Crown Jewel

Book 2: Simon Riske

by Christopher Reich

Genres: Crime Fiction; Military Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

International spy Simon Riske returns in New York Times bestselling author Christopher Reich's new high-stakes thriller.

Monte Carlo's most lavish casinos have become the targets of an efficient, brutal, and highly successful group of criminal gamblers; a casino dealer has been beaten to death; a German heiress's son has been kidnapped. Who better to connect the crimes, and foil the brilliant plot, than Simon Riske, freelance industrial spy? Riske — part Bond, and part Reacher — knows the area well: it's where as a young man he himself was a thrill-seeking thief, robbing armored trucks through daring car chases, until he was double-crossed, served his time, and graduated as an investment genius from the Sorbonne. Now Riske is a man who solves problems, the bigger and the "riskier" the better.

From the baccarat tables of the finest casinos to the yachts in the marina, to the private jet company that somehow ties these criminal enterprises together, Simon Riske will do what he does best: get in over his head, throw himself into danger, and find some way to out-think and out-maneuver villains of every stripe. One of the most enjoyable, clever, and entertaining new series to come along in years, this sequel to The Take gives readers what they desire most: a hero we can root for, locales we wish were in, and a plot that never lets up.

Release date: March 26, 2019

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Print pages: 384

Sample

Chapter 1

Lyceum Alpinum Zuoz
Engadine, Switzerland

The men were watching again.

There were two of them, up by the monastery on the hill overlooking the athletic field. They stayed in the shadows of the gallery, popping out to take a photograph, then ducking back again. The boy could tell they thought he hadn’t spotted them.

But he had.

He always did.

“Look out!” someone shouted. “Robby! Tackle him!”

Robby returned his attention to the scrimmage in time to see the scrum half—it was Karl Marshal, the best player on the team—lower his shoulder and plow into him. Robby’s feet left the ground and he landed flat on his back, his wind knocked out of him, sure he’d never take a breath again. The other players ran past, laughing.

“Might as well make a mud castle while you’re down there.”

“Only one you’ll ever have.”

He heard a whistle. Karl Marshal had scored a try.

Robby climbed to his feet and wiped the dirt from his face. When he’d regained his breath, he set off down the field, limping at first, then shaking it off and running as fast as he could. He was small for a sixth former and thin, with pale skin, a mop of curly blond hair, and questioning blue eyes. His size didn’t bother him. His father was tall. One day he’d grow. He might not be as big as the others yet, or as strong, but he was no quitter. One of his teachers had remarked upon his determination and called him “Das Krokodil.” For a few days, the nickname stuck. He liked being called “Krok.” A week later, everyone had forgotten it.

He caught up to the game in time to run into a ruck. He got knocked down two more times, but he caught a pass and almost tackled Karl Marshal. Robby was practical. He knew it would be foolish to expect anything more. Finally, the whistle blew. The scrimmage ended.

Walking back to the athletic center, he glanced at the monastery. It was nearly dusk, the gallery cloaked in shadow. The men were nowhere to be seen. Robby wasn’t concerned one way or the other. People had been watching him his entire life. The best thing to do was simply to ignore them.

It wasn’t until later that night as he got ready for bed that he thought about the two men again. He realized that this was the fourth time in the past week or so that he’d seen them. One had a large nose that looked like an eagle’s beak and black hair. The other was bald and never took his hands out of his pockets. Robby had exceptional vision. It ran in the family. It bothered him that they stayed so far away. Farther than the distance prescribed by the school for journalists and photographers. This was odd, Robby concluded, in his methodical manner. “Rum,” Mr. Bradshaw-Mack, his English teacher, would say. “Very rum, indeed.”

Robby went to the window and peered outside. Down the hill, the lights from the village of Zuoz glowed warmly, a spot illuminating the tall, rectangular spire of the Protestant church. A crescent moon sat low in the sky and he could just make out the silhouette of the jagged peaks all around. The Piz Blaisun, the Cresta Mora, and, further west, near St. Moritz, the Corvatsch.

He closed the window, secured the lock, then crawled into bed. His roommate, Alain, was reading an Astérix comic book his father had sent him from Paris. Robby wished he had a father to send him comics, or, preferably, a book about rugby, which was his favorite sport. It was hard to be too sad, though, because he’d never really known his dad, and besides, he had a wonderful mother.

Robby picked up his phone and considered calling her. The more he thought about the watchers, the more they bothered him. He refused to use the word “scared,” because people like Robby were not allowed to be scared. It was a question of setting the right example. He heard Alain snore and decided against calling. Good manners were part of that example, too.

