LAS VEGAS, 1978
Windell Palmer II was a schmuck, a rock-solid nerd, and he knew it. His father, Windell I, owned a big jewelry store located near a freeway exit off-ramp to the Strip. You could buy a wedding ring set and get a discount certificate for a marriage ceremony good at a wedding “chapel.” Their best gimmick, though, was an offer to buy the “used” wedding rings from a previous marriage. With the country in the throes of a sexual revolution and a war between the sexes, the divorce rate was the highest ever and business was good.
But Windell was never part of the business. When he was ten, he got busted for shoplifting. It wasn't the first time he had lifted stuff, just the first time he got caught. His mother had spotted the bulge in Windell's shirt when they got into the car and found a small steel toy car with real rubber wheels. She marched Windell back into the store to teach him a lesson and stood by helplessly sputtering as the store manager called the police and had her ten-year-old son busted. It cost five hundred dollars for a lawyer, two trips to juvenile court for his parents, and a lot of anger from Windell I because he had to leave his jewelry store to go to court. After that, they sent Windell to an aunt in L.A. who lived near Silver Lake so he could attend a private school in the hopes it would reform him. Windell stopped stealing but learned another vice, masturbating. Had Windell kept it a private sport it would've been okay, but he spanked his monkey in class and the aunt shipped him back to Vegas.
Windell moved from public-display masturbation to other vices, the most distinguishable of which was grifting. He always had a con, whether it was making keys to steal cars or making devices to open the payoff gate inside a slot machine. For every way to make a buck, Windell had criminal intent. As Zack had suspected, when God made Windell he left a few of the operating parts out of his brain, the ones that provided common sense, along with a sense of loyalty and discretion.
He suffered from the delusion of infallibility, that he was smarter than anyone else and would never be caught. Windell I, who banned him from the jewelry store after he caught Windell peddling gold bracelets to young girls for sex, had long given up on his son.
Â
Windell answered the door to find Janelle standing outside his room.
“I need to talk to you.”
Windell lived in a boarding house in West Las Vegas. His father told him that he'd be better off with the people on the wrong side of the freeway than near his own family. What he meant was that it was cheaper rent, and since he was still supporting his twenty-something son, he had a right to complain. Windell hated the meat-and-potato grub the old widow running the rooming house served, so he lived on fast-food hamburgers and the cheap buffets casinos offered.
Janelle sniffed the air in the room as he closed the door behind her.
“Jesus H. Christ, this place stinks. You ever clean it? Or does that only happen when you take your annual bath?”
“Hey, I didn't invite you.”
She sat on the unmade bed, her back to the headboard, her four-inch platform shoes on his sheet. Janelle looked good to Windell, even though he knew Zack complained that she was a cokehead who looked like shit. Her lap-dancing days were over and she was blackballed as a dealer in the entire state even though Con never brought charges. Janelle and Zack were splitsville now, had been for over six months, and he'd heard that her habit had gotten so hungry she was turning tricks. Before Zack moved into a room at Halliday's hotel wing, he tried to get her into rehab but the argument had exploded into a knockdown, drag-out fight that earned Zack an inch-long scar on his temple from a broken beer bottle.
Maybe Zack turned up his nose at needle tracks, but to Windell she was a prime snatch. No one had ever accused him of being a romantic.
She lit a joint and took a deep drag. “I need money, Windell.”
“Don't we all.”
“Real money. I've been around this old town too long,” she crooned.
“I haven't got any bread.”
“I don't want a loan. If I did I sure as hell wouldn't ask a dirtbag like you.” She handed him the joint and he took a deep drag and held it.
“Then haul your whore ass back out onto the street.”
“Don't get upset, Little Man.” She knew Windell liked the reference to Meyer Lansky's nickname. “Look at this dump. Zack's living at the casino and eating steak and we're one step from pushing a shopping cart full of trash down the street.” She got the joint back and snicked ashes onto the floor.
“Zack's my friend.”
“What's your
friend
done for you lately?”
“No shit.”
Zack had been security manager at Halliday's for over three years. He modernized the security system, replacing the skywalks with visual monitoring equipment. He had slowly slipped Windell back into operations at the club, letting him help design the security system and acting as a part-time handyman for electronic problems around the club, but it didn't pay Windell enough to get laid once a week.
She kicked off her shoes and pulled her knees back. Her legs were bare and tanned and he could see white panties glowing between her thighs.
