Irish car bomb

Ingrediets

*3/4 ounce Irish cream liqueur

*3/4 ounce Irish whiskey

*1/2 pint Guiness

The cocktail was invented in the US in 1979 in Wilson’s Saloon in Norwich, Connecticut by Charles Burke Cronin Oat. He had originally created a mixed shot drink called a Grandfather combining Baileys Irish Cream and Kahlúa. On 17 March 1977 (Saint Patrick’s Day), he added Jameson Irish Whiskey to the drink, calling this drink “the IRA.” In 1979, Oat spontaneously dropped this shot into a partially-drunk Guinness, calling the result a Belfast Carbomb or Irish Carbomb. Other names: Irish slammer, Irish bomb shot, or Dublin drop.The term “car bomb” combines reference to its “bomb shot” style, as well as the noted car bombings of Northern Ireland’s Troubles. The name is considered by many to be offensive, with many bartenders refusing to serve it. Some people, including Irish comedians, have likened it to ordering an “Isis” or “Twin Towers” in an American bar and warned that ordering one is the “quickest way to get thrown out of a pub (or get a black eye) in Ireland”.

Pain and cold dragged me back to consciousness inside something that seemed to be a hut in the jungle. I was lying on the plank bed, and the blanket I’d been covered with slipped to the floor. My head, left arm and right leg were wrapped in bandages, and my wounds were weeping in the draught. Shivering, I reached for the blanket, but as the muscles in my thigh tightened, an excruciating pain shot through my leg.I realised I couldn’t walk—not for the moment, at least. I also realised that I had no memory of the past hours, or days, or maybe even weeks.How long have I been here? It feels like only yesterday I was drinking myself to death in the company of thugs, hookers and fake friends at the bars of Phnom Penh. And now I’m here, in the middle of bleeding nowhere, surrounded by pickled snakes. As if enchanted, I watched the first rays of the sun play with reflections on the glass vessels of all shapes and sizes that stood on the floor and on the shelves around me. Almost all of them were filled with alcohol and various types of serpents. In some, the reptiles were brownish and grey, while in others—apparently freshly made—the snakes were still vividly coloured. “If you think about it, my surroundings haven’t changed much," I thought to myself, eyeing one of the jars with a cobra inside it. "But what happened? How did I end up here?"

As I watched a thin wisp of smoke rising from a clay oven, I tried to recall the recent events—but failed.Somehow, I just knew that my lapse of memory was the result of some impact. Looking down at the bandages on my leg, now turned brown from blood, it was clear the impact had been anything but positive. To my left, I noticed that someone had kindly left me a few bottles of water and some food on a tray: three boiled eggs, a bánh mì, some soup in a plastic bag, a portion of rice with chicken thighs, and a pack of Tramadol. Thirsty and aching, I wasn’t in the mood for food, so I reached for the pills. There was only one blister left. I swallowed near half of them and washed it down with a swig of water. The rain came on, and through the doorway, I caught a glimpse of the hills, lush and green, getting a good soaking. Watching the downpour, I felt the pain ease off. I finally managed to grab the damn blanket and drift back to sleep.

After years of taking drugs, I wasn’t new to opioids, but surprisingly, Tramadol got me higher than I expected. I had strange dreams and I woke up with a foggy head and withdrawals. The pain in my limbs eased a bit. I didn’t dare take a step, but I could sit now. This time, I was hungry, but I’d been daft enough not to close the containers properly, and now ants were rummaging through everything except the boiled eggs and the bag of soup. When I saw a centipede crawling in the rice, I let out a scream like a girl and dropped the tray. Now, besides the insects, there was dust and dirt in the food. The soup bag had burst, and the broth was leaking onto the floor. I broke off the part of the bun that had touched the floor and ate the bun-mi. I ate all the pieces of meat and noodles left in the bag of soup. I gathered the rice and chicken and put them in the oven so they wouldn’t attract any insects. Just as I did it, I realised how silly it was. Whoever looked after me and brought the food must have done so some time ago. The soup and banh mi weren’t fresh at all. What if my saviour doesn’t come? I thought. Unable to walk, I knew I shouldn’t be wasteful of anything I had, especially water. I relieved myself into an empty bottle and took a single Tramadol pill this time. I stared mindlessly at the ceiling made of sticks and logs for about half an hour before dozing off and when I woke, it was already dark outside. After the rain, the cold hit me hard, sending shivers and chills all over my body, but it also brought me an epiphany — I couldn’t walk, but I could crawl. Sitting on my arse, I pushed myself along with my uninjured leg and arm, while the other two limbs stayed relatively relaxed. Like a caterpillar wriggling backwards, I dragged my body to the oven and threw a few logs inside. The pack of matches lay on the floor beside the clay oven, but in the darkness, I couldn’t find it and had to wait until sunrise. By the end of day two since I woke up in the snake hut, I had eaten all my food, and now every bottle of water was filled with piss. It was getting dark outside, my saviour still hadn’t come, and I was growing desperate. On top of that, there was another troubling and urgent matter weighing on my mind. I was absolutely certain I couldn’t pull off the same trick with shitting. Even without an injury, I’m not agile enough to take a dump in a bottle. Crawling hurt, as I couldn’t fully avoid moving or tensing the muscles in my injured limbs, but after three pills of Tramadol, it was more or less bearable. Grunting and moaning, I slowly moved around the hut, which turned out to be bigger than I expected. Soon enough, I discovered my suffering wasn’t pointless. In one of the corners which wasn't seen from my plank bed I found a few vessels, in which apparently the rice wine in which the snakes were soaked in, had been fermented. They already smelled like shitt, so I chose the one with the wider neck to use as my chamber pot. I also found a bucket of fresh water, a cooking pot, some charcoal, a wok, a pound of rice, two nearly empty bottles of oil, spoiled soy sauce, an onion, some carrots, a wrinkled root of ginger, a few garlic bulbs, and a bunch dried chili peppers. There weren’t any other rooms in the hut, and this part was clearly the kitchen. “If I’m going to die from hunger, it won’t be this week,” I thought as I took a dump. “What a relief... a double relief, so to speak.”

Never in my life had taking a crap been so painful. I had to hold onto the walls with both hands, and as almost every muscle in my body tightened my wounds burned like hell. When I was done, I just crawled back to the bed and slept until the next day—it was too dark to cook anyway.
In the morning, I woke up starving. I took the last Tramadol pill and crept back into the kitchen. In the daylight, I spotted even more things: a coiled tube, some utensils, chopsticks, and a basket with four eggs in it. The eggs were slightly bigger than chicken eggs and had a peculiar tic-tac shape. Glancing at the numerous jars of snakes lined up against every wall, I reckoned they must be snake eggs. I cracked one into the wok. It was a bit gooier than a chicken egg, but when it was cooked, it tasted even better. I fried up another, but it was hardly enough to ease the hunger. My mind drifted back to Belfast, to the days when my mum taught me how to cook eggs in our old house.

Though it was the time of the Troubles, I was too young to grasp what was going on, and life seemed normal. It was a warm, sunny day. My mum, dressed in a red dress and apron, stood with me by a sizzling pan while the radio played "Things Can Only Get Better" by D:Ream. "You can crack it like this," she said, tapping the egg against the side of the pan with one hand. I remember everything so vividly—probably because it was the last day of that normal life. The next morning, my father blew himself up with a hand grenade. Shortly after, my mum followed him to the other side by taking a horse dose of sleeping pills. Raised by my gran, I never learned to cook anything else. Later in the afternoon, when I realised that nobody was likely coming—at least not today—I decided to cook something a bit more nourishing. I was flummoxed, not knowing where to even start. Before cooking the snake eggs, the last time I had fried a couple was back when I’d just moved to London. Since then, I’d been caught up in selling coke, playing poker and blackjack, and never bothered to cook. I couldn’t think of anything better than frying everything I had and mixing it with some rice. While I waited for the water in the pot to boil, I crawled over to the entrance, which was covered by a mosquito net, and peeked out from underneath it. It seemed like I was perched on a hill or a mountain. I could see smaller hills stretched out below, while those higher up were cloaked in thick fog. With nothing but the chirping of birds and insects to distract me, I sifted through my recent memories, searching for any clues that might help me understand how I ended up here.

I remembered the poker tournament in Hoa Tram. I remembered My and her brother. I recalled returning to Cambodia and how Manny helped me purchase the weapons—but then, just a blank. It was as if all my recent memories had been erased, like nothing had happened. The water began to boil, and I put in the rice. I didn’t know the right proportions, and when it all evaporated, the rice was still a bit raw. Once again, I inspected my wounds. They didn’t look like gunshot wounds, but my gut feeling told me it had been a shootout. Contrary to my attempts to recall recent events, all that cooking, strangely enough, stirred up memories of my past. As I peeled the carrots and ginger, I remembered my grandmother and how she took care of me and managed all the household chores. I’d never peeled a carrot before—she never asked me to—so it was no surprise when I cut my finger while trying. Sucking on the blood, I remembered my other gran in Dublin and the day I came home to her with a bleeding face after a fight. That was the moment I first got a taste of blood—though it was my own. While frying the remaining eggs couldn’t help but think about my mum again…and when chopping onion I remembered my dad.
I remembered the day he died. A few years later, I found out he’d been a member of the IRA and a gun smuggler. My old fella kept smuggling weapons into Ireland even after the Good Friday Agreement. When he was busted at one of his stashes in Belfast, he didn’t let the cops arrest him. Instead, he pulled the pin. Two of them died with him. The rest who survived said he screamed Tiocfaidh ár lá before blasting it all to hell.
I remembered how he taught me to fight. It was one of those rare moments when he was at home. He asked me what happened, when he saw me sobbing, and I told him I’d been beaten by Trevor Nelson and Padraig Duffy. He didn’t lecture me, just showed me how to hold my fists and throw a punch. He told me to kick their arses and when I boxed Trevor’s head off and told the old man I’d avenged myself, he made me promise never to cry again—and I haven’t since.
I didn’t cry when Irvin Boyle accidentally jammed my fingers with a door. He’d slammed it shut while I was holding onto it, just below the hinge. I was still just a small kid, and I nearly burst into tears. But remembering the promise I’d made to my father, I didn’t cry. I just screamed at the top of my lungs instead. I didn’t cry when Sarah Heffernon—the girl I fancied in secondary school—agreed to go on a date with me, and after a few more dates, a bit of kissing, and some romantic gestures on my part, she turned me down and shagged my best mate. A different kind of pain, but it hurt just the same—as if someone had jammed my fingers in a door.

I didn’t cry when the lads from the Kinahans threatened me and nearly beat me to death. I didn’t cry when the blokes from the RIRA were trying to saw my leg off with an angle grinder. I didn’t even cry when my mam died. I was already in my teens by then, and I knew she’d done herself in. I saw it as a betrayal, in a way. How could she leave me like that? I thought. At her funeral, I was more angry than grieving and I wasn’t crying.
All my life, up until this very moment, I’d kept my word to my da. As a kid, I didn’t cry because of that promise, and later, when I grew older and life hurt me worse than I could’ve imagined, I didn’t cry because there was no point. But now, as I cut that bloody onion, huge tears were streaming down my cheeks, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. Sorry, Da, I thought, laughing.

The food turned out to be a good bit spicier, but also a lot better than I’d expected.Though not as bad as yesterday or the day before, the wounds were still aching, and without tramadol, it felt much more tiring. In hopes to find a substitute I kept the remaining few pills and opened one of the jars with the snake in it. The liquid in it gave off a smell like sake, however, the other jar, a bit darker in colour, smelled of a much stronger liquor. I’d seen snake wine in one of the shops in Sihanoukville before, and I knew it was meant for drinking. But the snake in that particular jar looked fierce — brightly coloured, with bands of rings all along its body. I wasn’t sure it wasn’t venomous, and I had my doubts the alcohol had completely neutralised the poison. Fearing a slow, painful death — or at the very least a rough case of poisoning — I shut the lid and crawled back to the pack of Tramadol. I swallowed the remaining pills and once they kicked in and the pain faded, I pulled the blanket over myself and stared at the ceiling; Not as much as the first time but still a bit high I couldn’t help myself and I kept digging through my past.

At school, I always lacked concentration — struggled to focus. Never much of a learner. After the old fella died, the teachers didn’t see me around much. Skipping school became routine. Cutting decks while bunking off was my favourite. Bridge now and then, sometimes blackjack — but mostly poker. My peers used to say I had an uncanny knack for spotting bluffs. Bluffing against me, they reckoned, was pointless. Unfortunately, poker isn’t all about reading people — there’s a maths side to it too, and I struggled with that just like I struggled with maths back in school. There are basic and optimal strategies that the pros tend to stick to.
Too bad I only found out about them when I was already in debt. And then, of course, there’s luck — which often plays a big part, and never seemed to be on my side. Back then, I didn’t know much about poker — I played for the thrill of it. When I turned eighteen, Jamie Wheeler gave me a bit of coke. We were meant to head to a rave, like we'd planned, but instead I ended up in a poker room. Filled with what I can only describe as absolute cokeiness, I decided it was the perfect time to play — and somehow, I won big. I’ve been hooked on both ever since. I just couldn’t forget the rush — that sharp, soaring sense of triumph that came with the coke and the win.

I often wonder what I might’ve become if I hadn’t been an orphan. If my mum hadn’t taken her own life, I probably would’ve done better in school — maybe even gone to college. Secured a decent job, married a nice catholic girl, and turned out a respectable, hard-working member of the community. Maybe I would’ve stayed away from drugs and gambling — if my da hadn’t blown himself to pieces. Maybe I’d have joined Fianna Éireann instead, marching through the streets of Belfast with pride, draped in a green and gold flag, wearing a paramilitary uniform.

I grew up in the Catholic part of town, and like many kids around there, I was steeped in the idea of getting the Brits out of Ireland from an early age. Out on the streets, I was burning Union Jacks and scrawling “Hate the Huns” graffiti. But at home, I was told a slightly different story than most of my peers. My granny Siobhán, from Dublin, who lost both of her sons to the Troubles — she begged me to stay away from politics. And my other granny, the one who raised me, begged me just the same. Though her husband — Grandpa Seamus — died of stomach cancer, and my mom, her daughter took her own life, she somehow blamed both deaths on politics. She hated my father's guts. Said he never truly loved my mum — that he only married her to get a foothold in Belfast. To her, their marriage was just a cover, something that let him keep running his operations without drawing too much attention. “Everybody knew it all along, but love is blind and it turned out my dear Niamh couldn’t live without that scum..If all of that madness didn't start she would still be with us” my grandma used to say. By the time I was able to properly reason why I hated the loyalists, I avoided saying it out loud. I stayed neutral — as much as that’s possible in Belfast. Never got involved with any political movement or one of those overly political crowds. Even so, I couldn’t keep myself out of trouble and eventually ended up falling in with a crowd that was even more dangerous.

