The Great California Game

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

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REVERE Mount Mansions deserved the plural. I was glad of two things: that I didn’t have to storm it, and that I’d decided to suss it out before night fell.

It stood back from a cliff edge which overlooked a multi-lane highway flooded with headlights. A road nosed the Malibu hillside as if trying to find contour lines among the bushes. Why was the land so dry? Coloured lights arched over the gateway proclaiming that Revere Mount Mansions was Heaven’s Gift to California. Close to, it looked as if the paint wasn’t yet dry.

Not that I got close to straight away. Nor did I lurk in the undergrowth. I stayed away seeking middle-class mediocrity until the day began to wane, then prepared for action. I’d spent hours being toured around Movie City. I ogled studio sets, saw where the great directors had shot this movie and fought that mogul. On a normal day I’d have been thrilled. Now, I just kept asking the time and judging how long it would take to reach Malibu. People kept giving me brochures, or begging. I’ve never seen so many people asking to have their clipboard signed in support of some cause or other.

We passed it on a coach trip. In mid-afternoon sunshine it was brilliant, a Samarkand of a place, El Dorado, with golden towers Camelot would have been proud of. Peacocks fanned their tails among the laid gardens. Small pagodas and summerhouses dotted the walks among lakes and waterfalls. The coach guide was in raptures.

“The gardens alone took a quarter of a million tons of stone, fifteen thousand plants and bushes…”

People photographed, darted from one side of the coach to the other, called for the driver to pause because the sunshine was catching somebody’s lens wrong. The guide even said that it was currently a focus of a huge All American convention of charity associations, and L.A. was especially honoured yet once more folks to be the site of might…

I honoured Revere Mount by seeing how far it stood from the road—half a mile. The cliff seemed pretty sheer. When finally the hillside ran out of patience and recovered its slope, the drop was sudden until barricades landscaped some sort of surety for the traffic on the teeming highway below. If I’d been the roadbuilder I’d have gone round, only the opposite side ended in close wooded screes. Distantly, glints of water showed. The hills astonished me by their height and dusty brown dryness.

Men stood by the gateway. They wore livery, but garments do not hinder truth. Smart, vigilant in constant communication. There were seven, taking turns to leap forward to direct drivers along one of the three roads through the ornamental gardens. The main building had more verandahs than a castle, more windows than any Vatican. Outlying smaller places were presumably the kind of separate motel buildings America has perfected. Then the driver called he was behind schedule and we drove on across bridges beneath which no rivers ran, to lose the view among dense cloying trees.

I’D HAD the shakes ever since reaching America. I couldn’t remember a single hour when I’d been quiet, at peace. I’d always had to be running out of the firing line, working out where I was, what the hell I ought to be doing to survive. Maybe that’s what folk meant by the American Way? It certainly was Magda’s view of her world, and Zole’s opinion of his. Things here weren’t immutable. What today forbids, tomorrow might make compulsory. Today might hang you, and tomorrow sanctify. But even with dusk rushing the hills into night I couldn’t find it in my heart to scold America. Why? Because love is the same, after all. The lady sloshes you with her handbag one day, and the next day pulls you, moaning.

Eight o’clock, I went over my words, trying to spot unexpecteds.

Nine, I phoned the reception at Revere Mount. I tried to sound as if I was delayed by impossible inefficiency somewhere, bullied over the girl’s routines, said to get urgent word to the gate supervisor, make sure I wasn’t delayed because I’d barely make it before the Game. Then I rang off, sweating. It could have been the sticky heat that drenched my palms, but wasn’t.

Sometimes—in love, war, gambling, any sort of risk—time is paramount, no pun intended.

Half past nine I was out on the pavement watching taxis. The third driver looked as if he knew the area and could get a move on. I flopped into the cab and told him Revere Mount Mansions fast.

He drove like a maniac. I would have been frightened to death, but was there already.

I’D WORKED out my phraseology, tersely gave it the gatemen. “Point me to the Game. I’m late, a’ready.” Two barred the way. A third approached, stooped to examine all occupants. I noticed ihe lights were clever. However a car was positioned, light entered from every direction.

“Evening, sir. I think we have full complement.”

“You think wrong.”

A list was consulted. “Have you a number, sir?”

“Alhambra one-four-zero, for Christ’s sake. Lovejoy the name. Nicko called it yet? Sheet, I oughta seen Gina and Tye Dee before now —”

“It’s here.” The man glanced at the others, flicked open a thick wallet of photographs, checked one against me, nodded, spoke to the cabbie. “Up the main drag, left, big square annex on your right. Don’t deviate.”