Robby turned out the light and laid his head on the pillow. There was math first period tomorrow, then history, and rugby again after school. As he drifted off to sleep, his eyes opened for a second, even less, and he thought he saw a shadow in the window. The watchers. Maybe it was just a dream or a figment of his imagination. Either way, the image didn’t register. He turned over and fell into a deep slumber.

It had been a long day and a twelve-year-old boy got very tired.

Chapter 2

Les Ambassadeurs
London, England

Simon Riske did not like losing money.

Seated at the center of a card table in the high rollers’ room at Les Ambassadeurs, London’s most exclusive gaming establishment, he peeked at his cards, then lifted his eyes to the dwindling stacks of chips before him. He wondered how much longer his bad luck could continue.

“Well,” said Lucy Brown, seated at his shoulder so she could view his cards. “What do we do?”

“What do you think?”

“Both cards are different.”

“So they are.”

“Neither match the cards in front of the dealer.”

“And so?”

Lucy screwed up her face and Simon allowed her a moment to figure things out.

It wasn’t normal for players to discuss their hands, especially when large sums of money were at stake. But Lucy was young and blond and pretty, and upon sitting down, Simon had explained to all present that he would be teaching her a thing or two about poker. The other players—all male—had taken a peek (some discreet, some not so) at Lucy’s black dress, her figure, and her blue eyes. If anyone had voiced an objection, Simon hadn’t heard it.

“Fold?” said Lucy.

“Fold,” he said, sliding his cards to the center of the table.

“Darn,” said Lucy.

Simon had a more colorful word in mind. Instead, he offered his best “not to worry” smile and signaled for a drink: a Fanta for Lucy and a grapefruit and soda for himself. Alcohol and gambling were as combustible as matches and gasoline.

It was an ordinary evening at Les A (as the club was known to habitués). Downstairs, a lively crowd milled about the gaming tables, the atmosphere one of a posh Georgian country house. The play was spread evenly among roulette, blackjack, and baccarat. Slot machines were the province of the lower classes and strictly verboten.

But the real action took place in the private rooms on the second floor.

It had been Simon’s plan to observe from afar while explaining the rules of the game to Lucy. The idea vanished approximately five seconds after he witnessed a player win a five-thousand-pound pot on a weak hand. Being a modest and unassuming sort, Simon had reasoned that he could do better. That was two hours and twenty thousand pounds ago.

“Another hand,” said Lucy, cheerily. “Our luck’s bound to change.”

Simon looked at her expectant gaze, her adventurous posture. Lucy was twenty-three and gifted with what some might, in the polite confines of Les Ambassadeurs, call a curvy figure. Like most women her age, she liked showing off her assets. Simon’s relationship with her was purely platonic, somewhere between father and friend. It was nebulous territory. In fact, he was her employer. Lucy worked as an apprentice in his automotive repair shop, where she was learning to restore vintage Italian sports cars, primarily Ferraris, with a Lamborghini thrown in here and there. In a sense, she was his own restoration project. But that was another story.

As for himself, Simon was dressed in a black suit and white open-collar shirt, both fresh from the cleaner. His nails were neatly trimmed and he’d spent ten minutes scrubbing them with steel wool to clean the grease from beneath them. He collected cuff links, and tonight, for luck, he’d chosen his favorites, a pair he’d been given by MI5, the British security service, as a thank-you for a job undertaken on its behalf a year earlier. His eye fell on his puny stack of chips and he scowled. So much for talismans. His hair was in the sleekest order, cut short so in need of a brush, never a comb, which was the polite way to say that it was receding faster than the Greenland ice shelf. Unlike the man a few places to his left—a wan unsavory sort who’d taken too much of Simon’s money—he’d shaved and treated himself to a splash of Acqua di Parma. His bespoke lace-ups were polished, and only his beryl-green eyes shone brighter.

But all his finery couldn’t disguise his true nature. Simon had spent too much time on the wrong side of the tracks to ever be a real gentleman. Some things you could never wash from beneath your nails.

“Well?” Lucy demanded, her lip thrust out petulantly.

“That’s plenty for tonight,” said Simon. “We’ve done enough damage.”

“But you still have some chips.”

“The idea is to leave with a few in your pocket,” he said. “More rather than less.”

Lucy appeared crestfallen.

“There’s just enough to buy us a fancy dinner,” he continued. “How about the Ivy?”

“That’s for old people.”

