Chance Elson

by Ballard, Todhunter, 1903-1980

  Danzig's eyes were brooding. 220

  "So I told them you'd be here tonight at ten. I don't think they believed that." "They'll find out."

  "Sure, but look, Benji, it would be better if I wasn't around when you told them off. You can make it plainer that my word is it if I'm not here." "Stick around."

  Cellini's face blanched a httle. It was no part of his plan to be in the house when the killing took place. He meant to be a long way from there when the shots were fired. He meant to have an unbreakable ahbi.

  But he dared not refuse. He watched as Danzig refilled the glass and carried it into the living room. The man was too nervous to sit down. He kept pacing back and forth until Cellini thought he would scream.

  Finally he stopped before CeUini's chair. "You sure they're coming?"

  Cellini shrugged. "I could check." "Do that."

  Cellini went to the phone. He dialed a number, but as he did so, he depressed the pin on which the receiver rested. The dial tone continued unbroken.

  He did not dare turn, but he sensed that Danzig was watching him. Finally he hung up.

  "No answer. They're probably on their way." He glanced at his watch. It was a quarter to nine.

  Sweat made a thin line across his bulging forehead. He had to get out of there. A dozen ideas flashed through his mind. He could pretend to be sick. He could go to a doctor. He could . . .

  Danzig said, "You know where these punks hang out?" "Maybe." His mind wouldn't seem to work. He could not think clearly.

  "Find them. Bring them here if it takes you all night." Cellini had no clear memory of leaving the house. It seemed to him as he reached his car at the curb that he saw a shadow in the shrubbery beyond the front-room window. He could not be sure. It might have been the thin man. He cursed as the starter ground the motor into life. He hoped

  that they wouldn't be early. They couldn't be early. He had a long way to go in an hour.

  He had planned to make Victorville. He had planned to be there on the stroke of ten. He couldn't make it now. It was impossible. He had an hour and a quarter. He drove faster than he had ever driven in his Hfe. He didn't care if he got picked up for speeding. He hoped that he would.

  But a mischievous luck followed him. He traveled Foothill Boulevard at ninety miles an hour, and still no state patrol car challenged him. He reached the outskirts of San Bernardino. He glanced at his watch. It was ten minutes after ten. He wheeled into the first restaurant he saw. He came charging into the place, ordering coffee as he came. The counterman thought he was drunk.

  He sat down on the stool. He tasted the cup that was put before him. "You call that coffee?"

  "What do you call it, Jack?" The counterman was big.

  "I call it slop."

  "Then don't drink it."

  Cellini picked up the cup and hurled it deliberately into the man's face. The counterman came after him. In his youth, Cellini had been a mean rough-and-tumble fighter. He gave a good account of himself. One of the customers called the cops. He did Ralph CeUini a favor without reahzing it. At ten twenty-nine, three men from the sheriff's ofiBce dragged Cellini out to their prowl car. At the station he made no effort to conceal his identity.

  "You'll hear from this," he raged at them. "I'm a personal friend of Benji Danzig. Get in touch with him."

  The news that Benji Danzig was dead reached Las Vegas at ten thirty-five. The Associated Press and the United Press both carried the flash. Neither Vegas paper printed until the following morning, but the news spread by grapevine.

  Chance heard it first at twelve-thirty from Doc. Doc was as excited as Chance had ever seen him. "Well, they got him."

  Chance had just picked up his hat. "Got who?"

  "Danzig."

  Chance stood perfectly still. "Who got him?" 222

  "They don't know."

  "Where'd they get him, at the hotel?"

  "No, in his L.A. house, shot him through a window with a shotgun."

  "Where's CelHni?"

  "I don't know. It was just a flash to the newspaper."

  Chance sat down slowly, his mind refusing to grasp the news. If ever a man had earned the right to die by violence, Benji Danzig had. But in the later months Chance had come more and more to think of Danzig only in relation to the hotel. That was it. What would happen to the hotel? Who would take over, CeUini?