“Got it.”

Two minutes, and I was trying to took casual at the entrance of Revere, having my photograph checked and rechecked, moving into affluent aromas and ascending a staircase out of Elizabeth and Essex with showbiz music accompanying the hubbub of talk.

My scheme included washing hands, smiling at the staff and giving them joke time. Easy to make a show of haste without actually hurrying.

It was one minute to ten when I reached the main gathering. I knew I was going to be the only one not wearing a dinner jacket, and I was right.

I waited, admiring the chandeliers — modern gunge — and the wealthy woe school of dross decor, the sort to impress. There must have been some three hundred people glitzing away, every shade and shape God made. I stood on the landing, ducking and weaving at one side of the entrance as if anxiously looking for my party.

“Lost, sir?” a flunkey asked.

I grinned. “The Game’s my home, man. Alhambra one-four-zero my number.”

“Alhambra? They’re all up front, by the dais. You just made it. Here come the announcements now.”

Nicko was tapping the microphone, Gina—not Jennie—gorgeous beside him. I kept still beside the entrance. There were plenty of people, milling, snatching last-minute drinks, plying others. Excitement was in the air. A band was fading with slight rattles, clashes, trying for their enemy silence.

“Ladies and gentlemen—friends all!” Nicko’s voice had octaved echoes and an after whine. “Welcome to the nineteenth California Game!”

People whooped, applauded, crowded closer round the dais. I could see Jennie, Melodie, Epsilon, Monsignor O’Cody, the Commissioner, Denzie and Sophie. No Moira, no Kelly Palumba. Charlie Sarpi was there, but less good-humoured than the rest. And astonishing me by his presence, tanking on booze and—twice his natural hue of grue, Fatty Jim Bethune of antiques fame.

“We are gathered here—” Nicko paused for the shrill screams of laughter as Monsignor O’Cody waved to acknowledge the applause— “as guests of the Californians, for which our eternal gratitude.”

Applause, whistles, yells, jokes. Nicko stayed the congratulatory riot. He was a consummate crowd-handler. Should have been a policeman, I thought wrily. My heart was thumping, blood shushing my ears.

“As last year’s winners, we poverty-stricken New Yorkers will —”

Pandemonium, ladies stamping the floor and screeching, their men howling affable insults.

“—Will lead. All sectors have already nominated their players. Observers in the galleries as usual, please. Ladies and gentlemen—the Game’s on! Go go go!”

The elegant throng crushed the far exits. Two, beside the central dais. I hung back, finding my mark. They were an intense, less than jubilant, cluster of half a dozen who didn’t scrum forward with quite the same rapture. I strolled up, grabbed a wine from a side counter, but only after checking the half-dozen wall bars were free of Manhattan familiars.

“Don’t you Californians praise your traffic to me ever again!” I exclaimed, grinning at a woman shut into a mass of emerald slab silk. Her jewellery was dazzling, but not antique.

“Had difficulty?” She wasn’t into the group discussion. I’d seen her eagerness to roam. Women love a party because excitement rules within bounds that they can change any time. “We’re Florida, incidentally. Jane Elsmeer.”

“Raising the ante?” I chuckled, took a swig. “Tell your friends to throw in the towel. Lovejoy’s the name.”

“Hi. You’re confident.” Her eyelashes batted. I nearly had to lean into the wind they created.

“You’re exquisite, but I fear for your bank balance.” We were all drifting down the room as the crush lessened and the crowd thinned through the exits. “We got over twenty times our last year’s gelt.” I smiled into her astonishment. “That do you?” I took her arm. “Jane, honey. I’ll see you don’t starve, okay? Come to Lovejoy. Nicko’s got my number.” I chuckled, squeezed her hand.

“Twenty?” She glanced over to her people, still debating. “Is that possible?”

I said soulfully, “With eyes like yours, Jane, I’ll let you hear more any time.”

Her hand held me back. “No stake’s more than double, is it? I didn’t really listen to the announcement, but —”

“Difference between two and twenty’s zero, right?” I laughed. Ushers were begging us tardies to move into the Game arena. “Twenty, God’s truth. See you in there, Jane.”

I strolled down the emptying salon, nodding and saying hi to barmen and generally being a pest. I hoped I’d done enough.

