“But we have Lake Mead and the Colorado River to give us water. With water and gambling this close to L.A., I say Bugsy was right.”
Nicky grunted, turned to Dunc. “What’ll it be, chief?”
“I’m looking for Nitro Ned Davenport. The fighter.”
“Hey, how about a little service here? A martooni for me, a Scotch Manhattan for the lady. Two olives in the martooni.”
The fat man who had crowded up to the bar between Pepe and Dunc wore a light cashmere sweater stretched over big shoulders and heavy arms. Massive hips billowed under his slacks, and the dividing line of his belt rode high up on the mound of belly.
“Aw, serve yourself, asshole,” muttered Nicky after the man turned away, then added to Pepe, who was laughing silently, “He brings all his goddamn broads in here, expects them to get free drinks. How in hell do you make a Scotch Manhattan?”
“Put Scotch in a Manhattan,” suggested Dunc.
“Ha! Well, by Christ, that’s what he’s getting.”
Dunc checked out the backbar mirror; with the fat man at one of the otherwise deserted tables was a blonde in her low twenties wearing a sleeveless blouse and tight skirt, a Lana Turner look-alike.
Nicky flipped open the hinged part of the bartop and carried the drinks over to the table. No money changed hands; the freeloading part was apparently true.
Pepe stuck out his hand. When he smiled, fine lines calipered his mouth, making him look older than at first glance. He said in a courteous, musical voice, “My name is Pepe.”
They shook. “Everybody calls me Dunc.”
“Goddamn Scotch Manhattan.” But Nicky, grousing, had barely returned when the fat man appeared to slide the Scotch Manhattan across the stick.
“Hey, this isn’t right. You didn’t use Scotch in this.”
Nicky grabbed a bottle off the backbar with his big right hand, held it out for inspection. “W-h-i-t-e H-o-r-s-e. White Horse. Scotch.” He turned to Pepe as if the fat man weren’t there. “Why can’t they ask for something I’ve heard of?”
The fat man slapped the bartop twice with a pudgy hand, pointed at Nicky. “Just make her another one, Nicky, okay?”
He grunted and waddled on his heavy thighs back to the table. Nicky took up the returned drink and tasted it.
“Christ — it’s awful. Some people’ll drink anything.” He poured it down the brushed stainless-steel sink. “We’ll try blended — I’ll be damned if that puss can taste the difference.”
Pepe laughed and said to Dunc, “When I was your age, we’d chew a couple of sticks of Juicy Fruit gum while we drank a shot of whiskey, and, wild! Instant Manhattan.”
Nicky took the remixed drink back to the table, set it before Lana Turner with a flourish, came back, and shut the hinged section of bartop. “Now, what’s your squawk, chief?”
“No squawk. I was told Ned Davenport would be playing poker here this afternoon, that’s all.”
“You was told wrong. The poker room’s closed ’til seven.”
“A man named Lucius Breen gave me a ride into town last night. He said Davenport would be here.”
“That Lucius,” said Nicky, “he’s just an old softy. Like iron underpants. Gave you a nice easy ride, did he, in that big black Connie of his—”
“Maroon-and-cream Olds 98.”
“Yeah, sure, I forget. Ride from where?”
“Tucson.”
Pepe said softly, suddenly, “Short odds you’re a college man, hitchhiking around to see the country.”
“That’s it,” said Dunc almost eagerly. “I graduated from Notre Dame a month ago.”
“Nicky, I say the kid’s okay.”
“Ain’t your ass you’re wrong.”
There was a shriek and the sound of cascading coins from one of the slot machines. “I won! I won a jackpot!”
A suddenly genial Nicky raised his voice. “Of course you did, ma’am. Our slots are the most generous in town.”
“I heard one spilled its guts just last Christmas Eve.”
Ignoring Pepe, the fat man called across to Nicky, “That Scotch Manhattan was perfect. Now, how about another round here?”
Nicky mixed the martooni and Scotch Manhattan again using blended. “Told you that puss couldn’t tell the difference.”
He returned to assemble a boilermaker, two bourbon and branch, and a steaming mug of black coffee from a Silex coffeemaker on the backbar hot plate. He cocked an eyebrow at Dunc.
“Just ginger ale.” Too soon after Juárez.
“Didn’t know Tucson had that kind of action.”
“Juárez. The Red Arrow.”
“Notre Dame, huh? The Red Arrow?” He gave a derisive snort of laughter. “Yeah! You’re faded.”
He put the ginger ale and the other drinks on a tray and jerked his head toward swinging doors in the rear wall beyond a piano nobody was playing.
“Poker room’s out back. Tell ’em Pepe the piano player said you was okay. That’ll go over big.”
Carrying his tray in both hands, Dunc pushed open the swinging doors to the casino with his butt. Four blackjack tables, four craps table, three roulette wheels, a faro setup, a three-card monte layout, and a wheel of fortune. A triple row of slots, all deserted. No poker table, no players — only a lone blackjack dealer and his lone customer. The dealer was late forties, with piercing eyes, a large mouth, strong teeth. His white shirt open to the waist showed a V of muscular, hairless chest. The ends of his untied black bow tie hung down on his shirtfront.
“So, Sabine,” he said lazily, “you got hot pants today?”
Sabine was short and dark-haired, with a round laughing face without the laughter reaching dark eyes at once avid and sad. “If I did, I’d go next door and cool ’em off.”
“What’s next door?”
Sabine slowly revolved on her stool to sweep Dunc from head to toe as if he were for sale by the pound. She created a lot of sexual awareness with a pair of enormous breasts under a skimpy black blouse and a short swirly black-and-white-print skirt that emphasized Mae West hips and waist and shapely calves.
“A bouncer who’s hung like a bull.” She dropped ten silver dollars from her potbellied black purse on the table. “Deal the cards, Henri my pet.”
Dunc stayed to watch. Henri gave Sabine and himself each two cards, one of hers facedown, the other faceup. Both of his were faceup. Both were face cards. Sabine had a queen showing. She tipped up the edge of her bottom card.
“Shit,” she said. She scraped her cards on the green felt tabletop twice, said, “Hit me.” A five. She gave a shout of laughter and flipped up a hole six. “There is a. God.” Henri slid ten dollar chips across to her. “You the new bar boy?”
“Sure,” said Dunc. “Poker room out back?”
“Yeah. But play a hand of blackjack before you go.”
He hesitated fractionally, then put his tray of drinks on an unused blackjack table. “Why not?”
He had just two bucks fifty left, but his dad always said, any day you had a place to sleep and food in your belly was a successful day. Well, Dunc had a room for the night he’d paid a buck for, and Lucius Breen had bought him a huge pancake-and-eggs breakfast after they’d hit Vegas that morning.
He put his pair of ones on the baize. Sabine let her ten silver dollars and ten one-dollar chips ride. Henri dealt in a blur of blue bicycles. Dunc’s hole card was a nine. Faceup was a five. Henri had 18 showing, by the house rules couldn’t hit again; but Dunc had to take another card. Sabine flipped her hole card faceup beside her exposed card. Both were faces.
“Double down,” she said.
Henri dealt a card down on each of her face cards. Dunc busted with a 22. Sabine went broke on one hand, won the other. She finger-snapped a silver dollar to Dunc. He smiled and shook his head and slid the chip across the felt to Henri as a tip.