Chance Elson

by Ballard, Todhunter, 1903-1980

  For Doc, gold cuff links with tiny diamonds in the centers, and for Chance, a. wrist watch.

  Doc asked, "What did you do, find a gold mine or a rich old man?"

  She was bubbling. It was so good to be home, so very very good to see them all. She had not realized how much she missed them, she had been so busy.

  "I've got a job. I didn't write about it because I wanted to tell you. I'm singing on the radio."

  "Jeese," said Joe, "a star."

  She laughed at him, grabbing his arms and pulhng him forward so she could kiss his bald spot. "Not a star, a kids' program on a local station, five days a week, singing nursery rhymes."

  Chance sat in the corner, watching her. He thought how much it changed the room just to have her in it. She was the same Judy, and yet she wasn't. She had been away less than a year, and she had become a different person.

  "You shouldn't have laid your dough out for us," Doc said.

  She was suddenly very serious. "Why not? Where would I have been without all of you?"

  They did not answer and she turned to Chance. "What's the new hotel like?"

  "Swanky."

  Judy's face was intent. "Someday Til get a chance to sing at a place like that. Lola Storm is getting fifteen thousand for two weeks' work. When I'm in that class, I'll help you build your hotel. Chance."

  His face darkened a little and she came over to sit on the arm of his chair and sHd her arm comfortably about his neck. "Sore because Danzig beat you to it?"

  "Yeah."

  "Never mind, your time will come."

  He kissed her cheek and then stood up. "Forget it. I've got to get back to the restaurant. Come down and have dinner with me tonight."

  She gave him a half grin. "Do I still have to come in through the kitchen?"

  "I guess you're big enough to use the front door. Want the car this afternoon?"

  "I'd rather stay with Joe. How's Leon?"

  "Still the best cook in Nevada. Danzig tried to hire him for the new hotel. He wouldn't go."

  Her face grew worried. "You had trouble with Danzig or Cellini?"

  He shook his head. "No, Danzig is too busy with the hotel to worry about me. The word is that he's laid down the law. No rough stuff in Vegas to scare away his future customers. He wants Vegas to be high class, all the way down the line. He's a funny guy. He's in trouble for money. He's opening with hardly enough in the bank to back the games, but it doesn't seem to bother him. So far, the hotel has been a good thing for the town. V^e'll have to wait and see."

  "What does John Kern think about it?"

  He hesitated. "I'll let John tell you tomorrow night. He's coming down for the opening." He tinned toward the door and Doc and Dutch followed him. Judy had not seen the restaurant since the latest enlargement. She came in at six-thirty, looked around approvingly. "You sure spread it out."

  Chance smiled. "Things are pretty good."

  "That ground out on the highway paid for?"

  "Last month."

  "When are you going to build?"

  He laughed. It came to her that she had never seen him so relaxed. She was not aware that much of this was caused by his pleasure in having her at home.

  "It will be a long time before I build. Do you have any idea what Danzig is supposed to have spent on the Peacock?"

  She shook her head.

  "Between five and six million. He paid too much for labor, and the materials came from the black market, but even without that it would probably have cost three. I'll never have that kind of dough, honey."

  "Won't Kern help?"

  He hesitated. "John is about through, I'm afraid. We'll just have to wait until we see how the Peacock does. If it flourishes, at least the land along the highway will increase in value."

  "But you do want to build?"

  He nodded. "I've wanted to a long time. It takes more than wanting, honey, a lot more."

  Impulsively she laid a hand over his. "You'll build it. Chance. You'll never be happy until you do."

  He wanted suddenly to beheve her. "Stay here, help me. Together we might do just that."

  He sensed her draw away from him, from the idea. "Chance, if I thought I could actually help, I'd stay, beUeve me, but now, I'm just getting started, just getting my fiist breaks."

  "Of course." He strove to make his words Hght. "I didn't mean it, kid. You've got yom: own business to think of."

  The opening of the Peacock was an exciting night for Judy. She had never seen so many movie greats in one place.

