by Steve Fisher
But no one met him at the airport. He climbed into a taxi that headed downtown. Sprig and Rux followed. Halfway to Fremont, the cab made a left turn, pulled in at a run-down motel. The flashily dressed hoodlum climbed out, paid the driver and vanished into shadows.
Sprig had already parked his car on the other side of the street, and he and Rux were dashing across the heavily trafficked boulevard to the motel. In the driveway of the place, there wasn’t a sound and Sprig was afraid they’d lost him. They walked gingerly past one bungalow after another—-nothing.
Then Sprig signaled Rux to stay right here, and cut in between two of the buildings to the side street. He was in time to see the torpedo hurrying across toward a pay telephone in a gas station.
Sprig moved back into the darkness surrounding the motel. He waited until the mobster stepped into the booth, then hurried back and got Rux. The two of them stayed close to the motel, then, watching as the hood stepped out of the booth, looking both ways, and finally lit a fresh stogie.
“Games,” Sprig said. But he had new respect for the man who had masterminded them. This, the shaved dice caper and the pushing of queer chips. “Get the car. Be ready to pick me up.”
Rux nodded, left, and almost immediately a cab arrived across the street. The hood climbed into it. Sprig watched it drive off, desperately afraid Rux wouldn’t get back on time. The seconds seemed endless. Then Rux raced the car up, slowed almost to a stop as Sprig climbed in, and stepped down hard on the accelerator.
It hadn’t been much of a chase after that. The cab drove three or four miles—over the railroad tracks, down Bonanza Road, and stopped at an even shabbier motel than the first. Sprig and Rux, unseen and unnoticed, were nevertheless almost on the man’s heels as he walked past a single row of cabins and entered number five. They waited then, saw a match light inside, as the hood got his bearings. Then the match went out and the cabin was in total darkness. There was no sound of voices.
That meant the other man would arrive later: would walk around the motel first, casing it to make sure there were no eavesdroppers. Sprig looked for a hiding place where he and Rux could lay low—there wasn’t any, none suitable enough to afford them both a view and the ability to hear a conversation from number five.
The other man would get here any minute and Sprig thrashed around for an idea. He glanced at cabin four—dark, probably empty. Yet it was now almost one in the morning and if there was an occupant, he might be asleep. However, it was the only move they could make. Enter either cabin four, or six on the other side. Four or six?
Sprig chose four, and with Rux following, opened the door with a pass key. They went in silently, gently pulled the door shut behind them—still without making a sound. They didn’t dare turn on a light, or even strike a match; but Sprig gazed around, his eyes growing accustomed to the dark. He was startled to see a man and a woman lying asleep on the bed.
He started to open the door, intending to sneak down to number six when he heard the approach of footsteps. He pushed the door shut again and he and Rux stood frozen as the steps grew closer. Presently they stopped. The man was evidently looking around—doing a pretty thorough job. At last he moved forward again, and now, at three minutes past one in the morning, they heard him enter number five.
There was a sound from the bed in here, and Sprig glanced at the sleepers. The woman was restless; she turned on her side. Sprig and Rux were glued to the far wall where it would be hard to see them. They saw the lights go on in number five, heard voices.
Sprig opened the door of four, crept out. Rux was right behind, and Sprig stationed him by the window of five. He himself inched toward the screen door, careful not to make a shadow. Now the voices were quite clear.
“. . . going to be tough.”
“I can handle it.”
“Ever been in a Vegas casino?”
“No—Florida. Plenty in Florida.”
“It’s rougher here.”
The man who was hiring the hood didn’t seem to believe he could carry out the assignment; yet he was still determined to have him make the attempt. Means only one thing, Sprig thought, he’s acting on orders: which I knew all the time. But this confirms it. He’s the boy I want, so why wait any longer?
He drew a gun from his waist, yanked open the screen door and barreled in.
“Don’t make any—”
But the man Wily, terror-stricken, was between Sprig and the hood. He made a wild leap for the window, his shoulders crashing through the rotted screen.
