Росс Томас - The Mordida Man

“He also thinks he’s going to bust out of here next week.”

Dr. Levin sighed. “Well, at least he still has plans for the future.”

“I also gave him a cigarette lighter.”

Dr. Levin sighed again and frowned. “I wish you hadn’t done that.”

“So do I,” Dunjee said.

At six o’clock the next morning, Dunjee found himself in an after-hours club of sorts, a Greek place, tossing cheap white plates at the feet of the female singer. The singer was also Greek and a little past her prime, but she had a loud, true voice and a glorious smile and Dunjee found that he didn’t at all mind the small mustache she seemed to be cultivating.

Dunjee was at the club with his two new best friends, another Greek and a Hungarian, both gamblers. The club was one of those outlaw places that open up around four in the morning after the gambling halls have closed. It was owned by a Mr. Tikopoulous who seemed to be very fond of his singer.

Dunjee had been cultivating his two new best friends for nearly ten hours. He had earned their oft-professed friendship, undeviating trust, and total loyalty by losing nearly two thousand pounds to them at a seven-card-stud table in the Embankment Sporting Club, which was located nowhere near the Embankment, but rather just off the Edgware Road.

Dunjee had lost his money skillfully, not quite methodically, even winning a hand now and again merely to make things look right, but losing nevertheless. The Greek and the Hungarian had taken nearly all of it. They had also gathered him to their collective bosom, clucked regretfully over his losses, and after a glimpse or two at the contents of his still fat wallet, suggested that his luck might change at an after-hours gambling den they just happened to know, which stayed open until shortly after dawn.

The illegal after-hours joint had been a small smutty place in Paddington run by a man who called himself Major Blake and hinted that he was a cashiered Guards officer with a strange and tragic past. The game at Major Blake’s was five-card draw played with a stripped deck, and Dunjee had managed to lose another five hundred pounds at that, too, thus further cementing his already indisoluble bonds of friendship with the Greek and Hungarian, who now seemed determined never to let him out of their sight.

It was just after dawn when the game at Major Blake’s had finally broken up, but the Greek and Hungarian’s early morning rounds were still far from completion. They had insisted that Dunjee be their guest at Mr. Tikopoulous’s place, where they could eat good Greek food, drink a little morning whisky, and throw cheap white plates at the feet of the singer.

It was the Hungarian who first noticed the young woman who was to lead Dunjee farther down the circuitous path to what he was looking for. She came in with another, slightly older woman just as Mr. Tikopoulous was delivering a fresh stack of plates to Dunjee’s table.

“Well, look who’s here,” the Hungarian said. Mr. Tikopoulous turned, beamed in recognition, and hurried over to the two women, ushering them to a choice table near the small dance floor now littered with smashed crockery.

“Who’s that?” Dunjee said as he took a plate from the new stack and tossed it toward the singer, where it shattered nicely at her feet. The singer smiled at him.

The Hungarian pursed his lips carefully, which was something he almost always did before delivering himself of one of his more weighty proclamations. Dunjee had discovered that the Hungarian never just said something. He instead issued declarations, edicts, and decrees. The Hungarian’s name was Lou Zentai and he was called Hungarian Lou to distinguish him from Soldier Lou, another regular at the Embankment Sporting Club. Soldier Lou was an Englishman who had once done two hitches in the Foreign Legion, but didn’t like to talk about it. Hungarian Lou, on the other hand, claimed to have been a freedom fighter in 1956 and bored everyone with tales of how brave he had been against the Soviet tanks.

“That,” Hungarian Lou said, staring at the woman who had just come in, “is probably the most marvelous fuck in London.”

He then looked at the Greek and let one eyebrow rise slightly. In response, the Greek’s left eyelid dropped a fraction of an inch. They had agreed on something, although Dunjee couldn’t quite decide what.

Dunjee turned his head to look at the woman more carefully. She had just enough weight on her small bones to escape being called lean, but it was a near miss. He watched her take off her jacket. Underneath, she wore a green silk blouse, its top three or four buttons carelessly left undone. Even from where Dunjee sat, the two small sharp breasts could be seen clearly through the thin silk. What he could see of her legs was slim and tanned. On her feet were green leather sandals. Her toenails were painted a bloody red.

The woman turned her head, caught Dunjee in his appraisal, and grinned. He would never see her smile. It was always that quick feral grin that revealed shiny, very white, curiously small teeth that looked extremely sharp. In repose, her full lips formed themselves into a child’s pout. A spoiled child. She had a pretty chin and a very long neck and a nose that looked stuck up, but her best feature was her eyes. They were enormous, very brown, very moist, and quite wild. Had it not been for her pouty mouth, she would have looked perpetually startled. Instead, she just looked trapped. Dunjee thought he could guess by what.

“Looks expensive,” he said as he turned back, took another plate from the stack, and tossed it at the singer’s feet, who rewarded him with yet another glorious smile.

“Not for you,” the Greek said and smirked a little. The Greek’s name was Anthony Perdikis. His profession was gambling. He also was part owner of a restaurant on the edge of Soho that he said he never went near. At forty-two, the Greek was sleek, black-eyed, bald, and just edging toward portliness.

Perdikis’s smirk now turned into a warm and friendly smile. Too warm, too friendly, Dunjee thought. He was still smiling when he said, “Dear friend Chubb. You’ve had a terrible run of luck. Bloody terrible. But your bad luck has been our good fortune. So, Lou and I insist you accept our little gift of gratitude.”

Perdikis turned and snapped his fingers for Mr. Tikopoulous, who hurried over. They spoke in Greek for almost a minute and it sounded to Dunjee the way Greek always sounded — as if some awful conspiracy were being hatched, possibly a revolution, at least a palace coup.

Mr. Tikopoulous, however, seemed delighted with whatever they were plotting, because he kept shooting sharp little glances at Dunjee and smiling and snickering a bit.

Eventually he went away but soon came back with a bottle of champagne and several glasses which he delivered with some ceremony to the table where the two women sat. They spoke briefly and Mr. Tikopoulous returned to Dunjee’s table, bowed almost formally, and said, “The young ladies thank you, sir, most kindly for the wine and wonder if you’d care to join them in a glass.”

“Our little gift of gratitude to you, friend Chubb,” Perdikis said, his smirk back in place. “A little all-day-long gift from Lou and me.”

Dunjee was about to turn it down with polite thanks when Hungarian Lou pursed his lips and delivered himself of yet another edict. “Keep away from her friends.”

Dunjee immediately grew interested. “Why?”

“They’re bad, that’s why. Thieves, pimps, villains — that lot. All damn godawful bad.”

“Well, she looks sort of interesting,” Dunjee said. “There’s just one thing wrong.”

“What?” Perdikis said.

“I always pay for my own ladies.”