Sin City

by Harold Robbins

  Her mother, Faye Zimmerman nee Green, tried to mold Chenza into the star she had never been. At an early age, Chenza got rid of her Brooklyn accent. It was either speak “like other people” or get soap in her mouth. She also had to get rid of her ethnic name. Her mother chose “Berlin” as her surname because her favorite movie was the 1954 classic White Christmas, from the song written by Irving Berlin. After braces straightened her teeth, she started making the rounds of beauty contests, starting with the one run by Schwartz’s Department Store. Her first-place prize had been one hundred dollars’ worth of new dresses.

  Watching her mother act around her father and other men taught her the power a woman holds over a man—sex. She watched how her mother got her way with her father—the body language, feigned anger, “headaches”—all designed to keep her father from getting what he wanted—before her mother got what she wanted. When she was thirteen, her breasts already small mounds and pubic hair growing, she had her first experience at using her “power” to get what she wanted.

  “Hi, Uncle Art.” Chenza gave her mother’s brother a kiss on the lips. She’d only kissed boys twice before and she had more opportunity to kiss her uncle who came to visit than boys her own age. Uncle Art was her favorite uncle—better looking than the others although at forty he was already losing his hair and gaining love handles.

  Art, with beer in hand, sat on the stuffed chair in their living room and watched the Yankees play the Los Angeles Dodgers while her mother fluttered around the kitchen. It was the first year the Dodgers were playing without the word Brooklyn on their uniforms and her dad said he’d never watch those bums again, but Art was more tolerant of the team’s move to L.A. As for her mother, she always fluttered when she was in the kitchen, never really comfortable with household duties even after fifteen years of marriage.

  Chenza came into the living room. She wore a white dress with white panties underneath and a white bra. She wasn’t wearing a slip and knew her mother would make her put one on if she caught her. She didn’t like slips because they helped hide her body shape. She was blossoming as a young woman and very much aware of her shape. And proud of it.

  “Uncle Art, can you lend me ten dollars?”

  Art took his eyes off the game long enough to give Chenza a look that asked whether she had fallen out of a tree onto her head. Ten dollars was more than a day’s wages for most men. “Do I look like John D. Rockefeller to you?”

  Chenza slipped onto his lap. She’d been doing this since she could remember, but recently as she felt the warmth of his body against hers, she got sensations she’d never felt before.

  “I need a new coat. I saw it at Macy’s. It’s white rabbit fur. My friend Nancy says it looks just like the fur coat Doris Day wore to the premier of The Pajama Game.”

  Art kept his beer from spilling and looked around her at the TV as leftie pitcher Sandy Koufax cut the outside corner of home plate, low and away. “Sorry, kid, I don’t spend that kind of money even on grown women.”

  Chenza snuggled in closer to him. For the first time Art noticed that she was wearing perfume. He sniffed her neck. “Does your mother know you’re wearing that stuff?”

  “You like it? It’s musk-scented. A boy in high school gave it to me.”

  “You didn’t answer my question. Does your mother know?”

  She tapped his chest with her finger.

  “No … my … mother … doesn’t … know. You’re not going to tell her, are you, Uncle Art?”

  Art shifted uncomfortably and turned his head to take a sip of his beer. He was getting warm. Her body heat radiated through her cotton dress. Man, he hadn’t realized the kid was growing up so fast. He could see the imprint of her nipples against her thin dress. What was the matter with his sister and brother-in-law? Were they blind?

  Chenza’s mother would lecture her that men wanted things from women. “Give them what they want, but always get what you want in return.”

  Right now she wanted a white rabbit fur coat being worn by a mannequin in the girl’s department of Macy’s. She cuddled closer to her uncle. She felt her uncle’s smooth shaven face with her hand. “Please, Uncle Art,” as she ran her fingers through his hair. “It’s just ten dollars. Don’t you like me?” His face was turning red and she was starting to feel a hard bulge against the inside of her thigh. He took his wallet out and gave her the money. She bounced off his lap and smiled. “Thanks, Uncle Art.”

