At eight o'clock he presided over the final count of the day and began his own official workday, remaining on the casino floor and personally supervising the action until the 4 a.m. count. Vito was the hardest working boss on the strip — or anywhere in the valley for that matter — and he was generally acknowledged as such. The forty-eight-year-old bachelor maintained his only residence on the premises in a specially-constructed efficiency apartment above the casino, and he literally lived on the job — rarely going into the adjacent hotel except to pay respects to a visiting dignitary or to use the eighteen-hole pro golf course. He was soft-spoken, articulate, apparently well educated, and he was generally respected by his employees.
With a strong instinct for image-making, a week never passed when Vito did not appear at some civic function, always with a staff-publicist in the close background taking notes and pictures. He was "generous" in his regular donations to local churches and community service organizations, and at least once every day he "came across" for a heavy loser who had gone broke at the Gold Duster, providing the victim with a non-negotiable airline ticket and a hundred dollars in cash, deliverable at the airport boarding gate by a staff publicist with camera. Of such frail and insignificant charities was fostered the image of "Heart of Gold Vito," a romantic reincarnation of the old Mississippi gambling men who would never let a victim slink away stone broke.
The publicists were never around at count time, when the take was being martialed and massaged into tidy balance sheets of fraud, theft, and conspiracy. And even after the massage, the Gold Duster's official gross profits still managed to hover in the $20,000,000 per year bracket.
Publicity pictures were also not taken of those rare instances when a dealer was discovered working his own personal brand of fraud and theft, and the ensuing grim moments in the back room where "security agents" pulverized the culprit's hands with steel bars or emblazoned large X's on the backs of the thieving hands with a red-hot branding iron.
One could always count on the photographers, however, when a "system freak" or high roller cashed in big at the tables, and the pictures usually found their way into the wire press services for nationwide consumption in addition to receiving full ballyhoo along the Strip. And if the big winner did not have sense enough to immediately flee with his winnings, he would find himself hurriedly ensconced in the Gold Duster's "Winner's Suite" — a luxurious pad with instant service, revolving bed partners, and every enticement imaginable to assure his reappearance on the casino floor. And the picture-taking did not end there; it was just beginning. A battery of television "eyes" were concealed in the Winner's Suite, recording every breath the unsuspecting sucker took — and also every bed partner. Seldom did a "big winner" — once the ballyhoo was ended — manage to get out of town with even the stake that had brought him there.
Yes, "Heart of Gold" Vito was the hardest working casino boss on the Strip — and this particular day had been the most trying accumulation of experiences in Vito's memory. First, it had been that Autry character, posing as a high roller and all the time nosing around in the Gold Ehister's entertainment department and trying to rumble the showgirls. Then that damn spot-audit team from Carson City peering over everybody's shoulders during the eight o'clock count. Then the heist of Vito's $60,000 share of the finance shipment and the shaking news from Joe the Monster that Bastard Bolan was behind it. And then the Autry guy turning up missing, and Joe's minions turning the Strip upside down — and then, to end it all, the word that the Taliferos were swooping in with their army of torpedoes.
A war with Bolan this town could definitely do without. It was bad for business. Vito could not understand the Eastern Gentlemen allowing this sort of thing to go on in the open city. The flow of blood would most certainly dry up the flow of money — nervous visitors would be scared away by the sounds of battle — and wasn't that the whole idea behind declaring Vegas an open territory? Wasn't it to keep the trouble down, to keep the image intact, and to keep the bucks flowing in?
Vito just couldn't understand it. If Bolan wanted to pick up a few bucks, wanted to pull a little skim job of his own — then hell, why not let him? Let him take it and get the hell out — that little bit of skim was chickenfeed and meant nothing at all in comparison with the overall losses a shooting war would inevitably mean. Vegas did not need to be "buttoned down." Vegas survived and thrived only because there were no buttons. A town that pulled in $40O-$50O million a year certainly deserved something better than a vendetta war by the men hired to protect the interests there. Holy Mother. Vito Apostinni didn't understand any of it.
And already it was too late to do anything about it. The action had moved from Hard Mountain to Paradise Valley, and Paradise was already tasting the flow of blood. And it was Apostinni blood that was being tasted, that was the hardest part.
Vito had not meant that Joe Fuge and Harry Stanners go over there and get themselves into a shooting. They were security agents, not hardmen, bonded and credentialed by the casino owner's association, strictly legitimate in every way and authorized for unrestricted access to any casino on the strip. Vito had not sent them over there to get into a gunfight. Vegas was no place for that kind of action. The idea had been to talk some sense into that Anders fink, and to find out just where the hell he stood with this other troublemaker, this Autry guy. It had seemed a sensible thing to do, especially with Autry on the loose and maybe even a federal spy.
So they'd run into Bolan instead and what a mess. Well… nobody could blame Vito Apostinni for the mess. His only hope now was that the thing could be handled quietly from here on out, that Bolan could be grabbed and hustled off somewhere out of sight and out of mind before he began affecting business.
And, in the meantime, business had to go on as best it could. It was that cardinal point of the day again, time for the four o'clock count — the biggest and most important of the day — and to hell with Mack the Bastard Bolan and his fancy-Dan damn fireworks.
Apostinni was in the counting room, and his heart of gold was running over with the impressive tabulations being posted. A crew of female tellers were working their way through bales of folding money and the coin counting machines were clicking hungrily under the flood of coin from the slots.
"Looks like the best night this month, Mr. Apostinni," the head accountant predicted.
"Yeah, well — tell me that again after you've run your slips," the boss said pleasantly. "Don't gloat over grosses, you wait and show me what we took." But Vito was already gloating himself. He knew the house averages, the mathematics of chance, and he did not need an accountant to tell him that it had been a good night.
"I'm going to bed," he announced tiredly. "Send the slips up, I'll go over them at breakfast."
Vito went to the door and waited patiently while the guard worked the combination. He exited into a short hallway and again had to wait while another guard worked the intricacies of the buffer door which admitted him to the casino floor.
His tagman, Max Keno, was awaiting him just outside, boredly watching the action at a blackjack table to while away the time. Apostinni passed on through, smiling affably at familiar faces, the tagman following a discreet few paces behind. Then he spotted Joe the Monster Stanno bearing down on him from the other side of the casino; Vito's smile dwindled away as he halted beside a roulette wheel and awaited the harbinger of trouble.
The huge triggerman pulled up beside him and spoke from the corner of his mouth. "Morning, Mr. Apostinni. How's it going?"