Thrilling Cities

by Ian Fleming

  I was so encouraged by my good fortune that I asked for ten dollar cartwheels to have a last crack at the great iron stomach of my original enemy, the dollar machine.

  One by one they boinged down into the monster’s bowels with only two cherries, plus one orange, to slacken the brute’s appetite. But I now felt confident. I somehow knew that, by leaving one coin in its iron mouth, I was going to hammer this hideous robot. And then, suddenly, there they were! The three silver stars on a green background eyed me with their three sparkling eyes. There was a great healthy rattle into the cup, but not the glorious flushing I had expected. Uncertainly I put my hand into the awkward shark’s mouth. There couldn’t be more than fifteen dollars there. Had the beast defeated me after all by cheating?

  But suddenly the same deputy sheriff with the big gun was at my elbow. ‘Hold it, mister,’ he said sharply, ‘don’t move.’ I almost expected the crash of a gun butt against my skull for having tried to beat the syndicate, but he merely grunted, ‘It’s O.K., you hit it. Now leave it alone.’ I respectfully stood back and, feeling pregnant with luck, attacked the next-door machine. It swallowed six dollars indifferently. Then there was my hard-eyed acquaintance back again. He handed me a parcel of notes. I counted them. They came to a hundred and thirty-five dollars. ‘But it says a hundred and fifty dollars,’ I complained. The man produced his shark-like sneer. He gestured towards the iron mouth. ‘You’ve got the rest in there, mister.’ ‘Oh yes, sure,’ I said, glad that the colloquialism had come out pat. I clawed out the rest of the money, changed the cartwheels with grannie and I went off jubilant to bed.

  I had had three jackpots. I had positively hammered the syndicate. I spread the money on the bed and counted it. Two hundred and ten dollars. Whoever said the Las Vegas machines were crooked? The whole place was a mechanical Christmas tree! The telephone suddenly jangled. It was 2 a.m. Was the syndicate after their cut? I lifted the receiver. A drunken, plaintive voice said, ‘Is that you, Mamie?’ I said sharply, ‘No, it isn’t, it’s her husband,’ banged down the receiver and, pleased with my all-round brilliance and savoirfaire, went to bed after washing the filth of the United States currency off my hands. I had taken on the one-armed bandits and, by golly, I’d licked them!

  Some of the hotels and casinos of Las Vegas are owned in a considerable proportion by gangster money. These syndicates, as they are politely named, are four – Texas, Cleveland, Detroit and Chicago. The equally powerful Miami gang has no money to spare from the equally lucrative hotel and gambling investments to be found in Florida. Much conspiracy is involved in the whole operation and the operations of each hotel, plus gaming house, are shrouded in secrecy. Unobtrusive security arrangements are everywhere, from the numerous house detectives and deputy sheriffs to the handling of the million or two dollars that flow into the Strip every day of the year. From time to time, while play is at its height in a casino, if you are observant, you will notice a quiet flurry of movement in and around the tables and slot machines. The collection of the ‘boxes’ is going on and the management is very much on the alert. The ‘boxes’ are the treasure chests beneath each table and inside each machine that collect the money and, from time to time during the day (play goes on all through the twenty-four hours), these ‘boxes’ are whisked away behind the bars of the cashier’s department and thence to the accountancy rooms in some remote corner of the building. In a well-protected room in this department, the money is then counted in the presence of a representative of each of the major stockholders in the hotel and then, at carefully changed and staggered hours, an armoured car drives off from the back of the hotel to deposit the money, or at any rate a proportion of it, in the bank. This well-oiled piece of machinery operates behind the red plush and sparkling chandeliers of the ‘front of the house’ and it is almost imperceptible.

  Suspected cheating by croupiers or customers is also kept under the closest possible observation and one hotel, the one run by the Cleveland mob, has closed-circuit television which, if the smallest suspicion is aroused, surveys the games through dummy ventilation and lighting fixtures in the ceiling above the table. Occasionally, as I recounted to everyone’s disbelief in a book called Diamonds Are Forever, punishment has to be meted out to a croupier. Several years ago a motorist coming down the highway on the outskirts of the Strip saw something pink sticking out of the sand amongst the cactus and tumbleweed. He stopped to have a closer look. A naked arm was sticking out of the ground and the hand was clenched on three aces. When the police came and dug, they found the man who belonged to the arm. He was a well-known card-sharp who had tried to ‘take’ one of the poker games that are run in a famous down-town casino. The warning, of course, got around quickly.