  Her breasts turned out to be a big success in the movie, but the unofficial screen credit didn’t get her any parts except modeling for girlie magazines and offers from porn producers. She found out there really was a Hollywood casting couch, but it didn’t get her far because there was always someone who had more talent—or who slept with someone higher up—who got the part. But she understood the attraction that Hollywood and Broadway had for her mother. The lure of wealth and fame was more addictive than Karl Marx ever imagined religion to be. She was twenty-one with a pretty face and dynamite looks when she answered to her true calling in Vegas.

  She came to Sin City with Sam Tarkoff, a small-time producer of B horror films that were one step above porn and one step beneath even the garbage that drive-ins played from dawn to dusk. She had a small part in one of the films, another starring role for her breasts, although there was actually one scene in which she ran half-naked in a dark forest before a maniac lumberjack caught up and sawed her up with a chain saw.

  They went to a casino theater with two other couples to watch a Parisian dance revue, which consisted mostly of women walking—not dancing—on stage wearing Busby Berkeley costumes. Some of the headdresses were almost as tall as the chorus girls. Every woman was bare-chested, something Berkeley never managed in Hollywood. One of the couples at their table was the show’s choreographer and his wife.

  “These babes are really talented,” Tarkoff said.

  “Talented, my ass,” Chenza said, “What’s so talented about them, they’re not dancing. You men are just ogling their naked breasts like you’ve never seen a pair before.”

  “Retract the talons, kid,” the choreographer said. “Everyone of my girls has perfect breasts.”

  “Perfect, hell, most of those boobs are implants. You want to see a perfect pair?”

  She stood up at the table and pulled down the front of her dress. “Tell me if any pair on that stage can match these.”

  Cheers, whistles, and wolf howls erupted throughout the theater.

  The next day she was walking the stage with a two-foot-high pineapple-shaped hat à la Carmen Miranda! Bar none, or perhaps bare none, Chenza had the best tits on the stage.

  She gave new meaning to the phrase “just another pretty face.”

  Part 8

  “WHOSE DOG ?”

  41

  LAS VEGAS, 1982

  “Low class.”

  I didn’t know if Morgan Halliday was referring to me personally or to Halliday’s. We were in Con’s office. Morgan had blown in with her fiancé from back East. Years of Swiss finishing school and Ivy League college had turned her from a spoiled brat into a sophisticated business woman. I had to give her some credit because she was raised by a father who thought women were only good for jumping on in bed and having them serve him food in a restaurant—with a pat on the ass for a tip. For Morgan to have broken his “waitress” mentality about a woman, Morgan had to prove she had something on the ball.

  Furthermore, she was now a woman in all respects. I always thought Vassar women had more between the ears than on their chests, but now I had to change my opinion. To be perfectly honest, she looked damn good, very professional, acted very businesslike. She wasn’t a statuesque beauty like Chenza, but she was no longer Con’s freckled-faced little cowgirl, either.

  The only problem was that she still hated my guts for whatever real or imagined slight I gave her when she was a kid.

  “Dad, this place needs an overhaul.”

  Resisting the impulse to bust her chops, I gave her a to
othy smile. “This isn’t Monte Carlo. James Bond doesn’t play baccarat here. Our clientele is the little guy, the husband and wife who, once the kids are grown, get more excitement from pulling the handle of a slot machine than each other.”

  She didn’t bother looking in my direction. “Gambling palaces do not have to be the size of football stadiums. Arthur,” pointing to her fiancé, “has done a study on the gambling industry.”

  Arthur looked like a tennis jock—sandy hair, light blue eyes, sun-bronzed skin, good build, not too tough. Guys who played basketball, football, hardball, were tough. Guys who played tennis and racketball were soft-shelled crabs—they may look good on the outside, but you could crush them with your teeth.

  You didn’t learn about casinos from a book. That was like wearing a condom during sex—you feel something but you’re not experiencing the flesh. But I kept my mouth shut. Like I was once told, blood is thicker than water.

