Vulture Peak (10 page)

Next morning we shared a limo to the airport. Lilly dressed down in jeans, designer T-shirt, and sandals while Polly, in a navy dress suit, decked herself in gold, especially in the form of bracelets on her wrists. On the plane Lilly took the window seat, Polly took the aisle, and I was the meat in the sandwich. Not that it really mattered: in first there was so much space between pods, we could have been flying solo. There were buttons that, when pressed, sent screens up from the armrests to shut out the neighbors on either side. Being friends, none of us used the facility, which enabled me to make what may have been a key observation. Lilly said something to Polly in one of their Chinese dialects—I fancy it was Fukienese—which attracted her twin’s attention. A stowaway fly had infiltrated First and was free-riding on Lilly’s window. I assumed a HiSo fastidiousness had been invoked, and I looked forward to an indignant word from one or both of them to the purser.

Wrong. Polly said something back to Lilly in an excited voice. Lilly responded with still greater excitement. All six of our eyes were now fixated on the fly. I had no idea of the odds or the sums agreed on, but something told me neither was minimal. The fly made a dash toward the top of the window—a move in Lilly’s favor for sure, to judge from the glee in her eyes and the glum in her sister’s. True to its nature, though, the fly would not be so easily predicted and made a
series of jerks in a
W
pattern, which left it pretty much where it had started in terms of suspension between earth and sky.

More hurried punting. I had a feeling the stakes were getting serious. A middle-aged woman in the seat behind me looked up from her video and understood; now eight eyeballs awaited the fly’s next move. The fly jerked a couple of inches skyward. To my right Polly fidgeted unhappily with one of her solid gold bracelets. Lilly pressed her palms together and wrung her hands. But the fly was nothing if not a tease. He decided to give himself a body wipe with his legs, all over from head to feet, about a dozen times with extra attention to face and eyes. Who said flies are dirty?

Unable to resist, I leaned toward Polly. “What’s the betting so far?”

She glared. “Don’t ask.”

“I ask.”

She slipped off her gold bracelet to invite me to heft it. More than two ounces, that’s for sure. Maybe five. I remembered the figures from the Gold Souk. Well over a thousand dollars an ounce, close to twelve hundred if I remembered correctly. We were talking about a six-thousand-dollar fly. Now Polly lost it and said something fast—desperate, I would say.

Lilly turned to stone but nodded her head.

“How much now?” I asked.

Polly refused to answer. The woman behind me got up to lean over my pod. She had an American accent. “Please tell me how much they are betting on the fly?”

“About six thousand dollars, I think.”

“If it gets to the top of the window before flying away?”

“I think so.”

“If it gets to the
bottom
of the window before flying away,
she
pays double,” Polly hissed.

Lilly remained stone-faced, silently urging her fly heavenward.

Now the fly was clean as a whistle and good to go. In a sudden burst he shifted four inches up. Only about an inch and a half more, and Polly’s gold bracelet changed owners.

I stared at the bracelet for a moment. Polly understood my thought. “It’s gone up a lot more than that.”

“Oh, please tell me how much you’re betting,” the American woman said.

“You wouldn’t believe it,” Polly said.

Lilly broke into a grin. “Tell them.”

“Fifty thousand dollars,” Polly said.

The American woman turned pale. “You’re serious?”

“We’re Chinese,” the Twins explained in unison; without humor, though. They were still fixated on the fly.

“That’s a lot of kidneys and livers,” I exclaimed, and covered my mouth. Polly nodded as if she’d had the same thought. The American woman stared at me, then sat down.

Without a second thought for its audience, the fly took off, having failed to reach either border. The sisters relaxed. Polly played with her bracelet.

I took the opportunity to ask a question that had been on my mind since last night. “Is Monte Carlo the only reason for going to France, Polly?”

“Actually we’re on our way to Lourdes.”

“Ah, why Lourdes?”