  I have a contact in Las Vegas, a man who works for the Chicago mob as one of the ‘front’ men in a leading hotel, and it is he who is my informant in these matters. We renewed acquaintance on this trip and he gave me a copy of his own private hints on gambling which he reserves for his friends.

  Since they make sense and since some of my readers may occasionally visit a casino, here they are:

  HOW TO GAMBLE SENSIBLY

  First you must get a strong grip on yourself and defeat the inner voice. You can’t beat Aristotle, but you might – just might – trick the old boy. You can control the psychology that is working against you.

  Decide the maximum amount you will lose and stick to it! If you violate this rule, nothing can help you except Fort Knox. It’s better to divide your amount by days so that you can’t lose your maximum for the whole visit the first day and have to wrestle psychology for the rest of your visit.

  Now, here’s the hard part: decide the maximum you will win and stick to it; this prevents your becoming a jazzy chass [a term of contempt describing a winner who is trying to get rich]. If you follow these two rules, you’re well on the way to having fun without pain.

  When you’re ready to play, watch the game for a while. Games run hot and cold – that is, for short stretches the house will win or lose fairly steadily (naturally winning more than they lose) – try to sit in a game on a ‘cold’ dealer or croupier; when he turns ‘hot’ go to another table.

  Your wins and losses will follow unpredictable cycles. Do not double when you lose – double when you win. Your possibility of winning twice in a row is greater than winning after a loss. [I doubt this. The table has no memory. F.]

  Set a maximum you will lose on each table. When you lose it, go to another table. If you get ahead, put aside some pre-decided portion of your winnings, and if you get down to that, quit the table and go to another. This process will limit your loss on each table and, if you hit a streak of luck, will let you get away from the table ahead of the game (maybe, perhaps, could be, could not be).

  Above all else, if you catch yourself making a bet and thinking of the things you could buy with the amount of the bet, QUIT! Never let the amount you are betting become large enough to be important to you!

  Nothing or no one can give you a system for winning; but if you follow these simple rules you can control your losses and enjoy your visit.

  I spent the rest of the next day doing a slow crawl of the fabulous hotels and enjoying every fabulous sight, from the garage that offered ‘free aspirin’ to the Wee Kirk o’ the Heather with its wishing seat, and the neighbouring Hitching Post with its wishing well, where you can get a quick Nevada divorce. I also noticed the ‘Cambridge Institute of Sleep Education. “Learn While You Sleep”.’ (On the corner of Maine and Fremont, in case I have any students among my readers!) I won my lunch at the Golden Nugget, my favourite down-town casino, which, in addition to every kind of gambling game and device, has a Dow Jones ticker and a scoreboard giving the result of all major sports throughout the States. There the sheriffs have flatter stomachs and the atmosphere is Western and gas-lit. It is a real pro place and the customers are pros – crew-cut desperadoes with Western hats and incipient stomachs, Cubans and Mexicans with sharp clothes and toothpicks rolling al
ong their teeth, and the usual mob of blue-rinsed women tugging away at the machines, their sharp, greedy eyes watching the whirring plums and cherries as if they hated them. These caricatures of humanity carry their coins in children’s buckets and it is them, and not the big gambler, the syndicates love. Inevitably, so long as they play, they will leave their ten per cent behind, whereas the big gambler at the crap table might get hot and take the syndicate to the cleaners, as did one young G.I. who achieved fifteen straight passes at craps – a momentarily bitter experience for the House, but one that has turned out to be the finest bit of promotion work Las Vegas has ever achieved. (Incidentally, if you can master the game, craps is by far the fairest game to play in an American casino. The House’s edge is only 1.41 per cent, whereas in American roulette, with two zeros, the House’s edge is 5.26 per cent for even-money bets, compared with the European single zero wheel where the odds are only 1–35 per cent against.)