During one of my visits to granny Siobhán in Dublin, the lads from Crumlin introduced me to Patrick Kavanagh — and he, in turn, introduced me to cocaine in wholesale quantities, at a reasonable price. I couldn’t resist — the offer was too sweet. I spent all my savings on the first batch, and soon enough, my passions for cards and coke were being funded by dealing both..cards and coke. Three days a week I was dealing cards at the poker tables in the Harland & Wolff staff club, and the rest of the time I was shifting coke. Six months into my first job, one of the lads grassed me up to the boss for doing lines in the toilets, and not long after getting the boot, I found myself dealing full-time — full hours, full commitment, all the perks, and a social package to go with it.

I most likely worked for the Kinahans cartel, which meant I had the best quality coke going. These days, most who work for them don’t even know it — dealers get their gear from lieutenants, and the cartel’s structure is more decentralised than ever. For years, they’ve run a hierarchical cellular setup, where one subcell doesn’t know what the others are up to — every two units in the network only know each other, nobody else. Back then, though, even as a serious outfit, they weren’t quite the full-blown transnational syndicate operating across Europe just yet. I suspected I was working for them because Patrick was always hanging around the Murray brothers, and everyone in Dublin knew they were part of the Kinahans gang. Not that I couldn’t find coke in Belfast, but Patrick was offering a price and quality that was hard to beat. He liked working with me too, mostly ‘cause I was operating in a different jurisdiction and bringing in the cash. If I was to get busted, it’d be the UK peelers, and even if they found a way to cooperate with the Garda, Patrick had his people in Belfast, so he’d hear about it quick enough.

Getting drugs from Dublin to Belfast wasn’t hard — no borders, no customs, no checkpoints. The word Northern on the “Welcome to Northern Ireland” sign near Newry that was constantly painted out, and road markings changing from white to yellow were the only real signs you’d crossed over. I used to call my trips to Dublin to stock up on drugs visiting granny, since I’d usually drop in on her too — though soon enough she started worrying she was seeing me too often. No, not that I was turning into the new Tony Montana of the area, but fairly quickly I started shifting a bit more than what you'd need for a Friday night party. About a pound of coke, a few hundred pills, and maybe a pound of weed — that was what my usual order looked like. Another hustle of mine was poker. After I got fired from Harland & Wolff, I was invited to deal at a few private high-roller games — but once the drug money started coming in, it didn’t take long before I found myself in one of the players’ seats, holding cards.

Dealing at those games, I noticed that even though the stakes were high, a lot of the punters playing were absolute fish. They’d overbet, underbet, bet out of position — and most of them wouldn’t shut up, giving away half their hand strength just by chatting shite. But the sweetest part of it all was that none of them seemed to care all that much about losing. The day I finally found the guts — but more importantly, the money — to sit at the table, I started off with a streak of small wins and losses, but then I went on the run of my life and, pretty quickly, knocked out four of the seven players at the table. Now it was just me, Gregory Donahugh, and Peter O’Sullivan. After a few hands, Peter picked up what was left of his stack and headed home, and honestly, I was about to do the same — but then fat Gregory offered me a heads-up.

If there was ever a right moment to leave, that was it — I was 45k up, and Gregory Donahugh was no tourist. But somehow the fat cunt got into my head. “OK, now Shane’s a high roller, a big shot, aren’t you?” he said, counting his chips. I counted mine, then headed to the toilet to do a line. “Feeling better now, huh?” said fat Greg when I got back.“100/200 blinds, no bollocks. What do you say?” he continued. At that moment, I couldn’t say a thing — the line I’d just done was fatter than Greg, and it had completely numbed my face. “Scared, huh? It’s alright… go back to your nan,” Gregory said, laughing. He kept trying to set me up for a game, but I wasn’t reacting the way he wanted — not until the coke dropped down my throat and finally gave me the boost I needed. For a few seconds, I just watched his wrinkled face, the ruddy stubble twitching, tiny drops of spit flying from his mouth as he spoke, then I said, “Fuck it! Let’s play!”

As I watched a thin wisp of smoke rising from a clay oven, I tried to recall the recent events—but failed.
Somehow, I just knew that my lapse of memory was the result of some impact. Looking down at the bandages on my leg, now turned brown from blood, it was clear the impact had been anything but positive. To my left, I noticed that someone had kindly left me a few bottles of water and some food on a tray: three boiled eggs, a bánh mì, some soup in a plastic bag, a portion of rice with chicken thighs, and a pack of Tramadol. Thirsty and aching, I wasn’t in the mood for food, so I reached for the pills. There was only one blister left. I swallowed near half of them and washed it down with a swig of water. The rain came on, and through the doorway, I caught a glimpse of the hills, lush and green, getting a good soaking. Watching the downpour, I felt the pain ease off. I finally managed to grab the damn blanket and drift back to sleep.

When you play against amateurs, the body language that shows confidence often means weakness, and overly cautious moves usually signal strength. When an amateur — or just a terrible player, a proper cold fish — makes a bold, decisive move and pushes his chips forward, he’s likely bluffing. But when his hands are shaking, that’s usually a sign he’s holding a strong hand. Strength often means weakness, and weakness means strength.For instance, a talkative player who suddenly goes quiet — almost still — is most likely holding the nuts. No, he’s not bricking it; if he’s sweating, what you’re seeing is the excitement he’s trying to hide, and that turns into tension.Following this principle won’t tell you exactly what hand he’s holding, but it’ll tell you what he thinks of his hand — and that’s enough to act on. If you’re playing against a fish, you can stick to that rule, and it works like a charm.The problem, though, was that fat Greg wasn’t a fish. He wasn’t an amateur. He was a locomotive of fat coming right at me. “Ok, lad, you’ve gotten lucky a couple of times today, but I’m gonna teach you a lesson. You’re going broke today — I’m taking all your money, and you’ll be crying like the little bitch you are.” I started with a slight chip lead, but after a couple of coolers, we were even. Greg wasn’t stopping. “So you think you’re a player now, do you? Doing business with serious people, and everyone should take you seriously,” he said, a grim smile on his face. He knew more about me than he should’ve, and that didn’t put me at ease.
The flop came down three jacks, the turn a king, and a deuce showed up on the river. There was already 13k in the pot. I bet 10 grand with pocket nines, and Greg ran me over with pocket queens. “You’re a fucking clown,” he spat.ky a couple of times today, but I’m gonna teach you a lesson. You’re going broke today — I’m taking all your money, and you’ll be crying like the little bitch you are.” I started with a slight chip lead, but after a couple of coolers, we were even. Greg wasn’t stopping. “So you think you’re a player now, do you? Doing business with serious people, and everyone should take you seriously,” he said, a grim smile on his face. He knew more about me than he should’ve, and that didn’t put me at ease.
The flop came down three jacks, the turn a king, and a deuce showed up on the river. There was already 13k in the pot. I bet 10 grand with pocket nines, and Greg ran me over with pocket queens. “You’re a fucking clown, kid. You’re nothing,” he spat, raking the chips over to his side of the table.
I was already steaming from the earlier losses, and now I’d completely lost my ability to read him. It felt like strength meant strength, it seemed he always had it. It was like he was in my head, pulling strings, making me bet when he was holding strong. It was psychological warfare, and I wasn’t ready for it.
“Look at me, kid,” he said. “I’m taking all your money. You’re so far over your head, you don’t even know it.”“Hey Greg, why don’t you shut up,” I said — but it came out more pathetic than anything.
“My goodness, you’re such a bitch,” he said, laughing.
That’s when I shoved all in with a pocket of red aces. It was a completely emotional decision — almost a knee-jerk reaction. And though it was the best starting hand possible, the board already had four spades. Of course, Greg had the flush.
It was all over. He played me like a fiddle.
And now, on top of losing all my money, I owed Greg fifteen grand.
“I’d let you lose more, kid, but like I said — the fact is, you’re nobody. So I’m not sure you’ll even be able to pay up,” he said, leaving me there at the table.
Three days later, I was asking Patrick Cavanagh for a favour.
“I liked you better when you were bringing cash,” he said when I asked for a bit of this and that on tick.
“Patrick, I’ll bring you the money, I swear — in a week or so, maybe even less.”
Patrick laughed. He was tall, bald, and a bit fat — and his laughter had a way of sounding intimidating.
“Listen, Shane,” he said. “I don’t want you to be a problem. But you can be part of the solution.”
Then he offered me a job: drive a car from Dublin to Belfast. I’ve no idea how much was in that car, but when I got to the drop-off, I was handed a full kilo of coke.
It wasn’t all mine, of course — I still owed Patrick ten grand for it, and I had two weeks to come up with the cash. I reckon that was just the base cost.
But it was absolutely doable. The stuff was 86% pure. Even without cutting it, I could turn that into thirty grand in less than a month.
Believe it or not, just like An Post today delivers drugs bought on the dark web, that stuff was shipped to Ireland from South America by a legitimate shipping enterprise. But unlike the clueless postmen unknowingly dropping off ecstasy, the lads working for the Maritime Delivery Company definitely knew the craic — mostly because they were part of the gang. Yeah, somehow the Kinahans had managed to infiltrate the biggest container shipping company in the world. At first, it was just one crew. The cargo would be offloaded somewhere along the Irish coast, and then — with help from a few processed food companies and, sometimes, from mules like me — the coke would find its way into the UK and the Netherlands.

Soon enough, the gang became the cartel. In just a few years, the Kinahans moved from hundreds of kilos to tons of coke. It wasn’t always coming through the Irish coast — more often than not, those massive cargo ships were unloading in Rotterdam and Antwerp, then spreading all over Europe.
By that time, neither me nor Patrick were around… maybe for the best. When the Kinahans grew into a transnational syndicate — like the Italian ‘Ndrangheta or the Russian thieves-in-law — I was long gone from the country. And as for Patrick, rest his soul… well, he caught a bullet.
In the summer of 2012, though, he was still alive and kickin’, and the word was he was kickin’ pretty bloody hard. So, I brought him the money as soon as I had the cash. Less than a week later, I was knockin’ on his door with ten grand clenched between my teeth.
Cocaine in the UK at that time was becoming more and more popular and accessible. It was no longer the drug of the rich — a plumber, a waiter, a nurse, and a football hooligan now were all doing it. I’ve even seen some decent couples with two kids who’d occasionally leave their nice neighborhood to buy a gram for what they called “recreational use.” Indeed, coke was becoming the drug of the masses. A bit cheaper than I usually would, I was selling it left and right, paid up my debt to Gregory Donnohugh, and asked for a rematch.
I managed to lose all my coke profits in just one hand — the shortest game of poker I’d ever played. First and last hand, I was dealt pocket jacks. I’d always thought of it as my lucky hand. I made a three-bet, Gregory called. The turn came a ten. Thinking I was trapping fat Greg, I raised again. But I’d reckoned wrong — he re-raised me. Without a second thought, I shoved all in. To my surprise, he snap-called.
A five of clubs dropped on the river. Then Greg flipped over pocket sevens — and it hit me like a black hole in my stomach. The fat cunt had quads. The black hole started pulling everything in — my guts, my breath, the ground under my feet. Sweat burst out across my forehead like I’d been thrown into a sauna.
I looked at Greg. For a second, he looked just as stunned as me — not that he didn’t know he had the nuttiest of nuts, but maybe he hadn’t expected me to go bust that fast.
“What a sick cooler,” he said, instead of slagging me off like he usually would.
“It was mostly luck, but we both know it’s a game of skill, right? I can lend you ten grand if you want to prove you’re the better player,” he added.
Greg had his own ways of making sure I’d pay up, and though I appreciated the gesture, I was in no mood to carry on. In one single hand — the one I thought was my lucky one — I’d lost everything. All the money I’d made from selling coke, gone. The luck clearly wasn’t on my side, so I turned him down.
Next day I was on my way to Dublin. After visiting my granny, I was meant to meet up with Patrick — once again asking him for a favour.
“Kid, you had a feckin’ kilo. You were supposed to make more than just ten grand, weren’t you? I mean, of course I can sort you out — give you a bit of this and that like you’re askin’. But if you’ve no cash, at least tell me where all your coke money went.”
I wasn’t in any position to tell Patrick it was none of his business — same way you can’t tell a bank clerk to feck off when they ask if you’ve got a job while you’re trying to take out a loan. I had to come up with something, and the first thing that came to mind was to tell him my granny had cancer.
“The treatment costs a lot of money,” I said.
“I didn’t know cancer looked like a fat, ginger cunt named Gregory,” Patrick said.
I was mortified — felt like I was talking to an intelligence officer or something. Patrick knew everything.
“Actually, it’s none of my business,” he continued, “but I want you to understand — if I don’t get my money on time, either you or your granny dies earlier than you should. And it won’t be cancer. You understand?”
“Aye, Patrick, I understand it perfectly well,” I said, my voice trembling.
The good news was, I got what I came for. Patrick gave me everything he couldn’t shift himself. One of his runners in Dublin handed me a thousand ecstasy pills and a pound of hash. The bad news? I was now properly in his pocket.
As for the coke — that was waiting for me back in Belfast. I was told to pick up a drop, and when I opened the box, there were two bricks staring back at me. Two feckin’ keys of Charlie. I hadn’t asked for that much, but at that point, I had no choice — I had to push them.
Staying at our house with granny and that much stuff wasn’t a good idea, so I rented a flat in Lower Falls — a predominantly Catholic neighbourhood not far from the city centre. It was a typical two-storey house the owner had split into three apartments, and I got one of them for dirt cheap. From one of the kitchen windows, you could see a peace wall. One side had the names of victims who’d died in one of the car bombings; the other was plastered with the usual clichés — peace signs, pigeons, Pacificas — all calling for peace. In Belfast, everything’s political, not just the walls — who you date, who you hang out with, what you wear, what beer you drink. Even that stuff’s influenced by it.
That wall, though — considering it was in Lower Falls — was more of an exception. Most of the murals round there were about oppression, freedom, reunification. You were more likely to see a painted Bob Marley in paramilitary gear, singing “I Shot the Sheriff” in a speech bubble, than any message about peace. But times were changing. The bombs weren’t going off anymore, killing hundreds of civilians. The Irish Republican Army had announced the end of its armed campaign. The ones loyal to the Crown now paraded peacefully every 12th of July, burning their giant bonfires — while the republicans, just as peacefully, wiped their arses with Union Jacks.
The media always painted the conflict as a sectarian clash between Catholics and Protestants, but in reality, it was more about politics than religion. To me, it just seemed like both sides had finally grown tired of the violence. A new generation was coming up — one that didn’t remember the horrors of the Troubles — and for the first time in a long while, there was real hope for lasting peace. The only ones who really minded were groups like the Real IRA, the Continuity IRA, and a few splinter outfits that had broken away before the peace deal was struck. Their graffiti was everywhere, but their numbers were small. Sure, they managed a handful of mortar attacks on “legitimate” targets — RUC patrols or Victoria Barracks — but it was a drop in the ocean compared to the carnage of the ’70s and ’80s. Their main aim was to remind everyone the resistance was still there.
When I’d moved in and finished unpacking, the flat still felt bare. To give it a bit of home, I put up a few posters, draped a massive Celtics scarf across the wall and put a photo of me and dad on the drawer. When it was time to start hustling, I’d almost two kilos on me. I rang all me boys and offered them a right bargain. Folks started pouring in, and by the end of day two I’d banked four grand.When I took the first hit, the news reporter on screen was yammering about some criminals tied to the Colombian cartels who’d infiltrated a Maritime Delivery Company cargo ship and tried to smuggle 400 kilos of coke into Spain. First I’d heard of that outfit.I didn’t know the Kinahans ran ops like that… hell, I didn’t know shit back then.
“Jesus Christ almighty, 400 kilos,” I muttered, exhaling smoke, when a knock came at the door. I stood and crept to the window, easing the curtain aside just a bit. A group of men in balaclavas and paramilitary gear stood in the gloom. In the darkness of the poorly lit street, I couldn’t tell uniforms from faction, and one of them carried a small assault rifle—could’ve been the cops as easily as some hard-line republicans.
“Fuck!” I thought in panic. Imagining a life in prison or my knees capped, I dashed to the opposite side of the flat. I was hoping to escape through the window in the kitchen , but it was too late—they’d noticed my movements and kicked the door in.
Scared to death, I slipped and fell to the floor as they poured in. One of them hit me in the back with the stock just as I was trying to get up, and I screamed and coughed at the same time.
“Tie him up! Check the other rooms!” ordered one of them in a raspy voice as the other two started tying my legs with a rope. In that moment, I realised they weren’t a SWAT team—wearing pixel military pants and granny-knitted khaki jumpers, they looked a bit silly, there were only three of them, they had no handcuffs, and the guy with his foot on my chest was in sneakers. They certainly didn’t come to arrest me.

