The Only Girl in the Game (16 page)

“The place is better run than I remembered from last time.”

“He’s tops in his job. Homer.”

“That’s something to go by, girl. It don’t much matter a damn who you hook up with, but get yourself a man who cares enough to do his job better than the next feller. It don’t matter if he lays brick or runs a bank. The top men in any line have pride and guts. And that’s all that counts. I’m glad you’re happy. Miz Betty, and if you’ll be excusing me. I’ll be going along upstairs now. It’s hard work standing at that table keeping track of the game ever’ minute.”

“Goodnight, Homer. And it’s good to see you again, dear.”

Hugh was in his office when one of the desk clerks phoned him and said in a somewhat nervous voice that Mr. Homer Gallowell had asked to speak to him. Hugh glanced at his watch and hurried out. It was a little after one
A.M.

“Good evening, Mr. Gallowell. My name is Darren. Is there anything I can help you with?”

Gallowell’s slow appraisal took so long the silence began to be uncomfortable. “Just wanted a look at you, son. It’s said you do a good job.”

“Thank you. Are you satisfied with the suite?”

“It shore is big, Darren.”

“Any time you want anything at all.…”

“Whenever I want anything at all, I generally make myself heard loud and clear, son. Don’t never fret about Homer Gallowell suffering in silence. One thing you could do is move that slot machine out of there. It isn’t in my way at all, but I’m not about to play with it, and so it isn’t earning its keep up there. And I don’t like to see nothing idle, even a sucker machine like that one.”

Hugh gave the desk clerk a quiet order and said, “It will be out of there before you can get to your suite, Mr. Gallowell.”

“That’s good service. Darren. I had made up my mind … from the time I was here before … there wasn’t anybody in this place worth the trouble of digging a grave for them, with one exception—the Dawson girl, who shouldn’t be anywhere near this place anyhow. Maybe you’re an exception too, son.”

“I like to think I am, Mr. Gallowell.”

“It won’t hurt you a bit to keep right on thinking that way, Darren. ’Night.”

“Goodnight, sir.”

As the old man entered the elevator, Hugh turned to the clerk and said, “Now just what was that all about?”

“It beats hell out of me. Maybe you’re about to get a job in Texas, Hugh.”

“Thanks, but no.”

Before he went up to bed, Hugh had a chance to go into the Afrique Bar and catch Betty between shows. She saw him at the bar and left a table of friends to come over to him and glower and say, “Aren’t you sacked out yet, lover? What good can you be to me if you don’t get
any
sleep?”

“I had to take one minute before heading for the sack to look in on the only person in, the hotel worth a Texas damn.”

“What? Oh, my goodness, did Homer.…”

“He inspected the troops. I damn near saluted him. How did you worm your way into his favor, woman?”

“He’s a sweet old thing and we’re good friends. This is only the second time we’ve ever seen each other, and we’re good friends in that funny way it happens sometimes.”

“If Homer Gallowell is a sweet old thing, Stalin was an absolute lamb.”

“You don’t even know him, Hugh. He does have a very tough, hard mind. But I would trust him. And I know he would trust me. And I guess he came to look you over because I gave you the big build. The man who has put this hotel on its feet; yes sir.”

“Thank you kindly. This hotel has knocked me off my feet.”

“Go to bed, for gosh sakes!”

“Your wish is my command.”

“Dream of me.” she whispered.

“I can’t. I need my rest. Go back and guffaw with your jovial friends, kid. Live it up.”

“Behind this painted smile is a heart full of.…”

“Lust.”

“You took that word right out of my mouth.”

They were at a shadowy corner of the bar, so that it was safe for him to indulge himself in a parting caress, an open-handed smack where her skirt was tightest, with both the sound of the blow and her inadvertent yelp lost in the brass of the quartet on the small stage. She sank a strong elbow so far into his middle that he was unable to catch a full breath until she had walked all the way back to the table she had left, had seated herself, and turned to give him a brilliant and mocking smile She threw him a kiss and he went trudging dutifully and contentedly to bed.

• • •  six

At four o’clock on Sunday afternoon Ben Brown, Max Hanes’ first lieutenant on the casino floor, came plodding sullenly into Max’s office, threw himself into a chair beside the desk and said, “The son of a bitching system is still working for him, Max. Right now he’s three big ones up on us for the day.”

