Neon Mirage (22 page)

“That guy isn’t hitting any winning numbers,” Siegel whispered harshly to me, after a while, his eyes large.

“Right,” I said. I nodded toward the croupier. “You get the pit boss to take him off the table. I’ll handle the phony player.”

Siegel, eyes narrowing, nodded. He turned away.

I walked up to the pockmarked player, thinking Siegel was off getting the pit boss.

But the Bug had changed his mind, because he was standing right behind the hawk-faced croupier.

“I oughta kill you, you son of a bitch!” he said, and punted the croupier’s ass.

It lifted the man off the floor and sent him skidding across the table, chips scattering. When he came to a stop, his hawkish nose pointed to the double-00 on the numbered felt.

“You lose,” Siegel said, and reached over and picked him up like baggage and hurled him into the aisle.

Without looking back, the ex-croupier picked himself up and ran. The astonished onlookers—and the very pleased Ben Siegel—watched the guy hurtle up into the lobby and out the front doors.

Siegel gestured big with his hands, like a ringmaster. “No cover charge folks!” he said, letting loose his dazzler of a smile.

And people, smiling too, if not dazzlingly, shaking their heads, chattering amongst themselves, turned back to their gambling.

Siegel came over to me and slipped his arm around my shoulder. “Let’s go have a talk.”

We walked across the terraced green grounds that not so long ago had been barren, and he walked me across the painted, carpeted lobby of the unfinished hotel and took me up the elevator to the penthouse suite.

We sat on the chintz-covered sofa. He was drinking tonic water; I had some rum on ice.

He was shaking his head. “I hired those guys myself, Nate.”

He meant the dealers and other casino floor people.

“Most of them local?” I asked.

“Right. I screened them all personally.”

“After Sedway thinned the pack, you did.”

“Right.” His eyes slitted. “What are you saying?”

“I think there’s widespread cheating going on out there. And I don’t think it’s random.”

“You mean, it’s organized?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

“Moey?”

“Who else?”

“What about Quinn?”

I shook my head no. “He’s not smart enough, and besides, I put him on notice. He’s too scared of you to pull anything. He’s even scared of me. Moey? Moey resents you, and that breeds a kind of bravery.”

“Moey resents me?”

“I think it goes back to that scuffle you had over politics.”

He sat and thought about that.

I went on: “I think he’s angling to take over. My guess is he’s trying to make you look bad to your friends back east.”

Siegel’s face tensed with thought. “And if he convinces them I’m a bad manager, they’ll ask him to step in?”

“Yeah. He seems to be in pretty thick with Lansky.”

Siegel nodded. “He is at that. You know what Meyer said to me last night? He said, ‘Ben, you’re a smart dreamer, but a lousy engineer.’ Can you imagine?”

“Ben, none of this is my business…I’ve told you what I know, and what I think.” I was getting uncomfortable being privy to Siegel’s inside thoughts.

But he pressed on: “He just got back, Meyer did, from Havana. They just had a big meeting down there, with Charlie Lucky.”

Luciano. A big secret syndicate confab in Havana, and I knew about it. Great.

I rose. “Ben, you’re getting into areas…”

“Sit down, Nate. I trust you.”

“That isn’t the point…”

“Sit down, Nate.”

I sat.

“Meyer said the boys aren’t happy with me, the money I spent, here. They want me to bring in a top hotel man. They want to hire somebody from one of the downtown joints to run my casino.” He grinned but there was desperation in it. “You know what else?”

I said nothing.

“You’ll get a kick out of this, being Ragen’s pal and all. They want me to fold Trans-American up. Guzik has control of Continental now, through that McBride character. I told Meyer, sure—just buy me out.”

My mouth was dry. Nonetheless, I managed to ask, “How much did you ask?”

“Two million.”

Jesus.

“I’m pulling in twenty-five grand a week,” he said. “Why should I give it up, otherwise? They’ll make their money back in less than two years. It’s a fair offer.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I need the money,” he said. “This place eats money.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Moey, huh?” he said. Then, reflective, he went on: “Meyer said they heard bad things about me. Some of the boys said they heard I was skimming off the top of the construction money. Jeez!” He shook his head, gestured toward the two picture windows, out of which the terraced lawn and the scalloped-edged pool could be seen. “Those wop bastards, don’t they know I put every available penny into this place, including my own? And my heart and my fuckin’ soul? This is my…what, monument, the thing that’ll be around when I’m gone that’ll make people know I was here.”

