Traudl bit her lip with exasperation. 'But why? I don't understand.'
'I have to make sure that K/nig believes I don't want to work for him. He was slightly suspicious of the way in which I got to meet his girlfriend. So here's what I want to do. Lotte's a croupier at the Oriental. I want you to give me some money to lose there tomorrow night. Enough to make it look like I've been cleaned out. Which would give me a reason to reconsider K/nig's offer.'
'This counts as legitimate expenses, does it?'
'I'm afraid it does.'
'How much?'
'Three or four thousand schillings ought to do it.'
She thought for a minute and then the waiter arrived with a bottle of Riesling.
When he had filled our glasses Traudl sipped some of her wine and said: 'All right then. But only on one condition: that I'm there to watch you lose it.'
From the set of her jaw I judged her to be quite determined. 'I don't suppose it would do much good to remind you that it could be dangerous. It's not as if you could accompany me. I can't afford to be seen with you in case somebody recognizes you as Emil's girl. If this weren't such a quiet place I would have insisted that we met at your house.'
'Don't worry about me,' she said firmly. 'I'll treat you like you were a sheet of glass.'
I started to speak again, but she held her hands over her small ears.
'No, I'm not listening to any more. I'm coming, and that's final. You're a spinner if you think that I'm just going to hand over 4,000 schillings without keeping an eye on what happens to it.'
'You have a point.' I stared at the limpid disc of wine in my glass for a moment, and then said, 'You love him a lot, don't you?'
Traudl swallowed hard, and nodded vigorously. After a short pause, she added, 'I'm carrying his child.'
I sighed and tried to think of something encouraging to say to her.
'Look,' I mumbled, 'don't worry. We'll get him out of this mess. There's no need to be the cockroach. Come on, come out of the dumps. Everything will work out, for you and the baby, I'm sure of it.' A pretty inadequate speech I thought and lacking any real conviction.
Traudl shook her head, and smiled. 'I'm all right, really I am. I was just thinking how the last time I was here was with Emil, when I told him that I was pregnant. We used to come here a lot. I never meant to fall in love with him, you know.'
'Nobody ever means to do it.' I noticed that my hand was on hers. 'It just happens that way. Like a car accident.' But looking at her elfin face I wasn't sure if I agreed with what I was saying. Her beauty wasn't the kind that's left smeared on your pillowcase in the morning, but the kind that would make a man proud that his child should have such a mother. I realized how much I envied Becker this woman, how much I myself would have wanted to fall in love with her if she had come my way. I let go her hand and quickly lit a cigarette to hide behind some smoke.
Chapter 24
The next evening found me hurrying from its sharp edge and hint of snow, although the calendar suggested something less inclement, and into the warm, lubricious fug of the Casino Oriental, my pockets packed tight with wads of Emil Becker's easy money.
I bought quite a lot of the highest denomination chips and then wandered over to the bar to await Lotte's arrival at one of the card-tables. Having ordered a drink, all I had to do was shoo away the sparklers and the chocoladies that buzzed around, intent on keeping me and my wallet company, which left me with a keener appreciation of what it must be like to be a horse's ass in high summer.
It was ten o'clock before Lotte showed up at one of the tables, by which time the flick of my tail was becoming more apathetic. I delayed another few minutes for appearance's sake before carrying my drink over to Lotte's stretch of green baize and sitting down directly opposite her.
She surveyed the pile of chips that I neatly arranged in front of me and made an equally neat purse of her lips. 'I didn't figure you for a quirk,' she said, meaning a gambler. 'I thought you had more sense.'
'Maybe your fingers will be lucky for me,' I said brightly.
'I wouldn't bet on it.'
'Yes, well, I'll certainly bear that in mind.' I'm not much of a card-player. I couldn't even have named the game I was playing. So it was with some considerable surprise that, at the end of twenty minutes' play, I realized that I had almost doubled my original stock of chips. It seemed a perverse logic that trying to lose money at cards should be every bit as difficult as trying to win it.
Lotte dealt from the shoe and once again I won. Glancing up from the table I noticed Traudl seated opposite me, nursing a small pile of chips. I hadn't seen her come into the club, but by now the place was so busy that I would have missed Rita Hayworth.
'I guess it's my lucky night,' I remarked to no one in particular as Lotte raked my winnings towards me. Traudl merely smiled politely as if I had been a stranger to her, and prepared to make her next modest bet.
I ordered another drink and, concentrating hard, tried to make a go of being a real loser, taking a card when I should have stayed, betting when I should have folded and generally trying to sidestep luck at every available opportunity. Now and again I tried to play sensibly in order to make what I was doing appear less obvious. But after another forty minutes I had succeeded in losing all of what I had won, as well as half my original capital. When Traudl left the table, having seen me lose enough of her boyfriend's money to be satisfied that it had been used for the purpose I had stated, I finished my drink and sighed exasperatedly.
'It looks as if it's not my lucky night after all,' I said grimly.
'Luck's got nothing to do with the way you play,' Lotte murmured. 'I just hope you were more skilful in dealing with that Russian captain.'
'Oh, don't worry about him, he's taken care of. You won't have any more problems there.'
'I'm glad to hear it.'
I gambled my last chip, lost it and then stood up from the table saying that maybe I was going to be grateful for K/nig's offer of a job after all. Smiling ruefully, I walked back to the bar where I ordered a drink and for a while watched a topless girl dancing in a parody of a Latin American step on the floor to the tinny, jerking sound of the Oriental's jazz band.
I didn't see Lotte leave the table to make a telephone call but after a while K/nig came down the stairs into the club. He was accompanied by a small terrier, which stayed close to his heels, and a taller, more distinguished-looking man who was wearing a Schiller jacket and a club-tie. This second man disappeared through a bead curtain at the back of the club while K/nig made a pantomime of catching my eye.
He walked over to the bar, nodding to Lotte and producing a fresh cigar from the top pocket of his green tweed suit as he came.
'Herr Gunther,' he said, smiling, 'how nice to meet you again.'
'Hello, K/nig,' I said. 'How are your teeth?'
'My teeth?' His smile vanished as if I had asked him how his chancre was.
'Don't you remember?' I explained. 'You were telling me about your plates.'
His face relaxed. 'So I was. They're much better, thank you.' Tipping in a smile again, he added, 'I hear you've had some bad luck at the tables.'
'Not according to FrSulein Hartmann. She told me that luck has nothing at all to do with the way I play cards.'
K/nig finished lighting his four-schilling corona and chuckled. 'Then you must allow me to buy you a drink.' He waved the barman over, ordered a scotch for himself and whatever I was drinking. 'Did you lose much?'
'More than I could afford,' I said unhappily. 'About 4,000 schillings.' I drained my glass and pushed it across the bartop for a refill. 'Stupid, really.
I shouldn't play at all. I have no real aptitude for cards. So I'm cleaned out now.' I toasted K/nig silently and swallowed some more vodka. 'Thank God I had the good sense to pay my hotel bill well in advance. Apart from that, there's very little to feel happy about.'