Satori - Don Winslow [131]
“Thank you.”
“I’ll get you out of town,” Bay said. “Until we can get you on a ship or something.”
Nicholai shook his head. “I need to go back into Saigon.”
“Are you nuts?” Bay asked. “Half of Saigon is looking to kill you, the other half is looking to sell you to the people looking to kill you.”
“I have to get word to someone.”
Bay frowned. “Is it the woman?”
Nicholai didn’t answer.
132
THE ROOM IN THE BROTHEL was small but adequate.
Whores, after all, Nicholai thought, end up in a whorehouse.
Nicholai’s room was down the end of a long, narrow hallway. It contained a four-poster bed, and the walls and ceiling were made of mirrored glass.
“Our guests are narcissists,” Momma explained, for she ran this establishment as well as Le Parc. Her silence had been handsomely purchased and guaranteed with the promise of agonizing exfoliation should she as much as whisper of Nicholai’s presence. “They like to admire the beauty of their own ecstasy, and from a variety of angles.”
Nicholai found the constant inescapable self-reflection somewhat unsettling. Everywhere he looked he saw a slightly distorted view of himself. Nor could he leave — he was imprisoned in the bedroom and the attached (mirrored) bathroom, with its tub, sink, and bidet. His meals would be brought in to him, and fresh air was out of the question.
“As for your other needs,” Momma warbled lasciviously, “I have thought of everything.”
“I have no other needs,” Nicholai said.
“You will.”
She shut the door behind her.
133
HAVERFORD GAMBLED a few piastres at the roulette table, lost, grew bored, and decided to make a night of it at Le Parc.
He walked out onto the street to hail a taxi and thought about Nicholai Hel.
The dramatic shootout on the street had made all the papers, which printed that the attempted assassination and possible kidnapping of the respected French entrepreneur Michel Guibert had been an act of terror committed by the Viet Minh. The businessman had survived the initial attack but was now nowhere to be found, and French officials were very concerned that he was in the hands of the Communist terrorists.
Haverford knew it was Diamond.
Now Hel was either dead or enduring interrogation in a tiger cage. Or perhaps he was alive and had gone into hiding. If so, he had pulled the earth up over him, because Haverford had all his sources out trying to locate Hel (or alternatively his corpse), and they had turned up nothing.
Nor had Hel tried to contact him, which meant that Nicholai no longer trusted him, perhaps that he thought the Americans were responsible for the murder attempt. Growing fond of an asset was always a mistake, but Haverford had come to like, or at least appreciate, Nicholai Hel.
The blade flashed out of the darkness.
One more second and it would have slashed his throat to the neck bone, but Haverford saw it and leaned just out of the way. The backslash was already coming at him. He blocked it with his wrist, felt the blade bite in, and yelled in pain and anger.
The Marines had taught him well.
He grabbed the knife hand, turned, and flipped the attacker over his shoulder, onto the sidewalk. The man landed hard on his back and Haverford stomped hard on his throat. Then he pulled his pistol from the inside of his jacket.
One of the other robbers backed off, but the second kept coming and Haverford shot him square in the chest.
By this time, the Binh Xuyen guards had come running out of Le Parc à Buffles.
“Bandits,” one of them said.
“You think so?” Haverford asked. He was breathing heavily, blood was running down his sleeve, the adrenaline was already dropping and he knew he would soon feel the pain. He looked at the cut and said, “I’ll need to get some stitches.”
One of the attackers was dead, the other had run away, and the Binh Xuyen were already taking their bamboo batons to the knife wielder.
“Alive,” Haverford snapped. “I want him alive.”
“Bandits,” bullshit.
No robber in his right mind would try to take a wallet outside Le Parc; only a madman would try to rob