by Steve Fisher
“Will you do as I ask? I can call the desk, have them ring me in thirty-five minutes.”
“I’ll get you up,” she said.
He went to bed, crawled to the middle of it and lay down on his side. But a moment later he was on his back, staring at the ceiling again. She fetched the cloth and brought it over, but he grabbed it and threw it aside. “Leave me alone.”
“I’m trying to help.”
“Then lie down at my side.”
“What?”
“I’m not going to rape you.”
“I didn’t say—”
“Forget it! Will you just forget it?” He turned on his side again.
She gazed at him timidly. “How could I help by lying beside you?”
He was on his back once more, his muscles growing taut. “You couldn’t.”
“Then why’d you ask me to?”
“Will you please shut up?”
He kept staring at the ceiling. The blood vessels in his neck started throbbing again. She’d never seen anything like this and was very frightened. Presently she unzipped her dress and stepped out of it; she kicked off her high-heel shoes and stood there in a black slip. He hadn’t even noticed.
She moved closer to the bed, then hesitated, trembling.
“You wouldn’t trick me, would you, Joe?”
“I’m full of tricks.”
“I trust you.”
“Go away and die,” he said.
She crawled onto the bed and lay down a foot away from him. He saw her now, was aware of her, but was too disgusted to make any move; because it wasn’t sex he had in mind and he felt she should have been smart enough to know. He was ashamed of the real reason: he wanted her close because it meant he was weak, and if he was weak Bello was surely going to get him. Bello, the front man for those who were out for his scalp. He couldn’t afford to be weak: clinging to the symbol of a woman: succoring strength from the roots of creation.
“Turn out the lights, Sunny.”
She got up, found the switch, and turned off all the lights.
“How many minutes now?”
“Maybe twenty-five,” she said.
“Come back here.”
She groped her way through the dark to the bed and this time he reached for her, pulled her over. She was trembling, but he paid no attention; with her head on his shoulder, one arm under her neck, he fell into a deep sleep.
Sunny heard his even breathing, and knew he was asleep. She tried to remain motionless and keep her mind blank. She was afraid to think or feel. But now Mai’s low-down boogie music began to echo in her ears. She tried to shut it out and couldn’t. The beat kept getting faster. She caught for her breath. The sounds in her head wouldn’t stop. She wanted to scream but the boogie music wouldn’t stop.
Suddenly she slipped away from Joe, jumped up and moved through the dark to the bathroom. Closing the door and turning on the light, she stripped off the rest of her clothes and turned on the shower.
By the time she got Joe up, she had zipped herself back into the beaded cocktail dress and adjusted her hair. But she was still very pale. He asked her:
“We on schedule?”
“Exactly.”
He washed his face, put his shirt and jacket back on. “Good luck this time,” she said.
“I need it.”
“Maybe I’ll be good luck to you.”
“Maybe you will at that.”
“Do you feel better?”
“A little,” he said.
“You look better.”
He gazed at her now. “You don’t. You look like hell.”
“That’s a nice thing to say to a lady.”
“Like you’ve been through a wringer.”
“You don’t look very happy either, Joe.”
“We’ll have to do something about it.”
“Will we?”
He nodded. “Later. Go eat your dinner now.”
He hurried out.
She walked about the penthouse for several minutes, a queer, sickening churning in her stomach. Then she took off her clothes again, turned off the lights, and returned to the bed. She moved over to where he had been lying. The place was still warm from the heat of his body.
Thirteen
In the summer the temperature frequently reaches a hundred and twelve, hanging there for days, and the humid desert heat presses down on the city in heavy, suffocating layers so that you almost have to be indoors where there is air conditioning in order to breathe. All of the casinos and clubs and better motels and stores, even small grocery stores, have air conditioning installed. But there are cheap downtown hotels that don’t have it; and whole blocks of small houses in poor residential districts that are also without it; and sleazy, rundown motels and single furnished rooms where divorcees with no money live for six weeks that don’t have it. In midsummer in Las Vegas to be crazy with the heat is more than just a saying.