  No, Cellini simply did not have it. You had to see the picture in breadth to understand the problems. You had to feel for the place as if the wood and plaster and glass had a soul.

  Cellini might take over the hotel, but if he did, the chances of survival were largely cut, and if the Peacock failed, it could well pull down Las Vegas with it. That was what Chance did not want to happen. He placed a call to Kem and hung up, sitting quiet, waiting for the operator to call him back.

  Doc went out. He walked slowly up the street. The news of Danzig's death was everywhere. A man Doc knew said, "The cDps just went out to the Peacock. They rounded up every known gangster there. The word is that the killing was planned in Vegas."

  Doc went back to the restaurant. The place was nearly deserted, just as the other clubs were nearly deserted. People were too busy discussing the news to be interested in gambhng.

  Chance was talking on the phone when Doc returned. Doc sat down, hstening. Chance said, "The news just came through, John. . . . Yeah. . . . No, I have no idea who will get the hotel. The Syndicate is in it for milHons, and there's that Texas loan, and I imderstand the contractor still hasn't been fully paid. . . .

  "That's right. Find out what you can and call me as soon as you do. . . . Yes, we're all vitally interested. Everyone

  in the state should be vitally interested. . . . No, I don't think Cellini has the stuff to take over although he may try. . . . Okay."

  He hung up. Doc said, "You should take a look out on the street. There's a bigger crowd than I've seen for months. Everyone is milhng around, guessing."

  "We should know something soon," said Chance. "Kern is already calHng the Crime Commission. I'll bet you those boys knew something was in the wind before it happened. I'm not as concerned with who killed Danzig as I am about who will take his place."

  "So what do we do?"

  "Nothing at the moment. Let's go home and go to bed."

  Chance did not know who the killer was, but he guessed that he was a nameless person, brought in for the task. The chances were that he had never been in Vegas and would never come here. This was a hired job, pure and simple, and for that reason, unless an unforeseen accident occurred, it would probably never be solved.

  The irony was that Danzig himself had once been such a faceless killer, an enforcer of the dictates of the very men who had unquestionably now ordered his death.

  But it wasn't Danzig who was foremost in his mind. It was Judy. She had called him stuffy, a stuffed shirt. If trying to live by a certain code was stuffy, then he was. His anger at her had faded as realization came that he had probably been hasty. Damnit, he never could seem to be entirely logical where the girl was concerned. Maybe this was what was meant by being in love.

  He turned the thought over and over in his mind, weighing his own reactions as clearly as he could. So acting hke Tooker was not being stuffy. To hell with it. Tooker was nothing but a cheap actor, hamming a part for all it was worth. Couldn't Judy see that? Couldn't Judy understand that the men who did things, who forged ahead, had to have some kind of rules by which their actions were governed? Even Benji Danzig had had a certain code. It was a warped, crazy thing, not based on the moral sense by which most people live, but still, there had been a code.

  He would allow no rough stuflF at the hotel, and by extension he had ruled that rough stuff must be kept out of Vegas. Even the Syndicate had bowed to this. Danzig had not been killed in Nevada, but in Los Angeles, so that his death would not reflect on the hotel more than necessary.

  His own code was something he had evolved for himself when he had first started to play the boats with Doc. And l
ike Danzig's rules, his had been based on common sense. It did not pay to run a crooked game. Sooner or later cheating would catch up with you, and you would lose far more than the few crooked dollars you had won. He had a reputation in this town. His word was as good as any bond. And unconsciously he had carried his dislike of cheating into his personal Hfe.

  Danzig, for all that he was a murderer, a despoiler of women, a wholesale dope peddler, had honored his own word. Chance had heard that the contractor was being paid off faithfully, that the promises made to the employees of the hotel had been kept. Strange that a man who had broken almost every other rule had still honored his word. He wondered if Judy would consider Danzig stuffy. He wondered exactly what she did think of him. Somewhere along the Hne he had failed with her. He had been too busy, too engrossed with making the restaurant into a soHd, paying operation to give the time he should have given to personal matters.

  He knew the impulse to call her, to tell her how sorry he was for the way he had acted, to tell her that no matter what she ever did he would never again try to judge her.

