It shouldn't have happened. Manchester was one of those cities that didn't seem to have a defining demographic. It was a scally town, a new-money town, a football town, a pink town. It was made up of a hotchpotch of creeds and criminals, most of whom kept themselves to themselves and were proud to be Manc. Those were the ones that Beale had no trouble with. As long as you were from the city, you tended to get a bit of leeway. That courtesy wasn't extended to students. Because as much as Beale hated the Asians or the Chinese or the blagging little bastards on the doors, students deserved something special. Until I met Lucy, I was the same. The only time Beale and I ever saw them, they were off their faces and acting the arse in town, or else they were leads blagged by some part-timer who didn't know a student rental when he saw one. Either way, it was easy to hate them. Sometimes they actively encouraged that hatred.

  Which was why, when he suggested a pound-a-pint place, I had to ask if he was sure. Pound-a-pint stank of student, and a pissed-up Beale surrounded by pissed-up students wasn't a situation I wanted to be a part of.

  "Fuck it. It'll be dark. I won't have to see them."

  "What if you do?"

  "I won't, right? I'll be in a good mood, I promise. It's fuckin' cheap enough."

  "Alright, fine. But I'm warning you, you kick off and you're on your own."

  He shrugged it off, we both swallowed our pride and a couple of months back found ourselves at the Dawgz Nadz.

  It was one of those fun pubs that were about as much fun as deep vein thrombosis, and I knew the minute we stepped over the threshold that, cheap booze or no cheap booze, it was going to be a shitty night. We walked into what looked like a basement pumped full of dry ice and handed a fiver each to a hipster in a cage. Took one slow look around and felt every second of those thirty-seven years. Right then I knew exactly how my dad felt when he saw me with jacket sleeves rolled to the elbow, mostly because I saw the exact same thing in front of me, and they looked like colossal twats. Meanwhile, the beat in the room had my feet moving, and not in a good way – there was a bassline thrum that ran up my shins and straight to my gut, which made me nauseous.

  I tugged at my tie and rolled it up, shoved it into my jacket pocket as sweat began to itch my hairline. Beale barged past me towards the bar. That would be his spot for the night until some poor girl accidentally made eye contact and had him attempting a half-arsed seduction.

  He turned and shouted at me once he had the barman's attention. "What d'you want? I'm buying."

  Ever the generous soul when a round cost less than a fiver.

  "Whatever you're having."

  Over the back bar mirror hung painted movie stills framed in barbed wire – a beardy Al Pacino in Serpico, a pimped-out Harvey Keitel in Taxi Driver, a ‘tacheless Burt Reynolds in Deliverance. I didn't know what it was supposed to mean other than a kind of toothless hip, which was probably all it was supposed to mean. Beale turned round and handed me a treble and a bottle of Grolsch. I went straight for the shots, struggling a bit after the double went down, but managed the third with a follow-up drink.

  "Three for the price of two, but it's not pound-a-pint, it's pound-a-bottle." He held up his Groslch. "This or Carling, and that's fuckin' piss."

  I didn't answer him, just pushed forward and ordered the same again. My heart felt shaky. I needed something to calm down, and alcohol was the most convenient depressant to hand. A few more, and the night started to blur. Beale shouted his end of the conversation at me for a while, tried to have a proper bitch about work, but after an hour or so, he disappeared off somewhere while I leaned against the wall and wished I was home. Later on, I caught a glimpse of him pinning some poor little crater-faced blonde. When the strobes kicked in, he looked like a Yeti caught on Super 8 as he leaned in to slobber something romantic into her ear.

  This wasn't working out. Time to call it a night.

  I turned away, collided with someone. Liquid splattered my shoes and I backed up a step, hoping it wasn't my drink I'd spilled. When I looked up, there she was. Behind her was a still from Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill and that coupled with the lighting made her look black and white. Gloss-black hair, large black eyes and pouting lips, she looked for all the world like she belonged in an old French film where the women languished on unmade beds, smoked Gitanes and talked about philosophy with their reflections in scratched mirrors. She was younger than me, and old enough to know it. She was also way out of my league. Normally I would've left her alone. Not because I was married, but because I wasn't in the habit of acting like a dick to get my tops in. But right then, with enough booze in my system, I reckoned it was a poor man who didn't live his life, even if I did hear Beale's voice somewhere in the back of my head warning me off.

