Tara (50 page)

'Chas Baxter.' Duke waved a hand towards a man in his fifties with a florid complexion and a huge beer gut. 'Alf Reed, Jack Somers.'

Harry shook their hands and sat down.

Alf owned two West End night-clubs; a flashy bastard of forty-something whose Rolls-Royce he'd seen parked along the road. Harry knew he lived in Millionaires' Row in Hampstead and, although he might not have quite reached that status yet, he was loaded. His light brown hair looked as if it had been blow-dried by some poof; his pale brown eyes were shrewd.

Jack Somers was a building contractor from South London who once had the reputation of being a hard man. Now he was close on sixty, as rich as Alf, with a permanent suntan, lean body and barely any hair.

Harry knew these men wouldn't be a pushover. Anyone who resorted to playing cards in such dingy surroundings had to be serious about the game.

They exchanged pleasantries and he was handed a glass of whisky. Jack commiserated with him about his prison sentence and asked what plans he had now.

Harry was certain they knew everything about him, including his inside leg measurement, but he couldn't show that.

'I gotta few deals lined up,' he said, grinning foolishly as if surprised to find the other players were men of stature. 'Nuffin' certain yet, but I might open a club.'

'Not on my patch, I hope.' Alf's thick eyebrows lifted, and fleshy lips curved into a wry smile.

'Where's that?' Harry asked innocently.

'Alf owns the Ace of Hearts in Wardour Street and the Purple Pussy Cat,' Duke said with a smirk.

'No!' Harry laughed, quickly pulling out his cigarette case and flashing it round. 'I got me heart set on King's Road, a place for dolly birds. Know what I mean?'

'Takes a lot of dough,' Alf said. 'You need experience in the club world, too.'

'I got both.' Harry looked smug. 'Well, the experience of clubs is only drinking in them, but it can't be that 'ard.'

He saw them exchanging glances and decided he'd said enough.

Duke was to deal the first game and, as Harry was already sitting to his right, he would have to make the opener. The atmosphere changed immediately Duke picked up the sealed pack of cards. The sit-down money, two hundred pounds, was slapped down beside them, cigarettes, lighters, drinks and ashtrays placed strategically, and Duke dealt.

Harry had a pair of sixes, but nothing else. He changed two and came up with another six. It was a fair hand, but he had to act cautious. He noted that neither Alf nor Jack asked for new cards, which could mean they had good hands, too. He picked up a ten-pound note and flicked it down. Alf raised him twenty. Chas raised twenty; already there was fifty pounds in the pot. Jack hesitated just a second but raised forty. Duke folded.

Harry smiled weakly and raised twenty, sliding a hundred pounds on to the pot. Alf folded.

He was sure that earlier hesitation on Jack's part meant he had a poor hand. Chas looked supremely comfortable, but Harry had no way of knowing whether that was his usual look. It was Jack's turn and he raised twenty. Harry glanced at Chas, but his face was impassive and he pushed his money on to the pile, raising thirty.

Harry didn't dare look at his money on the table. He just picked it up and threw it down in an expansive gesture. 'Raise you fifty.'

Jack folded and Chas smiled benignly as he threw a hundred on. 'I'll see you,' he said.

It was the moment of truth. He laid his three sixes down and waited.

Chas had only a pair.

Aripple of laughter went round the table, even from Chas. He pushed the money towards Harry and lit up a cigar. Harry didn't know what to think. Was this some sort of wild strategy on Chas's part, or everyone's?

He folded on the next game and lost his stake. But in the third he won six hundred.

The air was thick with smoke; it hung around the light above them like a blanket. The cardboard on the windows wobbled in the draught and Harry could feel another one from the door nearly cutting his ankles in half while his head was roasting. He was no nearer sussing anyone out, they were all steady players who gave nothing away, and seemed to have endless amounts of notes in their pockets.

'Bloody George Raft from the door,' he said casually as he looked at his cards. He'd got nine hundred on the table now; maybe it was time to up the ante. He had a straight, and he knew the time was right.

Jack was dealing and Chas made the opener with two hundred pounds. Duke raised him a hundred and now it was Harry's turn. He dropped in the three-hundred stake and raised another two hundred.

