days and three nights in a fog other masters in the area described afterwards as pretty near impenetrable. It played havoc with their instruments. It interfered with wireless transmission. Compass readings were inconsistent, inaccurate, useless. It would have been interesting, in the light of subsequent events, to know what was happening to Gubby Tench during this weird period of unnavigable weather. But, of course, the log had been destroyed, so nobody knew or would ever know what he had been up to, what he had been thinking.
‘Unless my dad knows,’ I said. ‘He claims to have read every volume of the log.’
Suzanne smiled and lit another cigarette. She was chain-smoking, well above her self-permitted ration of ten a day. ‘I doubt Gubby Tench committed a single line to the log during his voyage,’ she said. ‘I don’t think he was much of a stickler for any sort of seagoing protocol. And I don’t get the impression he was much of a diarist.’
He arrived in Havana running a high temperature. Epidemics were common in pre-war Cuba. The floor manager of one of the casinos, supervising the blackjack tables, thought that Gubby Tench looked like a man incubating cholera. He was sweating heavily and his breath was a shallow wheeze. But such diseases were generally confined to the slums and contagion rare among high-rolling American visitors. And this visitor had only just disembarked. Nevertheless, the comment was made later by more than one witness that Tench looked feverish and ill. But it didn’t affect his form at the tables. On his first night, he won big. On his second, he won even bigger. On his third evening, drawing a crowd by now, he turned from blackjack to roulette and took on the house, betting consistently on the black, taking close to one hundred thousand dollars in winnings by the time the spell broke at around four thirty in the morning.
‘By the time the spell broke?’
‘That was what the other gamblers and the table operators said it was like. They said it was as though Tench gambled in a trance. They said it was as though he could not lose.’
‘I’m surprised he was permitted to go on winning,’ I said. ‘I’m surprised he was permitted to go on playing. Weren’t all the Cuban casinos of the period owned by the Mafia?’
‘Some,’ Suzanne said. ‘The Cuban dictator, Batista, leased some casinos to the Mafia. The rest were run by his cronies and owned indirectly by him. But they were happy to ride out the odd big win. Nobody ever really beats the house if they keep coming back. And streaks like the one Tench enjoyed have always kept the serious punters coming.’
Except that Gubby Tench did not exactly seem to be enjoying his own run of good fortune. On his fourth evening he was so ill, he was attended to at the roulette table by a doctor. He was running a fever of 105. His blood pressure was off the scale. He was soaked in sweat and breathing in shallow, alarming gasps. His speech was slurred when he spoke, though no one saw him so much as sip from the complimentary drinks lined up at his elbow. He drank only from a glass of iced water and the rocks in it chinked audibly with the tremor in his hand whenever he picked it up to sip from it.
Yet still he won. By the conclusion of his fourth night at the tables, he had accrued enough chips to need a barrow to take them to the cashier. They sat in a gaudy hill of painted ivory in front of him on the baize. And he smiled and took a revolver from the pocket of his tuxedo. And he flicked out the cylinder over the baize and shook out six bullets. He blinked at the people around him through the six circular bores he’d made empty. He winked at a girl waiting tables with his tongue lolling and a look so emptilylascivious that she didn’t sleep afterwards for a week. Then he picked up a single bullet and loaded it into a chamber and gave the cylinder a spin. He cocked the hammer and put the barrel to his temple with a grin and pulled the
‘Unless my dad knows,’ I said. ‘He claims to have read every volume of the log.’
Suzanne smiled and lit another cigarette. She was chain-smoking, well above her self-permitted ration of ten a day. ‘I doubt Gubby Tench committed a single line to the log during his voyage,’ she said. ‘I don’t think he was much of a stickler for any sort of seagoing protocol. And I don’t get the impression he was much of a diarist.’
He arrived in Havana running a high temperature. Epidemics were common in pre-war Cuba. The floor manager of one of the casinos, supervising the blackjack tables, thought that Gubby Tench looked like a man incubating cholera. He was sweating heavily and his breath was a shallow wheeze. But such diseases were generally confined to the slums and contagion rare among high-rolling American visitors. And this visitor had only just disembarked. Nevertheless, the comment was made later by more than one witness that Tench looked feverish and ill. But it didn’t affect his form at the tables. On his first night, he won big. On his second, he won even bigger. On his third evening, drawing a crowd by now, he turned from blackjack to roulette and took on the house, betting consistently on the black, taking close to one hundred thousand dollars in winnings by the time the spell broke at around four thirty in the morning.
‘By the time the spell broke?’
‘That was what the other gamblers and the table operators said it was like. They said it was as though Tench gambled in a trance. They said it was as though he could not lose.’
‘I’m surprised he was permitted to go on winning,’ I said. ‘I’m surprised he was permitted to go on playing. Weren’t all the Cuban casinos of the period owned by the Mafia?’
‘Some,’ Suzanne said. ‘The Cuban dictator, Batista, leased some casinos to the Mafia. The rest were run by his cronies and owned indirectly by him. But they were happy to ride out the odd big win. Nobody ever really beats the house if they keep coming back. And streaks like the one Tench enjoyed have always kept the serious punters coming.’
Except that Gubby Tench did not exactly seem to be enjoying his own run of good fortune. On his fourth evening he was so ill, he was attended to at the roulette table by a doctor. He was running a fever of 105. His blood pressure was off the scale. He was soaked in sweat and breathing in shallow, alarming gasps. His speech was slurred when he spoke, though no one saw him so much as sip from the complimentary drinks lined up at his elbow. He drank only from a glass of iced water and the rocks in it chinked audibly with the tremor in his hand whenever he picked it up to sip from it.
Yet still he won. By the conclusion of his fourth night at the tables, he had accrued enough chips to need a barrow to take them to the cashier. They sat in a gaudy hill of painted ivory in front of him on the baize. And he smiled and took a revolver from the pocket of his tuxedo. And he flicked out the cylinder over the baize and shook out six bullets. He blinked at the people around him through the six circular bores he’d made empty. He winked at a girl waiting tables with his tongue lolling and a look so emptilylascivious that she didn’t sleep afterwards for a week. Then he picked up a single bullet and loaded it into a chamber and gave the cylinder a spin. He cocked the hammer and put the barrel to his temple with a grin and pulled the
Similar Books
