Neon Mirage (20 page)

At lunchtime, Siegel drove me down to the El Rancho Vegas, the other rambling rustic resort on the Strip, which had in fact preceded the Last Frontier; its chuck wagon buffet, however, was similarly not very frontier-like.

“What do you think of my baby?” he asked, pouring himself some tonic water. He had a meager plate of cold cuts before him.

“The Flamingo? I think it’s pretty amazing. I think you’re going to make some dough.”

“So do I.”

I was working on a heavy plate with something of everything from the considerable buffet; the ham was very good (I’m only technically a Jew). “Do you really think your hotel’s going to be ready in time? It’s clear you can open the casino and restaurant, but…”

“Once the landscaping’s done,” Siegel said, impatiently, “rest’ll be a piece of cake. So what do you think, have I got a pilferage problem?”

Piece of cake; that was a good idea—I’d have to get one. “I think you’re spreading yourself too thin; you shouldn’t be the guy who signs for fucking linen, for Christ’s sake.”

“Never mind that. Do you think they’re robbing me?”

“The chief of your security force is so crooked he can kiss his own ass without turning around.”

“You think I don’t know that? But those boys are used to working for Quinn…”

“I don’t mean to be critical. Anyway, I got it covered. Put it out of your mind.”

Siegel smiled; sipped his tonic water. “I knew my instincts about you were right.”

“Where was Sedway, today? And I didn’t see Peggy Hogan around, either.”

“Peggy’s doing some business over the phone for me, out of her suite. Moe’s tending my Trans-American interests.”

“I see.”

“It’s going to be a little dusty and crazy around the Flamingo today, anyway. I didn’t figure Peggy would appreciate that. Though I don’t think it will interfere with your pickpocket school.”

“What will?”

“I told you, didn’t I? We’re doing the landscaping today.” He checked his watch. “The trucks left L.A. early this morning—they should start showing anytime.”

We pulled into the Flamingo just as the fleet of trucks began arriving, thundering down highway 91 like the invading force they were, grain trucks filled with topsoil, gravel trucks hauling sod, tank trucks of water, flatbed trucks bearing imported trees (Oriental date palms, cork trees from Spain, among fifteen other varieties of fully-grown trees). Scores of trucks began roaring into the Flamingo parking lot and up onto the grounds, as dungaree-clad workers in tin hats hopped out of the vehicles and began getting to work.

And soon Siegel was leading them, Patton in a suit, his thinning hair blowing in the dry breeze, as he mingled with the foremen, pointing here and there, sculpting in the air, shaping his dream, an architect seeing to it his exact bidding was done.

I shook my head and went into the casino, where I found that Quinn—now dressed in a baggy brown business suit and an appropriately ugly tie—had gathered his staff of twenty, most of whom were casually dressed. They were sitting at a cluster of 21 tables.

I introduced myself and got quickly into it. I gave them the basic lecture on the whiz mob and solicited a trio of volunteers to stick around after, so we could work up for tomorrow some examples of typical two-handed, three-handed and four-handed stall and tool routines. (The stall sets up the mark for the tool, who works the mark.) By the time my session with the whole group was over, and training the volunteers was accomplished, it was early evening.

I thanked the three men, who faded away, and went over to Quinn, who’d been watching me work with them.

“You know your stuff, boy,” he said, pretending to be impressed, a stogie in the corner of his mouth.

“Yes I do,” I said, “but I could use some advice.”

“Glad to be of help.”

“This pilferage problem you mentioned…”

He shrugged expansively. “Well, I suppose a little of that’s natural in a undertaking this size.”

“I suppose so. But Mr. Siegel has asked me to help him curtail that little problem. Now, there’s several ways I could go about that. I could stick around at night and wait and see if trucks come back and pick up things they’ve already delivered one day, to deliver again another. I could treat some of the delivered goods with a slow-drying dye, or a dry dye, to stain the hands of thieves. Or I might use your so-called non-apparent dye, the kind that doesn’t show up to the naked eye, where you need ultraviolet light? That technique works even after the hands are washed.”