Rux saw a flash of him coming out, thought he had a gun and opened fire.
Sprig pistol-whipped the hood all the way to the floor, then relieved him of his gun and stepped out to see what had happened. The couple from number four, sheet-draped, were gaping out the window. Other people were coming on the run.
“It’s all right,” Rux told them, “police.”
Sprig was examining Wily, and now he groaned. “I wanted him alive!”
“He isn’t?”
“Not so you can notice it.” Before he got up, Sprig deftly felt to see whether Wily had a gun and only now noticed that he had died and fallen from the window ledge with one hand in his pocket. Quickly, before the gathering spectators could notice, Sprig pulled the dead hand out. It was clutching a gun, the fingers still gripping it tightly.
Sprig put the hand holding the gun gently on the ground, then told Rux: “Get Sampson.”
Sampson was in the sheriff’s office.
Paying no attention to the crowd, Sprig returned to the cabin where the hood was climbing to his feet, wiping blood from his face, and noticing with dismay that some of it had splattered his suit. He looked up now, glaring, and Sprig gave him the back of his hand, hard, sending him reeling back.
“You cheap little punk, we don’t even let punks like you play at the tables in Rainbow End!”
“Who are—”
“Sprig. John Sprig.”
The hoodlum gaped.
“You got a name, punk?”
“Todman.”
“I’ll tell you what, Todman, you’re going back to Chicago and spread the news of the kind of reception we give to visiting punks.”
Todman was shaking now. “What—what are you going to do?”
“Take you for a nice ride out into the desert. A hundred miles or so in the direction of Utah. Ought to be just about daylight when you get there. From that point you can walk the two hundred miles or so to the next town. Barefooted. On a highway so hot it’ll blister your feet—and with nothing but desert on either side of you.” Todman started to say: “You can’t—”
“What?” Sprig cut in, his face tight.
Todman subsided.
“Maybe if you’re lucky,” Sprig told him, “you’ll be able to hitch a ride. I guess you’re going to have to. You won’t have any shoes—or any money.”
Todman sat down, nursing his battered face.
The sheriff”s car drove in a few minutes later, and Sprig went out and met it.
Twenty-five
In the days of the old West, the most popular gambling game was faro—which was played by taking cards from a box. But in 1880, John Winn, a professional dice maker, designed and built the first crap table: thus getting the dice players up off their knees and giving dignity to the game. It was Winn who developed the system of how to “bank” the play with a slight percentage favoring the house. That was the beginning of the end of faro—which was dead by the start of the twentieth century.
It was nearly 5 a.m. and Mai had been on the same bar stool for hours watching Dee at the table beside Bello. She seemed tied to the big gambler, devoted, attentive, and for a few wild minutes he wondered whether she had been giving him a snow job that afternoon—conning him: something to amuse herself. Maybe she’d pulled the same thing on any number of men. If so, what kind of a female trap was he walking into?
But he thought it over and decided he was wrong. He’d seen her tears and they had been real tears. He’d heard
her voice, looked into her eyes. So why not go on with this project? Please, God, let me do something good once in my life, something decent! I’ll get that hotel room tomorrow. I will work out a solution for her.
He was deep in this reverie when someone slapped him on the back—too hard, and he turned and saw Si Shelby. The used car dealer was still wearing the open hunting shirt, and the same sickly green suit.
“Hi, Krazycat!”
When Mai didn’t answer, he flopped down on the nearest bar stool, snapped his fingers for the bartender; the man didn’t immediately respond, and he gave a short shrill whistle to attract him. By this time Mai was ready to crawl under the stool.
“Double Scotch over rocks, and see what Krazycat here’ll have,” Shelby said when the bartender came over. “You hear the latest, Krazycat? Bello’s a million and a half into the casino owner here.”
A real bloodletting, Mai thought.
“And you know something?” Shelby continued. “The guy’s fantastic. I’ve been hearing about him for years. When he’s on a streak like this, a man could make a fortune just following his bets.”