“When you get the kinks ironed out,” I said, carefully, “it’ll be a great success, I think.”

“I think so, too. But Meyer’s putting the pressure on me. Something else they heard was I got half a million stashed away in Switzerland. I sent Tabby to Zurich to pick out some furniture for the hotel rooms and from that they figure I’m stuffing their dough in a numbered account. Jesus!”

“What pressure are they putting on you?”

He sipped his tonic water, shrugged. “They expect me to make a good showing, quick.”

I smiled thinly. “That seals it. Sedway.”

He looked at me and slowly began to nod. “Sure. He’s sabotaging my casino—that’s where I gotta make it to make it.”

“Right.”

Siegel stood and walked to the window, surveyed his kingdom with a smile. “I’m gonna fool the bastards. I’m gonna pull it off.”

I stood. “I hope you do. Look, I’m going to go back to the casino and keep an eye on the security staff.”

He turned back to me. “Nate, I was serious about giving you a permanent position, here.”

“Well, uh, I was serious when I said I was flattered…”

“I know, I know, but you don’t want to work under Quinn. Well hell, I plan to fire the fat little crooked son of a bitch, anyway. You think I don’t know how you managed to stop the pilferage so goddamn fast? You weren’t here five minutes before you spotted the problem.”

“You would’ve, too, if you weren’t trying to do so much.”

“I know, I know. And I will hire some of those people the boys want me to hire, hotel man, casino manager, down the road. I’ll start hiring now, right this minute. How’s this for openers? Stay on and be my security chief, Nate. It’ll pay you sixty grand a year and fringes. You can live right here at the Flamingo.”

“That’s good money. That’s attractive. But I have my own business.”

He shrugged. “You could keep it going. Own it, keep an eye on it, but put somebody you trust in charge. Like Fred’s going to run your west coast office.”

“Fred’s a partner. That’s different.”

He patted the air with one hand, setting his tonic water on the bar. “Just think about it. For the time being, let’s go back to the casino and see if there’s anymore dishonest dealers who need a kick in the ass.”

I laughed. “I imagine the cheating’s been cut way back since that little scene.”

“It’s what the cops call a deterrent, right?”

“Right.”

Siegel laughed and we went out a side exit that led down a slanted ramp-like passageway that opened at the side of the hotel nearest the main building. We walked back toward the pool.

Sedway was standing near one of the youngest-looking of the bathing beauties, a little busty blonde number, coming on to her as subtly as a safe falling out a window; but then she could see it coming and didn’t seem to be moving out of the way, so what the hell. He was wearing a white jacket with a red carnation, similar to Ben’s apparel of the evening before; but a weasel in a dinner jacket is still a weasel.

“Moe!” Siegel called out.

Moey looked over at Siegel and gave him a slippery sideways smile and reluctantly left his quiff and trotted over.

“Yes, Ben?”

Siegel put a hand on the little man’s shoulder. “What’s the idea badmouthing me to Meyer?”

Moey’s eyes began to move back and forth. “What do you mean, Ben?”

“Don’t shit me. You think Meyer would keep something like that from me? You know how far back Meyer and me go? They used to call
him
‘Bugs,’ too, you know.”

“Ben, I don’t know what to say.”

Siegel’s hand began to squeeze the shoulder, like an orange you want to turn into a glass of juice. Pulp and all.

“Tell me, Moey. I already know, but I wanna hear it from you.”

The rat-faced little man swallowed and said, “I just told ’em the truth. That I thought you were dangerous to their interests.”

“Really. Because I ain’t up to running a big place like this, is that it?”

“Well, I think you need more help, anyway. I don’t mean any offense.”

He didn’t let up the pressure on Moe’s shoulder. “You don’t mean any offense. Going to Meyer and Christ knows who else behind my back. They were voting down there whether to have me hit or not, Moey. Down in Havana? Bet you didn’t tell ’em you were fixing my casino room so I’d lose, did ya? Or that you were setting me up with crooked dealers?”

Moey’s face fell; he tried to move back.

Siegel said, “Goodbye, Moey. If you ever set foot at the Flamingo again, I’m gonna break the rules. There’s gonna be a killing in Vegas, and you’re the guy that’s gonna get killed, and I’m the guy that’s gonna do the killing.”