“The money is in the Nike box under the sofa,” I said.
“We don’t need your filthy drug money, you cunt,” replied one of them, pointing the gun at my head.
“Shut your bake,” yelled the guy giving the orders. He bent down and picked up the box with four grand in it.
“It doesn’t stink,” he said, taking the money. “And it’ll be spent on a just cause,” he added, slipping the cash into his pocket. He took another shoebox from under the sofa and opened it too.

“Oh, very patriotic,” he said, showing its contents to the others. Of course it was filled with plenty of small bags—but the ones on the left held weed, the ones in the middle coke, and the ones on the right orange ecstasy pills. Altogether, they looked like an Irish flag. High as fuck, I’d arranged them like that when I was bagging the stuff.
“Look,” he said, tossing the pills onto the end table by the hash. “I bet there’s a pound in here, and at least hundreds of these orange yokes. He might’ve stashed some elsewhere. Look everywhere!” he barked at the lads, then took the rifle from one of them.
“It’s all I’ve got,” I lied, while one of them was dragging me across the living room.
“We’ll see,” he replied and dropped me by the sofa.
"There isn't much in here, just a bed. The bedroom’s clear," said one of the lads as he headed into the kitchen. While the other two blokes stood over me.
“Alright, let’s begin then,” said the man who seemingly was in charge. His voice sounded older than the other two.
“What’s your name?” he asked, handing the MP5 rifle back to the lad who’d tied me up.
“Shane,” I replied.
“Ha-ha-ha, look at that eejit! We know what your name is. You like to rave, don’t you?” he mocked me, laughing but I didn’t reply anything this time.
“Are you a party animal, Shane?” he asked again.
“Not really,” I answered.
“But you surely like selling that rat poison to the kids in our community!” he shouted, his tone suddenly sharp and furious.

“Rat poison? Oh come on man, it’s just weed and wingers (authors note: slang for ecstasy pills) , they’re basically harmless. Yeah I have got a pinch of coke too but it’s not heroin, it doesn’t kill people. You said ‘a just cause’ — what are you lads? IRA? RIRA? There’s almost a grand in my jacket, but it’s all I’ve got, I swear. Take the money, take the hash and the pills, take whatever you want — just leave me alone and please don’t kneecap me,” I said, hearing the third lad turning the kitchen upside down. Which was a bummer, ‘cause that was exactly where the rest of the stuff was. Except for the huge one-pound bar of hash sitting on the table, that shoebox they found probably held a tenth of what I actually had.
"Can you believe this? This bastard thinks we came here to take his drugs," he said to the lad with the rifle.
Exactly at that moment, the third bloke came back from the kitchen holding two bags of ecstasy pills. He exchanged glances with their leader and then came up close to me.
"We’re RAAD. Republican Action Against Drugs. We’re against this shite. We’re here to stop cunts like you from killing members of our community," he said, dropping the bags on the end table next to the hash.
"Let me illustrate the point," he said, opening the ziplock on the smaller bag. Then he took out his knob and started pissing straight into it. When he finished, he gave his dick a neat little shake to make sure the last drops landed inside, sealed the bag, and chucked it at me. Tied up, I still managed to dodge it—but the asshole hadn’t sealed it properly, so when the bag hit the floor, piss splashed out, and I felt some of it hit my face. The lad returned to the kitchen. Meanwhile, the one in charge unzipped the bigger bag, then made a little grand gesture like he was inviting the lad with the rifle to do the honours.

“Fancy a piss in this one?”

“Nah, I’m good,” the rifle lad shrugged.

“Yeah, me neither,” the leader muttered, like this whole show was somehow beneath him now.
He pushed open the bathroom door and casually dumped half a thousand pills into the toilet. Then he hit the flush.
But of course, the toilet didn’t cooperate. You don’t flush that many pills unless you’re trying to kill a Victorian sewer system. It gurgled, clogged, and filled right to the top, swirling like a chemical soup.
“Hell’s bloody bells,” he muttered,stomping in the puddle and cracking some of the pills that had spilled out. Somehow his voice seemed familiar when he said it. I’d heard of RAAD—how they’d harassed and kneecapped dealers around Belfast, even killed one poor bastard in Derry. I didn’t know what the bloke who pissed in the bag had been drinking or taking, but his piss was extra yellow. Some of the pills started dissolving, and as I watched them turn into a bright orange mush, I realised that I had to defend myself the only way I could—by talking.
“What do you mean, stopping cunts like me from killing people? I haven’t killed anyone. It’s weed and ecstasy, man—they’re less toxic than alcohol. Google it, it’s science. Why don’t you go after Guinness or Jameson instead? Their stuff kills more people every year. And a bit of coke… come on, it’s not like we’re in Derry.”
"Hold your whist, you gobshite. How do you know what’s in it?" he said, picking up one of the pills from the floor, then threw it at me. "Did you make it yourself? I’ve seen kids on this stuff boking their guts out like they’ve shot up some heroin."
"I know my stuff, it’s bloody ecstasy. There’s no gear in it, I’m telling you."

"Oh really? What a responsible approach," said the lad with the rifle, sneering and hit me with a stock.
At that moment, the lad rummaging in the kitchen shouted, “Fuck me! Look what I found!” He came back holding two bricks of coke in his hands. “Looks like two pounds of Charlie, at least,” he added.
“And how harmless is that, you feckin’ eejit? You cook crack — that’s why it’s kept in the kitchen, isn’t it?” said the man in charge.
Without a second thought, the lad with the coke tore open the bags and dumped the whole lot into the already clogged loo.
“Oh no! What the fuck? What’ve you done?” I shouted. As I watched him pouring it all out, I begged him to stop — but of course he didn’t. Instead, he pulled out a jackknife and punched another hole in the bag.
“Oh no, what’ve you done? I’m a dead man now — I’m fucking dead!” I screamed, just as the last bit dropped into the loo.
“If I were you, I wouldn’t worry about that too much… ’cause first, you’ll have to survive this,” said the man in charge. “Bring in the music,” he barked, as he grabbed the rifle from the other lad’s hands.
“We’re gonna have a little party at your gaff, if you don’t mind,” said the man in charge. “Usually we just intimidate — and if they don’t stop selling, we beat the shite out of them. On rare occasions, we kneecap the bastards. But you, Shane… you’re such a knobhead, you’ll be getting some special treatment.”
“Oh no, no, no!” I begged as they taped my mouth.
“All right, lads — let’s feckin’ rave! Shane, what kind of music are you into? Techno? House? I bet cunts like you prefer Drum ’n’ Bass,” said the youngest, setting the boombox down in front of me. It was still in radio mode, so when he hit the button, it blared Give Me Love by Ed Sheeran — which, in fairness, was already a form of torture.
“Nah, nah, nah — we need something Shane would really like,” he said, switching it over to CD mode.
“Wicked, wicked — a junglist massive!” spat the speaker.
“Which one — the left or the right?” asked the lad with the angle grinder as he fired it up.
My arms and legs were tied. I screamed at the top of my lungs, but with my mouth taped and the music blaring, none of the neighbours heard a thing. In a desperate lunge, I sprang forward like a snake — but hit the floor hard. Trying to win a few more seconds before the mad vigilantes sawed through my leg, I rolled across the floor and eventually bumped into a drawer. The photo of little me and my da — the one that sat on the drawer — fell to the floor and landed right at the feet of the man in charge, who was already standing behind me. He picked it up, looked at me, then stared at the picture again.
“Hell’s bloody bells,” he muttered, unscrewing the silencer from the rifle. He handed the MP5 to one of the lads behind me, and for a split second, I almost let out a sigh of relief.
But then — just like that — he pulled out a pistol and began screwing the silencer onto it instead.
“Everyone get in the car,” he commanded.
“Wait… what? Are we leaving him like that? I think we should finish the job,” said the lad with the angle grinder.
“He’s already shitting himself — no need to turn it into a proper horror show. Or do you want to see his shite and blood all over the place? All over your clothes?” He paused, then added, “I’ll do the talking. Get in the car.”
“Oh, come on,” the lads said in unison — both sounding properly disappointed.
“I said, get in the feckin’ car!” the man shouted.
The lads grabbed the boombox and left. When we heard the door slam, he turned back to me, pointing both the gun and the photo in my direction.
“Is it you?” he asked. I nodded.
“Who’s the man next to you?” he asked again, this time gesturing with the gun at my da hugging me in the picture. I tried to answer, but only mumbled — he’d clearly forgotten my mouth was still taped.
“It’s my secret lover — who do you think it is?” I snapped, once he finally tore the tape off.
“All right, bugger,” he muttered, raising the pistol and aiming at my knee.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa… it’s my da! But he’s gone out for his tea. What’s it to you?”
“Hell’s bloody bells… and your name’s Shane,” he said, stunned. Then he dropped onto the sofa like someone had knocked the wind out of him.
“I know you and your family,” he said, tossing the photo onto the sofa beside him, though he kept the gun pointed squarely at me. “And I knew your da… Hell’s bleeding bells… fecking hell,” he muttered, gripping his head with his free hand.
In that moment, it hit me — one of my da’s old mates, Manus, used to drop by the house from time to time. Same raspy voice. Always effing and blindin’, even when kids were about. And that phrase —Hell’s bloody bells— I’d first heard it from him.
“Manus?” I said, half unsure.
“Jesus, Joseph and Mary! You remember me!” he flinched, almost smiling. “Last time I saw you, you were what — nine, maybe ten? You've grown so much I’d never have recognised you. What the hell are you even doing in this neighbourhood? You used to live in…” He trailed off, his face darkening. “Ah, fuck it. I don’t think you’ll be grassin’ us up for flushing your coke down the drain,” he added, pulling off his balaclava.
“Listen, kid… it’s a feckin’ shame you turned out like this. I don’t think it would’ve happened if your old fella was still around. We were like brothers. Feck, we were brothers — brothers in arms, so to speak. And I promised him… promised him that if anything ever happened to him and I was still breathing, I’d look out for his family. He promised me the same.”
“Yer word is yer bond, Manus,” I cut in. “If this is how you look out for people, I’d prefer you just give my head a bit of peace. You nearly sawed my feckin’ leg off ten minutes ago.”
“Wind your neck in, son,” he snapped, raising the gun at me again.
“You’ll see no more of me — but you will stop selling drugs. If you want to crack on, do it somewhere else: London, Birmingham, Saint-feckin-Tropez, I don’t care. But if I find out you’re at it again anywhere near here, I swear to God, I’ll shoot you myself.”
He leaned in closer, calm but deadly.
“Now, I’m gonna untie you. Then I’ll shoot the wall, and I want you to scream — loud as you can — so my boys hear it and think the job’s done.”
“You know, Manus… you’d better just shoot me instead. I owe fifty five grand for the gear you flushed, and I’ve no clue how I’m supposed to pay that back — unless I sell a kidney.”
“Oh, you feckin’ jammy cod,” he said, grinning. “Well then — you can introduce us to the man. If he’s in Belfast or Derry, I’m sure we’ll have the same lovely wee chat we had with you.”
I knew Manus was serious about it. He was a fighter — just like my da. First, he fought against the British occupation in the ranks of the IRA, and then, when most of the republican dissidents turned to political means, he carried on resisting in his own way. His crusade against drug dealers in the area was just a continuation of the same fight.
Lecturing the youth on the real content of the 1921 Declaration of Independence made by the Irish Parliament wasn’t his style. He wasn’t one for long speeches — he was a man of action. He wanted to keep the Catholic communities, whose members mostly supported reunification with the Free State, safe from drugs.
Though, fair enough, weed and ecstasy are less toxic than alcohol — some drugs kill, and the ones that don’t still add to the rot eating away at society. Drugs, deadly or not, don’t keep families together. And people like Manus wanted the historically oppressed minority to stop being a minority. He wanted our communities to be strong and healthy, to keep the numbers of those who supported the cause as high as possible. Without their support, his fight would’ve been futile — worthless. And that fight meant everything to him. It gave his life meaning.
After all the pain and hardship he’d gone through during the Troubles, he couldn’t go back to an average life. It just seemed dull and pointless.
Meanwhile, in the poorer — and therefore more vulnerable — parts of town, drugs were running rampant, thanks to shitehawks like me. And with proper policing nowhere to be seen, crime was flourishing. Seeing all that, folks like Manus couldn’t just sit on their hands.
Aye, on one hand, maybe it was partially their fault that in Belfast the police still patrolled the streets in armoured cars, afraid some radical might lob a petrol bomb at them. But on the other hand, RAAD’s methods of dealing with drugs — I’ll admit — were a hell of a lot more effective.
For a second, I pictured what a beef between Patrick and Manus would look like — a couple of dead bodies on both sides, and me? Most certainly dead.
“Ye’re talking shite, Manus. Trust me, the talk wouldn’t be lovely at all. I’d rather snitch on him than introduce my link to ya. Plus, he isn’t in Belfast or Derry, so please — do one, love, would you?”
“Sure, look — then I can’t do much about it, son,” he said, putting the money he’d taken from me back on the end table.
He turned off the lights and put a bullet in the wall behind me. The lads sitting in the car probably saw the flash.
“Oh, would you come on to fuck — scream, for God’s sake,” he said, unscrewing the silencer.
I screamed at the top of my lungs, loud enough so his boys could hear me ‘agonising.’
“Thank you... but you’ve been warned. If I see you dealing anywhere round here again, next time I’ll put a bullet between your eyes,” said Manus — and left.

