The banker drew four cards from the shoe facedown. The croupier used his pallet to scoop up the players’ cards and pass them down the table.
The banker immediately turned his cards over — a five and a three. An eight. The player was next with a pair of fours.
“Égalité,” the croupier announced, and he deftly scooped up all four cards. No one had won, and the banker’s and player’s bets remained unchanged.
The current banker and six players sat around the table, twice as many watchers standing behind them.
From where Kurshin was positioned beside Martine, he could not see the face of every player, although two of them were obviously Arabs — probably Saudis — young, well dressed, and extremely arrogant.
Martine started to say something when a man halfway around the table leaned forward and looked to the left. He wore dark-framed glasses, but Kurshin recognized him at once, and he felt a little thrill of anticipation. McGarvey had found the plaque, had read the meaning of it, and had shown up. The woman wasn’t with him yet, but Lestov said that she was on her way to Paris. She would be here by tomorrow evening when the real game would begin.
“Do you recognize that man?” Martine asked.
“The one with the glasses?”
“Oui.”
“I thought so, but I’m not so sure.”
“He doesn’t look like much,” Martine said. “Evidently not bold.”
“What do you mean?”
“The bank is only at twenty thousand. If he were of any substance, he would have covered it.”
“Or the Saudis.”
“They’re waiting for a real challenge, which won’t come until later tonight, sometime after midnight.”
The banker, an old man with thick eyebrows and an unpleasantly large mouth, dealt the next set of cards. The croupier passed the player, a woman in her mid- to late twenties, not at all unattractive, her cards.
Immediately, the banker turned his cards over, this time a six and two.
“Huit,” the croupier announced.
The woman indicated she would take another card, this one up.
The banker slid the card out of the shoe, and the croupier passed it down the table, flipping it faceup at the last moment. It was a queen, which counted as zero.
She turned her cards over, a six and a king. She lost.
The banker was given his share, minus the house cut, and he announced he would remain the banker, this time at fifty thousand euros.
“Banco,” McGarvey said loudly, his voice slurred, the single word mispronounced.
“The man is drunk,” Martine said.
Kurshin said nothing. McGarvey would not have come here drunk, and from what he’d been told, the American was fluent in French.
The cards were dealt, and McGarvey flipped his over immediately, a nine and a jack. “Neuf,” he said savagely. “Nine.”
The banker checked his cards, asked for a third — which was an ace — and he turned over his down cards, which were a queen and three. A loss.
“How about them apples,” McGarvey mumbled.
12
“The man standing behind the player at the far end of the table to your left is a possibility,” Otto said in McGarvey’s ear.
Mac put his hand to his mouth as if he were about to cough. “The one with the woman in white?”
“Yes. I’m running both of their photos.”
The glasses that Otto had designed were a riff on Google Glass, except they were not so obvious. Mac’s view of the built-in camera and the Internet came up as a head-up display on the inside of both lenses. No one looking at him, not even close up, could spot the display, but the images were transmitted in real time to one of Otto’s monitors back at Langley or to his laptop wherever he was.
The woman who’d lost got the bank for one hundred thousand euros.
“Banco,” McGarvey said, excluding the other players around the table from making any bets.
The two young Arabs got up and sauntered off, but one of them came back and looked at McGarvey, a smirk on his lips.
Four cards were dealt down. Mac’s were a seven and king.
The woman turned her cards over. A two and six.
“Huit,” the croupier announced.
McGarvey took a long time to apparently make a decision. The croupier was about to say something when Mac motioned for another card.
The woman dealt the card facedown, and the croupier deposited it faceup in front of Mac. A two.
Mac turned his cards over.
“Neuf,” the croupier said, and a sigh went around the table. Hoping with the ace to win was not only highly unlikely, it went against the polite conventions of the game, once again proving the American was crude. Lucky, but crude.
“How about them goddamn apples,” McGarvey said loudly enough for everyone in the salon to hear.
“I’m coming up with nothing on the man, but the woman seems interesting,” Otto said in his ear.
Mac glanced toward the end of the table, but the man and woman weren’t there. He raised a hand to his mouth. “They’re gone.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Follow them.”
“Might not be our man,” Otto said.
“We’ll see.”
When the accounts were settled, McGarvey passed a five thousand — euro plaque to the croupier and got up, making a show of being unsteady. “Place my winnings in my account, and don’t shortchange me.”
He turned, knocking his chair over, and left the salon. One of the casino managers intercepted him just at the front doors.
“Pardon, Monsieur Arouet,” he said politely. “There is the matter of your winnings.”
“Hold them; I’ll be back tomorrow evening,” McGarvey said.
The manager hesitated.
McGarvey patted the man on the arm. “Sober,” he said, half under his breath.
Once he was outside and out of earshot from the doormen and valet parkers, he talked to Otto. “I’m clear.”
“You made quite an impression,” Otto said.
Traffic was picking up, and a lot of partygoers on foot crowded the Place du Casino. A police car flashed by, lights blinking but no siren. Down in the harbor, the deep-throated horn of an obviously large boat sounded a long blast, which meant it was backing out of its slip. If anything, the evening was softer than it had been earlier, but busier. Monte-Carlo was coming alive; just about every person here was a millionaire.
“I half expected him to join the game when the Arabs left,” McGarvey said, strolling slowly in the general direction of his hotel.
“If it was our man.”
“You said that you had something interesting on the woman.”
“On both of them, actually. The guy is traveling under the name Nance Kallinger, a bookshop owner in London’s West End. A small bookstore.”
“Not the kind of a business that would make enough money to dress him in expensive clothes and bring him to Monaco.”