The Bullet Trick (16 page)

After Sylvie’s dance it had been my turn for a party piece. Sylvie had produced a pack of cards and asked me to give them a show. I’d palmed them for the deck in my pocket and given my hosts a simple routine. She’d been full of gasps and exaggerated wonder but Uncle had kept his cool, looking like he’d seen it all before. After a while he’d asked, 'So are cards just for tricks or can you play serious games?'

'Like what?'

'Like poker.'

He inclined his head, his face so card-sharp straight it was hard not to laugh. I guess the grass had started to work on me by then. I pushed down the giggles and said, 'Sometimes.'

'Any good?'

I folded the deck into a fancy weave.

'Too good to play you for money when I’m accepting your hospitality.'

'Ah, that good.' He took the pack from me and riffled them into a neat shuffle. 'I’d like to see you play all the same.'

'Fine by me if we make it a friendly stake.'

Dix looked amused and I wondered if he thought I was after his grass or his girl, if indeed she was his girl, but then Sylvie went to her bag and threw a couple of matchbooks onto the table and the moment passed. I picked one up and started to strip the flimsy paper matches from it. The cover was glossy black, printed with a gold image. A woman dressed only in knickers and crisscrossing fishnets had tumbled into a fancy cocktail where she now sat, laughing. Her bosoms were as round and as buoyant as the bubbles floating from the glass. Her long legs kicked happily beyond its rim, her arms raised in a ta-da showgirl gesture. The cover read Ein Enchanted Nachtreview.

Dix broke into my thoughts. 'You do the casinos a lot?'

I shook my head, not wanting to get into it, my hand going to the small scar near my left eye.

'In my younger days.' I watched as he dealt a hand. 'But casinos are trained to be suspicious.'

Dix laid the last card on the table and left the pack face-down, next to the ashtray. 'They don’t like you to win too much.'

I picked up my cards and sorted them quickly into suits. 'It wouldn’t be good business.'

We played a couple of hands, aces low, in more or less silence. I called canny, watching the cards, memorising sequences, noting who had what and what had gone before. The first two hands I won were calculated luck. But by the third I had the measure of the pack and though my voice stayed smooth and my movements were slow and gentle my strategy was full-on edgy.

Dix didn’t have my grasp, I’d spotted any luckies that chance dealt him and without a monster hand he had the odds of a borstal boy with a yearning for Eton. He lost with the same calm disinterest that had characterised his moves all night, but I thought his lazy eyes betrayed a brighter keenness than they’d shown before. The whisky was a quarter lower than when we’d started. I poured my hosts a measure each, slipping a small tot into my own glass. Catching Dix looking at me over his deal, I wondered if he’d noticed that since the game began I’d been drinking less and inhaling so light it barely counted. Sylvie was beginning to look bored. She spread her cards into a careless fan. I said, 'Sylvie, I can see your cards.'

And she pressed them flat against her chest, like a colonial lady startled into a heart flutter.

'That’s how he does it, X-ray vision.'

'Hey, no, honey,' I affected an American old-timer accent. 'I just know when to hold them, know when to fold them, know when to walk away and know when to run.'

Dix ignored our banter. His voice had the rusty edge to it again.

'I think there’s a story you’re not telling us. If it was me I’d forget this trickster stuff and do the casinos.'

I levelled my stare at him and put my cards down with a flourish, winning the final hand and leaving the others with the old stains of coffee cups where their stake used to be. Even without a penny of gain it was a good feeling and I spoke to remind myself of my priorities.

'I’m a performer.'

Dix pushed the rest of the matchstick jackpot towards me. 'Your choice man, but it seems a waste. With all these matches you could start a really big fire.'

'Could do, but then things might get a bit hot.'

He nodded. 'I understand. But you got a gift, seems a shame to waste it. There are a lot of good casinos in Berlin. We could go to Alexanderplatz right now and clean up more than you’ll make in a week of hiding aces up your sleeve.'

I reached over to Sylvie and palmed a gold coin from behind her ear, presenting it to her with a small flourish, showing Dix’s slight on my knack didn’t faze me. Sylvie giggled but he looked unimpressed.

'Maybe you don’t want to play the casinos, I can understand that.' He raised a hand absentmindedly to his eye and for the first time I noticed a fading rack of small bruises on his knuckles. 'But there are a lot of bored rich men in the world, you find a trick to entertain them, something special, some private show, then you’d collect big money.'

'Maybe we’ll do that one night.'

'You let me know.' Dix’s stare was serious. 'Right now you’re wasting your talent. Think about it. You have the audience watching you, maybe a pretty girl by your side and what do you do? Wave your wand and make her disappear or cut a piece of string in two then put it back together again.' He shook his head at the futility of my act. 'You’ve got quick hands, a fast memory,' he grinned, 'you can make people see things that aren’t there. That’s a hell of a skill. You change your mind you tell me. I’ve got good connections in this city.'

