he would save for when he was broke.
He actually returned with them two weeks later. The politician was alarmed when he saw more copies displayed on his table, with Kane quietly pulling enlarged, framed copies from his bag. The man became weak and talked through clenched teeth, stammering with eyes closed, saying that he could go to hell and publish it or show it to anyone, this time meaning it.
Kane was frustrated. He had to complete one more operation before he allowed himself a voluntary retirement at twenty-four. Just one more. After a fleeting moment thinking about what he could do, he decided to rob the Zenith International Bank, whose manager had boasted about the bank’s profits after taxes in a newspaper Kane had stumbled upon and read by accident. In his own view, before the profits were distributed to shareholders, he had to take his own.
He quickly gathered four amateurs who’d been released with him the last time he’d been to jail. The car they drove had just been snatched. They emerged from it dressed in plain white kaftans concealing machine guns tucked under their armpits. Outside their garments, each carried a Koran that helped hold their guns firmly. Their left hands were busy counting rosary beads while badly wrapped turbans sat on their heads.
Kane, a deceptive character with irrational thinking, had ordered his cohorts to wear dark glasses like himself, and as usual, during robberies, he limped. Failing to open the vault, they resorted to searching the hostages. They soon made away with booty worth twenty-two thousand dollars. Kane’s lion share of eleven thousand had disappeared in a casino immediately after a gambling spree with a former professor of criminology—a man who told everyone to call him “the Dean,” but whose real name was Judas Duncan.
An enemy of the state as a result of the unjust treatment he’d suffered, Judas believed he was Kane’s father. He’d chosen that day to divulge his identity known to only two men—his badge boys Black Man Kazeem and Superintendent Kelvin Lucas.
Throughout Judas Duncan’s stay in prison and since he got out two years back, Superintendent Lucas and Black Man Kazeem had reported on everything Kane was doing. Most of the time they correctly predicted where Kane might be the next day. Now Judas had made up his mind to reveal himself and have a reunion. He chose a casino as the venue for their meeting.
Two days a week, for almost two years Judas had been going to the First Silk Casino with a counterfeit hundred-dollar bill and returning home with several thousand in genuine currency. Nobody ever beat him in gambling. Nobody he knew played with him anymore—just strangers. Kane fell into that category at that moment.
As he entered the casino with his loot from the last robbery, Kane’s eyes moved around, searching for a cool-looking face with the same spirit as his.
Before he found a seat, he strolled around, as he usually did in an unfamiliar environment, looking for emergency exits and escape routes in case he had to bolt. As he walked around, he noticed a man staring at him. He’d packed the money in his pocket properly. What could that fool be staring at? he wondered, still walking down the long hall. He brought out a small glittering knife from somewhere near his belt and put it in his hip pocket, making sure anyone thinking of robbing him saw that he had a weapon. That should make them think twice. As he settled in a chair near one of the exits, he fixed his eyes on the man who was now putting down his glass of sherry to steady his gaze at him.
What could this clown be looking at for so long? Kane was now sure that it wasn’t his fat pocket. Did he want to play some games? Or was he a cop who’d found out something?
As if to answer the questions, the man moved closer to Kane and whispered. “Hey boy, do you have an ambrosia?” He lowered his head. “Your spirit man could be set astir, Beano. Toss dice? This is not a place to present a woebegone picture in pretense. We are all hoi polloi.”
Kane turned sideways to see the face that was nearly touching his and admitted to himself that the man looked extraordinarily handsome, in good physical shape for a man of fifty-something. He hadn’t seen many old men who still possessed such youthful vitality. His was a dull, gentle, innocent, good look.
Kane replied in a louder whisper: “You’re sure you really want to play?”
The man nodded, smiled, and motioned to him to come along.
“I don’t like fomenting trouble,” Kane said.
“I don’t either.” The man slipped a hand inside his suit to find two ugly dice as they moved closer to the poker room.
“If you think you’re crazy and decide to pull a fast one on me, I’ll prove I’m crazier.”
The man was not dissuaded by Kane’s mannerism—he just nodded and walked in visible nervousness to a safe corner.
Trailing behind, Kane noticed a girl gesturing to him to go back. No one had made a computer smart enough to defeat the Dean.
He got the girl’s message, but who was she to give him a piece of advice? His mother had taught him to use his discretion all the time. Nobody witnessed their bout. They sat opposite each other with hunched backs, giving a hundred percent concentration to the dice. The Dean brought out his $100; Kane place his on top of it and it began.
In a short while it was all over. Kane’s money was gone.
While the Dean was busy hiding his profit in his inner pants, Kane, for the first time, was thinking that he’d seen the old fool who’d just defeated him before. Maybe he’s someone I robbed once, he thought. No, he’d seen a younger carbon-copy of him somewhere. But where and when? Then Kane realized he’d been a boy of about seven or so when he’d seen the fool. Yes, he was right.
Across the table, calculating how gradually he would reveal his identity, Judas alerted himself to the fact that he was in the wrong place with so much money. The casino was filled with thugs, retiring criminals, robbers, aspiring terrorists, unemployed youthful-looking weight lifters, and gentlemen who could all pass for bouncers—all killing time or waiting for someone or something to happen that they could get involved in.
Judas sensed danger, and in a sudden flash of memory he remembered a bad dream he had that morning, in which he was stoned to death. Those were the kinds of dreams he had. If he was not stoned, he made love to big cats or some strange animals, waking up to find his bed soiled with his own sperm. Other times, he was tried in law courts presided over by animals—especially dogs. He had terrible dreams.
Without wasting more time, he stood up impetuously and without a word to his defeated opponent walked to the exit. Standing on the threshold of one of the doors, he flashed a look at Kane, locking eyes with him. He knew there would be a chase, a game he wanted for fun. “This is a red-letter day to exchange long-kept amaranths,” he murmured as he disappeared among the people in the dimly lit atmosphere outside. As he leaned against a car away from the dispersed night crawlers, waiting for Kane to come out, he told himself, “I am the specter.”
Inside, Kane sat still on the bench where he’d been beaten. He fixed his eyes on the floor, as if it had been the cause of his downfall. Tightening his fists, he raised his head to look around. The girl who’d warned him about the Dean was now hovering around him.
Was it a setup? Damn, how could it be? Their eyes met and she produced an affectionate, sexy look, which was not attractive to Kane. He stared at her tight little butt as she walked away.
A