  The hotel was beautiful and the magic hubbub of the first night added enchantment to the scene. Benji Danzig was a natural showman, and he stood proudly now at the entrance to the dining room, a shm figure in his carefully cut clothes. There was a reflection of a lord-of-the-manor attitude in the way he greeted each arriving guest.

  They responded in kind, grateful to be permitted to enter, flattered that he remembered their names. In this moment, Benji Danzig had reached the top. Out of the rutting, filthy gutters of the Five Points section he had chmbed, a chmb which was a success story. That he had murdered and butchered his way to this level did not seem to disturb his guests.

  Judy pinched herself after looking at him. It was only when she met his eyes directly that she was certain this was Killer Danzig.

  Benji Danzig turned, letting his eyes follow her. Danzig

  never overlooked a beautiful woman, and Judy was beautiful. This might have been her coming-out party. There was no more striking-looking woman in the hotel that night. Her dress was silver, off the shoulders, showing the curve of her throat and the swell of her young breasts.

  Her bob was long, combed back on one side to expose a small, dehcate ear. Her eyes, their grayness accentuated by the darkened lashes, seemed big and deep, mysterious.

  Chance felt the mystery. It had been a shock to see her, to realize that this was Judy. He had spent the afternoon with Kern, had dressed at the restaurant and not seen Judy until he drove out to the ranch to pick her up.

  They had made three carloads driving out to the hotel. Kern had his wife and five other couples with him, and Chance thought that, although these men represented perhaps a hundred million dollars, not one of their women could compete with Judy as to clothes, looks or manner.

  He was proud of her. He was so proud that he hardly resented the way Danzig followed her with his predatory eyes. Then Danzig turned back, and he and Chance were facing each other, measuring each other like feudal chieftains meeting at the entrance to a castle.

  Danzig had no respect for the gamblers of Las Vegas, the men who had knuckled under to him, but he did respect Chance. Chance had not allowed himself to be pushed around. He had not bothered Danzig openly, but when Cellini had tried to interfere with him, Chance had reacted at once. Benji Danzig understood strength, just as he had never understood weakness.

  At the moment he was being driven to the border of insanity by the fear that he might lose control of his hotel, but he did not fear Chance. If Benji Danzig had desired personal friends, he might have picked out Elson. There was something in common between them. Since earhest memory, Danzig had never had a close friend, but he suddenly wanted Elson to hke him. It was unexplainable, even to himself.

  "Hi, glad to see you." He extended his hand.

  For the barest moment Chance hesitated, then slowly his hand came out. Danzig's grip was firm without being bully-

  ing, and in that moment a spark passed between them, a spark of understanding, for no one in the huge crowd comprehended the exact exultation Danzig felt on this night as thoroughly as Chance.

  The man was at his pinnacle of achievement. Nothing that would ever happen to him again would quite equal this. There were no words to cover it, and no further words passed between them as Chance moved on after Judy into the supper room. John Kern and his party were behind them and they found their places finally at a table close to the edge of the big stage.

  Looking around before the show started, Chance studi
ed the faces of Kern's guests. They were bewildered, uncertain. To them this was a kind of nightmare. The hotel opening might mark the beginning of a modern Vegas, but for them it was the end. The country they had known, the country they had ruled, was slipping from their grasp.

  Judy nudged Chance, leaning over to whisper, "Ask Mrs. Kern to dance."

  He hesitated. "You know my dancing." "Go ahead."

  Chance rose and walked behind Kern to bend over his wife. "This is our dance."

  Mrs. Kern smiled. "Dance with Judy. I'm an old woman." "You'd never make anyone beheve that." She rose, obviously pleased. Kern watched them move up the three steps to the stage level. Judy also watched. Chance, she thought, looked very distinguished in his dinner coat. His dark hair was a Httle long, brushed back carefully at the temples, with just a touch of gray there, a kind of sheen over the darkness. She had not noticed the gray before and she frowned. He was not old enough to have gray hair, but he had been under a terrific strain. She knew with sudden hindsight that he had been under a far greater strain than any of them had guessed. And it had been hard for him to come here tonight, to stand by while a man he despised achieved the dream that had been his.