In a mirror I saw Jane Elsmeer talking to her Florida syndicate. They were shooting looks my way. I did my act with another glass, and was almost last in. But not quite last. One of the Floridans hung back even more, and made sure he was standing immediately behind me at the last second, as the doors closed on the gloaming of the Game.

AN AQUARIUM. Not really, but like that.

We, the watching crowd, were rimmed round a glass-enclosed balcony. Down below, a boarded arena with one great central table covered in green baize. It was oddly reminiscent of a snooker championship, except with the audience arranged in sloping crystal. We were in semi-darkness. The arena below was brilliantly lit.

Our gallery ran the full circumference. It was difficult to see the faces of the crowd though I searched among them for the Manhattan lot. Glad of the gloom, I edged along, casual pace by casual pace. Happier still to see the avid concentration of everybody staring down into the Game arena.

It was cleverer than I realized at first. The table’s wide surface could be seen from every position in the gallery.

Below, Nicko was chatting to three blokes, all as important, all as cool. Power emanated from their stances. One was so fat he should have been a joke. Except for his stillness you’d have passed him over without a thought. But creatures aren’t stationary. Nature says move, a sign of life. So we fidget, shuffle, cough in church, look round when the movie hits a dull stretch, try not to yawn when our loved one’s going on and on about her damned row with that parking attendant.

Except this bloke stood. You could have drawn round him in a gale, he was so static. Which is another way of saying he was a hunter. Fat, okay. Nobody taking much notice of him, okay too. But he was the frightener. The man.

“Okay everybody!” Nicko’s voice on some concealed intercom made me jump a mile. Everybody else started buzzing with expectation. “Here’s Vermilio!”

The crowd applauded, which was a bit daft, seeing the arena people couldn’t hear us, though we could hear them. The immense rotund man spoke into a microphone, a surprisingly high voice.

“The successful stakers are the following teams: Alhambra of New York, automatic entrants as last year’s winner.”

The crowd fell silent. I saw a couple of birds near me cross their fingers. We’d all gone quiet. Nobody strolling or pairing off now.

“Renaissance from Chicago. The New Miners from Houston, Texas—is that name for real? Will somebody ask Harry? The Strollers, Philadelphia. The Governors, Washington DC…”

Ten groups had bought places. The names were greeted with stifled exclamations, cries quickly shushed by others hanging on Vermilio’s every syllable. I was enthralled. Somebody nearby was sobbing, whispering about an appeal, third year lock-out and —

“… and last the Dawnbusters of Hawaii!”

Hubbub rose. People congratulated people. Some dissolved in relief. Women squealed more ecstasy than the men. Down in the lit arena Vermilio handed over to a bloke in a plum tuxedo, who began to intone lists of figures for each of the teams Vermilio had announced. Nobody took much notice, though I saw the Florida folk, Jane Elsmeer among them, frozen at one of the panes, storing down with a terrible intensity. I eyed the signed exits, hoping I could make it if it came to a dash.

“The grand total staked on this year’s Game is the highest ever.” The plum-coated bloke raised his pitch by way of bliss, surely the accountant. “It is two point oh nine times last year’s in absolute dollars, ladies and gentlemen!”

The applause was general and heartfelt. I applauded along, smiling absently. People were muttering with some urgency near Jane Elsmeer. I edged nearer the window, apologizing to a lady whose scarlet sheath dress lacked only a Canterbury Cross in gold—even a Regency copy of the Anglo-Saxon would have done.

“You get in?” she asked.

I tore my eyes from her dress. “Oh, I’m an Alhambran,” I said. “I upped our stake twenty-fold. I like your dress, love. Have you thought of combining it with a simpler brooch? I know those Cartiers are fashionable, but a genuine antique —”

She had to amputate herself away from this guff with a low excuse, whispered something to her man. I caught, “… Alhambra’s the Aquilinas, right?” before she smiled, returned to collect more admiration.

The talk round the Floridans was causing some attention.

“Are you particularly interested in old jewellery?” she asked, taking hold with a gamekeeper’s grip.

“My life’s first and only lovelust,” I told her pleasantly. “Though if I’d met you earlier I’d revise my career moves. Hardly any woman can wear genuine antique gems, love. It’s a delight to find one who has the class.”

Not true, of course. Antique jewellery draws any woman’s glory. God knows why they buy expensive modern crud, when antique decoratives are cheaper. It always amazes me —

He saw me. Across the arena, in through the sloping tinted glass opposite, Fatty Jim Bethune saw me. The growing noise, now practically arguments, round the Floridans was attracting attention. It had attracted his.

