Bad Trip Poker
The Den Den was buzzing away somewhere under a pile of God-knows-what next to the God-knows-where when Paulie awoke, spread-eagled with a mouth full of pillow and a head full of hangover. Saturday already? Shit. He managed to peel his eyes open long enough to register that the reason why the bed felt suspiciously lumpy was that he was actually sprawled out on the carpet, half-under the sofa, with a moth-eaten cushion practically half-way down his oesophagus. Shit. Moving was painful and there was a used milk carton wedged under one buttock. This wasn't the usual Friday night beer-induced headache; rather a feeling of something trying violently to break out of his skull, not helped by that damn Den Den, still buzzing away insistently. Bastard thing was probably hungry. But he couldn't face the thought of food, not even on the snail's behalf. What the hell had put him in this state? He remembered plenty of warnings: Lulu, Kaku, the omnipresent irritant of Saint Roberto Lucci and Blueno, right before he poured him a shot of…well what exactly? He closed his eyes and racked his brain trying to think of the offending substance. Racked was exactly how his mind felt trying to think: it felt like hearing every unpleasant noise at once, nails on blackboards, Puffing Tom with poorly-oiled breaks, the Den Den Mushi's nagging ring…
Damnit, there was no shutting that one up – damn thing must have actually got a call to relay. He dragged himself into a vaguely upright position, about as upright as a Neanderthal, tripped over several month's worth of blueprints, stopped to straighten his treasured print of a Three Mast Barque and eventually found the Den Den under a pile of dirty washing on the floor. Though indignant at having been ignored for so long, the Den Den immediately clicked into "speak" mode and assaulted his ears with a rasping crackle:
"Mr Segel?"
"Yeah…"
"Mr Paulie Segel?"
"Yeah, what?"
"You've got ten seconds before I break down your door."
"What?!"
"Well actually, more like four seconds now."
"Who the hell is this?!"
"I am – ooh time's up - breaking down your front door."
In the space of a few tiny seconds, there came the nightmarish sound of good timber being savaged, the sound of the Den Den yelping as it came perilously close to being flattened by an airborne front door and the room was suddenly darkened by an enormous man in a black suit, who pocketed a Baby Den Den and grinned like a sabre tooth tiger. A second man, also dressed in black and topped off with a bowler hat, entered and stood a short distance away from the door-wrecker. Though Paulie couldn't quite see his face in the shadow cast by the first intruder, he felt the sinking feeling of recognition – he had to be a creditor of some description, a creditor with a bodyguard. He meant business. He seemed tiny in comparison to this hired heavy who was one of those bastions of men who was as wide as he was tall and easily filled the gap left by the broken door in its entirety. The usual option of running like hell and praying for luck had been swiftly removed.
"I don't know who the hell you think you are but you coulda godamn knocked first," growled Paulie, deciding to play things by ear until the appropriate moment to strike out presented itself, "The door handle's not just for decoration you know."
"Actually I think you'll find that a fair few door handles are just for aesthetic uses," replied the Bodyguard, in a rather smarmy tone of voice that Paulie was far too accustomed to. All creditors and money sharks were slightly smarmy by nature, waltzing in, pointing and laughing at other people's mistakes and losses at poker night and then waltzing out again with what they were owed. Including the front door apparently.
"I'll take that for scrap," said the Bodyguard, tapping it with his foot, "Was like that when I found it, wasn't it Den Den?" Without moving away from the door, the bodyguard leant forward and casually took Paulie's long-suffering Den Den Mushi and replaced the receiver. The Den Den glared at Paulie reproachfully before going back into "sleep" mode and staving off an early coronary. He handed it over to the Creditor, who took it without a word and turned his back. He was more interested in the print of the barque on the wall.
"That's better," said the Bodyguard, "Wouldn't want to waste money now, would we Mister Segel? Some of us don't have that much money to burn, do we?"
"Nah, you're right, some of us don't. But as for wasting people – that's never bothered me too much: Rope Action Ha-…ah…! Shit…"
Paulie looked down at his hands. No rope. No sleeves. No jacket. He realised that not only was he completely unarmed and totally lacking his portable supply of nicotine but also that he had absolutely no idea where his trusted Galley-La jacket was and that if forced to guess, it had probably just been flattened under the ruined door. He looked up again and glared at the Bodyguard, who was regarding Paulie with an amused smile, as if a small dog had just attempted to nip his toe. The Creditor merely cast a disinterested eye over his shoulder and went back to looking at the barque, which in Paulie's opinion he had been gawping at for far too long.
"Don't say a godamn word," he growled at the Bodyguard, "If I was actually armed you'd be unconscious by now and hogtied with your feet in your mouth, on a Yagara towards Scrap Island. Don't you damn well forget that."
"Well of course not," retorted the Bodyguard, "I wouldn't expect a Galley-La shipwright to go down without some of kind of a DIY-themed fight. Though I'm not surprised you're not exactly on the mark today, anybody would be nursing a stinker of a hangover after last night's excesses."
