Fat Greek

Casinos have never enthralled me, crooked business funded upon the foolish and the desperate. In Europe and Uncle Sam's parlour they are presently quite supervised so the ropier ones have gone south, even unto Africa, where they lodge in the basements of shopping centres or, as in Fat Greeks, the upper floor of the smartest hotel in town. Not liking these places is a view but using them is still a consideration: amongst the foolish, desperate and greedy we find our information and our living. I don't like to leave the beach, but once I went to Fat Greeks just to look at the man and his charm. He is very fat, two hundred kilos, his thighs jammed together so that there are seeping ulcers. Within a minute of coming under his glance he sent over a glass of wine, within an hour, "where is your place, I will buy it and open a casino". Fat Greek eats. I said to Shelly, "Methinks a waste of time, he will surely just expire upon his own."

A variant of poker known now as Texas Hold 'Em has become the most popular commercial form of the game because the number of open cards allows players to make a calculation of the odds on their hand winning. This allows the illusion that the game is more of skill than chance or bluff. A professional poker player, a Spade Man, will, when behaving, always play the odds, if you play enough and the other players know less or play less of the odds than you then, in the end, the probabilities will out and there will be a profit. The thing is to find high stakes card rooms with lots of rich bad players and place a couple of Spades. It is not easy, to come out good a Spade needs to play seventy thousand hands a year, which means four nights of ten hours a week. If too many of the players are any good, they know the arithmetic, it wont work, the Casino wins via the rake. But in southern places lots of people have been stealing with impunity for decades and these new card rooms, of which Fat Greek runs one, are a place for Spade Men to play.

Why don't Spade Men play on their own account? Because, to play those odds for those hours they need to concentrate, to endure the adrenalin surges each hand creates, to will the right card to drop, to live without daylight and in consequence, like most. like me, they have vices, always related to sex and alcohol. And they have dreams, they think they are good, therefore the cards, one day, will free them from the mundane. I knew these dreams. So I know how ever much a Spade makes he will blow it and so need a Staker, someone to put up the funds and split the percentage. So we staked a bit, for while it had worked, but then Fat Greek had cottoned and banned our best Spades from the table.

The Bulgarian dealers enter clacking a clip clop on the shining tiles, two by two, six deep, pencil thin in pencil skirts, faces made up to blank all but the scarlet smile. At the entrance the principal hostess, in toe length dress, "voluptuous sheen" comes to my mind. Fat Greek squatting puffing on a low stool watches the table fill. Shelly, now Maureen from Glasgow, short term under manager, fusses and busy bees. She looks the part, a bit of quick suntan, a slap of makeup over prison pallor. I mused that the lighting in prisons and casinos is alike. I glanced at our mark:the card room manager, a smooth Boer, white teeth, lily white arse (Shelly's description), gleaming white shirt black pointed shoes, called, at least in here, Myron.

The players gather. Mohammed, coiffured oiled dark hair, tinted glasses, cigarette held finger and thumb under the palm, Dubai money, drives a Lexus, serviced apartment upper floor, down town. JP, one of several Asian importers, fortunes made from textiles, nuts and bolts, second hand clothes, iron-mongery. They come to show off, to play, to lose money but strictly to each other. There are Chinese, latterly more, but there are always Kong's in card rooms. A fool or two, a Singh. a greasy haired Scandinavian, maybe someones Spade?

Myron says "Playing tonight? Five hundred thousand initial buy in. Only players allowed inside the card room once we deal"

I say "not tonight". Maureen, experienced casino worker, once of Glasgow, via America, keeps her back to me as I leave. After the dry casino air the tropical night sheens my face until I reach the the harbour breeze. My cab slinks out along Ocean Road, I remember the uplifted feeling, put it down to adrenalin but maybe it was twenty four hours with out an alcoholic drink. There would be a long time of waiting and watching, nothing much for me to do. I counted the misgivings, noted that it felt good, intoxicating, as dangerous as new sex, to be operating again after seven years of laying low. And on my own account, not a partner or an employer or any good reason to disturb the peace, my life of lies, false promises, oppurtune delusions.