He had been wrong, and somehow he lacked the words to tell them, to explain what he felt. That, he knew, was his basic weakness, to make people understand what he was thinking about.
Maybe Judy would comprehend, but Judy was so very young. In some ways she was younger than if she had had a normal upbringing. Judy wanted things, but with no central purpose to her wanting. He sensed this without quite under-
standing how he knew. And he wanted her to have them. But this the girl had to work out for herself.
His hands tightened at the thought. He didn't want her to go away. Supposing they got married? Supposing they lived together for the rest of their hves? In many respects they were very much alike, perhaps too m.uch alike for it to work. But that was for the future, because before it could happen, Judy needed a chance to prove herself.
He understood that much about her. She wanted to act, to go into pictures. If she did not have the chance, she would always feel cheated. No, in another year or two she should go away and have the opportunity to find herself.
He guessed now that everyone needed that chance, that what Doc resented and what Dutch disliked was his tendency to mold their lives for them, to take away their initiative. It was a mistake he would not make with Judy.
He stood up. Somehow he felt better, as if his mind had been cleansed. Now to consider the hotel. He did not know how much it would cost, although he was having an architect draw up tentative plans. It would be only two stories, blending into the desert background. A central lobby, with restaurants, bars and a supper room facing on a patio, with two wings running out around a big swimming pool, no hallways, all suites opening on iron-bordered balconies.
A miUion, two million. He did not know, nor did he know how he would raise the money, but he would take the idea to John Kern. He would tell Kern that this was their chance to get ahead of the Eastern mobs, that a town like Vegas could never support more than one swank hotel, and that if it were built with Nevada money it would help freeze the Easterners out.
He had the land. There was enough to put in a nine-hole golf course when the time was ripe, and the land behind it could be purchased. He might even take an option.
He did not. The war started and threw everyone in Vegas into panic, for no one knew what the travel restrictions and gas rationing would do to the town. Chance put the architect's sketches in the old safe and forgot them. He had other things on his mind now, meat rationing, the fall-off in the
tourist trade, the growth of military personnel on the streets.
And Cellini. He had not forgotten Cellini, but in the year since Danzig and Cellini had appeared in his restaurant he had been left strictly alone.
This was not Cellini's idea. If he had had his way, he would have applied pressure on Chance in one form or another. He hated Chance. It was Danzig who vetoed any move.
"He's tough," Danzig had said, when they had walked out of the restaurant. "Just let him alone until I give the word."
And Danzig had not given the word. He was busy building the Coast into a kind of kingdom of his own. When he had first come West, he had made monthly trips back to New York for orders. But now he seldom left Los Angeles and pointedly ignored the questions which reached him from the heads of the Syndicate.
Cellini was in his ofiice the day the news came through that Rigsby was dead in a Chicago alley and that the old Capone crowd had finally, after years of trying, taken over the Universal Service.
The phone call to Danzig told him what had happened and told him to merge his Trans-World Service with that of Universal on the Coast.
He did not answer. He hung up slowly, and Cellini, watching him, saw the rage in his eyes.
Danzig swung around deliberately, looking clear through Cellini. "So they think I'll take orders from those Chicago greaseballs like I was an oflBce boy."
Celhni wet his lips. "That's rough, but the way they work out those deals, there ain't much you can do."
Danzig's grin was cold. "The hell there ain't. I'm going to take the Coast over for myself, see. I built it and I'm going to keep it.
"Now listen. You go to Phoenix and then up to Vegas. The word is that the service is cut off and it stays cut off until I say different. We wreck it, and we keep it wrecked until we can get new contacts set up from the tracks. Then when we move back in, we double our cut in the books that buy it."
Celhni didn't like the idea, but he had no choice. He went 145
to Phoenix and passed the word to Danzig's men and then drove on up to Vegas.
The dictum that the wire service was to be cut off threw the town into further panic. In their uncertainty, the club-owners came to Chance.
Chance had already heard the news from Doc. His relations with both Doc and Dutch were still strained by the land deal, and Doc seldom had much to say except on club business. But this tickled him.
Chance listened to Doc and then put in a call for John Kern. He had not heard from the man directly in months. Kern sounded glad to have the call,
"How are things?"
"As good as you can expect with the war." Somehow the war seemed very far away despite the number of men in uniform on the streets. Both Chance and Doc had been called up by their draft board and both rejected. Dutch was too old. "The Army sure raised hell when they threw out the girls and closed the district, but I think it's a good thing in the long run."
Kern said he did too.
"Something funny happened today." Chance went on to tell him about the sudden canceling of the wire service. "I don't know what Danzig and Cellini are framing, but you can bet your dough it's nothing good. Can you find out what's behind this?"
"I can try. I'll call you right back." He hung up and Chance looked at Doc.
"I haven't seen Cellini around town much lately."
"He hasn't been aroimd. What I hear, he's busy in Hollywood. He's got a piece of an agent's office over there and from the looks of things he's rolHng in dough. I wish the fat bastard would fall and break his neck."