I waved, smiling. No good shouting round the balcony, but the arena lighting struck upwards, picking those faces nearest the glass.

“It’s him,” Jane Elsmeer was saying, closing. She had a woman’s second dearest wish, total attention. People were following.

“Hello, Jane,” I said. “Do you get to play?”

“Lovejoy. Upped by twenty. He told me.”

“At least that,” I said modestly. “Though I can’t claim to be in on the totalizations finalizationwise —”

And that was that. My feet hardly touched the ground.

THE room felt like a medieval Inquisition chamber. Some houses, even rooms, have an aura as if evil intentions were ingrained by a malevolent hand. In fact, it was to guard against such forces that ancient builders buried holy relics—and sometimes the architect —in the walls. Still done today, except we make polite social occasions of laying the foundation stone.

The man Vermilio watched me come. He was standing by a desk. He was the only bloke I’d ever seen not use a desk for extra authority. The plum-tuxedo accountant was beside him. Nicko was there, staring ominously past me.

Plus a line of goons standing along the panelled walling. Everybody looked at me.

“Lovejoy, huh?”

“Yes.” I advanced, smiling, hand outstretched. “I don’t believe I’ve had the —”

I was stopped by a gesture. “No games, Lovejoy. Talk.”

“What about?” I waited, asked Nicko anxiously, “Nothing wrong, Nicko, is there? I did everything you said. ”

“Mr Vermilio wants that you tell him what you told the Elsmeer broad.” The plum-tuxedo man said the words with an accountant’s terrible pedantry. People come, people go, accounts go on for ever.

“Mrs. Elsmeer? We were talking about the Game. She said she hoped they’d get in, their stake was special. I said ours was twenty times up on last year’s, so we were sure to play.”

“Twenty.” Vermilio sounded like asking for a gun. “Coats?”

“Nicko declared a little over twice last year’s stake for his Alhambra team, Vermilio.” Coats might well be an exploited nickname, heady stuff for an accountant. Except maybe he wasn’t just an accountant.

“I can explain, Vermilio, Coats.” Nicko spread his hands in appeasement. “This guy’s new in. We employed him to see if he could increase the contribution from antiques. He failed.” He smiled, calm personified. “We got Jim Bethune back instead.”

“But Nicko,” I exclaimed, indignant. “Mr Bethune’s figures were less than a twentieth of —”

“He’s a blusterer, Vermilio,” Nicko said. “We had to give him a try. But he couldn’t deliver —”

“I got the concession from Mangold’s auctioneers like I promised, Nicko!” Nicko tried to interrupt, but Vermilio silenced him by a look. “The percentage from Mortdex. God, Nicko. The hack from Louisiana alone is over three times what you had from all the art markets last year! The hacks from Maynooth, Gullenbenkian, bring it at least to eighteen times Bethune’s figures —”

“He’s insane, Vermilio. It can’t be done.”

Nicko was green. His eyes did their laser trick directly into me. I didn’t care. I was suddenly immune. Once a threat is diluted, it might as well go all the way.

“Let’s hear it.”

Vermilio stayed on his feet. Coats called in several tuxedo people from outside. They sat around me in a circle to listen. I was made to talk. The line of goons against the panelling didn’t move. Nicko stood beside Vermilio while I spoke quietly to show I wasn’t a madman.

“I was working in a bar,” I began. “I fancied a few antique items worn by a customer. Her sister noticed my interest, guessed I was able to recognize genuine antiques by instinct. It’s called being a divvy. Nicko Aquilina came to hear of me, took me on his payroll. I investigated Jim Bethune’s antiques firm in Manhattan. It was a front for fraud —”

“Fraud’s essential in the California Game, Lovejoy.” Coats, in reprimand. I didn’t respond. Let him dig my trench for me. “All our stakes are hacks.”

“It’s not fraud,” I said quietly. “It’s fair, legit legal.”

Coats was irritated, challenged on his own ground.

“You heard the announcement. Washington stakes an extra half billion this year, hacked from the Irish illegal immigrant levy. Houston, Texas, cuts in the same from the environment lobby. Hawaii brings in a new billion from glass pipes—very promising, now ice-crack’s on the mainland here. Chicago’s brung another half billion from Pentagon hacks —”

“Dull, dull,” somebody muttered. “What’s new? It shoulda been new.”

