money in a metal drawer, which the cashier drew back to her side, then pushed out again with the chips in it. They each took a hundred dollars in five-dollar blues, and the cashier’s metallic voice said over their heads, “Good luck to you.”
“And good luck to you, too,” Hurley said.
They wandered the room for a few minutes, looking at the action. The crap tables and roulette wheels were run by men, but all the card games were operated by women, showing a lot of breast and a lot of plastic smile. “That’s what I call poker tits,” Dalesia said. “Harder to read than a poker face.”
Mackey said, “Well, if I’m going to throw it away fast, I can’t do better than roulette. See you.”
Mackey wandered off, and Hurley and Dalesia kibitzed a blackjack game for a few hands. The girl dealing flashed them a couple of smiles while waiting for players to decide whether to hit or stay, and after a minute or two Hurley said, “Think I’ll settle in here till spring,” and took one of the empty chairs at the table.
Dalesia roamed some more, considered the lone chemin de fer table with its slender black-haired girl dealer, and went on to one of the crap tables. They used the full Las Vegas layout, and most of the female customers were here, betting the field and the hard way. Dalesia, whose one superstition was that he had a mystical relationship with the number nine, made a sensible bet on the Don’t Pass Line and a dumb bet on the nine to come. He glanced at his watch while the shooter breathed on the red transparent dice, and saw he had twenty minutes in which to lose the hundred dollars.
Over at one of the roulette wheels, Mackey was frowning like a steam engine and writing numbers in a notebook. He was betting on every other spin, and these were alternating between a square bet somewhere in the second twelve and the line bet at the top, the 1, 2, 3, 0 and 00. He was losing practically every time, but his frown of concentration never changed. He looked exactly like yet another chump with a system, and all the employees in the area became aware of him within five minutes. So did several customers, a couple of whom began to follow his betting even though he was losing.
At the blackjack table, while the other players looked at their cards or the dealer’s breasts, Hurley watched her hands. She was good and smooth, but she didn’t seem to be doing anything mechanical. Not that she had to; most of the players here didn’t know how to stand on anything less than a twenty. Hurley hung back with his low teens whenever the dealer’s up card was low, never hit on sixteen or higher no matter what she had showing, and slowly inched ahead of the odds. But it was a slow way to make money.
Mackey went through his hundred dollars in eight minutes. Still frowning, still checking things off in his notebook, he went back to the cashier’s window, absent-mindedly fumbled his wallet out of his pocket, and said, “Better let me have—” He paused, fingered the bills in the wallet, and regretfully drew five twenties. “Just a hundred,” he said.
“Thank you, sir.”
He seemed to come slowly back to a full awareness of his surroundings. As the girl was sending the drawer back out to him with his twenty chips inside, he said, “Uh, miss.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Is there a manager around?”
“Is something wrong, sir?”
“I want to establish a line of credit.” He seemed on the verge of dropping his wallet into the drawer, and hadn’t yet taken his chips out. “I have identification, I’m fully, uh—” He hesitated, then scooped the chips out and stuffed them distractedly into his jacket pocket.
“Yes, sir,” the girl said. “You’ll want to talk to Mr. Flynn.”
“Thank you,” Mackey said, and a second later did a double-take, when he remembered that Flynn was the name he was using. Thomas Flynn; he and Parker and a couple of other people all had ID in that name. “Flynn, you said?”
“Yes, sir.” Leaning forward so her hair was touching the glass, she looked and pointed down to Mackey’s left, saying, “You’ll find his door along this wall, sir.”
“My name’s Flynn,” Mackey said.
The girl gave him a blank smile. “Well, isn’t that a coincidence,” she said.
“It’s an omen,” Mackey told her. “I have a feeling I’m going to make some money tonight.”
“Well, I hope you do, sir. Should I tell Mr. Flynn you’re coming to see him?”
He seemed to think about it, then to make a solid decision. “Yes,” he said. “I might as well be prepared.”
“Thank you, sir.” She reached for a phone beside her, and Mackey moved away from her window.
Dalesia, winning most of the time on Don’t Pass and losing all of the time on nine, was slowly turning his hundred dollars over to the house. When the dice came around to him, he elected not to shoot but to pass them on to the next player, and while doing so, noticed Mackey walking along the wall toward a brown wooden door.
There was a man in a black suit, black tie, and white shirt standing near the door, watching the action the way a cop on a beat watches cars go by. When Mackey approached he turned and gave him a flat look and said, “Can I help you, sir?”
“I’m supposed to see Mr. Flynn,” Mackey said.
“Yes, sir. And your name was?”
Mackey gave a half-apologetic smile. “Flynn,” he said.
The man’s face wasn’t meant for smiling, but he tried. “Well, that’s a coincidence,” he said.
“I guess it is.”
The man reached for a black wall phone next to the door. “Related, by any chance?”
“You never know, do you? I’ll have to ask.”