  Kern saw the frown. "What's troubhng you, Judy?" "I just noticed the gray in Chance's hair."

  Kern laughed. "Happens to all of us." His own hair was snow-white.

  "But Chance isn't that old."

  "Age isn't a matter of years. Chance is a lot older than men twice his years, and he's grown, Judy. I've watched him. He's, matured and broadened. He has more perspective than most men I know."

  She knew this was a high compliment, coming from John Kern.

  "You're in love with him, aren't you?"

  The question startled her, and her answer was low as if she were thinking aloud. "I love him, yes, but he's in love with a hotel like this, and I don't blame him. I want to be a singer, a top singer. Life can be compKcated, Mr. Kern, you want so many things. It's hard to know what you want most."

  She broke off as Chance led Mrs. Kern back to the table. The rancher's wife was flushed and she laughed as she sat down. "I haven't danced so much in twenty years. Now it's your turn, Judy."

  "Shall we?" It was Chance. He had risen.

  She nodded and followed him up the steps and he told her, "Remember, I'm not one of your professionals."

  She thought, "That doesn't matter. Why doesn't he let go and enjoy himself like the others?" They danced stiffly around the floor.

  "You know, the band is in the wrong place. It should be in the other corner; more people could see it."

  She stopped dancing and he looked down at her in surprise. "What's the matter?"

  "Chance, isn't there anytime when you let yourself go, forget business and just enjoy things?"

  "Sure."

  "When?"

  "Well." He was a little vague. "Times."

  "Right now you are thinking about how you would run this hotel if it belonged to you."

  "Well, I guess so."

  "Take me back to the table."

  Chance took her back to the table. He knew she was angry,

  but he did not quite understand. He had said nothing except that the orchestra was in the wrong place. Maybe she thought that when a man was dancing with a girl, he should have absolutely nothing else on his mind.

  He glanced at Judy. She should see that he had to keep watching things. She was trying to build her own career. They sat down at the table and he was so intent with his own thoughts that he hardly saw the floor show.

  There were a dozen girls on the stage, dancing, and a rather shopworn comedian told a string of ofiF-color jokes, and the headliner had a throaty voice which was supposed to be warm and compelling. If all this was worth twenty thousand a week, he was a poor judge of entertainment.

  But the crowd did not agree. Their applause was deafening. Chance was not certain whether they had enjoyed the show, or they were determined to get their money's worth for the twenty-dollar cover charge they had paid.

  Afterward he followed Kern's party to the end of the long bar. The party broke up, scattering into the swaying mass of bettors around the gambling tables.

  Chance estimated the play with practiced concentration. John Kern and Judy were talking about the girl's radio work. Chance turned. He saw Cellini beyond Kern, hstening with obvious interest to what was being said. It disturbed Chance. Judy's back was to CeUini and she did not know she was being overheard.

  Then Chance saw Danzig, beyond Cellini, and knew that the man was watching him. He had suddenly a compelling desire to talk to him, to find out how a killer, a ruthless extortionist, a man with utterly no morals, could have the feeling which had gone into the building of this place. The whole picture refused to add up. What actually was Danzig like, beneath the crusted exterior of brutahty?

  He moved over to say, "I never expected to see this volume of play in Vegas."

  Danzig smiled. "How was the floor show?"

  "Good." Chance was trying to be agreeable.

  "Come on in and see the oiBBce."

  Chance hesitated, then touched Judy's arm. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

  She turned and, seeing Danzig, was suddenly afraid. Chance caught her look and said, "I'm just going to see the office. I might want to build one like it myself."

  The office was large, with a kidney-shaped desk, bleached-maple and very modernistic, and deep-piled beige carpeting. "Like it?" There was pride in Danzig's voice. Chance nodded. "Who wouldn't?" He sat down on the low, wide couch.

  Danzig moved over to the bar. "Drink?" "A httle brandy if you have it."

  "The best," said Danzig. The pride was strong in his voice. "We don't serve nothing but the best tonight. Do you know the booze at the bar is free?" Chance shook his head.