Chance agreed. He knew that his hatred for Cellini would last as long as he lived. Cellini was about the only person he had ever really hated. "I'd like to see him thrown out of here on his head."
"Well, he can't hurt us. You were sure right when you pulled out those blackboards." Doc's voice was friendher than
it had been since the argument and it warmed Chance to have him standing there talking, instead of being merely pohte.
The phone rang. It was Kern. "I called Less at the California State Crime Commission. Here's the story." He went on to tell about Rigsby's murder. "Seems like the Chicago boys have taken over Universal and made a deal with New York to merge it with Trans-World, and from the scuttlebutt, Danzig won't agree. What he's doing or how far he'll get with it no one knows."
They exchanged some gossip and Chance hung up thoughtfully. It was remarkable how the crime commissions seemed able to keep their fingers on gangland's pulse, and more remarkable that the cops seemed to remain in blithe ignorance. He told Doc. Doc shook his head. "This Danzig is a tricky monkey. I feel a sucker punch coming on."
An hour later Chance's phone rang again. It was one of the club-owners from across the street. "Elson, this is South-worth. Some of us are having a quiet meeting tonight and we'd hke you to come. Once you made a suggestion that most of us would not go along with. Maybe things have changed since then."
"All right. 111 be there. Where is it?"
The man gave him a number on Charleston. Chance went out to the pit and told Doc in an imdertone.
Doc Hstened in silence. "I don't like it. We're not in this. Danzig's let us alone for a year, and if we keep our noses clean maybe he'll keep on letting us alone."
"Only as long as it serves his purpose. Maybe this is the break we've been waiting for. These guys are finally scared. Maybe now we can form some kind of an organization and with Kern's backing from upstate really run them the hell out of here."
Doc didn't think so, but he went with Chance anyhow.
The home in which the meeting was held was big, well furnished and expensive. It was in sharp contrast to the house they still occupied, in spite of Joe's efforts to rebuild the ranch. It pointed up again to Chance what Doc had said
in their quarrel. While they had used every dollar to clear the club, other operators were living like millionaires.
He sat studying them, seeing again that this group was no different from any group of average citizens. That they made their living running gambhng games did not set them apart.
"Nothing's changed," he told them, "except for a year you've been shoveling out twenty-five thousand a month to this bum because you are afraid not to.
"You've got one chance, just as you had one chance a year ago and refused to take it. Organize. Danzig can't beat you if you will organize."
The man in whose house the meeting was being held stood up. "How do you mean, organize?"
"Just that. Form an association. Elect officers and give them the authority to fine any member who breaks the rules. Then draw up a code of operations. If we all stand together, we can whip Danzig.
"I don't know what he's up to but I can guess. A week, a month or two months from now he'll let a favored few of you reopen your books. Then after you've run for a few weeks, until the rest have gotten real hungry, he'll show up here and say that the service is available to anyone who will pay the price, and the price will be your business. Oh, he'll let you keep a piece, but he'll tell you how to run it, and how much you can keep."
His host looked unhappy. "This will take some thinking about."
Chance knew he had lost then. Indeed nothing had changed. He said curtly, "All right, talk about it. You know where I'U be when you want to find me." He turned and stalked out of the room with Doc at his heels.
In the car, riding back downtown, he glanced sidewise at Doc. "What did I say wrong?"
Doc stalled. "Who says you said anything wrong? The cards were stacked and you knew it."
"But the right guy might have sold them."
"Yes."
"And I'm not the right guy. Why?"
Doc's hesitation was marked. "You really want to know?"
"I asked, didn't I?"
"All right. People can't work with you, Chance, because you won't work with them. It's easier for you to do something yourself than to wait while they stumble aroimd learning how."
Chance was silent.
"You have more native ability than anyone else I've ever known, but anything you try to nm will always be a one-man operation."
"Any business is."
"No," said Doc. "A good executive is a man who can get the best efforts from those around him. It's teamwork that makes things go. That's what's needed in Vegas, teamwork."
At the club, Chance went on into the office. He wasn't sore at Doc. Doc was probably right. If he had handled things differently, he might have built up an organization that could whip Danzig. He had been operating in this town for more than three years, and he did not actually have any local connections. Sure, he knew men in the sheriff's office and the pohce department, the mayor and some of the council. But he had no organization, probably not nearly as much as Cel-Hni had. He was no danger to either Cellini or Danzig.
But CelHni did not know that. Ralph Cellini was not as cool as Danzig, nor as certain of himself, and Danzig had sent him to Vegas to handle things. He heard about the meeting from one of the smaller club-owners who was trying to curry favor, and the man enlarged upon Chance's part and the action taken by the others in an effort to build up the value of his information.
He said, "I tell you Elson is leading them. They're just about ready to form an organization and all agree to throw books clear out of this town."
Cellini cursed. He was damn tired of hearing about Chance Elson. It seemed that every place he turned. Chance got in his way. It was about time to knock Elson down.
