Cellini's deal was neither of these. His partner had been in the agency business twenty years, and still had two good accounts on his books, but now most of his talent were small-timers. The man's name was Shaw, and he had one deep and uncontrolled weakness. He loved to play the horses. This foible and the fact that his bookmaker had trusted him for three thousand dollars attracted Danzig's notice, for one of Benji's strongest points was his attention to small detail.
He was going over the bookmaker's accounts one morning, a week after CeUini hit town. The bookmaking establishment was the biggest, most elaborate in the county. Its front was a loan company, and Benji had a twenty-five-per-cent piece of the deal. He furnished the wire service, and without wire service no book could operate.
It was this wire service, Trans-World, which had enabled Danzig to conquer the Coast in so short a time. A wire service is nothing more than an organization which furnishes entries, odds, and result information from aU the tracks in the country to its subscribers. That these subscribers were
bookmakers and that the furnishing of such information was illegal only strengthened the hands of the racketeers who controlled the service.
Danzig had brought Trans-World to the Coast and, using threats and blackmail, sold it to most of the bookies, forcing out Universal Press. Charge for the service was a percentage of the business.
Once a man signed up, he found that his business was no longer his own. Danzig and his associates ran it. They sold him shps and supplies. They handled the layoff money. They owned him, body and soul.
Blubber Lane ran the Astor Loan and Investment Company. His firm actually did make small loans on salaries or furniture, but that was incidental to the bookmaking operation which filled the second and third floors of the stone and brick building on West Pico.
Blubber weighed three hundred poimds and was noted as one of the jolliest people in Cahfomia, but he was far from jolly this morning as he sat behind his desk, watching Danzig's face as the Killer ran over the list. He hated this handsome man. He had nm handbooks in California for tv/enty years, had never had a partner until Danzig's men had roughed him up in insisting that he use their wire service. But his fear was deeper than his hate.
"I should bust you." Benji said it pleasantly. "You give too much credit. Make these suckers pay up."
Lane spread his hands. They trembled in spite of everything he could do. "It's just that you don't understand this town, Benji. Them accounts are good. Them guys are mostly actors, and they pay off when they get it. Hell, if I didn't give credit, I'd have no play."
Danzig apparently did not hear. His dark eyes were running down the list, "This Ab Shaw, he the agent? He owes you three G's."
"He's an old customer. Things ain't been going so hot by him, but he'll pay."
"I'll talk to him," said Danzig. He folded the sHp, put it into his pocket. "Come on, kid." He rose and Cellini followed him.
Lane tried to protest, but somehow the words stuck in his fat throat. They went out to Danzig's Cadillac. Danzig was whistling through his teeth, softly. Cellini had aheady learned that when the boss whistled like that he was thinking. You didn't talk to him then.
They cut across Beverly Hills to the Sunset Strip. Here agents' offices and night clubs crowded a sHver of coimty territory between Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, thus escaping the higher taxes of the two towns.
Ab Shaw's office was in a white building. The building had columns at each side of the entrance and on these columns were brass plates listing the tenants.
They walked in, up green-carpeted stairs to the second floor and into the large waiting room of Shaw's office. A blonde—her hair lacquered, her make-up pancake, her smile fixed—raised dark, thin-plucked eyebrows.
"Can I help you?"
"Tell Ab Benji Danzig wants to see him, now."
The blonde looked a httle startled, a Httle doubtful. It was plain she did not recognize the Danzig name. She turned hesitantly to the phone. But Ab Shaw recognized it. Within seconds the door of his private office opened and he ushered out the actor to whom he had been talking.
"Come in, Benji, come in. Nice to see you." He bowed them into his office, a pleasant-looking man of fifty-five with dark, curly hair turning gray. His smile was broad. Only his eyes were alert and watchful.
Ab Shaw was tough. He had survived twenty years of Hollywood knifing, but, watching him, Cellini sensed that underneath the man was uncertain and afraid.
Danzig sat dovini. The agent sank into a chair behind his desk. "What can I do for you?"
"You can pay your biUs." Danzig's voice was soft, but somehow it now held a deadly quahty.
The pleasantry went out of the agent's face, leaving it hard, gray looking. "Bills? I don't get you."
For answer Danzig ffipped the betting sfip onto the desk top. Shaw picked it up slowly. He studied it, or pretended to. It was obvious he was trying to think.
Finally he looked up. "Benji, there's some mistake. Blubber shouldn't have turned this over to you. He knows I'll pay as soon as I can. I always have."
"He didn't turn it over to me. For your information Blubber works for me. Can you pay up, now?"
The man drew a handkerchief from his pocket and passed it across his forehead. "Look, Benji. Things are bad right now. Most of the studios are nearly shut down as you know, but I'll raise the money. Gimme twenty-four hours."
"I want it now." The words were inflexible, final.
The man behind the desk seemed near coUapse. CeUini might have felt a httle sorry for him had he not been busy admiring Danzig. Benji sure knew how to put the fear of God into a man, and never lift a finger or raise his voice doing it.
CeUini recognized that he himself could never manage that much authority.