“How many bets has he made?”

“With the big ones? Five all day. He hit the first one, lost the second one, and hit the next three in a row. Honest to
God, the nerves of the boys working the shifts on that table are going bad, Maxie. He can go two hours fooling with those dollar bets and all of a sudden—Bam!”

“They know the system, don’t they?”

“Sure. After any eight or more passes, he bets against the second roll of the next shooter—if the next shooter
gets
a second roll. But even knowing when he’ll do it, it’s still a shock, Max. He’s a hundred and twenty-five into us right now, and I keep telling myself that if he bets enough the odds will swing our way.”

“But he doesn’t bet often enough, Benny.”

“Is he going to take us?”

“It depends on how much he wants. If he settles short, he can walk away with it, Ben. He could walk away this minute. You know that. But if he wants a lot … if he wants a hell of a lot, we’ll get back what’s ours and we’ll get his too.”

“But, Max, he doesn’t react like a gambler.”

“He isn’t a gambler. That leathery old bastard maneuvered me as pretty as you please, and it’s something I’m not used to. He’s got no gambling itch. He’s fish cold. He’s trying something cute and I’ve got a hunch it’ll work, and he won’t be too greedy, and he’ll try to walk away fat.”

“Try to walk away, Max?”

Hanes tugged at a flap of skin that sagged below the jawline of his simian face, and the deep-set eyes were venomously bright. “A manner of speaking. But I wouldn’t hire a limousine so he can get away faster.”

Ben Brown was a monochromatic youngish man, with tan skin, tan hair, tan eyes, thin lips without color. He had the knack of being able to roam the casino tirelessly without being seen by anybody, while he saw everything. If any slightest thing stirred his ready suspicions he would go on up to the catwalk behind the false west wall of the casino, focus a powerful ’scope down through one of the concealed observation ports and watch the questionable play with the awesome feral patience of one of the great questing cats. In addition, he had a rare talent for detecting people who had trouble on their mind long before they made their first move. When asked about them later all he could say was, “They just didn’t seem to fit.”

Once he became suspicious, he would alert the casino security staff and bird dog the person he was worried about. On the casino security staff of the Cameroon were several large men who had been ousted from law-enforcement agencies on charges of excessive brutality. Ignorant men often get the idea
that because the crowds are heavy and money is very much in evidence, a big gambling casino is a sitting duck. Such a casino is just about as much a sitting duck as the main building of the Morgan Guarantee Trust Company.

Abortive attempts are nipped in the bud as quickly as possible, and handled with an absolute minimum of fuss so as to avoid unfavorable publicity. Often all that is necessary is for some of the security staff to take the potential offenders into a private soundproofed office, or to a remote dark corner of the vast parking lot, and, with no more emotional involvement than a crew of plumbers installing a pump, add ten dreadful years to the life of each amateur robber in six skillful minutes.

A talented and experienced crew could, of course, knock off any casino, after a professional casing job. But the skills demanded by such a project are under the control of that national hoodlum empire which has no interest in harming itself by pitting one portion of itself against another. It has been emphatically agreed that Las Vegas will be exempt from any internecine violence. So unyielding is this resolve that, even in cases where the elimination of any specific underling has been discussed in council and passed by voice vote, it has been considered advisable to lure him well away from Las Vegas before blowing his legs off with buckshot.

Ben Brown said, with a certain amount of hesitation, “Don’t get sore if I say something … you know … just an idea.”

“What’s the idea?”

“If it was the Havana operation, there’d be no problem. I mean it would be automatic like. I got some shapes hid away. They’re good ones, Max, the ones we took off those characters from Honolulu that time. So we move fat Pogo over onto that table on the stick and Willy on the bank, and that pair can switch so smooth nobody can tell. Each time after the long roll he waits for, we feed the new shooter the sure-pass dice and let him work with them through the second roll before we put him back on the level dice.”

Max studied him. “And you think that’s a good idea?”

“Well … you know … the old guy is taking us pretty good so far.”

Deceptive as a drowsy bear, Max Hanes reached over and, with uncanny quickness, slammed the meat of his hand across Ben Brown’s face. The chair went over and Ben rolled across the rug and scrambled up, his face vivid with shock and pain, the corner of his mouth bloodied.