“Like fuckin’ Philly, uh?” somebody in a gaudy polka-dot bow tie shot back. The listeners brightened. I did, with the realization I was relatively small fry among this lot. “Still workin’ the fuckin’ Panama Bahama dirty dollar shunt? Jeech!”

“Atlanta’s new,” a smooth smiler put in conversationally. “Except a World Soccer Cup stadium hack only works one time. Once the stadium’s been built all over the fuckin’s place, that’s it, though maybe next time —”

“Lovejoy?” from Vermilio.

They shut up. I was back in the limelight. “Mine isn’t fraud. It’s legit.” My attempt at snappy speech was pathetic.

“Your antiques hack is legitimate?” Coats looked for help.

“Ring Mangold. Ask him if he’s agreed to chip in a percentage of the shifted auctions. Nothing illegal there, by any country’s laws. Check Gullenbenkian. It’s legit. Check that Maynooth’s input’s legal. Ask Verbane if the Mortdex contribution’s legal or not.” I waxed indignant, almost believing me myself. “That’s what I told Nicko, didn’t I, Nicko? And Jennie. Ask Tye Dee. He’ll tell you. He was with me all through when I arranged them. He’s got witnesses. I’ve a list of hotels, bedroom reservations.”

I was moving about, pleading for antiques now, not for me.

“The trouble is, people like you come to think of antiques as a commodity. They’re not. They’re people, the best things on earth. Can’t you see that, played right, the antiques world can chip in as much as the rest of an entire stake? Nicko’ll tell you. I worked it all out for him weeks ago —”

“A legit hack?” Coats almost reeled. “There’s no such thing.” He looked at the Atlanta man, appealed, “The World Cup building programme—the hack was twelve per cent of total. Massive!”

“I don’t like the word hack,” I protested. “Or fraud.”

Vermilio pondered massively. “Check his numbers,” he said. “Nicko? He’s right, you’re wrong, okay?”

“Sure.”

“It looks like the Alhambra stakers tried it on,” Coats the accountant said. “Risking less’n they hacked. Should they lose, they keep mosta the hack. If they win, then nice for them.”

Vermilio smiled, like a mountain parting to show worse mountains in the interior. “Compensation,” he announced. “A bet. Nicko’s on the line. He wins, he keeps his ass. He loses…”

The meeting dissolved in whoops and an exchange of bets. I looked at Nicko, but received nothing. He knew only what I knew. I was pouring sweat too, and the air conditioning was at maximum chill.

FARO’S said to be the oldest card game ever.

You pick a card, and chuck away the rest of that pack. Then you take a new pack, and deal into two piles. If the matching card falls into one pile, you win, If in the other, you lose.

Money, usually. Life, in Nicko’s case.

The Alhambra crowd assembled in silence away from the exit signs, when finally the galleries were crowded and rumours had settled into a steady hum of hatred. I’d tried to say hi there to Jane Elsmeer, but she’d managed nothing more than a reflex twitch of the lips. I’d even smiled at the scarlet lady to no avail.

“Play ball!” somebody called. I wish they’d warned us. I came slowly down to the deep russet pile, heart banging enough to shake me.

“The Alhambra syndicate, first. Nicko Aquilina plays.”

A girl was at the green, placing decks of cards. People were examining them, all watched by Vermilio and Coats. The scrutineers nodded, talking as if everything was normal.

“We go first, eh?” I asked a man craning next to me.

“You an Alhambra?” he asked through the artificial dusk, staring. “Good luck.”

Why did I need luck, for heaven’s sake? I’d done the decent thing, revealed the truth about my scams, told Vermilio how everything worked when I was asked. No. It was Nicko, Gina, the rest who were for the high jump if Nicko lost. Tough luck. But I’d soon be out of here… Wouldn’t I? Vermilio had said Nicko, not me.

Suddenly I wanted Nicko to win. Not because my throat was slate dry, no. And honestly not because I felt faint at the thought of the terrible crime that would be committed on him if he didn’t win. But we’d been, if not quite friends, sort of acquaintances who’d done each other no real harm, and I’d quite enjoyed my stay in America after all, lovely country and everything —

“Ten of diamonds is Alhambra’s card.”

Nicko placed the card face up for all us watchers to see. Coats nodded to the girl, who slowly started dealing her pack, one card to her left, another to her right. People murmured. I swallowed, trying tiptoes to see over heads. Word had spread that more hinged on this result than mere money, crime.