He let go of Moey’s shoulder and Moey turned and moved quickly away, disappearing into the casino.

Siegel sighed, looked at me, shaking his head. “It ain’t easy being an executive,” he said.

And we walked back inside the fabulous Flamingo.

Even with Sedway’s absence, the Flamingo’s losing streak rolled on. And I knew why: the dealers, alerted by the literal booting out of one of their own, not to mention the ousting of Sedway himself, would only do their cheating all the more carefully now; and members of the security staff, whose attention I’d called to the problem and who were supposedly keeping an eye out, might well be in on the scam. In the case of either or both, Siegel was flat out screwed. Short of firing everybody on his casino crew and closing down and starting over after rehiring—which Siegel of course could (or anyway, would) not do—there was no way around it. Friday night the house didn’t lose as badly as it had Thursday, but it did lose. To the tune of fifteen thousand dollars.

On the surface, at least, the evening’s “Hollywood Premiere,” which of course was the grand finale of Ben’s gala opening, was going well. Newspaper, magazine and freelance photographers converged en masse, snapping leg art of the girls around the pool (Peggy not among them). Columnists and other newshounds were on hand to do write-ups and interviews, giving rave reviews to an especially demented Jimmy Durante, who hurled into a stunned and delighted audience beat-up old hats, a perplexed Cugat’s sheet music, and bits and pieces of a piano he was seemingly dismantling, only to be topped by the former child-star Rose Marie, looking a glamorous young woman now, nonetheless doing an uncanny showstopping imitation of the Schnoz.

A few more of Raft’s Hollywood friends showed than had been anticipated; not the glittering array Siegel had been promised—and had promised his patrons. But the respectable likes of George Sanders, Vivian Blaine and Eleanor Parker, as well as the expected Sonny Tufts, Lon McAllister and Charles Coburn, and a few others.

And the place was packed, with Hollywood industry figures like Jesse Lasky and Sid Grauman scattered amongst a crowd that mingled rank and file with Los Angeles society types. Siegel had instructed the security staff to enforce a dress code of sorts; it was vague—one of the few specifics was that men had to check their hats, which annoyed the natives who were used to wearing their Stetsons just about everywhere, bed and bathtub too I suspected—but it was working to the extent that the majority of patrons tonight were in formal wear.

Even I was in a rented tux, provided by Siegel, and I was determined that this would be my last night in his service. I’d trained his people and otherwise helped him. If nothing else, spotting the cheating on the floor, and helping him zero in on Sedway as his betrayer, had earned me my paycheck.

But I wasn’t confident that Siegel could keep his head—not to mention his temper—in the face of the pressures ahead, not the least of which was his conflict with the boys back east. Meyer Lansky, Lucky Luciano and the rest obviously wanted three things from Ben and the Flamingo: fast results on their investment; a slowdown on spending; and no more embarrassing publicity. They also wanted him to shitcan Trans-American, which had after all been intended as merely a stopgap measure till Ragen’s Continental could be bought out or taken over.

I wasn’t convinced Ben Siegel could deliver on any of those things. And I knew he was dreaming a bigger dream than the Flamingo itself in thinking the Combination would buy him out of their own race wire for two million. One determined man standing up against his old mob cronies who, past friendships or not, wanted him to hand over his race wire, well—that was where I came in. I wished him luck, but didn’t want to be around when, inevitably, the bullets would start flying. Sixty grand a year and fringes was nice. But breathing had it beat all to hell.

And Peggy? I wouldn’t be taking her home. That was the best bet of the night.

I spent the evening moving through the crowded casino, posting myself here and there, watching the dealers and croupiers, not spotting anything untoward; nor did any dips seem to be working the room tonight. Maybe the word had got around.

Shortly before midnight the Hollywood guests—Sonny Tufts and the rest of the luminaries—trooped out through the lobby, shaking hands, smiling, flash bulbs popping, Siegel lording over it all with a big shiteating grin. He was in the white dinner jacket again, tonight, with a pink carnation in his lapel, like that first night on the S.S. Lux. (Speaking of which, earlier that night I noticed Tony Cornero, looking gray and defeated, standing at one of the craps tables, looking for some luck. I doubt he found it.)

Raft and Siegel were bidding the stars goodbye, limos waiting outside to drive them to the nearby airport, where the chartered Constellation would wing them home. Standing near Siegel was Peggy, wearing an off-the-shoulder emerald green taffeta cocktail dress with a flamingo-shaped jeweled brooch. She looked very chic, short black gloves, hair piled high, tight curls framing her sweet face. God, it’s annoying still loving a woman after it’s over.

