"Welcome to the Belle Vista Casino and Resort, Mr. Lopez."
"Thank you."
Threadgill bowed them onto the elevator.
The elevator ascended, then its doors opened on a large foyer. Threadgill led them to one of the four doors opening off it, ran the plastic card through another reading device, and then bowed them through the door.
Penthouse C was a large, elegantly furnished suite of rooms. Threadgill threw a switch, and curtains swished open, revealing a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows offering what in daylight would be a stunning view of the Gulf of Mexico, the sugar-white sandy beach, and the highway running along the coast. Now, a few lights twinkled out on the water and U.S. 90 was an intermittent stream of red lights going west, white lights going east.
There was a basket of fruit on a coffee table, and beside it a cooler holding two bottles of champagne.
"If you need anything, gentlemen," Threadgill said, "there are buttons in every room which will summon the floor waiter. There is of course twenty-four/seven room service."
"Thank you very much," Castillo said.
"Is there anything else, or may I leave you?"
"I can't think of anything, thank you very much," Castillo said.
Fernando Lopez waited until the door closed after Threadgill, and then said, "Knowing you as I do, Gringo, I'm sure there is some very simple reason why we are here in a suite normally reserved for really heavily losing baccarat players."
"Baccarat players?" Castillo asked.
"Yeah, this place is world headquarters for people who want to drop a couple of hundred thousand playing baccarat. You didn't know?"
Castillo shook his head.
"So what are we doing here?" Fernando asked.
"Thank you for not asking in the truck," Castillo said.
"That's the answer?"
"Masterson's father and I have to talk. We can't do that at his place-which he calls the plantation-because the widow's father has a bad ticker, and we don't want to upset him. He sent me here."
"What do you have to talk about? Wait. I'll rephrase that interrogatory: What the fuck is going on?"
"So I don't have to repeat everything twice, can you wait until he gets here? He should be here any minute, and I need a drink."
"Okay. I could use a little belt myself," Fernando said.
"What did that guy say about a floor-waiter button?"
"There has to be a bar in here," Fernando said.
He walked to a panel mounted on the wall and started pushing buttons. One of them caused a section of the paneled wall to move, revealing a small but well-stocked bar.
"Eureka, the gold!"
They had just enough time to fix the drinks and touch glasses when Winslow Masterson walked into the suite.
"I couldn't get away as quickly as I had hoped," he said. "But they were ready for you?"
"Yes, sir," Castillo said. "I took the liberty of…"
"You're my guests," Masterson shut him off with a gentle wave of his hand. "And a drink seems entirely appropriate at this time."
He went to the bar and poured himself a drink from the bottle of Famous Grouse that Fernando had used.
"The economics of this place has always fascinated me," Masterson said. "God only knows how much it costs them to maintain something like this, and since they are obviously not in the business of being a friend to man, there has to be a profit motive. It would therefore seem to follow that their hospitality is offered only to those who have-or are likely to lose-an enormous amount of money at the tables. Where do such people- and so many of them-come from?"
"I was thinking just about the same thing, sir," Fernando said.
"Excuse me, sir, for my breach of courtesy. I am Winslow Masterson."
"My name is Lopez, sir. Fernando Lopez."
"And you're a Westerner, Mr. Lopez. May I say I admire your boots?"
"Thank you, sir. Texan. San Antonio," Fernando said.
Masterson drained his drink and made another.
"Mr. Castillo tells me you're cousins," Masterson said.
"Yes, sir."
"Years ago," Masterson offered, "I had some business dealings with a delightful chap in San Antonio, who had your Christian name, Mr. Lopez, and your surname, Mr. Castillo. I don't suppose…"
"You may be talking about my-our-grandfather, sir," Charley said.
"Did your grandfather have a magnificent Santa Gertruda bull named 'Lyndon J.'?"
"Grandpa was not an admirer of President Johnson," Fernando said, "and Lyndon J., even as a calf, produced amazing amounts of droppings, so when it came to naming the calf for registering…"
"So your grandfather told me," Masterson chuckled. "What is it they say about a small world?"
He's making small talk, Charley thought. He's delaying hearing what he knows he won't like to hear.
What do I do? Bring him back to earth, so I can go out to his farm?
No. Fuck it. Vic's out there. The Mastersons are safe.
We just brought his son home in a flag-draped casket.
Let him do whatever he wants to do.
"I was distressed to learn he had passed," Masterson said. "My deepest condolences to you and your family."
Then he turned and walked to the plate-glass windows and looked out at the twinkling lights on the gulf.
A very long moment later, with his back to them, Masterson said, "Gambling has been going on here on this coast for centuries. Did you know that?"
"No, sir," Charley said, "I didn't."
"No, sir," Fernando added.
"The very first gamblers were the freebooters, the pirates,who plied their profession here," Masterson went on. "They had the custom of raffling off the more comely of the females they had removed, together with other valuable property, from vessels they intercepted entering or leaving the Mississippi River."
"I didn't know that," Fernando said.
"It is, I suspect, why my wife is a bit vague when discussing our ancestors. It is one thing to take some pride in them having been free men of color in New Orleans, before the war of cessation, and quite something else to acknowledge how they achieved that status."
"Excuse me?" Fernando asked.
Masterson took a long sip of his drink, and continued: "After the Battle of New Orleans, Jean Laffite was pardoned for his services. As were his officers and men. Most of them stayed in Louisiana, but some of them, including a notorious scoundrel, Captain Alois Hamele, and his son, Captain Francois Hamele, originally from Haiti, and before that of course from Africa, came here, where the land was cheaper and there were a number of bays and coves where ships not wishing to pass their cargoes through customs could unload.
"Captain-they used the French term, maitre, in those days-Hamele and his son-commonly known as the fils de le Maitre-decided, upon hearing that Jean Laffite had returned to his sinful ways, and knowing that the authorities would almost surely come looking for other pardoned freebooters, that a change of name was probably-"
"I know where you're going," Charley said. "Son of the Master, right? Masterson?"
Winslow Masterson slowly turned from the window, smiled, and nodded.
"Over the years," he went on, "the Masterson family acquired rather extensive land holdings in this area. Some of it was splendid farmland; some was in timber, and some, like the land on which this splendiferous gambling hell is built, was essentially useless swamp."
"And now," Fernando said, smiling, "I think I know where you're going."
"Perhaps," Masterson said, smiling.
"About fifteen years ago, some gentlemen from Las Vegas came to see me about acquiring this property. I suspect, perhaps unkindly, that they were disappointed when they found that I was not plowing my land walking barefoot behind a mule."
Castillo and Fernando chuckled.
"And I know they were disappointed when I told them I wasn't interested in selling the property. I didn't tell them that not only do I dislike selling property, but in this case my wife had also weighed in. She truly believes that proprietors of gambling hells grow rich on the poor.
"But it is true, I suppose, that everyone has their price, and in this case, the Las Vegas people finally met mine. An absurd, from my standpoint, amount of money. And this apartment, in perpetuity, together with what they term 'full maintenance,' which means I never am billed for anything. I suspect they still entertain hope I will come here, have too much of this stuff"-he raised his glass-"and go downstairs and lose it all back to them shooting dice."