“My friends generally just ring the doorbell,” Bay said.
“I didn’t know if I was still your friend.”
“You know,” Bay said, “with one shout from me, my guards will come and they will throw you to my tiger.”
“But you won’t be alive to see it.”
Bay frowned. “I suppose from the clatter that you spilled my soup.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“You are a bother, Michel.”
He elbowed the woman next to him. “Get some clothes on, darling, and get out. I need to have a private talk with my rude guest.” The woman leaned out of the bed, grabbed a silk robe from the floor, and put it on. Bay told her, “Go down and tell the cook that we need more soup. The cook is still alive, Michel?”
“Yes.”
“Go.”
The woman eased past Nicholai and then he heard her trot down the hallway.
“The pistol is getting heavy,” Bay complained. “Shall we each put ours down? We’re not going to shoot each other, are we?”
“I hope not.” Nicholai slowly lowered his gun.
Bay did the same. “You look ridiculous in that jacket.”
“I feel ridiculous.”
“Do you mind if I get dressed?”
“I’d prefer it, actually.”
Bay got out of bed and went into the attached bathroom, emerging a moment later in a black silk robe decorated with a red-and-green embroidered dragon. He tied the knot around his waist and walked past Nicholai as he said, “Let’s go to the dining room.”
He stepped over the dazed guard who lay on the floor, still rubbing his throat.
“Useless crap eater,” Bay said. “I should feed you to Beauty.”
“Your tiger?” Nicholai asked.
“Lovely, isn’t she?”
Nicholai followed him downstairs.
131
THE SOUP WAS delicious.
Served by a cowed Cho and a rather resentful chef (“I told him if he spit in your bowl, I’d cut his balls off,” Bay reassured Nicholai), it arrived on the teak dining room table hot and steaming.
Bay skillfully wended his chopsticks to pick out the delicate pieces of fish. “Sleeping with the emperor’s woman,” he said, shaking his head. “Not good.”
She’s not his woman, Nicholai thought. She’s mine.
“Fifty-seven French whores at my brothel,” Bay said, “but you have to have that one.”
“Does Bao Dai know?”
“I don’t know if he knows,” Bay answered. “I know. He asked me to keep an eye on her. I didn’t tell him, if that’s what you want to know.”
“Who tried to kill me?”
Bay shrugged. “Wasn’t me.”
“Bao Dai didn’t order it?”
“Maybe he did,” Bay answered, “just not through me. I guess he’s angry that I didn’t stack the deck against you. Maybe he doesn’t trust me anymore.”
“I need to ask a favor,” Nicholai said.
Bay shrugged and ate his soup. Finally setting his chopsticks down, he picked up the bowl and slurped down the broth. Then he said, “You break into my home, beat up my staff, scare my evening’s companion half to death, point a gun at me and threaten to use it, and then you ask for my help? This after you take my most important partner’s money, screw his woman, and then commit mayhem and murder in the streets of Saigon? And that after you apparently killed some Russian and have half the world baying for your blood? You have balls of steel, Michel. I should just throw you to Beauty and let her break her teeth on you.”
“But you won’t,” Nicholai said.
“What do you want?”
My life, Nicholai thought. More than that, my honor.
“Sell me my weapons back,” he said. “I am prepared to offer you a small profit for your trouble.”
“Are you prepared to die as well?”
“Yes.”
Bay gazed at him for a long moment. “I believe you. But, tell me, if I sell you back the weapons, what do you intend to do with them?”
“Deliver them to the original client.”
Bay looked surprised. “The Viet Minh. Why?”
“I gave my word.”
“That’s why you should do it,” Bay said. “Why should I?”
Nicholai answered, “Whatever else you are, or aren’t, you are a man of honor and you owe me your life.”
“The Viet Minh are the enemy.”
“Today,” Nicholai agreed. “Four years ago they were your allies. Four years from now, who knows? Bao Dai is going to come after you eventually, and if he doesn’t, the Americans will. Besides, the Viet Minh are going to win.”
“You think so.”
“So do you,” Nicholai answered. “But that is all speculation. The only real question is, will you honor your debt?”
“Have I mentioned that you’re a difficult friend?”
“Yes.”
“I owe you my life,” Bay said. “But this is it. We’re even.”
“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.