It was hot tonight as Mai drove with the top down, a hot wind whipping his face, and now that the temperature had started to rise, it would be baking hot tomorrow, so hot that even the pool wouldn’t be any good; the pool would be a warm bath, and if you tried to lie on the tile beside it, you’d fry like an egg.
He didn’t know why he was driving in this heat, going seventy and eighty over the dark, black highway, unless he was crazy with the heat. He was still “on” at Rainbow’s End; he’d taken his usual break, but was supposed to be back at the keyboard in ten minutes, and certainly no longer than twenty. Yet this trip alone would consume at least twelve and a half minutes—one way.
Why was he making it? Dee had dined with Bello, then left the casino just a few minutes ago. Before walking out the door, she had turned and looked straight at him. If he’d stopped to think it over, he wouldn’t have budged. There was too much danger involved. But he hadn’t wanted to think.
Now he tried to remember exactly where to find the St. Louis Club. He’d only noticed it once or twice before in all the times he’d been here. He made two right turns, and finally saw the neon sign: “St. Louis Club.” It was in a lonely stretch of road all by itself and looked like a made-over barn. It advertised dice, blackjack, faro, and The Big Wheel. He roared up, slammed on his brakes, and climbed out of the car. The Big Wheel, he thought, that’s where the only thing you can bet on is a number—no red or black, odd or even; and the profit to the house is usually 80 percent or more.
It wasn’t until he was at the front door that the real fear and excitement of finally being face to face with her came over him; he paused, lit a cigarette and forced himself to go inside. He moved automatically, awaiting developments, ready to react to them without a pre-rehearsed plan.
The place was low-ceilinged, dingy, with one crap table, five or six people hovering over it. There were two blackjack tables, neither one of them crowded, and a scattering of slot machines. The Big Wheel and the faro game were over in one comer, and doing no business at all. But what chilled Mai was that there was an upright piano at one side of the room with some poor eighty-eighter thumping his brains out at it, and singing off-key in a whisky voice. But for the grace of God, he thought; then he saw Dee—and his heart beat hard and hurt him.
He started toward her, but stopped quickly. She was in the company of a heavyset man with a face so hung-down and jaded, he had to be the owner of the place. You got so you could tell them at a glance. They were walking toward the crap table, and Mai saw that she was pretending she had come to gamble. It spelled trouble—if the club owner hadn’t spotted her as belonging to Bello, he wouldn’t have moved in like this.
Now Dee glanced over at him, her expression a warning. So he was right. He dropped his cigarette, stepped on it, and walked casually past them to the side of the dice table. He tossed a five dollar bill on the come line, and pulled back two five dollar chips when the shooter, who had been working for a point, immediately sevened out. Dee and the owner moved up to the end of the table, three feet away from Mai.
“Com
ing out now, new shooter, do or don’t come . . .” The dice were pushed to Mai. He placed one of the chips on the line and rolled.
“You understand,” the owner was saying to Dee, “I’m not asking you to leave—I just don’t think he’d approve of you being here. We’re pretty far out, and there are a lot of stags who might make trouble for somebody as beautiful as you.”
“Ee-o-leven, the winner. Pay the line. Same lucky shooter coming out again.”
Mai let the ten ride, and saw Dee put down a twenty dollar bill. It was exchanged for chips, which she pushed over to the come line.
“I read a pamphlet about all the different gambling places in Las Vegas,” she said to the owner, “and I made up my mind to visit each one of them. He’s busy at present, and I have nothing else to do.”
“Seven, the winner, pay the line. Same shooter coming out once more . . . ”
“I’ll say he’s busy,” the owner replied. “I hear he’s a half a million winner at Rainbow’s End right now.”
“I don’t know,” Dee said. “I don’t keep track. Tell me, how did you recognize me?”
