Black Jacked

I woke up too late to accompany Jess to Maisie’s school today so I decided to get in touch with an Indonesian girl I’d met a few days back to arrange lunch. She was up for a month to visit an uncle she hadn’t seen for over a year now. When we met up, I hadn’t had any lunch and was ravished so she asked me if I wanted to come and have lunch round hers. I didn’t want to be rude. I mean, she wasn’t really my type to be honest but hey. Besides, she had an eyelash, stuck in the section of her eye, closest to her nose which I couldn’t stop staring at. It was dangling by a bit of wet sleepy dust and equated to a complete turn-off. Anyway, we got in a taxi and headed off out to her place. After driving for about twenty minutes, I started to get a little worried. She started asking me questions about marriage, weight and sleeping habits. All the way there, she kept getting phone calls, saying one word and then hanging up quickly. When the taxi finally crept into her block of flats, I could see we were miles out of Bangkok. It was a bit annoying because I’d promised to get back to take care of Maisie for Jess and it was going to take me ages to return. We walked into her uncles place and it was empty, apart from a dead cockroach on the living room floor being munched on by about 50 odd mini-ants. We sat down and her cousin walked in. They stuck the telly on and both headed off to the kitchen and after about ten minutes or so, brought out a bowl of classic noodles and bean sprouts. It smelt lush but the noodles were a bit too stuck together for my liking. Then, her uncle Rudi steps in. He was short (about my height) with a brimming smile. I actually liked him more than the girl. His English wasn’t as good, but what he didn’t know in language, he made up in happiness. He was a card dealer on a ship that was docked in Bangkok harbour and said that if I ever wanted to make a little extra cash (at this point he threw me a little wink ;-)), to come to his table! Luckily for me, I don’t really play cards. Anyway, he insisted on showing me how he did it and told me to follow him. He took his shoes off as he went upstairs so I followed suite. The room had a double bed, a table, a couple of chairs and a clothes cabinet. The thought that this guy was gonna force me to have sex with his niece zipped into my mind and then zipped straight out again when he pulled out a deck of cards and some chips. I breathed a sigh of relief and sat down. He started showing me how he did it. It was Black Jack. He dealt out the cards and then showed me how he could let me see the next card that was coming, by flipping the pack and hiding it from whoever my opponent would be. He’d also see the opponents hand and then indicate with his fingers, which cards the guy had as well. Because I’ve never played this game and probably because I’m a little stupid, this whole process took about half an hour, during which time he started telling me about this guy called Mr. Malik. A spoilt brat from a rich family in Brunii who loved to gamble his parents wealth. They’d struck a deal on the ship Rudi was working on but Malik had only cut him a small percentage of what they’d agreed to split. Naturally he was pissed off at the bastard and suddenly, I could just about see a light at the end of the tunnel. He obviously wanted me to go to the ship and play one on one with this guy and take his money. It turned out I was right about part of that statement. Rudi leaned over to me and said “You know, I’m actually Mr. Malik’s favorite dealer and he’s coming here, to my house, for a quick game before he heads out to Japan for a business conference” and all of a sudden, Mr. Malik shows up at the door. At this point I just freeze. My heart stops and I feel a deep chill run all down my body. I turned to Rudi’s niece with a look of “What the hell is this?” and she just returned the glare, worried as I was and shrugged her shoulders as if to say “I don’t know, I don’t understand”. I squeezed her leg, nervous as anything as Rudi’s whole demeanor changed. “Ooohhh, Mr. Malik, Mr. Malik, how are you? Would you like something to drink? Can I offer you anything at all Mr. Malik?”