One could always count on the photographers, however, when a "system freak" or high roller cashed in big at the tables, and the pictures usually found their way into the wire press services for nationwide consumption in addition to receiving full ballyhoo along the Strip. And if the big winner did not have sense enough to immediately flee with his winnings, he would find himself hurriedly ensconced in the Gold Duster's "Winner's Suite" — a luxurious pad with instant service, revolving bed partners, and every enticement imaginable to assure his reappearance on the casino floor. And the picture-taking did not end there; it was just beginning. A battery of television "eyes" were concealed in the Winner's Suite, recording every breath the unsuspecting sucker took — and also every bed partner. Seldom did a "big winner" — once the ballyhoo was ended — manage to get out of town with even the stake that had brought him there.
Yes, "Heart of Gold" Vito was the hardest working casino boss on the Strip — and this particular day had been the most trying accumulation of experiences in Vito's memory. First, it had been that Autry character, posing as a high roller and all the time nosing around in the Gold Ehister's entertainment department and trying to rumble the showgirls. Then that damn spot-audit team from Carson City peering over everybody's shoulders during the eight o'clock count. Then the heist of Vito's $60,000 share of the finance shipment and the shaking news from Joe the Monster that Bastard Bolan was behind it. And then the Autry guy turning up missing, and Joe's minions turning the Strip upside down — and then, to end it all, the word that the Taliferos were swooping in with their army of torpedoes.
A war with Bolan this town could definitely do without. It was bad for business. Vito could not understand the Eastern Gentlemen allowing this sort of thing to go on in the open city. The flow of blood would most certainly dry up the flow of money — nervous visitors would be scared away by the sounds of battle — and wasn't that the whole idea behind declaring Vegas an open territory? Wasn't it to keep the trouble down, to keep the image intact, and to keep the bucks flowing in?
Vito just couldn't understand it. If Bolan wanted to pick up a few bucks, wanted to pull a little skim job of his own — then hell, why not let him? Let him take it and get the hell out — that little bit of skim was chickenfeed and meant nothing at all in comparison with the overall losses a shooting war would inevitably mean. Vegas did not need to be "buttoned down." Vegas survived and thrived only because there were no buttons. A town that pulled in $40O-$50O million a year certainly deserved something better than a vendetta war by the men hired to protect the interests there. Holy Mother. Vito Apostinni didn't understand any of it.
And already it was too late to do anything about it. The action had moved from Hard Mountain to Paradise Valley, and Paradise was already tasting the flow of blood. And it was Apostinni blood that was being tasted, that was the hardest part.
Vito had not meant that Joe Fuge and Harry Stanners go over there and get themselves into a shooting. They were security agents, not hardmen, bonded and credentialed by the casino owner's association, strictly legitimate in every way and authorized for unrestricted access to any casino on the strip. Vito had not sent them over there to get into a gunfight. Vegas was no place for that kind of action. The idea had been to talk some sense into that Anders fink, and to find out just where the hell he stood with this other troublemaker, this Autry guy. It had seemed a sensible thing to do, especially with Autry on the loose and maybe even a federal spy.
So they'd run into Bolan instead and what a mess. Well… nobody could blame Vito Apostinni for the mess. His only hope now was that the thing could be handled quietly from here on out, that Bolan could be grabbed and hustled off somewhere out of sight and out of mind before he began affecting business.
And, in the meantime, business had to go on as best it could. It was that cardinal point of the day again, time for the four o'clock count — the biggest and most important of the day — and to hell with Mack the Bastard Bolan and his fancy-Dan damn fireworks.
Apostinni was in the counting room, and his heart of gold was running over with the impressive tabulations being posted. A crew of female tellers were working their way through bales of folding money and the coin counting machines were clicking hungrily under the flood of coin from the slots.
"Looks like the best night this month, Mr. Apostinni," the head accountant predicted.
"Yeah, well — tell me that again after you've run your slips," the boss said pleasantly. "Don't gloat over grosses, you wait and show me what we took." But Vito was already gloating himself. He knew the house averages, the mathematics of chance, and he did not need an accountant to tell him that it had been a good night.
