any color you like, so long as it’s red or yellow. They were driven by middle-aged men wearing cravats, all of whom had women beside them wearing Hermes scarves over their heads, along with sunglasses, which could be worn on the scarf or nose, according to taste. When we got to the hotel, which was almost as famous as the casino, the staff all knew the Twins. They didn’t try to distinguish between them, simply called them both Mademoiselle Yip.
My room was king-size with a view over the Mediterranean, which didn’t strike me as much different from the other seas I’d seen. I was wallowing in the king-size tub with faux-ancient tap fittings circa 1920 (you could turn them on and off with your big toe, but it was quite a stretch-the gel was out of this world: lime and thyme with a touch of primrose and great bubbles), when a deep gong announced someone at the door.
It was housekeeping with a complete casino-goer’s rig: tuxedo, black pants with shiny stripe down the outside leg, plum bow tie ready-tied (a handy hook-and-eye catch at the back for bumpkins like me), shiny black patent leather shoes, and dress shirt with frills down the front and pearl buttons. It all fit perfectly. It was ten P.M., the hour when serious players start to make their way to the tables.
At the top of the steps to the famous casino a footman in livery bowed at Lilly, Polly, and me.
“The best of France is a museum,” Lilly whispered.
“The more you pay, the better behaved the exhibits,” Polly said.
“They think a vagina is masculine, and their patron saint is a transsexual roasted in a suit of armor,” Lilly said.
“No wonder they’re so screwed up,” Polly said.
I didn’t know much about gamblers, but I knew vice when I saw it. The Twins, both in black evening gowns with pearls, silver earrings, and icy diamonds that glittered, owned all the signs, including fetishism. These two wealthy heiresses who took limos and six-star hotels for granted swooned over the casino’s old brass and worn carpets, while a delicious tension came and went in their eyes, and they clasped and unclasped each other’s hands. “Every time is like the first,” Lilly said.
“You remember the first?” I asked. I imagined Maurice Chevalier introducing them to champagne right here in the velvet lobby.
“We won twenty dollars. Daddy wouldn’t let us bet more.”
“I remember the roulette wheel, how big and heavy and silent, and how everyone seemed to hold their breath.”
“One of the Beatles was here, I forget which one-he lost ten thousand dollars in a bet on black.”
I already knew that roulette was the star of the show, and we would proceed slowly toward the wheel by way of lesser pleasures. They bought a bunch of chips from the tux behind the grille, and we paused at the slot machines. These were not serious bets, but both women had serious faces. I understood: this was the reading of the entrails before the invasion of Troy. How well or badly they did would determine how recklessly or conservatively they played on the grown-up tables.
Lilly gasped, squealed, giggled: three oranges in a row. The machine coughed up chips as if it had taken an expectorant, but the total win was hardly more than a hundred dollars. Polly didn’t fare so well, but she was happy enough with a couple of pineapples and a carrot, which delivered about five dollars. They gazed into each other’s eyes like newlyweds, then remembered me and held my hands on either side.
Let’s face it, every man likes to be king for a night. I was feeling like a million dollars myself when we finally took the steps up into the main hall. All the guys in tuxedos envied me. The more generous shared humorous grins, while the meaner spirits would have liked to spit on the carpet: two beautiful women, and I wasn’t even Italian! Hey, I was having a ball after all. These startlingly beautiful, rich, young(ish) women were spoiling me here. I was almost skipping while I hummed: As I walk along the boulevard with an independent air I can hear the girls declare He must be a millionaire He’s the man who broke the bank at Monte Caaaaarlo.
(Okay, so I am a tad bipolar, but there’s no need for anyone to get judgmental: what do you do for variety yourself, DFR?)
We spent an hour or so on blackjack, then finally took the short set of steps up to the big table. The Yip party will only play French roulette, messieurs-don’t even think of imposing English rules, merci all the same.
“Faites vos jeus,” the croupier said, but like all pros, Lilly and Polly waited until a nanosecond before the ball fell into the last two rows of the wheel, which is to say just before the implacable Frenchman said “Rien ne va plus.” Lilly put a thousand dollars on red, which was an even-money bet. Polly also put five hundred on red, and a hundred dollars each on 9, 11, 13, and 15. Focus on the spinning wheel was total. The table was silent. A public hanging would not have produced greater concentration in a crowd. The ball stopped on red, which was good for Lilly, but-even better for Polly-it landed on 13. At 35 to 1 it was a serious win. Lilly and Polly exchanged glances. Did I detect a certain reticence in both sets of Chinese eyes?
“One and three add up to four,” Lilly said, “the number of death. I can’t believe you did that.”
“Me either,” Polly said, “I just wasn’t thinking.” She seemed seriously penitent, as if she had inadvertently made a pact with the devil.
“You knew what you were doing. You did it because of the fly.”
“You didn’t win with the fly.”
“No, but I almost did. You were scared shitless. You bet on four to get even.”
“It wasn’t four, it was thirteen.”
“Even worse. Even gweilos know it’s unlucky. And it adds up to four. You’ve ruined the evening.”
Polly made a face, but she was shaken. Lilly looked as if she were about to cry. “I brought the shrine,” Polly said, and put an arm on Lilly’s elbow.
“You did?”
Polly opened her handbag to show something to her sister.
Lilly collared one of the supervisors. “We want to go to the prayer room,” she told him.
“Certainly,” he said.
“Excuse us for a moment,” Polly said to me.
I watched them disappear into some private room of the casino-and never saw them again. I hung around for about an hour and a half, then grabbed one of the supervisors. When I mentioned the name Yip, he shrugged and allowed himself a slight smirk. There was no message waiting back in the hotel, and reception told me the sisters had not returned to their room.
Next morning a message was waiting for me on the hotel’s system. It gave the reservation number and other details of an e-ticket in my name: a single seat, first-class, Nice-Bangkok via Dubai.
11
Back in Bangkok, Vikorn’s mug was everywhere, just as he had promised: every third lamppost. His undisguised intention was to crowd out the competition, which was numerous. It’s one of our paradoxes: we are a shy people who love to run for public office. Men and women, who cannot hope to get votes other than from family members dress in their Sunday best-white military costumes for the boys, serious colors and high necklines for the girls-so they can share lampposts with the likes of Vikorn, whose life and times had begun to be discussed in a discreet way by the media. One brave journalist hinted that a Bangkok cop might not be the wisest choice for governor when you thought of how creative former holders of that office had been with those purchasing contracts for buses and police cars, not to mention the multibillion-baht extension to the Skytrain. I was not comfortable, either. The man who had controlled my destiny for more than a decade now loomed at me from every corner: master crook of the universe.
Those three Americans had checked out my people’s value system and decided to present Vikorn on the street as Father Wisdom, with gray hair whitened a shade, a confident smile (which had triumphed over deep suffering), right hand held slightly palm up, in a subliminal reference to a Buddha image, the sparkling city behind him as if it had elected him already. Voting day was more than a month away, though, and he had not yet gone public with his “Stop Organ Trafficking Now” campaign, although I’d seen some of the advance publicity: “Devout Buddhist police colonel who has worked steadily and selflessly on his own time for more than a decade to stop this ghoulish trade and, now, thanks to meticulous detective work headed up by his hand-selected protege, Detective
