"Look at Capone. Capone had his, and he was sick and he wanted out, but he knew that the only way you left the rackets was when they put you underground. He even gave himself up to the police, figuring he'd be safe in jail for thirty days or so. He didn't expect the heavier rap or to wind up on the Rock. But he was trying to quit. Others have tried it and died."
Chance was thinking. "You know something. You've hit it. Danzig is trying to quit. He wasn't talking to me. He was talking to himself. He wants Vegas quiet, no rough stuSF to scare away his fancy trade. If he should break with the Syndicate it might save this town."
*'He never can. They'll kill him."
"I don't know." Chance stood up. "The guy is impressive no matter what you think of him, and he's just crazy enough to set himself up and arbitrate Vegas' morals."
"That would be a switch."
"In the old mining camps they used to hire a bad man as the marshal because all the rest of the crooks were afraid of him. That might work here. Come on, let's go home and stir up some breakfast."
(^Ait^tten, rs
Danzig did want to quit the rackets. He stood in the lobby of the hotel leaning against the cigar case, gazing at the nearly empty rooms. It was early in the morning, about the only time of the twenty-four hours when the hotel was not a refined madhouse.
For the war was over and Vegas was in the grip of the postwar boom. Looking back, Danzig remembered how everyone had expected the town to collapse at the end of the war. But he had never doubted the future of Vegas from the day he had had the vision of the hotel.
No, there was nothing to worry about as far as business was concerned. They were netting better than three hundred thousand dollars a month.
If the Syndicate would only give him time. He roUed the cigar between his thin lips. He owed five million on the hotel. But what in heU was five million to a man like him? For Christ sake, he'd pay the bastards if they gave him a chance. Then he'd get out of the wire service, get out of
everything but the hotel. He didn't want the damn wire service, but he needed the money it brought in to pay oflF. He was keeping it all. There had been squawks from the East, but what could they do? They couldn't even afford to kill him. He owed them too much money.
He saw Ralph Cellini come down the wide stairs. The Goddamn wop spent most of his time pounding his ear. Danzig watched him as he crossed the lobby, his marred face looking like dough which has been rolled too dry, filled with little creases.
He almost loved Chance Elson at the moment. He wished that Elson had killed CeUini. He no longer trusted Ralph Celhni. He no longer trusted anyone.
But he couldn't be alone. Day or night he could no longer stand to be alone. There was a buzzing inside his head. He had driven over to Los Angeles and gone to a doctor.
The doctor had told him to slow up, that he was on the edge of a nervous breakdown. That had been a laugh. Who in hell ever heard of a man like him having a nervous breakdown?
The doctor had also told CeUini. Cellini was with Danzig because Danzig could not stand to be alone. And he had gone back later, posing as a close friend. What the doctor had told him had made Ralph CeUini very thoughtful.
For CeUini, the year since the hotel had opened had been a profitable one, not only in money but in growth of power. Danzig almost never went to the Coast, and when he did, he only stayed two or three days before dashing back to his hotel.
Danzig said, "What are you doing here? I told you to stay in L.A."
"I thought you might want to know that Madge is going to Paris." Cellini had stopped about six feet away. He didn't know how Benji would react to the news that his woman was taking off. He was as likely as not to slam him across the face. "What for?"
"She didn't tell me. She came around for some dough." "Don't give it to her."
"I didn't, but she got some from one of the boys. She has plane tickets out for New York tonight."
Danzig started to curse in a low voice. "She meeting someone?"
"How would I know?"
"For Christ sake, can't you find out anything?"
"If I were in New York."
Danzig turned this over in his mind. His first impulse was to hop in his car and drive to Los Angeles and beat hell out of the bitch. The thought gave him pleasure. But it wonld^ lead to nothing but trouble, and he could not afford trouble now.
"There's a noon plane out of here." His voice was harsh. "Get on it. When you get to New York, get a couple of good boys, put them on Madge. Tell them not to let her out of their sight."
"Want her brought back?"
"No, but they go with her to Paris, and if she meets some jerk over there, have him taken care of. You understand?"
Cellini understood perfectly. This was working out exactly as he had hoped. He did not care what Madge did or who she was meeting. But he wanted to go to New York, and he had not dared to try it on his own. If Danzig found out, if Danzig thought he was carrying stories to the bosses, that was the end.
He caught the plane. He landed in New York and got hold of t^A^o capable men and gave them Danzig's orders. Then he made two phone calls and afterward rode a cab out to Long Island.
Once Sands Point had been exclusively huge estates. An ex-President had Hved not far away, the great names of the financial world had had their houses on this uneven shore. Now only a few remained. One of these, a rambling field-stone pile with slate roofs and high Tudor windows overlooking the choppy waters of the Sound, housed the overlord, the man who headed the closely knit group called the Syndicate.
He was not an impressive person, and gossip had it that he had been hand-picked for the part by the real boss of
the realm, a boss who had been given a free boat ride to Italy by the federal government.
Cellini had never spoken to him before, although he had seen him. He came into the room with its big Renaissance oak table and saw the six men seated around it.
