Neon Mirage (21 page)

“Nate. Don’t…”

“I’m not talking about us. I’m talking about you. About putting a life together for yourself, a real life that isn’t the ersatz Hollywood your dreamboat’s trying to turn this desert into.”

She gestured around us with one hand, smiling wryly. “I think he’s done pretty well.”

“Tonight it looks like it. Looking at these palms and terraces and this swimming pool, sure. But you know better than I how wrong this is going.”

She swallowed. “I don’t know what you mean.”

I pointed over to the hotel building. “He didn’t make it, did he? His personal deadline. That hotel isn’t going to be open for weeks—maybe months. He had to book rooms at hotels all over town, when people called for reservations.”

“So what? You saw those crowds in there. The casino’s open. The restaurant. The showroom.”

“He’s not going to make any money on the restaurant; like he says, it’s strictly a come-on. Nor the showroom—he’s spending thirty-five grand a week on Cugat and Durante and the rest. Top-name talent don’t come cheap. So it’s all riding on the casino—and these opening-night type crowds aren’t going to hold up. Not even on opening night.”

“And why not?”

“Aren’t you listening? Aren’t you paying attention? He didn’t get the hotel open in time—the Flamingo drew people in, but those people are staying at other hotels, most of them at the Last Frontier and the El Rancho Vegas, which have their own casinos. The other hotels are close to all those open-door casinos downtown. People gamble where they’re staying, Peg. They may come to the Flamingo for an hour or two every day while they’re in town, but they’re going to do most of their gambling where they’re staying. That’s basic.”

She was shaking her head no. “He’ll make a go of it. You wait and see.”

“I don’t know. You notice that little guy he’s been talking to?”

“Mr. Lieberman?”

“That’s right, only it’s Lansky. Meyer Lansky.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Isn’t he…a gangster?”

“Isn’t Rita Hayworth a woman? I don’t think his being here is a good sign.”

“Maybe it’s a show of support.”

“I don’t think so. I don’t think Ben has much time left to make a go of this place. He’s sunk six million bucks of mostly mob money into the Flamingo, and I have a hunch the boys want some results, fast. They want to see that Ben’s running this place to their satisfaction.”

“You think that’s why this…what is his name?”

“Lansky.”

“You think that’s why this Lansky is here. Checking up on Ben.”

“Possibly. Possibly warning him. They’re partners. They go way back.”

“You almost seem…worried about Ben.”

“I like the guy. Don’t ask me why. By all accounts, he’s a murderer and a narcotics trafficker, among other niceties, including he’s in my ex-fiancée’s pants. I oughta hate him.”

She winced at my remark about her pants, but was expressionless when she said, “But you don’t.”

“No. I kind of admire his chutzpah. And maybe he’ll pull this stunt off. Maybe. But I’m not waiting around to see. I’ll be in Chicago before you know it.”

“I love him, Nate.”

“You fall in love a lot, don’t you, kid? Me, it doesn’t come quite so easy.”

“I’m not going back to Chicago with you.”

“Well, here’s my advice, then. Stay out of Siegel’s bed. Tell him you’ll get back in, when Virginia Hill’s out of his life. Tell him you aren’t prepared to play side dish to her main course.”

“You’re cruel.”

“Not as cruel as you, and you aren’t even trying. Do what I said, and maybe you can hang on to your job here. Siegel does seem to respect you for your mind as well as your body. Be a career girl, if you want. You just might be in on the ground floor of something.”

“Why do you…why do you still care about me?”

“I haven’t the faintest fucking idea,” I said, and I went back into the casino.

Where Ben was in his element. He was shaking hands with guests (those who weren’t in plaid jackets, anyway), and on his arm was Virginia Hill, looking resplendent in her thirty-five-hundred dollar flaming orange-red gown; a diamond necklace caressed her bosom, and who could blame the lucky rocks? She seemed in
her
element, too, tapping back into her days as the belle of the social ball, when she was posing as an Arkansas heiress. Gone, for the moment, was her disdain for Siegel’s pastel dream castle. Here was a beautiful woman, charming, funny, and so very desirable. The psychopath was hiding.

I stayed away from her. I saw Lansky two more times that evening; in both instances he was speaking, off to one side, with Moe Sedway.

My pickpocket school graduates did all right. They stopped one whiz team, and two single-handers. They followed my suggested procedure and did not confront the dips till they had left the premises; that prevented any nasty embarrassing scene within the facility itself.

As I suspected, the crowd thinned out early, for a joint that never closed. People headed back to their own hotels, where they’d probably gamble some more before retiring.