I woke up from the cold and the pain, still in the same hut in the jungle, still surrounded by the same jars of snakes, and my blanket had yet again slipped to the floor.
“Indeed, nothing’s changed much in my surroundings — it’s nearly always been like this. Only this time, the soaked in alcohol reptiles around me were dead,” I thought to myself.
While I was drifting through old memories, I must’ve nodded off. When I opened my eyes again, it was pitch dark — but this time, the clay oven was still guttering.
I pushed my planked bed closer to the fire and threw a few more logs on, but it didn’t help much. Apparently, I was going through Tramadol withdrawals — my chills wouldn’t go away, even though I’d wrapped myself tight in the blanket, and I’d become hypersensitive to pain. I’d run out of pills and desperately needed something to ease it.
I didn’t know what time it was, but after a few hours, the sun began to rise, and I found myself staring again at the jars of snake wine sitting on the floor.
Most likely, the ones on the floor were a freshly made batch. The snakes in the jars on the shelves, however, didn’t look so bright. I reckoned it was safer to drink those.
Going through unbearable pain and grappling onto the wall, I managed to stand, balancing my weight on the uninjured leg, and reached for one of the smallest bottles from the lowest shelf.
The snake in it wasn’t a cobra, but it looked venomous. When I opened the bottle, it smelled like proper, almost poitín-strong moonshine. I took a sip, and it tasted disgusting. Waiting for a painful and excruciating death, I took a few sips more — but instead, after about half an hour, I got a raging hard-on. I remembered how the snake wine shop owner in Sihanoukville had touted it as medicine for “men’s health,” but I didn’t expect such an immediate result. The hard-on was so strong my bollocks were aching.
Under different circumstances, I probably would’ve had a wank, but this time I decided to keep drinking and try to drown the horniness in drunkenness. It all reminded me of the time Sara Haffernon gave me blue balls. I’d just come to London, trying to start fresh by doing the same old thing and somehow expecting a different result. It probably would’ve ended in a body bag or a long stretch in prison if I hadn’t met her. And though she’d broken my heart back in school — and again that night at Alistair’s party — my balls were aching just the same. Still, I’m kind of grateful.
Back in those days, I was living in Hackney, East London. My classmate Rory had kindly agreed to host me for a while. When he found out I had a bit of Charlie, I found out he was a full-blown cokehead.“Sure, mate, you can stay as long as you need,” he said, after I mentioned I was thinking of renting my own place.I figured it’d cost me about the same to feed his and his girlfriend’s noses as it would to pay rent. They were both snorting my coke like there was no tomorrow — even though it was slightly orange.
On the other hand, living with Rory had its own advantages. He worked as a cook in one of the restaurants in Shoreditch and knew loads of people, while I didn’t have any connections at all. I kept my circle tight — just Rory and a handful of his mates. Naturally, the kind of money I was used to wasn’t coming in anymore.
Starting trapping again wasn’t an option — not after what had happened to me in Belfast. The last thing I wanted was to cross the wrong person and end up stabbed, mugged, or snitched on. My plan was simple: make the most of what I had, then call Padraig and beg him for more time. I figured there was a chance he’d offer me the usual — work off the debt, be a mule again, do a run across the country. But showing up without at least twenty grand would’ve been suicide.
Since I didn’t have many clients, I had way more free time. I tried my luck with a few casinos — applied at Megapolis Gaming, Aces Casino, and Gentlemen Casinos — but they all wanted a versatile croupier who could spin the wheel and deal not just poker, but the whole array of games.
One of the casino chains, though — the GranVenue — offered an eight-week training course with guaranteed employment. Still, I wasn’t sure I had that much time. I knew Padraig would start looking for me and he surely did.
One evening I was on my way to a pub in Shoreditch where Rory, his girlfriend, and a bunch of their mates were having pints. They needed more and asked me to join them. I was walking along Leonard Street when my granny from Dublin called. I picked up — but instead of her voice, I heard Padraig’s. He was telling her something but I could’t hear what exactly.
"Why didn’t you tell me you were coming to Dublin? This friend of yours, Padraig — what a lovely young man. He’s been worrying about you, said you were supposed to meet," she said, before passing him the phone.
"Thank God you’re alright. I’m so glad to hear your voice, I’ve been worrying about ya," said Padraig gently.
"Stop acting the maggot, Padraig, you know I’m not in Dublin."
"Oh really? So you’re not coming? Where are ya?"
"I’m in London."
"What a pity. And what happened to your phone?"
"Sorry, I was busy making money — for you," I replied.
"I’m gonna top up my account and ring you from my number. Pick up the phone," he said, in that kind-hearted voice of his — and then whispered, "or I’ll break her feckin neck before I get to ya."
When he called me from his number, I told him everything was tickety-boo.
"If I find out you gambled away my money, I’ll make you eat your bollocks."
"I had a problem in Belfast, but I got it sorted."
"Oh, you got it sorted? And now you’re in feckin London. Fair play to ya."
"I didn’t ask for that much. It might take me longer than you think, but I’m working on it."
"I need the money. It’s been three weeks already — you were supposed to have made something by now. You know what, let’s make sure you’re not fucking with me. You say you’re in London — bring me ten grand. I’ll send you the address tomorrow," he said, then hung up.
As I’d predicted, talking to Padraig without ten or twenty grand in my pocket was a bad idea. Even after I sold some coke to Rory and his lot, I was still two grand short.
Rory, his girlfriend, and two of their mates were drinking at the pub, having the craic, building feckin’ railroads in the toilet, while I sat there with a face like a slapped arse — torn between begging, stealing, or borrowing to scrape together the rest of the money. I was desperate.
The coke kept me on my toes, but didn’t make me rowdy, not even a bit. I was knocking back pint after pint after pint.
"Alright," I thought. "Let’s say I find the missing two grand and bring Padraig the ten he asked for. What then? In a week or so, he’ll be after another ten — maybe even the whole sum. Where the hell am I supposed to find that kind of money?"
Even if I turned the rest of the gear into crack, I didn’t know anyone who’d buy it off me. Let’s say I cut it — how much could I make? Twenty? Twenty-five? And where would I find another twenty-five on top of that? People get killed for owing less.
And what about Granny?
To squeeze the most out of what I had left, I needed more time and more clients — and I had damn little of either. Money? Time? Clients? I was knee-deep in shite, and my head was boiling with all those questions.
Then everything changed.
She walked into the pub — sexy as hell — Sarah feckin’ Heffernon. She and two of her pals slid onto the barstools right next to me.

Cute, long-legged redhead — she was never an ugly duckling, but that night, she looked absolutely stunning. The scent of her perfume, the dazzling white cocktail dress, her gestures, the way she carried herself — everything about her said one thing loud and clear: the cheeky ginger in flashy clothes I once knew had become a woman.
Her bold, gay-looking mate in smart glasses and another knockout friend ordered cocktails. Sarah? She went straight for a whisky on the rocks.
Back in sixth form, we went on a couple of dates. It never went further than kissing. I’d decided to finally make a move — a romantic one, or so I thought — but instead of falling for it, she dumped me. That same night, high on E, she shagged my best mate.
After that cliché but still gutting experience, I swore I’d only want to see Sarah again once I’d made it. I wanted her to see me on top, to regret the choice she made. I wanted her to think: “What if…”
But that wasn’t how it played out.
The lads had begged me to come out sooner, so I didn’t even shower. Stinking, pale as a sheet, I was slouched one seat away from her. Hoping she wouldn’t clock me, I turned my whole body the other way and pretended to hang on Rory’s girlfriend’s every word. But it was already too late.
“Shane, ya pox! How are you getting on?” she said, tapping my shoulder. “I haven’t seen you since—”
“Since you shagged Ciaran McDoucha,” I cut her off.
“We studied at the same school for nearly a year after that,” she said, not missing a beat. “I was gonna say since graduation. I’m just glad to see you. How are you?”
“Oh, I’m grand. You?”
“Doing great. My girl Claire just landed a role in our sitcom, so we’re celebrating. And this is Darcy, our producer’s assistant,” she said, nodding toward the lovely blonde and her flamboyant mate.
“You living in London now?” she asked.
“Nah, just here for a poker tournament,” I lied — and right then, Rory, who’d been on the phone, stormed over.
“Harry, Steve and Roisin are coming too! Shane, I hope you’ve got more coke!”
Sarah’s face changed.
“You have some?” she asked. When I nodded, she turned to her mates. “Guys, I’ll be with you in a jiffy,” she said, grabbed my hand, and dragged me to the toilet.

“Thank God you’ve got some Charlie. Listening to that buggery babbler without a wee line was a nightmare—whiskey didn’t help,” she said as I drew lines on the sink.
“So you made it, then? I remember you said you wanted to be an actress, and now you work in movies,” I said, cracking a peachy rock.
“I do work in the movies—but not the way you think.”
“You in the adult industry?”
“No, you silly shitehawk,” she laughed, slapping my shoulder. “I’m a makeup artist. Not an actress. I actually didn’t make it, though I tried. My first couple of years in London I worked as a model, tried my luck at all sorts of castings. I even got through one audition—but when I refused to suck the producer’s cock, the role—though it wasn’t even the lead—went to someone else.
“He said I wasn’t talented enough, that I lacked something. And the worst thing is, that silly cockwombler was probably right. I never got anything decent after that. A role in a beer commercial—that was the peak of my acting career.
“You know in modelling, 25 to 30 is usually the end, so I figured I’d get ahead of it. Took a makeup course. And yeah—I work in telly now, and sometimes even films.”
Then she leaned closer, squinting at the powder. “Jesus fucking Christ—is that orange?”
That night, after Manus and his blokes paid me a visit, I dashed straight to the toilet the moment they left. First, I picked up all the pills off the floor, then fished out the ones floating on the surface. They were freshly pressed and had no coating, so the food colouring in them turned the water in the loo bright orange.The same happened to the coke floating in that Fanta-coloured soup. I fished out the biggest chunks that hadn’t dissolved yet — they’d gone a slightly peachy shade. I bet from the outside it looked like a scene from Trainspotting — the only difference being that the toilet wasn’t full of shite. Though it kinda was. No pun intended. In my rush, I didn’t bother with gloves, and my hand went numb. I remembered hearing about some plonker who won the lottery and got himself killed taking a bath in champagne. He was already plastered, and when his skin soaked up the alcohol, he died of intoxication. Next time I dipped my numb hand into the loo, I must’ve grabbed too much and accidentally unclogged it — through my fingers everything went straight down the drain. I opened the bag of pills one of the RAAD lads had pissed in and dumped the contents on the floor. About half of them had turned into orange mush, but the other half were more or less intact. The imprinting was gone, but they still held the shape of a pill. In the end I was left with half a pound of slightly orange coke, a pound of hash, and a few hundreds pills. Next morning I took a ferry to England. And yeah, now all the coke rocks I had were slightly orange, and when you cracked them open, they turned a pale peachy colour. Like someone had dusted them with cheap blush. It didn’t affect the high — not that I could tell — but it made the stuff look dodgy as hell.

