And so Cully thought, well, maybe not with Gronevelt, but there were plenty of other wheels in town that Charlie could wreck. At first he had thought that it was her lack of technical facility. After all, she was a young girl and not an expert. But in the past few months he had taught her a few things and she was much better than when he had first had her. OK. He couldn’t get Gronevelt, which would have been ideal for all of them, and now he would have to use her in a more general way. So in the months that followed Cully “turned her out” He fixed her up with weekend dates with the biggest high rollers that came to Vegas, and he taught her never to take money from them and not always to go to bed with them. He explained his reasoning to her. “You’re looking for the big shot only. Someone who’s going to fall in love with you and going to lay plenty of money on you and going to buy you plenty of presents. But they won’t do that if they think they can lay a couple of hundred on you just for screwing you. You’re going to have to play it like a soft, soft hustler. In fact, it could be a good idea sometimes not to screw them the first night. Just like the old days. But if you do, just make believe it’s because they overpowered you.”
He was not surprised that Charlie agreed to do everything that he told her. He had on the first night detected the masochism so often found in beautiful women. He was familiar with that. The lack of self-worth, the desire to please someone that they thought really cared about them. It was, of course, a pimp’s trick, and Cully was no pimp, but he was doing this for her good.
Charlie Brown had another virtue. She could eat more than any person he had ever met. The first time she had let herself go Cully had been amazed. She had eaten a steak with a baked potato, a lobster with french fried potatoes, cake, ice cream, then helped polish off Cully’s plate. He would show off her eating qualities, and some of the men, some of the high rollers, were infatuated by this quality in her. They would love to take her to dinner and watch her eat enormous quantities of food, which never seemed to distress her or make her less hungry and never added an inch of fat to her frame.
Charlie acquired a car, some horses to ride; she bought the town house in which she was renting an apartment and she gave her money to Cully to bank for her. Cully opened up a special guardian account. He had his own tax adviser do her taxes. He put her on the casino payroll of the hotel so that she could show a source of income. He never took a penny from her. But in a few years she fucked every powerful casino manager in Vegas, plus some of the hotel owners. She fucked high rollers from Texas, New York and California, and Cully was thinking of springing her on Fummiro. But when he suggested that to Gronevelt, Gronevelt, without giving any reason, said, “No, not Fummiro.”
Cully asked him why, and Gronevelt said to him. “There’s something a little flaky about that girl. Don’t risk her with the real top rollers.” And Cully accepted that judgment.
But Cully’s biggest coup with Charlie Brown was fixing her up with Judge Brianca, the federal judge in Las Vegas. Cully arranged the rendezvous. Charlie would wait in one of the hotel’s rooms, the judge would come in the back entrance of Cully’s suite and the judge would enter Charlie’s room. Faithfully, Judge Brianca came every week. And when Cully started asking him for favors, they both knew what the score would be.
He duplicated this setup with a member of the Gaming Commission, and it was Charlie’s special qualities that made it all work. Her loving innocence, her great body. She was great fun. Judge Brianca took her on his vacation trips fishing. Some of the bankers took her on business trips to screw them when they weren’t busy. When they were busy, she went shopping, and when they were horny, she fucked them. She didn’t need to be courted with tender words, and she would take money only for shopping. She had the quality of making them believe that she was in love with them, that she found them wonderful to be with and to make love with, and this without making any demands. All they had to do was call her up or call Cully.
The only trouble with Charlie was that she was a slob at home. By this time her friend Sarah had moved from Salt Lake City to her apartment and Cully had “turned her out” too after a period of instruction. Sometimes when he went to their apartment, he was disgusted by the way they kept it, and one morning he was so enraged after looking around the kitchen he kicked them both out of bed, made them wash and clean up the black pots in the sink and hang up new curtains. They did it grouchily, but when he took them both out to dinner, they were so affectionate that all three of them wound up together in his suite that night.
Charlie Brown was the Vegas dream girl, and then, finally, when Cully needed her, she vanished with Osano. Cully never understood that. When she came back, she seemed to be the same, but Cully knew that if ever Osano called for her, she would leave Vegas.
– -
For a long time Cully was Gronevelt’s loyal and devoted right-hand man. Then he started thinking of replacing Gronevelt.
The seed of betrayal had been sown in Cully’s mind when he had been made to buy ten points in the Xanadu Hotel and its casino.
Summoned to a meeting in Gronevelt’s suite, he had met Johnny Santadio. Santadio was a man of about forty, soberly but elegantly dressed in the English style. His bearing was erect, soldierly. Santadio had spent four years at West Point. His father, one of the great Mafia leaders in New York, used political connections to secure his son, Johnny, an appointment to the military academy.
Father and son were patriots. Until the father had been forced to go into hiding to avoid a congressional subpoena. The FBI had flushed him out by holding his son, Johnny, as a hostage and sending out word that the son would be harassed until the father gave himself up. The elder Santadio had done so and had appeared before a congressional committee, but then Johnny Santadio resigned from West Point.
Johnny Santadio had never been indicted or convicted of any crime. He had never even been arrested. But merely by being his father’s son, he had been denied a license to own points in the Xanadu Hotel by the Nevada Gaming Commission.
Cully was impressed by Johnny Santadio. He was quiet, well spoken and could even have passed for an Ivy League graduate from an old Yankee family. He did not even look Italian. There were just the three of them in the room, and Gronevelt opened the conversation by saying to Cully, “How would you like to own some points in the hotel?”
“Sure,” Cully said. “I’ll give you my marker.”
Johnny Santadio smiled. It was a gentle, almost sweet smile. “From what Gronevelt has told me about you,” Santadio said, “you have such a good character that I’ll put up the money for your points.”
Cully understood at once. He would own the points as a front for Santadio. “That’s OK with me,” Cully said.
Santadio said, “Are you clean enough to get a license from the Gaming Commission?”
“Sure,” Cully said. “Unless they’ve got a law against screwing broads.”
This time Santadio did not smile. He just waited until Cully had finished speaking, and then he said, “I will loan you money for the points. You’ll sign a note for the amount that I put up. The note will read that you pay six percent interest and you will pay. But you have my word that you won’t lose anything by paying that interest. Do you understand that?”
Cully said, “Sure.”
Gronevelt said, “This is an absolutely legal operation we’re doing here, Cully, I want to make that clear. But it’s important that nobody know that Mr. Santadio holds your note. The Gaming Commission just on its own can veto your being on our license for that.”
“I understand,” Cully said. “But what if something happens to me? What if I get hit by a car or I go down in a plane? Have you thought that out? How does Santadio get his points?”