Banco: The Further Adventures of Papillon

‘There’s a bright boy. Two frescos, Señora.’

A fat, friendly old light-skinned woman brought us glasses full of a chocolate-coloured liquid with an ice-cube and a bit of lemon swimming in it.

‘That’ll be eight bolivars, hombres.’

‘More than two dollars! Hell, life is not cheap here.’

Jojo paid. ‘How are things going?’ he asked.

‘So-so.’

‘Are there any or are there not?’

‘Men in plenty. But very, very few diamonds. They found this place three months ago, and since then four thousand men have come rushing in. Too many men for so few diamonds. And what about him?’ she said, jerking her chin towards me. ‘German or French?’

‘French. He’s with me.’

‘Poor soul.’

‘How come, poor soul?’ I asked.

‘Because you’re too young and too good-looking to die. The men who come with Jojo never have any luck.’

‘You shut your trap, you old fool. Come on, Papi, let’s go.’

As we stood up, the fat woman said to me by way of good-bye, ‘Look out for yourself.’

Of course, I’d said nothing about what José had told me, and Jojo was amazed that I did not try to find out what there was behind her words. I could feel him waiting for the questions that didn’t come. He seemed upset and he kept glancing at me sideways.

Pretty soon, after he had talked to various people, Jojo found a shack. Three small rooms; rings to hang our hammocks; and some cartons. On one of them, empty beer and rum bottles; on another, a battered enamel bowl and a full watering-can. Strings stretched across to hang up our clothes. The floor was pounded earth, very clean. The walls of this hutch were made of planks from packing-cases – you could still read Savon Camay, Aceite Branca, Nestlé’s Milk. Each room was about ten foot by ten. No windows. I felt stifled and took off my shirt.

Jojo turned, deeply shocked. ‘Are you crazy? Suppose somebody came in? You’ve got a wicked mug already, and now if you go and show your tattooed hide, man it’s as if you were advertising the fact that you’re a crook. Behave yourself.’

‘But I’m stifling, Jojo.’

‘You’ll get used to it – it’s all a matter of habit. But behave yourself, almighty God: above all, behave yourself.’

I managed to keep myself from laughing: he was a priceless old party, that Jojo.

We knocked two rooms into one. ‘This will be the casino,’ said Jojo, with a grin. It made a room twenty foot by ten. We swept the floor, went out to buy three big wooden crates, some rum and paper cups to drink out of. I was eager to see what the game would be like.

I didn’t have to wait long. Once we had been round a number of wretched little drinking-joints, to ‘make contact’ as Jojo put it, everyone knew that there would be a game of craps in our place at eight that evening. The last joint we went to was a shed with a couple of tables outside, four benches and a carbide lamp hanging from a covering of branches. The boss, a huge, ageless redhead, served the punch without a word. As we were leaving he came over to me and, speaking French, he said, ‘I don’t know who you are and I don’t want to know. But I’ll just give you this tip. The day you feel like sleeping here, come along. I’ll look after you.’

He spoke an odd sort of French, but from his accent I realized he was a Corsican. ‘You a Corsican?’

‘Yes. And you know a Corsican never betrays. Not like some guys from the north,’ he added, with a knowing smile.

‘Thanks. It’s good to know.’

Towards seven o’clock, Jojo lit the carbide lamp. The two blankets were laid out on the ground. No chairs. The gamblers would either stand or squat. We decided I shouldn’t play that night. Just watch, that’s all.

They started to arrive. Extraordinary mugs. Few short men: most were huge, bearded, moustachio’d types. Hands and faces were clean; they didn’t smell; yet their clothes were all stained and very nearly worn out. But every single one of the shirts – mostly short-sleeved – was spotlessly clean.

In the middle of the cloth, eight pairs of dice were neatly arranged, each in a little box. Jojo asked me to give each player a paper cup. There were about twenty of them. I poured out the rum. Not a single guy there jerked up the neck of the bottle to say enough. After just one round, three bottles vanished.

Each man deliberately took a sip, then put his cup down in front of him and laid an aspirin tube beside it. I knew that there were diamonds in those tubes. A shaky old Chinese set up a little jeweller’s scales in front of him. Nobody said much. These men were shagged out: they’d been labouring under the blazing sun, some of them standing in water up to their middles from six in the morning till the sun went down.

Ha, things were beginning to move! First one, then two, then three players took up a pair of dice and examined them carefully, pressing them tight together and passing them on to their neighbour. Everything must have seemed to be in order, because the dice were tossed back on to the blanket without anything being said. Each time, Jojo picked up the pair and put them back in their box, all except for the last, which stayed there on the blanket.

Some men who had taken off their shirts complained of the mosquitoes. Jojo asked me to burn a few handfuls of damp grass, so that the smoke would help to drive them out.

‘Who kicks off?’ asked a huge copper-coloured guy with a thick black curly beard and a lopsided flower tattooed on his right arm.

‘You, if you like,’ said Jojo.

Out of his silver-mounted belt, the gorilla – for he looked very like a gorilla – brought an enormous wad of bolivar-notes held in an elastic band.

‘What are you kicking off with, Chino?’ asked another man.

‘Five hundred bolos.’ Bolos is short for bolivars.

‘OK for five hundred.’

And the craps rolled. The eight came up. Jojo tried to shoot the eight.

‘A thousand bolos you don’t shoot the eight with double fours,’ said another player.

‘I take that,’ said Jojo.

Chino managed to roll the eight, by five and three. Jojo had lost. For five hours on end the game continued without an exclamation, without the least dispute. These men were uncommon gamblers. That night Jojo lost seven thousand bolos and a guy with a game leg more than ten thousand.

It had been decided to stop the game at midnight, but everyone agreed to carry on for another hour. At one o’clock Jojo said this was the last crack.

‘It was me that kicked off,’ said Chino, taking the dice. ‘I’ll close it. I lay all my winnings, nine thousand bolivars.’

He had a mass of notes and diamonds in front of him. He covered a whole lot of other stakes and rolled the seven first go.

At this terrific stroke of luck, for the first time a murmur went round. The men stood up. ‘Let’s get some sleep.’

‘Well, you saw that, mate?’ said Jojo when we were alone.

‘Yes: and what I noticed most were those right hard mugs. They all carry a gun and a knife. There were even some who sat on their machêtes, so sharp they could take your head off in one swipe.’

‘That’s a fact: but you’ve seen others like them.’

‘Even so…I ran the table on the islands, but I tell you I never had such a feeling of danger as tonight.’

‘It’s all a matter of habit, mate. Tomorrow you’ll play and we’ll win: it’s in the bag. As you see it,’ he added, ‘which are the guys to watch closest?’