Satori - Don Winslow [116]
Nicholai pushed his chips in.
The deal came.
Bao Dai reached for his down card.
Nicholai said, “Let’s neither of us look.”
“Excuse me?”
“Let’s neither of us look, Your Excellency,” Nicholai suggested as he pushed all his chips toward the center. “And let’s do make this the last hand.”
“That’s insane,” Haverford said.
Solange’s green eyes flashed like emeralds.
“He could already have four queens under there and know it,” Haverford hissed.
Nicholai was aware of that. He looked at Bay to see if he could discern whether the fix was in.
He couldn’t.
Bao Dai took a deep breath and then pushed his chips in.
“I see you,” he said. Then he looked to Bay and asked, “Is my credit good here?”
“Of course,” Bay said jokingly, but his face looked strained, as if he hoped that the emperor wasn’t going to do what he feared.
But he was.
“I see you,” Bao Dai repeated, “and I raise you two thousand piastres.”
“I don’t have it.”
“I know,” Bao Dai said pleasantly. “I warned you this was no limits. The sad fact is, you had no business being in this game. I played you like a … puppet.”
Bay looked disgusted. Signavi found a reason to look down at the table as Haverford saw something fascinating on the floor. They were all embarrassed for Bao Dai. He had humiliated himself as a man.
But Solange looked straight at Bao Dai, and her expression was one of contempt. It was ephemeral, it quickly shifted to a mask of indifference, but Nicholai saw it, and it was victory enough.
“Good night, then,” Nicholai said, and started to get up.
“Your credit is good here,” Bay said to him, glaring at Bao Dai.
“To the limit of two thousand piastres?” Nicholai asked.
“Exactly.”
Is Bay’s offer sincere, or is the deck stacked and he’s setting me up for an even bigger fall? I saved you from a bullet, Nicholai thought, looking at him. Would you set me up now?
Nicholai sat back down.
He looked at Solange, who looked back at him.
“I call your bet,” Nicholai said.
Bao Dai turned his down cards and showed his hand.
His first card was the queen of hearts.
Four of a kind.
He looked at Nicholai and his leer said, I told you that you had no place here. My hand, my pot, my woman.
Nicholai turned his remaining down card.
The seven of clubs.
119
“MY GOD, YOU’RE RICH,” De Lhandes observed.
It was true — Nicholai had taken enough money from Bao Dai to set himself up for life.
To his credit, the puppet emperor had taken his losses with a suave grace. Small wonder, Nicholai thought, he could easily replace the money with the funds he took from the Americans and his percentage of the gambling, prostitution, and drug business.
Still, it took courage to face down the powerful Bao Dai, and Michel Guibert’s name was on hundreds of tongues in Cholon before Nicholai even left the casino.
“I will arrange security for you,” Bay offered.
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 à 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