Quinn’s eyes were narrowed to slits. His stogie hung like a limp dick.

“It’s possible I’ve even already marked some of the goods delivered today,” I said. “By one of those methods, or some other one.”

His mouth twitched a humorless smile. “Your point being?”

“My point is this. Going to all that trouble—surveillance, dyes, ultraviolet light—it’s such a bother. We’re here in the sun. This beautiful weather. Swimming pools, pretty girls. We should enjoy life.”

Quinn was smiling knowingly, cheeks fat and taut. “You mean, you figure there’s enough gravy to go around.”

“No. I tell you what I figure. I figure if anymore pilferage goes on, any at all, I figure to tell Siegel you’re responsible.”

His mouth dropped open and he lost his stogie. “What proof do you have…”

“None. But I know that this couldn’t be going on without your benign neglect, which is a commodity you’ll gladly sell for a price. It’s on the same shelf as your integrity, right above your self-respect. So, anyway—I’m putting you in charge of putting a stop to the theft.”

“And if I don’t?”

“I’ll turn you in to Siegel. I don’t need any proof, though I’m sure I’ll have some. But I got a hunch he’ll take my word for it. And then you’ll be fertilizing some rose garden out by that pool you love so dearly.”

“Listen to me, you little son of a bitch…”

“No. You listen to me. I’m going to check up on these various shipments of materials and supplies. At random. If I come across one missing towel, one missing dish, one missing spoon, you’re history, asshole. You’ll take the rap for all the stealing that’s been going on. And you’ll answer to Siegel.”

He looked hurt. “What have you got against me, anyway?”

“Fred Rubinski thinks you killed his partner.”

And now he laughed. A snort of a laugh. “Maybe I did. They say it was hit-and-run, but maybe I was drivin’. Maybe you shouldn’t oughta fuck with the likes of me.”

I poked him in his fat chest. “Maybe you shouldn’t oughta fuck with the likes of Bugsy Siegel.”

He swallowed thickly and finally nodded.

“I’ll take care of the situation,” he said.

“I know you will.”

And I walked outside, through the front doors of the Flamingo, out into a night lit up by blinding floodlights. The landscaping crew was still at it—they would work through the cool night, under the hot lights, dumping the truckloads of rich soil, terracing it, laying acres of lawn, planting entire gardens of exotic flowers and shrubs. Caterpillar tractors were pushing earth around; gravel trucks were spreading topsoil; trees, their roots bagged in burlap, were being eased down planks from the backs of flatbeds. Just before me, a small palm tree in a wheelbarrow was being guided past me by a young man in dungarees.

Ben Siegel showed him where to plant it.

I shook my head and smiled and, stepping over a tangle of electrical wiring, found my way to my Buick in the parking lot.

On the day after Christmas—a Thursday—Ben Siegel unwrapped his gift to the people and himself, flinging open the doors of the fabulous Flamingo to an apparently eager public. Even the colors of this glittering night suggested the Flamingo was Bugsy’s great big Christmas present to the world: forty acres of desert transformed into vivid, terraced green, imported shrubbery and trees back-lit by red and blue lights. Meanwhile, klieg lights stroked the sky, Hollywood-opening style, creating a veil of light that made the Flamingo, its Grand Opening banners fluttering, visible for miles. Lines of automobiles coming from both directions converged and jammed, while a couple of off-duty Las Vegas traffic cops (who just that afternoon had been moving along a prospector on a burro holding up the downtown flow) somehow coped, though obviously stunned by the size of the throng storming this castle on the sand.

The only opportunity Siegel had missed to further light up his big night was leaving the fountain, out front, dark. The imposing structure was designed to keep water tumbling twenty-four hours, with spotlights throwing color onto its waterfall.

I had been with Siegel that afternoon when he went to watch the fountain’s inaugural moments. But the grounds-keeper was down within the bowl of the thing on his knees, looking inside the rock-plaster-and-lumber affair.

