Gabriel's Horn (7 page)

* * * *

“Did you have a nice time?” Garin asked.

With the heavy meal sitting in her stomach, topped by the rich dessert, Annja felt sleepy. She stared through the limousine’s tinted windows at the streets.

“I did,” Annja said.

“I thought perhaps we might go dancing,” Garin told her. “Unless you’re too tired.”

Annja considered that. She’d worked late on the movie set each night for the past few days and hadn’t really seen much of the local scene. Several of the movie crew had mentioned the clubs throughout the downtown area.

Dancing sounded fun, but it sounded almost
too
attractive.

Noticing her reticence, Garin said, “I know you have an eclectic taste in music.”

That was true. Annja liked what she liked, and the gamut ran from jazz to R&B to African tribal songs.

“I know a great club,” Garin said. “It’s not far from your hotel.”

Annja wavered. It had been a long time since she’d last been dancing. She wanted to relax and let go. The offer was extremely tempting.

“I’ve got an early day tomorrow,” she said.

“So you’ll miss out on some sleep. You’ve done that before.” Garin smiled. “Come on, Annja. A night of revelry and wild abandon. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

It did. It sounded like exactly what Annja needed.

“I’m going,” Garin said, “whether you go with me or not.”

Was that intended as a challenge or a threat? Annja wondered.

“I’m just saying,” Garin continued, “that you’re free to choose. My plans are already set. But I’d love the company and I think you’d have a good time.”

So he isn’t pressuring you, Annja thought. Before she could make up her mind, two cars roared into motion along the street.

Garin saw them, too. He yelled a warning to the driver as he pulled out a pistol and his cell phone.

The lead car slammed into the limousine hard enough to knock it from the street and across the sidewalk. The luxury car struck the corner of the building on the other side of a narrow alley, and the sound from the impact echoed inside the vehicle.

“Get someone up here!” Garin barked in German over the cell phone.

The seat belts had snapped tight and kept Annja from being thrown from her seat. Liquid fire traced her chest as the straps jerked the breath from her lungs.

Men boiled from the car that had rammed the front of the limousine. All of them carried assault weapons and pistols. They darted through the glaring headlights as they raced to surround the limousine. Annja saw at least two green-scimitar tattoos.

“Apparently your friends haven’t given up,” Garin growled.

“They’re not my friends,” Annja shot back. But she couldn’t imagine why Saladin’s men—if they were Saladin’s men—were so driven to get to her. More than that, though, she didn’t know how she and Garin were going to escape.

10

Quiet and composed, contemplative almost, Roux sat at the Texas Hold ‘Em table in one of the casino’s private rooms. He smoked a big cigar and watched the other players.

Six men and one woman still remained at the table. Only four of them, including Roux, were still in the hand currently being played out. The other three had thrown their hands onto the felt tabletop in disgust and studied their dwindling pile of chips. The game was all about skill and luck and husbanding the resources on the table.

Roux studied his own stacks of chips. They looked positively anemic.

The dealer politely called Roux’s name. At least, the man called the name Roux was currently employing. The identity was a conceit that could conceivably backfire on him. He tried his best to live in the world without a paper trail. However, in order to qualify for the Texas Hold ‘Em tournaments and other games he liked to play, he had to provide an identity that had some depth and texture. That was inherently dangerous.

“In or out, sir?” the dealer asked quietly. He was an older man with a jowly face and short-clipped hair. All night he’d acted as a seasoned veteran with cards.

Roux seethed inside. The cards had been so good to him at first, and now they ran cold. He didn’t know if he could trust what he was seeing, and he hated to take long shots. It was absurd and intolerable.

He kept his frustrations locked in, though. Even so much as a deep breath could have given away crucial knowledge about him to the other players. Those behaviors were called “tells” in the trade, and they were dangerously destructive to a player.

Declan Connelly was an Irish launderer worth millions. He sat solid and imposing on the other side of the table. As if he didn’t have a care in the world, he sipped his whiskey straight up. He could drink for hours—and had been—and still play as though he were stone-cold sober.