“I saw you when Bello started playing there last night.”
“Seven wins again! Pay the line!”
Mai dragged back his forty dollars’ worth of chips. Having made three passes—for both himself and the other customers playing here—he started again with the five dollars. Dee had only been in for two of the throws, and had eighty dollars in chips on the come line, which she refused to pull back. She apparently had blind confidence in him because nobody expects to make the fourth pass.
“Six, six a point. Come and field bets. Hard way six . . . ”
“Hard way six,” Dee said, throwing down a ten. The odds against a hard six were four to one.
The owner, now very conscious of the way the dice were going, was unhappy. He must be on a hell of a short operation, Mai thought. It looks like practically anything can hurt him.
“Yes, I want to see all the sights,” Dee continued. “Five, six a point . . . ”
“For instance, tomorrow I’m thinking of visiting Boulder Dam. Which road do you take to get there from Rainbow’s End?”
The owner explained which was the best route.
“Four, six a point . . .”
“What’s the best time to go—in the morning, when everybody else in Las Vegas is asleep?”
“Well, they have tours, you can go almost any time. They show you through the whole place.”
“Nine, six a point . . . ”
“Would about eleven o’clock in the morning be a good time?” She sneaked a look at Mai.
“Good as any.”
“Ten, six a point . . . ”
Mai gave her no acknowledgment.
“I think that’d be a good time,” Dee said.
“Six—hard six. Three and three. Pay the lady with the hard six—and pay that lucky line. ”
Dee drew back her winnings, a hundred and sixty from the front line, and forty more for the hard six. “Well, all right, I’ll be going now. Thank you, Mr.—”
“Saunders, Nick Saunders.” Nick Saunders was frowning. He was hurt; she had picked up two hundred dollars in less than four minutes, and the other customers at the table were also fat.
Dee nodded, walked over to the cashier’s cage, converted her chips into money, and left the place.
Mai stayed on, conscious that he was overdue at the piano but it would look too suspicious if he followed her out. He made two more passes with the dice. Nick Saunders shook his head sadly, and then when Mai finally sevened out, ending the streak, drifted away, seeming discouraged—not just with the hot lick Mai had had at the table, but life itself.
Fourteen
Las Vegas has the highest crime rate in the country. Its police force is therefore three times as large as any other community’s the same size. Its ratio of suicides is the highest of any city in the entire world. The victims are mainly desolate go-brokes.
It was 3:23 A.M., which meant it was Monday morning now. But nobody thought of it that way. Joe didn’t, and doubted whether anyone else in the casino regarded it as anything but Sunday night. The weekend trade had been waning ever since ten o’clock—people hitting the road for home: an unending line of headlights strung all across the desert. The teeming, boisterous, holiday atmosphere had departed with the crowd, and the people that were here now were grim, serious—flat, monotonous; the room was a counting house filled with dead-faced professionals. “Eight . . . eight a point. Five, the point is eight . . .”
The roulette wheel had closed down. One blackjack table remained open, but the fat, yawning dealer had no takers. He stood idly sorting silver dollars. Number four dice table had folded at midnight, and now number three was covered. But one and two were getting heavy action. “Eight the winner.. pay the front line . . . ”
Joe held his hand over his mouth and hoped that no one saw him gasp for a full breath of air. He couldn’t get it. No use trying. How long had it been now since the last stop period? Seven or eight hours. He wasn’t exactly sure. He had a raging headache and his body wouldn’t stand much more of this without relief. Bello, the older man, seemed in much better shape. Dee had flitted in and out until midnight; but since that hour remained perched at the big man’s side, her beautiful and insipid face a blank. She’d slept during the day and wasn’t particularly tired.
Bello was now almost three-quarters of a million dollars ahead and the taste of victory had him charged up; but for the past few minutes a small-time professional had been annoying him. Joe knew his face, couldn’t remember the name. He’d come in earlier, and stood back with the others when the table was thronged three deep; but he’d eventually wormed his way in closer, until he was now standing beside Bello, trying to get a word in now and then whenever there was the slightest lull. At last he said:
“I have a club of my own.”