"I haven't got it." The words were squeezed out of Shaw as if by great pressure.
"You've got this agency?"
Shaw straightened, his face the picture of horror. "What do you mean?"
"We're moving in. We forget the three G's and take forty per cent of the business. It's in Cellini's name." He nodded to his companion, whom he had not even bothered to introduce.
"Forty per cent." Agony lifted Shaw out of his chair, making him forget fear as it was buried by anger. "Christ. I spent twenty years building this business, and if you think I'll sit stiH and let a hoodlum move in . . ."
"Shut up." Danzig came to his feet in one catlike motion. He reached across the desk and filled his left fist with Shaw's shirt front, jerking the man toward him. He used his right as a whip, sweeping it back and forth, slapping one side of the face and then the other. Then he shoved the now quaking agent back into his chair so hard that it almost turned over.
"You Goddamn cheap flesh peddler. You're nothing but a diessed-up pimp and we both know it. Tell me what you'll
do, I ought to kill you." He breathed deeply through his nose. Then suddenly he sat down, and said in his toneless voice as if nothing had happened, "You get sixty, we take forty. Ralph has an office here, but his name don't appear on the door. And the funny thing is, we'll make you money. I know a lot of big shots in this racket, and a lot of actors. But get one thing straight. You make no more bets on slow horses. I won't have a man working for me that's sucker enough to play the other fellow's game."
It was something Cellini never forgot. Every time he walked into the agency office and saw his partner, he remembered that morning.
Life was good to Ralph Cellini. He had money, he had power, he had an apartment with a cute Httle blond chick who was afraid of him, and there were other women, plenty of women flooding into town, dreaming of a career in pictures.
Cellini loved it. Deep in his heart he had always wanted to be a big shot, and he was being one now. He was a rising man and when some of the important people from the East showed up, he was welcome in the councils.
The year in California passed with surprising speed, and Cellini felt like a native son. He had no idea of ever going anywhere else. He was putting on weigh
t from good hving and he had a deep suntan from the days at the beach. When Danzig suggested they take a small trip, he had no warning that this would change his whole existence. AU Danzig said was, "We've got this pretty well under control, clear down to Phoenix. It's about time we took a look at Vegas. We'll drive over. I'U pick you up in the morning."
^^^zfUcft 7
Chance took his time remodeling the Club Grandee. He was limited by the size and the shape of the room, and he
decided that he could not hope to compete with the newer clubs on their own ground.
For three weeks after the signing of the lease, he left Doc in charge and spent his time in the other places, making the acquaintance of the owners, watching the habits of the patrons, mingling in the crowd, listening to the talk of the players.
He learned what he could. He was ready. He sat down with Doc and Dutch in the old office. Doc was discouraged. They were making only enough to keep up the payments to Hombone, with nothing left for themselves or to apply against the bank loan.
"We bought a lemon," Doc told Chance. '*We're on the wrong side of the street. Then, we're too small. These jerks like to be where the crowd is. When there are only a few people playing, they have the idea the house is leveling against them."
Chance nodded. He agreed thoroughly. "So first we've got to bring people over here, and second, we've got to pack the place."
"What with, shills? You've got too high a payroll now."
Chance appeared not to hear. "There's no really good restaurant in tov^Ti."
Dutch said fervently, "You're so right. I can't stand the food they shove at you."
"So I've leased the building next door. We're going to put in a restaurant, a good one. We'll tear out this office and make a big arch right through here, turn the bar around, shorten it. To get to the restaurant, people v^dll have to come past the tables. Tourists eat even if they've never been in a gambling house in their Hves."
Doc was listening now. Dutch had pulled out the lower drawer of the desk, found a bottle of whisky and taken a long drink from the neck. Chance said, "You know what happened to Leon?"
Dutch didn't.
"Phone his mother in New Orleans. Find out where he is. Then phone him. I want him out here the first of next week."
Doc was startled. "Leon's kind of expensive for a joint like this."
Chance grinned at him coldly. "This isn't a joint. It's the best eating place in the state of Nevada. The gambling is incidental."
"What are you talking about, incidental?" Doc's mustache bristled. "And another thing before you go oflF half cocked. Tourists don't spend much dough to eat, not the kind that hop in the family car and come over here to see the dam. They grab a hamburger and let it go at that."
"Sure. But we're going to give them food for the price of a burger. Don't wet your pants until you find out what I'm up to."
Doc found out. So did Vegas. Chance closed the club and the work of remodeling the two rooms began. The restaurant section became a duplicate of Leon's leisurely old family place in New Orleans.
On the street side, the whole wall was replaced with glass. Any passer-by could look through the clear panes and see an elegant dining room.
Between the two buildings, in the big arch, was the short bar, in the center of which was what Dutch jokingly called the free lunch—hors d'oeuvres of every kind, free for the taking.
The gambling room was entirely redecorated. The gambling tables were arranged in two rows, so that anyone entering the restaurant was forced to pass between them.
At the rear Chance put in a horse book. He covered the wall with blackboards and set three rows of armchairs before them. Patrons waiting to eat could have drinks served to them there and at the same time see the results of every race being run in the country.