I was down in the casino, but well within viewing range. I wondered where La Hill was keeping herself. She’d been playing chemin-de-fer earlier, looking opening-night lovely in her white crepe formal gown, aglitter with gold sequins. And an hour ago or so I’d seen her in the bar, in a not untypically sloshed condition, buying the “best champagne in the house” for a honeymooning couple—using a thousand-dollar bill to do so. She’d moved on, latest stinger in hand, and left the $900 change on the bar. She was known to be a good tipper, but the bartender had nonetheless paged Siegel to pick up the dough.

I assumed Ben had tracked her down and deposited her in their penthouse suite. He would not want her at his side on this big night, not that drunk. Maybe Peggy was chosen as Ginny’s stand-in, so the boss would have a lovely woman at his side as the Hollywood crowd was bid fond farewell.

They were just going out the door, Tufts and all, photographers following on their heels (a fortunate break, as it turned out), when trouble came from the other direction, through the lobby, entering from the patio. At the very moment, so luck would have it, that Siegel was slipping an arm around Peggy’s waist and leaning over to give her a peck on the cheek.

Virginia Hill, legs swishing in the expensive crepe gown, saw this and was rolling inexorably toward them, bumping patrons out of the way like bowling pins. Her face was distorted by drink and anger.

I moved through the casino-floor crowd up the five steps to the lobby.

I was just in time to see Tabby attack with both clawed hands, her painted nails like ten scarlet knives. First she snatched the jeweled flamingo off Peg’s breast, tearing the taffeta, and hurled the bauble at Siegel, Then one hand scratched Peg’s face, viciously, leaving trails of red behind, and the other grabbed a handful of that curly hair and yanked.

Peg yelped and a stunned, silent crowd looked on, fascinated. This was better than the Christians versus the Lions.

Siegel was momentarily frozen as his two girl friends went crashing to the lobby carpet. Virginia sat on top of the dazed Peggy and smacked her with a small hard fist, twice, and then Peggy fought back, grabbing onto Virginia’s dress and ripping, exposing a breast. Then they were rolling over, biting and gouging and punching, Peggy screaming, Tabby growling.

We pulled them apart, Siegel yanking Virginia back roughly, and me cradling a shaking, stunned, bleeding, bruised Peggy in my arms; Peg was a tough cookie—she wasn’t crying. But she was badly shaken, and clung to me, without exactly knowing it was me, I think.

Siegel slapped Virginia Hill. It was a hard, ringing slap, and she looked at him, covering her exposed breast with one hand, with big eyes and a hurt expression that had nothing to do with the pain of the slap.

“You ain’t no fuckin’ lady,” he told her.

“Ben…”

Siegel swallowed, suddenly aware of the many eyes upon him, the awful silence around him; only the casino sounds, and even they seemed hushed, continued.

Quietly, under his breath so that only those nearest by could hear, he said to her, “You made me look like a bum.”

Trembling now, she covered her mouth with one hand, the other hand still protecting her breast, and with a rasping cry, she rushed out.

He looked after her with a scowl. Then he faced his public. He couldn’t cover for such a disaster; there was no dazzling smile to pull out of somewhere, no crack about “no cover charge, folks.” Just an angry and, somehow, hurt Ben Siegel.

Slowly, the crowd went back to entertaining themselves. The photographers came in from shooting the departing stars, not knowing they’d missed anything.

Siegel turned to Peggy, who I had up on her feet, now. Her hair had come undone; she looked generally undone, actually. He touched her shoulder.

“Are you okay?” he said, his voice soft now, seeming genuinely to care.

“I—I think so.”

He put his hand on her shoulder, gently. “Maybe we oughta get you to the hospital. Have you checked up.”

“It’s not that serious, Ben. I’m just…embarrassed.”

“Sure you are.” He smiled a softly wry smile. “Who isn’t?”

She managed to smile back at him, despite the caking blood on her cheek.

“Nate,” Siegel said to me, “why don’t you drive Miss Hogan back to the Last Frontier. She needs some rest.”

“Sure,” I said. “If that’s okay with Miss Hogan.”

She nodded, smiled bravely.

