The Only Girl in the Game (18 page)

“I’ll take you to where he is,” she said.

Casino play was exceptionally heavy. All tables were in operation, and the customers stood two and three deep around the craps and roulette. The murmuring crowd noises blended with the chantings of the casino staff, the continuous roar of the slots, the music from the Afrique Bar and the Little Room, and the muffled bursts of applause from the big Safari Room where the dinner show was coming to an end. As he worked his way through the throng, Hugh was once again aware of how truly joyless these casino crowds were. When play was this heavy there was a special electric tension in the air, but there was something dingy about it. There was laughter, but no mirth. This was the raw and sweaty edge where luck and money meet in organized torment. Money is equal to survival. So it is as mirthless as some barbaric arena where slaves are matched against beasts. People in casinos ignore each other. It is a place where each man is intensely and desperately alone.

“Right there,” she said, tugging at his sleeve. “Do you see him?”

Temple Shannard stood at a curved corner of a crap table. When Hugh worked his way closer he could see the chips stacked vertically in the half-circle groove of the rail in front of Shannard. He had a ten-inch length of hundred-dollar chips and half that amount of fifty-dollar chips. He stood with brown hands braced on the rail, watching the teasing dance of the dice. His collar was open, his face flushed, his eyes slitted and intent, his mouth entirely slack. He took some hundred-dollar chips and, with no attempt to count them, placed them behind his come-line bet, increasing his bet with the shooter.

“The point is eight,” the stick man chanted. “And the shooter rolls an eleven. No bets in the field.”

“Hard eight,” Shannard said and tossed the hundred-dollar chip. The stick man moved it onto the double-four box.

“And a three, another number in the field, and a seven.”

When the come bets were raked in and the other bets adjusted, the stick man hooked the five dice over in front of
the next shooter for him to make his choice of the two dice he would use.

Hugh had managed to edge in behind Temp. “Having fun, Temp?” he asked.

Temp looked back over his shoulder. “That’s what I’m here for, isn’t it? A lot of big fat fun.” His voice was blurred and thickened. “How are you doing?”

“Check with me later, old boy. Check with me later. Right now I’m busy.”

Hugh moved away from the table, gestured to Vicky to wait where she was, and went to the big casino cashiers’ cage. The men who worked behind the windows knew him even though they did not come under the hotel operation.

“Are you cashing checks for Temple Shannard?” The man hesitated.

“Uh … yes, we are, Mr. Darren.”

“What’s the total so far?”

“Would you hold on just a moment, please?”

Hugh waited thirty seconds and suddenly Max Hanes appeared beside him. “What’s on your mind, Hugh?”

“I want to know how deep Temp Shannard is getting.”

“They brought the first check to me, Hugh. I checked with Al on it. We agreed we’d cash checks right up to one hundred grand. So far we’ve cashed one for three thousand, four for five thousand apiece, and one for ten, and it’s that ten he’s working with right now. Thirty-three thousand bucks, pal.”

“I’ve got to get him away from that table, Max.”

“Now that’s an interesting-type idea, but do you mind telling me why you think you got to get him away from the table before the poor guy has a chance to run hot and get well?”

“He’s my friend. He’s had bad luck. And he’s drunk. He shouldn’t be losing that much money.”

Max Hanes gave him a friendly thump on the biceps that momentarily numbed his arm. “Darren, I’m surprised at you. You’ve been here eight months now, and that’s long enough so you should get the picture. The lieutenant-governor of this great state of Nevada, Mr. Rex Bell, goes around making luncheon speeches about how the whole idea of the State of Nevada is that people shouldn’t be treated like children. They are grown up and they ought to be treated like adults. In Las Vegas a man gets treated like an adult. If he wants to drink, he can drink. If he wants to gamble, he can gamble. Nobody twists his arm. And if he wants to drink
and gamble, that’s his privilege. Now you wouldn’t want to go against the whole idea of this place all of a sudden.”

Hugh turned to face Max Hanes squarely. “He’s my friend. He’s doing something he’s going to regret. I’m going to have to stop him.”

“Okay, so we give you a big score for friendship, buddy, but let’s change that brave talk just a little bit. You can
try
to stop him. You can go right over there and talk to him. That’s your privilege. Anybody who comes into my casino has that same privilege.” He tapped Hugh on the chest with a thick finger. “But all you do is talk. And you do it quietly. And if he doesn’t listen, that’s too damn bad. Because if you try anything else, Darren, if you try pulling him away from the table, or grabbing his chips to go cash them in, you’re no different from any bum who wanders into my casino making a disturbance. If you do anything except talk, I got boys who will walk you out of here so quiet nobody will know anything is wrong, but you’ll maybe have lame arms for a week.”

