Stanley Elkin - Van Gogh's Room at Arles

At first, I didn’t even recognize that this was where the gambling happened. It looked as if gambling were still illegal in England and that Dressel had a tip that The Springfield was about to be raided by coppers from the flying squad. True, there were card tables, but these were all lightweight, the kind whose legs fold and that you put back in the closet when your company has left. There was a tiny toy roulette wheel on an upright piano pushed against the dark, flowered wallpaper, its keys uncovered as if the piano player had had to leave in a hurry. Indeed, it was as if almost everyone had left in a hurry. I knew better, of course. The seven not in our party, the five almost shabby men and two dowdy women, I took to be some of the highest rollers in Europe, though perhaps this was only my imagination, ready for awe, kicking in again, were seated around a couple of card tables, the two dealers (not, as it happens, the “house”; Dressel was the house) as quiet as the people to whom they dealt, not bothering to keep up any chatter about the value and implications of the face cards, a music I’d particularly enjoyed at the two clubs we’d visited in London. They didn’t, for that matter, even bother to look up when the future King of England came into the room. And, for my part, it was the first time in months, the first time since that funny little stutter step the Prince and I did outside the aloe shop in Cape Henry, I hadn’t been stared at. I was a little disappointed.

I’ve said I understood I was in the presence of obsession, that the plain clothes they wore were signs of their indifference to everything but the compulsive gambling they were engaged in inside the featureless, institutional-looking Springfield. In an odd way they could have been, caught up in their furious concentration on each other’s cards, a kind of support group. I was wrong though, as Larry later told me, to think that great fortunes were won and lost there. The truth was much scarier. These people were so rich that, while they gambled, just the interest compounding on their money in secret São Paulo, Seoul, Luxembourg, and Cape Town accounts, in banks in Spain and Peru, more than covered their losses. It was like that old premise in one of those films where characters have to get rid of great amounts of money within a specified time or forfeit their claim on even greater amounts of money. That would almost explain why the dealers dropped their customary running commentaries, all their clipped, kibitzless silences.

“Well,” Macreed Dressel said to the Prince, “what’s your pleasure then, sir?” Except for his white dinner jacket he might have been a publican asking a customer for his order.

“What’s that one?” asked the Prince.

“Bless me, Larry, your high rank hasn’t spoiled you not one whit, you’ve still your not inconsiderable instincts for the fun of a thing! That one, why that one’s bezique, those ladies are enjoying a friendly game of bezique! There’s aces, kings, queens, jacks, tens, and nines in bezique. You score your points by melding particular combinations of cards or taking tricks. Meld a queen of spades and a jack of diamonds and you win even extra points. It’s quite like pinochle. The difference is you play with sixty-four cards ins— ”

“All right,” Larry said, “I’ll do the bezique one. How much?”

“Well,” Dressel said, “let’s see, I believe the ladies are playing for ten quid a point. Six or seven thousand quid should do you just grand for a few hands of bezique.”

“I’m new at this. I’m not much of a gambler. I’ll take ten thousand pounds.”

He didn’t watch as the women played out their hand. He didn’t sort his cards when he was dealt them. I don’t think he even looked at them. He was behind three hundred points at the end of two hands and, when it was his turn to deal, he wondered if the ladies minded if he raised the stakes to twenty pounds a point. It was up to them, he said, and they quickly agreed to the new arrangement.

“You’re both of you too good for me,” he told them after another two hands. “I’m quite out of chips, I’m afraid. How much more do I owe? Is it four hundred thirty pounds? Yes, I see it is. Macreed?”

He paid Dressel for an additional four hundred thirty pounds’ worth of chips and graciously thanked the women for permitting him to sit in on their game. He had, he said, to excuse himself now because he wanted to get back to London at a reasonably decent hour and he saw there were still some more games he needed to learn.

“What’s that other one?” the Prince asked his host.

“Well, that one,” Dressel said, “is chemin de fer.”

“All right,” Larry said.

“In chemin de fer two hands are dealt. The players bet against the dealer. See, Mr. Collganardo is dealing now. The winning hand is the one that comes closest to, but doesn’t go over, the count of nine on— ”

“All right.”

“—two or three cards. It resembles baccarat.”

“All right.”

“You put up fifteen thousand pounds to start.”

Larry gave him the money. It took him only half an hour to lose seventeen thousand pounds over and above his original fifteen-thousand-pound investment. When it was his turn, one of the players told him it was dealer’s choice and that he could change the game if he wanted.

“Euchre, what’s euchre?” Larry said.

“Euchre is cards,” Macreed Dressel told him. “A player is dealt five cards and makes trump by taking three tricks to win a hand.”

“Only five cards but he has to take three tricks to win? I don’t know, it sounds to me that euchre can be pretty slow going. I like it when there’s a bit more action. What’s whist? I’ve heard of whist.”

“Whist is even slower than euchre.”

Larry let out a sigh. “If you gentlemen will excuse me,” he said apologetically, rose, and gave up his place at the table. “What’s the fastest?” he inquired of Dressel.

“Well,” Macreed said, “for your purposes I’d have to say that roulette is the fastest. Roulette lasts for only so long as it takes the wheel to slow down enough for the little steel ball to settle in one of the thirty-six little compartments.”

“And I bet on the number it will come to rest in? Is that about it?”

“That’s about it,” Macreed Dressel said. “You can always, what we call, ‘hedge your bets,’” he added. “You do that by putting your chips down on more than one number.”

“It doesn’t sound as exciting if I hedge my bets.”

“Well, no, it isn’t as exciting.” Macreed Dressel went over to the upright piano and took the toy roulette wheel down off its top and placed it on the piano bench. This was to be the venue for the game. “A moment, Prince,” he said. “I’ll fetch you a chair.”

“No no, don’t bother, I can stand. It will be more exciting if I stand.”

“As you wish.”

“How much?” Larry asked.

“I don’t know,” Dressel said quietly. “Whatever you want. I’m at your service.”

“Could you tell me,” said the Prince, “could you tell me how you make your money?”

“I take twenty percent of what a player gives for chips. If I sell you a hundred pounds, you get eighty pounds in chips. Between fifteen and twenty percent is pretty much the rate in private clubs.

“Ah, fifteen percent.”

“Twenty percent at the upscale clubs. I don’t impose a limit, I don’t employ dealers.”

“I see.”

“In roulette I’m the house. I pay if you win and collect if you lose.”

“I wonder, could you tell me,” said Larry, “in roulette, in roulette, do I purchase chips at the upscale rate? Is that about it?”

“Yes,” Dressel said, reddening.

“Let’s get on with it, shall we?”