Nothing Sacred (6 page)

‘Yes,' he said, blinking his way back to the here and now. ‘What about him?'

‘Looking for him.'

‘You said. And like I said, he was in earlier. Won big.' He paused, reconsidered. ‘Well, won.'

‘Know where he is now?'

For the first time the man showed some animation. He took his glasses off, rubbed them on his diamond-checked sweater. ‘How the hell'd I know that?'

Fine. I'd had enough; seen the inside of enough bookies, tasted enough of Ryan Lowrie's tawdry life. I'd told Vick I'd help, but everybody has a limit. I nodded, turned to go, put a hand on the aluminium handle of the glass door.

‘I'd hope he'd spend it wisely,' the man said to my back. ‘Pay some people back. What he owes.'

I turned and the man pinched the bridge of his nose, a sad gesture. ‘But people like Ryan…' He sniffed. ‘It was me, I'd be trying the casino.'

I have never been to Monte Carlo but once with my previous lawyers' firm we had flown by private jet to Le Touquet, a well-to-do holiday resort in northern France and a weekend destination of choice for high-rolling Parisians. The casinos there had been everything I had expected and more: hushed, dark, swaddled in rich velvet, served by noiseless waiters and ministered by female croupiers in black dresses and gorgeous diamonds provided nightly by the management. One of the managing partners of my firm had lost £10,000 on one spin of the roulette wheel, laughed, bought everybody Champagne. Easy come, easy go.

My local casino had little in common with those places. Two huge Eastern European men gave me the once-over before unhooking a scruffy velvet rope and letting me into a black-painted lobby where a middle-aged woman in a nylon shirt asked me for ten pounds just to get in. I handed it over and pushed through double doors that shared a wire-reinforced glass circle.

Whoever claims that casinos are places of glamour and excitement should visit the Four Aces. I followed luridly carpeted steps down onto the floor of the casino, lights up too bright, I assumed so that the management could better keep an eye on the clientele who were, at first glance, anything but high-rolling. Middle-aged men in coats and plastic shoes played one-armed bandits mechanically, like technicians operating machines at the end of a sixteen-hour shift. Past them, croupiers and gamblers put down cards and raked in chips at tables as if they were in a hurry; a hurry to get to the end of a hand, to get the bad news over with. There was an undercurrent of desperation, an absence of joy: people were here not out of choice but compulsion or the lack of any other plausible means of making money.

I did not see Ryan on the casino floor but at the other side of the room was another flight of stairs leading up to a mezzanine. I passed blue baize tables, the smell of sweat and dismal drone of conversation, and walked up. At the top were more tables but here the lights were lower and it was quieter. There was a bar along one wall with backlit optics and a barman who looked up when I appeared. The players were better dressed and played with an intentness which suggested that up here there was more at stake than disappointment.

I went to the bar and ordered a gin and tonic and when it arrived I looked over the tables and the players. I recognised a couple of faces, one an acquaintance of my father's who had done time for importing drugs, I could no longer remember what or how. On a table to my left, next to the balcony overlooking the main floor, I could see Ryan. He was playing poker and there was a stack of chips next to his elbow. There were four other players at the table, facing a pretty croupier who was too good for this place and looked like she knew it. Ryan's stack was higher than theirs. Clearly, the luck he'd enjoyed earlier had continued to the poker table.

Now I had found him I could only wait for him to get bored or run out of money. From what I knew of compulsive gamblers, I'd better hope he ran out of money soon, or I could be waiting a long time.

‘You want another?' the barman asked me, arms resting over the bar, both of us watching the action, or what there was of it.

‘No,' I said. ‘That Ryan Lowrie?'

‘Might be,' he said, cagey. ‘Why d'you want him?'

Why did everybody ask that? ‘Personal.'

‘That's him,' the barman said. ‘But…'

‘Yes?'