  For those who seek further and more expert information on gambling odds, I commend an article in the Saturday Evening Post of November 21st, 1959, by Professor Philip Fox of the University of Wisconsin, who has really taken the subject apart. Two interesting quotations from the Professor’s article which I noted down are: ‘People lose the ability to discriminate when they are confronted by vast numbers. They have no concept of what 1,000,000 really means. Maybe I can dramatize the difficulty by pointing out that 1,000,000 days since the birth of Christ will not have been recorded until A.D. 2738.’ The next is: ‘When I see a “student of form” poring over a dope sheet, I recall a remark made by the late Colonel Edward Bradley who bred four Kentucky Derby winners: “There are fifty-four different ways the best horse in a race can lose honestly.”

  That evening I had an excellent dinner at the Thunderbird and then a crack at the black-jack at the Desert Inn, by far the nicest hotel in Las Vegas and full of action. Black-jack is our old vingt-et-un of childhood days, but here it is played for large stakes by the grown-ups with a seven per cent take for the House. The green baize cloth is sternly inscribed ‘Banker must draw on 16 and stand on 17’. I lost twenty dollars quickly and happily. Happily because the table was a happy one and the dealer, crew-cut and horn-rimmed, was rather charmingly cynical about the game and his customers. I then moved on to another table where the dealer looked tougher but stupider. I doubled up, had a whisky ‘on the house’ from a pretty girl with very little on, and made fifty dollars. On that, I wisely closed my gambling season, and after a short night’s sleep at the Tropicana, left by United Air Lines for Chicago.

  After paying all overheads, I had hammered the syndicates for one hundred dollars and three stolen ash-trays!

  INCIDENTAL INTELLIGENCE

  LOS ANGELES – or correctly, El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora La Reina de Los Angeles de Portucula – is blessed with first-rate hotels, apartment-hotels and motels.

  Good restaurants abound, from the expensive to medium-priced, from gourmet class and expense-account category to the family trade.

  Among the top hotels are the Statler-Hilton in down-town Los Angeles; the Hotel Ambassador with its two-acre lawn fronting one of the world’s busiest thoroughfares, Wilshire Boulevard, running east to west, sixteen miles, from Pershing Square to the Pacific Ocean (in the Ambassador is the Coconut Grove, one of the best night-clubs in L.A., and three good restaurants); and the Town House.

  The Beverley Hills Hotel, on Sunset Boulevard, has the atmosphere of a luxurious country club; excellent service and run by Mr Stuart Hathaway, who visits London and the Continent every year – ‘to see hotels and improve our own’.

  The Beverly Hilton, gay, smart, smooth, is the newest in Los Angeles County and is a show-place. The restaurants, L’Escoffier on the roof with a superb view of the city and the ocean and the mountains, the Rathskeller, and the Traders, are first class.

  Next to the Rathskeller is the Red Lion, a Beverly Hills version of a pub, with tartan-covered walls, a fireplace, and a very good lunch in comfort and quiet. No women are permitted in the Red Lion until after 3.30 p.m.

  The Beverly Wilshire Hotel, also on Wilshire Boulevard, has been refurbished by the proprietress, Mrs Evelyn Sharp, and has a magnificent coffee-shop, with drugstore attached.

  Along Sunset Boulevard, towards the Ocean, is the Hotel Bel Air, in the form of a long hacienda with bungalows attached, set with gardens and patios. It is one of the most charming hotels in the Southern California area – and expensive. Royalty and ex-royalty, like Princess Soraya, like it. It is secluded, private, and tranquil, has an excellent restaurant and very good service, and a good bar with three knowledgeable bartenders.

  The Sunset Strip, a section of Sunset Boulevard between Hollywood and Beverly Hills, is the night-spot and cabaret and coffee-house area. At the night-spots, it is wise to inquire as to the couvert and minimum, otherwise the bill may be smashing.

  Los Angeles is not a night town, although tourists can find whatever they want, from girls to grog, even on the Strip which is policed by the Sheriff’s Department as it is in the Los Angeles County area.