Alf folded, quickly followed by Jack. Chas, still as cool as a cucumber although he hadn't had a win, tossed on his three-hundred stake and raised two hundred. Duke raised another hundred and Harry matched it, shoving his whole pile in. Chas folded.

It was between him and Duke now and he would have to fold if Duke didn't, or call him. But to his surprise Duke called. Harry put his cards down gingerly, sure Duke could beat them.

'It's yours, Harry,' Duke said. 'Only three of a kind.'

The feeling as he drew the money towards him was almost as good as Christmas morning. He had almost four thousand, and he still had his other hundred in his breast pocket.

They stopped for a beer, moving back from the table while they chatted. Harry sat back grinning while he studied them. The grin was meant to disarm them. They'd taken him for a sucker and he guessed each one thought his luck would soon break and they'd get the money back.

The night wore on. In the good games time flew, in the bad it stood still. At one point he'd had six thousand; then it went down to three. The temperature was rising in all ways. Chas stripped off his jacket. Duke dabbed delicately at his forehead with a maroon handkerchief. Only Jack and Alf looked cool, but perhaps that was because their sort of losses meant nothing to them.

Harry kept up the bluff – opening his jacket to show the gold lining, flicking his lighter, going down frequently to the filthy toilet below, drumming his nails on the table.

Pure adrenaline was keeping him going now as his pile reached ten thousand, only to be cut in half in the next game, but when he looked at the other men they showed no emotion.

Duke had the most wins; Harry came next, beating Chas by one game. He wondered how they could pull out that kind of dough without wincing, and how often they did this.

It was after four when finally Duke suggested the next game should be the last.

Harry was dealt three kings, but two low cards. When he changed the two and got the king of hearts he could barely believe his luck. He tried to remember what the old guy in prison had told him about the odds on someone having a better hand than that, but it escaped him. All he could think was that this was shit or bust time.

The raising was slow, Harry had to keep himself in check, wanting to raise wildly and get it over with, but knowing he mustn't. Jack folded first, putting his jacket on and smiling broadly as if nothing mattered but going home to bed. On and on it went after Jack's car had roared away into the night. It was nearly five, there had to be twelve thousand on the table, a great tottering pile of notes, and Alf folded.

'I'm off, lads,' he said cheerily, tapping Harry on the shoulder. 'You're a gutsy player. Hope the club goes well.'

Harry felt a little ashamed he'd taken so much money from a good sport. He just hoped Duke and Chas would be the same.

Duke folded and it was just like that first game all over again. Now it was between Chas and him.

Chas put the last of his money on the pot, but Harry had no way of knowing if he had more. He raised him again, but his own pile was getting dangerously low. Should he call, or play one more?

He raised just a little, all he had left now was seven hundred on the table and the one still in his pocket. When he saw Chas reach into his pocket he groaned inwardly, but to his surprise Chas brought out a folded document.

'I'll be honest,' he said, still not moving a muscle or showing any emotion. 'I'm broke. But I'll put these in and see you.'

'What is it?' Harry's eyes were blurry now, his head aching and heart racing.

"The deeds of this place.' Chas shrugged. 'Put the rest of your dough on the pot and I'll see you.'

The cold impassive face chilled Harry to the bone. He looked first at his small pile, then at the mountain of notes on the table. Reason told him the bloke must have an excellent hand to risk everything, but then again so had he.

'OK!'

They laid out their cards simultaneously. Chas had a full house, but Harry's four of a kind beat them by a whisker.

A wild glee rose up in Harry. He wanted to shout, scream with joy, but he didn't dare. He hadn't got out yet!

Duke whistled through his teeth, but Harry was only looking at Chas. For the first time in the night muscles were moving in his face, as if he was struggling to control himself.

Harry had to steel himself. He didn't owe these men anything, they would cheerfully have taken the shirt off his back. But all the same, could he really take it all? There had to be twenty thousand there, more money than he'd ever dreamed of.

'Are you really broke?' he asked.

Chas shrugged his shoulders, his large stomach quivering.

Harry stood up. He was at his most vulnerable now. Duke looked capable of knocking him out with one blow; Chas was desperate enough to go along with it, and the river was far too close. In the back of his mind he remembered something Mabel had once said to him. 'Kindness is your biggest asset, Harry, don't ever lose sight of it.' He scraped the money together on the table and put the deeds in his pocket.

