It’s one of those moments that sucks the air out of a room. Whatever happens next is going to shape lives. All I need to do is up the ante by eight grand or so and I squash him. Even if I lose, I still got something. Brandi is leaning low across the table, doing her best to boob-blind me, and AJ is throwing back shots of Stoli at the bar one after the other, psyching himself up for the confrontation that is almost surely coming. I put together a quick fight plan. Soon as this is over, I deck that arsehole with my chair.

Eight grand. That’s all I need. But then I flash on Vic leaving Connie out there in the rain while he cleans house. I see his fat fingers squeezing the flesh of yet another girl as he’s leading her into the back room.

‘Thirty-five grand,’ I say, pulling the rolls out of my socks. ‘And fuck you, Vic.’

Vic’s breath comes hard, like he’s having an attack, and to be honest I don’t feel so hot myself. Both of the girls are crying now. A person would have to be deaf, blind and stupid not to realise that this can only end in violence now.

Vic’s mask collapses and suddenly his face is lined like a dried fruit. ‘Thirty-five grand. No way. No goddamn way.’

And I know then that Vic is screwed and that all he can do is pray that I am bluffing too.

‘You done, Vic? That it?’

Vic’s lip hangs fat and low like a slug. He’s getting a glimpse of his own future. Come collection day, things are going to be a little tight. He can’t afford to let that money leave the table.

‘That cash is not mine to lose. I owe Irish Mike twenty grand.’

Irish Mike again. The man is like a cancer.

‘All you have to do is buy a look at my cards.’

‘I’m out. Tapped.’

I reach in for the pot, hoarding it with my arms. ‘Sorry, Vic. No pay, no play.’ This is fine; this will do.

Vic watches the pot move across the table like it’s his life’s blood draining away.

‘There must be some way to work this out. I can owe you.’

‘Not an option. Your rules.’

‘I can kill you.’

‘You can try. Bigger men than you have tried. Go for your nine, see what happens.’

Vic bought a nine millimetre because that’s what the gangsters rapped about. I suspect that’s because of the easy rhyme.

‘It’s thirty grand just to see your cards. This is Cloisters, for Christ’s sake. Where am I going to get that kind of money?’

It’s laughable really. Has this man never heard the word irony?