A little after 3 a.m., I found Siegel in the small main counting room off the casino. Boxes of money were on the table before him. He and the top pit boss were counting the take. But I could see from Siegel’s fallen face that something was wrong.

“This is impossible,” he said, ashen.

The pit boss shrugged.

“I’ll, uh, report in later,” I said.

Siegel looked at me with the expression of a man who has been struck in the back of the head with a plank.

“We’re down almost thirty thousand,” he said.

“What?” I said.

“We lost tonight. How the fuck does the
house
lose?” I didn’t know.

But the way Siegel’s luck had been running, I wasn’t surprised he’d found a way.

“The place ain’t exactly hoppin’,” George Raft said, lighting up a cigarette as he viewed the moderately attended casino floor from the slightly raised perspective of the lobby. It was early Friday afternoon, and Raft had just arrived from Hollywood; he’d driven over in his shiny cobalt-blue Cadillac, only it wasn’t so shiny after the desert had been at it for seven hours. He was wearing a dark blue sportshirt and a lighter blue jacket and seemed tired; his hair was slicked immaculately back, but the rest of him looked slightly out of focus.

“Come evening it’ll be jammed again,” I said. “Without the hotel open, days are bound to be slow.”

He nodded. “How’s Benny holding up?”

“He’s a little frazzled. This morning he chewed out some poor customer who had the bad judgment to go up and call him ‘Bugsy.’”

“Ouch,” Raft said.

“And, too, he was down thirty grand last night.”

Raft gave me a disbelieving look. “Down?”

“Yeah. Partly it’s the pros from downtown coming in and playing smart. That includes his supposed pal Gus Greenbaum.”

The gregarious, fleshy Greeenbaum ran the Arizona branch of Trans-American for Siegel.

“Even the savviest gamblers are still up against house odds,” Raft said. “What’s
really
going on?”

“I think I know,” I said. “I’m just not ready to spring it on Siegel yet.”

Raft nodded again. “Where is he? I got more bad news for him.”

“Well, if that’s the case, I’m going to make myself scarce…”

“Too late. Here he is.”

Siegel was striding through the casino, wearing a tux with a red carnation; he was beaming, gladhanding, putting on a good front, but just the way he walked was a tip-off. This guy was teetering.

But he grinned widely at seeing Raft and said, “Georgie! Georgie, how are ya? Thanks for coming,” pumping his old friend’s hand. He didn’t seem to notice how forced Raft’s smile was.

“Let’s talk,” Raft said.

“Fine!”

“Private, someplace.”

Siegel shrugged. “Sure.”

“I’ll see you guys later,” I said.

“Naw,” Siegel said, “Georgie and me got no secrets from you, Nate.” And, Raft staying dutifully at his side, Siegel eased his arm around my shoulder and walked me to his small office behind the hotel check-in counter.

Siegel’s desk was cluttered with notepad notes to himself; there were four phones, making it look more like a hole-in-the-wall bookie joint than some big shot’s office. The pink plaster walls were decorated with framed photos of Ben and his Hollywood pals, chief among them Raft, including a portrait of the two of them smiling at each other after Raft stood up for his childhood chum in court.

Behind the desk, Siegel leaned back in his swivel chair and lit up one of his Havanas. Normally the health-conscious Bug only allowed himself one a day; the last several days I’d noticed he was going through them like he was chain smoking Camels.

Raft took a chair across from Siegel while I stood in the corner, next to a signed, framed Cary Grant 8 by 10 glossy.

Siegel pointed at me with his pool cue cigar and showed off his patented dazzling smile. “I oughta put you in my will, Georgie, for introducing me to Nate, here. He’s just about the most valuable guy I got around this joint.”

I swallowed. I didn’t know whether to say aw shucks or go screaming into the desert.

“He’s straightened out my pilferage problem overnight. He’s turned those flabby ex-flatfoots on my private police force into something like a real security staff. You used to be a dip, didn’t you, Georgie? Well, don’t try it around here—Nate’s got his boys trained to spot ya. Nate doesn’t know it yet,” he confided in Raft, as if I weren’t there, “but I’m going to offer him a permanent position.”

I said, “I’m flattered, Ben,” and let it go at that.

Raft said, “Hear you had quite a turnout last night.”

Siegel gave with a magnanimous wave of his cigar. “Jam-packed. Couldn’t ask for better.” His expression darkened momentarily. “We had a bad run of luck at the tables…” And then he brightened, or pretended to. “…but the house odds’ll turn that around.”

If he was counting on that, he was making a mistake, at least potentially so. Sure, assuming his tables were straight, the odds would even out in the house’s favor; that was a tide that would inevitably turn. But as over-extended as he was, his bankroll might be expended before said tide came in.