“It’s the princes’ favorite place.”

“Exactly.”

Simon considered this, realizing that “old” for Lucy meant anyone over twenty-five. “How about fish-and-chips at the pub round the corner?”

“I’m not hungry.” Lucy crossed her arms and pouted. It was an inviting pout and Simon felt sorry for her boyfriend.

“One last hand,” he said. “But I mean it.”

Lucy brightened, clutching his arm and scooting closer. “We’re going to win. I know it!” She kissed his cheek and Simon said that was close enough and scooted her back a few inches.

It was then that the tenor of the evening took a dramatic turn.

Simon ponied up his chips. The cards were dealt. Simon’s were as miserable as usual. The players called and raised and called again. The dealer tossed out the last cards.

And that was when Simon saw it again. A flick of the wrist. A rustle of the sleeve. A flash of white. The player two seats to his left—the unkempt man who’d been winning the entire evening—was cheating. Twice now—Simon had caught it. The man was good, a professional, or “sharp,” in the parlance, but Simon knew a thing or two about cards himself, and about unfair advantages.

“What is it?” Lucy nudged him, sensing something amiss.

“Nothing.”

Lucy held his gaze and he gave her the subtlest of looks—eyes harder, jaw steeled—and she looked away, knowing better than to ask any questions. If he ever had a daughter, he hoped she’d turn out something like Lucy, though he’d never in his life allow her to go out dressed as she was.

Simon signaled to the server. “Jack Daniel’s,” he said. “Straightaway.”

Lucy tugged at his sleeve. “You said only a fool drinks while gambling.”

“Did I?”

Lucy nodded urgently.

“That was before we lost your annual salary.”

“Maybe we should go.”

“Nonsense,” he said. “Not when we’re just starting to have fun.” He turned to the dealer. “Five thousand pounds…no, make it ten.”

The dealer shot a discreet glance at Ronnie, the casino boss, who stood at the door. Ronnie was a friend. He and Simon played on the same rugby team on Saturdays during the fall. He was forty, tall, and dapper in a white dinner jacket, red carnation in his lapel. A black Clark Gable with the same gambler’s mustache and rakish air. Ronnie nodded, shooting Simon a cautionary look, then left the room.

Ten stacks of chips came Simon’s way.

The server arrived with his cocktail. Simon stole it off the tray and downed it. “Another,” he said, returning the empty to the tray, flipping the server a fifty-pound chip for good measure. “And one for my friend, too.”

Lucy took a judicious step away from Simon. She’d worked with him for three years. She knew his moods. She knew when a bomb was about to go off.

Simon noted the cheat shift in his chair, the corners of his mouth lift in anticipatory delight.

The dealer called for bets. Simon ponied up five hundred pounds, the minimum.

There were two ways this could go. He could wait and take matters into his own hands, or he could act now, expose the cheat, and let Ronnie sort things out.

Simon preferred the first choice. A confrontation in the alley followed by a full and frank exchange of views. He would take back his money and the cheat would pick himself up off the ground and get to the hospital to look after his missing teeth and broken bones.

But, of course, there was Lucy to think of.

The game progressed. For once, Simon had a decent hand. He called and raised and called and raised.

The dealer turned over the last card, known as “the river.” An eight of spades.

Simon was holding two kings and an eight of hearts. The eight of spades gave him two pair. His best hand all evening.

The room went quiet, the only noise the clack clack clack of the roulette ball skipping across the wheel in the outer room.

The player next to Simon tossed in his cards. “I’m out.”

“Raise two thousand pounds,” said Simon.

The man next to him tossed in his cards. “Out.”

“Call,” said the cheat, picking up four blue chips and tossing them into the pot.

It was the moment of truth.

“Two pair,” announced Simon. “Kings and eights.”

Simon’s eyes went to the cheat, who coolly deflected the gaze. To his credit, the man didn’t flinch. One hand went to his kingdom of chips, fingers racing between spires, touching each in turn. It was a distraction, a motion to lure the eye. He lifted the cards off the table. Fanned them deftly. And in the downward motion he made the switch. A flick of the wrist. A rustling of the cuff. A flash of white, though this time his motion was so expert that even Simon, eyes trained on him, did not catch it.

“Full house,” the cheat announced, spreading his cards on the table.

Shouts went up. Exhortations of amazement and disbelief.

“Damn,” said the player to Simon’s right. The other players simply shook their heads.

