Lawrence Osborne - The Ballad of a Small Player

“I only have one hand to play,” I said. “So I thought I might.”

“I might consider matching it.”

He had a face like rock, and it was disturbing to watch it move as he spoke.

“I would like that,” I replied.

“I have heard about you. They say you are lucky.”

“Everyone is lucky once.”

Mr. Cheng turned rhetorically to the others.

“The man has some wisdom!”

A hand of baccarat is so short, so abrupt, that the preliminaries are sometimes difficult to disengage from. When the bet is enormous, this is even more true. There is a need among both players and house staff to drag it out a little. So we smoked for a few minutes and Mr. Cheng asked me who I knew in Hong Kong. He was curious. Nobody? That seemed unlikely for a man in my position .

“I am rather shy and private,” I explained. “It doesn’t do for someone in my position, as you put it, to throw himself around too much.”

Mr. Cheng certainly understood that. Wealth brings its burdens as well as its pleasures. It is double-edged. He nodded and said that this was certainly correct; it was a malicious and gossipy city, like all cities, and one couldn’t be too careful.

“I think I have seen you around,” he smiled. “You lunch sometimes at the Intercontinental, don’t you?”

“Sometimes.”

“I have seen you there.”

The dealers prepared themselves and Mr. Cheng looked me over long and hard.

“I never forget a face,” he added wistfully.

“I like the view at the Intercontinental.”

The managers stepped forward discreetly.

“Are you betting the whole amount, Lord Doyle?”

“I am.”

Mr. Cheng divided his chips into two piles, an amount that put together would not be far off from mine. He then placed first one, then the other onto the table and announced that he was betting both on the banker. The cards were slicked out through the shoe, mine first (the highest bettor is always dealt first), and then Mr. Cheng placed a hand over his most leftward card. We waited, and I felt a concentration of perspiration materialize between my eyebrows. It hung there like a stud in a button and then, exposed to the air-conditioning, evaporated. The cards were turned and I had drawn a two and a nine. Modulo ten, that made one. The managers raised their eyebrows and then did not lower them as Mr. Cheng turned a hand of eight with a six and a two. The scores were called and the dealer then dealt me a third card, as was my right, and it happened to be an eight, that most fortunate of numbers in the Chinese universe.

This made Mr. Cheng laugh and he took a drag on the cigar lodged stiffly between the fingers of his right hand.

“Natural,” the dealer said loudly. “Congratulations, Lord Doyle.”

“You got lucky there,” Cheng said quietly, and he said it with a graceful good nature that was apparently genuine. “You have my sincere congratulations.”

“Thank you. I would play you a second hand, but the management has decided against it.”

“So they told me. I cannot quite understand it.”

The chips formed piles like models of cities, and they were not raked together. Cheng didn’t even look at them. His eyes were moist and chilled, like oysters, and instead he sneered at the floor managers.

“They are chickens. Mr. Hui, you are chickens, are you not?”

The managers bowed stiffly.

“That’s how chickens bow. Look at them. Doyle, shall we go for a drink at least?”

The chips I had won were not gathered into a bag for me. The managers explained that I would be given a check downstairs instead; I could collect it whenever I wanted. They were frostily impressed, as people a little down the ladder often are when they see a flash of undeserved success. Why couldn’t it be us? they think to themselves. Why shouldn’t it be us? I said that this was considerate of them, and I went out with Mr. Cheng while the managers followed at a slight distance. We sauntered down the curved corridor and Cheng related to me all the times he had won big at this particular casino. A total of three times in eleven years, he admitted with a roll of the eyes and an expression of pained disgust. These people were crooks, pure and simple, exploiting the weaknesses of helpless addicts. The casino was like a hospital catering to heroin addicts. Inexcusable, if you looked at it sensibly. He waved a hand, as if killing something invisible to the naked eye. The displeasure of a billionaire who has lost one ten-thousandth of a percent of his fortune to crooks. He led me to a bar where aged Scotches filled the glass shelves, including one called Brora that my father used to drink and that was no longer made. We sat in leather chairs. Vivaldi, perfumes, the ease of gentlemen. He spoke softly so the staff wouldn’t hear, and he said, “You cleaned them out, you really did. Millions in one blow. They’ll be up to see you shortly.”

But no one came. They left us alone and we drank half a bottle of port. “You have to understand money,” Cheng said as soon as he was toasted. “It trickles through your fingers like sand, but you can keep that flow going if you resign yourself to the forces of chance.”

He had made his money as a slum landlord. It was a good living and it kept his wife in her baccarat addiction in the style to which she was accustomed. If he didn’t screw the miserable hordes lodged in his rat-infested apartment blocks, how would Mrs. Cheng be able to play the baccarat tables every night?

“Perhaps you’ve seen her around the casinos? They call her Grandma. It’s insulting, but she accepts the name. She’s been playing the tables longer than anyone here except Old Song. Have you seen Old Song?”

“I don’t think I have.”

“Been playing every day since 1947. My wife is more noticeable, however. To the point where everyone knows her.”

I kept my cool.

“I’ve seen her around,” I said.

“She’s a noted character at the Lisboa, the Greek Mythology, and the Landmark. Those are the three that she likes. The stupid woman never knows when to stop. She knows she has my account to tap into — and yes, I let her, I admit it — and so she goes mad every time she gets near the tables. She has no inner brake. She turns into a money-losing tornado. She’s a curse.”

I think that was the Chinese phrase: inner brake. Patsy (her real name) was a terror unleashed, but it was a quid pro quo between them, like allowing your wife to be an alcoholic. For a moment he pursed his lips.

“That bloody woman is ruining me! Half a million every night. She’s bleeding me dry, and it’s just because she thinks I have a mistress.”

“Well, do you have a mistress?”

“Of course I have a mistress. Do dogs have tails? But she takes advantage. I play myself, of course — but in moderation. I’m not using anyone except my tenants.”

He burst into melodious laughter that was, in some way, not melodious at all, and at the same moment, as if synchronized by horrifying correspondences, his skin broke into handsome rucks like a piece of stretched deer hide that has suddenly been relaxed.

“But that has nothing to do with Patsy. Patsy is in a class by herself. She’s a true thief. Patsy loots me.”

He suddenly leaned forward.

“You haven’t seen her here tonight, have you?”

“I’ve been by myself, as a matter of fact.”

“So much the better, so much the better. Preparing for your great coup! Magnificent sang-froid, if I may say. Not that this is surprising given your background. I have seen a few of your types in action and I have always been impressed by your coldness.”

I wondered how much his large pigeon-blood ring weighed, or how a man could even wear one. It was not very discreet of him. He drank his port lustily and the ring winked as his hand tilted. The cuffs were beautifully laundered.