"I'm going to bed," he announced tiredly. "Send the slips up, I'll go over them at breakfast."
Vito went to the door and waited patiently while the guard worked the combination. He exited into a short hallway and again had to wait while another guard worked the intricacies of the buffer door which admitted him to the casino floor.
His tagman, Max Keno, was awaiting him just outside, boredly watching the action at a blackjack table to while away the time. Apostinni passed on through, smiling affably at familiar faces, the tagman following a discreet few paces behind. Then he spotted Joe the Monster Stanno bearing down on him from the other side of the casino; Vito's smile dwindled away as he halted beside a roulette wheel and awaited the harbinger of trouble.
The huge triggerman pulled up beside him and spoke from the corner of his mouth. "Morning, Mr. Apostinni. How's it going?"
"Great I guess," Vito told him. "How's your end?"
"Rotten. Those dumb cops had that guy sewed up down there and then let 'im get away clean."
"Too bad," Apostinni commented unemotionally.
"Yeh. We're stil} wondering how he did it. Left his car behind. Don't worry, we're watching it."
"Maybe he's laying low, right there in the place. It's a big place, more'n three hundred rooms."
"Nah. We tore that joint apart, room by room. He ain't there. But don't you worry. He won't show his face on the Strip again tonight, bet on that."
"You got things pretty well covered, have you Joe?"
"Double covered. I got the entire Strip security bunch looking out for him. Also everybody else that draws a salary in this valley. Don't you worry, Mr. Apostinni."
"Okay I won't. I'm tired, Joe, and I'm going to bed. When, uh, when are your bosses due in?"
"About six. They're coming in the company plane. You can feel secure, Mr. Apostinni."
"I do, Joe. Thanks."
Vito went on then, the faithful tagman right behind, and the two of them climbed the private stairway to his soundproofed apartment above the casino.
The bodyguard sighed and dropped into a chair at the top of the stairs. Vito continued on to the ornate door, depressed an intercom button, and announced, "It's Vito, Bruce. It's also 4:22 and all is well."
The coded announcement would assure the bodyguard-doorkeeper inside that the boss was coming in alone and of his own will. The slightest variation, of words or even tonal quality, would mean sudden death for anyone else trying to crash the apartment with or without the boss.
A buzzer sounded and the door clicked open. Apostinni stepped quickly inside and pushed the door closed. A pencil-flood was spotting him from a raised platform built along the wall, several yards down from the doorway, the shadowy bulk of a man fuzzily outlined behind the light.
Vito faced into the light for a long moment, then irritably said, "It's just me, Bruce. Cut the damn light."
"He can't Vito," advised an icy voice behind him.
Cold steel touched the nape of the casino boss' neck and the no-nonsense voice told him, "If you're packing hardware, now's the time to use it or lose it."
"I'm not packing," Apostinni replied hastily, his throat suddenly dry and scratchy. What, he wondered, the hell was Bruce doing?
"Don't even breathe hard," the voice suggested.
Vito did not. He felt, r
ather than heard or saw, the man moving past him — then the pencil-flood went off and the soft, indirect lighting along the walls came up and Vito got his first good look at the guy the whole organization was screaming about.
Yeah. Bolan the Bastard. A big guy, standing tomewhere above six feet high, dressed all in black in a skin-tight whattayacallit — commando suit or something — black sneakers on his feet. An ammo belt was slung at his waist, and this also supported a flap-type army holster on his right hip, with probably a .45 inside.
Another harness crossed his chest to put a snap-out rig beneath his left arm. The rig was empty now, and a mean looking black blaster with a silencer was filling the guy's big fist.
That face had been carved out of hot steel and f reeze-dried, and looking into those goddamn eyes was worse than looking into the bore of the blaster. Vito's eyes flinched away from the confrontation and up the security tower to find Bruce, or the remains ol Bruce. The area between the bodyguard's eyes was missing. One eye was laying out on the cheek, blood all over the goddamn place, and Bruce was just sitting there, the body sagging into the seat harness.
