I glanced over at the active table. There they were, Belghazi and the blonde, both dressed tastefully and a bit more stylishly than the other players: Belghazi in a white shirt, open at the neck, and navy blazer; the blonde in a white silk blouse and black bolero. Most of the fourteen player slots were taken, but Belghazi and his girlfriend had empty seats to either side of them. They were the only foreigners in the room, and had probably taken the isolated seats so as not to offend anyone who might consider a foreigner’s presence unlucky. I didn’t have such qualms. Quite the contrary tonight, in fact.
I’d been in this room before, and had seen bets of as high as one hundred thousand U.S. for a single hand. Some of the patrons here, I knew, might gamble all night, and on into the next night. A few of Belghazi’s cohorts, their eyes glassy, their complexions pasty beneath the chandelier lighting, looked as though they might have done just that.
The dealer turned over the player’s hand and cried out, “Natural eight!” An excited murmur picked up around the table: eight was a “natural,” and could be beaten only by a nine. The round would be decided based on the cards already on the table-nothing new could be dealt. With almost painful deliberation, the dealer next turned over the bank’s cards, calling out, “Natural nine!” as he did so. There was an outburst of cheers and curses, the former by those who had bet on the bank’s hand that round, the latter by those who had bet on the player’s. As the dealer passed the cards across the table to the other two dealers, who began paying off the winning bets, many of the players dipped their heads and began marking up the pads the casino had provided, attempting to discern some pattern in the randomness, a lucky streak they might lunge at and manage to grab.
I walked over and took the seat to Belghazi’s right, so that he would naturally look away from me to talk to the blonde or to follow the action of the player in Seat 1, who was designated to act as the bank. I noticed the computer briefcase, nestled against his leg where he would feel it if it were somehow to move.
He turned to me. “I’ve seen you, haven’t I,” he said in French-accented English, his dark eyes narrowing a fraction. The effect was half attempt at recollection, half accusation. The blonde glanced over and then away.
This was a slight breach of high roller etiquette, which is generally predicated on respect for the other players’ anonymity. “Maybe at the tables downstairs,” I answered, concealing my surprise. “I have to build up the bankroll a bit before a trip to the VIP rooms.”
He shook his head twice, slowly, and smiled, still looking into my eyes. “Not downstairs. At the Oriental. With a pretty Asian woman. She’s not with you tonight?”
“You’re staying at the Oriental?” I asked, sidestepping his inquiry as would any self-respecting philanderer who’d just been questioned about his mistress by a stranger.
“It’s a good hotel,” he replied, doing a little sidestep-ping of his own.
I was impressed. I had been taking care not to stand out or to otherwise become memorable, and he had spotted me anyway. He was well-attuned to his environment, to the patterns that might at some point make the difference between winning and losing. Or living and dying.
The dealer advised us that it was time to place our bets. “Yes,” I said, putting down the minimum of about U.S. ten thousand on the bank, “but this is the place for baccarat.” Belghazi nodded and put down fifty thousand on player, then turned to the banker to watch the hand get dealt. I saw from this movement that he wasn’t truly concerned about me. If he had been, he wouldn’t have turned his back. No, he had only been reflexively probing, firing into the tree line, checking to see whether he’d hit anything and whether anyone fired back.
The banker handed the first card to the dealer. As he did so, I leaned forward and crossed my hands, my right fingers settling across the Traser P5900 I was wearing on my left wrist. On the underside of the watch was a thumbnail-sized squib containing a little cocktail, one unlikely to be served by the casino’s bar girls. The concoction in question consisted primarily of staphylococcus aureus-a rapid-onset food poisoning pathogen-and chloral hydrate, a compound that causes nausea, disorientation, and unconsciousness within one to four hours. The first would get Belghazi back to the hotel in a hurry. The second would ensure that he slept soundly, if not terribly comfortably, when he got there. I eased the squib free and held it at the junction of my right middle and forefinger. I’d wait for the right moment-one of Belghazi’s head-turns, or a big win or loss for one of the players, or some other distraction-and then make my move.
I realized there was an important side benefit to my plan: the symptoms of staph infection are so acute, and set in so quickly, that there was a good chance Belghazi would return to the hotel room without, or at least ahead of, the blonde. And, even if she came back with or only shortly behind him, he might very well send her away for a while, so he could endure the effects of his rebelling stomach in privacy.
I won the first round. So far so good: I didn’t know how long this would take, and, even with baccarat’s favorable odds and leisurely pace of play, Kanezaki’s money wouldn’t hold out forever.
A pretty attendant came by. Belghazi ordered a tonic water. At fifty thousand a hand, I supposed he wanted to exercise a little alcohol discipline. I followed suit.
The blonde leaned toward Belghazi and said, “Je vais essayer les tables de dés. Je serai de retour bientôt.” I’m going to try the craps tables. I’ll be back in a little while. She got up and left.
Perfect. I stole a glance, just a quick one, the kind Belghazi would find neither surprising nor disrespectful. She was wearing a black skirt to match the bolero. Her legs were stunning, and she walked with the unpretentious confidence of someone who long ago came to understand that she is beautiful and today finds the fact neither remarkable nor worthy of flaunting.
Belghazi doubled his bet on the next round. I stayed with the minimum. This time we both won.
The attendant came by with the drinks, carrying them perched on a silver tray. She placed Belghazi’s on the table next to him, then leaned forward and moved to do the same with mine. He was watching the banker, who was getting ready to deal. Now.
I half rose from my seat, reaching for my drink with both hands as though concerned that I not spill it during the transfer. As my right hand passed over Belghazi’s glass, I paused for an instant and squeezed, and the seal at the squib’s bottom, thinner than the surrounding plastic, parted silently and released the contents within. I used my torso to obscure the move from above, where the overhead cameras might otherwise have recorded it. Done. I eased back into my seat, tonic water in hand.
Belghazi ignored his drink during the next round, and during the one after. The ice in his glass was melting, and I began to grow concerned that one of the attendants would come and replace it. I had another squib, of course, but didn’t want to have to repeat the risky maneuver of getting it into his glass.
As it turned out, there was no need. At the end of the fifth hand, he picked up his glass and drank. One swallow. A pause, then another. He put the glass down.
That was enough. It was time for me to go. I played one more hand, then collected my chips. “Good luck,” I said to him, moving to stand.