  Not on any moral grounds, you understand, but because her surname was Ghosh. And Beale didn't think the white man and the Asian lady should get together. Lucky for me, Lucy thought different.

  The gory details aren't important. Suffice to say, my pitch could be adapted to most situations, including one where the end result was a sweaty brief encounter up against a Citroën Saxo in an NCP. I didn't think it would last beyond a couple of quick fumbles, neither of us did. But then, maybe that was the reason it had. No long-term commitment meant no short-term complacency.

  I swung by an off-licence on the way to Hulme to pick up a bottle of Jim Beam. Not my drink, normally, but Lucy liked it. When I got there, she took the bottle and ushered me upstairs away from her housemates, who were arseholes to a man: Josh played rugby and had the ruddy face of the rich; Daz, slightly less rich, but still moneyed enough to study Drama; and then there was tubby little bull-dyke, Emma. Not a lot in common other than they all lived in the same house and they all hated me. That was fine, I hated them too.

  Lucy's room looked like a papal funeral. There were candles everywhere, even a couple of oil burners. She broke the seal on the Beam, and brought out a couple of small glasses she kept in her desk drawer. I took off my jacket and tie. She poured the drinks. We drank them. She poured some more, but they remained on the bedside table, forgotten until afterwards.

  Later, stretched out on the bed, the sweat turned to grime, I stared at the flickering shadows on the ceiling. Laura Marling played. I couldn't believe the shit I had to listen to sometimes.

  "It's not healthy, you know." She wore an oversized shirt that rode up around her hips and nothing else. She was sipping bourbon and staring off into the middle distance.

  "What isn't?"

  "Your behaviour."

  "What's the matter with it?"

  "You're wound up. Stressed."

  "I try not to be."

  "Is it the job?"

  "No."

  She smiled. "Is it your wife?"

  I smiled back. If I didn't know better, I would've sworn that there was a part of Lucy that got off on being the other woman. "No, she's none the wiser. Sorry."

  "So what's the problem?"

  "There's no problem. I'm just naturally stressed."

  "You can't be naturally stressed, Alan. It's a contradiction in terms."

  "Says you."

  "You need to relax."

  I shifted on the bed. "I am relaxed."

  "You need to be relaxed as a natural state, I meant. Stress is a killer. You'll get ulcers. You'll end up in hospital."

  "And is that your professional opinion, Doctor?"

  "Psychologically speaking? Yes. You're mental. You need to calm down."

  "I'll take it on board."

  "Which means you'll forget about it until it becomes an emergency."

  "Correct." I finished my drink. Checked my watch and reckoned there was time for one more before I had to make a move. I poured.

  She yawned. "Nice to know you have a weakness, though."

  "I have plenty of weaknesses."

  "Those are vices."

  "Same thing."

  "No, they're not." She yawned again and shifted down the bed. Not even five o'clock and she was knackered. Put it down to a late night, the Jim Beam, or the inherent laziness of the student. She finished off her drink, put her glass on the bedside table and then laid down. I brushed the hair out of her face.

  "I should be going."

  She flopped a hand over my stomach. Her eyes closed. "Stay for a bit."

  "Alright."

  I watched her as she moved closer and huffed out a tired breath. She was asleep in minutes. And even though my arm was trapped under her, I left it where it was.

  Because, yes, I did have a weakness. And it had nothing to do with stress.

  5

  Wednesday night, I got the call. I hadn't seen Beale in a couple of days, and neither had anyone at the office. He didn't give a shit about the seminars, didn't appear to give much of a shit about his job. His focus was the dealer game. Nothing else mattered.

  I met him at the Commercial early on so we could get lubricated enough for the comp. Other than Beale's relentless chatter, it was quiet.

  "Tell you, whoever decided to stick a casino in the middle of Salford needs their fuckin' head examined." Beale talked into his pint. "You know they keep tabs on the cars out there, see who's going in, who's coming out. It's a fuckin' racket. Security are no bastard good, either."