“Aye, but don’t worry — it’s just food dye from the ecstasy pills that spilled in it.”
“So you’ve got pills too?”
“Aye, and some hash,” I mumbled.
“Blimey, so you’re the man,” she said, then bent down and did the line.
“How much?” she asked, head tilted back.
“That’s 30 for you.”
“That’s a bargain. Oh Lord! Oh feck me. Oh Jesus — my face is already numb. I’ll take two. We’re going to an event tomorrow. Would you mind if I give you a bell in case we need more?”
I gave her my number. She called me the next morning.
“I’m at an afterparty in Chiswick—it’d be fantastic if you and Charlie could come, actually you can take everyone and everything with you” she said. An hour and a half later, a cab was carrying me to the posh western suburbs of London. I was shaking like a leaf, nursing a brutal hangover, barely able to speak, when Sarah met me at the gate of a fancy country house.
“Last night’s event was for the end of the show I worked on. It was a total damp squib—until they announced we’re getting a second season. So now everyone’s here at the producer’s place to celebrate properly. Want to come in?”
My mouth felt like a fur boot. “Yes. I’m dying. I need the hair of the dog that bit me.”
Inside, she introduced me to people twirling around a DJ booth—actors, editors, costume designers, assistants—everyone who’d been part of the production. We floated from room to room, and by the time I made it to the kitchen to fix myself a drink, I’d already made five hundred quid.
“Blast it! Is it K talking to me, or is it orange?” asked a cameraman, squinting at the rock.
“No mate,” I said, breaking it up with a card, “It’s just a crust. Inside it’s whiter than Snow White’s arse.”
You see, it’s just a tad of dye — meant for wingers — that spilled in it. I pulled out a bag of orange pills with slightly washed-out logos, and the cameraman’s face lit up in epiphany.
“Terry! Can you get the gaffer in here? He wanted a sugar flip,” he yelled to a bloke smoking outside. A minute later, a man with a beard and round glasses joined us.
“Nice house,” I said as he handed me the cash.
“I wish an electrician could afford something like this,” he laughed. “Nah, mate, I do the lighting. This is our director’s place — it belongs to Al.”
“Alistair Bloomfield. The man, the myth, the legend,” said Sarah, who’d just walked in and overheard us. “Director, producer, screenwriter — and an absolutely narcissistic cunt. See that grey-bearded man chatting with the host of Britain’s Got Talent? That’s him. Sorry, I’m not introducing you. But they need six ecstasy pills,” she added, slipping a few banknotes into my hand.
“Ah fuck, I should’ve brought more with me,” I muttered.
“Don’t tell me you don’t have them! How long would it take you to bring more?”
The truth was, I had only one proper pill left. Just one that hadn’t touched toilet water or been pissed on by a lad from RAAD.
“So you say he’s a narcissistic cunt… alright then,” I said, taking out the bag with the washed-out ones. I dropped a few onto the table and counted out six for Sarah.
“One’s for me,” she said, picking one of the stinky pills off the table. She was about to pop it in her mouth when I grabbed her wrist.
“Here — take this one instead,” I said, handing her the last clean pill.
“It’s stronger,” I lied.
“Okay,” she said, not resisting much.
One hour later, I watched Sarah and her posh English friends absolutely buzzing — dancing, laughing, losing themselves in the high. Little did they know that along with their ecstasy, they’d also swallowed a bit of Radical Republican piss.
I stood on the ladder leading to the second floor, sipping whiskey by myself, when Sarah suddenly appeared out of the crowd, clutching my jacket.
“Shane, I need more Charlie — we’ve snorted everything I had,” she said, eyes wide and jaw twitching. She should’ve started with half — the pill was too strong, and now she didn’t want to spend the rest of the evening comatose on the sofa. She needed something to keep her buzzing. Chewing her lips, she shoved a bunch of crumpled banknotes into my hand.
“Shit — it’s David Goldman,” she gasped, pressing herself against me. “The producer I told you about,” she whispered, ducking halfway behind my back.
“The one who didn’t give you the role because you wouldn’t nosh on his meat and two veg? So what?”
“I don’t want him to know I work for Al. Thing is, I didn’t exactly refuse — I offered him a fire-and-ice blowjob.”
“What?”
“It’s when you take a sip of something cold, start sucking him off, then switch to something hot and go again. Supposed to blow their minds — contrast and all. Only, instead of putting his John Thomas in my mouth, I spilled a cup of tea on his bollocks. He might try to convince Al to fire me if he finds out I work for him.”
“Yeah, and now he’s loaded and connected, and I really don’t need him chatting to Al. He could have me booted tomorrow.”
“Does he try that with all the actresses?”
“It’s worse. Blokes too. People say he’s always on Ritalin, constantly on the pull — tries to shag anything that moves. But the worst part is, that filthy, speed-gobbling pig was probably right. I’m just not talented enough — that’s why I’m not an actress.”
“I hope he wants a winger.”
“Shite — I think he’s coming this way,” she squeaked.
Indeed, Al, David, and one other lad were making their way up the ladder when they suddenly stopped halfway, staring at a painting on the wall.
“Yes, it’s a real Pollock,” said Alistair, as if he was giving a TED talk.
Sarah panicked. There was nowhere to hide, she couldn't go downstairs unnoticed so she grabbed my hand and tugged me up the stairs ahead of them, using me like a human shield. The problem was, it was the only staircase in the building, so once we made our way up to the first floor, we were trapped again. If Al and David had decided to come any further up, they would've seen us.
The empty corridor, decorated with even more paintings on the walls, had four doors. The first one was locked, the second led to a bedroom where a couple was shagging doggy style, and when she opened the third door, we saw books on every wall and a big antique bookcase right in front of us. In the middle of the room, there was a big, round, wooden table at which six men were playing poker.
“Pa-pa-pa-pa-pow, you bombaclad!” shouted the Black lad, flipping over his junk cards with a grin as his opponent mucked.
"Hey Will, didn’t know you were here," said Sarah, placing her hands on the shoulders of one of the players. She introduced me to the ones she knew. William was one of the supporting actors; the Black lad, Chilton, was a sound technician; the freckled guy in the pink hoodie was Thomas, another cameraman. As for the rest of the lads—I forgot their names as soon as they told me.Sara lit a cigarette, and while she smoked, I watched them play. They were all amateurs, playing low stakes—none of them cared much about winning. They were just having fun, drinking, and mingling.
William always put on an act; whenever he had a strong hand, it suddenly took him ages to call — he'd put on a show of deep thought, as if he were calculating the odds of war. And that dramatic poker chip clack before betting? Far too obvious. Even for casual players, that's not the sound of someone in trouble. Chilton, usually the most talkative of the bunch, went dead quiet every time he was bluffing. As for the lad in the black shirt whose name I forgot — whenever he missed the flop, he’d fixate on the board like he thought the right card might appear if he stared long enough.
Sara stubbed out her cigarette, and Chilton finally offered me a seat at the table. Like I said, reading them wasn’t difficult — in less than twenty minutes, both Chilton and Thomas were already asking for a rebuy. Meanwhile, high as fuck on ecstasy, Sara was floating around the shelves, pulling out books and carefully choosing one to do lines on. I was 500 quid plus and it was my turn to deal when the door suddenly opened.
“And this is my library,” said Alistair as he walked in, followed by David and another bloke.
Sarah, who was standing to their right, froze in surprise. She was still holding the book she’d been doing lines from and lifted it quickly close to her face, pretending to read — as if something on the page demanded close inspection.
I knew I had to draw their attention.
“Gentlemen, would you like to play a game of poker?” I said, putting on a show with the deck. Riffle shuffle, zigzag, cascade — I ran through nearly every trick I’d picked up dealing at Harland and Wolff, and it worked. Without glancing around too much, all three drifted over to the table. Meanwhile Sarah quietly slipped out behind them.
“Wow, wow, wow,” said the lads at the table, practically in unison.
“Yo man, are you a magician or something?” Chilton asked.
“Marvelous! Do you play poker for a living?” Alistair asked me.
“Living? I can get killed for playing poker too much. I’m kidding, mate — I used to be a poker dealer,” I said, though the part about getting killed wasn’t a joke.
“Speaking of dealers — we’ve been looking for one... Where’s Sara? No, no, no..thank you— I’m not much of a gambler. Besides, there’s only one free chair left,” Al said, giving his other friend a hug. Just like Sara, they were both high as fuck on ecstasy.
“Since we’ve got a professional croupier in the room, I’ll play a couple hands,” said David, grabbing the chair. His eyes looked like a pair of black saucers, but it was clearly a different, speedier kind of high.
“We’re playing no limit Texas Holdem, 1-2 pounds blinds,” I said dealing the cards.
“Let’s make it 5-10” suggested David putting another Ritalin pill in his mouth.
“We understand that even that is peanuts for you, but we have been having fun, let’s not ruin it” argued William.
Unlike the others at the table, David turned out to be intensely competitive—borderline obsessed with winning. An hour in, only three of us were left: me, William, and David. Despite a couple of rebuys, David now had the biggest stack.William shoved all-in with a straight. I had a flush and took him out. That left me heads-up with David. His Ritalin jaw was in full swing—chomping and clacking like a motor. He popped in a piece of chewing gum. I was on the button. Dealt J-Q of diamonds.
Flop: 5♦, 5♥, 8♦.
We both checked.
Turn: K♥.
David bet two hundred. Chomping, clacking—he looked confident. Hoping to see another diamond, I called.
River: Q♠.
I hit a pair. But if he had a king, I was beat. I bet a cautious hundred.
“All in,” he said, shoving his whole stack.

And then the chomping stopped. Bingo. He was bluffing—I was sure. His jaw had gone tight, lips pressed together. I’ve seen it before: when people bluff, they freeze up. They stop talking, stop moving. The snackers stop snacking. The gum-chewers? They stop chewing. In my experience, that’s the most reliable poker tell there is. The chewing-gum freeze. Works nine times out of ten—even on seasoned players.I called. Showed the queens. David had A-10 of diamonds. Just like me, he’d missed the flush—but he had nothing else. I doubled up at his expense.
It’s always easier to blame bad luck or the game itself than your own stupidity. But poker — or rather, my obsession with it — was the reason I was in trouble. Had I not lost so much playing against Fat Greg, I wouldn’t have ended up in Padraig’s pocket. I would’ve done things differently. The RAAD would never have broken into my flat. My stuff wouldn’t have gone to shambles, and I wouldn’t be 50 grand in debt.
After Fat Greg crushed me, I stopped dreaming of going pro or even making a living from the game. But there, playing against David, I smelled an opportunity. I had a chip lead and David was steaming. I moved the button and before I dealt the cards, he grabbed me by the hand that was holding the deck.
"You’re too dexterous with it. Let me do it," he said, and started dealing. "I bet cheating for lads like you is easier than shooting fish in a barrel."
"You want me to roll up my sleeves? Who do you think I am?" I asked, putting on an offended tone as I looked at the pocket eights he dealt me. The flop was the eight of clubs, ten of hearts, jack of hearts. David bet another hundred, and I raised to three hundred. He called. The turn was the queen of hearts. I had flopped trips, and since one of the eights was a heart, now I had a flush draw as well.
"How much do you have?" David asked.
I counted my chips. "Slightly over two grand, but I reckon I’ve got you covered," I replied. He shoved his remaining five hundred in chips and took a neat roll of lizzies from the inside pocket of his jacket. He counted out another fifteen hundred and plonked it on the table.
"You can’t buy chips now, only after this hand is finished," I told him.
"Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realise we were in a bloody casino. Didn’t mean to break the house rules. What’s the name of this respectable establishment, anyway? What’s the matter, Shane? If you’re a pussy, then fold."
Even if you’re decent at reading body language in poker, all you can really get is a notion of what your opponent thinks of their hand. None of the tells will tell you exactly what they’re holding. A player with a good hand is more relaxed, more likely to chat, to joke, to trash talk. Everything about David screamed he had it — but how strong was it? He could’ve had a straight or a flush or... Ah, feck it, I only started with three hundred, I thought.
"It’s against the rules of the game, but if you insist," I said, shoving all my chips in. The river was the ten of diamonds.
"Royal flush, baby!" David exclaimed, throwing his cards on the table. Chilton and William, who were still perched nearby, gasped.
"Wait a minute," I said, spreading his cards with my fingers. "The ace of hearts and the... David, that’s the king of diamonds, not hearts."
"Fuck!" he shouted, realising he'd misread it. That’s why he’d been so confident.
"Well, I still have the top straight," he muttered, knowing he had no one to blame but himself.
"Good for you, David, but I’ve got eights full of tens," I said, not even trying to hide my glee.
"You should be more attentive next time," said Wilson, tapping David on the shoulder.
"And luckier," added Chilton, both of them giggling and giving me thumbs up behind his back.
"I’m going to withdraw more cash. I’ll be back for a rematch. Don’t go anywhere!"
"Sure, mate, no problem," I replied, stuffing the cash in my pockets. While waiting, I went downstairs and bumped into Sara. Her pupils were so wide, her green eyes looked black.
"I saw that eejit leaving. He was raging, asking where the nearest ATM was. Chilton said you took all his cash."
"But for him, it’s probably nothing. One thing I’m sure of — that lad hates losing."
"He might be shite at poker, but he’s winning at life. He’s minted... anyway... Shane, you’re my hero," she said, placing her hand gently on my chest.
"Be careful, he’s coming back for a rematch. He might see you."
"I already don’t give a fuck!" she shouted, spinning off to dance to the house tune. I left her in the hall, cutting shapes around the DJ, and went outside for a smoke. Standing on the terrace, I overheard Alistair chatting to some girl after hanging up his phone.
"Oh my God, David smashed into a digger on the side of the road. He’s off his head and already dealing with the cops."
"Alright, no rematch apparently," I thought. It was total veni, vidi, vici for me. I had enough cash now to meet Padraig, but more importantly, I’d made a rake of new connections. Choosing not to cut the coke turned out to be the right call. Those movie types were real coke connoisseurs, buzzing over the quality. Every second one of them asked for my number.
The only logical continuation of that triumphant afternoon would be to shag Sara Heffernon — something that should’ve happened a long time ago. I found her where I’d left her, high on everything, dancing away to some unpretentious house track. For a few seconds, I danced around her, not hiding my intentions. I put my hands on her waist. She grabbed them and, as if she was reading my mind, led me toward the downstairs bathroom. In the empty, quieter corridor, she snuggled up to me, her perky tits pressing against my chest. She leaned in, close enough that I could feel her breath on my lips.
"I have a boyfriend," she whispered in my ear, then recoiled, laughing.
Right then, she gave me such a boner I swear I heard my bollocks crack.
"And I want you to meet him," she said, still laughing. "But I’m serious. I reckon you’d want to meet him too," she added, barely holding back her laughter.
"Christ Almighty, Sara. Do you enjoy torturing fellas?" I muttered, tucking myself back into my trousers.
"Oh my God, you’re such a charmer. You should’ve seen your face," she said, bursting into laughter again.
"You think it’s gas, do ya? You enjoy slagging me, don’t ya? Why don’t you shut your laughing gear," I said, turning to leave.
"Wait! I do think you need to talk to Arthur. I reckon you’re the right man for the job."
"Arthur? Is he your boyfriend? Who the hell is he that you want me to meet him?" I whispered, like I was sharing a secret. I stepped toward her again.
"He’s a Batman," she said, then burst into a fit of laughter. Absolutely tore up and fried, she was howling, gripping the wall to stay upright. But she was right — I did want to meet her boyfriend. I just didn’t know it yet.
After a few more cups of snake wine, the arousal finally faded. Fighting off the withdrawals, I got properly drunk. Cup after cup, I crawled back into bed, completely plastered. All night I was haunted by nightmares. The wine’s aphrodisiac effect must have bled into my subconscious — in the dream, I was having sex with My, and then her head turned into a giant cobra. I ran from her through a jungle, and just as there was a massive explosion, I woke up.

