Apparently, Chance thought, the Syndicate was still hesitant to take an active part in Vegas hotel management.
But if Cellini did not participate directly in the Peacock, he was still busy in Vegas. He reorganized the wire service both there and on the Coast, and the Crime Commission report said that the Syndicate was again receiving half the revenue, as they had before Danzig had declared his independence.
Chance wasted httle thought on Cellini. Doc and Dutch were still at the restaurant, helping the new owners break in their crew as per agreement, and die full burden of building the hotel rested on Chance's shoulders.
He would have had it no other way. This was meat and drink to him. Almost all of his waking hours were spent at the building site.
One of the contractors jokingly told him, "You should be on the payroll. You put in more hours than all the rest of us combined." Chance laughed. He wore an old pair of slacks, an open-necked sport shirt and no hat, and the desert sun was rapidly darkening his skin until he looked almost Indian.
For years he had slept a good half of the day and spent the rest of it and far into the night in the gambling rooms. He remarked to Doc one morning that he had forgotten what the sun looked like, and how fresh air smelled.
He was learning it now. He made no ceremony of the ground-breaking, but he did have a huge sign erected facing the highway: THE DESERT QUEEN, Nevada's newest,
BIGGEST AND FINEST HOTEL.
Building was not the simple matter of hiring contractors and sitting back, waiting until it was finished. The construction business was booming. Chance stood at the edge of the highway looking up and down the Strip. He could just see
the outline of the Peacock to the southwest. Between him and Danzig's place a new hotel was going up, its roof already on, its grounds being landscaped.
No contractor would bid on his job. The cost of materials was soaring. There was a gray market in steel and in half of the other materials they would need, and the labor pool was short. It was almost impossible to hire either plasterers or carpenters in Vegas.
He felt harried. Standing there, he realized that Benji Danzig must have felt exactly the same way when the Peacock was going up. But there was a diJfference. Danzig had had no scruples about how he raised his money, how he paid for his hotel. Chance was governed by the knowledge that the investment had to be kept to a point at which the hotel could be expected to earn out. He had to recognize that although Kern was guaranteeing his loans, those loans still had both interest and payment dates which would have to be met.
His contractors were working on a cost-plus basis, or rather on cost plus a ten-per-cent interest in the hotel.
Chance had not liked the idea. He had wanted the hotel to belong to Dutch and Doc and himself alone, but he was a realist and he knew that most of the clubs in town were divided up among numerous stockholders.
The shares in the places were called points, and the number of points held by each man represented the size of his interest.
The new hotel to the southwest of his location was being erected by a group of downtown club-owners. Chance heard that there were thirty-five men in it and that Cellini held a few points, although this had not been proved.
It was hard to know who owned what any more. As Chance's lawyer explained to him, most of the gambling clubs were now so laced with interlocking corporate setups that it would have taken lawyers months to unravel them.
Chance had felt dizzy when the lawyer finished talking. He had no experience with this kind of business. To his mind a man owned something or he didn't.
The lawyer had a suggestion. "You need a big contractor to handle this deal. None of the local men are large enough.
You need a firm with contacts to get materials and get them on delivery date. Three or four weeks' delay on steel for instance could ruin you."
They were sitting in the lawyer's office in downtown Las Vegas. "Meaning they buy it from the gray market?"
The lawyer shrugged. He was a handsome man of fifty-five who had been in Vegas six years and enjoyed one of the largest divorce practices in the city.
"Look, Chance, you live in the world, see. You don't make the conditions. Do you want to build this hotel now or not?"
"I want to build it."
"All right. To build it you need steel, and to get steel you pay a premium price. Call it gray market, call it any damn thing you please. Everyone is doing it, and I'm only saying that if you want to play in this game, you have to use the cards that are already marked."
"All right. Where do I find this land of contractor?"
"Maybe I can find one for you. I have some connections. But 111 tell you one thing. You'll have to give some land of bonus to get them to take on the job. All the firms of that size have a hell of a lot more work than they can handle."
Chance winced. "How much cash will it cost me?"
"Maybe no cash."
"Spell it out for me."
The lawyer spoke deliberately. "The men who own these contracting firms are making more money than they know what to do with. The heU of it is that due to the tax situation the federal government gets about ninety per cent of their take. They're not interested in money. But they might take a stock interest as a bonus."
"No dice."
The lawyer shrugged. "Your business, it was only a suggestion. I think I know a firm whose owners would come in for say ten per cent of the hotel."
Chance laughed shortly. "And they call us a bunch of burglars in this town. For Christ sake, I'm glad I'm a gambler, not a businessman."
'Tfou think it over and let me know. Remember, it's nothing to me."
Chance talked it over with Doc. Doc was against it. Doc was Hke Chance. He feared having outsiders in a deal. "Remember what Cellini did to us in Cleveland?"
Chance nodded. He made the rounds, talking to every local contractor. He went to Reno and discussed the problem with Kern.
Kern said, "Frankly we're living in an age that I don't understand. This is a grab age, everyone has their hand out. I guess they feel there was a lot of cheating during the war, and they aren't certain there isn't a lot by men high in the government. This country has nearly lost its moral sense. Maybe it will come back, I guess it wiU, but right now the object is to get all you can while the getting is good."