  "Thanks, Les. Puts my mind at ease."

  "You'll be safer leaving it in Miles Platting, I'm telling you. Scallies round here, they'd skin your granny and punt the hide back to you. I get all the stories."

  "Stevie?"

  "Yeah."

  "Reliable, is he?"

  "Oh, yeah. He'll shit it when he sees us tonight. Been telling him I don't go to the Riverside, so the little bastard thinks he's safe from us."

  "You don't go to the Riverside."

  "Not with you. You been in there?"

  "No."

  "Too fuckin' Disney for me. Nice big card room, mind." Beale let out a belch that meant he was off to the bar. I didn't need to tell him what I wanted. It was always the same again.

  I stretched out a bit, propped my elbow on the back of the seat and looked out of the window, watching people dance around puddles as they headed to Deansgate. Rather them than me. For the time being, I was happy enough to be surrounded by the landlord's boxing memorabilia.

  When I turned back, the dog was staring at me. Seen it before, but it'd never come this close. It was a large, black mongrel with a pensioner's eyes and lips like black rubber, the drool glistening on them like rain on a tyre.

  "Don't mind him," said the landlord. "He won't bite."

  I glanced at the landlord. He didn't sound serious, but he was. He sported a big battered grin and a semi-permanent wink, the remnants of a short-lived boxing career. It was supposed to put me at ease, but it did anything but.

  "Okay," I said.

  "He's dead friendly. You can pat him if you want."

  "Nah, y'alright."

  "Lennox, come on, son," said the landlord. "Leave the gentleman alone."

  The dog didn't budge. It hadn't taken its eyes off me since I clocked it, just sat there panting and staring at me like I was the last Bonio on earth.

  "Fuck off," I said under my breath. "Fuck off out of it."

  Beale came back to the table and set the drinks down. He nodded at the dog. "You found a friend, then."

  "Shut up and give us my whisky."

  "Lennox," snapped the landlord. The dog turned its head both ways before it looked back at the landlord. "Come on, son."

  Lennox took one last lingering look at me, then bounded to the bar.

  I knocked back my whisky and reached for my pint. "We're going after this one, are we?"

  "What's the hurry?"

  "You want to get in while there's still places, don't you?" I watched the dog appear from behind the bar and felt myself tense. It padded over to a beanbag and turned three times before it got settled. "Besides, I've never been in the Riverside."

  "Not my cup of tea, like."

  "You said."

  "Too many lights in there, looks like a fuckin' disco. You might like it, mind. Somewhere to take that bird of yours."

  I frowned at him, then realised he meant Lucy. "No, I don't think so."

  "Scared you'll bump into a regular?"

  I glanced over the lip of my pint as I drank. "Yeah, something like that."

  Scared we'd bump into Beale, more like. God knows what he'd have made of Lucy. One of the reasons I'd kept them apart all this time.

  Turned out Beale wasn't too far off the mark about the Riverside. It was all sham. For a start, it wasn't even on a river's side – the closest it got to water was the Manchester Ship Canal. Second, if there hadn't been a sign saying CASINO in bright blue neon, six feet high on three sides of the building, you wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between it and another branch of PC World. The flagship casino was stuck in a cookie-cutter orange brick industrial unit like some Brutalist Vegas. There were no Bond fantasies here, but then I got the feeling that James Bond was never the pitch. Inside, the blonde receptionist looked like a holiday rep and had the capped smile to prove it. She wore a purple mock-satin blouse that showed off nothing but broad shoulders. Security were ex-Army, emphasis on the ex, and were now fat and bored with a good line in sidelong evils. The fatter of the two clocked Beale the moment he came in and kept a close eye on him as he swiped himself and then signed me in. The receptionist pushed the pedal in the floor and the glass doors opened into a warehouse of a gaming space.

  Beale's top lip curled. His moustache bunched up under one nostril. "See what I mean?"

  Yeah, I did. This was the new breed of casino, where the only thing that mattered was cheap choice. Ten roulettes, probably starting at twenty-five pence and going up to a pound. Four blackjacks, three studs. Punco Banco, otherwise known as the idiot's baccarat. A mini craps table. Sweeping down the left-hand side of the place was a ramp that led to a large bar and restaurant. On the right was a dedicated slots area and a card room that must've sat about a hundred.