‘Nothing,' the barman said and turned around, arranged bottles. I sat in silence and drank, watched Ryan push a stack of chips across the table, watched the croupier rake more chips back to him. His luck had not run out yet, or his money. I signalled the barman over.

‘Do coffee?'

The barman did not answer, just smiled at the absurdity of my question. ‘You know him?' he asked me, nodding over at Ryan.

‘Kind of.'

‘Listen…' He hesitated.

‘Yes?'

‘Just, he's damaged goods. Stay clear. 'Specially in here.'

‘Owe money?'

The barman nodded. ‘In here, it's not what you might call… It ain't exactly Vegas, know what I mean?'

‘No.'

‘Put it like this. Ain't the management running this place. Not really.'

‘Right,' I said, but then his face closed up and he turned away, went back to arranging bottles on the backlit ledge behind the bar. I looked around. At the top of the stairs two men had arrived. They did not look British: too dark, stubble too thick, black leather jackets and jeans, trainers, fashion sense of the Eastern Bloc. They looked around and saw Ryan, walked towards him.

‘Friends of yours?' I said to the barman.

He turned back to me, half smiled, something apologetic. He did not want to get involved. He was probably making the minimum wage; I could hardly blame him. One of the men walked to Ryan's table, bent down to him, said something in his ear. Ryan listened, nodded slowly. He slid a chip over to the croupier, said something. She smiled back nervously. Ryan stood up and the man picked up his chips, had to use two hands. Ryan walked towards me, didn't notice me. At the table, the man leaned over, said something to the croupier. She picked up the chip Ryan had slid to her. Put it in the man's hands. He turned to follow Ryan. The table watched him go. I had seen enough. I downed my drink and headed back down the stairs, didn't look back.

I had parked behind the casino and by the time I had got to my car and pulled around in front of the building, Ryan was coming down the front steps, the two dark-haired men each side of him. I stopped, left the engine running. Got out, walked around the car onto the pavement.

‘Get in,' I said to Ryan.

He looked at me, took a second to register who I was. Frowned, confused.

‘Danny?'

‘Who are you?' one of the men asked. He was in his early thirties, short, solid.

I did not answer. ‘Get in,' I said again to Ryan.

Ryan moved to go and the other man put his hand on Ryan's arm.

‘Let him go,' I said.

Both men looked at me. Both were smaller than me but their attitude and eyes were all purpose and aggression. I did not know where they were from. But wherever it was, I accepted as a given that they had seen more than me. Done more. Done worse, far worse.

But ultimately that was mere hoodoo. The fact was that I was bigger than them. We were on a busy street. Some things were worth it. Looking at Ryan, his bowed head and cheap jacket, I could not imagine that he was. Not to these men. The man holding Ryan let go and I backed up around my car, stood at the door.

‘Get in,' I said one more time. Ryan opened the door, slipped swiftly inside like a scolded schoolboy. I lowered myself in, closed the door. Hit the locks and pulled away. In my rear-view mirror, the two men watched me until I turned a corner and disappeared.

I pulled up in the car park of a pub and killed the engine. Ryan had not said a word since I had driven away from the casino. Just looked out of the window, occasionally said something to himself in a whisper I could not hear. I had now been looking for him for hours. He was an absent father, a failed husband, a compulsive gambler. It may not have been fair, but looking at him I could feel nothing but contempt.

‘Who were they?' I said.

‘People I owe money to.'

‘Gambling?'

Ryan laughed, didn't smile. ‘D'you think?'

‘What were they, Albanian?'

‘How'd I know? Who cares?'

‘Ryan? I just saved you from a beating or worse. You want to tell me what's going on?'

He took a breath, put a fist against the car window. Turned to me. ‘What, four nights ago? I burn out at poker, lose it all. This woman next to me, gorgeous, says, “You want to borrow some chips?” Like, she's beautiful and she's letting me gamble. You know?'

‘Uh-huh.'

