds against you are 1.35 per cent.'

'That doesn't sound too bad.'

Samuel Beckett did a Gallic shrug. 'It adds up. It depends how long you play. After a hundred coups, fifty-two per cent of gamblers will be losing. After a thousand, sixty-six per cent. After ten thousand, ninety-two per cent of gamblers will be losing.'

'Is there a way to... erm...'

'At blackjack, yes. You memorise a bookful of algorhithmic probability patterns, and then you keep count. Bet heavily when the odds swing for you, bet lightly when they're against you. In principle, it's that simple. You have to be very good, though, or you'll be spotted and escorted to the dustbins. It's probably easier to become a London cabbie.'

'I only got a grade ”C” at maths. Would poker-'

'Poker? At poker, you get what you deserve.'

'Ah. I don't think I want what I deserve. So, is there a way of winning at roulette?'

'I'll swap you that secret for a road-map to Xanadu. There's plenty of ways for the casino to cheat microscopic needles, electromagnets... but for the punter, the only hope is to miniaturise aeros.p.a.ce trajectory technology, and use it to plot the course of the ball. That's been done.'

'Successfully?'

'In the laboratory, yes. But in Vegas the team got their circuitry shorted. I gather it was painful.'

'I suppose I'd better rely on chance, then.'

Samuel Beckett indicated with a twist of his face that in that case, the conversation was over. My 300 cut of Kemal's winnings was waiting.

I sat down, afraid of being unmasked as an impostor. I put my first chip on red. I was about to lose my casino virginity. I watched the ball bounce and hurl itself around the wheel. What's the ball like, ghostwriter? Give us a metaphor.

Very well. It's like a genie, spending its fury until nothing is left.

The ball settled on black. The croupier raked away my money into a hole. It clicked as it fell. That's the quickest 5 I ever spent without smiling. I put my second chip on red.

The ball landed on black. I'd have to win one soon... The laws of probability. I put my third chip on black.

The ball settled on red. Still, I'd have to win this time.

I put my fourth chip on red. I can't lose four in a row.

I lost four in a row. Black. Twenty pounds just gone and n.o.body even thanked me.

Not a good start. Red, black, red, black. Stepping out of the way of an oncomer in the same direction as the oncomer. Never mind, Marco. One hundred and thirty pounds of chips still in my pocket.

I went and got a mineral water to rethink my strategy. I downed it, and hoped it would flush out the last of the hash. Kemal was at the bar. 'How's it going my friend? I have a lot of money riding on you tonight.'

That's your stupid fault. 'Up and down.'

'Up is better, my friend. How are you betting? Don't bet like a loser. Bet with strength. Don't overrate chance. Winning in a casino is like winning in life: all is a matter of will will.'

Yeah, and a lollipop tossed into the mouth of the Amazon can float upstream. It just has to want to badly enough.

The casino toilet was tiled in black marble, and the mirrors were copper and smoky. I imagined gangsters in pastel suits shooting each other in the kidneys. I had just unzipped my fly when Cousin came in, still wearing his sungla.s.ses. He came and stood next to me. He didn't say a word.

Even though my bladder was full, he unnerved me so much that my p.i.s.s refused to come out. I heard his, though, a smooth torrent gurgling down the plughole. The free-flowing urine of opulent wealth. I pretended to be shaking off the last drops, washed my hands, and scuttled off to find another toilet.

I chose another table with an attractive brunette croupier with freckles and unfeasibly long legs. She looked like she could have been a he at some point. She looked lucky.

This time, I'd concentrate harder.

I was pretty soon down to 75.

I won a few, and lost a few. I hovered around the 60 for fifteen minutes before losing eight in a row and plummeting down to 20.

Gibreel appeared at my shoulder. 'I'm up to 280 at blackjack. Roulette's for mugs.'

'I don't have a good answer for that.'

'Dear me, is that all you have left? And still only eleven o'clock.'

<script>