"Yer what?"
"You don't remember do you Mister Segel? Last night's the very reason we're here. Maybe this'll jog your memory…"
The hired gorilla thrust a hand into his jacket, deep into what Paulie was sure was his armpit region, and pulled out a slip of wrinkly paper with a beer stain on it. He shoved it towards Paulie, who took it as if it were a live grenade. The Bodyguard smirked.
"So? Remember anything now?"
"Why the hell would I? This is a betting slip – a pretty dodgy-looking one at that – on which some mug betted five thousand berri, one thousand to one odds, on a Yagura bull called – lemme see – 'Cutey Sugar Honey'? What's this gotta do with me? I don't bet on Yagura and even if I was wasted out of my mind I'd never bet five thousand berri on something with such a stupid name, especially one which, according to this, didn't even win."
"You wanna bet on that?" sneered the Bodyguard, "Look at the signature. That's your name there, is it not?"
The signature was so wonky it was practically upside down and appeared to have been scrawled in some kind of pink women's make-up but it was just possible to make out a misshapen 'P' and something that could pass as an 'S', if S's were permitted to vibrate wildly and wiggle across the page.
"How the hell is that my signature?! For a start it was written in…" – Paulie sniffed the betting slip and made a disgusted face – "…ughh, lipstick, and secondly I've just told you, I don't bet on godamn Yagura! Everyone knows that my game of choice is poker, which…"
"Which everyone knows you're prone to betting and losing ridiculous amounts on," cut in the Bodyguard, "So it's perfectly possible that last night, while you were totally blind drunk, you went to the racetrack and placed a bet. I mean, let's face it, you can't even remember where you were last night, can you?"
Paulie opened his mouth to protest but closed it again peevishly when he realised there was some truth in this statement. He remembered being in Blueno's bar, remembered plenty of faces around him, drinking, joking – Lulu, Tilestone, Kaku, the pigeon freak, even that shameless secretary, who had dropped in for a post-sales meeting rosé – but after a certain point, all of them blurred into complete ambiguity, right up until the point where he had woken up on the floor of his apartment. He certainly couldn't state with any certainty where he had or hadn't been. But then again…
"Hang on," he said, "If you know I was so drunk last night, then why the hell don't you tell me where I was?"
"At the racetrack, placing this bet of course. But we didn't come here you to help play Fill-in-the-Drunken-Blanks – we're here because you owe my client five million berri and my client is fairly certain that you can't possibly pay him."
"Then why the hell won't your client stop pawing my Three Mast Barque print and actually speak for himself?!"
The Creditor inclined his head and shrugged but continued to examine the picture frame, clearly trying to determine if it was made of any valuable metal. This irked Paulie far more than any smarmy comment thrown at him by the bodyguard; the print was one of the few pieces of furniture that Paulie regularly dusted and polished, the one thing he had stubbornly refused to sell to pay his debts. It had been a 21st birthday present from Iceburg and the entire Galley-La Company after he had been seen on numerous occasions with his eyes glued to it in the shop window. Aside from this sentimental value, it was a picture that Paulie regarded as a truly beautiful piece of art: perfectly true to life and if taken out of the frame and placed on the open sea, could sail from ocean to ocean to ocean. He didn't like the way this creditor, this suited man who probably couldn't tell which sides of the ship were starboard and port, was leering at his treasure. But the man refused to speak.
"I'm paid to do all the negotiating," said the Bodyguard, holding his hands out as if he thought this was enough of an explanation, "And I negotiate that we take what we're owed – your apartment, everything you've got in it and your bankrupted ass, in prison."
"How the hell can you bankrupt me – I didn't make that bet and you've got no proof otherwise!"
The Bodyguard leant forward again and pulled the betting slip out of Paulie's grip. "Luckily for us your amazingly crappy credit history and this slip's enough proof. You can go and check it later if you like – as stupid as the name of that Yagura is, he actually raced at ten pm last night and lost quite spectacularly."
"You can't send me to prison!"
"Can and will do, pal. In fact the bailiffs should be here any minute to escort you and your property away from this place, so you could save us and yourself some trouble and tell us what you've got of most value."
"Like hell I will!"
"Suit yourself." He directed his voice towards the Creditor. "Take the picture then first."
The moment the print was moved the slightest bit away from the wall several things happened at once: Paulie launched himself at the Creditor and found himself bouncing off an extremely hard fist belonging to the Bodyguard, several bailiffs marched in and dragged him on to an awaiting Yagura and the apartment was swiftly emptied with the Three Mast Barque sailing away under the Creditor's armpit. All that Paulie was left with at the end of all it was a suitcase full of dirty clothes, a company photo of the Galley-La Company and a rather mouldy piece of cheese that was discovered when the refrigerator was moved. He was marched into custody with an exceedingly vile hangover and temper and with his Galley-La jacket still missing.