“You're a smart guy. Zack says that all the time. I know you have a way to go for the money.”
His mouth was dry. She was right. Windell had gone from one vice to another, but the one that stuck in his head like a fly buzzing around was going for the money. Like guys who can't resist the impulse to wave their weenies in public, it was an irresistible impulse. Everyone who came to Vegas, whether to gamble or live and work here, had been brought by the same lureâmoney. When he wasn't pulling petty grifts, Windell was thinking about the “Big One.” Even the preacher down at the local bible church surreptitiously dropped nickels and dimes from the collection box into slots.
She spread her legs apart a little, hiking her dress up her copper tanned thighs. He knew she cared zilch about him. She just barely tolerated him because Zack let him hang around. A rubber tire around the middle, thick glasses, fat lips, and a chronic acne problem weren't the best attributes to attract a woman like Janelle, but he didn't care. He was used to paying for it.
“I've been thinking about knocking over my old man's jewelry store. I know the alarm code.”
“And what, make a run for Mexico with a pocketful of wedding
rings? We'd be busted before we made it. No, we need a plan, Little Man, one that's foolproof and no one will ever catch on to, something no one has done before. I know you have one burning inside of you.”
He unconsciously rubbed the hard bulge straining in the crotch of his pants. “I got one, but it means busting Halliday's.”
A smile appeared on her face. He could see she was real pleased at the idea. He felt the heat spreading through his loins.
“This time Con won't let us walk away if we get caught,” he said.
“Then we won't get caught. You're a smart guy.”
“It means fucking over Zack.”
“Still have to pay for pussy?” she crooned, slowly spreading her legs apart all the way, exposing her white lacy panties and rubbing her fingers over her mound. “Come and get it. This hot cunt is waitin' for you.”
The Old Man wanted to see me in his office. Con Halliday was only in his early sixties, but prematurely gray hair and high living made him look older. A quart of whiskey a day lined his nose with blue veins and reddened sagging cheeks.
He built Halliday's into a prime downtown casino, but in terms of the big clubs on the Strip, it was small time. The Strip dominated everything. My eyes were always on the Strip; Con was satisfied downtown. It wasn't just being the big frog in the little pond, but downtown he was a bona fide character. His string tie, Stetson hat, and big .44 hog tied down to his right thigh were part of the lore of Glitter Gulch. He was reputed to have killed three men in gunfights and no one doubted the rumor or cared if it was really trueâwhen you were a character, you were expected to be bigger than real life.
Over the years, he'd turned Halliday's into an Old West museum, with Western memorabilia scattered around the placeâWild Bill Hickok's navy Colts, the scattergun used by Doc Holiday at the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Annie Oakley's sweat-stained buffalo hunter's outfit, a plainsman's hat with three bullet holes (the window sign claimed it was the hat worn by Butch Cassidy when he and the Sundance Kid shot it out with the whole damn Bolivian army). If you looked a little too close, you might see the “Made in Japan” imprint on Cochise's scalping knife. Everyone in Vegas was a grifter and the more Con bullshitted people, the more he was admiredâand believed.
I'd been with Con three years, and while I wouldn't say he was like a father to me, by not having a father, I picked up what Embers and Con had to offer. But Con and I were heading for a crisis. I was still the youngest security manager in Vegas, and now I was being offered a job that didn't pay any better than Con paid me, but it was on the Stripâsecurity manager for the Sands. I felt loyal to Con, so I told him I'd been offered the job.
I wanted to move up in life and security manager at Halliday's was a dead end no matter what I got paid. I had another job in mind and it meant Halliday had to give up some of his authority and part with a piece of his egoâI wanted to be casino manager.
Since its inception, Halliday's had only had one casino manager and that was Con. I didn't think Con would have shared the top job with Bic, even if his son had been less of a loser. Running the casino, being a great character, was Con's life. But he was running the casino into the ground. He bought himself a load of trouble by allowing in men named in the state's black book of undesirables. His license was on probation and could be jerked the next time he got into trouble. He needed a backup on the license or he'd have to close the doors. Bic couldn't be trusted and had been busted for drugs. Morgan was away at school and wasn't even old enough. That made me a perfect candidate. Con knew how I operated.