Mai shook his head. “His bets are too complex and mathematical to follow; anybody that’d attempt it would go crazy trying to decipher what he’s doing.”
“I wouldn’t say that, Krazycat. I’m pretty good at figures.”
Mai looked over coldly. “Where is this car lot you own?”
“Down in L.A.”
“But where? On Vermont; or is it Beverly Hills, Hollywood, or the Valley? Maybe I’ve passed it.”
Si Shelby seemed suddenly nervous. “Valley,” he said, mumbling the word.
Mai, conscious that he was rattling him, began to press. What he hoped to prove was that he either wasn’t a used car dealer at all, or owned only a small operation. “Oh. North Hollywood? Van Nuys?”
Shelby tensed. “Why? What’s the difference? You live in the Valley?”
Mai pretended to be hurt. “Yeah. And I just thought I might know where the lot is.”
“North Hollywood.”
“Under your name?”
“Yeah. Shelby Car Company. Only I closed it down. Sold out.”
“But you said you were making money hand over fist.”
“I did; so I’m retiring for a couple years. A man can’t work all the time.”
“No, that’s right.”
“Jesus, Krazycat, you act like a prosecuting attorney.” Mai’s suspicion began to solidify. Men with nothing to conceal are glad to identify their place of business: in fact, they bore the hell out of you with every last detail. He’d had to drag the information from Shelby—who was still squirming, restless, and sweating a little. Mai released him from the tension by changing the subject.
“How’d you make out with Cottontop?”
“Who?”
“Cindy—the girl with the white hair and the autograph book.”
“Oh.” Shelby took a sip of his drink, and began to compose himself; he felt a lot better.
“You were telling her you were a talent scout.”
“Yeah—and that old moth-eaten line still works.”
“Really?”
“Nothing to it. Slam-bam—thank you, ma’am.”
Mai wanted to hit him, knock him right off the stool; but he betrayed no emotion. “That easy, eh?”
“Well, she was drunk, you know. I mean drunk.”
“That couldn’t be because you kept urging her to drink up so fast?”
“Could be.”
“Seems to me you taught her how to play chug-a-lug.”
“And she was dumb enough to think gulping them down like that was really a game.”
“Well, it was sort of a game,” Mai said.
“It sure was. Only she was so stupid drunk, she got on a crying jag.”
“Oh, did she cry?”
“Moment I started messing with her.”
“Didn’t resist, though?”
“No, she was limp, dead weight, and sobbing the whole time.”
“Why would she cry?”
“Who knows why drunks cry.”
“Maybe God does,” Mai whispered.
“Who?”
“Never mind.”
He was thinking of Cottontop with her twenty-five year old body and her thirteen-year old mind. What would Movie Idol Magazine have to say about this?
Shelby slugged down his drink, snapped his fingers for the bartender and ordered two more. Then he returned to his original thought: “I’m telling you, with a hot lick like Bello’s got, a man could make a fortune following his bets!”
He turned on the stool and looked at the table where Bello was playing. “I’m tempted.” Mai turned around, too.
“You understand dice, the odds and all that?”
“Anybody can play dice,” said Shelby. “I’ve played dice for years. Look, he’s still winning.”
“How can you tell?”
“The casino owner is having a quiet fit.” The drinks were put on the table behind them, and Mai reached back and got his, but Shelby showed no interest. “I’m losing money just sitting here. Want to know something—I’m going to take a flyer. I can make myself five or six G’s in no time.” He climbed from the stool and headed straight for the crowded dice table. Two or three minutes later he managed to edge in close to Bello.
Mai turned back to the bar and looked at Shelby’s untouched drink. He managed to finish his own, then
was ready to quit. It was five-thirty now and he was not drunk but dead-tired. It had been a long day. He paid for the drinks Shelby had ordered with such a flourish, then moved to the rear door and went out.
