Chapter 15: Lord Roland Pirelli

Lord Ronald Pirelli and his wife Carol strolled down the gang plank as if they owned the ship.

Captain Jamil said they had two nights and then they sailed the next morning. This suited Albert. Tonight, was to scope and tomorrow was to gamble.

It had been close to a year since he was last here. Albert was hoping that his new body, look and name, would let him pass by the shadow of Allan Dale, as most here knew him. He’d managed to fleece a few dollars from every member of the crew and while not a lot, he hoped that it would get him a stake in a game.

Lord Ronald Pirelli was feeling lucky. He’d grilled Carol all week to be more consistent with using his new name. He even told her she could use Ronny as a pet name if it made it easier. She had giggled and told him she should use Randy, as it was more apt.

“Fine, use Randy; just don’t call me Albert in any way shape or form,” he said with exasperation.

So, Carol called him Randy. She always did it in such a way as to let him know that she would be more than happy to make him a bit less randy. Especially when she called him ‘her Randy Ronald’. The problem was that Albert knew who the randy one was. The damn woman was insatiable.

Albert’s first wife never offered him sex while she was pregnant. She went so far as to lock him out of her room after the fourth month. Maria was quite different. While she wanted sex, she was very hot and cold even with him. He knew she took delight in driving poor Ty nuts with her on again off again routine. It was part of what made Maria, Maria.

Albert glanced at the beauty on his arm. Her black hair was piled on her head in an artful-way. She still had a fine classical figure that drew most men’s eyes. While she wasn’t very tall, she was tall enough to please Albert. He was sure that her tits were already bigger, and she did have them displayed in a way to entice his eyes down her cleavage, but they were not exposed in a tartly way.

Her big brown eyes and slightly-fleshy hot pink lips made her face very appealing, and they drew in a man’s eyes so that he wanted to kiss her. His wife was a real hotty. She may be older than his past tastes, but there was something about Carol that just called to him.

His practised eye said that she looked the perfect wife for a Lord of his age who had not previously married. He couldn’t also argue that she did love him. That was one thing he had deeply missed when he was living in Jahyundi last time. It was quite easy for him to adopt the besotted swain look.

He grilled Carol about how Ronald had behaved with those of his class and those who weren’t. Any odd habits or sayings. Any people he mentioned in particular. Places he liked to talk about. Carol had played along, as she understood that Albert would have to adopt some of these habits to better impersonate Ronald.

She wasn’t sure how he would do it, as Ronald had been particularly boring at times. His one favourite subject had been horses. He had been particularly upset that he couldn’t take his hunters with him to Iceland. Since Albert had spent a lot of his life raising horses, he didn’t think Ronald’s passion would be hard for him to adopt.

The carriage they hired took them to a club that the rich tended to frequent. Here, the rich didn’t tend to discriminate between the sexes. The women could be just as big as players as the men, since it was the firstborn child who inherited, and gender wasn’t a divide when it came to money.

Albert tensed slightly when he recognised a couple of familiar faces. One of the women, an Amira Monika gave him an odd look, but Albert didn’t see any immediate recognition. He’d bedded her at one time, but it had been more than five years before, and he knew women were better at recognising changes in people, he decided she would be a good test.

He and Carol wondered around a little and checked out what games of chance were being played and getting an idea of the stakes. “So, my darling Randy Ronald, how do we get some of those chippy things so I can play on that wheel with all the colours?”

Albert knew the Rainbow Wheel was rigged, but a lot of women seemed to like playing it. It had slots coloured with light shades, yellow, green and white and three dark shades of blue, black and red. Each slot was then numbered. The slots were placed into six rainbows in the formation of a lighter and then a darker colour. You could play a colour, a number, light or dark or odds and evens.

Albert pointed out the cashier. He had given Carol a few coins to exchange, and he was interested in what the cashier would give her. The cashier glanced at him, and his clothes then smiled at Carol, told her the exchange rate and gave her some coins.

Albert grunted and said loudly, “We won’t be spending much here tonight dear, not at that piss-pore rate. We will have to go to the exchange in the morning. Give her the brass instead of the silver in the ques so she can at least have a couple of goes.”

(He was telling the cashier to exchange her silver one dollar [quek] coins - to brass ten cent [queb] coins)

Most of the money in Albert’s pockets was already in the local currency as Jamil had quite happily exchanged his winnings from the crew. He’d certainly got a better rate from Jamil. Albert had just wanted to see if the honesty in the place had changed. It hadn’t. The cashier looked at him sourly and changed the coins.

The man knew the owners wouldn’t be happy he had tried to cheat a customer even though they were all encouraged to do it. Having it pointed out so blatantly by the customer, meant he would be pulled from the booth and he would have to do a lower paid job for the night.

Albert and Carol sauntered over to the Rainbow Wheel. Albert explained to Carol how it worked. She learnt that the two orange squares, one marked with a crown and the other with a sceptre, were designed to ensure the house profit. He then explained how to place her bets and what they were worth.

He did it just loud enough so the cropper could hear him. It told the cropper that any cheating that happened would not involve short-changing his wife. The cropper also guessed that Albert would be watching what he did and not so much the ball. The man had obviously played or even cropped before.

“Dear Lady, can I assume this is your first play of the wheel?” the cropper asked politely.

Carol nodded and blushed prettily. The cropper looked over at someone and then nodded slightly. He focused back on Carol, “My boss is feeling generous tonight. Since you are obviously a virgin, he is offering double or nothing, and he has even put up a quek.”

“You can pick your bet, and if you don’t win the first time, it will stand for a second. If you do win the first time, you can double up or split your winnings and try again.

Carol nodded and looked at Albert. He just smiled at her and waved at the betting cloth. Carol went to put the quek on one of the options with the one to one chances of winning when she stopped and put it on a white square with the green number one painted in it.

The cropper shrugged and handed her the ball and told her the best way to throw it onto the wheel. He started it spinning, and Carol tossed the heavy little ball, so it rattled around the wheel. To everyone’s surprise, her number came up. The cropper handed her the thirty-five chips and said, “You can place them or not. Only the original chip must stay on white one.”

They were all shocked when she put them on top of the White square with a ‘1’ painted in it. “I get double whatever that is worth, correct?” Carol asked.

“Yes, if white one comes up again, it will be worth two hundred and fifty-two ques to you,” the cropper replied. That was an exceptionally large amount of money in that country as a ques were a gold ten-dollar coin. It was twice what they set from Bavindor with.

Carol smiled, and the cropper handed her the ball again. Carol then handed the ball to Albert, kissed his cheek and said, “You win that for me Randy Ronald, and you know what you can have tonight.” She then winked at him, turned and wiggled her very sexy butt on his leg. The crowd all chuckled as they all thought they knew what she was offering.

The cropper said, “Are you ready, Randy?” Albert nodded, and the man spun the wheel and stepped well back with hands visible before Albert tossed the ball in. The cropper had stepped away so no one could accuse him of doing anything to the wheel.

The excited small crowd around the wheel all watched avidly to see Carol lose, but they all secretly wished she would win, just to see it happen. As you can guess on this particular night, the goddess of Charity was smiling on the couple, and they did get their wish.

It didn’t stop them all from standing there agape, looking at the little ball in the white slot marked number one, for a several seconds as their brains caught up to their eyes. Then the cheering, back-slapping and jumping up and down started.

The manager, Emir Dustin, came over and congratulated the couple. He did suggest they had other games they could play, but he wasn’t that surprised when they elected to sit out any more excitement. He issued an IOU and agreed to meet them at the bank in the morning so they could collect their winnings.