Still in the same hut, alone, after drinking nearly half a bottle of snake wine, I was tormented by a brutal hangover. My mouth was as dry as shit in the desert, my head throbbed, and the pain from my wounds hadn’t eased. It felt as though my entire body — my entire existence — had been reduced to pain.
“Maybe tramadol withdrawals were better,” I thought, gulping water from the bucket. When I finished, I realised there was less than a gallon left. Thankfully, it rained every day, so I’d placed an empty bucket outside on the porch to collect rainwater.
“Right, from now on I eat once a day,” I muttered, looking at the small amount of rice I had left. I poured myself a bit of snake wine and crawled back onto the plank bed. I suffered through the day, and the only silver lining was that I didn’t feel hungry.
The next morning I woke up feeling a bit better — but starving. I used some of the rainwater to cook a handful of rice. After calming the pangs of hunger, I took another look at my wounds. I unwrapped the bandage on my arm and noticed a patch of white mould.
“Christ Almighty — I was shot, and I’ve no memory of it,” I thought, examining what clearly looked like a gunshot wound, most likely from a 9mm. The bullet had hit me from behind, meaning I’d probably been running away when it happened. It had been removed, but in the absence of proper hygiene, the wound had become infected and was starting to rot.
Lying there, I spent the rest of the day trying to recall how it all happened — the flash, the bang, the shock, the rush of adrenaline — anything that might have burned itself into memory. But there was nothing.
The following morning, I managed to crawl outside the hut and have a look around. There was no sign of civilisation, no humans, not even a trace. I was in the middle of dense jungle, and when I cried for help, no one came. With no painkillers or proper nutrition, even that small effort left me drained. I cooked the last handful of rice and tried to fall asleep before the hunger set in again.
Two days later, I was down to rainwater alone. No food — not even a single grain of rice — and very little wood left. It was the hottest day since I’d woken up in the hut. Despite it being monsoon season, the sun blazed overhead. Dying from the heat and hunger, I lay on the bed, wondering how much longer I could last. A week? Ten days? Maybe even two? But what then? Even if my wounds somehow healed, I’d be too weak to search for food or find a way out.
My lips were cracked, and I was gasping for air, staring at the bottles of snake wine around me.
“Well, at least I could literally drink myself to death before dying of starvation, cold, or infection,” I thought grimly.
Then I had an idea. “What if I eat the snakes in the jars?”
I immediately turned my eyes to the fattest one — a big gallon-sized jar on the top shelf. “Looks like a few pounds of protein,” I thought, noting the brown and grey pattern on its skin. “And it’s already been marinated.”
But the vessel was too high, too heavy, and I was far too weak to reach it. Instead, I crawled over to the kitchen area and grabbed a smaller bottle that had already been opened. About a third of the wine remained, and the snake floated at the bottom. I tried to pull it out, but the neck was too narrow. The only option was to smash the bottle.
Before breaking it, I poured myself a final cup. Then, using one of the chopsticks as a skewer, I carefully pulled the snake out and placed it in the clay oven. I sat back, sipping the snake moonshine, and waited for it to cook.
“No drink! No drink! This is medicine,” said an old Asian man standing at the entrance. He must’ve been a ninja—didn’t hear him coming at all, not even a rustle. Thin, short, and with long grey hair, he wore cheap shorts and a faded shirt. He stepped into the hut holding two plastic bags. I had no idea who he was, but I was so happy to see another human being that I was speechless. He seemed glad to see me alive too, or at least that’s how it looked.
Brown and wrinkled like a prune, he looked like a strange cross between a Vietnamese and an Indian granddad. He put the bags down and pulled out some food. There was fried rice in a takeaway box, a few rolls, and something wrapped in banana leaves.
“Where am I?” I asked, reaching for a bottle of water sticking out of the other bag.
“Vietnam,” he answered, opening the plastic container of rice. “Eat! Eat!” he said, handing me the box and a spoon.
“Who are you? What’s your name?” I asked, but he didn’t answer. He just waved me off.
“Man, I need antibiotics and painkillers. My arm’s rotting,” I said, grabbing the spoon. He didn’t fully understand, clearly.
“Anti-bio-tics,” he repeated slowly, furrowing his brow.
“And painkillers—tramadol or oxycodone,” I added between bites.
“Ah! Tramadol. OK, OK,” he said, nodding. Then he stood up, picked up my thunder mug—nearly full of piss and shite—and took it outside. Cursing under his breath in his language, he emptied it and came back in.
“I go,” he said, packing the empty bag.
“No, no, no! Don’t leave me here,” I begged, mouth still full of rice. “I need help! Call an ambulance, the police, a feckin’ doctor—anyone. I need medical aid. I need to get out of here.”
“No. No police. Medicine—tomorrow,” he replied, sounding irritated.
“Wait, wait… You said Vietnam. Where exactly? This doesn’t look like Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh. Where are we?”
“No. No Ho Chi Minh,” he said.
“I get that,” I muttered, realising he didn’t understand half of what I was saying.
“I go,” he said again, tapping his finger on his bare wrist where a watch would be.
“Alright, fine. Tell me your name at least,” I asked as clearly as I could.
“Y Tr’đlam,” he said, then walked out of the hut. I understood why he hadn’t told me his name right away—impossible to pronounce. I couldn’t stop him, couldn’t follow him, couldn’t even say his name. I just lay there, watching his small figure vanish into the jungle.
He was gone, and I was left alone, but now with plenty of food and water. My first instinct was to gorge myself, but then a dark thought crossed my mind: What if he doesn’t come back tomorrow?
Feeling full enough, I put the rest of the food aside. No longer tortured by hunger, I fell asleep almost at once.
I woke up to the sound of someone by the oven. A teenage Vietnamese boy was scaling a fish on a plastic bag.
“Good morning! My name is Lam,” he said when he saw I was awake. “Grandpa told me to bring you medicine. I catch fish in the river on the way here. Don’t worry—I’ll cook outside.”
“That doesn’t bother me at all. Is E tre ..Eche d Lam your granddad?” I asked, totally butchering the name.
“Yes,” the boy nodded. He stood up, took something from the shelf, and came over. He held out his hand—tanned, covered in fish scales—with a pack of tramadol and a blister pack of azithromycin.
“Your medicine,” he said.
I immediately swallowed one of each. Then, while he went outside to cook over the open fire, I crushed another azithromycin pill with a spoon. I unwrapped the bandage on my leg and gently rubbed the powder into the rotting wound.
An hour later, he came back in with the cooked fish, spiced with some green leaves and chili peppers. It was absolutely delicious.
“Lam, where exactly are we? What part of Vietnam is this?”
“Dak Lak Province. Fifty kilometres from Buôn Ma Thuột,” he replied.
“That doesn’t tell me much. How far are we from Ho Chi Minh?”
“I don’t know,” he said, spitting out a fish bone, “but the bus to Saigon goes twelve hours.”
“Do you know how I ended up here?”
“Grandpa said some woman found you in the forest. You were sleeping. You had blood.”
“You mean I was unconscious and bleeding? That doesn’t help much.”
“Yes. Sorry. My English is no good.”
“No, it’s grand. You speak much better than your granddad. Where did you learn?”
“I go to English school in Buôn Ma Thuột. We have American teachers.”
“And What does your grandpa do?”
“He makes all those drinks,” said the boy, nodding toward the jars of snake wine. “He catch snakes, pick medical grass.”
“Some of them look really beautiful,” I said, staring at the freshly made jar on the floor, a colorful snake coiled inside. The alcohol hadn’t dissolved the pigment in its skin yet, and the turquoise spots looked fiercely bright. “Must be a good business. Your grandpa makes a lot of money, doesn’t he?”
“No. He sell them to Korean or Chinese. They buy cheap, really cheap. They make all the money,” the boy burped, licking his fingers.
“And you? You play cards and win a lot of money in casinos? Can you teach me? Teach me play cards like you?”
“Wait—what? Who told you that?” I nearly shouted.
“I hear the woman—the one who find you—talking with grandpa. She say all this happen because of you. She say your job is play cards. Say you win big money in casino.”
“That must’ve been My. What did the woman look like?” I asked.
“I don’t know. She come in middle of night. I was sleeping but wake up from motorbike sound. I go downstairs and listen—they talked behind door, they were outside. I not see her face.”
“She say some bad people looking for you. She want you stay here but grandpa say no. Then grandpa come inside and see me. He say, ‘Go back room.’ That all I hear. Is it true? You teach me?” he asked, his voice full of excitement.
“Sort of… How old are you?”
“I am fifteen.”
“You’ll have to wait three more years before you can legally play in a casino. Even if I teach you how to count cards in blackjack, you’ll have to go to America.”
“Great!” he interrupted. “I always want to go to America,” he said, then brought over a plastic bag from the kitchen corner.
“You stink. Grandpa tell me help you wash,” he added, pulling out a bar of soap, two shampoo sticks, and a sponge. I agreed, and he ran out to fetch water. I washed my private parts, and he helped sponge the rest. As he scrubbed my back, I asked him questions.
Turns out, he lived with his parents in Buon Ma Thuot, the capital of Dak Lak province. His father was a construction worker, his mother an accountant. Every year after school ended, they sent him to help his grandpa in the countryside—ever since his grandmother had died three years ago.
The night the woman showed up, it was his third day in the village. She came on a three-wheeled cargo bike loaded with avocados. He saw the trailer parked outside. She sounded young, but he didn’t see her face. He also told me his grandpa had just returned from five days in the hospital. The doctors told him to stay, but he left anyway. When he came back, he just told Lam to “take care of the man in the forest house.”
“Thank God,” I thought, listening to all this. It didn’t sound like a kidnapping. More like they were genuinely trying to help me.
“How much you win?” he asked, shampooing my hair. He touched the top of my head, just above the bandage, and I flinched from the pain.
“Let’s skip the hair. I’ll do it later,” I said. “I won enough to not work for a few years. In America, anyway. Here in Vietnam, probably ten years. I don’t know… I don’t think teaching you is a good idea,” I said, but then quickly changed my mind. The kid wanted to learn, and I could use it to my advantage.
“Listen, I can teach you poker or how to count cards in blackjack. But we’ll need a deck of cards. And I’ll need a proper drink—whiskey or at least beer -- and oxycodone. Or at least more tramadol. I’d really appreciate it if you could get me some oxycodone—it works better. I’d offer you some money, but, as you can see, I have none. I heard it’s not that hard to get it without a prescription here.”

“Your wallet and phone is in our house” he told me.
“Wait what? Lam, I’ll give you a hundred if you bring me my things”
“We already have all your money, and you offer me only one hundred?” he said, sponging my hair with cold water. It stung as he rinsed the bits of shampoo out. “Your things are in Grandpa’s room. He locked it before he go. I can’t bring them, even if I want.”
“Where’s your grandpa? Why isn’t he here?”
“He go to Buon Ma Thuot”
“Do you know when he is back?”
“He say tomorrow.” He said tossing me a pair of clean boxers. I unwrapped the bandage on my leg before putting them on. The wound was worse than I’d thought—big, not round, definitely not a gunshot. Skin around it all manky and burnt. Mould spreading too. I wanted to ask the kid to call for help, but after he told me there was someone after me, I decided not to rush anything.”
“I go back to village,” he said.
“How far is it?” I asked.
“About fifteen kilometer. I come here three hour. Road is bad. Can’t go up hill with motorbike. I leave bike in forest. I don’t know how grandpa bring you here.”
“Bring fresh bandages, please,” I begged before he left.
The next day, neither Lam nor his grandpa showed up. It rained hard from morning till late at night. Bored, but feeling slightly better—my wounds no longer itching—I popped some tramadol and dozed off in a pleasant buzz.
I woke up at dawn and reached for a box of spring rolls. “Don’t eat all at once,” I told myself. “What if they don’t come back?”
At 13:30, Lam finally walked into the hut. I knew the time because he’d brought me a flashlight, a radio, and a clock—all in one device.

“Sorry I not come yesterday,” he said, pulling a cooler bag off his shoulder. Inside were eight cans of Vietnamese beer.
“My bike stuck in mud. Road - very bad,” he added, tossing me a cold one.
“Christ almighty, it’s still cold. Lam, you’re the best,” I told him. Most Vietnamese beer tastes like piss, but right then, it was like ambrosia.
“You know what? You can bring my phone.”
“Grandpa not come back. I worry. Even if I bring phone, no signal here in mountains.”
“What about oxycodone?”
“They don’t have. I ask in two pharmacy. Both say no. But I bring this,” he said, pulling out a few rolls of bandage and another pack of tramadol. Then, smacking a deck of cards down between us, he added, “I spend my lucky money to buy beer, cards and medicine. Now you teach me.”
“Alright. I can teach you a few poker tips or how to count cards in blackjack. Have you ever played either?”
“I never played poker. But I played Xi Dách,” he said sheepishly.
Not surprising. Gambling was illegal in Vietnam. Poker rooms existed in big cities, but only as tournaments—technically a “sport.” There were casinos, but only foreigners were allowed in. Even if he were older, he couldn’t practice legally.
As for Xi Dách—it was the Vietnamese version of blackjack, with slight differences, like the dealer being able to settle individual bets after showing his hand, or hitting again even after revealing.
“I play blackjack in GTA San Andreas. In Las Venturas, you can play in casino,” he said.
“Las Venturas? GTA? That’s a video game?”
“Mmm,” Lam nodded.
“Well, at least something,” I murmured. I was worried it’d be a long haul, but at least he knew the rules, so I decided to tell him about card counting. We used matches instead of money. I was the dealer. After he lost half his pile, I started explaining.
“You see, by default, this game isn’t fair. Even if you follow basic strategy, the house has a 0.5% edge. In the long run, you’ll lose.”
“What’s basic strategy?” Lam asked.
“Well Somebody taught a computer how to play black jack, and then ran a simulation. The computer played billions of hands, and through trial and error came up with the decisions best for the player given any possible combination of dealer up cards. You always split aces, and you double elevens — same reason you never hit on twenty. It’s all down to probabilities, statistics, pure maths. Trouble is, even perfect play doesn’t beat the house — it just means you lose slower. Some casinos even hand out cards with the basic strategy printed on them. They want you to use it — ‘cause they’ll still win in the end.”
“So how you win?”
“Well this is when card counting comes into aid. Once you memorized the basic strategy you can flip the odds in your favor by adding card counting into the mix”
“I can count” said Lam.
“It’s not that simple. It’s a skill, a strategy — sure, it involves counting — but it’s basic arithmetics – and memorising – but you don’t need to remember every card that’s been dealt. Card counters don’t go remembering every single card that’s been dealt like they do in the films. They assign values to the cards and keep track of the count. You ever seen Rain Man? Aye, well — that’s pure bollocks.”
“What is Rain man and what is bollocks?”
“It’s a movie. Forget it. Okay, let’s start with the Hi-Lo system. The count is the total sum of all the values we've assigned to the cards that have been dealt. Cards 2 to 6 are +1. 7, 8, 9 are 0. 10, Jack, Queen, King, Ace are -1.” Let’s say there are three players sitting at the table. I dealt three hands: 2 & 4, 7 & 8, Jack & 5. Dealer’s upcard was a 2.