  But he did not call. It was after three now, a hell of a time to wake a girl with an apology. And what if he did call, and Tooker answered the phone?

  A few days later he made a cautious phone call to one of the two detectives he still kept working at the Peacock. The man said that he could not get away until midnight. It was two before he showed up, sHpping into the office through the kitchen.

  He was nervous and he kept walking up and down the small room as he talked. "The place has been a madhouse aU week. No one knows what is what. Goldham, that was

  Danzig's brother-in-law, showed up the first morning and Marks, the assistant manager, threw him out. Then three of Cellini's crowd blew in from Los Angeles. A guy named Dugon, Froist, and a man named Grouse."

  Chance had been listening idly. He sat up straight. ''What's this Crouse look hke?"

  "Big man, red faced, shaggy. Know him?"

  "If it's who I think it is, he damn near killed me once. I wondered what had happened to the bastard."

  "Well, they came in with word that Marks was supposed to hold the fort until Cellini gets out of the San Berdoo tank. And tonight Harry Manski and Frank Dorieo flew in from the East. They're here to protect the money the Syndicate advanced Danzig. Then at midnight a Texas banker showed up. He's got a mortgage loan on the joint for two milHon eight hundred thousand.

  "I don't know what they were talking about, but they were all shut up in the office, apparently trying to straighten things out."

  "What happened to the hotel guests?"

  "Brother, they checked out. By the time the morning papers carried the story most of them were gone. I think they figured the shooting was going to start out there. It's lucky they did. Half the help quit. The place looks like a morgue."

  Chance said, "Stay with it, and if I happen to be out of town report to Doc. I want to know everything you can pick up." After the man had gone, he sat for a long time, motionless at his desk. If in some way he could get control of the hotel. If he could take over its management. It wasn't built exactly the way he would have built it, but it would do. If he could only get into control.

  The phone rang. He picked up the instrument to hear the long-distance operator say that John Kern wanted to talk to him. A moment later Kern was on the wire.

  "Chance, can you get up to Reno by noon tomorrow?"

  "I think so, even if I have to charter a plane."

  "Meet me at the Riverside Hotel at twelve-thirty." 226

  ''What cooks?"

  "I'd rather not talk about it over the phone, but we want to discuss the Peacock."

  Chance hung up slowly, Kern's words making a kind of refrain as they ran through his mind. Discuss the Peacock, discuss the Peacock. Did that mean that Kern was intending to buy the place, to perhaps put him in to run it? If not why had Kern called him?

  He lifted the receiver again and called the airport. He made his reservation for the seven o'clock Reno flight and hung up.

  Doc was standing in the doorway, his eyebrows raised.

  Chance said, "Kern just phoned. He wants me in Reno by noon to discuss the Peacock."

  "What's there to discuss about the Peacock?"

  "Maybe he wants us to take it over."

  Doc came on in. "Are you serious?"

  "What's wrong with the idea? Someone has to take it over. It's a damn cinch Cellini can't run it."

  "So he goes broke. So I lead the cheering section."

  Chance thought, "Doc's got a lot more education than I have, and he's a long way from a fool, but he's too lazy to really stop and figure." He said, "This town can't afford to have a hotel fail, or a club fail, not at this stage of things. If one place goes under, it hurts us all."

  "Even if it's run by gangsters?"

  "Even if it's run by gangsters."

  "You're land of changing your time, aren't you?"

  "A man learns certain things," Chance said, "and I hope that I know more than I did a couple of years ago."

  "Meaning I don't?"

  "I didn't say that, but Vegas has changed a lot since we came here. It's grown, and a lot of new people have come in, people who don't have anything to do with gambling directly."

  "Sure, they work in stores and laundries and things. But don't kid yourself; it's still gambHng that makes the wheels go around. Without it, sand would be blowing up Fremont in two months."

