The ball landed on 18.
“Cash out.”
“Pick them up.”
“A feast, I tell you, even in this colonial purgatory… and by the pubic hairs of the Mona Lisa, the
Nicholai pushed the chips back onto 10.
“… tits and asses like Cezanne’s hay bales, and -”
Bay looked at Nicholai and nodded, as if to say,
“-such a variety, a five-star Michelin sexual buffet, by the boiling hot spunk of -”
Nicholai looked back at Bay. “Straight up.”
“That’s madness,” De Lhandes said.
Haverford just shook his head. The gamblers around the layout scrambled to place counterwagers.
The wheel spun. The ball clattered, rattled, and bounced. Nicholai wasn’t watching the ball, however – he had his eyes trained on Bay, who met his stare with the same fixed smile. Nicholai heard the wheel slow and stop, and heard the crowd collectively gasp as the croupier announced,
Ten.
Nicholai didn’t move to pick up his chips or change his bet.
“Michel, you won,” he heard De Lhandes say. “Don’t be a fool, my new friend. That’s a lot of money.”
“A fortune!”
Nicholai glanced over at Bay, who shrugged.
The croupier closed the betting.
The ball rolled.
Bounced…
Landed on 12…
And bounced onto…
Ten.
Bay turned away from the table, put his arm around his woman, and walked toward the bar.
Nicholai picked up his chips, worth a little more than $100,000.
Bay had paid in full for the rocket launchers.
The casino was abuzz with the newcomer’s amazing run.
Nicholai walked over to the bar and bought a round of drinks.
“Well played,” De Lhandes said.
“Indeed,” Haverford added dryly.
“By the blue veins on Jane Russell’s sainted breasts,” De Lhandes enthused, “that was spectacular! For a moment I thought that the admittedly fat-clogged arteries of my overburdened heart – which more resemble pate de foie gras than actual blood-bearing vessels – were about to burst! Thor’s throbbing member, man, you terrified me! But I am happy, happy – no, overjoyed – for your exemplary good fortune.
“
“No one beats this casino,” De Lhandes said.
Unless, Nicholai thought, the casino owner owes you a large sum of illicit money and found a clever and entertaining way to pay you.
The roulette wheel was as crooked as a dog’s hind leg.
A commotion and a fresh buzz was happening around the entrance to the casino. The security guards made their way toward the noise outside. Through the main door, Nicholai could see a convoy of large, shiny black sedans pull up. Captain Signavi emerged, then a squad of Binh Xuyen troopers, machine pistols in hand, piled out of the lead car as other troopers hastily formed a cordon from the cars to the door.
“Could it be?” De Lhandes asked with some sarcasm in his voice. “A royal visit?”
The third car pulled up, troopers opened the back door, and a middle-aged Vietnamese man in a white dinner jacket emerged from the car as the guards, their heads on swivels, looked anxiously around.
“It’s Bao Dai,” Haverford explained to Nicholai. “The Playboy Emperor.”
He waved his fingers, miming a puppeteer.
Bao Dai turned and reached his arm back into the car, clearly to fetch another passenger in the backseat.
“I hope it’s his latest mistress,” De Lhandes said. “The rumor is
Nicholai watched as the woman eased gracefully out of the car.
She was fantastic.
Solange.
117
SHE WORE A BLACK GOWN with fashionably deep decolletage, and her blonde hair was swept up and off her long neck, with just one tendril carefully disarranged to flow down to her shoulder.
Solange took Bao Dai’s offered arm and allowed him to escort her through the cordon of guards, each of whom labored unsuccessfully not to stare at the tall, elegant Frenchwoman who was the emperor’s latest love.
“I heard she’s a ‘film actress,’ “De Lhandes said. “At least that’s what she calls herself.”
“I’d like to be in
Nicholai disciplined himself not to slap his stupid face, but could not prevent the flush he felt burning his own cheeks. When it receded, he let his eyes meet Haverford’s, but if the American was ashamed, he didn’t show it.
“I had nothing to do with it,” he whispered to Nicholai.
If you didn’t, Nicholai wondered, who did?
“It’s good to be the emperor,” De Lhandes observed as Bao Dai and Solange came into the casino.
Nicholai watched as Bao Dai introduced Solange to various important men, watched as she held her hand out to be kissed, as she smiled, made small witticisms, and dazzled. She seemed very much at home in this society, a bit too comfortable for Nicholai’s tastes, and he was annoyed with himself that he felt so…
Face it, he told himself, the word is “jealous.”
He wanted to walk over and kill Bao Dai with a single strike.
The way the man pawed her, stroked her bare arm, signaling his ownership of her to all in the room. It was disgusting, and he was angry with her for allowing it.
Hypocrite, he accused himself.
You are a whore as much as her, you both sell yourselves, you are both playing roles. If she plays hers well, so do you, “Michel Guibert.”
“I don’t suppose we’ll be introduced,” De Lhandes said.
Haverford smiled. “We’re not high enough on the pecking order for that.”
De Lhandes sighed. “So I can only lust from afar.”
“Bad for you, good for Le Parc a Buffles,” Haverford said. The casino’s courtesans were well beyond De Lhandes’s limited means, but Le Parc offered a menu for all budgets.
Then she saw him.
Tall, she looked over her companion’s shoulder and spotted Nicholai. Only the most discerning observer could have noticed the small tremor of recognition before her green eyes moved on to a brief glance at Haverford, but Nicholai saw it.
He walked over to them.
Bay Vien looked surprised at the intrusion.