The whole place was air-conditioned, and his dealers wore coats at all times.
"We are running a class place and it's got to look it," he told Doc. "We want people to feel it's a privilege and an adventure to come in here."
Doc tried one last protest. "For God's sake. What you should worry about is customers, not dealers. Where the
hell will you get the play? You don t think the natives will stick their noses in a joint like this? And as for the dam workers, hell, they'd be afraid to walk in the door."
"That's what you think."
Chance said nothing more. The new sign was being erected out in front and he went to watch. Doc followed him to the sidewalk where a crowd was already supervising the installment. The sign in blue neon tubing read: the original
FRENCH QUARTER.
Doc snorted, saying in an undertone, "*The original/ what the hell does that mean?"
Chance grinned. "Just a con. People like to think they've seen the original of anything."
Below the name, in letters almost as large were the words,
ONE DOLLAR.
Doc went back in, shaking his head.
Everything had been done that Chance could think of doing, but on the day before the great opening he suddenly was haunted by doubts.
John Kern's loan was nearly spent. Their bank balance showed less than five thousand dollars. The place had to succeed almost from the moment it opened its doors or they were through. Leon figured they would lose about a doUar on every customer they fed in the dining room. That meant they must make up the loss at the gambling tables besides paying the overhead on the whole place.
Chance sat in his new oflBce, which was reached by a passage running alongside the kitchen. It was a small room, plainly fmiiished, but despite the lack of space he had had the old safe moved in.
It wasn't that they needed a safe. The place would never be closed, but somehow he was superstitious about the safe. Also, on the wall above his desk, protected by frames and glass, were the five stock certificates that had occupied the safe for so long.
Chance glanced at his watch. It was almost time for the dress rehearsal, as Doc called it. Doc had been training their new dealers and floormen for two weeks, but Chance wanted to watch them in action before he opened the doors.
For the purpose they hired twenty-five shills to simulate customers. They had orders to make as many odds bets as they could, to try to pick up chips which were not theirs, to confuse the table crew in any way they were able.
Chance wanted to see how the new men would react under the pressure of heavy play. To all intents and purposes, this was a real game, only the fact that the chips did not represent money made the difference. They did not even use the regular chips which would go into play at the opening, chips marked with the restaurant's name. Instead they used the old ones that Hombone had employed. With that many shills it was impossible to keep a careful check on all the chips issued, and chips in Vegas were the same as money. No matter which club had issued them, you could cash them at any of the clubs along Fremont.
There were few mistakes. They had hired experienced men, and Doc had worked them over well. Considering that it was a test and the dealers naturally nervous, everything moved more smoothly than Chance had expected.
After two hours, when one crew and then another had been sent to work the tables, when crews had been broken up and shifted, he called a halt, dismissing the shills and motioning the dealers to the rows of chairs facing the blackboards.
He stood before them, studying their faces, trying to memorize their names.
"All right. We open tomorrow. Doc's already given you your hours. There's just one thing I want to add. This is a different kind of operation than any you've worked in before. This is supposed to be a highly respectable French restaurant, and our customers will probably be mostly tourists, middle-class people who aren't gamblers and who know very little about it. You're here to help them, to be poUte, to make them feel easy and at home. They'll ask stupid questions and make honest mistakes. Be pohte, be courteous, smile, don't act as if you have a grouch against the world and are bored with what you're doing. Got it?"
Some nodded sHghtly, other
s showed no change in expression.
"That's all," he said. "We open at eleven. The first shift goes on at ten." He turned and walked back to his office, Doc following, sinking wearily into the chair beside the desk.
"I hope to Christ it works."
"It's got to work." Chance's face was hard.
"We should know in a week."
"We'll know by tomorrow night. Go on home and have a drink. You can't do any more here."
They opened the doors at eleven, and Chance made a little ceremony of throwing away the key. Most of the places in town never closed and he meant to follow the pohcy.
Chance took no gamble on having the place well filled. He had hired shills and some thirty people to sit at the tables in the restaurant.
There were forty tables, and the house pohcy was to keep any customer waiting for a table at least five minutes.
Doc stood just inside the front door. Doc looked very handsome in his dinner jacket. Doc was there to greet people as they entered, to take their names if they wanted a table, to direct them to the bar and the hors d'oeuvres.
Judy was already in the dining room. Chance had let her bring three of her school friends for Ivmch, but they had come in through the kitchen. Chance did not want them in the gambling room.
Judy was excited, although she did not show it. Watching her as she came in and took her seat. Chance noticed her poise for the first time. For one thing she was dressed up. He seldom saw her in anything but a shirt and jeans, and around the ranch she was apt to go barefoot or wear sneakers.
Joe was in the kitchen, getting into Leon's way, making suggestions. Joe actually thought he was running the place.
Chance went over and met Judy's friends. It dawned on him as he stood there that Judy had never brought any of the kids out to the ranch, that she seldom mentioned friends. The other three girls were giggling with excitement, but
not Judy. She was as cool as if she had been eating in restaurants of this kind all her life.
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