Polly picked up a pack of roasted almonds the flight attendant had placed on the arm of her pod. She pulled it open and slipped a couple into her mouth. Despite her mouth being half full, she answered in precise English, with a touch of the schoolmarm in her manner. “Of the world’s three universal religions, one is based on a profound insight into human psychology and one is based on a profound insight into the kind of social structure that is necessary for people to live in peace and harmony. Got it so far?”

“I think so.”

“The former is Buddhism, and the latter is Islam. The other world religion is an insane collection of primitive magic and mumbo-jumbo, with cadavers resurrecting and walking around with holes in them, lepers suddenly healing and the blind suddenly seeing, virgins giving birth and snakes that talk. Since it’s all a blatant lie, something has to be done to keep the faithful dropping coins onto the plate, or the economic model on which the whole pious edifice is based will collapse in less than a generation. It needs miracle machines. Lourdes
is the most important. Of course, since there are no miracles, you have to have a large collection of people willing to lie to themselves. We are talking about the terminally ill, of course.”

“Okay. Why are we so interested?”

She made a gesture of impatience. “Terminally ill—not every organ is busted—need money for real medical treatment when the abracadabra fails—sell something—anything—find a close relative to sell one of theirs—alternatively need a new organ—will pay anything, ask no questions.”

“It’s your marketplace?”

“One of them.”

At Nice a guy in a business suit was waiting with a sign:
MADEMOISELLES YIP AND PARTY
. He led us to his limo, which was a big, dark Benz with automatic gearshift and tinted windows. In a few minutes we’d joined the motorway system that goes all the way to Italy. We turned off at Monaco, and suddenly we were in a Ferrari jam: any color you like, so long as it’s red or yellow. They were driven by middle-aged men wearing cravats, all of whom had women beside them wearing Hermès scarves over their heads, along with sunglasses, which could be worn on the scarf or nose, according to taste. When we got to the hotel, which was almost as famous as the casino, the staff all knew the Twins. They didn’t try to distinguish between them, simply called them both
Mademoiselle Yip
.

My room was king-size with a view over the Mediterranean, which didn’t strike me as much different from the other seas I’d seen. I was wallowing in the king-size tub with faux-ancient tap fittings circa 1920 (you could turn them on and off with your big toe, but it was quite a stretch—the gel was out of this world: lime and thyme with a touch of primrose and great bubbles), when a deep gong announced someone at the door.

It was housekeeping with a complete casino-goer’s rig: tuxedo, black pants with shiny stripe down the outside leg, plum bow tie ready-tied (a handy hook-and-eye catch at the back for bumpkins like me), shiny black patent leather shoes, and dress shirt with frills down
the front and pearl buttons. It all fit perfectly. It was ten
P.M
., the hour when serious players start to make their way to the tables.

At the top of the steps to the famous casino a footman in livery bowed at Lilly, Polly, and me.

“The best of France is a museum,” Lilly whispered.

“The more you pay, the better behaved the exhibits,” Polly said.

“They think a vagina is masculine, and their patron saint is a transsexual roasted in a suit of armor,” Lilly said.

“No wonder they’re so screwed up,” Polly said.

I didn’t know much about gamblers, but I knew vice when I saw it. The Twins, both in black evening gowns with pearls, silver earrings, and icy diamonds that glittered, owned all the signs, including fetishism. These two wealthy heiresses who took limos and six-star hotels for granted swooned over the casino’s old brass and worn carpets, while a delicious tension came and went in their eyes, and they clasped and unclasped each other’s hands. “Every time is like the first,” Lilly said.

“You remember the first?” I asked. I imagined Maurice Chevalier introducing them to champagne right here in the velvet lobby.

“We won twenty dollars. Daddy wouldn’t let us bet more.”

“I remember the roulette wheel, how big and heavy and silent, and how everyone seemed to hold their breath.”

“One of the Beatles was here, I forget which one—he lost ten thousand dollars in a bet on black.”

I already knew that roulette was the star of the show, and we would proceed slowly toward the wheel by way of lesser pleasures. They bought a bunch of chips from the tux behind the grille, and we paused at the slot machines. These were not serious bets, but both women had serious faces. I understood: this was the reading of the entrails before the invasion of Troy. How well or badly they did would determine how recklessly or conservatively they played on the grown-up tables.

