Satori - Don Winslow [113]
“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 she’s fantastic”
Nicholai watched as the woman eased gracefully out of the car.
She was fantastic.
Solange.
117
SHE WORE A BLACK GOWN with fashionably deep décolletage, 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 that movie,” Haverford said.
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 à 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.
Nicholai glanced at Bao Dai but addressed his words to Solange. “Michel Guibert, formerly of Montpellier and Hong Kong. Enchanté, mademoiselle.”
“Enchantée, monsieur,” Solange said, her eyes warning him away before she turned her look to Bao Dai.
The emperor noticed the colon’s rude approach to his mistress but easily hid his annoyance. “Welcome to Vietnam, Monsieur Guibert. What brings you to Saigon?”
“Thank you, Your Excellency,” Nicholai said. “I’m starting a business — a manufactury.”
“Superb,” Bao Dai said. “And what will you manufacture?”
“I was thinking of marionettes,” Nicholai said, looking straight at Bao Dai. “You know … puppets.”
It was a deliberate insult and everyone who heard it knew it. But Bao Dai merely smiled and asked, “What sort of puppets?”
“French, I think,” Nicholai said. “Or do you think American?”
“I didn’t think the Americans were known