“What is the count?” I asked.
“2 and 4—both +1. That’s 2. 7 and 8 are 0. Still 2. Jack is -1, 5 is +1. Still 2.” said the boy.
“Don’t forget the dealers card” I noted.
“Oh it’s a 2 so it’s +1, that makes the count 3,” said the young lad.
“That’s right, now you need to do it with every card I deal, keep tracking the running count. Ok the first player gets with 2 and 4 gets 3 and 8, now he has 17 and decides to stand. What is the count?
“3 it’s +1 and 8 is 0, that make it 4”
“Player with 7 and 8 gets a King. Goes bust. What is the count?”
“King is -1. Count is 3 again.”
“Correct. Now you’ve got Jack and 5. Want another card?”
“Yes, please.” said Lam and I dealt him a Q.
“Ok you’re busted but it doesn’t mean you should stop counting, whats the count?”
“Queen is -1. So count is 2.”
“Good now look at the dealers card,” I flipped the dealer’s downcard: a 5. Then came a 3, 4, and 7.
“The dealer got a black jack. What’s the count?”
“5,3,4 are +1 each and 7 is a 0, the count was 2 +3 its 5.”
“Good though you lost this round, the running count of 5 is good enough to bet more. It gives a player a medium advantage. The higher the count the more you bet.
“Ok”, said Lam and bet all of his matches.
“Wow, alright. Now—two players left. First gets 10 and Queen. Stands. You get King and Ace. Blackjack. Dealer shows Queen, then draws 6, then another Queen. Busts. Count?”
“Count was 5. 10 and Q is -2, now 3. I got A and K—both -1, now 1. Dealer got Q, 6, Q. That’s -1, +1, -1. Now minus 1.”
“Exactly. Count is negative now—means bet minimum, or leave the table. When the count is high we bet a lot and when it’s low we bet little or don’t play at all.”
Lam counted his matches. “Wow!” he exclaimed. He had more than he started with.
“You shouldn’t bet all you have. I can’t say it was dumb luck – the probabilities were on your side. But knowing how much to bet is just as important.”
“You say I have a better chance, but I don’t understand why?”
“It’s math. The higher the count - the more 10s there are in the deck. That gives you an advantage because you have a better chance of hitting a black jack.”
“But the dealer has the same chance”
“True. But here’s the shtick. Every time the dealer hits a blackjack, you lose 1x of your stake. Every time you win – you win 1.5x of your bet. Imagine you and your friend play flip a coin. Every time he wins, he gets a hundred, and every time you win – you win a hundred and fifty pounds or dongs. The second reason why it works is because the more 10s there are in the deck, the more likely it is the dealer goes bust. You see, unlike in Xi Dách, the dealer in a casino can’t stand – they must always hit until 17. Imagine you and the dealer both have 16. The running count is 15 – that’s a very high count and you know there’s a load of 10s in the deck. You decide to stand, but the dealer doesn’t have that choice and has to hit. He draws another card – gets busted – and you get the money.”
“Does it always work?” asked the boy.
“It’s a very good question, ’cause it doesn’t. The basic strategy, together with card counting, gives you an edge of maximum 2%. In the long run it can turn into serious profits. But you’ll still be losing 48% of the time. In the movies, card counters miraculously turn casinos into ATMs, but in reality they lose a lot.
To make it profitable, all of them keep track of their wins and losses. They build a proper bankroll. They calculate their hourly rate. They basically treat it like a job.”
“It must be difficult,” said Lam. He looked a bit discouraged and overwhelmed.
“Ah yeah, it’s not easy money. Long gone are the days when casinos used just one deck. At an average table, the dealer usually works with five or six decks in the shoe. That means that in order to work out what the true count is, you need to divide the running count by the number of decks left in the shoe.
Let’s say the running count is 12 and you see there are three decks in the shoe – then the true count is 4.
There are also loads of deviations that you’ll have to learn if you want to be profitable. I’m not going into all that now. But even if you master the craft, there’s one more thing you’ll have to deal with – and it’s probably the trickiest and most brutal part.”
“What is it?”
“How do you think casinos treat card counters?”
“They don’t like them?”
“I’ll say even more – they fecking hate them.”
“They call the Police?”
“No, no, no… counting cards is legal. If you use your mind to win at a game without breaking any rules, there’s nothing criminal about it. But every casino is private property, and it’s up to them who they let in and who they don’t. Once they suspect you of counting, they’ll ban you – and share that information with every other casino, even the ones that are their competitors.
The croupiers, the pit, the bosses, the managers – besides their usual jobs, they’re all on the lookout for advantage players. Casinos use cameras, facial recognition software, databases, chips with radio transmitters to track betting patterns. In some countries it’s even legal to stick microphones at blackjack tables to listen in on card counters working in teams.
To avoid getting caught, card counters do all sorts – wear wigs and disguises, sometimes even go as far as plastic surgery. You see, if you enter a casino after being barred, then they can call the police and have you done for trespassing.”
The excitement and fascination on his face were replaced by bewilderment.
“How long you take to learn this?” Lam asked me.
“Months... maybe more, hard to say. But it takes a lot of practice.”
“You think I can do it?” asked the boy.
Honestly, I thought it was a terrible idea. Not that the kid was stupid – on the contrary, he picked up the basics very quickly. But his whole situation seemed hopeless to me. Gambling in his country was illegal. And all across Southeast Asia, the casinos use Continuous Shuffling Machines – the cards in the shoe are shuffled after every hand by a robot, which leaves absolutely no chance to a card counter.
His only shot, if he really wanted to make money at blackjack, was to get to Europe or the States. He’d need thousands of dollars just to travel, and twice that to put together a starting bankroll. He didn’t look like a lad from a well-off family, so I imagined he’d have to work his arse off just to give it a go – and success was anything but guaranteed.
But I kept that to myself. The kid wanted to learn and it was my only bargaining chip.
“Who knows?” I said. “Maybe one day. One thing I’m sure of – you shouldn’t set foot in a casino unless you can count a deck of cards in under 25 seconds. You have to be able to keep the count while going through the motions.
There’ll be distractions in a casino – croupiers and players chatting to you, and if you’re winning, managers offering you free drinks and hotel suites, while the pit bosses and the lads behind the cameras are analysing your game. To avoid the ‘heat’ you’ll have to act the part – chat, smile, drink, maybe even flirt – while counting cards and pretending you’re just another looser who got lucky.”
“Sound hard. Why people even do it?”
“Cause card counting’s murder – it’s hard, and there’s no guarantee you’ll win. Ninety-nine percent of people fail. But the ones who don’t? They win a lot, sometimes even millions,” I said, cracking open another can of beer. “You know what,” I continued “The successful card counters I knew were bright and intelligent people. I guess, had they chosen anything else to in life, they would have succeeded anyway. Perhaps they would have made even more money. The truth is that the guy who taught me counting cards had been making a lot of money before he switched to counting..I guess it’s the idea of beating the house, the idea of utilizing the skill to win in a casino, this is what draws people to it in the first place.”
“And how much did you win?”
“Here we go again” I thought, the kid has been to persistent with this question. Today a teenage boy asks you how much you made – tomorrow his grandpa takes you a hostage. On one hand I didn’t want to be extorted, suspecting this could be the reason behind their kindness and why they actually saved me. On the the other I didn’t want to loose the kid’s interest in me cause it already got me a few beers and a pack of painkillers. Especially now that he told me that his grandpa had been gone he was my only hope. I decided to dodge it by telling him a story.
“Listen,” I said “ the truth is “I tried counting solo, but I made the most by being a part of card counting team. Do you want to hear how we did it?”
“You know what,” I went on, “the successful card counters I knew were bright, intelligent people. I reckon if they’d chosen anything else in life, they’d have done well anyway. Might’ve even made more money.
The truth is, the lad who taught me to count cards had been making good money long before he ever touched a deck. I guess it’s the idea of beating the house, of using skill to win in a casino — that’s what draws people to it in the first place.”
“And how much you win?” Lam asked.
Here we go again, I thought. The kid had been far too persistent with that question. Today it’s a teenager asking how much you made – tomorrow his granda has you tied to a radiator.
On the one hand, I didn’t want to be extorted. I still half-suspected that was the reason behind all the kindness – why they patched me up and let me stay. On the other hand, I didn’t want to lose the lad’s interest either – so far, it’d got me a few beers and a pack of painkillers. And now that he’d told me his grandfather was gone, he was the only hope I had.
So, I dodged it.
“Listen,” I said, “truth is, I tried counting solo – but I made the most money working as part of a team. You want to hear how we did it?”
“Sure,” said Lam.
“OK, grab yourself a beer. It’s a long story.”
“I don’t drink.”
“Fecking shame. When I was your age, I was already knocking down fences drunk. Come on, take one — I won’t tell anybody.”
“OK,” said the boy. He opened a can and flinched when he took a sip — turned out it was his first.

It all began when I met Sara’s Heffernan boyfriend, Arthur. That day, I was at Nick Dudeman’s makeup laboratory. His apprentice, Kate, was leading me through the aisles between shelves full of goblin faces from Harry Potter, when Sara called me.
“If she offers to make a plaster cast of your head — she wants to shag you,” Sara told me on the phone.
We agreed I’d wait for her there; she was meant to come in an hour, and then we’d go meet Arthur afterwards. While I was chatting with Sara, I wandered around, eyeing the countless masks of elves, demons, and werewolves. Absolutely stoked by what I’d just seen, I nearly walked headfirst into a massive alien figure when I hung up.
It looked like a humanoid robot — small head, disproportionately big rounded body, all smooth and shiny like it was made of brass.
“Oh my God, is it from The Fifth Element?” I asked Kate.
“Mmh... it’s one of the creatures from the opening scene,” she replied.
We kept walking further down the hall, and soon I found myself face to face with two skeletons from The Mummy and a phoenix from Harry Potter. The phoenix turned out to be a robot, stuffed with circuits and wires.
“Wow!” I exclaimed, when she showed me it could actually move. I always thought that bit was computer graphics.
Any other makeup artist in London might have a studio at best — but Nick had a feckin’ laboratory.
The man was nominate for oscars in the best make up category for a reason – he was a genius behind all of those moving figures of dragons, gryphons and other fantasy creatures you could see in the movies. They call it animatronics. On the phone Sara told me that working with Nick was a pinnacle and that Kate got extremely lucky to be his apprentice. The man was a true innovator who even created his own brand of artificial super realistic blood, that was at the same time washable. When I was telling Lam how walked among all of those fantastic beasts his mouth opened in surprise. The kid turned out to be a big Harry Potter’s fan. The only thing that I didn’t tell him that the only reason why I was there was cocaine. I met Kate at the party at Chiswick and a few days later she asked me to deliver a few grams to work. I asked her to take a picture of me next to the alien from the Star Wars.
“Let’s make a plaster cast of your head,” she suggested giving me my phone back. Blimey she looked like a girl who could have a genuine crash on me, a solid 5 skinny and in glasses looking a bit nerdy, she had no illusions regarding her attractiveness and would compensate by being super sweet.
“What for?” I asked.
“I find your face interesting, we could use it later to make a mask of I don’t know a vampire or goblin, she replied grining.
“Alright.” I agreed cause Sara was still on it’s way, and when Kate started I understood why she did it to the men she liked. It was quite intimate process a good way to cut the distance and touch the person. She even massaged my scalp before covering it with plastic. So that my T-shirt doesn’t get dirtied, Kate asked me to take it off and quickly checked me out naked to the waist. Then she gently applied vaseline to my eyebrows and lashes, so that silicon doesn’t pull them out as she explained. In a jar she mixed gooiy pink and blue liquids and started applying the mix on my face with a spatula. At first it felt slimy and weird, then when she covered most of my head with it I sort of zened out into my little world and felt relaxed. For about 30 minutes I couldn’t nor see nor hear anything, when she took of the silicon off my face the light in the room seemed too bright and hurt. When my eyes adjusted I saw Sara and Kate standing above me.
“Welcome to the real world, Neo” said Sara and the girls laughed. They chatted for a while over a couple of glasses of white wine and a few lines and then Sara called a cab.
“Would you come on to fuck? the cab is already waiting outside.” she ranted looking for me. They found me in the next room doing coke from Volandemort’s bust.
“Shane, what the fuck?” she yelled at me.
“Come on, I did coke from ladies bottoms but when else do I get a chance to do it with the dark lord himslef?” I replied and snorted a fat line carefully drawn on his bold head.

