My mood lifted a little. “That, and there’s too many cameras here. Approximately one every three feet, not counting each gaming table.”
“Don’t worry, man. We’re just here to play.” Vassily grinned, flashing teeth, and for a moment, the old sly light came back to his eyes. “It’s Lev’s chips, anyway.”
It was technically Nic’s, but who knew? The gracious concierge who offered to take our luggage, the gaming host who greeted us at the door, the cage cashiers—everyone there had a vested interest in us changing and spending their money. They didn’t give a shit where it came from, as long as we kept playing and tipping.
We emerged into the orange-lit parlor at the end of the corridor and immediately beheld the well-dressed Laguetta entourage, who had taken the tables and sofas that commanded the best view of the door. Eight men, three of them already tipsily playing roulette with whoops and laughter. Only one man was under forty. When they saw our group enter, the seated men rose and turned to face us.
“Well, look who it is! Old Sly himself, and our young Mister Lovenko. Welcome back to the free world, Vassily.” George Laguetta was an old grizzled lion of a man with a slow sloping grin, and he pronounced Vassily’s name like “Vazli.” He held out a ringed hand as we closed in: Lev shook first, and then Vassily. Vanya hung slightly back, obviously keen for attention, but only getting it after the Avtoritet and the nominated heir of the leadership had their turn. I watched wryly from the back, hanging behind with Mikhail. We were the bulldog and the doberman, nameless unless introduced.
There was no house security was in here, just me, Mikhail, and George’s bodyguards. The youngest man had a curly mullet and was cut and tanned like a competitive bodybuilder, and he was definitely on duty. The other soldier was a sallow, black-eyed wiseguy with a heavy five-o’clock shadow and a sagging Saturnine face. His smiles were dark and fleeting, placidly masking great attentiveness. I marked him as a good shot and a fast draw. He wore an open suit jacket that was a size too large, the lining weighed down with spare clips of ammo.
Besides us and Georgie’s crew, the salon had other guests. A tired-looking Chinese man walked back and forth between tables eight and six, chain-smoking cigarettes from a red pack as he checked his bets on baccarat. A group of young women decked out in Gucci laughed and talked around one of the rear blackjack tables.
“…no, I’m telling you. Alexi back there kicks my ass at poker.” I tuned back to the assembled when I heard my name, just in time to see Laguetta and his friends look over at me and Crina interestedly. “And he’s totally playing baccarat tonight. I bet he’ll be up ten thousand before the first hour’s out.”
I arched an eyebrow.
“Yeah, you got the eyes for poker. Shark eyes.” George grinned broadly. “What d’ya think, Alexi? Reckon you can up Vassily here by ten grand?”
Everyone from the Organizatsiya laughed. Vassily was the best gambler out of the entire Yaroshenko crew, and they knew it. Beside me, Crina flashed an exaggerated cat’s smile. I almost turned him down, demurred, and bought into the joke at my expense, but I spotted something bright and real in Vassily’s eyes. His fingers moved by his thigh in a wave pattern. With a shock of pleasure, I recognized the old signal. Vassily wasn’t making fun: he was giving me an in. It was as good as an apology, and I smiled as I was meant to. “Eleven thousand.”
“Ohoh ohhh!” Laguetta clapped Vassily on the arm. “That sounds like a challenge to me. I’ll wager on it.”
“You’re on.” Vassily’s face suffused with a wicked smile.
Mikhail and Vanya stirred restlessly at this sudden re-inclusion. They didn’t look pleased as I left Crina and took my place at Vassily’s right side, where I hardly came up to his jawline. He clapped me on the shoulder, and we got started on the game.
Four hours later, my sinuses were gummy with perfume and cigarette smoke, but I was up ten thousand and was playing at Laguetta’s table, with Lev on my left and the hawkeyed Laguetta bodyguard on my right. His name had turned out to be Lazarus, and he was wholly relatable—quiet, serious, and cunning, if not book-smart. Everyone else but the two of us was heading towards being cheerfully drunk by the time I called my last bet. Nursing a cup of coffee and a stack of chips, I found that for once in my life, I didn’t feel like a complete pariah as the dealer shuffled and then laid out his own hand face-down on the table. “Place your bets, gentlemen.”
Vassily came up behind me, and I caught the faint smell of whiskey and lime from over my shoulder. Lev was leading the bet, and regarded the others demurely as he pushed forward two five-thousand-dollar chips. My mouth twitched to one side, and I counted three of the heavy chips from my own stack, nudging them across. Vassily whistled.
“Bozhe mir. They don’t call you Molotchik for nothing, do they?” Lev remarked.
“Haha, I’ll match it.” Vanya, sweating profusely, slapped down the same amount at the other end of the table. “Bring it on.”
If I could appreciate any game in the world, it was the elegant simplicity and nearly-even odds of baccarat. If you had an eye for patterns and could card count, it was a little more than even odds. The dealer dealt us our cards while the others watched and then turned out his own onto the table. A two and a five.
“Oh, here we go.” Vassily took a drink. “Did you just throw fifteen grand in the hole, Lexi?”
“Did we?” Crina leaned in over my shoulder as I thumbed back the very corners of my hand. When she saw the same thing I did, she put her hand to her mouth and then waved it like she was fanning herself and had a draft of champagne from her flute as laughter bubbled up around her.
Lev won with his hand, to the cheers of the table. I was next and turned both cards over neatly, pushing them toward the dealer. “Three and seven. Perfect hand.”
George thumped the table, and Vassily whooped behind me, cheering as I collected my new chips and sat back in my chair. It put me sixteen grand up from the starting bet. Lazarus laughed unhappily when he flipped his cards and turned up six, while Vanya pushed his losing hand—double twos—towards the dealer and left in disgust as he scraped the lost chips into the dealer’s stack.
“With that streak, you should consider going all in.” Lev looked at me sidelong, heavy-lidded and sly.
“Really, Avtoritet. We have all night to lose,” I replied.
“You some kind of pussy, Jew boy?” Lazarus said on the other side.
Like smoke, my tentative regard for him vanished. I felt my face drain of all expression and saw the light fade in the other man’s black eyes, an echo of my own deepening disregard. Neither of us were drunk. Both of us were proud, blooded predators.
“Now now,” Lev chided. “No hard feelings, Mr. Valenti.”
Something ghosted past me, creeping through my suit to the skin, but the wisp of energy bypassed me and engulfed Lazarus in a gentle, suggestive embrace. He blinked.
“Yeah, no hard feelings. I always was a shitty loser.” He barked a laugh and extended a hand.
I uncomfortably accepted, and we shook, glove to glove. Lev had a sip of his Cognac like nothing had happened, and I remembered Jana’s fear, her furtiveness. She had a right to be scared. Lev’s magic terrified me in a way Carmine’s could not. Carmine was fire and brimstone: Lev was poison gas crawling through cracks in the wall. A man with sufficient will and ambition could hold the world to ransom with that power. Maybe he was already planning for it. The back of my neck crawled.
“…this stuff’s so pure you won’t even know it topped you…” The snatch of conversation drifted through the room as the lull fell. I stiffened and broke off the handshake, turning while the dealer called for the next round. Mikhail was chopping lines of coke on the low drinks table in front of him.