  “Arthur sees Halliday’s as a boutique.”

  I groaned aloud. It was impossible to keep my mouth shut. “Jesus, what the hell is that? A fancy flower shop?”

  Morgan had been ignoring me and I finally had her attention. Pure animosity was beamed my way.

  “Sorry, I forgot you have a limited education.”

  “Why don’t you give me the benefit of what an expensive education paid by your old man got you.”

  “Com’on now boys and girls, let’s not play dirty,” Con said, “But, honey, I’m so damn stupid, what exactly is a boutique?”

  “A boutique is a small establishment with class. The word is usually associated with fashion. Macy’s is a big department store; Haverville’s is a small store, a boutique that sells to the rich. The word refers to a small, classy operation. Nowadays stock brokers leave big firms to open boutique investment firms; lawyers jump ship to open boutique law firms.”

  “Halliday’s isn’t a boutique?” he asked.

  “Surprisingly, Dad, when you ran it and gave it that Old Wild West ambience, it was like a boutique. Now it’s more like a cattle pen.” She indicated I was the culprit for the fall of the Halliday Empire with a tilt of her head.

  Boy, did she tube me. And gall me. Worse, Con was showing his age—and his booze, cigarettes, and screwing. He usually pulled on his cowboy boots and rolled up his pants legs when the bullshit got deep, but the old bastard was eating it up. Sure, I’d made a big change in the casino—made it profitable. We had gone from one foot in IRS prison and bankruptcy court to the busiest club downtown. We did it by loosening the payoff on the slots and comping Mom and Dad to beers and hot dogs when they came to Vegas in their camper and cashed in a few hundred in chips over the weekend. I also ran championship poker, blackjack, and even slot machine tournaments.

  “Dad, you need an atmosphere that encourages people to spend money,” Arthur said.

  The guy should have knocked off that “Dad” crap until they were married. And maybe can it even then. Never having had a father, I found hearing him use the word grated on me.

  “Studies show that people don’t buy big-ticket items in supermarkets,” Arthur said. “Despite the heavy foot traffic in store aisles, supermarket shoppers won’t buy a fifty-dollar radio because they’re not conditioned to spending that kind of money grocery shopping. The problem with Halliday’s is customer conditioning. Like Pavlov’s dog—”

  “Whose dog?” I asked.

  Arthur’s mouth dropped. “Pavlov, the—”

  “Go on, darling. We’ll give Zack a book to read.” Morgan’s facial expression implied some doubt as to whether I could read.

  Arthur went on. “Our studies show that a Halliday player spends only about $107 per visit to the casino. That sort of money wouldn’t last an hour up on the Strip but could last several hours of play here. Why? Because Halliday’s is not a big-ticket operation.”

  “We’re not the Strip,” I said. “We don’t have the floor space, the hotel rooms, the foot traffic, the restaurants, the shows. We’re down and dirty in Glitter Gulch and—”

  “That’s it,” Wonder Boy said, “you just used the ‘G’ words—‘Glitter Gulch.’ People don’t spend money in Halliday’s because people don’t spend money in Glitter Gulch—that’s the conditioning. They’re not on the Strip. Now if we put in deep carpets, Oriental rugs, chandeliers, an elegant restaurant—”

  “Marcel Dubrey,” Morgan said, “the second chef at the Four Seasons, is interested in running a gourmet grill in our casino. Think about it, Dad, Monte Carlo right here in downtown Vegas.”

  Fifteen minutes later I got on the elevator behind Morgan and pushed the emergency stop button as soon as the doors closed, pulling the button out enough to keep the alarm bell from ringing but the elevator stopped.

  “What the hell do you think you’re pulling,” I said. “I spent three years as casino manager getting your old man out of hock. Halliday’s is making money and you come in with a harebrain scheme—”

  “Harebrained.”

  “What?”

  “Harebrained. You mispronounced the word.” She released the stop button and the elevator lurched upward.

  “Fuck your English lesson. You and Wonder Boy are full of crap. I don’t blame him. He’s just a spoiled rich kid who hasn’t gotten knocked on his ass enough, but you were raised in Glitter Gulch. You should know better.”

