Tommo & Hawk (23 page)

'Lose? Fifteen pounds!' Hawk shouts, aghast. All these surprises is getting his voice up nice and strong.

I roll me eyes in the manner o' Ikey. 'Can't win in the first game, not kosher, my dears, not to be considered, quite out o' the question. Absolutely forbidden and not to be entered into!' I says, mimicking his voice. Hawk laughs despite himself, then grows serious again.

'What if we are taken to Auckland before there can be a second game and we've dropped fifteen pounds in the first?'

'Trust me,' I reply. 'Nottingham won't let that happen. He's a gambler what feels he's gunna get lucky!'

But I can't say I ain't worried. Any cove what plays regular in a five-pound buy-in is either cashed and most professional in his handling o' the flats, or apt to practise a little relocation hisself. Either way, such a cove don't much like losing to strangers and is likely to get violent.

'No grog!' Hawk says suddenly. 'Promise me, no brandy, no spirits!'

'Gamblin' can't be done without drinkin', Hawk!' I protest. 'Folks gets suspicious if you don't keep the tipple going.'

Hawk works his hands in the Ikey manner. 'Drink and think go together like boys, bishops and bedchambers - it has been known to happen but it is a most unholy alliance, my dears!' He can do Ikey even better than me.

I sigh and nod me head. At this rate, I ain't never gunna taste another drop.

*

The game takes place in the gaoler's office that very night, which leads me to think Nottingham ain't quite the innocent he seems. A high-stakes poker game don't come about this quick unless the players expect a pretty evening at someone else's expense. What, I asks meself, is Nottingham up to? It could mean two things. He's told the players we're easy fruit, ripe for the picking. But that be stupid 'cause he knows we ain't. So he's not going to shit on his own doorstep, is he? He's the one what has to live in this town. It might mean he's got a two-way bet - all the other players is in the game together against me, a case o' mutual benefit. Well, I thinks, there's no point in getting too clever at reading the bastard. I'll find out soon enough 'cause that's what the first game's for, ain't it?

Hawk is allowed in the room but he must be seated three feet behind me, and we is both shackled by the ankle to a chair leg.

It's a curious sort o' group, but no more strange, I suppose, than what's to be found in any sea port. Seated about the table is a Maori bloke, Hori Hura, what the whites rudely call the Hairy Horror. He is a merry fellow, what wobbles with laughter after every sentence. He can barely reach the card table for his big belly.

He is accompanied by Messrs Tate and Lyle. These last two are small, rough-looking gentlemen, though they wears good cloth-suits and clean linen with boots what have seen a shine. They is known as Maple and Syrup on account o' the fact that they's inseparable and their names is the same as what's on a Tate & Lyle maple syrup tin.

It turns out that both Tate and Lyle come to New Zealand as boys in 1844, transported on the Mandarin from Parkhurst Penitentiary on the Isle o' Wight, young felons to be apprenticed to settlers. But they soon ran away from their masters and took to living amongst the Maori to avoid the law.

This is how they met Hori Hura, himself only a young un. He is much taken with the pakeha boys, who soon learn Maori and teaches him English, including what Ikey would call a host of lively expressions fit to burn the ears off a church warden. They also teaches him the flats and now, for many years, they has become his partners in trading. Most curiously, there is no mention of what sort o' goods this trade be in. But they complains that much of their former customers is now took to Auckland, where they themselves wants to go. I reckons their 'trading' be of a gambling nature, with visiting sailors their patsy-mark. With so few ships now calling at Kororareka and most stopping off at Auckland, they thinks to move their shady operation to the larger port.

Maple and Syrup speak of their past with pride. Parkhurst boys is well known in Tasmania too. Such boys almost exclusively start out with a record as thieves. They is nurtured in vice and repeatedly convicted in the quarter-session courts of London Town until they finally appears at the Old Bailey. There they is given their free passage out to New South Wales or Van Diemen's Land or to New Zealand. Ikey told of how, when he first come to Van Diemen's Land, he would keep an eye on the Point Puer Reformatory near Port Arthur where the Parkhurst boys were transported, just in case the one and only Sparrer Fart did suddenly appear among 'em.