And as the cheat extended his hands for the pot, Simon lashed out and grabbed one wrist, closing his fingers around it in a vice. Their eyes met. Instead of protesting, of calling out Simon, the man stood, wrenching his hand free, the violent motion knocking over his chair. He stumbled backward, head turned, plotting a way out.

Simon was up, too, and a half step behind. A dozen people ringed the table. All remained glued to the spot, their expressions as immobile as their feet. The cheat shoved the man nearest him hard enough to topple him into the woman behind him. The two fell unceremoniously to the floor. He dashed through the gap between them and out the door, heading toward the staircase that descended to the main floor. Simon gave chase, leaping over the two, pausing at the top of the stairs before vaulting the balustrade and landing in the center of the blackjack table eight feet below. He jumped to the floor, cutting off the cheat’s path. Seeing his escape ruined, the man slowed. He started left, then went right, then stopped altogether.

Simon crashed into him before the man could make it a step. Simon led with his shoulder, aiming for the sternum but striking the man’s collarbone, feeling it crack as they hit the floor. The man grunted, his face inches from Simon’s, and Simon saw that he had bad teeth and worse dental work, and his breath reeked of the brandy Alexanders he’d been drinking all night.

But if Simon expected him to give up, he was mistaken. A knee to the groin signaled his resistance, followed by a head butt glancing off the bridge of Simon’s nose. Stunned, breathless, and momentarily paralyzed, Simon was unable to stop the man from climbing to his feet. In desperation, Simon threw out a hand and grasped hold of his ankle. Unfortunately, it was the wrong ankle and belonged to a horrified Asian woman. The woman screamed and her cry roused Simon. He was on his feet as the cheat navigated his way through the crowd of gamblers.

By now security had mobilized in response to the incident. Two men in maroon jackets blocked the only path out of the casino. The cheat spun and pointed at Simon. “It’s him,” he said in accented English whose origin Simon would only place later.

The guards hesitated long enough for the cheat to lash out with a cosh, striking the first man squarely on the jaw, dropping him, before backhanding the second, the cosh caroming off his temple. His route to the entrance clear, the cheat bolted. He grabbed at the door handle, pulling it toward him, unaware that Simon was close behind. In England, exit doors pivot outward. The door didn’t budge. At that moment, Simon had him. He grabbed the collar of his jacket and yanked the man backward. Ready for a blow, he ducked as the cosh cut a path above his head, noting that a nail extended from the business end of the leather cudgel. Simon thrust an open palm upward, landing it on the man’s jaw, snapping his head backward. His other hand latched on to the man’s wrist. He dropped to a knee, wrenching the wrist and the arm attached to it, with all his might. There was a pop—loud as a champagne cork—as the shoulder dislocated. The man cried out. The cosh dropped into Simon’s hand and he spun it so the nail was facing outward. It was a killing weapon.

“No!” a man shouted. “Simon, stop!” It was Ronnie, the casino boss, emerging from his private office across the floor, barreling toward him.

Simon didn’t hear him, or didn’t want to. He wanted to punish the man, to hurt him badly. Turning, he lashed out toward the cheat’s undefended face.

A woman screamed. It was Lucy. He saw her from the corner of his eye.

The nail stopped a millimeter from the man’s eye.

“You got lucky,” said Simon, throwing the man against the wall. “Say thank you to the lady.”

The cheat said nothing. His silence riled Simon all over again and he hit the man in the stomach. “I won’t ask again.”

The man fought for his breath, his eyes cursing Simon. His gaze shifted, focusing on something…or someone.

Simon began to turn as a fist slammed into his kidney. It was a professional punch, knuckles first, delivered with force and accuracy. A second punch followed to the opposite side, harder still.

Simon bent double at the waist, tears fouling his vision. That was that. He was officially out of the game. TKO.

He dropped to one knee, aware of a commotion around him—Ronnie going after the cheat and his secret accomplice—but not much else. He tried not to move, the pain exquisite and relentless. He heard Lucy shout, “Stop him! Don’t let him leave! Come back, you fucking thief!”

  

They left Les Ambassadeurs an hour later. Simon walked out the front door, pushing it, not pulling, under his own power. His car was brought up and he held the door for Lucy, declining her offer to drive. Once behind the wheel, he made a circuit of Sloane Square and headed east toward Lower Grosvenor Place.

“You’re not taking me home,” said Lucy. “Not after all that.”

