"Licorice," said Chandler.
"I'll pass it up," said Nevada.
The box was like the airport where they had landed: an accommodation for men who wanted to enjoy some of the pleasures of Las Vegas without being seen.
The first show opened a few minutes after they sat down in the box. It opened with energetic dancing by twenty chorus girls wearing brightly colored feathers. Gypsy Rose Lee followed, delivering a series of quick one-liners to the audience as she danced and stripped all but naked. As she took her bows and departed stage left, a spotlight focused on a man standing stage right, his arms folded, his chin dropped. "Well!" he said. He was Jack Benny, and he took the stage for a thirty-minute monologue. Gypsy came out to join him at the end.
"Uh, Miss Lee, I want to ask you. ... Do you feel ... I mean ... embarrassed to be out here on the stage in front of all these people ... naked?"
"No, Jack. Do you?"
The show closed with another appearance by the chorus girls.
Dinner was on the table. Having had steak at the airport, Jonas had ordered fish, which he ate with glasses of the champagne. He ate sparingly. He felt himself running down. Except for the brief sleep he got at Nevada's, he had been on the move without sleep for twenty hours. He was only forty-seven years old: too early for a man to begin losing his stamina.
"That's a fine show," said Jonas to Morris Chandler.
"Costs a fortune," said Chandler. "But let me tell you why places like this make money the old Western-style gambling joints never dreamed of. When we get people in here, we get 'em for days. They gamble. They swim in the pool. They gamble. They eat and drink. They gamble. They see a show. They gamble. They sleep a few hours in a very nice room and start the whole deal over. It's a vacation. And let me tell you, we take a whole lot more money off people who come for a vacation than we do off professional or compulsive gamblers who come in here and go nowhere but the tables. They're smart. They know how to play. They usually don't drop much. But the house builder from Milwaukee brings the little lady, settles into The Seven Voyages, and they do all the stuff. She plays the slots, he plays the tables, and they drop a bundle. And you know what else? They leave here feelin' good about it. They had a good time."
"Sounds good," said Jonas noncommittally.
"Let me tell you something else," said Chandler. "If the builder from Milwaukee loses too much, he may come around asking for credit. He wants to sign a note. At this point we ask him how much he's lost and how much he can afford to lose. We usually find out he brought with him all he can afford to lose. So we tell him no. Sometimes I've given a guy a couple hundred to get him and the little lady home."
"So next year he comes back," said Jonas.
"Besides which, I want him to tell all his friends back home what a swell bunch of guys we are."
"Short course in how to run a casino," Jonas laughed.
Though he hadn't intended to, he found himself liking this man, this curious combination of craft and calculation with ingenuous enthusiasm. He wondered where and how Chandler and Nevada had become friends. It had to go back long before anyone had so much as imagined The Seven Voyages. Nevada Smith did not extend his friendship readily. If he trusted a man, that should be a man anyone could trust.
"There are tricks to every trade," said Chandler.
"But what deal can we make about the top floor?"
"Happy to accommodate you, Jonas," said Chandler. "The top floor has two suites, each with a nice big living room, two bedrooms with bath, and a kitchenette. The elevators won't take anybody up there unless they have a key. Likewise, we keep the stairway door locked. Ordinarily, high rollers occupy those two suites, but from time to time we help out a man in a position like yours."
"Nevada says you can make special telephone arrangements."
"We got a telephone hookup that switches your calls through San Diego, which puzzles the hell out of anybody trying to trace. We've got scramblers available. Course you have to put a descrambler on the other end. The bottom line is, we're set up to give privacy to a man who wants privacy."
"What's the rent?" asked Jonas.
"Look at it this way," said Chandler. "Each of those suites rents for fifty dollars a night. That's fifteen hundred a month. Two of them is three thousand. We got expenses in the special telephone stuff and in keeping security guys around to make sure nobody tries to invade you. Frankly, Jonas, I usually get nine hundred a week or thirty-five hundred a month for those two suites, when I rent to a man in your situation."
"I'll pay you eight thousand a month," said Jonas. "Two months in advance, though I may not stay two months. The sixteen thousand is yours if I move out sooner."
Morris Chandler smiled and nodded. "Jonas, you are a gentleman and a scholar," he said.
2
Arrangements had to be made. Jonas realized he could not telephone Monica that night. What could he tell her? What she wanted to know was where he was and when he would come home. He hadn't promised he would be in touch within twenty-four hours. So he didn't call.
The suites were comfortable, furnished unimaginatively like most hotel rooms everywhere. The bar was stocked. In the living rooms, picture windows overlooked the pool, and someone who had lived in the suite Jonas chose for himself had equipped the place with a big telescope on a tripod, maybe for watching the girls around the pool, maybe for checking out who arrived in the parking lot.
Chandler had suggested he could send up a girl, but Jonas had declined for tonight. He took a final slug of bourbon and went to bed.
In the morning, Morris Chandler arrived not long after Jonas and Nevada had finished breakfast. Both of them ate big breakfasts: ham and eggs, fried potatoes, buttered toast, and coffee. Jonas poured coffee for Chandler.
"I can help you with some things, if you want," said Chandler. "To start with, you brought no luggage. Give me your sizes, and I'll send up some clothes. Also shaving stuff and so on. But something more important. Twice a week I send a plane to Mexico City to pick up high rollers and bring them in for a couple days' gaming. I send a man down there on each flight. He can post letters, send telegrams, and so on."
Jonas nodded. "I'd like to send two telegrams."
The first telegram from Mexico City was to Monica: EVERYTHING IS OK STOP WILL BE IN TOUCH AGAIN IN A FEW DAYS STOP MY LOVE TO YOU AND JO-ANN STOP
The second was to Philip Wallace, Attorney, Washington, D.C.:
TELL LA AND NEVADA NEW YORK OFFICES TO INSTALL IMMEDIATELY ON MY PRIVATE LINES DESCRAMBLER EQUIPMENT AS FOLLOWS STOP VERICOMM MODEL NUMBER ONE DASH FOUR TWO FOUR STOP THESE LINES TO BE MONITORED BUSINESS HOURS STOP SUGGEST YOU INSTALL SAME YOURSELF STOP EXPECT TO CALL NO LATER THAN FRIDAY SO EQUIPMENT MUST BE IN PLACE STOP
A shop downstairs delivered clothes chosen by Morris Chandler, and Jonas sent the suit he had worn from Bel Air down to the dry cleaner. His new clothes were resort wear: light-colored slacks and golf shirts, also after a couple of days for tailoring a royal-blue jacket. Chandler sent up similar things for Nevada. Nevada accepted them, knowing he could not venture downstairs in the hotel in jeans and a buckskin shirt.
On Friday Jonas placed a telephone call to Phil Wallace in Washington. Phil answered and could understand him, so Jonas knew the descrambler was in place.
"Somehow I guess," said Phil, "that you're not really in Mexico City."
"You guess right. How much heat is on?"
"Well, you're not on the Ten Most Wanted List, but if your whereabouts is discovered you'll be served with the subpoena. A couple of senators are pissed. Counsel for the committee is pissed."