"Then you'd do itr
Kern sighed. "You can't build that hotel yourself. YouTl have to get someone who can handle the job, and youll have to make the best deal you can."
Chance went back to Vegas. He felt that he was operating in a cage, that someone was cracking the whip, forcing him to jump whether he wanted to jump or not.
"All right, HoflFner." He settled himself beside the lawyer's desk. "I guess you win."
Morton HofiFner shrugged. "Chance, I told you before that this is nothing to me. I'm only trying to help you the best way
In can.
"Sure, I know that. Don't mind me." Chance managed a grin. He had never felt less like grinning, but he was learning. You never got things in this life exactly the way you wanted them. Compromise was connected with everything. "Find me a contractor, but I won't give away more than five per cent. For Christ sake. The hotel with the land should be worth at least five miUion dollars, maybe six. Five per cent is two hundred and fifty thousand. If it earns the way the other clubs here do, whoever gets that bonus will take a milHon dollars out of the deal in ten years."
Hoffner stood up and offered his hand. "I'll go to L.A. tomorrow and see what I can do." He Hked Elson. The boy had a lot of drive, but he didn't stand a chance in the world. Hoff-
ner tried not to be cynical about life, but his whole professional experience had casehardened him.
By accident his first case when he was fresh out of Columbia Law School had been for a minor racketeer, and he had won it, although the facts against his client seemed unbeatable. From then on the pattern of his existence had been woven closely with organized crime and with the men who fattened on it.
O
nce he had tried to make a break. Six years before he had come out here for his own divorce and liked the town and decided to stay, thinking that by the move he would break the connections with the mobs.
But a chance meeting with Danzig on the street had dragged him back into the morass, and he found that again he was working for the Syndicate.
But this time there was a difference. He had already established himself in Vegas, in partnership with a local attorney, and Danzig had reaHzed that his value as a man not openly associated with Danzig was far higher than if he had been the attorney of record for the Peacock. Now that Danzig was gone, Hoffner had hoped for release, but Cellini was not about to let him go.
Cellini, he thought, was worse than Danzig ever had been. There was nothing tricky about Danzig. He attacked problems head-on. You never knew exactly what Cellini was up to. Take this present deal for instance. Cellini had known about Elson's plans to build a hotel before Hoffner himself had had the word. Cellini had simimoned him immediately after Danzig's death, and they had discussed the situation in the San Berdoo jail visitors' room.
His forehead turned damp as he thought about the interview. CeUini had opened it by saying, "I hear one of your clients is getting ready to build a hotel."
Hoffner had shown his surprise. "Elson? Where did you hear that?"
Cellini smiled. "I have a man in his bank that tells me things. I have a man who keeps watch on you, too." It was a quiet reminder that Hoffner had no choice, that he had to do what Cellini said.
**What's your interest?"
Cellini's stubby fingers came up to touch the scarred face. "I hate the bastard."
Hofi^ner recalled Cellini's beating and had a sudden shrewd suspicion that Elson had been responsible.
Cellini said, "He's going to take your advice, and he's going to have trouble building that joint. Tell him that because of the black market he needs a big contractor, one with connections."
The lawyer did not answer.
"He'll find out," said CeUini. "You can't build a privy nowadays without buying in the black market. TeU him that, and tell him he'll have to give a share of the joint as a bonus."
"What's your angle?"
Cellini grinned. "I'm going to let the son of a bitch build the place and then I'm going to take it away from him."
"How? He won't give that big a share for a bonus."
CeUini smiled. "He's borrowing the dough to build. Those loans can be bought from the bank."
"John Kern's behiad him."
"Kern isn't so healthy, but if he should five, there are still other ways. You don't worry about that; I do. Just set it up that he hires the contractor I name."
HojBFner had followed orders. He hated himself, though he wasted no sympathy on Chance. Chance was in a rough game. A man should know how to protect himself or keep out of it. But he hated himself for knuckling imder to CeUini. He left the plane at the Burbank Airport and drove across to CeUini's office. He hated coming here. He hated the role of office boy that the fat gangster deHghted in making him play, but none of this showed in his face as he took the chair beside Cellini's desk.
"It's set. He'U go along, although he's holding out for a five-per-cent bonus, but he'U hire the contractor I name. Who is it?"
"The Blatt Brothers out of Oklahoma City."
Hoffner did not know them, but he did not need to ask to know there was racket money in their organization. The war and its aftermath had corrupted a lot of people in the buUd-
ing trades, driven as they were to deal with the black market or go out of business.
"You contact them. You fly there and then wire Elson to join you. They already know the score, and Teddy Blatt can outargue the best Scotsman in the business. He'll get ten per cent."
Hoffner nodded and left. As always when he walked out of Cellini's oflBce he felt as if he needed a bath.
Behind him, Cellini was grinning to himself. Ralph Cellini was very pleased with the way things were going. He felt certain that his position on the Coast was far sohder than Danzig's had ever been.
He knew that the big boys back in New York were watching closely every move he made. This was the probationary period, in which he must prove himself to rate an equal seat in their councils with the other territorial rulers of the United States.
