Vigorish

by John Berryman

themback. Not very impressive work for a Twenty-fifth degree. The coinsspilled over.

  * * * * *

  I used the excuse of straightening up the stack to get a touch, myself.I could have done it visually, of course, or I could have straightenedthem up with TK, but touch helps my grip. I took a good look at the doorto the main casino, a heavy job of varnished native cedar. Just to showhim, I turned my back on the bar, leaning against it with one foot onthe brass rail. The lift was as clean as I've ever managed. Anger, fear,any strong emotion, is a big help. They came up all together, staying ina stack, and I could perceive that they hung in the air behind me, agood foot clear of the bar, and about twenty feet from the door to thecasino. In a smug show of control, I dealt the cartwheels off the top ofthe stack, one at a time, and fired them hard. Each one snapped awayfrom the hovering stack, like a thrown discus. My perception was of thebest. Each coin knifed into the soft cedar of the door, burying itselfabout halfway. My best sustained lift, I suppose is about two hundredtimes the weight of a silver dollar. But with the lift split by the needto keep the stack together, about twenty gees was all the shove I gavethe cartwheels. Still, you might figure out how fast those cartwheelswere traveling after moving twenty feet across the bar at anacceleration of twenty gees.

  Smythe gasped. I doubted he had ever seen better, even in the controlledconditions of Lodge Meeting. "A little something to remember me by," Isaid, as I opened the silver-studded door. "Now let's see the boss."

  "You're a TK bruiser," he said, impressed. "If you hit Barney's eyeslike that, he's a Blind Tom for fair."

  "Hardly," I sniffed. "You ought to know that no respectable TK would laya lift on a retina. I just squeezed off a couple of small arteries. He'sback in business already, I'd say."

  Had I mentioned the rustic _decor_ of the Sky Hi Club? When Las Vegashad deteriorated to the point where it would turn most stomachs, thebetter clubs migrated up among the tall pines, along the shores of LakeTahoe. And in place of the dated chromium glitter of Vegas, they hadreached way back to the "Good old days" for styling. The Sky Hi Club wastypical. The outside was all hand-hewn logs. The inside had a low,rough-beamed ceiling, and a sure-enough genuine wood floor. The plankswere random-width, tree nailed to the joists. Even the help was dressedup like a lot of cow-pokes, whatever cow-pokes were.

  This ersatz ranch-house was owned by two completely unlovelies. PenoRose, who had used his political leverage to get me on the job, I hadknown since he'd been a policy number runner on the lower East Side. Hispartner, Simonetti, was something else, but somehow I wasn't lookingforward to meeting him any more than I was to seeing Rose again.

  I guess it's the filth within these croupier types that makes themsurround themselves with the aseptic immaculacy of iridium and glass.Their office was in a penthouse perched on the slanting roof shakes ofthe casino. It was big as a squash court, and as high and as square.Every wall was glass. It couldn't have been in greater contrast to thecontrived hominess of the casino if they'd thought about it for a year.Then, for the last twist, the furnishings were straight out of the oldSouthwest--Navajo rugs, heavy, Spanish oak desks, and a pair of matchingcouches or divans of whole steer leather stretched over oak frames.

  * * * * *

  Peno Rose came quickly toward me the moment Fowler Smythe showed me intothe office, spurs jingling. "Hey! There he is! The boy they had to ruleoff the track! How's a boy, Lefty? Long time no see." He had his handstuck way out ahead of him. His sharp, dried-out features repelled metwice as much as they had ten years before. That hatchet face of his wasgashed with what he thought was a smile. I've seen sharks with apleasanter gape. Naturally, I didn't take his hand.

  "Hi, Peno," I said. He jerked his hand back and straightened up. Hesnapped the hole in his face shut.

  "My partner," he said, waving his hand at the dark-skinned gent standingover against one of the fumed oak desks. "Sime, meet Lefty Bupp, thehottest TK artist with dice in the whole damned country!"

  Simonetti leaned against the desk. He drew a zipper open in his fancyblouse, dragged out the Bull Durham and started to roll his own. Theywatch too much TV. It makes terrible hams of them all. He spat on thefloor.