“Your win,” she said. Jack of clubs.

“My win.” Three of hearts.

“Your win.” Ace of spades, to a swell of talk swiftly muted. People near me made superstitious gestures.

“My win.” A four, clubs.

Fingers sometimes do their own thing. Mine were trying hard to grasp hold of my palms, hoping for a heavenly ladder.

“Your win. Game over!”

The babble erupted, me whimpering what was it, who’d won, was it—?

“Lucky,” the man grinned with gold teeth at me. I could have throttled him.

The crowd relaxed, talking, betting, swapping predictions. I pressed through to glimpse Nicko stepping back, taking his place in the line-up as the next player stepped up. God, but he was cool, that Nicko. I saw Gina’s expression across the arena fishbowl. Waxen, a million years old. Where was Sophie Brandau? I’d not seen her since I’d arrived. And Kelly Palumba, lucky in her addiction to be out of this. Monsignor O’Cody was grey, talking intently with three grave-suited men, explaining his innocence in everything, the way of all religious leaders.

“Philadelphia to play. Frank Valera the nominee.”

We—Nicko, I mean—were safe for the rest of this round. I didn’t listen. All I wanted now was for the rest to lose first round, and Nicko’d be clear. I went to ask for a drink. The door goon wouldn’t let me out until the whole first round had been played all through. Then he allowed me into the grand salon, where a good-humoured barkeep poured me lemonade, asking if I’d won much so far. They all wished me luck as I re-entered. The pillocks thought it was routine gambling.

Start of the second round. I asked people in the semi-darkness who was still in, got told to shush. Nicko was just stepping up to pluck the marker card, as the girl’s new pack was shuffled in. We —no, he —wanted the seven of spades this time.

He made it with only five cards remaining. I collapsed with relief. He had the cool to smile at Vermilio as he withdrew without a wobble. I was almost fainting with fear, my suspicion hardening that maybe Nicko’s fate would also be mine. I wanted to ask the man with the gold teeth why he’d called me lucky. It was Nicko who was up for the chop, wasn’t it?

People were whispering all round the gallery now. There’s something about terror that stimulates. The women were panting, the men steaming with heat. Passion was king. The place felt humid, as tropical outside as in. Hands were moving. Suggestions were being whispered. I heard some woman groan a soft Oh God, pure desire. A lecher’s dream. It happens in cockfights, some sudden lust blamming your mind from nowhere.

By taking hold of people I learned that four had lost in the first round. I stood as if stunned. Gina’s face had gone. Instead, Fatty Jim Bethune’s stared down beside that of Monsignor O’Cody. His lips were moving. A prayer, even? I was tempted to walk round the glass gallery, stand with them, maybe ask Gina where was Sophie, decided I didn’t want to be with a load of losers, and stood shaking while the cards were shuffled. I wanted the dealer girl, now a lovely dark lass who’d removed all her rings, to fall down in a palsy, anything to stop the cards coming.

Six remaining for the second round. Two more lost while I watched and had to forfeit their stakes. People had calculators out, clicking and tapping, in that terrible tide of whispering, the heat impossible.

“Third round,” the caller announced. “Alhambra, Nicko Aquilina.”

The door was just closing. I made it to the salon, asked for some grub, went to the kitchen, following its noises.

My voice had almost gone. I was drenched, sopping and unwholesome, wet running down my nape, my thatch of hair plastered down twenties style. A bloke suffering from super-nourishment among the trays and gleaming steel surfaces shouted for assistants, and I was brought a plate of genuine American food, meaning it was bigger than me. I asked could I sit in the air, and they let me through.

It was coolish out on the kitchen step. I sat, noshing. Nicko was up there in the Game, his awful stare now no use. Everything hinged on the turn of a card his way. Or not. I looked out into the night. Sophie, Rose Hawkins, that sister of hers. The ambitions of Sophie’s husband Denzie, consummate politician. And the reason they—okay, so Hirschman gave the word—tried to have me killed in New Orleans. And Bill’s death. Sokolowsky. And the hotel fire. And upstairs in that enclosed arena of green baize Nicko was even now winning. Or losing. What was the statistical chance, one in four? Racing punters say there’s no way to win above two to one.

Behind me the kitchen clattered in its steam. Hideous places, kitchens. The kitchen had gas. Gas from cylinders. I left my plate, stepped out. Two dogs loped by, black and straining. I called a hi to the dog handler.