Siegel patted her cheek—the unbloodied one—and gave her a warm smile. His blue eyes seemed almost to twinkle. Fuck him, anyway. I had more hair than he did.

I walked her out to the Buick I was using. Guided her by the arm; just being helpful. Strictly business. Siegel’s gopher. Until tomorrow, and the hell with this noise.

We drove in silence; it wasn’t far.

I walked her to her room.

She paused at the doorway, her back to me. “Thanks, Nate.”

“Are you okay, kid?”

“Not really.”

“I’d offer you some company, but I don’t think you really want any.” Not mine, anyway.

“No…I don’t. But thanks. Thanks for not rubbing it in.”

“That’s okay.”

“You said all along she was dangerous.”

“She is dangerous. It could be a gun next time.”

She nodded. “I know. I’ll be careful.”

“Do that, would you?”

She went in, and I walked away.

Then she called out to me. “You could see I was right, though, couldn’t you?”

“What?”

“He doesn’t love her. He hates her. It was me he was concerned about.”

Right. That’s why he had his gopher drive you home.

“Sure, baby,” I said, and walked on out.

When I got back to the Flamingo, Siegel was sitting in the bar. It was not his usual wont to hang out there, nor was it his wont to drink a double Scotch. He was doing both.

“Rough,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. He gestured to the stool next to him.

I sat. “How’s Virginia?”

He shrugged. “She’s sleeping it off in the penthouse. I went up there and we went a few more rounds. I belted her in the belly and she puked. Got it out of her system, anyway.”

Ain’t love grand.

“Ben, uh…”

“You’re not gonna take my offer, are you?”

I shook my head no.

“You don’t like it.”

“What?”

“Me and your ex-girl.”

“Well, I’m not going to scratch your face over it, Ben. But I probably like it just a little less than Ginny does.”

He sighed. Nodded. “Fuckin’ broads, anyway. Too bad.”

“You mean it could’ve been the beginning of a beautiful friendship?”

He smirked. “Something like that, pal.” He raised his glass to me.

“Besides,” I said, not having a glass to raise, “I’m like you. I like running things. I like having my own agency. It started out just me, in a little ratty office, fourteen years ago. And now I got people working for me, and I’m moving into a big modern office. I got dreams, too, Ben. And they don’t include the Flamingo.”

He was nodding, slowly. “Fair enough. When you leaving?”

“Monday. And I don’t particularly want to work tomorrow.”

“Fine with me. I haven’t paid you yet, have I?”

“Just expenses as we’ve gone along. You promised me ten grand, you know.”

He nodded again. “Yeah, and you earned it. I oughta pay you a bonus, but I been told to watch my spending.”

I gave him a rueful grin. “Just my luck I’m where you decided to start.”

Of course, bad as my luck had been running, it was still better than Siegel’s. He told me to meet him in the counting room at 3 a.m., and he’d pay me, in cash. And I found him there with that familiar, sick, ashen look.

“Fuck,” he said, sitting at the table, money boxes before him, pit boss lurking nearby, staying out of the boss’s way but ready to be at his beck and call.

“How bad is it?” I asked, leaning against the table.

“Bad. Another thirty grand.”

“Christ…”

“If this keeps up, I’ll be down a hundred thou by weekend’s end.”

“You got to close up, Ben. You got dishonest sons of bitches on that floor, watched over by other dishonest sons of bitches, I’m afraid.”

“I’ll put the fear of God in ’em,” he said, with nasty resolve. “Better still, I’ll put the fear of
me
in ’em.”

I ignored that. “I think you ought to close up, and do some new hiring, and wait till the hotel’s open.”

“What the fuck do you know about it?” he spat.

I shrugged. “Why don’t you just pay me and I’ll go. Pay me while there’s still some cash in the till.”

He shook his head, his expression softening. “Sorry, Nate. Sorry. I’ll think about what you’re saying. Your advice has been good so far. I’ll think about it.”

“Good enough, Ben.”

He counted me out nine grand in hundreds, and another grand in fifties and twenties and a few tens.

“Let me know what you’re gonna declare on your taxes,” he said, “so we got our stories straight.”

“Good idea,” I said, folding the hundreds into one thick wad, the other grand of smaller bills into another. Put them away. A lot of money, but I earned it.

I was shaking hands with Siegel when Chick Hill came rushing in.

“Benny!” he said. “You gotta come quick! She’s killed herself, I think she’s killed herself!”