Twenty six
The poor are not wanted in Las Vegas—nor anywhere else in Nevada. Officials sometimes try to get rid of them with an order to move on; however, if a destitute person refuses to budge, the average relief check is fifteen dollars a month. An out-of-funds non-resident of the state has no such choice. He is usually warned if he doesn’t depart by a certain hour, he’ll go to jail. There is some charity, though: if the impoverished one pleads he has no money for transportation (or no gasoline for his car) and protests that he and his family cannot walk (or push the car) across the scalding desert, he is given enough cash for bus fare, or gasoline, to get him over the county line.
“Eight. Eight, easy. The point is eight. Who wants the hard way? Place your come and field bets. Nine, the point is eight.” (“Eighter from Decatur!”—it was Shelby’s voice, frantic and shrill, commanding the dice instead of coaxing them.) “Three, in the field. The number is eight. ” (“Eight, dice—make eight, the big eight!”)—“Seven, loser. Seven away. Betting time. Coming out with a new shooter . . . ”
It was after 7 A.M. now, and the dice were icy cold. Bello had lost back almost a quarter of a million of his winnings, and looked haggard: yet resolute. He was still well over a million dollars ahead and could afford the temporary setback. But one of the other players at the table—a man wearing a green suit and an open hunting shirt looked desperate, wild-eyed. Joe had watched as he clumsily tried to follow Bello’s bets—and the more he lost, the more he plunged. By now, three or four thousand dollars had gone down the drain.
A few moments later, Joe looked up and saw Sprig entering the casino. Sprig, tall, skinny, was unshaven, his face mottled. He looked as if he had been dragged up out of a well. Joe left the table and arrived in the office just ahead of him. Ochoa was already inside.
“Where you been?”
“Little errand,” Sprig said. He flopped down on the divan.
“All this time?”
“Yes, all this time, Joe.”
Ochoa explained: “Somebody came here to kill him.”
“That wasn’t important,” Sprig said, “the important thing was to nail the man who had sent for him.”
“Did you nail him?”
“No. Killed him.”
Joe looked alarmed.
“Don’t worry about it,” Sprig soothed. “Rux di
d it—and he’s cleared. That’s where I’ve been—sheriff’s office.” He sat up, rubbing his fists against his temples. “The torpedo is walking barefoot in the direction of Utah by now. Rux drove him out a ways.” He gazed up at Joe, his eyes bloodshot. “Any questions?”
“No,” Joe said. “If their key man is dead—that ought to be the end of the byplay.”
“Ought to be,” Sprig responded, “but I don’t think it is.”
“You don’t?”
“No; there’s something else going on. I just can’t put my finger on it.”
“Sprig, you’re tired.”
“Sure I’m tired.”
“Get some sleep.”
“Not until I figure out what it is.”
“Maybe it isn’t anything,” Joe argued. “What else could there be? You’re so knocked out you’re jumping from your own shadow.”
Sprig got up stiffly, walked over to the desk, sat on the edge of it. “Don’t, Joe. Never interfere with my suspicious mind.” He indicated the door. “What’s the tally out there?”
“He’s about a million and a quarter into us. It was worse, though.”
Sprig whistled. “You been sticking right with him?”
“Midnight recess, that’s all. Had something to eat, little nap.”
“You had a little nap?” His voice was raw.
“What about it?”
“Was the chick up there?”
“Make any difference to you?”
Sprig was off the desk now, facing him, legs spread, jaw jutting. “Yes—it does! Was she?”
“Sunny Guido was there—yes. Why?”
“Let me tell you why. We’re trying to keep the store running. We’re out gunning somebody for you. We’ve got our necks out to here. And what are you doing? Watching the table? No—-you’re letting him zoom ahead of you. That is when he zoomed ahead, isn’t it? While you were upstairs in your penthouse humping a Wop broad from ’Frisco!”
Joe started to swing, and Sprig shook his head.
“Don’t do it. You need somebody around with guts enough to tell you when you’re off base. Bello could have walked away with the silverware while you were napping—and he almost did!”