  “You’re right. I do know better. That’s why I like the boutique idea.”

  “The boutique idea is garbage.”

  “My father didn’t think so.”

  We left the elevator.

  “It appeals to your father’s ego, not his good sense. It won’t work. Downtown is for serious gamblers, even the little ones who lose a few hundred and brag that they come to Vegas to visit their money. Finger food to them is peanuts and potato chips. I finally got the club on a good footing and you want to take the money I saved for a new wing on the hotel—”

  “I? I? That’s all I hear from you, is ‘I.’ It must have been awfully lonely out there all by yourself running this place. Where was my father who built this place over the past thirty or forty years? Isn’t he the guy who took you off the street and put you in a suit?”

  “Yeah, and it was lonely work keeping your old man in business so you could go to fancy schools and your druggie brother could get his fixes.”

  She got in my face. I braced myself, expecting to be punched.

  “You son of a bitch, you won’t have to worry about that anymore. You’ve kept my brother out of his family’s club. When I’m through with you, you’ll be back on the street where my father found you.”

  I leered at her. “You’re wrong about that. Your old man never found me on the street; he caught me stealing at a blackjack table. I’m lower than you even thought, but you know something, I can run a better casino standing on my head, than you and Wonder Boy.”

  “You won’t be running this one!”

  I was at the stairway and she was angrily fumbling with the key to her suite when a suitable rebuttal came to me that I couldn’t resist.

  “Nice boob job,” I said.

  42

  “I want out,” I told Chenza.

  We were sitting beside her pool, drinking margaritas. I thought they were a sissy drink, but frozen tequila and lime went with the nachos her housekeeper had whipped up. Loaded with jalapeños, onions, cheese, and salsa, Josie’s nachos were hot as lava.

  “I’ve been wanting out for a long time.”

  She licked salt from the margarita glass. “You want to be on the Strip.”

  “Yeah, I want the Strip. I’ve outgrown Halliday’s. I’ve been there for over six years. It’s been good for me, but I’ve felt hemmed in for a long time. I wouldn’t leave as long as Con needed me, but he’s buying into Morgan’s renovation plan. It’s going to be a disaster, but that’ll be their heartburn. I’ve put enough of my time and blood in.”

  “You don’t just walk in and start running a Strip casino, it’s not like getting a manager’s job in
a supermarket chain with a thousand stores. How many clubs are there, eight or ten?”

  “I don’t want to run one; I want to own one.”

  “Ahhh.” She licked more salt. As I watched her lick the rim of the glass, I understood where she got the practice for the amazing things she did in bed with her tongue. “You must have been skimming more at Halliday’s than I thought.”

  Paying myself “bonuses” for twenty-four/seven and increasing it in other casinos had gotten me a nice nest stake, but it would be chump change on the Strip.

  “I was thinking about your pal Mr. Wan. You told me he was interested in buying a casino in the Caribbean. I’ve got a couple bucks, enough to buy in for a few points, but not what you’d need for a place on the Strip. I could help him put a deal together and run it for him. If I got the place going good, who knows, maybe the Strip will be next.”

  “That’s interesting.”

  “Why?”

  “Wan’s coming into town and he asked about you.”

  “Is he being cheated again?”

  “I don’t know. But he wants to meet with you. Knowing Mr. Wan, it has something to do with money.”

  Trouble was brewing at Halliday’s, and it wasn’t just the interior decorator with the pink leisure suit and gold earring Morgan brought in from Manhattan to walk around the place and say, “Oh dear, that simply has to go.”

  The revenues from the table games had been coming up about twenty grand a month short for the past couple of months. That wasn’t much of a deviation, even for Halliday’s. A good run of luck could create it, but it was a consistent thousand bucks a day for twenty-some days of each month. What bothered me was the consistency. My nose told me that a dealer or croupier was skimming or giving away the store. I had a security manager, but Con and me still had the best noses for cheating in the business.