The club was going downhill because Con wasn't keeping up with the times. Glitter Gulch was becoming a ghost town. The Strip was the place and the only way for a grind joint to operate was to offer comps to the small-time gamblers who came in on the weekends. These people spent maybe four, five hundred bucks over a two- or three-day junket, coming in on a chartered bus from San Diego or L.A. and staying in discount rooms and eating cheap food. They were nofrills gamblers, steady and reliable, and just like people who read horoscopes, they only remembered when everything went rightâthe fifteen-hundred-dollar jackpot they won last year and not the several grand they lost since.
To get these mama-papa gamblers, Con needed to steer more and more away from the professional gamblers, the poker pros, and serious blackjack and craps players. There were less of those each year as women began to spend almost as much money on gambling as men. “Pretty soon you're going to want me to put in a merry-go-round for the damn kids,” Con grumbled, when I told him we should offer a comp of a hot dog and drink when anyone cashed a hundred dollars worth of chips.
“Why not?” I sneered back. “Circus Circus is raking in millions with kiddie treats.”
So that's where it stood between us. I wanted to run Halliday's day-to-day operation. Con would still be the boss, it was his place, but he
had his head in the “old days” and if someone like me didn't come in with new ideas, the place would get crummier every year. I was tired of Con's “bonus” money dribbled out to me like I was a kid. I wanted a piece of the action. I had ideas and if they worked and he made money, I wanted to make real money, too. Bottom line, Con needed new blood, new ideas, and someone with the twenty-four/seven energy to make Halliday's shine and I was the kid who knew how to spit-polish.
When I walked into Con's office, there was a surprise waiting for me. She was about five-foot-six, maybe a hundred and twenty pounds, a blonde showgirl wearing a white suit and a lot of sex appeal.
“Zack, say hello to Chenza Berlin.”
Chenza was high-class sex. Don't get me wrong, Janelle had sex appeal or at least she did before whatever in her life that she was running from caught up with her and she began looking for help with a nose full of cocaine. Janelle had street sex appeal, the stark sexuality of a cocktail waitress exposing some tits and ass as she bends over to serve your drink. But this dame was a class act, a woman wrapped in pearls and sable getting out of a Rolls Royce. My first impression of her was of a cheetah with a diamond choker, a long, slender blonde cat with black spots that hunts alone. My second impression hit me right in my libido. I almost looked down at my crotch to see if my cock had come out of my pants.
After a proper handshakeâher hand was sensual and coolâI sat down, wondering who the hell she was and what she was doing here.
“Chenza used to be a Follies lead,” Con said. “She retired a few years ago on her ill-gotten gains.”
“In other words, I got dumped when some of my body parts started going south. But I'm not here to write my life story. I have a friend who comes in from Hong Kong to play shimmy at the Dunes. He's being cheated.”
That was information enough for me to write her biography. Ex-showgirl, too old for the ramp but still has class and sensuality, ends up as an “escort” for whales. Whales were big players, the kind of gamblers who came into town and could drop a couple of million in a weekend without batting an eye. None of them came downtown because the action for that kind of money was all on the Strip. A woman like Chenza could pick up fifty grand or more in gifts and cash for a
weekend with a whale. Two or three weekends a year would support a big house, a red convertible Mercedes SL, and a maid. A high-class form of prostitution, even though no one called it that.
“Why do you think the Dunes is cheating him?”
“I don't. The Dunes is not the problem. It's a private game between my friend, Mr. Wan, and Tommy Chow. It's taking place at the Dunes.”
I recognized the name of both men as legendary whales. Both were Chinese. Wan was from Hong Kong and Chow from somewhere back East. I had never seen either of them in action. Chemin de fer, referred to as “shimmy” by pro gamblers, was a form of baccarat popular in Europe, but I didn't know the chicken from the egg. It was the big-money card game in Vegas back in the fifties before it got replaced by baccarat. I knew basically that in baccarat the house was the banker who players played against whereas in chemin de fer one of the players acted as the bank. The casino provided the setting and croupiers for the game and took five percent from each pot as a commission.
I'd seen the games played, but didn't have much experience with them. No baccarat table ever existed at Halliday's. Con said it was a snooty rich man's game. He was right, but more money could pass over a baccarat table during a night of play than Halliday's saw in all the slots, roulette, card tables, and keno combined. The big Strip casinos fought over whales like Wan and Chow, bringing them in from around the world in private jets, putting them into royal suites, comping everything from the finest foods and wines to diamond-studded cheetahs as bedmates.
“Chow is cheating,” she said.
“How do you know?”