I nodded then squared the cards and slid them back into their box, not wanting to hear any get-rich-quick schemes or remember the kind of trouble my nimble fingers could get me into.

'So 'Uncle', is it an honorary title or a real one?'

He shrugged.

'Of course it is an honour.'

Sylvie replaced the dead candles on the hearth with fresh ones and we lit them with my winnings. The talk moved on and so did the night while we continued making a dent in Dix’s grass and killing the whisky, until everything faded.

I hauled myself out of bed, realising I’d gone to sleep in my contact lenses again. Vanity would send me blind. My trousers and shirt were in a bundle at the bottom of the bed. It looked like an alien had come along and zapped me off for an anal probe, leaving my clothes shrivelled on the ground behind me. I listened for noises, coughed into the silence, then dressed and went into the hall, trying to remember which door led to the bathroom.

The bathroom was kidney-shrivelling cold. I was midstream when I heard a noise behind me and glanced over my shoulder. Sylvie stood in the doorway wrapped in a thin floral robe. She rubbed her eyes and said, 'Don’t mind me.' Then turned on the tap and started to wash her face. It’s hard to be nonchalant while peeing, but I did my best.

'Sleep well?' I did a final shake over the pan and zipped myself away.

'Not so much sleep as pass out.' She patted her face dry with a grey-looking towel. 'How ’bout you?'

'The same.'

Sylvie hung the towel back up and did a quick shuffle, hopping from foot to foot.

I said, 'Cool dance.'

And she made a face.

'Very funny, you finished there?'

We swapped places and she seated herself, holding her long dressing-gown around her thighs. She had thick woolly socks on her feet, but I had the impression that other than that she was naked under her robe. A thin trickling filled the room. I did the gentlemanly thing and looked in the mirror. I needed a shave and my breath probably stank, but the night hadn’t left too much of a mark on my face. Thoughts of the show were still bothering me. I would have to get away soon. Somewhere on my own where I could start thinking how I might tailor my act to this new audience. Behind me Sylvie sighed.

'That’s better.'

I looked towards her then looked away quick, catching her blotting herself dry. My contact lenses eased away from my eyes, letting the world blur to the state where everything looked fine. I splashed my face with cold water.

'Dix has a razor and stuff if you want to use it.'

'I’ll be OK.' I held up my toilet bag. 'You forget I’ve got all my worldly possessions with me.'

'There’s a lot to be said for that.'

Sylvie put the toilet-lid down and sat on it, looking at me as I brushed my teeth.

'Yep.' I spat out the foam and rinsed my mouth. 'Just an old jakie, footloose and fancy-free.'

'A jakie?'

'A tramp, a hobo.'

'But you’ve got ties in the UK right? A house and kids and all that shit?'

'No house, no kids, not even a budgie; indeed no loved ones of any description.'

'No family?'

'Well there’s me old mum, but we don’t see much of each other.'

'Wow.'

I reached for the towel then remembered its greyness and dried my face on the hem of my shirt. Sylvie’s expression was blurred but I thought she was smiling.

'All done?'

'My normal regime includes a mudpack and a seaweed wrap but I suppose I’ll have to make an exception today.'

'Hungry?'

'Hank Marvin.'

'What?'

'Starving.'

She laughed and pushed me playfully from the room.

'Well here’s the deal. You let me get ready and I’ll let you take me out for breakfast.' She started to close the door behind me. 'You know, a girl needs a bit of privacy sometimes.'

Sylvie took me to a small Turkish café on the corner of her street. The aged proprietor smiled when he saw her and they exchanged greetings in a quick slick German while he settled us at a small pavement table. The old man shouted something through the door of the café and pretty soon a young waiter appeared with a tray carrying tiny cups and a tall curvy coffee pot. He handed me a menu printed in English. Sylvie snatched it away good-naturedly, ordering for both of us, saying something that made the waiter laugh then glance at me shyly before he went back inside to prepare our breakfast.

I massaged my temples above my right eyebrow, wondering why my hangovers always concentrated there. Perhaps it was some congenital weakness that would only be diagnosed after I suddenly dropped dead. I wondered if I’d die on-stage, collapsing in the middle of a trick, everyone thinking I’d done it for comic effect. Folk said it was the way Tommy Cooper would’ve wanted to go. I’d never met him but it seemed like a nightmare exit to me. The sound of embarrassed laughter and the audience whispering to each other that they couldn’t believe what an old ham you’d become.

We sat there, bundled against the cold. Sylvie poured, steam curled from the spout and the rich scent of thick sweet coffee began to lift my hangover. We both lit up, adding cigarette smoke and warm breath to the mix.

'You’ve got a good grasp of the lingo.'

'I went to school here.'

'Careful, Sphinx, you’re telling me things about yourself.'

She smiled.

'There’s no big mystery. It’s just, who needs the past? Dix says we should let go and he’s right. What’s the point in looking back? We live for now.'

'Where is Dix? Still in bed?'