  "Got the idea from that restaurant of yours. Got a lot of ideas from your joint." He brought over the brandy in a large snifter. "Never occurred to me until I ate in your place that a real class spot could go here."

  Chance sat quiet, nursing the brandy in his hands, warming it. Danzig paced back and forth across the room as he talked. He used short, quick steps, a caged cat. It was as if he had to talk, as if the pressure which surged up in him Hke an erupting volcano squeezed the words out of him.

  "Kept thinking, couldn't forget your place, even thought of taking it over." He did not smile as he said this. It was not a joke. There was, Chance realized, no spark of humor in the man.

  "You wouldn't have gotten away with it." Danzig stopped. Danzig turned to stare at him. Chance was prepared for anger, for Danzig's rages were a byword, but there was no anger in the oddly cold, Hfeless eyes.

  "God," Chance thought, "this man is not a human being, he's a zombie." Curiously, as soon as the thought came, Danzig and Danzig's actions fell into place. They made the sense that they had never made for Chance before.

  He had always pictured Danzig as a leader, a vicious, heartless leader who drove men to murder, who milked

  lesser men, broke them and cast them aside. Danzig was not a leader. Danzig was a prisoner, a driven, haunted prisoner, running on a treadmill, unable to check the forces which drove him.

  Danzig had been watching him, and suddenly the tension in the expressionless face eased. "You're right. I couldn't have taken the place from you. Maybe that's why I didn't try. First time I met you I knew you couldn't be pushed around. You're too much hke me."

  Chance almost shuddered at the thought. Was he hke Danzig? Was that the way he seemed to other people? It certainly was not the way he saw him.self. He was ruthless only when necessary. But then, how did he know that this was not what Danzig thought about himself?

  "Yeah, you and I are a lot alike." Danzig was still talking. "I warned CelHni to leave you alone, but the wop bastard has no sense. Tell me, why didn't you organize this town before we moved in?"

  "You can't organize gamblers without terror."

  Danzig lit a cigarette. His hand shook as he flicked the gold lighter. Chance saw
it and thought, "He's wound up inside. He's going to crack in a minute, split wide open."

  But Danzig did not crack. "You're too soft," he said. "You're tough, but you're also soft. I've watched you. Now me, I'm not soft. I never was soft. I couldn't be. I had to be tough to grow up."

  Chance might have said that he had had to be tough, too.

  "And I'm the top. There ain't a man in the country to give me orders now. The yellow bastards are scared of me. They say I'm nuts. I like it that way, as long as they think I'm nuts, they're scared to cross me. But yOu and me will have no trouble, because you keep on your side of the street. You and me want the same thing, we want Vegas high class."

  Chance repeated the conversation to Doc in the restaurant office. It was five o'clock in the morning. He had taken Kern's party downtown and then taken Judy home, but he was too keyed up from the opening to sleep.

  "The guy is nuts," Chance said. "There's no doubt about it."

  Doc said, "He's scared." Doc had Hstened to everything Chance had told him.

  "He didn't act scared, and why did he talk to me? I'm no friend of his."

  "He probably had to unload to someone and he doesn't dare say much before any of his own boys."

  "Why not?"

  Doc took a long time answering. "I've known a number of big-time mobsters and they mostly share one thing in common. After they've made their money, they want to get out of the rackets."

  "Say that again."

  "They want out. No one ever really wanted to be a gangster, except maybe some glamour-struck kid. Danzig wanted things, money, dames, power. He wanted them, and how else could he get them? And he had nothing to lose in trying.

  "But now he's made it. He has the hotel, he's had money, women, power. He isn't a criminal who steals from compulsion. He probably didn't even like a lot of the things he's done. He stole for a reason, and killed for a reason, and now that he's achieved what he wanted, he would like to turn respectable. He would like to get out."

  "Then let him quit."

  "He can't quit. None of the big shots can quit. Organized society wants nothing to do with them, and the people below them in the Syndicate won't let them quit. The boss has made his and wants out, but his associates want the racket to go on. They are afraid to let the boss man escape because he knows too much.