8 May 2012
Alan Brooks, the wizard of the deck, raised his game another level. "Come on John put your money where your mouth is" He urged vigorously "One more game double or quits, what do you say?". John had just lost nine games of Black Jack on the trot and had been pretty much cleaned out. "There is no way your having my last tenner, I swear you have got the luck of the gods on your side I'm quitting before I have to take out a loan to pay you back". Alan smirked at his friends defeat and collected the notes and loose change from the pile in the middle of the table. "At least let me buy the loser a drink, it's the least I can do" Alan said with a huge grin as he raised his empty glass to the pretty looking waitress, who looked like she was flirting with a man at the end of the bar.
As the waitress came over Alan was preparing one of his famous corny, often sleezy chat up lines. "Alright fellas that man at the end of the bar said the drinks are on him, so what you having" John looked over at the man sitting at the bar. He was wearing an immaculate blue pin stripe suit with white shirt and matching the suit with his blue tie and what looked like crocodile shoes, his hair was as sharp as his suit, jet black in a side parting with not one hair out of place. When he noticed John looking he returned his gaze with a smile that was all perfect teeth that seemed to stretch from ear to ear. "Well seeing as he's paying I'll have a double whiskey and coke sweetheart" Alan gave the waitress a cheeky wink as he said this but she just rolled her eyes into the back of her head nonplussed. "What about your friend, what you having mate?" She said to John as he was reaching for his coat from the back of his chair. "Na nothing for me thanks I'm outer here". John looked over at the man again who was reading what looked like a foreign newspaper, then back at Alan again "I'll see you tonight Al, why don't you go and sit with your new boyfriend over there" and with that John and Alan said there goodbyes. John got up and left the pub. It was only when he left the pub, as soon as the door closed behind him that he felt an overwhelming surge of relief, as if he had just escaped death itself.
Alan tipped his whiskey and coke to the stranger at the end of the bar in mock salute. The man took this opportunity to approach the table Alan was sitting at. "I was very impressed the way you played your friend, I counted nine games on the trot and I didn't see you cheat once" He said with a grin and a foreign sounding accent that Alan couldn't quite place. Alan, a sucker for any type of compliment lapped this up. "Why thanks mate and thanks for the drink, do you fancy a game?". The man smiled that perfect grin again "I thought you would never ask my friend, but I must warn you that I do not play for money" This disappointed Alan immensely, he viewed this man with his sharp suit and expensive smelling aftershave as a giant cash cow just waiting to be milked of his money, but he had time to spare and the stranger had bought him a drink. "What the hell, why not mate, why don't we play for who gets the next drinks in instead?". The man frowned a little at this "I'm sorry friend, I took the liberty to pay for our next few drinks. Just ask the waitress when you want another double, let's play for ourselves, I'll play for myself and you play for yourself ok". That's a strange way of putting it "you play for yourself"well he is foreign Alan thought, he probably means play for fun.
Some people believe the Devil lives among us taking souls as anonymously as he can. Just like poor old Alan, who didn't know he had met and played the Devil in the most dangerous game of his life, and he wouldn't know, until the day he died and he met the Devil again.........
Alan And The Devil • Opuss № I