So, I says to meself, if these two bastards, Maple and Syrup, be on the straight and narrow as we're supposed to suppose, then our gaoler be the real Sheriff o' Nottingham, I be Robin Hood and Hawk, Maid Marian!

Then there is the Portugee, Captain de Silva, a small, dark man with a goatee beard and a most handsome moustache, waxed and curled high to almost touch his ear lobes. Nottingham introduces him to all, saying he has only come into harbour yesterday. When he went into the police station to post bond for his crew and pay his customs duty, he happened to enquire if there be a friendly game ashore.

The last of me erstwhile partners for the night is Mrs Barrett, what's in fact a man, thin as a rake, wearing a woman's dress and shawl, hose and boots. His grey hair is tied in a bun behind his neck and he has a long, black and very thin Jamaican cheroot in his mouth. His nose and cheeks is tattooed most unusual, an English rose on each cheek, one full blown, the other in bud, with the leaves and stems joined across his nose and his brow. It is a more friendly-looking tattoo than that of Hori Hura, who, like Hammerhead Jack and the other Maori aboard the Nankin Maiden, is covered in black squiggles and circles over every inch of his ugly gob.

Each player has brought along his preferred tipple. Hori Hura has rum, Maple and Syrup has Cape brandy, Captain de Silva drinks oporto wine and Mrs Barrett has Bombay gin. Me gut is howling like a dog at the moon with all these elixirs of heavenly transport placed before it. In their shining bottles they be so near to me yet so far from me reach. I has to concentrate all the harder for not drinking than if I were swilling it down, on me road back to drunkenness as Hawk fears.

To rub salt into the wound, Nottingham explains to all assembled that, because I be a prisoner of Her Majesty, I cannot consume ardent spirits. This be a ploy suggested by Hawk so me abstinence ain't thought strange. So, here I am dealing the cards for stud poker with a mug o' stream water which I am obliged to sip, to the constant chaffing and the pretended commiseration of all what sits comfortable and comforted with their favourite tipple at their elbows.

'Now the flats be a game o' two characters,' Ikey would say. 'It is popular thought that if you know the man you know the game he'll play, but that, my dears, be purest codswallop. Cards bring out the best and worst in a person and often the opposite to what's expected. Timothy Timid can play like a lion and Terrible Tim like a lamb. The flats be the other person in each of us; find this second person and you've got your patsy-mark.'

It's soon apparent that Hori Hura, and Maple and Syrup be skilled enough but lack true intelligence. Of the other two, Captain de Silva, the Portugee captain is a careful player - highly skilled but one who ain't prepared to venture too much. Mrs Barrett appears to be the one to watch. Cunning as a rat, he strikes like a cobra. A very pretty player o' the flats indeed but a mite too hot-headed, and I think he is working a scam, which I will soon enough locate.

I loses slowly but steadily to each of them, dealing them good hands each time it is my turn. I'm losing less than I had hoped to Hori Hura and his Parkhurst boys who are, towards the end of the evening, a little too drunk and do not take all the opportunities me generosity affords them. Each ends the evening with their buy-in still intact and a bit more besides.

Captain de Silva wins three pounds. Mrs Barrett is the winner for the night with seven pounds - three taken from the captain in the final hand when only the two are left in the game and de Silva is forced to see Mrs Barrett by matching his last bet or dropping out. I be surprised when he chooses to drop out as I know he holds a better hand than Mrs Barrett.

This brings me to the whole point of the night. While I has managed to lose nigh upon fifteen pounds, I has also been able to substitute both packs with me own, which I have previously marked. I have took in with me the brand-new red and blue packs Hawk bought me on the night we went ashore from the Nankin Maiden. These has been marked in Ikey's secret manner so it be almost impossible to discover. By the end of the night I has both decks substituted and I know every card on the table. This is why I know that if the Portugee captain had asked to see Mrs Barrett, he would have taken the pot. He's most cautious and this worries me some, for I also sees in him a hungry predator.

In all we are down fourteen pounds and sixteen shillings when the game finally comes to an end. With Mrs Barrett the big winner, local pride is intact and I has established that this fine lady-man is not in league with the other three locals, nor is he near as good as de Silva. I cannot be sure that he ain't in cahoots with Nottingham, but me final reading of him is that he cannot be relied on to win consistently. Nottingham would know this too.