He’d also apparently brought the luck of the Irish with him. He’d hit on combinations during the night that had at first appeared all but impossible.

“C’mon, old man,” Connelly taunted. “You’re squeezing onto them chips like they’re the last ones you’re likely to see in your lifetime.” He snickered. “‘Course as old as you are, I guess maybe that could be the case.”

Roux ignored the insult and concentrated on his cards. He wasn’t going to let himself be baited.

Two queens—hearts and diamonds—had shown up in the flop, the spill of the initial three community cards across the felt. Roux felt certain Connelly was holding another queen in his two down cards because the river was widely split unless someone was holding a queen. There was nothing really to build on in the river and more than likely winning the hand would depend on pairing up cards. The third card was the jack of spades.

“We really need to get on with this,” Ling Po said. “I’d like to get in another hand before I go for the massage I’ve scheduled.” She was British and from old money. Besides her money, she also possessed her youth. She was in her twenties and was a beautiful porcelain doll of a woman.

“Now, honey,” the big Texas wildcatter, Roy Hudder, drawled, “you ought not rush a man at two things in this life. One’s romance and the other’s poker. Give the old-timer a little breathin’ room.”

Roux hated being called old-timer by the Texan. Hudder was in his sixties and dressed like a television cowboy in a rhinestone-studded suit. Eyes flicking over the cards showing on the table, Roux knew that he still had a chance to put his hand together.

He held the ten and the king of spades as his hole cards. Together with the jack of spades showing, he had a chance at a royal flush. Provided that the next two cards dealt were the right ones.

Roux knew that his luck hadn’t been running like that. It was just that he couldn’t let go of Connelly’s constant heckling.

“It takes nerve to play this game, boyo,” Connelly said. He bared his teeth in a feral grin. “Maybe you’ve already spent yours, eh?”

Roux called, matching the bets that had been made on the table.

The dealer burned a card and slid the turn card onto the felt. The ace of spades stood neatly beside the two queens and the jack.

Now a potential straight lay in waiting. Some of the betting picked up pace.

Roux reluctantly parted with his chips. One card in his favor didn’t mean much. And he hated bidding on luck, but he couldn’t walk away from the table.

“Growing a spine, old man?” Connelly taunted.

Roux ignored him.

The dealer dealt the river, the final community card that finished the seven cards the players had to make a hand from.

It was the queen of spades. Roux couldn’t believe his luck. He kept his face neutral and didn’t move.

Connelly’s left nostril twitched. It was a tell Roux had spotted hours ago. The man definitely had a queen among his hold cards. He now had four of a kind.

The bet went to Ling Po. She raised the stakes a little.

Roux pushed the rest of his chips into the pot. “I’m all in,” he said.

Ling Po tossed her cards onto the table and Hudder did, as well.

Connelly stared at Roux from across the table. “So now it’s just you and me, old man.” His grin grew wider. “You’re so desperate you’re trying to buy this pot, aren’t you?”

Roux said nothing.

“That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?” Connelly asked. “A big bluff at the end to show everybody you’re not afraid to lose your money.”

Roux returned the man’s gaze without comment.

Connelly cursed. “Bit of theatrical nonsense is what it is.” He tapped the table with a forefinger. “For you to beat me, you’d have to have the ten and king of spades. But you don’t have them, do you?”

“The bet is to you, Mr. Connelly,” the dealer informed the big Irishman politely.

With an impatient wave, Connelly quieted the dealer. “You’re just smoke and mirrors, old man. I still remember that bluff you tried to run when we opened this game.”

Roux had done that purposefully because the pot had been small enough that getting busted running a bluff wouldn’t cost much. And he’d gotten caught doing it, as he had intended.

“I hate bluffers,” Connelly said. “Either you have the cards you need to win, or you need to go home. This game’s about luck and skill, not about drama.”

“Actually,” Ling Po said, “I prefer a man who knows how to make a production of things. Otherwise this game becomes tedious. Except for the winning and losing, of course.” She folded her arms on the table and leaned forward. “That’s what we’re all here for, right, Irish? The winning and losing? So are you going to talk and try to figure out if our friend is bluffing, or are you going to play cards?”

