Baccarat had wild fluctuations. There had been nights when the baccarat table lost enough money to wipe out the profits from all the other action in the casino that day. But then there would be weeks when the baccarat table won enormous amounts. Cully was sure that Gronevelt had a skim going on the baccarat table, but he couldn’t figure out how it worked. Then he noticed one night when the baccarat table cleaned out heavy players from South America that the next day’s figures on the slip were less than they should be.
It was every casino’s nightmare that the players would get a hot streak. In Las Vegas history there had been times when crap tables had gotten hot for weeks and the casino was lucky to break even for the day. Sometimes even the blackjack players got smart and beat the house for three or four days running. In roulette it was extremely rare to have even one losing day a month. And the wheel of fortune and keno were straight bust-out operations, the players sitting ducks for the casino.
But these were all the mechanical things to know about running a gambling casino. Things you could learn by the book, that anyone could learn, given the right training and sufficient time. Under Gronevelt, Cully learned a good deal more.
Gronevelt made everybody know he did not believe in luck. That his true and infallible god was the percentage. And he backed it up. Whenever the casino keno game was hit for the big prize of twenty-five thousand dollars, Gronevelt fired all the personnel in the keno operation. Two years after the Xanadu Hotel had begun operating, it got very unlucky. For three weeks the casino never had a winning day and lost nearly a million dollars. Gronevelt fired everybody except the casino manager from Steubenville.
And it seemed to work. After the firings the profits would begin, the losing streak would end. The casino had to average fifty grand a day in winnings for the hotel to break even. And to Cully’s knowledge the Xanadu had never had a losing year. Even with Gronevelt skimming off the top.
In the year he had been dealing and skimming for Gronevelt Cully had never been tempted into the error another man might make in his position: skimming on his own. After all, if it was so easy, why could not Cully have a friend of his drop around to win a few bucks? But Cully knew this would be fatal. And he was playing for bigger stakes. He sensed a loneliness in Gronevelt, a need for friendship, which Cully provided. And it paid off.
About twice a month Gronevelt took Cully into Los Angeles with him to go antique hunting. They would buy old gold watches, gilt-framed photographs of early Los Angeles and Vegas. They would search out old coffee grinders, ancient toy automobiles, children’s savings banks shaped as locomotives and church steeples made in the 1800’s, a gold set archaic money clip, into which Gronevelt would put a hundred-dollar black chip casa money for the recipient, or a rare coin. For special high rollers he picked up tiny exquisite dolls made in ancient China, Victorian jewel boxes filled with antique jewelry. Old lace scarves silky gray with age, ancient Nordic ale mugs.
These items would cost at least a hundred dollars each but rarely more than two hundred dollars. On these trips Gronevelt spent a few thousand dollars. He and Cully would have dinner in Los Angeles, and sleep over in the Beverly Hills Hotel and fly back to Vegas on an early-morning plane.
Cully would carry the antiques in his suitcase and back in the Xanadu would have them gift-wrapped and delivered to Gronevelt’s suite. And Gronevelt every night or nearly every night would slip one in his pocket and take it down to the casino and present it to one of his Texas oil or New York garment center high rollers who were good for fifty or a hundred grand a year at the tables.
Cully marveled at Gronevelt’s charm on these occasions. Gronevelt would unwrap the gift package and take out the gold watch and present it to the player. “I was in LA and saw this and I thought about you,” he’d say to the player. “Suits your personality. I’ve had it fixed up and cleaned, should keep perfect time.” Then he would add deprecatingly, “They told me it was made in 1870, but who the hell knows? You know what hustlers those antique shops are.”
And so he gave the impression that he had given extraordinary care and thought to this one player. He insinuated the idea that the watch was extremely valuable. And that he had taken extra pains to put it in good working condition. And there was a grain of truth in it all. The watch would work perfectly, he had thought about the player to an extraordinary degree. More than anything else was the feeling of personal friendship. Gronevelt had a gift for exuding affection when he presented one of these tokens of his esteem which made it even more flattering.
And Gronevelt used “The Pencil” liberally. Big players were, of course, comped, RFB-free room, food and beverage. But Gronevelt also granted this privilege to five-dollar chip bettors who were wealthy. He was a master at turning these customers into big players.
Another lesson Gronevelt taught Cully was not to hustle young girls. Gronevelt had been indignant. He had lectured Cully severely. “Where the fuck do you come off bullshittig those kids out of a piece of ass? Are you a fucking sneak thief? Would you go into their purses and snatch their small change? What kind of guy are you? Would you steal their car? Would you go into their house as a guest and lift their silverware? Then where do you come off stealing their cunt? That’s their only capital, especially when they’re beautiful. And remember once you slip them that Honeybee, you’re evened out with them. You’re free. No bullshit about a relationship. No bullshit about marriage or divorcing your wife. No asking for thousand-dollar loans. Or being faithful. And remember for five of those Honeybees, she’ll always be available, even on her wedding day.”
Cully had been amused by this outburst. Obviously Gronevelt had heard about his operation with women, but just as obviously Gronevelt didn’t understand women as well as he, Cully, did. Gronevelt didn’t understand their masochism. Their willingness, their need to believe in a con job. But he didn’t protest. He did say wryly, “It’s not as easy as you make it out to be, even your way. With some of them a thousand Honeybees don’t help.”
And surprisingly Gronevelt laughed and agreed. He even told a funny story about himself. Early in the Xanadu Hotel history a Texas woman worth many millions had gambled in the casino and he had presented her with an antique Japanese fan that cost him fifty dollars. The Texas heiress, a good-looking woman of forty and a widow, fell in love with him. Gronevelt was horrified. Though he was ten years older than she, he liked pretty young girls. But out of duty to the hotel bankroll he had taken her up to the hotel suite one night and went to bed with her. When she left, out of habit and perhaps out of foolish perversity or perhaps with the cruel Vegas sense of fun, he slipped her a Honeybee and told her to buy herself a present. To this day he didn’t know why.
The oil heiress had looked down at the Honeybee and slipped it into her purse. She thanked him prettily. She continued to come to the hotel and gamble, but she was no longer in love with him.
Three years later Gronevelt was looking for investors to build additional rooms to the hotel As Gronevelt explained, extra rooms were always desirable. “Players gamble where they shit,” he said. “They don’t go wandering around. Give them a show room, a lounge show, different restaurants. Keep them in the hotel the first forty-eight hours. By then they’re banged out.”
He had approached the oil heiress. She had nodded and said of course. She immediately wrote out a check and handed it to him with an extraordinarily sweet smile. The check was for a hundred dollars.