'Write me a note to say the building's mine,' he said quietly. 'Duke, witness it.'

The thick smoke was burning his eyes, sweat was breaking out all over him and he could sense Duke was like a coiled spring.

'How much did you sit down with?' he asked.

'Three thousand.' Chas tried to smile but his mouth was set. A nerve quivered in his cheek.

Harry took some notes from the top of the pile and slid them over to Chas, he guessed it was around a thousand.

'A stake for another game.' He felt deflated now and knew he would never play again. He couldn't risk ending up like this fat man. 'Just sign the paper.'

'You didn't have to do that,' Chas said in a curiously small voice, pulling a fountain pen from his pocket. 'You won it fair and square.'

Harry saw the oil painting out of the corner of his eye. 'Call it for that picture,' he said.

Chas smiled then, with real warmth. He took the sheet of notepaper Duke silently offered him and began to write.

'That was my great-grandfather,' he said as he finished. 'He was an honourable man, too.'

Duke's head was whirling. Harry was no real poker player, he was too wild, and he'd just drawn good cards. Duke had come out even himself, perhaps a little down, so he had nothing to reproach the man for. But this last act of chivalry touched him and he knew that Harry Collins was a force to be reckoned with.

Joe had been so sure Harry would lose that he'd offered no alternative plan and Duke wasn't thrilled to be the man to relay the outcome to him. But what could he do at this late stage anyway? Joe would have mugged him, that was a certainty, but Duke Denning wasn't going to lose his reputation that way. He witnessed the note without a word and handed it back to Harry.

Chas slid a set of keys across the table.

'It's all yours now.'

'I underestimated you,' Duke said as he watched Harry slapping the notes into bundles and putting them in his pockets.

Harry looked up. 'Most people do,' he said softly. Picking up his cigarettes from the table, he opened the door and left.

George was in the kitchen when Harry let himself in. He shivered in the narrow hall, pockets bulging, fingers stained with nicotine, his angular face pale with exhaustion. But the house was warm. He could smell coffee from the kitchen and Queenie's lilac soap wafting down the stairs on a cloud of steam from the bathroom.

'What time's this to come in?' George grumbled. 'It's bleedin' Saturday, son, the busiest day. You won't make a market trader if you stay up all night.'

He was wearing red pyjamas and checked slippers, the little hair left around his head standing out like a bottle brush.

'I ain't gonna be a market trader for much longer.' Harry grinned. 'You'd better sit down, Dad. I don't know if your old ticker can stand this.'

George just stared at the money on the table. He had the deeds of the warehouse in one hand, the note in the other.

'You crazy boy,' he said, and a tear rolled down his cheek.

'I ain't ever going to do it again,' Harry knelt beside his father's chair and leant his face against George's chest the way he did when he was small. 'I ain't got the stomach for it, really. I was just lucky tonight. But I'm going to use it now I've got it. Just think of it like me winning the pools.'

George held his son's head tightly. He didn't approve of gamblers, he'd seen too many end up in the gutter.

'Tell me what you want from life, 'Arry,' he whispered.

Harry knew what his father was afraid of.

'I want to build up a business,' he said, his voice muffled by his father's chest. 'I want to make something of myself. I'll make you proud of me.'

He couldn't tell him yet that he intended to have Tara beside him, that would be tempting fate.

George lifted Harry's face up in his big hands.

'I've always been proud of you,' he said fiercely. 'And I know if yer mum's looking down on you, she is too. But build an honest business, son, no more duckin' and divin'.'

Chapter 23

'You aren't serious, Harry?' Tara looked up at the dilapidated warehouse in horror. 'A night-club! Here in Wapping?'

Tara had gone over to Paradise Row for tea and Harry had whisked her round in the van to see this place he'd won. He looked like a navvy, in old trousers daubed with muck, a grey roll-necked sweater, big dirty boots and a donkey jacket. Even his black hair was dull with dust.

The news had reached her about the poker game long before George or Queenie got around to telling her. Angie heard it in a pub in Bethnal Green the evening after the game and telephoned straight away. The winnings had risen to forty thousand by that time and the building was made to sound like something grand.