The red in Connelly’s face deepened.

Roux knew the woman’s words had seared Connelly, and they had sealed the deal. Although Roux had fewer chips, by going all in he’d shoved enough into the pot that losing a matching amount would seriously impact Connelly’s game. Roux was counting on the hand playing out and doing that very thing.

“You don’t have it,” Connelly said.

Roux kept silent as the Sphinx. Anything he said would potentially tell Connelly something.

“Mr. Connelly,” the dealer said quietly.

Like an impatient child, Connelly blew out his breath. It was the most out of control Roux had seen the man all evening. He also knew he’d never have a better chance to break Connelly’s confidence.

“You don’t have it,” Connelly repeated. Angrily, he pushed in stacks of chips to match Roux’s wager. As if delivering the death stroke, the Irishman flipped over his hole cards and exposed the queen of clubs. “I’ve got four ladies, boyo. Unless you can come up with three kings or three aces in those two hole cards, you’re beaten.”

“I can’t do that, I’m afraid.” Without fanfare, Roux flipped his cards over to reveal his royal flush.

Connelly screamed a curse and pushed back from the table.

“We have a scheduled break at this point,” the dealer said smoothly.

Roux got up from the table and walked out into the main casino.

Standing on the second-floor landing overlooking the main pit, Roux took in a deep breath and let it out. There wasn’t anything that felt as good as victory. If he ever lost that feeling, if he ever grew jaded with it, he honestly didn’t know what he would do with himself. Living a long life could be incredibly boring and repetitious.

Especially in modern times.

In the past, when the world had been wide open and a man had been free to fight wars and love women indiscriminately, when there had been so many things to discover, Roux had felt better about his long years.

He had dined with kings, helped them slay their enemies and aided them in seizing their crowns. He’d raised armies and fought tremendous battles. Every day, those stakes had been for his life or the lives of those around him.

Now, though, he couldn’t do those things. Warmongers tended to draw too much attention and the enmity of the world. World conquerors, he feared, were a thing of the past when all it took was one man with a satellite and a long-range missile to put that would-be world conqueror in the grave.

The times were so different these days, and he had started to fear sometimes that if he lived too much longer he wouldn’t be able to blend in.

Thankfully he had gambling, though the money was never an issue. He had more than he could ever spend in his long life, and there was more to be had if he needed it.

One of the reasons he loved Annja Creed as he did was that she had that fire in her that he could barely remember. Still, she had Joan’s sword, and that thing had never proved helpful in living a long life.

He took out a hand-rolled cigar. It was a blend that he specially ordered. Cigars were one thing he’d never grown bored with.

Action was heating up at a craps table. Whoever was rolling the bones had evidently been inordinately lucky. The crowd was two and three deep, all of them cheering the shooter on as she threw the dice again. Another cheer rose.

Despite the movement going on around him and the steady current of conversations, Roux heard the light tread and sensed the movement behind him. He took another puff off the cigar and didn’t react.

“They’re happy.”

“Yes,” Roux agreed, “they are.”

Ling Po stepped to his side and joined him at the railing above the pit. “You knew I was there.”

Roux glanced at her. “Yes.”

“Yet you ignored me.”

“Trust me, dear girl, you’re not easy to ignore.”

“Well, then, why don’t you pay more attention to me?”

11

Roux took in Ling Po’s slender figure. It was obvious from the graceful way she moved that she paid attention to her physical health and was athletically inclined. The black pants, black jacket and white blouse almost looked like a business suit, but the tailor had made certain the material didn’t hide the curves beneath. There was a generous expanse of cleavage.

“How did you know I was there?” Ling Po’s brows knitted, and the effort almost made her look like a little girl.

“ESP?” Roux suggested.

Ling Po smiled. “No, I don’t think so.” She paused. “You’re a very interesting man.”

“I am,” he agreed, and he silently thanked the gods that gambling wasn’t the only interest left to him. His infatuation with young women, especially those who felt they had to compete with him on some level, was huge.