“Goddammit Max! God!”

“Pull your goddam self together and listen to me. I can remember two other times you hinted about some kind of cute trick, Brown. This time you came right out with it. We’re living in heaven, right here. We’re turning the crank on a money machine. Out of every hundred thousand bucks that goes across the tables, we hold onto an average of eight, after paying the legal grease. So you’re so stupid you want to diddle the machine.

“I’ll draw you a picture, Brown. We’d get away with it. Let’s just say, for the hell of it, we could take a million bucks off that old man. You and I would know about it. Pogo and Willy would know about it. And as sure as you’re still breathing, the word would get around. I’m not talking about the state inspectors and license people, stupid. I’m talking about the important people who can’t afford anybody jiggling this big apple cart.

“Stack it up against the total take in this town, and that million is cigarette money. They’d make a move, buddy boy. They’d send in the specialists. Then you and me and Pogo and Willy would get taken out into that desert out there, and when they got tired of seeing who could scream the loudest, they’d finish the job and pile rocks on the graves and go back East. It would be like an advertisement for other people who might get cute ideas.”

“Jesus Christ, Max!”

“That’s why your idea is stupid. Keep cute ideas out of your head. Don’t ever try anything cute. I love you like you were my own son, Brownie, but if I found out you got cute with one of the marks out there, I’d help kill you, and I’d make it last. Pick up the chair and sit down.”

Ben Brown sat down. He sighed. He patted his mouth with a handkerchief and then spat something into his palm and examined it.

“You busted a tooth, Max.”

“Let me see. Scrooch down a little so the light is better. Yeah, I see it. It doesn’t look too bad, Ben. It’s like a corner came off. Does it hurt?”

“No, I don’t feel anything.”

“So it didn’t bust as far down as the nerve. That can hurt like hell. You got a dentist here?”

“I got one I like pretty good.”

“How’s Sally? I haven’t seen her in a long time.”

“Well, this time, Max, she’s sick in the mornings. I mean she had so easy a time with the first kid we thought it would be the same this time. She’s still got two months to go, and
that poor little chick is miserable. And you take Kevan, that little guy is walking now and he gets into everything, and she’s got to watch him every minute.”

Max pulled out the middle drawer of his desk, opened a Manila envelope, slid three hundred-dollar bills out and placed them in front of Ben Brown. He winked and said, “Right off the top, Brownie.”

“Thanks, Max. Thanks a lot.”

“We all squared away on everything?”

“Sure, Max. I got the message. But I hate to see that old bastard walk out heavy. If he does, it’ll give us a bad week on the books.”

“That’s my worry, not yours. If he keeps playing, the house percentage will be working for us. He sandbagged me into that big limit, and Al is going to be asking too many questions if Gallowell makes out good. So I’ve got a special interest in making sure he keeps right on playing, and I’ve got some ideas about that. You run along, and just keep me up to date on how he’s making out.”

Ben Brown came back to the office a half hour later to tell Max Hanes the old man had dropped one.

After Ben left, Max sat at his desk, broad and heavy in the chair, his eyes almost closed, thinking about the old man who now had a total of a hundred thousand dollars of casino money, a full half of what he had dropped on the last visit.

Hugh Darren was in the swimming pool at four o’clock on that Sunday afternoon when word came to him that Al Marta wanted to see him in the Little Room. He said a hasty good-bye to Betty, changed quickly, and found Al seated in one of the big leather booths with two strangers. Al was drinking a highball. The two strangers were working on rare steaks with hungry, stolid efficiency. They were both sizable men in their late thirties, wearing conservative suits, junior executive pallor and glasses with ponderous black frames.

“Sit down, Hugh. Sit right down, boy. Boys, this is the hotel manager I was telling you about, the one that’s a friend of Shannard.”

As Hugh nodded and sat beside Al, Al said, “These are the boys who flew in to listen to the deal.” It was the closest Al came to an introduction. The two men looked at first glance as if they could be on the intermediate executive level anywhere—in the automotive industry or a bank, or an insurance company. But there was a calculated incivility about their attitude, a grossness of table habits, and a cold appraisal behind those corrective lenses that set them apart from the unending
personal popularity contest the average businessman feels obligated to enter.