He laughed softly, conscious of the contradiction.
"You have a good hand, Shih Novacek?" Heng asked, smiling tightly at him, misunderstanding the cause of his laughter.
"I think so, Heng Chian-ye," he answered, leaning forward to place two of the Ministers facedown onto the discard pile. "I think so."
Two hours later he was sixty-one thousand down. He wasn't the only one down, of course. Chan had a deficit of nineteen thousand marked against his name. But Yi was eighteen thousand up, and Heng, who had won three of the last four games, was sixty-two thousand in credit.
It had gone perfectly. Exactly as he'd planned. He looked across. Heng Chian-ye was smiling broadly. In the last hour Heng had begun to drink quite heavily, as if to buoy up his nerves. He had drunk so much, in fact, that he had almost made a simple mistake, discarding the wrong card. An error that could have lost him everything. Only Yi's quick action had prevented it, an intercession Sergey had pretended not to see.
Now was the time. While Heng was at the height of his pride. But it must come from Heng. In such company as this it must seem that it was not he but Heng who raised the stakes a second time.
In the last hour a small crowd had gathered about the table, intrigued by the sight of a Hung Moo playing Chou in the Jade Peony. Sergey had noted how a ripple of satisfaction had gone through the watchers each time he had lost and had felt something harden deep inside him. Well, now he would show them.
He leaned back in his seat, pretending to stifle a yawn. "I'm tired," he said. "Too many late nights, I guess." He smiled across at Heng. "Maybe I should stop now, while I've any of my fortune left."
Heng glanced across at his friends, then looked back at him. "You mean to leave us soon, Shih Novacek?"
He straightened up and took a deep breath, as if trying to sober up. "Fairly soon."
"Your luck must change."
"Must it?" He laughed harshly, then seemed to relent. "Well, maybe . . ."
"In which case . . ." Heng looked about him, then leaned toward Sergey again. "Maybe you'd like the chance to win your money back, eh, my friend? One game. Just you and I. For sixty-one thousand."
Sergey looked down. Then, surprisingly, he shook his head. "I wouldn't hear of it. Even if 1 won, well, it would be as if we hadn't played." He looked up, meeting Heng's eyes. "No, my friend. There must be winners and losers in this world of ours, neh? If we are to play, let it be for—seventy-five thousand. That way I at least have a small chance of coming out ahead."
Heng smiled and his eyes traveled quickly to his friends again. There was an expectant hush now about the table.
"Make it a hundred."
He made a mime of considering the matter, then shrugged. "All right. So be it." He turned, summoning a waiter. "Bring me a coffee. Black, two sugars. I might need my wits about me this time."
It took him twenty minutes.
"It seems my luck has changed," he said, meeting Heng's eyes, seeing at once how angry the other man was with himself; for he had made it seem as though victory were the Han's, only to snatch it away at the last moment. "I was fortunate to draw that last card."
He saw what it cost Heng to keep back the words that almost came to his lips and knew he had him.
"Anyway," he added quickly, "I really should go now. I thank you for your hospitality, Heng Chian-ye. Settle with me when you will. You know where to find me." He pushed his chair back from the table and got to his feet.
"Wait!"
Heng was leaning forward, his hand extended toward Sergey.
"Surely you won't go now, Shih Novacek? As you yourself said, your luck has changed. Why, then, do you hurry from your fortune? Surely you aren't afraid, my friend?"
Sergey stared back at him. "Afraid?"
Heng leaned back, a faint smile coming to his lips. "Yes. Afraid." He hesitated. "I'll play you again, Shih Novacek. One final game. But this time we'll make the stakes worth playing for. Two-hundred thousand. No. Two-hundred-and-fifty thousand."
Sergey looked about him at the watching Han, seeing the tension in every face. This was no longer about the money; for Heng it was now a matter of pride—of face.
He sat, placing his hands firmly on the edge of the table, looking back at Heng, fixing him in his gaze, his manner suddenly different—harder, almost brutal in its challenge.
"All right. But not for two-fifty. Let's have no half measures between us, Heng Chian-ye. If I play you, I play you for a million. Understand me?"
There were low gasps from all around the table, then a furious murmur of voices. But Heng seemed unaware of the hubbub that surrounded him. He sat staring back fixedly at Sergey, his eyes wide as if in shock. His hands were trembling now, his brow was beaded with sweat.
"Well?"
Unable to find his voice, Heng nodded.
"Good." Sergey leaned forward and took the cards; then, surprising them all, he handed them to Yi. "You deal, Yi Shan-ch'i. I want no one to say that this was not a fair game."
He saw Heng's eyes widen at that. Saw realization dawn in Heng's frightened face.
So now you know.
He kept his face a mask, yet inwardly he was exulting. I've got you now, you bastard. Got you precisely where 1 wanted you. A million. Yes, it was more than Heng Chian-ye had. More than he could possibly borrow from his friends. He would have no alternative. If he lost he would have to go to his uncle.
HENG YU TURNED in his seat, dismissing the servant, then went outside into the anteroom. Heng Chian-ye knelt there, on the far side of the room, his head bowed low, his forehead touched almost to the tiled floor. He crossed the room, then stood over the young man, looking down at him. "What is it, Cousin?"
Heng Chian-ye stayed as he was. "Forgive me, Uncle Yu, but I have the most grave request to make of you."
Heng Yu, Minister of Transportation for Li Shai Tung and Head of the Heng Family, pulled at his beard, astonished. Chian-ye was fourteen years his junior, the youngest son of his uncle, Heng Chi-po, the former Minister, who had passed away eleven years earlier. Several times over the past five years he had had to bail the boy out when he was in trouble, but all that had changed six months ago, when Chian-ye had come into his inheritance. Now that he had his own income, Chian-ye had been a much rarer visitor at his "Uncle" Yu's house.
"A grave request? At this hour, Chian-ye? Do you know what time it is? Can it not wait until the morning?"
Heng Chian-ye made a small, miserable movement of his head. "I would not have come, Uncle, were it not a matter of the utmost urgency."
Heng Yu frowned, confused, his head still full of figures from the report he had been studying.
"What is it, Chian-ye? Is someone ill?"
But he knew, every as he said it, that it was not that. Fu Hen would have come with such news, not Chian-ye. Unless ... He felt himself go cold. "It isn't Fu Hen, is it?"
Heng Chian-ye raised his head the tiniest bit. "No, honored Uncle. No one is ill. I ..."
Heng Yu sighed with relief, then leaned closer. "Have you been drinking, Chian-ye?" *
"I—" Then, astonishingly, Chian-ye burst into tears. Chian-ye, who had never so much as expressed one word of remorse over his own wasteful lifestyle, in tears! Heng Yu looked down at where Chian-ye's hand gripped the hem of his pau and shook his head. His voice was suddenly forceful, the voice of a Minister commanding an underling.
"Heng Chian-ye! Remember who you are! Why, look at you! Crying like a four-year-old! Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"