“Lovely animals,” I called.

“Bastards,” he grunted, jerking and pulling.

God, but dogs can look malevolent. A muted roar wafted out into the night. I almost collapsed. Nicko’s win, or loss? The card could fall only one way, no inbetween.

Cylinders. I’d nothing to light anything with, and they were huge great things, shining with dull reflections from the floodlights of the Revere’s facade. It was eerie, a waiting film set. Movie memories. I shook. Maybe I was coming down with something. Worse, maybe I wasn’t, and reality was knifing my soul.

Another guard walked by, coated in red plaid, a hunter’s nebbed cap showing for a second against the lake’s distant gleam, his boots scuffing gravel. I called a hi there, got a grunt as he passed. Maybe I’d sounded drunk enough. I’d tried.

Seven cylinders, two already tubed into the wall below the noisy kitchen’s half-open windows. Each cylinder had a pale panel, presumably warning of calamities that could ensue if you didn’t watch out. I’ve always been frightened of these damned things. I once saw an accident at school. A cylinder had fallen sideways, being unloaded from a lorry, the valve striking against a kerb and popping off a hundred feet into the air. The oxygen cylinder had shooshed along the ground like a torpedo, smashing through the school wall, miraculously missing us little pests standing frozen to the spot. Nobody had been injured. We’d thought it wonderful, especially as the white-faced science teacher sent us all home for the day.

If Nicko’d lost, they’d come looking for me. I reached, unscrewed each of the two connecting nuts until I could hear an ugly hissing sound from the valve. I wanted a long, slow leak. I went along the row of cylinders and did the same. It’s gambling people who are supposed to like fear. I’m not one. My arms were almost uncontrollable by the time I’d done the last. I stood there, legs trembling. Was this liquid gas fuel lighter than air once it vaporized? Did it just float up, to give some future astronaut a fright when he lit his fag in the stratosphere? Or did it sink low and lie on the ground like a marsh miasma? I’d vaguely heard that was what frightened our ancients, when marsh gases lit spontaneously, their sinister blue flames flickering along the roadside swamps and scaring travellers to death. If the latter, I was standing here being gassed, risking being blown to blazes. A stray spark from the kitchen window could set the gas ball off.

I returned the chef’s plate, said it was the best nosh I’d had since my wedding, and scarpered back to the salon.

To see a few men and women emerging for a smoke and a drink. They stayed clustered by the doors to the gallery, not to miss the call.

“It’s the last play,” a woman told me when I asked. “Nicko Aquilina’s on the line this time! Him and L.A. are left in.”

She was drooling, kept taking my arm. Everybody was thrilled, breathing fast, loving it.

“It’s thrilling, hon,” she told me huskily. “Know what I mean?”

“Sure do,” I said. I lit her cigarette for her. “I’m so excited I just can’t tell you. You here with somebody? I’m Lovejoy.”

“My husband.” She hid her scorn so only most of it showed. Her head inclined and her lips thinned. “I’m Elise Shepherd.” A suave man, cuffs glittering with diamond links. Ramon Navarro from some old black-and-whiter. Odd how many here were lookalikes of the famous. Something in the California air?

There was something else in the air.

“Pity,” I said quietly, squeezing her arm. “Elise, love. I’ve watched you since I arrived.” I made sure Ramon Navarro was making headway with a slender bird sequined in turquoise.

“You have?” She squeezed my arm, glancing, weighing opportunities. Somebody caught her rapid scan, waved. She hallooed, trilled fingers.

“Is there nowhere we could go for the last round and… ?”

“Yes?” Her tongue idled along her upper lip.

“And enjoy each other’s company?”

“God, no. I might be able to… No, that wouldn’t work. Bar-ney’d miss me, the bastard.”

An announcer called the restart. I kept hold of her, desperately needing camouflage. She interpreted my fright as passionate desire, which it was.

“There’s a corridor round the gallery,” she said quickly, as we all began to move and talk rose excitedly. Some silly old sod told me this was the most exciting time he’d ever experienced. I could have hit him.

“Where, for Christ’s sake?” I could have clouted her too.

A smile flitted across her mouth. “You’re a tiger, hon. Door to the right. We could hear the calls from out there, while…”

“See you there. Hurry, darling.”

The goon standing at the gallery entrance had seen me talking with the woman. I winked. He raised his eyebrows, knowing the score. I walked through the corridor door, leaving the gallery entrance.