Lilly gasped, squealed, giggled: three oranges in a row. The machine coughed up chips as if it had taken an expectorant, but the
total win was hardly more than a hundred dollars. Polly didn’t fare so well, but she was happy enough with a couple of pineapples and a carrot, which delivered about five dollars. They gazed into each other’s eyes like newlyweds, then remembered me and held my hands on either side.

Let’s face it, every man likes to be king for a night. I was feeling like a million dollars myself when we finally took the steps up into the main hall. All the guys in tuxedos envied me. The more generous shared humorous grins, while the meaner spirits would have liked to spit on the carpet:
two
beautiful women, and I wasn’t even Italian! Hey, I was having a ball after all. These startlingly beautiful, rich, young(ish) women were spoiling me here. I was almost skipping while I hummed:

(Okay, so I am a tad bipolar, but there’s no need for anyone to get judgmental: what do you do for variety yourself, DFR?)

We spent an hour or so on blackjack, then finally took the short set of steps up to the big table. The Yip party will only play
French
roulette, messieurs—don’t even think of imposing
English
rules,
merci
all the same.

“Faites vos jeus,”
the croupier said, but like all pros, Lilly and Polly waited until a nanosecond before the ball fell into the last two rows of the wheel, which is to say just before the implacable Frenchman said
“Rien ne va plus.”
Lilly put a thousand dollars on red, which was an even-money bet. Polly also put five hundred on red, and a hundred dollars each on 9, 11, 13, and 15. Focus on the spinning wheel was total. The table was silent. A public hanging would not have produced greater concentration in a crowd. The ball stopped on red, which was good for Lilly, but—even better for Polly—it landed on 13. At 35 to 1 it was a serious win. Lilly and Polly exchanged glances. Did I detect a certain reticence in both sets of Chinese eyes?

“One and three add up to four,” Lilly said, “the number of death. I can’t believe you did that.”

“Me either,” Polly said, “I just wasn’t thinking.” She seemed seriously penitent, as if she had inadvertently made a pact with the devil.

“You knew what you were doing. You did it because of the fly.”

“You didn’t win with the fly.”

“No, but I almost did. You were scared shitless. You bet on four to get even.”

“It wasn’t four, it was thirteen.”

“Even worse. Even
gweilos
know it’s unlucky. And it adds up to four. You’ve ruined the evening.”

Polly made a face, but she was shaken. Lilly looked as if she were about to cry. “I brought the shrine,” Polly said, and put an arm on Lilly’s elbow.

“You did?”

Polly opened her handbag to show something to her sister.

Lilly collared one of the supervisors. “We want to go to the prayer room,” she told him.

“Certainly,” he said.

“Excuse us for a moment,” Polly said to me.

I watched them disappear into some private room of the casino—and never saw them again. I hung around for about an hour and a half, then grabbed one of the supervisors. When I mentioned the name Yip, he shrugged and allowed himself a slight smirk. There was no message waiting back in the hotel, and reception told me the sisters had not returned to their room.

Next morning a message was waiting for me on the hotel’s system. It gave the reservation number and other details of an e-ticket in my name: a single seat, first-class, Nice–Bangkok via Dubai.

Back in Bangkok, Vikorn’s mug was everywhere, just as he had promised: every third lamppost. His undisguised intention was to crowd out the competition, which was numerous. It’s one of our paradoxes: we are a shy people who love to run for public office. Men and women, who cannot hope to get votes other than from family members dress in their Sunday best—white military costumes for the boys, serious colors and high necklines for the girls—so they can share lampposts with the likes of Vikorn, whose life and times had begun to be discussed in a discreet way by the media. One brave journalist hinted that a Bangkok cop might not be the wisest choice for governor when you thought of how creative former holders of that office had been with those purchasing contracts for buses and police cars, not to mention the multibillion-baht extension to the Skytrain. I was not comfortable, either. The man who had controlled my destiny for more than a decade now loomed at me from every corner: master crook of the universe.