Vito's stomach lurched and his eyes fled that place, also. "H-how'd you get in here, dressed like that?" he asked in a choked voice.
"Is that the last thing you want to know, Vito?" the cold voice inquired.
"No, forget it, I don't care. What do you want, money? Hell, it's yours, take it, take all of it."
"Money means nothing to me, Vito," that voice said.
What kind of a guy did money mean nothing to? Heart of Gold Vito could not understand a guy like that. He said, "Look. Bolan, I'm clean. I'm a good man I live a clean life. I do my job and I do it good, and 1 spread my money around, I mean I give to the poor and needy, you know? Why d'you want to come busting in here, scaring me this way? You got no beef with me."
The guy grabbed him and shoved him across the room, the blaster tracking him all the way. Vito stumbled to a couch and sat down, his legs no longer willing to support his weight. He whimpered, "Okay, I'll level. I'm just fronting the joint. I'm a hired hand, I work for a salary, I practically punch a time clock. I'm small, Bolan, small fish. I got no say in anything, I just do what I'm told."
"Prove it," the bastard said, in that same cold economy of words.
"All right, so I got an interest too, myself. But it's a small one."
The guy just stared at him.
"Okay, I can prove it. Let me open the safe. I'll show you black and white."
The voice behind him again warned, "Carefully, Vito." Anything goes wrong, Vito, you're the first to get it."
"Don't worry, I know that," Apostinni said. He moved jerkily across the room and swung a hinged chest away from the wall, deactivated an electronic alarm system, and opened the safe.
The voice behind him warned, "Carefully, Vito."
With extreme care and in almost comic slow motion, the casino boss reached into the small safe and brought out a leather-covered notebook — the most carefully guarded possession of a lifetime. It didn't matter, he kept telling himself. The guy would never get out of here with it alive anyhow, and it might just save Vito's cautious life.
He carefully placed the notebook on the chest and stepped back a respectful distance. "Just take a look," he urged. "That's the whole setup in there, the weekly payoffs, how much and who to. That's the book, Bolan, the real book."
The guy flipped through the pages, grunted, then tucked the notebook into his belt. "Not enough, Vito," he said coldly. "Tell me something interesting that could keep you living a while longer."
Apostinni's legs gave way again, the thing was clearly way out of hand now. He wobbled to a chair and slumped into it. "like what?" he asked miserably.
"I don't know. It's your joint. Entertain me, Vito."
"I, uh…" Apostinni licked his lips and swung his head from side to side as though looking for a miracle. None was in evidence. What did the bastard want? He didn't want money. He didn't want the book. But he hadn't killed Vito yet, so what… ? "I, uh, you've got the pat hand, Bolan. For now. But listen, you're in a bad spot, you've gotta know that. You better cut out of this town. Joe Stanno and all his boys are turning the whole valley upside down. And the sheriff's boys, they're shaking the town too."
"Yeah, I know," the cold bastard told him. He just stood there, staring, that black blaster never wavering an inch away from that spot directly between Vito's eyes.
"Well maybe this is something you don't know," the desperate man choked out. "Pat and Mike are due in town in about an hour. They're coming after your head, paisano, and those boys don't fool around. They're bringing a jet plane full of soldiers with them, and they're the hardest soldiers in the business. I guess you know that."
"Yeah," the guy said, unimpressed.
"Bolan… I got three hundred and seventy-five grand in the vault downstairs. Think of that. Say the word and it's yours. Every cent, I swear, it's all yours."
"What would I do with all that money, Vito?"
"Hell I — buy yourself a pardon. I know a hundred guys could grease the slide for you. Hell I bet I could do it myself, I know lots of people, everybody, important people. Let me..."
"Shut up, Vito."
"For God's sake, Bolan, why d'you want to kill me?"
Vito was starting to sweat. "I'm a nobody, a nickel and dime front man. I'm not even worth the price of your bullet. Why me?"
