'Why not just ask me?' Anthony said.
'Anthony,' I said, 'you told me the time, I'd want a second opinion. Gimme the key.'
He produced it. It was a Mirage key. Room 1011.1 gave it back to him.
'You here alone?'
'Yeah.'
I spoke to Hawk.
'You want to give him time to break the bank?'
'Sure.'
'Think we can keep Marty Anaheim off his back? If he shows up?'
Hawk turned his head slowly and looked at me from the other side of Anthony. He smiled.
'We could do that,' he said.
CHAPTER 17
Anthony took his system back to the blackjack tables. We sat at the bar and watched him. Hawk was sipping Krug, from a fluted glass. The bottle was in an ice bucket on the bar. I had a beer.
'You think he's got a system?' Hawk said.
'Don't know,' I said.
'He doesn't seem to be counting.'
'Maybe one of those progressive betting systems,' Hawk said.
'Casinos love them.'
'Anthony was born to lose,' I said.
'He'll play till he does.'
Hawk nodded more in agreement with himself than with me.
'So how come we didn't just grab him and call Julius?' Hawk said.
'And then what?'
'Then it's up to Julius,' Hawk said.
'I don't want to leave it up to Julius,' I said.
'Or Shirley,' Hawk said.
'Her even more,' I said.
'So who we leaving it up to?'
'There's something wrong here,' I said.
'Anthony did seem to be thinking 'bout Marty Anaheim a lot.'
'He reacted different to that name than the others,' I said.
'When I first brought up Gino's name, you notice, Anthony didn't have any reaction. He didn't react to Gino until after we mentioned Marty.'
'You believe him he didn't take no money from Gino?'
'He swore on his mother,' I said.
Hawk smiled.
'That did it for me,' he said.
'You got a friend at the hotel,' I said.
'You are an ace detective,' Hawk said, 'figure that out.'
'We didn't have to register and everything's free,' I said.
Hawk grinned.
'You don't miss nothing, do you, Bawse.'
'Nothing,' I said.
'So maybe you could ask her if Anthony is registered here with anybody.'
'How you know my contact is a her?' Hawk said.
'Ace detective.'
We were quiet. Hawk took the bottle from the ice bucket, poured a little more Krug, and put the bottle back in the ice bucket.
'You think there's something between Anthony and Marty?'