“Everything’s set for tomorrow night,” Siegel said. “I chartered a TWA Constellation to bring your pals down, and anybody that doesn’t want to fly can come by train, at my expense.”

“Ben,” Raft said, shifting in his chair, “we got a little problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

“A few people can’t make it.”

“Like who?”

“Well. Like almost everybody.”

Siegel’s face went expressionless; and then it began to burn.

Raft seemed very uncomfortable. “It’s not easy for me to tell you this, Ben.”

“What’s the matter with those jerks? Since when don’t Hollywood wanna come to a big party?”

Raft shrugged, tried to find something to say, couldn’t. It was very strange seeing George Raft nervous; it made me at least as uncomfortable as he was.

Siegel gestured to the framed photos around him. “What about your buddies at MGM? Joan Crawford, Greer Garson, Spencer Tracy, Ronald Colman?”

“Ben. Look. Old man Hearst passed the word around the studios. He’s against the whole idea of stars coming out here for this—everybody’s been told to stay away.”

Siegel slammed a fist on his desk and his framed photos rattled. “That lousy cocksucker! What’s he got against me?”

“I don’t know, Ben.”

“It’s that fucking Louella Parsons. She’s always on my ass. Calls me a gangster, in print!”

“What can I say?
I’ll
be there.”

“Who else?”

“Lon McAllister, Sonny Tufts, Charlie Coburn…a few others.”

Siegel’s face had slowly gone from red to white. “I advertise Ava Gardner and instead give ’em Sonny Tufts, is that it?”

“Hell, I think it’s white of Tufts to show, considering the pressure.”

Siegel, calming, said, “Yeah, you’re right. I’m not gonna take it out on the ones with stones enough to show. What about Jessel?”

“He’s coming. He’s set to emcee.”

“Yeah, he can deliver the fuckin’ eulogy.”

“Ben, there’ll be enough stars to justify your advertising and everything. And Wilkerson says that all the reporters you invited are coming.”

Siegel smirked humorlessly. “After the free ride I promised ’em, you can bet on it. I sent out cases of whiskey to a couple dozen of the bastards.” Abruptly he stood, looked sharply my way. “Have you seen Chick around?”

Chick was Virginia Hill’s twenty-one-year-old brother, a nice enough kid, who was working as a robber, that is, one of the trusted hands who emptied the slot machines and hauled the bags of coin to the counting room.

“Yeah,” I said, “he’s working. If he isn’t on the floor, he’s in the counting room.”

“Get him, would you?”

I didn’t much like playing gopher to Siegel, but I didn’t much feel like telling him to go fuck himself, either. I found Chick in the counting room and hauled the boy back.

“What do you need, Ben?” he asked. He was wearing a white shirt and black pants—which was one of the two standard casino employee uniforms, the other and more common being a tux; even just the modified formal wear looked odd on Chick, who was a kid with dark blond hair, slicked back in the Raft manner, and pointed, callowly handsome features.

Siegel, still standing, dug in his pants pocket; he withdrew a wad of bills and peeled off ten one-hundred dollar bills; he scattered them on his desk like more notes to himself.

“There’s a grand,” he told the kid. “Take it and do some shopping in L.A. Get some nice presents for the reporters, the columnists. Neckties, shirts. Oh, hell, you know.”

“Sure, Ben. Should I drive, or what?”

“Naw, I want you back by tomorrow afternoon. Catch the first available flight.” He peeled off another hundred.

Chick collected the money, smiled goofily like a teenager whose dad just handed him the keys to the new DeSoto. He stood there with the money in his hands for a few moments, until Siegel rather irritatedly waved him off, and the kid slipped out the door.

“We’ll keep these reporters happy,” Siegel said. Then he put his cigar out in a tray and came out from behind the desk and Raft stood and the men went out into the lobby; I trailed behind, not having been dismissed yet.

“Let me show you the pool,” Siegel said, his arm around Raft now.

I was about to fall away, but then decided to go along. I wanted to see if Peggy was playing bathing beauty today.

Turned out she wasn’t. Just a bevy of waitresses, cigarette girls and hookers, soaking up the winter sun.

So was a guy in a tux, his tie loose around his neck.

Siegel’s face reddened again.

He broke away from Raft and went over and kicked the chaise longue, whose pale, round-faced, startled occupant sat up and looked at Siegel with wide, terror-filled eyes.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Siegel snarled.

“Just—just s-sitting here…”

“Get back to work, you bum, before I boot your ass out on the highway.”