“What the hell’s the deal?” Siegel asked him. “Are you ready to turn this baby on or not?”

“All set, except…”

“Except what?”

“Well, Mr. Siegel, we’re gonna have to flush out that damn cat first.”

“Cat?” Siegel stepped back. “Where in hell?”

“In the sump. Cat crawled in there last night and had kittens. We’ll just have to flood ’em outa there.”

“Listen,” Siegel said, pointing a finger like a gun, “you drown those cats and you’re out a job.”

“You’re the boss, Mr. Siegel,” the groundskeeper shrugged, “but you won’t have a fountain at the opening tonight.”

“Fuck the fountain. It can wait.”

As we walked away, I said, “You don’t look like the animal-lover type.”

“I hate cats. They make my skin crawl. But it’s bad luck for a gambler to touch a cat.”

I presumed this didn’t apply to “Tabby”—although I had a hunch he would’ve been better off if it had.

Despite the dry, dark fountain, Ben Siegel’s fabulous Flamingo was having a bang-up opening night—even if Jimmy Durante was heard to say, on his way to perform in the red velvet-draped showroom, “Da place looks like a cemetery wid slot machines!”

The Schnozola was referring to arrangements of fresh flowers littering the lobby and main casino, tributes from the movie industry and the underworld. Representatives of the former were due in for Saturday night’s “big gala Hollywood premiere”—posters around the Flamingo promised the presence of Veronica Lake, Ava Gardner, William Holden, Lucille Ball and a dozen others.

The only representative of the underworld, that I knew of, was a small dark man in his mid-forties, registered at the Last Frontier Hotel as George Lieberman.

“You know who that is?” Moey Sedway, bedecked in a tux, asked me smugly.

“Your brother?” I asked. Both men were tiny Jews with close-set eyes and prominent noses, though this other man had an air of quiet authority that Sedway could only hope for.

“I wish he was,” said Little Moey. “I could use being born next to that much dough.” He paused for effect, then said: “That’s Meyer Lansky.”

I looked at Sedway like he was crazy. “That pipsqueak?”

“I wouldn’t call him that to his face,” Moey advised. “They come bigger, but they don’t come no more powerful.”

Lansky, in dark suit and dark tie, was smiling faintly, having a pleasant conversation, in low tones, with the wide-smiling Ben Siegel, who looked spiffy as hell in his white dinner jacket with red carnation in the lapel.

Surprisingly, Lansky didn’t seem to have any bodyguards, but then neither did Siegel. With the exception of his security force of ex-cops—whose job was watching the casino, after all—Siegel lacked the armed retinue you might expect. I’d figured Sedway was his bodyguard, at first, till I found Moey never carried a gun; besides, that little weasel couldn’t have cut it as bodyguard to a department store Santa.

I’d been around my share of mob guys, but Ben Siegel had me stumped. Despite occasional flare-ups of temper, he just didn’t gibe with the stories I’d heard about him. Look at him and Lansky standing there schmoozing. Lansky might have been a moderately successful garment-district businessman; Siegel someone from the movie industry, a director, a producer, perhaps. Were these two men really the founders of Murder, Incorporated? Was Lansky truly an underworld financial wizard the likes of which made Guzik seem an amateur? Was Siegel really the man who controlled narcotics on the West Coast?

Whatever the case, tonight Ben (Don’t-Call-Him-You-Know-What) Siegel was a charming, gladhanding host, although as Sedway and I stood along the periphery of the lobby, looking over the packed casino, Siegel did show his colors, momentarily. A heavy-set man in a plaid jacket, looking very out of place in this world of evening wear, was standing in front of a slot machine lackadaisically lighting up a cigar—and not a Havana like Sedway and Siegel smoked. Siegel excused himself from Lansky and walked over to the man.

“You’re blocking the machine,” Siegel told him. “Play, or move it along.”

