#566 - London 2008 #73 - DON’T Call Me Mint Jelly

The Ignoble End of PayLamb.com

On the Lam … from Uncle Tilty

When All the Laughter Died in Sorrow

I Fear for Uncle Tilty’s Health … and My Own

“Put on Some Damn Pants!”

The end came without warning.

I was lounging with the Observer on Saturday morning in my luxurious London hotel suite, feeling good on all fronts. I was pretty sure I was going to play the WSOP-E Main Event, debating only whether to play on Day 1-A (Saturday) or Day 1-B (Sunday). I liked my chances.

Even the prospects for PayLamb were looking rosy. I think I nearly had Jo Anne convinced to join me, or at least visit on a trial basis. I might even be on the brink of charming the Swiss. I sent - or rather, had Nathan, my Executive Concierge at the hotel, send - a large box of Godiva chocolates to Karl at the bank. For good measure, I sent another box to the lovely Claire. And I considered my plans for PayLamb.com so solid - and my work on the Blog this trip so good - that I felt Uncle Tilty was sure to front me a million dollars to start it, as soon as I could get him alone after the WSOP-E Main Event to discuss it.

Then came the commotion from the hallway.

It was an unfamiliar sound. First, I had the “Do Not Disturb” sign on my door, a daily ritual after my regular breakfast of croissants, kippers, and a specially-made steak-and-stilton omelette was delivered to my room on a silver tray.

What was that noise? A baggage trolley upending, sending heavy luggage careening against my door?

But the noise was slow and deliberate, and continuous. I tried to ignore it but it was impossible.

Then I heard a low voice, chanting something like “Mikelobe Bendadore. Mikelobe Bendadore.” The noise against my door continued in rhythm, perhaps even increasing in pace.

I was in a bit of a daze and didn’t recognize the voice at first. I ordered a bottle of Veuve Cliquot from room service the evening before and drained the last dregs with breakfast. So I was somewhere between hung-over and newly-drunk.

Because I could bear it no more, I arose from my bed and staggered toward the door. I didn’t have time to grab my Burberry bathrobe or bespoke slippers from John Lobb.

I quickly pulled open the door, ready to give the miscreant a piece of my mind. Instead, I was greeted by the sight of Uncle Tilty, flanked by three large men in suits. I was relieved - and then alarmed. It instantly became clear that the thumping was Uncle Tilty’s hamhock-like hands pounding the door. I discovered this painfully, opening the door so quickly that my chest bore the impact of at least one thump before he recognized I was standing before him.

I expected an apology but none was forthcoming. Knocked back, he advanced into the room, leaned over me, his face a mask of fury, and snarled, “I should kill you where you stand.”

Thankfully, the other three behemoths held him back. Within forty-five minutes, he had sufficiently calmed down for me to make sense of his ranting, threats, and frequent attempts at physical violence.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that he was annoyed - to put it mildly, by a factor of about a million - by some of the charges I had run through room service with the help of the Executive Concierge Program. Putting them on Full Tilt’s master account had apparently been my undoing.

I offered to make amends by transferring the charges to my American Express card, but one of the large men, a member of the hotel’s security staff identified as “Yuri” informed me that the amount far exceeded what I could charge to Amex.

Gulp.

I wasn’t keeping track of the charges but I had never known my American Express card to have a limit.

I must have said that instead of merely thinking it, because Uncle Tilty, now sitting next to me on my bed with his face in his hands, showed me several crumpled, sweaty sheets of paper mashed inside his fists.

My hotel bill.

He was shaking his head, muttering barely comprehensively, “Custom shirts at Turnbull & Asser? What possessed you to order a giant wheel of Camembert cheese? A portmanteau from Louis Vuitton? I don’t even know what the hell a portmanteau is. How can it cost fifty-five hundred pounds?”

“You see, a portmanteau is a piece of luggage, a trunk -”

“Do you think I care? How on earth can it cost fifty-five hundred pounds? Fifty-five hundred pounds? That’s like eleven grand. I didn’t own a car until three years ago.”

He was beside himself and I didn’t know what to say. I tried to make amends, offering to pay back the money. He looked at me uncomprehendingly.

“From PayLamb.”

“PayLamb?”

“The payment processor.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“The payment processor I’m starting. We were going to talk about it at the end of the Series. Remember you said -”

“I said, ’sure, Full Tilt could use another payment processor in the U.S.’ How are you in a position to do that? Do you know the financial resources you need for that kind of job?”

OK, at this point, I’m getting the picture, as I’m imagining are you. Naturally, I knew I didn’t have a commitment that Full Tilt would finance this; I never contended otherwise. But apparently it was news to Uncle Tilty that I was even proposing it.

I didn’t need to go through the formality of asking him now whether that was going to happen.

DON’T call me Mint Jelly, not in the presence of Uncle Tilty anyway.

After that, I guess looking back on the scene in the hotel room, things moved pretty fast. Yuri informed me that I was being evicted from the hotel.

“Can I at least finish breakfast?”

Uncle Tilty looked at my breakfast, which had cost fifty-eight pounds. “Put on some damn pants.”

The second heavy introduced himself as a security officer for the U.S. Embassy. I had no idea that Uncle Tilty had political power, especially out here. I was informed that I had twenty-four hours to leave the country. I didn’t understand the specifics but with terms like “undesirable alien,” “trespass and fraud,” and “ex parte deportation”, it didn’t much matter.

I asked the fourth member of this oversized posse, a giant bald man in a black suit wearing horned-rimmed glasses so tiny that I could see the marks the frames were making on his temples, who he was.

He introduced himself as Igor, an attorney for Uncle Tilty. I had met an attorney in Los Angeles, J.J., who did some work for Full Tilt’s software company. I got on well with J.J. He was knowledgeable, friendly, and, though it never remotely came up, I guess I could take him in a fight.

Not so with Igor. He led me not-too-gently to my desk and started handing me a variety of legal documents to sign. I took out my Harrod’s gold pince-nez spectacles, but it was just a formality. I knew I’d have to agree to whatever they wanted. I made a mistake and I’m nothing if not contrite.

Long story short: I took out my Montblanc Etole rollerball and signed an acknowledgement that the hotel charges were mine, unauthorized, and fraudulent.

Then Igor handed me an “Amended Employment Agreement.” Essentially, it said I had to work for Full Tilt on the blog until I had paid off my hotel charges.

I had planned on blowing off the outstanding assignments related to the profiles of Full Tilt’s three Main Event finalists but it looks like I’ll be covering the final table now in November - and whatever else Full Tilt tells me to do.

In another fifteen minutes, my belongings were stacked in the hallway, minus, I regret, my portmanteau, which Full Tilt is apparently going to try to return. I’m sure Uncle Tilty doesn’t plan on returning two-thirds of a giant wheel of Camenbert cheese, but that was left in the room, now locked behind me, not that I’d know what to do with no room and six pounds of very ripe cheese. Can something like that even be carried on a commercial airliner these days?

It was an awkward scene as I hurriedly finished dressing and tried to arrange my possessions and luggage. Under the quartet’s supervision, I took my luggage to the elevator. They followed me to the lobby, then to the exit.

There was no more screaming or crying. It appeared that we might even have a friendly parting. I was, after all, still an employee of Full Tilt - more an indentured servant, really, but they obviously like my writing enough to take what you have to admit are extreme steps to keep me at it.

As I was about to leave Uncle Tilty and his enforcers for the street, I still had one matter to clear up, and I’m afraid it started Uncle Tilty on a rage of obscenities that made everything before it sound like a poetry reading.

“Does this mean,” I asked, “that Full Tilt’s not buying me into the Main Event?”