“You people wave a big flag for friendship, don’t you? You leave a drunken bum in as manager because he’s an old pal. But when it comes to one of my friends, he’s just another pigeon to pluck. Is that it, Max?”

“You’re an employee and your old buddy is a mark. You got to belong to the club.”

“What do you show the membership committee? A photostat of your prison record?”

“See how I’m getting all red and confused and guilty-looking? You’re hurting my feelings, Hugh.” He laughed as Hugh turned angrily away from him.

Once again Hugh shouldered his way close to Temp Shannard. The dice had come to Temp. He bet heavily on himself and crapped out, then bet twice as much as before and rolled a ten. He rolled for a long time, struggling for the ten, until a five deuce showed. He was down to so few chips he took them off the rail and held them in his hand.

Hugh talked to him, his lips close to Temp’s ear. He begged him, he implored him, he pleaded and wheedled.

“For me, Temp,” he said finally. “Not for Vicky, not for yourself. For me.”

Temp swung around, his eyes big with an animal wildness, and yelled, “Get the hell away from me, Darren!”

Ben Brown, Max Hanes’ first assistant, and a big casino guard had moved in close. “I guess you’re bothering the player, Mr. Darren,” Brown said mildly.

Hugh walked over to Vicky and took her out of the crowd, over to the far wall beyond the last aisle of slots.

“He won’t listen.”

“Can’t you ask them to stop taking the money?”

“The casino is separate, Vicky. It doesn’t come under me. It’s just as if he was playing at the Sands or the Tropicana. The best thing is to wait and catch him on the way to cash another check.”

“How much has he gone through?”

“Quite a lot.”

“How much, Hugh?”

“Over thirty thousand.”

She closed her eyes. She kept them closed for several seconds, and her plump oval face looked naked and young and helpless.

“Oh, the ass!” she said, her voice barely audible in the din. “The bloody, stupid, drunken ass! It’s the end of it, you know.”

“How do you mean?”

“It isn’t his to lose. He owes every dime of it.”

“Come on! He’s leaving the table.”

Shannard was plodding toward the cashiers’ cage, planting his feet very firmly and carefully, as though the floor were tilted.

They caught him twenty feet from his destination. “Dearest, do come up to bed now,” Vicky said, standing directly in his way.

“Ganging up on me,” Shannard said.

“It’s a mug’s game, darling. They’re licensed to steal from you.”

“You aren’t in good shape, Temp,” Hugh said. “Try tomorrow when you’re rested up.”

Shannard turned his head slowly to stare at Hugh with a puzzling look of mockery. “Sobered up, you mean, old pal.”

“That’s an idea too.”

He glowered at the two of them. “You kids don’t get the picture. Been a gambler all my life. Gambled on everything I ever did. So when it goes sour you got to fight it, see? You got to get in there and slug. You got to turn it back your way … or you’re lost. That’s what I’m doing. I’m standing toe to toe with it, kids. I’m fighting it.”

“Temp, please. Actually, you’re too stinking drunk even to know what you’re saying,” Vicky said.

He pushed her out of the way with one wide sweep of his arm. Had Hugh not caught her, she would have fallen.

“You don’t get anywhere talking, I guess,” Max Hanes said, smiling at them.

“You’re a completely poisonous type,” Vicky said coldly. Max merely widened his grin. “You do the duchess bit pretty good, chick. Where’d you learn it?”

“Good night, Hugh,” Vicky said. “Thanks for trying to help. Sorry I disturbed you for nothing.”

She disappeared swiftly into the crowd, heading in the direction of the lobby. “That’s a type broad I can appreciate,” Max said with surprising warmth. “Just as mean as a damn snake. You can’t cross up a broad like that. She’ll beat you to it every time.”

“Max, as a favor to an acquaintance … I won’t pose as a friend … will you cut him off at fifty thousand?”

“It would make me unpopular with Al, Hugh. Al says he’s good for a hundred.”

“What about being unpopular with me, Max?”

“What the hell can you do?”

“Just stand still and think for a minute. Think of all the things I can do that’ll make your operation a little bit tougher to handle, and won’t be so obvious they’ll get rid of me. And after you’ve listed all the things you can think of, multiply by three, because I sure as hell can think of three times as many as you can, if you give me this kind of a reason.”