‘So I borrow the chips. Four hundred. Lost it like that. Next thing I know one of those guys, tells me I need to pay back double the next day. Double that the next. You can see where that's going.'

I could see. Ryan Lowrie, caught by the oldest trick in the casino. But I had not come to talk about his problems. He was in trouble; that was his worry. If it had only happened four nights ago, it wasn't anything to do with what had been going on with Vick. And she was why I was here. Ryan picked at a nail, sighed.

‘So,' I said. ‘You want to tell me about it?'

Ryan looked at me and there was defiance in his eyes. ‘About what?'

‘What's going on. With Vick, her kids. Your kids.'

‘Search me,' he said.

I had an urge to bounce his head off the dash. ‘You know they're in care, right?'

Ryan closed his eyes, nodded. The light of the car park was yellow and his face looked sickly.

‘So go on,' I said. ‘Why? Why didn't you take them in?'

‘Please. My flat? You seen it?'

‘Know what it's like there? Where they are?'

Again Ryan closed his eyes, for some moments. He shook his head, fast, decisive. ‘Safer where they are.'

‘What's that supposed to mean?'

Ryan reached out a hand, put it on the dash as if to steady himself, though we were going nowhere. ‘Seen me. Life I've got. What kind of security can I give them?'

I watched him in frustration. ‘Look at me,' I said.

Ryan turned to face me. He was breathing hard, though from anger or some other emotion I could not tell.

‘Did you do it?' I said.

‘What?'

‘Sneak in, move the furniture? Play with her mind?' His face had turned blank. I thought of Vick, could not help but twist the knife, get a rise. ‘Couldn't bear to think of her on her own, maybe got a new man?'

Ryan pulled at the door handle. ‘I'm leaving.'

I reached over, pulled his hand away. ‘Answer me.'

‘Let me out.'

‘What I can't understand is, how could you do that? To your own children?'

‘You think I did that? You think I could do that? Fuck you.'

I could feel my anger rising, at this man, this weak man. Yet at the same time I could not imagine him doing it, could not imagine him waging some psychological war against Vick. There was something about him, something resigned. This was the man who beat addiction, joined the army, proved a match for Vick?

‘Just tell me what's going on,' I said.

‘You…' he started, but didn't finish. He opened his door and put a foot out, turned. ‘Please,' he said. ‘Leave me alone. Leave us alone.'

I took a card out, handed it to him. ‘Ryan, I'm here to help. You need anything, you call me.'

He looked at my card I was holding out, thought about it, reluctantly took it. He got out of my car, closed the door, walked away into the night. I watched him go, wondered what more I could have said to him. But I had had enough. It was late and he was not worth it.

6

WE WERE ON
court, Gabe and I, and I had just sent down a serve which must have been nudging a hundred and twenty miles an hour, a flat nasty hissing bomb, which made for my opponent's body and which was on him before I'd finished my follow-through, before he could blink. All he could do was fend it off; he shook his head, walked to the net as I changed sides to serve to his partner.

‘Serve,' said Gabe.

I nodded, acknowledged him but did not reply. I was in the groove and did not want to break my concentration. I bounced the ball, tossed it up and hit over it, putting on a vicious amount of topspin. The ball jumped as it hit the other side of the court, so high that the guy receiving had to hit his return above his head, a nothing shot, looping and soft and which Gabe, at the net, put away with an ease that bordered on contempt. Our opponents looked at each other and smiled, and I had to give them credit; they were at least losing gracefully.

‘Game,' said Gabe, ‘change ends,' and limped to the other side of the court. He may have been playing off one leg, and he may not have been able to chase balls out wide, but at the net and on his serve he was a better competitor than most able-bodied club players, and had become as good a volleyer as any I had come up against. He picked up a towel as he passed the net, rubbed his neck, looked at me and winked. I smiled and inside my chest felt a brief blossoming of euphoria at being here, with my best friend, handing out yet another emphatic beating.