It flashed through his mind that they were the directors of one of the biggest corporations in the world. These men represented the interests of the mobs which controlled gambhng in three-quarters of the country. Every territory except the Pacific Coast was represented. They reached out into the world dope traffic, the black market, organized vice, crooked unions on the waterfronts and in a dozen industries.
He was nervous. He knew how much this meeting could mean to him. If he destroyed Danzig, he would take Danzig's place. He might weU sit at this table during future negotiations.
"I've talked to him," he said. "I've tried to make him see that the wire service does not belong to him, that a piece of the money should come East, but he won't listen. I tell you, he is nuts. That hotel is all he thinks of, all he hves for."
They watched him with neutral faces. He had no way of telling what they were thinking. The man at the head of the table said in a guttural whisper, "He's into us for four million. We can't get it back removing him."
Cellini knew that this was in all their minds. He told them flatly, "You can get it back, running the hotel. Take it over. Put me in charge."
He saw no answering spark in their eyes and thought with a kind of hopelessness that he had failed to sell his point. The trouble was none of them actually believed in Nevada. Danzig had made them half beHeve, but they were still not fully convinced. Yes, they were convinced that Danzig was netting three hundred thousand dollars a month. They had the figures, there on the table before them. But they still thought it was Danzig personally dragging in the trade from Hollywood. Cellini played his last card. He told them, "Danzig is pulHng out. He's through. He wants no more of the Syndicate. The only reason he hangs on to the wire service is to clear ofiF what he owes on the hotel. And look at the
publicity he's getting." He pulled a half-dozen tear sheets from his pocket, showing Danzig greeting celebrities, showing him entertaining minor unemployed royalty.
They looked at his exhibit in silence. These men hated publicity. The day was gone when gang chieftains swaggered with their dolls thro
ugh the biggest restaurants of Chicago and New York.
Now they feared notice by the federal government, the taxman. Any article, any story which called attention to their enormous profits only spelled future investigation.
"All right." The man at the head of the table stood up, and Cellini knew that the meeting was over as far as his presence was concerned. He was trusted, yes, but he was not yet of the inner circle.
"Get back to the Coast. Hold things together, and keep us informed." The speaker was very careful of his English and proud of the words he used. "Well get Danzig here and find out what cooks."
But they did not get Benji Danzig to New York. They sent him orders and an ultimatum, both of which he ignored.
CeUini returned to the Coast. He purposely did not go to Vegas, preferring to talk to Danzig by phone. Danzig's frayed nerves were like a time bomb, ticking toward explosion. Cellini reaHzed this and bided his time. He spent long hours planning what he would do when the blow finally fell, and he tightened his grip on Hollywood.
The dope peddlers were now working for him, not Danzig. The boys who operated the wire service were his men although he still faithfully relayed the take to Nevada every week. It would have been suicide to do otherwise.
He considered the possibihty of having Danzig killed himself. He dismissed the thought. The Syndicate frowned on operators who took decisions of this magnitude into their own hands. But he made his plans. If Cahfornia and Nevada were to be his, there were certain people who had to be handled, and Elson came very close to heading this Hst.
How to reach Elson? How to either use him or destroy him? His hatred of Chance was becoming the second motivating force in his life.
The easiest thing was to kill him. But the gangs seldom killed now, except to remove their own members who had gotten out of line. If Elson were killed, it might bring the whole position he was so carefully building down about his ears.
And then again he thought of Judy. Instinct told him that Judy was Chance's one weak point, the one gap in the armor with which the man clothed himself.
Cellini considered a long time. He remembered hearing the girl and Kern talk about her radio program the night of the Peacock opening. He wondered what program it was. He knew a way to find out. He went to Ab Shaw's office.
The agent was wary when CeUini walked in and settled his bulk into the big chair.
"What's on your mind now?" He hadn't been playing the horses, and CeUini had been receiving his cut regularly, and business was good. If he could only get rid of this fat parasite, he would be in clover.
"Ever hear of a singer, Judy Liller?"
Shaw figured that Cellini had picked up some floozy and was trying to promote her. "No."
"Find out about her. She was singing on some kid program last year."
"She get away from you?"
Cellini shook his head. "Nothing like that. She's the sister of a guy I know. I want to figure out how to do her a favor."
Shaw did not believe a word of it, but actually he did not care. It was easy enough to trace a girl in the entertainment world if she was still working. He started by calling Central Casting.
Ten minutes later he hung up. "She's singing with Red Tooker's band."
"The hell." This was a better break than CeUini expected. He knew Tooker. "Who's her agent?"
"I don't know that she's got one."
"Find out. Get her under contract, even if you have to buy her paper."
"What do I do with her after I get the contract?"
"HeU, you're an agent, build her up. But hsten, keep me 197
out of it, see. Don't ever mention my name. Don't ever let her know I have a piece of this joint."
Shaw was getting more and more puzzled. Could it actually be that Ralph CeUini would go out of his way to do anyone a favor without expecting a hundred-per-cent return? He was certain not, but he could not spot the gimmick.
It made him curious about the girl. He sent for her.