  '"That's right. This is nearly a one-industry town, but it has to be a big industry to support it. Our industry isn't gambhng. It's tourists. We are rapidly becoming the largest tourist center in the world. And what is it draws tourists to a place? Other tourists. People are like sheep. Now supposing your neighbor comes over to the Peacock, supposing it is badly run, the help sullen and unfriendly, the food lousy, and maybe the games crooked. Is he going to brag about the place until you want to see it? He is not. He's going to grouse about the sucker trap he fell into. So you, instead of coming here, will probably head for Yosemite or Yellowstone or maybe Mexico."

  "You should have been a lawyer." Doc's smile was wry. "You can lay out an argument for anything and make it sound convincing."

  Chance grinned. "Don't you think I'm right?" "Probably."

  "I only hope I do as good a job of talking when I get to Reno. This meeting with Kern can be the most important thing that ever happened to us, the most important thing that ever happened to Vegas. Let's go home and get some sleep. I've got an early plane to catch."

  He looked at his watch. It was nearly four. They were halfway along the passage to the kitchen when the phone rang. Chance almost did not go back to answer it. Who would be calHng him at this hour? StiU, it might be Kern again. It wasn't. It was Judy.

  "Judy . . ." For the moment he could say no more than her name. "Judy, honey. I've been going to caU you. I—I made a damn fool of myself the other night."

  There was silence at the far end of the wire. "Judy, are you still there?"

  "I'm here." Her voice soimded a Httle uncertain, a Httle weak.

  "I'm sorry. I really am. What you do is your business. I had no right to say anything. I shouldn't have hit you." He knew he wasn't saying this right. Someway when he tried to talk to her the proper words did not come. It made him

  impatient, angry with himself and some of this crept into his voice, adding to the harshness.

  "Chance?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Will you do me a favor?"

  "Sure, what is it?"

  "Come over to Los Angeles in the morning. I want to talk to you."

  He almost said of course, and then he stopped. "J^^Y? I can't, not tomorrow. I'm flying up to Reno, first thing in the morning. I have to see Kern. This is very important."

  There was a catch in her voice. "This is kind of important, too."

  "Look, come over here. Maybe I'll be back tomorrow night, or the day after."

  "I can't. We're slated to go on tour. We open in New Orleans Saturday."
<
br />   He felt trapped. He wanted to hop on a plane and fly to see her at that moment. "Listen, Judy. There's a meeting in Reno, a lot of important people. It's too late for me to call it off. This might affect the whole future of southern Nevada."

  "I understand."

  "Can't you tell me over the phone?"

  "No, I guess I've got the answer already. I just wanted a little advice. Take care of yourself."

  "Judy, listen." She had already himg up.

  He stood, holding the dead phone in his hand, almost ready to call her back. Then slowly he replaced it in the cradle and walked out to where Doc waited in the car.

  "Who was it?"

  "Judy. She wanted me to come over. She wanted some advice."

  "About what?"

  "She didn't say. She's going on tour. They open in New Orleans Saturday." He got in and started the motor. He was silent all during the drive home, haunted by the feehng that he had made a mistake, that he should have started at once for Los Angeles.

  ^^<^fiien,f6

  Chance could not help contrasting this meeting with the one he had attended at Kern's Fallon ranch. There had been only four men beside Kern then. Here were twenty-two seated around the long directors' table in Kern's Reno bank.

  Then he had been a stranger, his motives and abihties questionable. Now he owned a successful business in Las Vegas, and everyone in the southern part of the state knew him.

  He smiled as he took his seat and Kern made the introductions. Chance made no effort to remember all the names. Some of the men he knew, some he recognized, an ex-governor, several members of the legislature, county officials, ranchers, mining men. Everyone save himself was from central or northern Nevada.

  Kern did not attempt to stand. "This is not a formal meeting. Most of you know Elson. I asked him to come because I feel he knows more about Las Vegas than any other man down there, and he is not afraid to say what he thinks. I asked the rest of you for two reasons. There will be some changes in the licensing procedure suggested at the coming legislature, and you should be cognizant of the problems the tax commission now faces. But more immediate is the crisis brought on by the murder of Benji Danzig, and the question, who will take over his hotel."