But there was caution in him. He picked up the phone and called Danzig's Brentwood home. Danzig wasn't there. He had taken off for a house party at Santa Barbara.
Cellini hung up. He was a little afraid of Chance because Chance seemed to be invulnerable. The threats which frightened other men did not touch him.
*'I wish to Christ he had a family. I'd fix him."
The man who had brought the news of the meeting hated Elson, because in a year Elson had built one of the most profitable spots in town while his place half starved on the fringe trade.
"This kid out at his place, she's his sister, I think."
Cellini started. "How old?"
"I don't know, seventeen, eighteen. I saw her in the school play. She had the lead."
"Can you point her out to me?"
"Why not?"
The next afternoon they stood on the comer across the street from the high school as the classes broke. When Judy appeared with two other girls the man nudged CeUini. "There she is, the blonde in the middle."
Then he faded. He did not want Chance to know that he had had any part in it.
Celhni followed the girls. Ordinarily Judy would have caught the school bus, but there was a picture show she wanted to see, and she had talked Dutch into taking her to dinner and then the show.
She started to walk downtown with her schoolmates. Cellini followed. At the second corner, the other two girls branched off and Judy continued by herself. She had reached Fremont and was about to turn into it when Cellini caught her.
"Wait a minute. You're Chance Elson's sister, aren't you?"
Judy turned, a little puzzled. She was certain that she had never seen Cellini before.
"Yes." She glanced up and down the street. At the moment no one was near them and instinct warned her that this man represented danger.
Cellini knew fear when he saw it. "If you'll listen to me you've got nothing to worry about, and that smart bastard brother of yours has nothing to worry about. But you'd better Hsten, for his sake."
She watched him, her eyes a little narrow, her quick mind considering, "Go ahead, what is it?"
"Tell him to keep his nose out of our business. WeVe let him alone and we'll keep on letting him alone as long as he doesn't monkey into things that don't concern him."
She said, "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Maybe you don't." He reached out and his pudgy hand closed on her arm, the fingers biting through the thin sleeve of her dress. "I'm not playing games, kid. This is for real. You're a good-looking doll, and if you want to stay that way, just teU your brother to lay off. Bookmaking isn't his racket."
He turned on his heel and walked away from her down the street. He had seen the shock in her gray eyes and he was rather pleased with himself. He had always found that men would listen to their women.
Judy stood watching him. She unconsciously rubbed her arm where his fingers had bruised the skin. She did not know who he was, but she did know that she was afraid.
She turned then and walked rapidly the three blocks to the restaurant. Doc was there with Chance. They were going over the monthly statement.
Both glanced at her when she came in, and then returned their attention to the paper-strewn desk.
"Chance." There was a break in her voice.
He looked up then, and saw the tears in her eyes. "What's the matter, kid?"
"A man stopped me on the street. He asked if I was your sister."
Chance stood up slowly. It seemed that he knew what she was going to say before she said it, as if this was an echo of something that had happened a long time before.
"Who was he?"
"I don't know. He looked kind of fat. He was dark, like an Itahan."
"Did he have a small, horseshoe scar on his cheek?"
She nodded dumbly.
"Cellini." Chance and Doc said it together. "What did he want?"
"He"— her voice rose a little—"he said that they had let
you alone, and that you should keep your nose out of their business. He—he said I was a real pretty girl, and that if I wanted to keep looking
that way, I'd tell you."
Doc swore under his breath. Chance walked to the small window. "Someone talked about last night."
"Sure," said Doc. "You didn't expect anything else, did you? There's always at least one rat."
Chance turned around. His face looked dark, somber, hungry. "Why did the bastard have to pick on her?"
Doc said, "You know how his kind works, and has always "worked. They live by fear, and you aren't an easy guy to scare. But if you thought something was going to happen to Judy . . ."^
"Nothing's going to happen to Judy, because something is going to happen to Cellini."
Doc was startled. "Now wait a minute."
"What's there to wait for?"
"Do you know what you're starting? Did you ever see a gang war?"
Chance was perfectly calm, and perfectly cool, outside. But his impulse was to go out onto the street, to find Cellini, to kill him where he found him. Yet even in anger his mind retained its control.
"Come on, Judy, I'll take you home."
He took her out to the car. They had a two-year-old Chevy which Dutch had picked up a month before.
"Chance."
"Yeah?" He was starting the motor.
"What are you going to do?"
"Teach a rat some manners."
She was frightened. "But you'll get into trouble."
"I never get into trouble. The other feUow does."
At the ranch house, she followed him into his room. She knew he was conscious of her presence, but he gave no sign. He pulled open the top bureau drawer and took out the gun. She knew the gun. John Kern had given it to him at Christmas. It had his name engraved upon it. She had never seen him carry a giui before. It terrified her.
She came around and reached up to put both hands on his shoulders. "Don't do it."
"Don't do what?"
Something in Judy snapped. "Goddamnit. Stop treating me like a child. I'm not scared of this guy. Leave him alone."
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