Saturday night special around. Salvatore steps out from his hiding place, says, “Merry Christmas,
motherfucker,” and blows the guy into the middle of the street with an 870 riot gun loaded with rifle
slugs. The police commissioner took issue with the way Salvatore. did business. Now he?s down here.
One thing about them, they don?t complain. Between you arid me, I?m glad they?re here.
You can add this to everything else: every time I go around a corner I get another rude shock. Like
going out to the beach today. I wasn?t ready for that. The traffic should have been a clue. It got heavy
about a quarter mile from where the boulevard terminates at Dune Road, which runs parallel to the
ocean. See, the way I remember Dune Road, it was this kind of desolate macadam strip that merged
with the dunes. It went out to the north end of the island and petered out at the sea; one of those old
streets that go nowhere in particular.
Now it?s four lanes wide with metered parking lots all over the place. There are three hotels that
remind rue a lot of Las Vegas, and shops and fast-food joints one on top of the other, and seawalls to
protect the hotel guests from the common people. Two more going up and beyond them condos
polluting the rest of the view. And the noise! It was a hurricane of sound. Stereos, honking horns, and
hundreds of voices, all jabbering at once.
La Cote de Nightmare is what it is now.
See what I mean about rude shocks? The Strip, that?s one rude shock.
Anyway, I?m on my way out there with Stick and Charlie One Ear followed in his car. Going
anywhere with Stick is taking your life In your hands. He doesn?t drive a car, he flies it. He can do
anything in that Pontiac but a slow roll and I wouldn?t challenge him on that. I ought to be getting
combat pay.
Without boring you with details, Salvatore and Zapata made this St. Louis pimp named Mortimer
Flitch and we went out to have a chat with him.
He was hanging out on the Strip and before I go any further with that, let me tell you about the Strip_
The first thing I noticed when we got there, the hotels are almost identical triplets. Take the Breakers,
for instance. The lobby is the size of the Dallas stadium. It would take about five minutes to turn it
into a casino. I could almost hear the cards ruffling and the roulette balls rattling and the gears
cranking in the slot machines. When Raines pushed through the pari-mutuel law, he promised there
would never be any casino gambling in Dunetown. Well, you can forget that, Cisco. They?re ready.
It?s just a matter of time. I?ll give them a year, two at the most. What we?re looking at is Atlantic City,
Junior. About fifteen minutes told me all I wanted to know about the Strip.
When we got there, the pimp, Mortimer, is sitting in a booth in the coffee shop looking like he just
swallowed a 747. Salvatore is sitting across from him, kind of leaning over the table, grinning like