Simon kept his eyes on the road. He was in no mood to take orders. His side ached like hell. He’d washed up and used the men’s room. As expected, there was blood in his urine. It wasn’t the first time. If it persisted, he’d see a doctor. His head throbbed and there was a noticeable knot above the bridge of his nose. Hoping to keep it from swelling, he’d pressed an old fifty-p coin against it for a minute, then given up. Que será, será. But it was his pride that hurt worst of all. He’d brought the operations of London’s best gaming house to a halt only to allow the cheats who’d robbed him of twenty thousand pounds to escape. The loss was hypothetical. The cheats hadn’t been able to pocket their ill-gotten gains. Ronnie had returned his original stake. Somehow, the thought did little to console him.

“I’m too excited to sleep,” Lucy went on. “We absolutely must do something. Where shall we go?”

“It’s eleven o’clock,” said Simon. “You’re twenty-three years old. You have work tomorrow. If I hear you set foot outside your door before six a.m. tomorrow, you can find yourself another job.”

Lucy looked at him as if he’d slapped her. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“You have no right,” she exclaimed. “I can do whatever I choose.”

“Feel free.”

Simon continued across town, thankful that traffic was only bad, not miserable. All the way Lucy carped and complained, but he said nothing more until they arrived at her flat. “Here we are. Go upstairs. Get into bed and go to sleep. It’s been enough of a night for both of us.”

Lucy unclasped her safety belt. She motioned as if she was going to start up again, then thought better of it. “Not fair,” she said, then climbed out of the car.

To her credit, she did not slam the door.

Maybe she was finally growing up.

Simon waited until she was inside and had disappeared into the vestibule before slipping the car into first and making a U-turn. His home and business lay in southwest London, a stone’s throw from Wimbledon. It was a thirty-minute drive in the best of conditions. Tonight, it would be double that. But traffic didn’t play into Simon’s thinking. Not a whit.

He was too jacked up to go home. Nothing revved his juices more than a little physical violence, even if he had been on the losing end of it. All measure of good sense had gone out the window the moment he’d given chase to the cheat. At that instant, his world had boiled down to him versus the bad guy, good versus evil, though it was a question of his ego run riot, not anything so grandiose as maintaining the universe’s order. Mess with me and you’re going to pay. It was as simple as that. It was not a motto by which to live any kind of successful life. But at that moment, Simon hadn’t cared about mottoes, or, to tell the truth, anything, except catching the thief and inflicting punishment upon him.

Two hours later, those same wild and ungoverned impulses raced through his blood. If he’d been hard on Lucy, it was because he feared she shared his affinity for mayhem. He couldn’t control himself, but he could control her. He was a hypocrite. So what?

Simon pointed the car north toward Covent and the City. He rolled down the window, enjoying the warm, fetid air, the scent of the River Thames hidden somewhere inside the exhaust and grit of central London. He was navigating to that part of the map where borders lay undefined and lands undiscovered, to the dangerous and beckoning area labeled “Where Dragons Lie.”

Simon Riske headed into the night.

Chapter 3

Eight hundred miles to the south, on the rocky shoreline of a postage stamp–size country, in a casino far larger and far more famous than Les Ambassadeurs, a team of twelve professional criminals entered the Casino de Monte-Carlo between the hours of nine and ten p.m. Nine were men and three women, at least to look at.

Every casino in the world deployed facial-recognition software. In cases of suspected cheating, customers’ faces were compared against photographs contained in criminal databases, both national and international. Prior to arrival, the team members had spent hours altering their appearances. They employed the finest in makeup and disguises: hairpieces, facial prostheses, false mustaches and beards, contact lenses, dental implants. A professional makeup artist with twenty years’ experience in the motion picture industry oversaw their transformation. It was not the team’s first visit.

At ten p.m., after the last of the team had entered, each member moved to a predetermined workstation in the high rollers’ rooms on the casino’s second floor, where the game of baccarat was played. Each player began with a bankroll of ten thousand euros. They played quietly and conservatively. They did not drink. They did not seek the attention of the beautiful women drifting in and out of the rooms. They did not on any occasion speak to the dealer. And never ever did they place wild or outlandish wagers. Nothing was remarkable about the players except one thing: they won.

And they won.

And they won.

By two a.m., the last member of the team had departed the premises. Once outside, members dispersed according to plan after discreetly turning over their winnings. Their combined initial stake of one-hundred-twenty-thousand euros had grown to four million.