The bewildered patron in plaid just moved it along.

I thought I could sense disapproval in Lansky’s deadpan expression; but the little man was smiling again, however faintly, when Siegel approached him and put a hand on his shoulder and led him down and through the big casino.

“You won’t see Meyer Lansky at the Saturday night grand opening,” Sedway said.

“Why’s that?”

“That’s when the reporters are going to show. And Mr. Lansky doesn’t like publicity much.”

“Ben doesn’t seem to mind it.”

“You’re tellin’ me. He got himself a goddamn press agent, the other day.”

“Yeah, I know. I met him. That guy Greenspun. Don’t you think a place like this
ought
to have a press agent, Moe?”

“Sure. But I don’t think some of the, uh, investors knew Ben was going to be so…prominent, in the scheme of things. Newspaper articles. Greeting guests at the door. Mingling.”

“Telling ’em to move it along.”

Sedway laughed shortly. Then he decided he’d said enough to me, and excused himself to do some mingling of his own.

There were plenty of people to mingle with. Earlier that week Siegel had been concerned about a rumor that Las Vegans would boycott his pastel palace. Resentment over the political strings he’d pulled to get building supplies was part of it; the rest came from a whispering campaign about the Flamingo being a den of gangsters, begun by his downtown competitors. These “short-sighted fucking vultures,” as Siegel referred to them, didn’t understand that (as Ben saw it) he would only bring them all more business by attracting more gamblers to Vegas.

Apparently the rumor had been just that—a rumor—or else the resentment and whispering campaign had been overcome by curiosity and Siegel’s pro-Las Vegas advertising: “The Flamingo has been built
for
Las Vegas…the Flamingo owners believe in Las Vegas, its future as the greatest playground in the universe…the Flamingo will bring Las Vegas the best money can buy and brains can conceive.”

Siegel wrote most of that himself, of course. He even told his PR guy what to do and how to do it.

Me he’d left pretty much alone, to do my job. Right now I was keeping an eye on the security people, seeing if my training over the past ten days or so had done any good. It was crowded enough tonight to make pickpocket control difficult, which would be a nice final exam for my ex-cop students. Some of them were posted here and there, others were mingling. All wore tuxes—all of Siegel’s staff did. Siegel himself had interviewed and hired, after Sedway thinned the pack, the eighty-five dealers, eighteen pit bosses and box men, and three slot-machine supervisors. All of whom, if you asked me, looked uncomfortable in their monkey suits.

Former LAPD lieutenant Quinn, looking in his tux like a tan but sickly penguin, came up to me and smiled and asked how I was doing. He’d been trying to be friendly ever since we tangled. I hadn’t gotten rough with him again, because I was pretty sure the pilferage had stopped. My spot checks of boxes I marked (and I’d marked some every day) indicated such, anyway.

Quinn assayed the casino. “Think my boys’ll find any dips workin’ the room?”

“If they can’t, they couldn’t find their ass with two hands.”

He couldn’t resist some sarcasm. “You really think there’s gonna be a ‘whiz team’ in the woodpile?”

“That’s the surest bet you could make here tonight.”

And I moved away from him. I don’t mind your average crooked cop; I used to be one myself. But a guy like Quinn gives corruption a bad name.

I walked out on the patio, which was lit in a soft-focus way by more red and blue spots spotted around. Around the pool, as if sunning in the moonlight, were various young women, all of them lovely, shapely, in bathing suits, mostly two-piece, lounging on the chaises. These women were in Siegel’s employ, although in what capacity exactly I couldn’t say. They’d been posing around the pool all week, for cheesecake photos for the wire-service boys. I knew some of these bathing beauties doubled as cigarette and change girls. Only a few were waitresses, from the lounge; the dining room was served exclusively by waiters, in tuxes, natch. (Siegel had drilled the waiters himself, until they worked with the precision of a Marine platoon.)

One of these women sunning in the moonlight, one who had not done any cheesecake posing earlier in the week, worked as Siegel’s confidential secretary.