. Mr. Malik was tall, dark, dressed in a suit and sported geeky glasses. “Not at all, I am well thank you Rudi. As you know, I cannot stay long”. The introductions were made and suddenly I was involved in poker game I couldn’t get out of. A poker game in which Rudi and I were attempting to scam this rich brat. The game started and this guy pulled out a thousand dollars to bet with. Rudi was dealing, sitting on the same side as Mr. Malik and could see all the cards he was pulling. With his little tricks, we soon won the thousand dollars off Malik. All I could think was that if this Malik guy realized we were doing him, I was dead. Suddenly, the stakes changed, he opened his briefcase and pulled out $40.000 and handed it to Rudi. “Lets play proper, yes?” Rudi was gobsmacked but covered it pretty well. “Ooohh, Mr. Malik, we want to play serious now, yes? Ok, Ok.” And started dealing everything out. I squeezed his nieces thigh again and my hands started to tremble. The bet got to a stage where I had no more cash and Rudi, eyes wide, just said “Do you have 6000 Baht?” (which is about £70) and I didn’t so I just said no. “6000, just 6000 to see Mr. Malik”. I scampered through my wallet and had about 300 Baht. “Sorry, none with me”. Rudi turned round to Mr. Malik and said, “Mr. Malik, I know Jason for a long time now, I will lend him the money”. Happy about the situation, Mr. Malik let the game go on, and on, and on. And I went on borrowing, convinced that we were gonna win this. Finally, with a pre-determined sign we’d arranged, during the half hour explanation of the game before hand, Rudi indicated to me that he wanted me to end the game. And so I did, with the bet at $36.000. This was it, we’d won. I had the highest hand and we’d scammed this guy. But Mr. Malik stopped play and gestured to the piece of paper we’d been taking notes down on for the borrowing of the money. “Mr. Jason” he said, “As you know, I have come into this game with $40000 in cash, and you, you have not shown me any money. Now, I have a pretty good hand here. If I win, what cash will I receive from this game?" My heart stopped again and I glanced over at Rudi with probably the stupidest expression I’ve ever pulled. Luckily, I wasn’t someone else so I didn’t know just how stupid I must have looked. Rudi looked over to me and said “Do you understand what Mr. Malik is saying?”. The stupid expression remained. I got good at that for the next minute or so. “Do you have any money? A passport, a camera, anything you could put into this deal to see Mr. Malik's hand”. So I got my camera out. Mr. Malik looked a little annoyed and suddenly stood up and said “look, I have a meeting to go to, why don’t we adjourn this for an hour or so and complete this when I come back”. We all agreed and Rudi put my camera into a suitcase with the $40000 and our cards, sealed and signed in a pink envelope. He gave Mr. Malik a copy of the key and then headed off. Rudi then sat in front of me. “We’ve won! We have the cards! We have his $40000! I phoned a friend and he can lend me $18000 but you have to help me out here. Once we finish this, you can keep $20000 and I’ll keep the other $20000. You just have to help me out here. How much can you get?” Here is where I thank the lord I’m not rich. I’m stupid, but I’m not rich. I was ready, right there and then to go and get this money for him, if only I had it. But I knew I had no where near enough. He pressured me for about 10 minutes to the point where I just said “Look, this is now your problem, you put me in this, I haven’t got the money. You know we’ve won so you get the money cus I can’t do it”. Eventually, after a little more pointless persistence, he gave up and said he’d find another way. He gave me my camera back and I got into a cab with his niece. She was furious and was shouting at the cab driver, all sorts of orders and directions and stuff. She just couldn’t believe that her uncle, who she hadn’t seen for over a year now, could have done such a thing. We got to the main road and we had to change taxis. She got out, paid the guy and said she was really sorry for what happened and that she was going back to have a go at her uncle for putting all this pressure on me. When I got home, my mind was racing all over the place, it was madness. I told Jessica the story and as soon as I mentioned the words Black and Jack, she smiled and said I was part of a scam. The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced she was right. The bad part of it all was that, when I went to check my camera, my memory card had gone. Rudi had stolen my memory card! I couldn’t believe it and was about to contact his niece when suddenly my sister said “No! Forget it man! It’s so not worth it”. “But I really want my memory card back”, “Give me you phone” she said. She took the sim card out of the back, stuck it in the side of her mouth between her teeth and crunched down on it! Wide eyed she handed it back to me. "Fair enough", I said. I stared at her for a number of seconds, slightly shocked by the mini-overreaction and after a few moments, we both just burst out laughing. I mean, the number was still in my phone and the girl had written it in the back of my book for me too... but I got the idea. No point re-kindling that little affair.