"I'm trying to think of a reason why not, Vito."
"Well God, I can give you plenty of reasons why not."
"Look at it from my point of view, Vito. Then just give me one."
"Well I — okay. Okay. I can get you out of here in one piece, Bolan. Joe Stanno is downstairs right now. There's no way out of here except past Joe Stanno. Joe the Monster, you've heard of him I know. I can guarantee you safe passage, Bolan."
"I got myself in," the rotten bastard replied. "I'll get myself back out."
"Okay! Wait a minute Bolan! For God's sake — okay, listen! What do you want? Something hot? Something really big?"
"You're getting close, Vito."
"Well I…" Apostinni sent his gaze in a dazed search of his surroundings, as though wondering if it were really happening. He'd had this rooftop addition put on here like an oversized vault, just to keep nuts like this out. Now here was one in, and Heart of Gold Vito was in with him, and God there wasn't no way out. The odds of anybody coming up to look in on him, at this hour, were about a million to one. Everybody knew this was Vito's bedtime, nobody would come up disturbing him now.
Vito did not want to die like this, not this way, locked up with a lunatic gunsel who'd rather kill than be rich. If he could just talk the guy along… give him something, hell anything, and hope and pray for a break. Holy Mother, just one break. What a hell of a cold deck for Vito.
"What'd you say, Vito?" the icy bastard asked him.
"I said… if you want something big, I mean really big … how about the carousel? You onto that yet?"
Something flickered there in the big guy's eyes, an interest maybe. Apostinni plunged on hopefully. "Yeah, that's the big one coming up. The Caribbean carousel, I'll bet you've heard a rumble or two on that."
"Back up and try it again," Bolan said, the blaster still centered between Vito's eyes.
"Try what?"
"What kind of carousel?"
"You know, a merry-go-round, that kind of carousel."
The big guy's eyes got speculative, and he said, "Something like the California carousel, eh?"
"Nah, that's just the L.A. end, that's nothing. The Caribbean is where it's all at now, Bolan, that's the next big one."
"Okay. Keep trying."
"Hell, that's all I know right now. They don't let small fish like me in on details like that. But I've personally dispatched sixteen mil down there in the past year."
"Sixteen million dollars?"
"That's it. And that boodle you heisted out there tonight was headed for the same place."
"
The Caribbean, eh."
The guy was interested. Apostinni's heart got a bit stronger and he said, "Yeh. San Juan first. There it's cut and sent around the carousel to the other islands."
"For what?"
"I don't know for what. I'm leveling with you, Bolan."
"Suppose I give you a reprieve, Vito. For twenty-four hours. Think you could come up with something a bit more worthwhile?"
"Sure, I know I could."
"You're small fish, remember?"
"To live, Bolan, I can get big damn quick."
"Okay, you've bought yourself a day, Vito. Honor the deal and I'll make it a full pardon."
Apostinni could hardly believe it. The guy couldn't be that stupid! "God, you can trust me, Bolan. I never welched a deal in my life."
"Okay."
The guy just stood there, staring at him from behind the blaster. Apostinni coughed nervously and said, "Well… okay. I'll uh, escort you out. Meet me back here tomorrow, same time. Or would you rather I meet you some place?"
"Right here will be fine."
The guy just stood there. The boss of the Gold Duster got to his feet and crossed carefully to the door. Was the hick dumb-rube bastard going to let him actually walk out of there?
Vito carefully placed his hand on the door mechanism and, with every nerve of his body screaming for control, told Bolan, "You want me to go on ahead and, uh, clear a path for you?"
"Okay," said the jerk-probably hophead, unbelievably stupid dummy.
Apostinni opened the door, slid out, banged it shut, hit the panic switch and froze that door so a ton of TNT wouldn't open it and started alarms ringing all over the joint, and all in the same instant he screeched, "Max! That nut's in there! What the goddamn hell're you..."
The tagman was out of his chair and lunging toward the boss, the rod in his hand, trying to surround his personal god with his own lone body.
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