“You look like a movie star,” I told Peggy.

She was wearing a dark blue two-piece.

“Thanks,” she said. Her reply was a little chilly. But then so was the air; it wasn’t cold out, but if I had a quarter for every erect nipple around this pool, I could’ve fed a slot machine till midnight.

I got down on my haunches next to her. “But isn’t this a little beneath a businesswoman like you?”

She looked down her nose at me, smiling with no warmth. “I don’t think so. Ben wanted some pretty girls to sit around the pool tonight, and I think I qualify, thank you.”

I pulled up a lounge chair. “Sure you do. I just thought you might have played a slightly more conspicuous, more important role in this grand event.”

She seemed to be studying the red and blue lights as they shimmered on the water in the pool.

“Certain parties wouldn’t have liked that,” she said.

“And yet, at the same time, by sitting here in your near altogether, you’re sort of thumbing your nose at ‘certain parties.’ I like that. You still got some of that Chicago fuck-you spirit. The desert air hasn’t dried you out entirely.”

Sadness tightened her eyes. “You hate me now, don’t you?”

I shook my head, smiled a little. “No. Are you still angry with me?”

She gave me a quick, burning look. “I should be. You had no right getting…” I think she was about to say “so personal,” but reconsidered, since that was absurd on the face of it. She just let her thought trail off and looked out at the pool again.

She was referring to a short conversation we’d had, in a Last Frontier hallway the second day of my stay, in which I had said to her as follows: “I don’t know if you’re sleeping with Siegel or not—but if you are, take my advice: don’t, at least not when ‘Tabby’ is in town.”

“Is that right?” she’d coldly said.

“That’s right. But if you can’t help yourself, do it on the sly, and be goddamn careful.”

“Really?” Anger bubbling.

“Really. That cunt is capable of murder, you know.”

For a moment I’d thought she was going to slap me; but she just glared at me, tightly, and stalked off. We hadn’t talked since, except occasional polite, meaningless dinner table conversation, when Siegel held court nightly at the Last Frontier’s restaurant and, in these last pre-opening days, at the Flamingo dining room, where we had a few trial meals. Pretty good, too. Siegel’s French chef knew his stuff.

“Look,” I said. “I know it hasn’t been easy having me around. Anyway, I know it hasn’t been easy for me to be around…”

She looked at me and her expression softened; I could see in it the ghost of her love for me. And I wondered if it haunted her like it did me, at all.

“I’ll be going home soon,” I said. “Probably Monday, after this grand opening weekend’s dead and gone.”

“Why did you take the job, Nate?”

“Money.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Come on, baby. You know me better than that. Name something that matters to me more than money.”

She turned away and looked out at the pool. I thought maybe her lower lip was quivering. Maybe not.

I stood.

I was just going when she said, “I think you stayed to keep an eye on me.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say.

“You…you think you’re protecting me, don’t you?”

“Don’t be silly.”

“You’ve been keeping an eye on me. I know you have.”

I didn’t say anything.

She looked at me. “You really think Ginny’s dangerous, don’t you?”

“Don’t
you?”

“No. She’s all mouth. Big mouth. Ben can’t stand her.”

“Oh, really?”

“He’s just putting up with her.”

“Why’s he doing that?”

“She has her hooks into him. Monetarily. She has money in this place, you know.”

“So does George Raft, but Siegel isn’t sleeping with him.”

She looked away again. At the pool. “You know how tight she is with Ben’s people back East.”

“You mean gangsters? Is that what you think, he’s putting up with her, because she’s the darling of the syndicate? Maybe he keeps her around because he knows that she’s spying on him for them—and that lets him control what she reports back.”

“Well, doesn’t that make sense?”

“It’s bullshit. She was a courier for those guys; they trusted her. And they used to lay her, most of them, but now she’s Ben’s girl, and that’s all she is. You’re kidding yourself. Why don’t you go back to Chicago where you got family and friends?”