The round-faced man looked at me and then at Raft, whom he obviously recognized but was too bewildered by Siegel’s performance to be impressed by the presence of a mere movie star.

The man could only stutter: “B-but I’m a ga-ga-ga…”

“Spit it out!”

“Guest!”

“What?” Siegel said. Taken aback.

“I don’t work here…I’m a guest.”

Raft covered his mouth but I didn’t bother. My hand wouldn’t have been big enough to hide the grin.

Siegel, very embarrassed, started brushing off the shoulders of the guy’s tux, as if it had gotten dirty, which it hadn’t. He did his best to make it up to the guy, handing him one of the same courtesy cards the newspapermen got, giving him a free ride on everything except gambling itself.

We walked back into the casino and Siegel said, “Brother, is my face red.”

Frequently.

“I guess I oughta watch my fuckin’ temper…shit! Do you see who that is?”

A tall, slightly heavy-set man in a pinstripe suit, with satanically shaggy eyebrows, was standing at a slot machine, studying it like a sociologist might a pygmy hut.

Raft said nothing, but the mask of his face was grim.

“Pegler,” I said.

Siegler looked at me with a vicious, self-satisfied smile. “Westbrook Pegler is right.”

I shrugged. “Well, you wanted to attract newspapermen.”

“That bastard’s been cutting me up. Called me a hoodlum and carpetbagger. Called me Bugsy. In syndication.”

I could see Siegel’s shoulders tensing; his hands were fists.

Raft put a hand on Siegel’s arm. “Ben—he’s been cutting me up in his column, too. Ever since that gambling bust, but so what? That’s his racket. Live and let live.”

“I’m going to kill him,” Siegel said, quietly, smiling, “I’m going to kill him. I’m going to kill him.”

It was times like these I wished I’d taken my father’s advice and finished college.

“You’re not killing anybody,” Raft said. “You’re going to ruin it for yourself, if you do. Get a grip, baby-blue eyes.”

Siegel visibly softened.

But he walked over to Pegler, who had inserted a quarter into the slot machine and was yanking back the arm.

Raft and I followed; we seemed to be backing Siegel up, but in reality we were poised to grab and brace him, if necessary. Pegler, who I’d had a run-in with in Chicago back in ’39, looked right at me and didn’t recognize me. Like him, I was older and heavier, now.

“Mr. Pegler,” Siegel said.

“Yes?” Pegler said, losing his quarter, turning his gaze on Siegel, eyebrows raised, voice patrician. Pegler was one of those columnists who made a big deal about being for the common man while at the same time considering himself above just about everybody.

“My name is Ben Siegel.”

Pegler began to smile; he was searching for the right pithy comment, when Siegel stopped him.

With Pegler’s own weapon, words: “This is my casino. If you’re not out of here in five minutes, I’m going to take you out. Personally.”

Pegler’s smile wilted. He looked at Siegel carefully, slowly. Siegel’s back was to me, so I don’t know what expression he was showing Pegler. Whatever it was, it was enough to make the powerful columnist swallow thickly, tuck tail between his legs and go.

Siegel turned to us and opened his two hands like a magician displaying something that had disappeared. “See? I can control my temper when I want to.”

“Good,” I said. “Because it’s time you knew something.”

“What’s that?”

I turned to Raft. “Why don’t you park yourself at a blackjack table or something, for a while? Your face attracts too much attention. We need to be a little less conspicuous for a few minutes.”

Raft shrugged. “I’ll try the chemin-de-fer room.”

“Good idea,” I said.

Then he moved off, and I took Siegel by the arm. “What do you have in mind,” I asked him, “where these gambling losses are concerned?”

“In mind?”

“What do you intend to do about it?”

He shrugged facially. “Well, we’re switching dice more frequent. Cards, too. Tonight I’m gonna move dealers from table to table…”

“Some of your dealers need to be moved farther away than that.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you patted them down on their way out the door, you’d find subs full of chips.” A “sub” was a hidden pocket.

His eyes tensed. “You’ve seen this?”

“Have you got your temper in check?”

“Nate, I’m cool as a cucumber.”

“Good, because the answer is yes. I’ve seen half a dozen dealers sweeping chips into subs.”

“Christ, I interviewed them all myself!”

“Never mind that. Just take a look there.”

I nudged his attention to the roulette table where I’d been leading him; we were now about five feet away from it, behind and to one side of the croupier, a thin, hawk-faced man who was pushing chips across the table to a pockmarked heavy-set gentleman in a brown suit. The problem was, the pockmarked heavy-set gentleman who was having chips pushed his way was not winning.