As for the other three, they are clearly a syndicate, and Nottingham would, I reckon, be most reluctant to make a deal with them. Besides, he is all scowls at me loss and most hard put to show a brave face. I got to conclude that our gaoler has took us in good faith as a partner. But I still reckon there is something I has missed; something I has failed to speculate upon. 'Scratch around, look in the dark corners,' I hear Ikey saying to me. 'It will be there, stored in the old noggin box.'

Anyway, it be a neat enough evening's work and all are willing to put down their five-pound stake for the following night. It is decided, at Nottingham's suggestion, that we will play five-card draw tomorrow. Stud poker, the game we has been playing, is a great game for cheating if you knows what you're about. You has only to make sure you have the hole card you want and a good dealer can deliver the right card to make up a winning hand wherever he wishes to place it.

Poker is a game where cold decking is easily possible -that is, substituting a marked deck as I has done during the course of the game. It is a trickier business with five-card draw, though, and there is more chance to be discovered. I believe meself a good enough player with an unmarked deck and am confident I can hold me own with de Silva. If, in an emergency, I must substitute me own deck, I am a good enough mechanic to do it.

Hawk now asks Nottingham to put the two decks we has used tonight in the gaol-house safe. I has already removed me own marked cards and replaced the originals and so I am delighted when our gaoler refuses.

'We play with new cards tomorrow,' he says grandly. 'Captain de Silva has agreed that I should have the money from his winnings to purchase them.'

For my part, I am all brave smiles at my losses, just what might be expected from a good amateur what finds himself out of his depth but has too much pride and not enough sense to give it away.

'Better luck next time, eh lad!' they all says, patting me on the shoulder, pleased as Punch at the way things has gone.

Nottingham then collects the pot and makes Hawk give him five pounds so all can see we has the stakes for the next game. Hawk looks suitably long-faced when he hands over our five sovs and Nottingham is most unhappy that we have lost so badly but is trying not to show his anger to the other players.

Nottingham gives the thirty pounds to Hawk to keep and we is unchained from our chairs. 'See yer tomorrow night, lad. Could be yer night,' Syrup shouts as we is led back to our cells. We can hear them laughing all high and mighty.

When we is locked in again, Hawk sticks out his manacled hands. 'You said we'd lose fifteen pounds, we only lost fourteen pounds and sixteen shillings, where's the other four shillings?'

'Escape money!' I laughs, handing over the four shillings. 'I was keeping it for our expenses on the open road.'

The open bottle, more like,' he says, a touch tetchy.

'That ain't fair, Hawk! Twice the Maori pushed his rum bottle to me when Nottingham weren't looking, "Help yerself, Tommo," he says.'

Hawk nods and grimaces. 'I wronged you, Tommo. I'm sorry. It's just my own misgivings over the whole affair. The fat Maori and those two villains from Parkhurst, Maple and Syrup, I think they are the most dangerous.'

'I know,' I says. 'But they is poor mechanics and cannot match the play. Their cheating is only for chumps what know no better.'

'We could ask that they be seated away from each other?'

'No, that would alert them that we're on to them. Besides, it'll make no difference. I'll take them slowly tomorrow night, driving the pot up only at the end when they be well out o' the game. And what does you think o' Captain de Silva and Mrs Barrett?'

'De Silva is kosher, I think, and I only caught Mrs Barrett relocating once.'

'He done it seven times. He's got an apron pocket behind his shawl,' I laughs. 'He's quite good but not too quick on the draw.'

'Seven times, eh?' Hawk exclaims. 'Not much help then, am I?'

'Course you is. Poker games can turn nasty at any moment, and having you behind me be a great comfort in a room full o' villains. They will think twice about coming at us.'

Hawk laughs. 'Big and clumsy, that's me. I don't know how I'd go at fisticuffs! Never tried it. Besides, our legs are shackled to the chair.' He pauses and then asks, 'How are we going, then?'

'I know their second natures now,' I reply. 'The Portugee captain worries me. I left him out o' my favours tonight. He is an outsider like us, and there ain't no need to gull him, so I lets him play his natural game to gauge his skill. I didn't observe him to be relocating even the once and it be astonishing that he managed to come out ahead in a game where I gives the others so much help.'