The cook, stirring his soup, was unaware, and Nicholai hit him with a fist to the back of the neck, then caught him before he could fall forward on the stove, dragged him into a corner, and then gently set him down.
It would have been easier to kill him, but the man was an innocent, and Nicholai knew that Bay Vien would not easily forgive the killing of one of his people.
Nicholai stood behind the door that opened into the house and shouted, in Chinese, “Cho, you lazy, useless thing! The soup is ready!”
The young waiter scurried through the door, straight into Nicholai’s shuto strike, and dropped in a heap.
Nicholai pressed himself against the wall until the next sentry passed outside, then found a slightly longer waiter’s jacket on a hook in the pantry, put the waiter’s round black cap on his head, put two bowls of the soup on a tray, and headed upstairs.
The guard at the bottom of the stairway nodded brusquely, then blinked when he noticed the waiter’s strange height.
It was too late.
Nicholai’s leopard paw strike, the fingers folded but not closed into a fist. His second knuckles struck the guard straight in the nose — hard enough to drive the bone into the brain but not forceful enough to kill. Nicholai caught him in one arm and guided him to the floor so the gun wouldn’t clatter. Unburdening him of the.45, he slipped the pistol inside his sleeve and walked up the stairs.
His proximity sense told him there was another guard outside Bay Vien’s door.
Indeed, the guard heard his footsteps and called, “Cho?”
“I have Master’s dinner.”
“About time.”
As Nicholai feared, the door was at the end of the hallway, which would give the guard ample time to discern that it wasn’t Cho. Cursing his large Western frame, he tucked his chin into his chest, hoping to buy a crucial moment.
Looking back up, Nicholai took the spoon off the tray and threw it like a ninja star just as the guard was raising his pistol. The spinning spoon caught the guard in the eye and drove his head back.
His shot fired high.
Nicholai sprang forward, grabbed his gun wrist, and pushed it up. As soon as he felt the guard pull back down, he went with his flow and pulled with him, sweeping the arm in a full circle backward until he heard the shoulder pop. Then he reversed the flow, swept the guard’s foot, took him to the ground, and struck him in the throat.
He stepped over the prone guard, pulled his pistol, and kicked the unlocked door open.
130
BAY SAT UP IN BED, a pistol of his own pointed straight at Nicholai’s chest. A beautiful Asian woman pulled the sheet over herself.
“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 yo
u.”
“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 one of Bay Vien’s customers.
The guards dragged the man away.
134
ANTONUCCI WATCHED his girls play.
The club was busy for a Thursday night, full of hard-drinking French paratroopers and Foreign Legionnaires, and Antonucci kept a careful eye lest they decide to brawl in his establishment. So far the soldiers were behaving themselves, and probably would continue to do so, fearful of being banned from the joint and losing the right to stare at the pretty musicians. Later they would doubtless head to a brothel to douse the flame his girls had set alight, and others would profit.
So be it, Antonucci thought, it’s a sin to traffic in flesh.
He struck a match and rolled the end of his cigar around the flame.
Cubans, the good stuff.
He glanced at his watch. The whoremongering American should be answering for his sins by now. They had sent three of the best, with instructions to make it look like a robbery. Bay Vien wouldn’t like it, but to hell with him too. Sooner or later they would have to deal with that Cholon street rat as well.
And he’ll be much harder to kill than the American, Haverford.
Les amerloques, Antonucci contemplated as he inhaled the rich smoke, such amateurs at intrigue, so ham-handed, so obvious. It takes centuries to produce a conspiratorial culture, generations of familial connection. America, with its youthful naiveté and mongrel bloodlines, is a blunt tool that no steel can sharpen.
America in Asia? A deaf man at the symphony.
So now Haverford lies in the street, the French police will give their apologies along with their indifferent Gallic shrugs, and “Operation X” will go forward. The opium will flow through the French military instead of the Viet Minh, be shipped to labs in Marseille to be turned into heroin, and will find its way to the streets of New York. We will make our money and life will go on.
For some.
He allowed himself a lingering look at the long legs of the saxophone player. Lucky she can sit in her chair, that one. She’ll think three times before making eyes at a handsome stranger again.
And what happened to Guibert? Antonucci wondered. The newspaper story about the Viet Minh was an obvious French fiction. The rumor was that Guibert had made free and easy with Bao Dai’s new mistress, compounding the error of embarrassing him at the gaming table and taking his money. Yes, Bao Dai ordered Guibert killed to get his balls back, and then his boys botched it. He should have come to us.
Antonucci turned his attention back to the saxophone player, Yvette. Maybe I’ll throw her a fuck tonight, he thought, to show her there are no hard feelings. She’s sensitive, gets her feelings hurt so easily. Thin-skinned, that one.
He saw Mancini come through the door and search for him with his eyes. Then the boss of L’Union Corse found him and shook his head.
So subtle a gesture only an old friend would have known what it meant.
Antonucci knew, and it made him angry.
The attempt on the American had failed.
135
IT HAD BEEN a good payday for De Lhandes.
So good that he bypassed Le Parc and went straight to the House of Mirrors, where he paid a good portion of his earnings for a Sri Lankan girl of such exquisite skill and beauty that it made him favorably reconsider the possibility of a benevolent deity. He finished dressing, kissed the girl on the cheek, left a generous tip on the night table, and headed out. It was not too late for the pho soup at La Bodega.
But that is me, he thought wistfully as he closed the door behind him. The aspirations of a gourmet with the wallet of a crust-munching peasant.
A large hand clasped itself over his mouth and he felt strong arms lift him and then he was in a room.
“Just be quiet for once,” he heard Guibert say.
136
HAVERFORD SQUATTED beside the surviving attacker, put a cigarette in his mouth, and lit it for him. “You speak French?”
The terrified man nodded.
“Good,” Haverford said. “Look, here’s the thing, mon ami, I can pull you out of the shit you’re in — I have n
o hard feelings, I know it was only business, yes? Or I can just walk away let these Binh Xuyen boys have you. It’s your choice.”
“What do I have to do?”
“You don’t have to do anything,” Haverford said. “Just tell me something.”
“What?”
“Who paid you?” Haverford asked.
“The Corsicans,” the man rasped.
“Who?” Haverford asked again, because this was a surprise.
“La Corse,” the man said.
137
“I HAVE PUT MY LIFE in your hands,” Nicholai said as he set De Lhandes down.
He knew it was gross and offensive to have lifted the dwarf off his feet that way, but there was no choice.
“By the chancred twat of a Marseille whore …”
“Many people,” Nicholai said, “would pay a good price to learn my whereabouts.”
“That is true,” De Lhandes sputtered, still angry at the rough handling. “Why have you, then, put your life in my hands?”
“I need a useful ally that I can trust,” Nicholai answered.
“I agree that I am useful,” De Lhandes replied, “extraordinarily so, in fact. But why do you think you can trust me?”
Nicholai knew that everything depended on his answer, so he thought carefully before he spoke. Finally he said, “You and I are the same.”
De Lhandes looked up at the tall, broad-shouldered, handsome man, and Nicholai saw his spine stiffen. “I hardly think so.”
“Then think further,” Nicholai replied. Having started this, he couldn’t go back. Both his life and De Lhandes’s were on the line, because the dwarf would leave here an ally or not at all. Nicholai would have to either befriend him or kill him. “Look beyond the obvious differences and you will see that we are both outsiders.”
Nicholai saw this catch De Lhandes’s imagination, so he continued, “I am a Westerner raised in the East, and in the West you are …”
He knew he had to choose his words carefully, but then De Lhandes finished the thought for him. “A small, ugly man in a world of large, beautiful people.”