Chapter Eight
The carpet was a deep forest green; it extended halfway up the walls. In the center of the room a sunken bed rose six inches from the floor, covered with burnt-orange suede cloth; near it stood a huge circular bathtub of beige imitation marble. Surrounded by bright mirrors, a black marble sink glittered in a far corner. Its basin and faucets were gold. On a shelf above the toothbrush holder sat a small white television set. This was on when Eddie checked in; a closed-circuit show was explaining the rules of baccarat, as played at Caesar’s Tahoe. Lamps were everywhere, their chrome bases bright as the polished mirrors. It was a big room, a winner’s room.
The bellboy pulled the cord that opened heavy green drapes; outside was deep blue sky and a segment of a bluer lake—Lake Tahoe itself, mostly hidden by the Sahara Hotel across the highway. A Roman sofa upholstered in the green of the rug and walls sat facing the window. There were no paintings on the walls. There was no art at all.
He tipped the bellboy generously and, when he had left, stripped to his shorts and seated himself on the Roman bench for a while, looking at the sky. There was nothing of university life in what he saw outside the window or inside; he felt a kind of youthful excitement just to know that. He had a stack of one-hundred-dollar traveler’s checks on the nightstand beside the bed. He no longer had a marriage, a business or a job. It didn’t matter. He did not have to think about any of that for two weeks. This hotel and this view had been made for him; twelve floors below were a gambling casino, four restaurants, bars, a theater, and a huge ballroom with five pool tables in it. It was a world he understood more than he would ever understand life, and he sat here at the high edge of it, high himself to be West, rich enough for the time and place.
He stood, then padded barefoot to where his suitcase was and took the cue case from beside it. He slid out the solid, beautifully wrought Balabushka, walked back to the window and stood there screwing the two pieces together, looking at the sky and a distant row of dark pines behind the Sahara.
He had flown to San Francisco, picked up a rented car at the airport and had driven the two hundred miles across California, starting with the Bridge and then a four-lane highway through Oakland. There were miles of Oakland, the city where he was born, and yet none of it meant anything to him. There was not even the name of a familiar street on the exit signs, no tall building seen from the road that he had seen before. Only the light in the morning sky and the glimpses of the bay caught through heavy traffic on the Bridge were familiar. The house he had lived in was off the road somewhere, behind gas stations and gritty buildings. He had no idea where. Despite this, driving a bypass that was like any other American bypass, he knew he had come home for a moment at least. On the backseat were his suitcase and his cue stick; in his pocket was money. He had nothing to do for two weeks except play pool as well as he could.
At the hotel now he took a long, slow shower, standing in the tub in the center of the room with only half the curtain drawn, letting hot water run down his body for a long time before soaping up. He had turned on the huge TV that faced the bed, and as he showered he could hear the voice-over detailing the ways of placing bets on a roulette table: “Each player is given his own color of chips,” the plausible voice explained, as though to children, “and he keeps them throughout his time at the table. Your croupier will answer any questions.” The picture on the screen showed a young woman croupier handing chips to a bettor. Money was not mentioned. Everything was cheerful. It was just the thing to be watching while taking a shower in the middle of the bedroom. The Balabushka lay on the bed, its bright chrome-plated joint gleaming in the light from the bright Nevada sky, ready for use.
Just keeping the glass clean could have occupied the labors of half the Mafia. The elevators were walled with mirrors, and when you stepped out on the main floor you found yourself walking along a hallway lined with hundreds of large, diamond-shaped mirrors without a spot or a grain of dust on them. Then you turned left, went down a few carpeted stairs, and you were in the casino, facing an acre of chromium-and-glass slot machines—all clean, polished, in immaculate condition despite the hordes of glassy-eyed people who moved among them, wandering from the nickel slots to the dollar ones, threading their ways past the fifty-cent and quarter machines. All the machines had fronts of colored glass lit brightly from inside. Some people stood fixed before one machine for hours at a time, taking silver from a paper cup, dropping it in the slot, pulling the handle, letting the coins that sometimes fell into the chute at the machine’s bottom accumulate until the cup was empty and then refilling the cup. Terrible odds, Eddie thought, but they didn’t seem to care. Maybe they were afraid of doing something stupid or wrong in front of the croupiers and dealers at the games where you had a better chance. The only blunder with a slot machine was deciding to play it.
Powerful air conditioning sucked smoke from the air faster than the crowds could produce it. Not one ray of natural light penetrated the casino from sunlit Nevada outside; a million watts of electricity spread itself around the enormous room in luminous blue, gold and red glass like the setting for an endless, vaguely pornographic, musical.
Beyond the acre of slots sat the tables—craps and blackjack, covered in pool-table green. Off to the left in a quiet backwater cordoned by velvet ropes and monitored by men and women in tuxedoes and stage makeup, with frilled electric blue shirts, was baccarat. No sheiks or movie stars sat at those tables, but that was where they were supposed to be if they ever came to Caesar’s Tahoe. The sounds of slot machines, hushed by the thickness of the red and blue carpet, penetrated to this quieter area as a kind of atonal Muzak. The only loud noises came from the odd crapshooter instructing his dice.
Beyond craps and baccarat were restaurants and a sushi bar. Eddie headed for the sushi bar.
He started to seat himself at an empty table that overlooked the casino when he saw a Reserved sign. Annoyed, he went on through the drinking crowd and found himself a small table against the wall. He ordered a Manhattan from a waitress with fishnet hose and a skirt about three inches long; the name on her tag read “Marge.” The sushi sat in crushed ice on a buffet table in the center of the room where a piano would have sat a few years ago—before sushi joined the croissant as chic.
Just as Marge returned with his drink, he looked up to see a familiar face coming across the room toward him. It was Boomer. “You still got that electronic Balabushka?” Boomer said.
“In my room.” Eddie signed the check for the drink. “Sit down.”
“Let me have a Drambuie on the rocks, Marge.” Boomer seated himself with a sigh. “If I draw you in the first round I’m complaining to the management.”
Eddie took a sip from his drink, which turned out to be far too sweet. “Have you seen the tables yet?”
“I just got here.” Boomer did not seem to be putting on one of his acts. His voice was genuinely morose. When his Drambuie came, he drank it off fast and ordered another. Eddie’s eyes followed Marge’s legs idly as she headed for the bar, until he saw three slim young men, brightly dressed and looking wired, coming up the steps from the casino. The one in front was Babes Cooley. With him was Earl Borchard. Under his breath Boomer said, “The sons of bitches.”
The young men were laughing together. They walked to the table marked Reserved and seated themselves. Two waitresses came over, all smiles, and began taking their orders for drinks.
“Fucking kids,” Boomer said morosely.