“Good for you,” Bello remarked, wishing he’d either go away or shut up.
Then Joe noticed that Dee was staring at the stranger. He smiled and nodded at her, and Bello caught it.
“What’s the name of the place?”
“St. Louis Club.”
“It’s a dump,” Dee said.
“Sure would help me a lot if you’d show up there sometime,” the man went on, as if he hadn’t heard Dee, and unable to look at her now. “Why, it’d make the place if you’d play there.”
Joe remembered the name now. Nick Saunders. Small-timer—hanging on by a thread.
“Or break it,” Bello told him.
“Yeah,” Saunders laughed hollowly, “or break it. I take that chance.”
Bello turned completely away from him and fastened his eyes on Dee. She was squirming. Now he looked up at Joe.
“Shall we go back to our comers and come out again in an hour?”
Joe nodded, excited at the chance for a rest, but puzzled. Bello left the table, Dee following, and Nick Saunders looking after them. Joe started for his office, but wasn’t halfway there before Sprig intercepted him. The tall, gaunt security man looked like a young, half starved, unshaven Abraham Lincoln now, big circles under his eyes, cheeks sunken. But he was alert, tense. He’d already heard that Bello was leaving the table.
“Why?” he asked Joe. “That’s what I want to know. Why? He doesn’t walk away when he’s lumping it in the way he’s been doing. Doesn’t make sense.”
“I think maybe his girl’s been chippying.”
Sprig thought for a moment. “Yeah. That’d do it.”
“Find out.”
Sprig nodded. “How long is the truce?”
“One hour.”
He clapped Joe on the arm. “Sleep it up, kid; we’re going to need you on that front line every minute that Bello’s there.”
Joe sensed trouble beyond Bello’s crap shooting skill. “Funny stuff?”
“I get rumbles,” Sprig told him, “but you leave that part of it to me.”
He hurried away before Joe coul
d ask anything else. Up in the penthouse, he got just inside the door, then almost collapsed. Sunny was in bed asleep, but woke immediately. She was clad in nylon pajamas, buttoned high on the neck. Joe was standing in the middle of the floor, the door still open, his whole body shaking with fever. His legs wanted to buckle under him. Sunny ran to him and helped him to the bed.
“Lie down.”
“Not yet.”
She crossed back, closed the door, then faced him. “How long?”
“You’re learning fast, aren’t you? First thing you ask: ‘How long.’ ” He sucked in his breath. “One hour.”
She looked at the clock. “Until four-thirty. Can’t you even sleep until daylight?”
“No. Get me a drink. There’s a bottle in the cabinet.” She started for it, then stopped. Her body was ripe and visible in the pajamas. “You told me you didn’t drink.”
“I don’t. Get the bottle.”
She reached the cabinet, picked up the bottle. “Now you really worry me.”
“You argue too much.”
She fetched a small glass and poured whisky into it and handed it to him. He took it down straight, handed her back the glass.
“You have some.”
“You know I don’t drink.”
“This is another world,” he said. And he had a fit of the shakes again.
“You’re sick!”
“Sunny, I don’t know what I am. Let me sit here quietly for a moment. Collect myself. Have yourself a drink. Give me another one. And don’t worry and cluck over me. Act like you think I’m a man.”
“I know you’re a man.”
“No, you don’t know that yet.”
She flushed. “Please don’t—those kind of remarks. All I meant to say is that you’re not indestructible.”
“Nobody is, pet.”
“Pet?”
“The teacher has become the casino owner’s pet.” He took off his jacket, kicked out of his shoes. “Unbutton me.” She hesitated, then knelt on the floor and unbuttoned his shirt and helped him off with it.
“You haven’t had your drink yet.”
“Please don’t make me take a drink.”