In the months since the opening of the Peacock Hotel, nothing much had developed for Judy until her meeting with Red Tooker. The meeting had been an accident. She was coming down the long, curving stairway into the foyer of the broadcasting building lobby.
Tooker was bounding up the stairs. Tooker always bounded. He never walked. He was a shght man, still in his twenties, with red hair and green eyes and the most pointed nose Judy had ever seen. He stopped, staring up at her, completely blocking her passage.
"You're beautiful."
She was startled. "Am I?" It was all she could think of to say.
He reached out. He grabbed her hand. He turned and started to run back down the stairs, dragging her after him.
At the bottom she tried to pull free. "You're completely nuts."
"Sure I am. I'm Red Tooker."
She had heard the name somewhere but she did not associate it with anything. He was puUing her toward the reception desk, where a blonde was watching them in amazement. There were fourteen or fifteen people in the lobby and Judy knew that they were all staring at her.
Tooker paused before the counter. "Mabel, tell this slick chick I ain't no wolf."
The blonde said, "The heck you're not."
Tooker laughed. He was hugely pleased. He played this part to the hilt, the screwball, the extrovert. It was his stock in trade.
"Let's eat." He hauled Judy away from the counter.
She did not know what to do. Trying to check Tooker was like trying to halt a whirlwind.
"What do you do, baby?"
"I sing."
"I'll bet you're real gone." He dragged her across the street and into a restaurant. Without really making a scene Judy did not know how to stop him.
At a table, by the window which overlooked the moving traffic of Sunset Boulevard, Tooker told her all about himself. It was a subject he dearly loved.
His band played music with a diJSFerence, he said.
She knew who he was now. She had heard some of his records.
"Gut-bucket," he said. "That's me, old gut-bucket Tooker. We ham it up, baby. We ham it for real. Come on, you're going to sing for me."
He was so homely that he was actually attractive, and he was important. He was the first reaUy important person she had met in show business.
"Where?"
"Got a rehearsal." He almost pulled her from the restaurant and into a cab.
The rehearsal turned into a jam session. It seemed to Judy that the boys in Tooker's band were crazier than he was. You never knew what any one of them would do. The drummer was just as likely to start pounding the skins so loud that no one else could be heard, but nobody cared.
She tried three numbers and the trombone killed her o£F each time.
Judy's temper flared. She walked to where Tooker lay, flat on his back, trying to direct the number with the beat of his swinging legs. "Get up."
He stared at her in complete surprise. "What's with you, hun-bun?"
She reached down and yanked him to his feet. He wasn't much bigger than she was. "Look, you asked me over here to sing. I thought it was a tryout."
"Sure. It is."
"How in the Goddamn hell can I sing with that horse's ass killing me off with that trombone?"
He bhnked at her. "Naughty, naughty. Pussy has a temper."
"Sure I've got a temper, you stupid jerk."
"So clown it. Sing louder, sing in Yiddish. You know Yiddishr
"No."
"You should learn it." He regarded her more gravely than at any time since their meeting. "Doll, you got importance, see. You think you're a big man, huh? Well, you ain't. No one's a big man unless he's with it."
She didn't know what he was talking about. She wasn't even sure that he did.
She turned around, gathered up her purse and started for the door. He was before her, moving with the footwork of a fencer, looking very serious and very concerned and very comical.
His red hair was standing on end, his green eyes squinting. "You dumb bro
ad, didn't the lyrics of a song ever give you a pain in the ass? Didn't you ever want to clown them?
"So my love is in the moonlight So I love the moonlight So the moonhght loves me."
"What the hell is that?"
"Nothing, I just made it up, but for Christ sake. It gives as much sense as most of the junk that comes out. Clown it, sing it the way you want to. Don't you feel it in here?" He tapped his stomach with both hands.
Judy knew a sudden impulse to sit down. Her knees felt too weak to hold her. "I don't know whether I'm being ribbed or not."
He came up. He took her face between his two hands. "You aren't being ribbed, sugar doll." He kissed her then, quietly, reverently. Behind him a horn moaned and the sHde man blew half a dozen sour notes.
She had not moved. He stepped back. "God, you're beautiful."
She thought, "How can you stay mad at a screwball like this?"
"Good-by."
He was actually down on his knees. He paid no attention to the Bronx cheers from the shirt-sleeved band. "Look, honey, you're breaking my heart. You got it. I know you got it. I can feel the waves."
"What waves?"
"Coming out of you. You think like me. You think like all of us. Okay. Gimme a piece, anything you know."
She named a piece currently at the head of the Hit Parade. He groaned. He stood up, brushing the dust from his knees. "All right, boys, take it. Play it straight."
They played it straight. Judy was amazed that this collection of mismated juveniles actually could play.
"God," Tooker had his hands over his ears to show his contempt. "You know who sings that?"
"Connie Walker."
"All right. Again, boys."
They played the ballad again. This time Tooker stood before the band, moving his lips, using the gestures which were Connie Walker's trademark, but burlesquing them. In spite of herself Judy laughed. He had the art of mimicry.
Chance Elson Page 21