“He's winning too consistently. Mr. Wan has played Vegas for many years and has never lost consistently.”
“Just because he's losing you think he's being cheated?”
“He isn't just losing, he's being taken for millions. If it keeps up, Mr. Wan will not come back to Vegas.”
And I figured that would make her a big loser, too. “There's a real simple solution. Your friend doesn't have to play with Chow.”
“That won't work. Mr. Wan will lose face if he refuses the challenge.”
“Are the Chinese really that much intoâ”
“When you are in Mr. Wan's position, they are. He has extensive interests in gambling in the Far East. If he lets himself be cheated, he would open himself up for more cheating.”
Chenza took out a cigarette and Con almost fell over his desk to light it. She blew smoke in my direction. She could have blown dirt in my face and walked over my naked back in spike heels and I would have sucked it up. Yeah, I was thinking with my dick again.
“How much is he losing?”
“Maybe a million a match.”
I whistled. “And he keeps on playing.”
“Let's just say Mr. Wan enjoys the challenge. Once he uncovers the method ⦔
Oh, he was
that
kind of Hong Kong businessman, the kind that words like
triad
and
tong
were whispered about, but never to his face. The Asian mob had not hit Vegas, but that was only because Howard Hughes left behind a city up for grabs and the Chicago, New York, and Jersey boys all ripped off a piece of it. I looked to Con with a question on my face.
“Chenza came to me because she knows my reputation for sniffing out cheating. Wan's arriving in town this coming week and, unfortunately, as you know, I'll be tied up with the planning commission on that expansion we're working on.”
I quickly translated Con's b.s. There was no planning commission meeting, no expansion plans, and he would have cut off the fingers on both hands for a chance to get in Chenza's pants. It took me a second, but I knew Con well enough to know why he was dodging the bulletâvanity. The bastard was half-blind and wore a secret pair of bifocals only in private. He'd have to wear the glasses in order to see the table action, but he was too vain.
“Con tells me that you're also very well versed in cheating,” she smiled.
“Ms., uh, Berlin, may I call you Chenza?”
She smiled noncommittally. What a bitch. But I loved it.
“I'm not in Con's class in nosing out grifters. What exactly did you have in mind?”
“I'll pick Mr. Wan up at the airport next Tuesday and accompany him to the Dunes for the game. Chow will be flying in from New York and they'll start the game about ten o'clock that night. They'll play
for a few hours, with minimum bets of ten thousand dollars, and then retire and start again the next day. In three days, if things go as usual, Mr. Wan will be poorer by a million or two. By then, he'll want to know what the gaff is.”
“What about Dunes security?”
“They know nothing. We'll have to have an excuse for your presence in case you're recognized.”
“Why don't you just put a leash around my neck and I can pant by your side.” I couldn't resist the sarcasm. She was implying that the security manager from a Glitter Gulch joint wouldn't be recognized on the Strip.
“Why don't you be my escort?” she purred suggestively.
I had the cheetah image down right. She had claws and teeth that could rip a man apart, but first she snuggled and rubbed up against them.
“Won't people be a little suspicious why I'm with you when you are considered Wan's escort?”
“They'll just assume Mr. Wan is doubling his pleasure.”
I was to get five thousand dollars for watching the games, whether it was one night or three, and an additional five if I spotted the trick. I held out for an extra ten thou if I spotted it. The surprise was that she would be paying me herself. She was hiring me, not Wan. Apparently he'd be more satisfied catching Chow himself. I guess the money she paid me was chicken feed compared to what she got for “escorting” Wan, not to mention his gratitude if she exposed Chow.
“Well, what do you think of her?” Con asked as soon as she was out the door.
“I wouldn't kick her out of bed.”
“I'd get down on my old hands and knees and howl like a prairie dog if she dropped her pants in front of me.”
“Con, we have to talk.”
He checked his watch. “I've got to runâ”
“You've been avoiding me for a week. You know I've been offered the security job at the Sands.”
He heaved a great sigh. “Well, you know, son, I took you in when you were down, out, and stealing me blind. I knew you'd leave one day. My health is ⦔
“The only thing wrong with your health is fast women, slow horses,
and that you confuse a bottle of Scotch for a wet nurse. Let's cut the bull, Con. Your glass runneth over because you have to spend half your time just being Con Halliday. You need someone to run the day-to-day operations of the club, a real casino manager, not some flunky who has to run to you every time a decision has to be made.”