  "A living doll," I said. I took a better look at this honey. Face it, hewas an oily snake, cleaned up as much as possible, but not enough. Noamount of dude ranch duds, gold spurs or Indian jewelry could hide hisstiletto mentality. He was just a Tenderloin hoodlum with some of thescum scraped off. Well, I should know. So was I.

  Simonetti finished licking the seam of his roach. He came forward as helit it and blew too much smoke in my face. "What you doing here?" hesaid in a husky voice. "I told Rose no dice. We need another TK like weneed a hole in the head."

  "You think I _want_ to be in this trap?" I snapped at him. "Say theword, Tex, and I'm gone."

  "You're fired," he said huskily. "Scram!"

  I started for the door, glad to be rid of the lot of them. Peno Rosebeat me to it. He showed me several rows of teeth, the way sharks will."Half of this joint is mine," he snarled, holding a hand lightly againstmy chest. He knew me better than to push. "_My_ half is hiring you."

  The whiff of garlic over my shoulder told me that Simonetti had followedme, too. He didn't have any reservations about grabbing me and twistingme around and giving me a real face-full.

  "If you know what's good for you, you'll get out of here."

  "Freak?" I said, laying it on his mitral valve. After his heart hadmissed about eight beats, he started to sink, and I quit the lift. "Bepolite, Simonetti," I said to the panic in his yellowish face. "Nexttime I'll pinch down tight. The coroner will call it heart failure.Tough."

  He wanted his stiletto. He needed it. He was sorry he had ever quitcarrying it. A couple seconds of reflection told him I was too tough forhim. He went for his partner, his face darkening with rage now that hisheart could get some blood to it. He had his hands out, for Rose'sthroat, I guess. For my dough it took guts to put fingers that close toall those teeth. But he never got a chance to try it. An ashtray, one ofthose things with a shot-loaded cloth bag under it, flew off a desk,smacked him in the back of the head, and dropped to the floor with athump.

  It wasn't a hard blow, but an upsetting one. Fowler Smythe grinned athim from where he was sitting in one of the leather divans. "Sit downand shut up, Sime," he suggested coolly.

  Simonetti sagged with defeat. "Look, Rose," he gasped. "I want out. Badenough that our losses can't be stopped by this creep Smythe. Now youdrag in another TK. Buy me out!"

  "What's a business worth that's losing its shirt?" Rose sneered. "Wewere in clover, you fool, till this cross-roader got to us. This is ouronly chance to get even."

  That finished Simonetti. He went back to his desk and slumped againstit, scowling at the points of his handtooled boots.

  * * * * *

  Rose looked over at me. "Let's make sense," he said quietly. "We watchedyou on the TV monitor from the time you came in."

  "Sure," I said.

  "What about it?" he demanded.

  I shrugged. "I had my way with the dice, Peno. I dropped nine yards asfast as I could, then won it back. The spots came up for me every singleroll but two, when I had my eye on something else."

  He snickered. "We saw her," he said.

  "How about it, Fowler?" I asked my Lodge Brother. "Was a worker tippingthe dice tonight?"

  "I never felt it," he said. "But the table had dropped nearly fortygrand during the shift, which was about over when you started to play.He's too good for me, Wally."

  "But you felt _my_ lifts," I protested. "You called 'TK' on the table."

  Smythe shrugged and took off his glasses. "I thought I felt you tippingwhen you first came to the layout," he said, waving them around. Inodded confirmation. "But it was smooth work, and I could hardly besure. Most of these maverick TK's strong-arm the dice, and they skidacross the layout with their spots up. You're way ahead of that-
-youdon't touch them till the final few tumbles. And then, you were losing,and I couldn't see that the table was being hit."

  "I thought it was the smart move." I explained. "I was stillcontrolling the dice, and if there'd been a cross-roader working, Ishould have felt him skidding them."

  Smythe nodded. "Of course," he added. "I could feel you more clearlyafter you got the dice, and later, while that scarecrow with you washandling your chips. You were building a stack. So I fingered you."

  "Careful," I said sourly.