The Red Pole of Macau Read Online Free PDF Page B

her hate list. The place reeked of cigarette smoke and the carpets were stained and damp from people spilling drinks and spitting on them. There were lineups at the tables as people jostled to bet, fighting for a chance to give their money away. “Wait here while I look for my friend,” Uncle said, leaving her at a blackjack table.
    A gweilo with an American accent was seated at the table. Two old Chinese women crushed against his back, staring over his shoulders. Ava knew blackjack, but she hadn’t seen a table like this one before. Behind the regular spot where a player placed his bet were two circles. As she watched, the gweilo placed his bet in front and then the two women reached around him to put money on the circles, betting on his cards.
    He was dealt a ten and a five. The dealer had a jack. Ava listened to the women chatter in Cantonese; they wanted the man to stand on his fifteen. From what she knew, he should hit, which is what he did. When he motioned for another card, both of the women hissed at him. He obviously didn’t understand the Cantonese word for “asshole.” He bust with a nine, and one of the women flicked the back of his head with her middle finger. He turned and looked at them.
    “They didn’t want you to hit,” Ava said. “When Chinese gamble, they like straightforward one-time win-or-lose bets. They don’t want to have to think about what to do.”
    “Then they shouldn’t play blackjack,” he said.
    “I’ll tell them,” she said, but she didn’t.
    The gweilo lost steadily over the next five minutes, the women getting more and more agitated. Finally his cards turned and he won five or six hands in a row, including two in which he took a third card. The hissing stopped. After the first win, Ava saw the dealer short-pay the gweilo . Before she could speak up, the dealer beat her to it, shrugging and saying, “Tell him I don’t speak English.”
    Ava relayed the message.
    “What the hell is she doing?” he asked.
    “Why are you paying less than he won?” she asked the dealer.
    “I’m taking my tip.”
    Ava told him what the dealer had said and then watched as the man’s face turned red. “I decide when and how much to tip. Tell her to stop doing that.”
    Ava told the dealer what the man had said. The dealer, looking bored, said to Ava, “Those are Macau rules.”
    “I don’t believe this place,” he said. “It stinks, it’s dirty, the dealers are so fucking rude. In Las Vegas this place would be scheduled for demolition.”
    Uncle rescued her. His friend was in his office on the other side of the casino. They walked across the floor, his hand looped through her arm as they passed a long line of baccarat tables. They were all nearly full, with lines of bettors behind the players. What was odd was the people who weren’t playing but who sat with briefcases on their laps. They were tightly focused on the play in front of them, hardly ever looking up. Two who did glance their way saw Uncle and bowed their heads.
    “Who are those men?” she asked.
    “Moneylenders.”
    “In the briefcases?”
    “Cash.”
    “What, they just open the briefcases and hand money to players?”
    “The ones who are sitting next to a player have done that already. They are watching their money, ready to give more if it’s needed.”
    “Is it legal?”
    “This is Macau. Everything is more or less legal.”
    On the return trip to Hong Kong Uncle said, “I have never liked Macau. It was always a good place for business, but all the Portuguese left behind were Ho’s casinos, one wall of a cathedral, and some lousy cuisine. For four hundred years of occupation, that’s not much of a legacy.”
    “How about the language, the culture?” she asked.
    “Less than one percent of the people can speak any Portuguese, and as for the culture, after African chicken there isn’t much.”
    After several more trips she had begun to share Uncle’s view. Compared to the other European territory