The corridor was empty. Wide, dark maroon velvet walls, gilded statues with lamps simulating old torches in frosted glass. Pathetic. Twice the price of genuine antique lanterns. Designers are unbelievable. I walked slowly down the corridor, counting steps, hearing the faint hubbub inside. The corridor curved round the gallery. Windows, closed against the thick night’s slushy aromatic air, were serried round the curved walls. Ornate, with alcoves every ten yards, plush double seats trying to look Regency.

Except there was a goon, standing against an inner wall. And another beyond him. They’d thought of everything, our Malibu hosts. I walked, nodding as I passed the first. The second was twenty yards further on.

Hurry Elise, you lazy cow. Where the hell was she?

She was coming to meet me at a trot, somehow having escaped from her husband the other way. I grabbed her, nodded to the goon with a feeble smile. He turned away, walked deliberately back towards the door I’d come through. I crushed her close, squeezing the life out of her, pulling her along the corridor.

“Wait! Here —”

“No, er,” I gasped, trying to rush and reveal deep heartfelt passion. What the hell was her name? “We must have… I can’t wait, darling.”

“This one!”

She tried slowing into another alcove. Luckily it was occupied, a couple twisting sinuously to synchronized gasps. I hauled her, whisper-babbling. A goon turned aside, arms folded. God knows what they were used to.

“Last round, folks!” The announcer’s echo made me whimper.

“Here, darling?”

“Yes, yes!” I flung her down and clawed feverishly at her bodice. Why the hell are their clothes so complicated? You’d think they’d go for simplicity. You can get scarred for life. “I can’t wait, er…” Name? Esme, Ellen? “Darling.”

Directly below us, faint clashes of the kitchen. If I’d had any sense I’d have counted the windows along that side to make absolutely sure, but maybe the dog handlers would have stopped me.

We overtook passion on the outward run, me ripping at her, shoving the dress off her shoulders and scrabbling at her thighs. The more uncontrollable my sheer lust, the more authentic my presence out here in the corridor while the idiot of an announcer called for silence.

“Alhambra’s card, the jack of hearts!”

My mouth was everywhere on Esme, only occasionally meeting hers as we mangled and mauled.

“Don’t mark me, Lovejoy, for God’s sake, honey, no, no —”

“Darling,” I gasped, sprawling over Ella, almost forgetting why I was there in the storm of frenzy. There was no doubt she was gorgeous, a million times more wondrous than any woman I’d ever —

“Alhambra win…!”

Thanks, Heaven, I remembered to say as Emma and I sank into that mutual torment, giving hurt and receiving it, wrestling to deny and abuse. She was openly weeping with delight, mouthing crudities, emitting a guttural chugging cough as we —

“Alhambra lose… Alhambra win…”

Win, Nicko, I thought. At least, I would have thought that if I wasn’t sinking below consciousness as Elsa dragged me in and down and out into space and bliss was enveloping —

“Alhambra lose. Jack of hearts, and Alhambra lose…”

Eh? I slammed into Esta, listened to that reaching hum which followed me, calling desperately for my mind to realize, and do something. I dragged away from Elena with a long wail of deprivation, scrabbled for my jacket which some stupid pillock had cast aside, fumbled, yanked out the cigarette lighter which I’d stuck in the right-hand pocket after lighting the bird’s cigarette and hopped with my pants round my ankles across the corridor towards the window, whimpering with fright and seeing Elsa’s thunderstruck face gaping after.

You can’t open a window with your pants down, nor trying to pull them up. You can’t kick, either. I had my jacket. I wrapped it round my arm, averted my face and slammed the window glass, feeling something maybe give in my elbow. I felt the muggy night air wash in.

“What the—?” somebody along the curved corridor called.

The lighter was a gas thing. I pressed, got light, spun the control for tallest flame, tried to look out and down as a goon hurtled at me, lobbed the thing out onto the cylinders below.

Heat slammed the world, spinning it round. Odd, but all a brain remembers is clatter, clatter, when you find it hard to think what on earth could be clattering, when fire is shooting with a terrible tearing noise and a whole side of a building comes apart with a low screaming sound.

I remember thinking I should have maybe warned Emelda, at least told her what I was planning, but that’s typical for me, because by then something prickly was cramming itself into my face and people were screaming about fire, and a great golden shape was mushrooming out of the darkness nearby as a building crumbled and the hillside spread light and flame as a beacon for the world.