Max met his level stare for several seconds. “And I could frame you right out of the best job you’ve ever had, kid.” “And give yourself a chance to work with another bum like Jerry.”

“You and me, we can get along. But don’t push me.”

“Then don’t bitch up my friends.”

“So maybe he takes his business somewhere else.”

“It’s the play right here I’m concerned about, Max.”

Max knuckled him painfully in the ribs. “You know, Hughie, I think you got more working for you than I figured. If he keeps on losing, I’ll cut him off at seventy-five.”

“Sixty, Max.”

“So let’s settle for sixty-five, and I don’t think he’ll last to go that deep anyhow. The new limit is good only for tonight. That’s the best deal you get, and I could have swore you weren’t going to get yourself any kind of deal at all.”

As Hugh was leaving the casino, Ben Brown moved over to stand beside Max Hanes. “That’s one boy scout gives me a quick sharp pain,” Brown said.

“Don’t fault that boy. How much did Shannard take?”

“Another ten.”

“Tell Ritchie to cut him off at sixty-five.”

“But I thought you said Al said it was okay to go to.…”

“If I want a conversation I’ll go on television.”

“Okay, Max. Jeez, you’re touchy lately.”

“How does that goddam Gallowell stand now?”

“Just the same as he did at eight o’clock. He’s still into us for one twenty-five. The dice have been too cold to give him another chance. Dom says a couple of shooters have made seven passes, but that old bastard is like a machine. You’d think he’d get impatient, wouldn’t you?”

Max looked at him with contempt. “That old bastard started out at fourteen with a bedroll and a twenty-dollar horse. And I should have remembered that. He didn’t pile it up as high as he did by getting impatient.”

One of the floor men drifted up, whispered something to Ben Brown and moved on.

“Now it’s one fifty, Max,” Ben said. “The shooter rolled boxcars, so it was a standoff, and then he came back with a six he couldn’t make.”

“Oh, fine!”

“That old bastard is making a good bruise.”

“Why do you talk so goddam much lately? Get away from me! Wait a minute! Get me that Dawson broad. I want to see her in my office right now.”

Brown looked blankly astonished. “You mean you think that old.… Okay, okay, Max. I didn’t say a word.”

• • •  seven

At a little after ten o’clock on that same Sunday night, Betty Dawson had finished her dinner and was dawdling over her coffee, alone at a table for two in the coffee shop. She took out the letter that had come on Saturday from her father, Dr. Randolph Dawson of San Francisco, to read it again. Slowly, tentatively, in their own careful ways they had been mending the rift caused by the years with Jackie Luster.

Since she had had her own single he had come down to Las Vegas three times to visit her. He had given advance warning
each time, and Max had been very decent about approving less revealing costumes and somewhat milder songs. And the staff in the Afrique Bar, alerted to the situation and understanding it, had been quick to intercept the infrequent drunk, and to explain to her special fans why she couldn’t sit with them and why some of their requests had been ignored.

He was a widower, a G.P. with a large tiring practice. He still lived and had his office in the old house on the quiet street where she had grown up, and he was still cared for by Charlie and Lottie Mead, who had come to work for him when Betty was an infant. Nurses and receptionists came and went, but the Meads stayed on forever.

She had long since given up the barren exercise of wondering how it had been possible for her to hurt him so cruelly. But she had done it, and it was something she would have to live with, and the only sensible objective now was to do everything possible to heal that ancient wound and cause no fresh ones. She wrote regularly and phoned him at least once a week, and flew up to stay a day or so with him whenever it was possible.

His script had a legibility foreign to most doctors. She turned to the last page of his letter, to that part which made her uncomfortable. There was never a letter that did not contain the old question she could not answer.

“Tonight, my dear, I have once again found myself wondering why you give every evidence of remaining in that, to me, alarming community forever. As you know, I have made my reluctant adjustment to the curious fact that my only child is irrevocably established as a public entertainer. But when I peruse the newspapers here, I see that there are many places in this much more satisfactory city where you could exercise your talent. And certainly, if you lived here as I hope you would, you could make enough money to satisfy your strong desire for independence. I cannot help but feel that you are surrounded by altogether too many cheap and superficial people. I guess you would run into the same types in the night life of this community, but they certainly would not form as large a percentage of the total population. I am exempting from this indictment your Mr. Darren, who seems to have insinuated himself into both your correspondence and your telephone conversations of late. I look forward to meeting this young man.