A little after two, a thirteenth man entered the casino. His name was Ratka. Just Ratka. This was not his real name. He had taken it from a false passport he had used many years ago. In fact, the passport was so poor in quality it had attracted the attention of a border agent in Geneva, Switzerland. At the time, Ratka had just escaped from a prison in Orbe, in the mountains east of the city. During his flight, he had killed a guard and blinded another with his own fingers. He was arrested on the spot and returned to another, more secure facility. He escaped again but took on the name inscribed in that passport. Sometimes it was necessary to remember a mistake in order to prevent repeating it.

Ratka was forty-nine years old. He stood an inch over six feet tall. His hair was black, abundant, and swept off his forehead to reveal a violent widow’s peak. His face was doughy and pale, cleaved in two by a large crooked nose very much like a hawk’s beak. His eyes were narrow and deep set and so brown as to be black. He wore a blazer and an open-collar shirt left open to display a gold cross nestled in his chest hair. He was not an attractive man, but he radiated a dark energy.

Like the other members of the team, Ratka climbed the stairs to the second floor and made his way to the salle de jeux. He had not come to gamble, or at least not to win. One of the team had claimed that a dealer had recognized him and possibly another member. The dealer was a longtime casino employee, but not a friend of Tintin, who was in their pocket. Ratka needed to see the man to decide on a course of action. So close to the end—in spitting distance of more money than he had ever imagined possible—he could not allow anything or anyone to jeopardize their hard work.

Ratka found a seat at the dealer’s table. He ponied up a thousand euros and played a few hands. He won. He lost. He was as helpless to the fates as the others at the table. All the while, he kept his eye on the dealer. Time had given him an unbreakable faith in his ability to know a man’s heart. He needed only a few minutes to ascertain if a man was hard or soft, if he was loyal or traitorous, if he could be turned or if he could not.

The dealer was a black man. His name was Vincent Morehead and he was a native of Saint Croix, the Virgin Islands. All this Tintin had told them. Morehead was single with no family, either in France or at home. Not that any such sentimental considerations entered into Ratka’s decision-making. If you were not a Serb, he had no feelings for you.

After a while, it came time to reshuffle the shoe. The dealer offered it to Ratka. Ratka ran the cutting card along the deck, but his eyes remained on Vincent Morehead. He slid the card into the deck. Morehead pulled the shoe back across the baize tabletop. Their eyes met. In that instant, Ratka knew that Morehead knew, not only about the two men he’d recognized, but possibly more.

Ratka played awhile longer, then left the table, tossing Morehead a twenty-euro chip for his trouble. He ignored the dealer’s “Merci, monsieur.”

Outside, Ratka walked the short distance to the Café de Paris and took a seat in a booth at the rear of the restaurant.

“Well?” asked a colleague.

Ratka stared at the man. “Well,” he said.

Chapter 4

The club was called Libertine, if it had a name at all, and it occupied the underground premises of an abandoned abattoir and meat market in King’s Cross. It was a dank, cavernous space dominated by towering brick arches that divided the club into three areas: dance floor, bar, and pitch-black netherworld that all were advised never to set foot in. The music was too loud, driven by a relentless backbeat, and meant to turn even the most docile guest into a frenzied partygoer. Spotlights raked the entire floor like klieg lights policing a concentration camp.

It was a bad place in a bad part of town frequented by bad people. Simon felt completely at home.

“What’ll it be?”

“Brandy Alexander,” said Simon.

“No Jack?” The bartender was tall, raven-haired, and direct in her gaze and her manner. Her name was Carmen. She was Spanish, from Madrid and proud of her Castilian lisp.

“Not tonight.”

She leaned in, dark eyes on his, confident in their desired effect. “Mixing things up, eh?”

He motioned her closer. “Carmen?”

“Yes, Simon?”

“Get me my damned drink.”

Carmen’s face dropped. “Cabrón,” she said.

Leaning an elbow on the bar, Simon turned and surveyed the room. It was a busy night, even for Libertine. The dance floor was packed edge to edge, decidedly more women than men. There wasn’t a suit or a tie to be seen, so he loosened his own and stuffed it in his pocket. Score one for the enemy.

Carmen returned, slamming the drink on the bar as if it were a court summons. “Brandy Alexander for Señor Riske.”

“Salud.” Simon raised the glass and drank half of it in a go. His eyes watered, and after a moment, the throbbing in his forehead went away. He thought back to the poker table and wondered how many times the cheat had slid a card from his sleeve to win a hand—the answer was “Too many”—and how he’d missed it. The more he thought about it, the more he marveled at the cheat’s prowess and his preparation. Not just the practice required, but his foreknowledge of how they ran the game at Les Ambassadeurs. Then ther