Therefore he had been tending strictly to business, watching his drinking, his entanglement with women, his every activity. The one thing which might open him to suspicion, his continuing hatred of Chance Elson, he kept carefully hidden.
He had no worries about bringing in the Blatt company to build Chance's hotel. This was directly in line with a meeting he had attended at the Peacock the week before. The Manskis had been present, and three other hoodlums from the East, representing Chicago, Cleveland and Detroit interests. It had been decided at the meeting that the Syndicate as such would not take over the Peacock, nor would they finance the building of any other hotels. But members of the group were left free to work their way into the gambling clubs as individuals, using people acceptable to the tax commission as front men, holding points in any operation they chose. In this way, the gangsters reasoned, they would escape the attention of the state authorities and of the newspapers.
CeUini was following that dictum. He had purchased an eighth of one of the new hotels that would open this month. He had the stock in the name of a dummy corporation he had set up, and he meant, once he was in Chance's operation, to turn his points over to this same corporation.
The buzzer on his desk sounded and his secretary said, "Mr. Tooker is here to see you."
"Show him in."
The orchestra leader came in. He eyed Cellini doubtfully as he took the seat beside the desk. "You called me?" He was very subdued.
Cellini nodded. "How's marriage?"
Tooker brightened. "Solid, the chick is okay. She don't nag, she don't dog a man."
"I'm glad to hear it. How's business?"
"Swell, man, swell."
"You know why?" Cellini was busy hghting a cigarette.
At once the wary fear came back into Tooker's eyes. "I guess so."
"You know so." Cellini's voice was suddenly tight. "You're going over because I'm pushing you. Keep smart and 111 make you into the nimiber-one attraction. Get cute and I'll step on you."
Red Tooker's elbows were resting on his knees, his hands clasped between them. He twisted the hands now as if wringing out a cloth. "Yes, sir."
"Remember that." Cellini got up and came around the desk to stand over Tooker. "How you doing, any trouble getting horse?"
Tooker had begim to sweat. He shook his head wordlessly.
"And you'll have no trouble if you play with me. But get cute and I'll cut ofiF yoiir supply like that." CeUini drew a fat finger across his throat.
Tooker leaned back to stare up at him. "What do you want?" It was a whisper.
Cellini said, "I want Elson's girl on dope. I want her carrying a monkey so big she'll never shake it."
Horror came into Tooker's eyes. His tongue crept out hke an inquiring snake and made a circuit of his dry Hps. "No." The word was squeezed out of him. "No."
Cellini reached down. He caught Tooker's coat at the shoulder. He lifted the slight man out of the chair and threw him to the floor. He took a step and dehberately kicked the huddled figure in the side, once, twice.
"Don't say No to me, you pimp.''
Tooker dragged himself to his feet. "Jeese, Cellini, not that, not that. The chick, she never hurt you."
"Didn't she?" said Cellini. "She runs screaming to that bastard brother and I get these," he touched the scars lacing across his face. "Put her on it, or by God I'll have you killed."
Tooker stared at him, his resistance fading before his fear. "But how . . . ?"
"You stupid jerk, how, how . . ." He sat down at the desk and drummed on it with his fat fingers. Then he pulled the phone toward him and dialed a number.
When a man answered he said, "Look, doctor. How can I put a dame on d
ope without her knovidng until it's too late?"
He hstened, twice shaking his head. "That won't work. How about you giving the shots yourself for a couple of weeks?"
There was a violent argument at the other end of the phone. Cellini cut it short. "Listen, you abortionist. Talk back to me and Til see you get twenty years. Yeah, I mean it. This is important." He slammed the receiver and stared broodingly at Tooker.
"The first time your wife has the sniffles take her to this doctor." He scribbled the name and address on a piece of paper that he thrust into Tooker's imwilling hand. "Hell prescribe vitamin shots and he'll give her the first ones. Then it's up to you to keep on until she's hooked. Now, get the hell out of here."
Tooker was staring at the paper in his hand as if he were looking at death. Slowly he turned and went out through the doorway.
^A^ifotex fS
Judy had been on heroin for over a month before she realized what was the matter with her. Looking back she wondered how she could have been sjj dumb.
She had not been well. She had caught a heavy cold in New Orleans and by the time the band came back to Los Angeles had lost weight as the cold himg on. She was terribly tired and hstless.
Tooker had taken her to a doctor who had prescribed a buildup with vitamin shots. For two weeks she had gone to his office every day. Then as they hit the road again Tooker had continued to give her her daily doses.
Judy knew nothing about doctors. She had only been to a doctor's office three times in her life, and the shots did seem to ease the gnawing listlessness. She did notice that between shots she was nervous and distraught, but she put this down to weakness and to the rush of trying to keep up with the schedule and trying to hold the band together.
Tooker had changed when they started north. He had grown sullen, and he avoided being alone with her as much as possible. She put this down to regret that he had married her. Red Tooker was certainly not the marrying type, and it had surprised her when he had thrown himself on his knees like some ham actor and told her that he would kill himself unless she married him at once.
Chance Elson Page 26