  "A hundred and fifty, actually. Bit of a squeeze, but we all get in. Long as you don't mind being elbow-to-elbow with a fat, sweaty Scouser, you're alright."

  The comp hadn't opened yet, so the card room was dotted with the backgammon boys, poker players who couldn't resist a pound a point before the big tournament, and a guy at the back preparing decks and chips for the night ahead. I didn't think he was a croup at first, but then I saw that all the dealers in here wore that same flat ruffled shirt, no dicky, no collar. Blue, like the carpet and walls, camouflage gear which gave the place a weird retro feel, like you were going to be dealt to by Dr Evil.

  We went to the bar, got settled at one of the reflective tables overlooking the pit. The glare coming off the table top made us both squint.

  "So what do you think?"

  "I think it's a hole."

  Beale nodded. "Should've been here opening night, mate. They had a camera crew in making one of them fly-on-the-walls. Like fuckin' Airport or something. Anyway, they had this music, that Tina Turner song, whatever it is, ‘Simply The Best', and then all the dealers came down the ramps."

  "Stevie there?"

  "Oh yeah, fuckin' hell, I thought I'd piss my pants laughing. You see that hatchet-faced bitch over there? That's Jacqui Prince. She's the GM. Proper cow, that one. You know she never even spun the first ball? She got her pit boss to do it for her."

  "First ball?"

  "Jesus, you never been to a casino opening?"

  "Obviously not."

  "Running with a fuckin' amateur here." Beale shifted in his seat, leaned forward. "When a casino opens, it's tradition for the general manager to be the first one in the pit to spin up. Whatever number comes up, that's supposed to be the lucky number for the casino. You never want to forget that number, mate. Swear to God, it never comes in."

  "What number was it?"

  "Fuck knows. I was arseholed. I managed to get a load of that free champers down my neck before the Chinese got their greasy little mitts on it. Honest, Alan, they get so much as a sniff of a freebie, they're round in coaches. Not like they come in here normally – which is the one fuckin' good thing about this place, actually. Too busy stuffing their guts with egg rolls down George Street."

  From the pit came the skitter of a ball and the scream of a fish dealer: "No spin, nothing goes!"

  "Never stick to their own." Beale sniffed and glanced over his shoulder. "I'm sure they're following us an' all."

  "Us?"

  "Me. I come out of a sit, right, the fuckers have keyed my car."

  "Sure you just didn't prang it?"

  "I'm telling you, they keyed it. They waited until I went in, and then they keyed it."

  "That's the stress talking." I couldn't help but smile. "You want to watch that. It's a killer."

  "Maybe." Beale burped. "But everywhere I go, there's some fuckin' Chink laughing at us."

  "That's what's been holding you back all these years, Les – Triads trying to mess up your business."

  "I'm serious."

  "I know you are, mate."

  "If it's not them, it's Henderson. Telling you, it's not a world of men anymore, Alan. It's a world of fuckin' bureaucrats ..."

  "Right." I stood up and finished my pint. "Come on."

  "What?"

  "I'm not listening to this shit anymore. Come ahead and we'll do some money."

  Beale didn't need telling twice. He went down to the nearest roulette and bought in for two stacks. I hung back, decided to watch for a while, study both the ball and Beale, see which came out on top. I wasn't going to stay like that, because I didn't want to look like a punter with a system. Any bloke who said he had a roulette system spent too much time in his own head. They were the non-gamblers, the penny-ante mugs who killed games by stuttering "hold on a second" before they placed a fifty-pence street bet that didn't come in. Not my style.

  A skinny guy with a bleached streak ran up as the ball slowed and stuck two large column bets. The dealer gave him a foul look and called it in as the ball dropped squarely between the two bets. Any punter worth his salt would've kicked off, but the skinny guy was already off to the next table to do the same thing.

  Beale was already down to a stack and a half and his face had pinched up. If he lost that other half, he'd take it out on the dealer. It spiced up the game for him, knowing he was pecking someone's head at the same time. If it wasn't the dealer, it'd be another punter.

 

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