The man was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Makeup category for a reason — he was the genius behind all those moving figures of dragons, griffins, and other fantasy creatures you see in the films. They call it animatronics.
Sara had told me on the phone that working with Nick was the pinnacle, and that Kate was dead lucky to be his apprentice. The man was a proper innovator — he’d even created his own brand of artificial blood: super realistic, but washable.
When I was telling Lam how I walked among all those fantastic beasts, his mouth dropped open in awe. Turned out the kid was a huge Harry Potter fan.
The only thing I didn’t tell him was that the real reason I was there was cocaine. I’d met Kate at a party in Chiswick, and a few days later she’d asked me to drop off a few grams at her work. I asked her to take a photo of me standing next to the alien from Star Wars.
“Let’s make a plaster cast of your head,” she said, handing me my phone back.
Blimey — she looked like the kind of girl who might actually have a wee crush on me. A solid five, skinny, wearing glasses — a bit nerdy. She didn’t seem to have any illusions about her looks and made up for it by being ridiculously sweet.
“What for?” I asked.
“I think your face is interesting,” she grinned. “We could use it later to make a vampire or goblin mask or something.”
“Alright,” I said, since Sara was still on her way. And as soon as Kate started, I understood why she did this with lads she liked — it was a fairly intimate process. A good excuse to close the distance and get touchy. She even massaged my scalp before covering it in plastic.
So my T-shirt wouldn’t get dirty, she asked me to take it off — then gave me a quick once-over, now that I was bare-chested. She gently applied Vaseline to my eyebrows and lashes, “so the silicone doesn’t rip them out,” she explained.
She mixed some gooey pink and blue liquids in a jar and started spreading the stuff over my face with a spatula. At first it felt slimy and odd, but once most of my head was covered, I sort of zenned out — went off into my own wee world. It was weirdly relaxing.
For about thirty minutes I couldn’t see or hear a thing. And when she peeled the silicone off, the room’s light felt like knives in my eyes. When they finally adjusted, I saw Sara and Kate standing over me.
“Welcome to the real world, Neo,” Sara said, and the girls burst out laughing.
They had a chat over a couple of glasses of white wine and a few lines, and then Sara called a cab.
“Would you come the fuck on? The cab’s already outside,” she snapped, looking for me.
They found me in the next room doing coke off Voldemort’s bust.
“Shane, what the fuck?” she shouted.
“Come on,” I said, “I’ve done coke off women’s arses, but when else am I gonna get the chance to do it with the Dark Lord himself?”
I bent over and snorted a fat line, carefully drawn on his bald head.
Our cab stopped outside a fancy house in Maida Vale. “You said your boyfriend was a Batman, but he’s more of a James Bond,” I said nodding at a silver Aston Martin parked in the drive.
“It’s not mine.” said the man who’d just appeared from behind a cypress tree. Tall and handsome, he held a cup of tea in one hand and a tablet in the other. Hugging Sarah and still looking at me, he said, “One day we’ll own nothing and be happy.”
It sounded absolutely ridiculous — especially coming from a man who clearly didn’t mind owning his girlfriend in the most proprietary manner he placed his hand just below her waist and gave her a kiss.
“Darling, you’ve been drinking. I thought we agreed to practice today,” he told her.
“Don’t worry, I’m just one glass of Chardonnay in. My mind’s still sharp as a butcher’s knife,” she replied and introduced us.
“I’m Arthur,” he said, giving a firm handshake.
Sarah went inside the house, and I lit up a cigarette.
“We don’t smoke inside. Let’s take a seat over there,” said Arthur, and we walked for a bit before settling at a table under the green arch.
“So, what’s this all about?” I asked him.
“Didn’t Sara tell you?” Tall and slender, he had a perfectly even, greenish screen-tan on his face and receding hairline.
“No”
“We are assembling a card counting team. He told me and smiled.”
By that time, all I knew about card counting was from some stories I’d heard about at poker games and the Hollywood movie 21, where a bunch of MIT students won millions in Vegas casinos until they got caught and were brutally beaten by the head of security. From what I understood, counting cards in blackjack was kind of dangerous and needed extraordinary skills, like photographic memory or super-strong maths.
I was okay with the risk, but I wasn’t sure I was smart enough or if I could pull it off.
“Oh no, I’m not that good at maths,” I said.
“First,” he replied, “anyone who can do fourth-grade arithmetics can count cards. And second, you won’t even have to.”
“We’re looking for a big player, a BP—a gorilla. I’ll do the counting and you’ll do the betting. We need someone who can keep their cool under pressure.”
Sarah told me about that heads-up game you had with that producer—you virtually destroyed that cunt, didn’t you? “Plus, I didn’t say you were good enough. We need to test your skills first. Let’s see if you’re fit for this job.”
We walked into a spacious living room and Arthur introduced me to David and Jacob, two curly-haired Americans standing by the blackjack table in the middle of the room. Both were good Jewish boys—supposed to become lawyers or dentists like their parents wanted, but instead they’d turned into professional gamblers.
“Nice to meet you,” said Jacob, shaking my hand. He was the oldest of the two, already in his 50s, an expert in baccarat and an experienced card counter. His hairline was also receding, and his temples had gone gray. He was dressed in a fancy Dolce & Gabbana shirt and trousers.
“Have a seat, we’re practicing,” he added, passing me a stack of chips.
“You know how to play blackjack, don’t you?” asked David, who was standing in the pit. He was much younger, looking like a hipster with long curly hair. He played the deck into his hand and shuffled it. He did it perfectly well—better than most dealers in casinos.
“Oh yeah, I surely do. I mean, it was a croupier for a while,” I replied, though David looked a bit goofy.
He was a terrific card counter for his young age—he’d already won hundreds of thousands of dollars and was on the blacklist at multiple casinos, all the way from Las Vegas to Atlanta.
“Ok, that’s good!” he said with a smile and dealt me at 10 and 2.
Jacob got a 9 and a 7, Arthur sat in between us and was dealt an 8 and a 3. The dealer’s card was an 8.
“What’s the count?” David asked Arthur.
“Plus one,” he replied.
I looked around the place—it looked posh: designer furniture, huge plasma, a small bar, all that fancy stuff.
I hit a 10 and busted. Jacob hit a king and busted too. Arthur hit a five and a five, while David got a nine and a four.
“What’s the count now?” David asked again.
“Plus two,” Arthur answered.
“Okay, Shane, now talk to Arthur! Distract him!”, David said then kept dealing.
“Nice place you’ve got,” I said. “Must’ve cost a fortune. What do you do—gambling?”
“No, I’m a software engineer,” he replied. “But I’m not the owner. I rent it. Matter of fact, I rent everything—the house, the car, and the two fools pretending to be card counting coaches,” he said, nodding toward Jacob and David, who chuckled.
“The only thing I actually own here is that blackjack table,” he added, but was cut off by David.
“What’s the count?” David called out.
“+4,” Arthur replied, glancing around. “Where’s Sarah?”
“She’s in the bathroom. Keep practicing,” said Jacob, patting Arthur on the back. “Nice place you’ve got,” I said. “Must’ve cost a fortune. What do you do—gambling?”
“No, I’m a software engineer,” he replied. “But I’m not the owner. I rent it. Matter of fact, I rent everything—the house, the car, and the two fools pretending to be card counting coaches,” he said, nodding toward Jacob and David, who chuckled.
“The only thing I actually own here is that blackjack table, bought it a week ago” he added, but was cut off by David.
“What’s the count?” David called out.
“+4,” Arthur replied, glancing around. “Where’s Sarah?”
“She’s in the bathroom. Keep practicing,” said Jacob, patting Arthur on the back. Jacob got up and fixed himself a drink while we kept playing. A vein was bulging on Arthur’s forehead as he watched us. He was tense. When Jacob came back to the table with a glass of scotch, he hit a blackjack.
“No, no, no—you can’t be staring at the cards like that,” he said to Arthur. “You’ll get a lot of heat if you keep locking your eyes on the board. You’ve got to learn to count without looking directly at the cards. Train your peripheral vision. Keep counting while chatting, sipping a drink, pretending you’re texting someone—relax, man.”
“Here,” said Jacob, giving his drink a swirl before passing it to Arthur.
“You know I don’t drink alcohol,” said Arthur —either sad or a bit annoyed.
“Well, you’ll have to,” Jacob replied. “Just to avoid the heat. You’ve got to act natural, like all the other gamblers do. In fact, you need to learn how to count while slightly drunk. It’s a skill you’ll have to master.”Arthur took a sip and flinched.
“What’s the heat?” I asked.
“It’s the attention you get from the casino staff when they suspect you’re counting cards,” said David, dealing the next hand.
“What’s the count?” he suddenly barked.
“+6,” Arthur replied.
“Good,” said David. “There’ll be all kinds of distractions in a casino—waitresses, managers, loud gamblers—but you’ve got to keep counting, no matter what. You need to be able to carry on a casual conversation while counting, never losing track. That’s the trick. Try not to raise suspicion.”
“Keep chatting with him, Shane,” Jacob said. Now Arthur was being hit from both sides.
“What’s my role in all this?” I asked.
“You’re the big player,” Arthur answered. “You walk around the casino, acting casual. When the count gets high, I give you a signal, and you come to the table and place a big bet. Usually, the signal’s nonverbal—like scratching my back or stretching my arms. When the count drops, I give you another sign and you fuck off.”
“Why me?” I asked.
“We need someone who’s good at managing risk, someone who can keep cool under pressure,” Arthur replied. “Because of the laws, there aren’t that many card counters in Britain. Sarah says you were a good poker player. Says she knows you well. Says you can be trusted—to a certain degree, of course.”
Good poker player, I thought to myself. If only Arthur knew how good I was—and where it got me. Poker was the sole reason I was in London and in debt.
“Drink!” said Jacob.
Arthur took another sip of whiskey.
“What’s the count?” David yelled again.
“+8!” Arthur shouted back.
“Why not Jacob or David?” I asked.
“Well, you see, I’m planning to play at certain establishments,” Arthur said, slower than usual, pausing every two or three words—it was obvious he was struggling to talk and keep the count at the same time. “And unfortunately for us, both Jacob and David are already on their blacklist. They can’t even enter the casinos, let alone play.”
“They trespassed us on day one,” said Jacob. “Took them less than three hours to figure out we were counting.”
“Yeah, just one fucking casino in West London, and now we’re no longer welcome at every other one in the chain,” David added. “And they pass the info about us on—even to their competitors. We’re on the blacklist of almost every casino in the UK.”“David, have you tried wearing a wig?” I joked and giggled as I hit 21 and raked in the chips.
“Useless,” Arthur replied in a serious tone, not catching that I was joking. “The cameras at the entrance will recognise them.”
“Cameras recognise?” I repeated, raising an eyebrow.
“You see, every human being has unique facial features that can be measured—the distance between your eyes, the shape of your forehead, the distance between your ears, your lips, the tip of your nose, your chin. All of these metrics create a pattern as unique as a fingerprint. You might be wearing a wig or glasses, but the distance between your eyes and the tip of your nose stays the same. So does the distance between your ears. Once a camera detects you—you’re toast. And if you’ve been banned from a casino before, they can charge you with trespassing. In Britain, as you probably know, you need to show ID before playing.”
“What?” I exclaimed.
“It was the end of 2012,” I explained to Lam. Sure, every house was already plastered with cheap high-res digital cameras—but the surveillance state we all live in now wasn’t a thing back then. There was no AI. No one had even heard of facial recognition software.
“How do you know that stuff even exists?” I asked, my voice jumping a pitch. To me, it all sounded like something out of a science fiction book.
“I know it because I made it. I created those algorithms.”
“What’s the count?” David yelled again.
“Twelve.”
“Congrats, you slipped. It’s thirteen,” said Jacob, tapping Arthur on the back. “You’ve been talking too much. Stay focused.”
David kept dealing. A moment later, Sarah appeared, invigorated. She confidently walked over to the table and placed her hands on Arthur’s shoulders. Standing behind him, she wiped her runny nose and teary eyes—she’d definitely just done a line.
David and I quickly exchanged glances. We both knew what she’d been doing in the bathroom.
Sarah looked at us, then hugged Arthur.
“That’s right, girl, keep distracting him,” said Jacob.
In that moment, I realized Sarah was hiding her addiction from Arthur. Her high behavior was obvious—just as obvious as the fact that Arthur didn’t do drugs at all. Even drinking was hard for him. He wasn’t enjoying that glass of scotch.
As if she sensed I was about to make a scathing comment, she shushed me silently by placing her index finger on her lips. Then she licked Arthur’s ear and offered him a drink and a suite, just like a casino manager would.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah… bring him another drink,” said Jacob, turning to Arthur. “If you feel you’re getting drunk, ask for a Cuba Libre or something. Sip it slow, but don’t refuse.”
“What’s the count?” asked David.
“It’s unlikely I’ll be offered anything,” Arthur replied, taking a sip and flinching. “The spotlight will mostly be on you,” he said, turning to me. “By the way, the count is sixteen. It’s your time to shine, Shane.”
“Not exactly,” said David. “If they’re suspicious, they study everyone at the table. But he’s right—it’s time to make a big bet.”
“At this point,” added Arthur, “you have a 52% edge over the house.”
“Okay,” I nodded and moved half my chips forward. I was dealt two tens.
“Tens! You always split tens!” said Jacob.
David dealt me an ace, a six, and a two. I stood. The dealer busted. Arthur got a queen, a five, and a jack. I doubled my money.
“Well done, son. Hope you understand it wasn’t all luck,” Jacob laughed.
“It won’t happen every time. Sometimes we’ll lose despite the odds,” Arthur added. “But we make money in the long run. When the count drops, I give you a signal—and you leave.”
“Sounds easy,” I interrupted.
“Trust me, it’s not. OK, everyone’s here now. Time to test you, Shane.”
“So you’re a poker player, aren’t you?” asked Jacob.
“Yes, I can play poker,” I replied.
At this point, I’d already forgotten how I’d lied to Sarah about why I was really in London.
“Sort of,” I nodded.
“Alright. You’ve got a moderate stack of chips—neither the smallest nor the largest. The blinds are escalating, pressure’s high. You’re dealt a pair of kings in early position. The player to your right, with a large chip stack, makes a substantial bet—close to half your stack. The other two players fold. It’s your decision. What do you do?”
“I shove all-in.”
“OK. One more.”
“The blinds are 2/5. Eight-handed table. Effective stacks: £800. You’ve got queen-ten suited. Three players before you limp. What do you do?”
“I raise.”
“Correct,” said Jacob, and he gave me a few more scenarios. Partially satisfied with my answers, he offered to play a few hands.
The game quickly turned into a simulation. Occasionally, Jacob or David would show me their cards and ask what I’d do in specific situations. After twenty minutes, we increased the hypothetical stakes, and it turned into a high-stakes simulation.
Suddenly, Arthur stopped the game. He gave me a few math problems to solve.
“It’s strange,” he said. “He understands the probabilities on an intuitive level. But he doesn’t have a systematic understanding.”
“OK. You have a million pounds. Market conditions are stable. Would you invest in a successful franchise—or a non-tech startup?”
“A successful franchise?!” I made a guess and almost squeaked.
“Can you fake an accent?” David asked.
“Can you tell me where the nearest McDonald’s is?” I replied in my best American drawl. Jacob and David laughed. I did pretty well.
“Excuse me, gentlemen, but I don’t have the foggiest idea what is going on. Good Lord, what is all this commotion about?” I added with my best British accent. Even Arthur smiled.
“He’s good,” said Jacob.
“OK, let’s count,” said Arthur. They made me count a deck of cards.
“He’s not hopeless,” said David.
“Yeah, I think we can try,” agreed Jacob.

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