  The top entertainers and the revues are in Las Vegas, where the money is and where the hotel casinos can afford the investment because the people gamble as well as gambol.

  Disneyland and Marineland should be included in the grand tour, and at both places there are good restaurants.

  One spot, the Malibu Sports Club restaurant, on the Pacific Coast Highway, is fascinating – it is on a fishing pier and you dine right over the ocean. At sunset, it is superb; by moonlight, romantic; and the cuisine is de luxe. It is run by a bon vivant and gourmet, Henry Guttman, also an actor-singer of parts.

  LAS VEGAS, world’s gambling capital – and the sky’s the limit, from a dime in the one-armed bandits up and up – is a fantastic caravanserai.

  Smack in the middle of the desert, on a plateau, with a superb backdrop of mountain peaks, Las Vegas offers tourist, visitor and gambler an incomparable variety of motels and hotels. The hotels are super gambling casinos. As you enter and walk through the foyer, batteries of slot-machines beckon. Twenty-Four hours a day there is the click of chips, the clink of silver dollars, the cacophony of the machines and the overtone of piped-in music.

  In the vicinity of hotel or motel, there is never tranquillity or silence. Silence in Las Vegas scares folks.

  But in the air-conditioned luxury suites of the Tropicana, the Desert Inn, the Dunes, the Sands, the gaudy Flamingo, the sprawling Sahara (Marlene Deitrich’s pied-à-terre in Nevada), the Riviera and the Thunderbird, the music can be muted, and from a colossal chaise-longue you can watch British and French show-girls sunning and frolicking in antiseptic sunshine in the late afternoon, around vast Roman swimming-pools, or revel in superb sunsets painting the peaks in purples and crimsons and ochres.

  Each hotel has an identity and atmosphere.

  The Sands, noted for summit meetings of the Group, formerly the Clan, headed by Mr Frank Sinatra, a director, often aided by Messrs Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, Sammy Davis Jr, Joey Bishop and composer Jimmy Van Heusen – well, the Sands is always jumping.

  Noted for a fine cuisine, the Copa Room is a surprisingly spacious cabaret, with week in, week out, a top show.

  The Tropicana’s Theatre Restaurant, as well equipped as a West End theatre, and currently sports the Folies Bergère Revue, ‘direct from Paris’.

  The Dunes boasts of Minsky’s Follies of 1961 starring the renowned ecdysiast, Lili St Cyr, a charming, stately blonde who reads Proust while taking a bubble bath in public.

  At the New Frontier there’s a revue, ‘Oriental Holiday’, with scores of nude Nipponese, and the Imperial Japanese Dancers, in costumes ceremonial and abbreviated.

  Girls, the long-stemmed type, are very popular in Las Vegas; a show is considered incomplete without at least a score of them.

  ‘The cash customers like ’em,’ says Mr Ben Goffstein, the Tropicana’s boniface, a former Manhattan newspaperman who, after a quarter of a century on the Las Vegas p
lateau, knows what the customers like.

  The Strip, a short stretch of the highway which ribbons through the desert and cleaves Las Vegas, gleams and glitters at night with the neoned hostelries and gambling casinos. During the day it is dusty and pallid.

  The night is beneficent to Las Vegas. Against the vast black velvet of the heavens, star-gleaming, there is a carnival quality about this incredible oasis, incongruously named after the swamps which once were nearby.

  Recommended and expensive is the Aku-Aku Restaurant in the grounds of the Stardust Hotel. Dinners Oriental and Polynesian a la carte, from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.

  Recommended anywhere in Las Vegas are steaks, provided you will be specific to your waiter or chef, like ‘charred both sides’ or ‘just rare’ or ‘medium’. Without exception, the restaurants provide charcoal-broiled steaks, and without exception, a steak and a salad, cheese and coffee is enough.

  The California varietal wines are pleasant. The blazing heat of summer seems to affect imported wines and in any case, Nevada is a hard-liquor drinking state.

  Recommended too, the fishing on near-by Lake Meade, and water-skiing if you have the energy.

  N.B. For the shallow pocket, down town is more rewarding than up town.