They Thought I Was Dead: Sandy’s Story

26 22 July 2007 — Looking back

Two days later, at 2 p.m., I was back at the Casino d’Azur. It gave me the greatest pleasure to walk up to the cashier who had not that long ago told me my credit card had been declined. Now, using some of my inheritance, sliding £5,000 in cash — fifty-pound notes — across the counter, I told her the denominations of the chips I wanted.

I headed with my stash over to a roulette table with no punters, and an even more bored-looking than usual croupier. He looked a little like Clive Owen in the movie Croupier, but without the good looks or charm. His bow tie was wonky, he had a dusting of dandruff snow on the collar and shoulders of his tuxedo and he wore a watch that looked as cheap as it did flashy. I can remember him so clearly and yet he barely even acknowledged me, I could have been air.

I perched on a stool, carefully stacked my chips on the baize at the edge of the table. Six piles of red, black and purple chips, each with a black-and-white chequered rim. The red were £5, the black £25 and the purple £100. I was so nervous. I needed this to come good today, I really needed it.

Before placing any bets, I watched him set that wheel spinning slowly, then flick the ball. Rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle. Silence. The ball nestled in black 28. He spun again. Red 19. Both numbers were within a close arc around zero. The next was way off target — if zero was his target — black 24, on the far side of the wheel. But then the next was red 3, just one number away from green zero.

And the next was black 15, just one number away from zero again, this time on the other side of the wheel. Shit, this guy was good!

I waited for another throw.

Red 32. This number was adjoining zero!

He had his eye in, for sure. But, if I placed a bet, would the sly bastard still continue on his bored strategy or change it, to beat me?

I placed a tentative, fairly low opening bet, covering several numbers either side of the wheel. One hundred pounds in total. And one came up! But I’d gone for low odds, so my winnings weren’t huge — my stake back and a net gain of thirty quid. But an encouraging start.

The croupier was on autopilot as he pushed a purple, black and single red chip towards me, his mind was somewhere else altogether, and from his expression it wasn’t anywhere great.

Then, as I contemplated my next bets, I was conscious of someone joining me at the table. For a moment I thought it was the Chinese man, but when I glanced up, I saw a man I wouldn’t normally have bothered to look at twice — at first. He had a tattoo of a serpent rising up above the collar of his pink shirt. I’ve never gone for men or women with overtly visible tattoos, I can’t explain why, but I’ve always found them a turn-off.

Tattoo man wasn’t in any way pretty boy movie star or catwalk handsome. He was swarthy — Greek, I guessed — correctly, it turned out. But there was something attractive about him — he had a presence. He exuded confidence in the way he moved, the way he sat and placed his stack of chips on the table and the way he turned and nodded at me with an amiable smile. ‘Nice win,’ he said, with a slight accent. He looked like he owned the place. He was the kind of man who would always look like he owned whatever place he was in. And, as he fixed his hooded, brooding eyes on mine, he looked, for an instant, like he even owned me.

It occurred to me he might be one of Albazi’s henchmen. But he looked too classy. An expensive, lightweight bomber jacket over chinos, and a gorgeous Hublot watch — I only knew the brand because Roy had always liked their designs, but they were way above what I could afford to buy him. His dark brown hair was short, but not quite close-cropped. He smelled faintly of a very masculine fragrance.

I shook my head, eyeing the mountain of chips he had in front of him. ‘I should have put down more.’

He shrugged and spread a bunch of chips over several numbers just before the croupier intoned in a small voice, ‘No more bets.’

The ball came to a halt between the frets either side of the number 4. One of his bets — a purple, one-hundred-pound chip — lay smack in the middle of the number. Netting him a gross £3,600.

‘Nice one,’ I said, as the croupier began stacking his winnings.

He shrugged again and held out his hand. ‘I’m Nicos.’

‘Sandy,’ I said, shaking it.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asked. He again spread a bunch of chips across the roulette board, before turning back to me.

‘What does it look like?’ I replied.

‘Is anything what it looks like?’

‘You sound like my husband,’ I replied. ‘He has a very irritating habit of answering a question with a question.’

‘Is he a cop?’

That knocked the wind out of me. ‘Why do you say that?’

He shrugged again, his powerful-looking shoulders. ‘Takes one to recognize one.’

That instantly made me wary. ‘You’re a police officer?’

‘Was.’

‘Here in Sussex?’

He shook his head. ‘In Greece.’

‘OK.’ I frowned. ‘So, from the few words we’ve exchanged, you’ve come to the conclusion my husband’s a police officer?’

‘A detective,’ he said. ‘Who probably doesn’t know his wife has a gambling habit.’ He smiled and stared even harder at me. ‘What else does he not know?’

I don’t know why I said it — it was completely reckless. But I felt safe with this guy. ‘I guess...’ I hesitated for a moment. ‘I guess he doesn’t know I’m not working on my marriage.’

He barely showed any reaction. ‘It wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out, Sandy.’

I saw him glance at my wedding ring. And noticed he wasn’t wearing one. The roulette wheel was rattling slowly across the frets.

It stopped at black 31. Where he had two purple chips.

‘You’re on a roll!’ I told him.

‘Maybe. So far so good. But if you stand by the roulette wheel for long enough, all your chips will eventually disappear into the casino’s bank.’

‘So why are you doing this?’ I asked as he spread even more chips over an array of numbers.

‘Why? Because I’m laundering money,’ he said, nonchalantly.

‘What do you mean, laundering money?’

‘Hiding it from the Inland Revenue, Sandy. I play the arc — it’s a roulette strategy where I’ll lose around three per cent of my money, if I play for long enough. But no one in the Revenue will have any way of finding out how much I’ve bet and how much I’ve lost.’

For some moments, I thought this hunk was crazy. ‘What business are you in that you need to hide — launder — money, Nicos?’

‘Zero!’ the croupier announced.

Brazenly, without lowering his voice, and without a trace of disappointment as the croupier cleared away all his chips on this losing throw of the wheel, he replied, ‘I’m a drug dealer.’