But then the other two players arrived, and I knew I would not be cheated. One was Cafferty. He was with a man called Jimmy Bone, a butcher by trade. He looked like a butcher, too-puffy-faced, red-cheeked, with fingers as fat as link sausages. He had a just-scrubbed look too. You often get that with butchers, surgeons, workers in the slaughterhouse. They like to look cleaner than clean.
Now that I think of it, Cafferty looked like that too. And Eck. And Tam. Tam was always rubbing his hands, giving off an aroma of lemon soap. Or he would examine his fingernails and pick beneath them. To look at his clothes, you would never guess, but he was pathologically hygienic. I realise now-blessed hindsight! — that the Robertson brothers were not pleased to see Cafferty. Nor did the butcher look happy at having been cajoled into playing. He kept complaining that he owed too much as it was, but Cafferty wouldn’t hear of it.
The butcher was a dreadful poker player. He mimed dejection whenever he had a bad hand, and fidgeted, shuffling his feet, when he had a good one. As the game wore on, it was obvious there was an undercurrent between Cafferty and the Robertsons. Cafferty kept complaining about business. It was slow, money wasn’t what it was. Then he turned to me abruptly and slapped his palm against the back of my hand.
‘How many dead men have you seen?’
In Cafferty’s company, I affected more bravado even than usual, an effect achieved in most part by seeming preternaturally relaxed.
‘Not many,’ I said (or something offhand like that).
‘Any at all?’ he persisted. He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I’ve seen dozens. Yes, dozens. What’s more, Black Aengus, I’ve killed my fair share of them.’
He lifted his hand away, sat back and said nothing. The next hand was dealt in silence. I wished Mo were around. She had a way of calming him down. He was drinking whisky from the bottle, sloshing it around in his mouth before swallowing noisily. Sober, he is unpredictable; drunk, he is dangerous. That’s why I like him. I even admire him, in a strange sort of way. He gets what he wants by any means necessary. There is something magnetic about that singularity of mind. And of course, in his company I am someone to be respected, respected by people who would normally call me a stuck-up snob and, as one person did, ‘a pissed-up piece of shite’. Cafferty took exception when I told him I’d been called this. He paid the man responsible a visit.
What makes him want to spend time with me? Before that night, I’d thought maybe we saw fire in one another’s eyes. But now I know differently. He spent time with me because I was going to be another means to an end. A final, bitter end.
I was drinking vodka, at first with orange, later neat-but always from a glass and always with ice. The Robertsons drank beer. They had a crate of bottles on the floor between them. The butcher drank whisky, whenever Cafferty deigned to pour him some, which wasn’t often enough for the poor butcher. I was twenty quid down within a matter of minutes, and sixty quid down after a quarter of an hour. Cafferty placed his hand on mine again.
‘If I’d not strayed along,’ he said, ‘they’d have had the shirt off your back and the breeks off your arse.’
‘I never cheat,’ said Tam Robertson. I got the feeling Cafferty had been wanting him to say something all along. Robertson acknowledged this by biting his lip.
Cafferty asked him if he was sure he didn’t cheat. Robertson said nothing. His brother tried to calm things down, putting our minds back onto the game. But Cafferty grinned at Tam Robertson as he picked up his cards. Later, he started again.
‘I’ve killed a lot of men,’ he said, directing his eyes at me but his voice at the Robertsons; ‘But not one of those killings wasn’t justified. People who owed me, people who’d done me wrong, people who’d cheated. The way I look at it, everybody knows what he’s getting into. Doesn’t he?’
For want of any other answer, I agreed.
‘And once you’re into something, there are consequences to be faced, aren’t there?’ I nodded again. ‘Black Aengus,’ he said, ‘have you ever thought about killing someone?’
‘Many a time.’
This was true, though I wish now I’d held my tongue. I’d wanted to kill men wealthier than me, more handsome than me, men possessing beautiful women, and women who rejected my advances. I’d wanted to kill people who refused me service when drunk, people who didn’t smile back when I smiled at them, people who were paged in hotels and made movies in Hollywood and owned ranches and castles and their own private armies. So my answer was accurate.
‘Many a time.’
Cafferty was nodding. He’d almost finished the whisky. I thought something must be about to happen, some act of violence, and I was prepared for it-or thought I was. The Robertsons looked ready either to explode or implode. Tam had his hands on the edge of the table, ready to jump to his feet. And then the door opened. It was someone from the kitchens, bringing us up the sandwiches we’d ordered earlier. Smoked salmon and roast beef. The man waited to be paid.
‘Go on, Tam,’ said Cafferty quietly, ‘you’re the one with the luck tonight. Pay the man.’
Grudgingly, Tam counted out some notes and handed them over.
‘And a tip,’ said Cafferty. Another note was handed over. The waiter left the room. ‘A very nice gesture,’ said Cafferty. It was his turn to deal. ‘How much are you down now, Black Aengus?’
‘I’m not bad,’ I said.
‘I asked how much.’
‘About forty.’ I’d been a hundred down at one stage, but two decent hands had repaired some of the damage. Plus-there could be no doubt about it-the best card players around the table, by which I mean the Robertson brothers, were finding it hard to concentrate. The room was not warm, but there was sweat trickling down from Eck’s sideburns. He kept rubbing the sweat away.
‘You’re letting them cheat you out of forty?’ Cafferty said conversationally.
Tam Robertson leapt to his feet, his chair tipping over behind him. ‘I’ve heard just about enough!’
But Eck righted the chair and pulled him down into it. Cafferty had finished dealing and was studying his cards, as though oblivious to the whole scene. The butcher got up suddenly, announcing that he was going to be sick. He walked quickly out of the room.
‘He won’t be back,’ Cafferty announced.
I said something lame to the effect that I was thinking of an early night myself. When Cafferty turned to me, he looked and sounded unlike any of his many personalities, the many I’d encountered so far.
‘You wouldn’t know an early night if it kicked you in the cunt.’ He had started to gather up the cards for a redeal. I could feel blood tingling in my cheeks. He’d spoken with something close to revulsion. I told myself that he’d just drunk too much. People often said thing…etc. Look at me, I was one to be upset about the nasty things drunks could say!
He dealt the hand again. When it came time for him to make his initial bet, he threw a note into the pot, then laid his cards face down on the table. He reached into the waistband of his trousers. He’d worn a suit throughout; he always looks smart. He says the police are warier of picking up people wearing good clothes, and certainly more wary about punching or kicking them.
‘They don’t like to see good material ruined,’ he told me. ‘Canny Scots, you see.’
Now, when he withdrew his hand from the waistband, it was holding a pistol of some kind. The Robertsons started to object, while I just stared at the gun. I’d seen guns before, but never this close and in this kind of situation. Suddenly, the vodka, which had been having little or no effect all night, swam through me like waste through a sewer-pipe. I thought I was going to be sick, but swallowed it down. I even thought I might pass out. And all the time Cafferty was talking calm as you like about how Tam had been cheating him and where was the money.