Satori

All that money, the crime lord thought. While the Cholon criminals were usually afraid to defy the Binh Xuyen by committing robbery on its turf, this amount of money could provoke a rash action. Someone might be willing to risk his life and the lives of his family for such a fortune.

“That won’t be necessary,” Nicholai answered.

“I suggest,” Bay said, “that you allow me to put your chips in the safe. I will arrange an armed escort to the bank for you in the morning.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Nicholai said. “And I accept.”

Haverford approached Nicholai and whispered, “That was stupid and dangerous.”

“I agree.”

“Tomorrow at the Sporting Bar. Five o’clock.”

“Very well.”

There was a bustle in the main room as Bao Dai prepared to leave. The emperor looked back at Nicholai, waved his hand, and waited for his guard to form.

Solange looked over his shoulder at Nicholai.

“Where shall we go now?” De Lhandes asked.

“To the Parc a Buffles,” Nicholai said, loudly enough for Solange to hear.

She turned away.

Momma, the brothel’s madam – alerted to this Guibert’s new wealth – was waiting for him.

“Monsieur Guibert, bienvenue,” she warbled, her chins quivering with the effort. “Felicitations on your triumph! Your pleasure is my pleasure.”

“Thank you.” My pleasure is your profit, he thought, but never mind.

“But this establishment is not for a man of your distinction,” Momma said, “you must accompany me to the back, which is reserved for our special guests.”

Nicholai could almost feel De Lhandes’s envy. “I assume my friends will be equally welcome, madame.”

“Of course,” Momma said, broadening her smile to encompass De Lhandes. “Any friends of Monsieur’s…”

They followed her out through a courtyard, past armed Binh Xuyen guards who kept an eye on a long line of soldiers waiting patiently for the less exclusive services. The brothel was a model of assimilation and Nicholai observed the diverse nature of French forces in Vietnam – paratroopers from the Metropole, Foreign Legion troopers from all over Europe, lanky Senegalese soldiers, and squat Vietnamese.

Momma led them into a separate building, ornately decorated in colonial fin de siecle. Nicholai found it grotesque and tasteless when compared to the spare elegance of Japanese geisha houses.

The House of Mirrors was an establishment so exclusive that only the very rich knew of its existence or could afford the quality of its services. Like the finest of French restaurants, if you had to ask the price, you had no place there.

Momma rang a small handbell and quickly a platoon of girls formed behind her in rank and file, a choice for every taste and predilection. Most of the women were Asians in tight, brightly colored cheong- sams or white satin ao dais, but a few European women wearing peignoirs stood literally head and shoulders above them. One had blonde shoulder-length hair and heavy breasts, barely concealed under the filmy nightgown.

The madam noticed that Nicholai’s eyes rested on her.

“That is Marie,” she whispered. “Belgian – like the French… but dirtier.”

Nicholai selected a Chinese woman instead. Her black, flowered cheong-sam was buttoned to her neck, her black hair pulled into a tight bun.

“Ling Ling will please you,” Momma said.

“I have no doubt,” Nicholai answered. “And please put my friend’s selections on my bill.”

“You are a good friend.”

“I am a man reborn,” De Lhandes said, scanning the line of women with the eye of a starving gourmand examining the menu at a four-star Parisian restaurant. He was in a torture of indecision, torn between a zaftig Slav from Belgrade and a Japanese who looked as if she’d been chiseled from alabaster. “One doesn’t wish to be perceived as a glutton, Michel, but…”

“I don’t mind spending Bao Dai’s money,” Nicholai answered. “Have both.”

“By the priapism of a pope, Michel!”

Ling Ling – although Nicholai knew that “Pretty Pretty” was obviously not her name – took Nicholai by the hand and led him to her chamber. He didn’t violate her privacy by asking her for her real name. The pseudonym was a small way of keeping what little she had left of herself for herself.

“Should I undress or would you prefer to undress me?” she asked.

“You can undress,” Nicholai answered. He was not deluded about the nature of this relationship. He didn’t wish the pretense of romance or seduction. This was a simple business transaction.

She unbuttoned her cheong-sam and hung it up in the small closet. Nicholai undressed, she hung up his clothes as well, and she then took him in her hand and went to her knees in a gesture of foreplay that Nicholai knew was a subtle health inspection. Satisfied, she pulled him down onto the bed. Nicholai was pleased that her body was thin and spare, what the Chinese describe as a “lean horse,” more a Zen garden than the lush, generous hothouse that was Solange.

Is she in bed with Bao Dai now? he wondered. Is she pulling the puppet’s strings, making him dance to her charms?

Nicholai was surprised at this flash of sexual jealousy. It was so… Western. Unpragmatic and foolish. He turned his attention back to the very lovely naked woman on the bed, looking at him expectantly.

“Let down your hair, please,” he said.

She reached behind her head and pulled out a cloisonne pin. Her black hair fell shimmering around her shoulders. Relieved that they could converse in Chinese, she was frank about ascertaining his other preferences.

“Would you like to begin with the Middle Way,” she asked, “then perhaps finish by Fetching the Fire from the Far Side of the Mountain?”

“Neither, actually,” Nicholai said.

“You do not find me attractive?”

“I find you very attractive,” Nicholai said. “But it is so delightful to hear your beautiful Chinese that I would find it most pleasurable to spend our time in conversation.”

She looked at him curiously, but chattered away. He made polite listening sounds and the occasional brief contribution to the conversation, but his thoughts were elsewhere.

Your rudeness to Bao Dai was stupid, he told himself, your anger at Solange unfair. Deliberately making an enemy of the country’s ruler was just courting danger, and as for your attitude toward Solange – did you want to drive her into another man’s arms?

You’ll be lucky if she ever wants to see you again.

He waited in the foyer for De Lhandes to return from his buffet. In a little while, the dwarf came rocking down the hallway on rubbery legs.

“Damn generous of you, Michel,” De Lhandes said, “to a fault, if I might say so, but if the indulgence of even recently made friends is a vice of yours, then I say hurrah for vice in all its variegated forms and twisted permutations, speaking of which -”

“You’re an information broker?” Nicholai interrupted.

“Yes,” De Lhandes said. “Do you have information you wish brokered?”

“I wish to obtain some.”

“And a generous discount for you, my friend,” De Lhandes said. “About whom, may I ask, which indeed I may, should, and must, in fact, if I am to be of service to you.”

On the taxi ride back to Saigon, Nicholai told De Lhandes what he needed.

“Your luck holds,” De Lhandes responded. “By my happily exhausted but cruelly abused male member, your luck holds.”

Let’s hope so, Nicholai thought.