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By Root 1565 0

band: “He’s not in contact with his family back in Lyon because his father kicked him out of the house when he discovered what he did to his younger sister. He lives alone in a room above a bike repair shop. When a mark runs out of cash and tries to stiff the house, they sometimes send Marc around to explain the facts of life. Marc enjoys his work. He prefers to use a cordless hammer-drill with a blunt three-eighths bit. Twice a week he goes and fucks a local whore, if he’s got the money. If he hasn’t got the money, he picks up tourist women looking for a good time: usually he takes their money and leaves their flight vouchers, but twice in the past year he’s taken them for an early morning boat ride, which they probably didn’t appreciate on account of being tied up and out of their skulls on Rohypnol. He’s got an eight-foot dinghy and he knows about a bay out near North Point where some people he doesn’t know by name will pay him good money for single women nobody will miss.” She touches my arm. “Nobody is going to miss him, Bob.”

“You—” I bite my tongue.

“You’re learning.” She smiles tensely. “Another couple of weeks and you might even get it.”

I swallow bile. “Where’s Billington?”

“All in good time,” she croons in a low singsong voice that sends chills up and down my spine. Then she turns towards the baccarat table.

The croupier is shuffling several decks of cards together in the middle of the kidney-shaped table. A half-dozen players and their hangers-on watch with feigned boredom and avaricious eyes: leisure-suit layabouts, two or three gray-haired pensioners, a fellow who looks like a weasel in a dinner jacket, and a woman with a face like a hatchet. I hang back while Ramona explains things in a monotone in the back of my head—it sounds like she’s quoting someone: ★★‘It’s much the same as any other gambling game. The odds against the banker and the player are more or less even. Only a run against either can be decisive and “break the bank” or break the players.’ That’s Ian Fleming, by the way.★★

★★Who, the guy with the face ... ?★★

★★No, the guy I was quoting. He knew his theory but he wasn’t as competent at the practicalities. During the Second World War he ran a scheme to get British agents in neutral ports to gamble their Abwehr rivals into bankruptcy. Didn’t work. And don’t even think about trying that on Billington.★★

The croupier raises a hand and asks who’s holding the bank. Hatchet-Face nods. I look at the pile of chips in front of her. It’s worth twice my department’s annual budget. She doesn’t notice me staring so I look away quickly.

“So how does it go now?” I ask Ramona quietly. She’s scanning the crowd as if looking for an absent friend. She smiles faintly and takes my hand, forcing me to sidle uncomfortably close.

“Make like we’re a couple,” she whispers, still smiling. “Okay, watch carefully. The woman who’s the banker is betting against the other gamblers. She’s got the shoe with six packs of cards in it—shuffled by the croupier and double-checked by everyone else. Witnesses. Anyway, she’s about to—”

Hatchet-Face clears her throat. “Five grand.” There’s a wave of muttering among the other gamblers, then one of the pensioners nods and says, “Five,” pushing a stack of chips forwards.

Ramona: “She opened with a bank of five thousand dollars. That’s what she’s wagering. Blue-Rinse has accepted. If nobody accepted on their own, they could club together until they match the five thousand between them.”

“Ri-ight.” I frown, staring at the chips. Laundry pay scales are British civil service level—if I didn’t have the subsidized safe house, or if Mo wasn’t working, we wouldn’t be able to afford to live comfortably in London. What’s already on the table is about a month’s gross income for both of us, and this is just the opening round. Suddenly I feel very cold and exposed. I’m out of my depth here.

Hatchet-Face deals four cards from the shoe, laying two of them facedown in front of Blue-Rinse, and the other two cards in front of herself. Blue-Rinse picks her cards up and looks at them, then lays