Neon Mirage

“Where hasn’t it gone? Hell, I spent a million bucks on plumbing alone.”

“Plumbing?”

He grinned, flushed with pride. “Sure. Every one of my two hundred and eighty hotel rooms has its own private sewer system, its own private septic tank.”

“Ben,” I said, trying to keep my jaw from scraping the floor. “The best hotels in Chicago don’t have that.”

“That’s good enough for Chicago, maybe, but not the Flamingo,” Siegel said, flatly confident, eating his salad. “That place is going to stand forever. No goddamn wind or earthquake is going to blow that place away. I built the walls out of concrete-double thick.”

What particular advantage that would be in a climate this mild, where chicken wire and plaster would suffice, I couldn’t guess. But I didn’t say anything. I’d been in this conversation long enough to know that disagreeing with Bugsy was like arguing with, well, with a cement wall. A double-thick one.

A waiter removed Siegel’s half-eaten and pushed-aside salad and put the steak before him. “You wouldn’t believe what I been through here,” Siegel said, ignoring the steak. “Everything went wrong…take the other day, the fuckin’ drapes. Turns out they’re highly flammable and got to be shipped back to L.A. for chemical treatment. Then they install the air-conditioning system with intakes but no outlets and that all has to be ripped out and re-done. And when the heating equipment shows up, the concrete housing in the boiler room turned out to be too goddamn small and had to be built over. Jesus, there’s no end to it. I been paying fifty bucks a day to carpenters, bricklayers, tinsmiths, steel workers. Twelve hour days, seven days a week. With this labor shortage, I have to fly most of ’em in, from all over the country. That means paying bonuses, providing living quarters…” He was working himself up into a lather, and sensed it apparently, because he backed off, shrugging “…but the job’s getting done, that’s the important thing.”

“Moe here said the hotel may not be ready in time.”

Sedway flashed me a dark look, as if I’d betrayed a confidence.

“It’ll be done,” Siegel said, his eyes narrowing momentarily, looking down at Sedway, who by this time was giving all his attention to his plate of food. “Tomorrow they’re doing the landscaping. It’ll be done.”

“If it isn’t,” I said, “can’t you just postpone?”

“I’d lose face,” Siegel said, “and that’s the one thing no gambler can afford to lose. Look, I’ll be straight with you, Nate…” He lowered his voice to a near whisper. “…I got construction costs I gotta cover. Del Webb’s threatening to put a half-mil lien up against the place. If I can open up, take advantage of the holiday crowds, get the money flowing, then the people I owe will back off.”

By that he meant Lansky and company.

I said, carefully, “I take it you can’t go to your investors and ask for more…”

“You can only go to the well so many times.” His mouth tightened. “Besides, those thick-headed, unimaginative bastards, it’s them I want to show. They don’t think I know what I’m doing. Hell, I know exactly what I’m doing.”

“I’m sure you do,” I lied.

“There’s money to be made in the fucking desert. Just take a look around you.” And he gestured around at the rustic surroundings. “This place is fine, for what it is. But it’s the wrong fantasy. You want to take money away from people and make them smile while you’re doing it, give them Hollywood, not Tombstone. Give ’em chrome and winding staircases. Swirling silk, marble statues, Greek urns…”

“How much does a Greek earn, anyway?” Virginia Hill asked, stinger poised.

He ignored her. “Picture it, Nate: revolving stages with top-name entertainment. Water ballets for the chorus girls. Wheels of chance spinning every night, night and day, in a dream setting, a place where time stands still, ’cause there’s no goddamn clocks. It’s gonna make Monte Carlo look like a penny arcade. And it won’t just be the Flamingo, no. You’ll see this whole three-mile strip out to the airport lined all along with luxury hotels and fabulous casinos. Legal. All of it.” He smiled like a naughty child. “The beauty part is you can use it for a money laundry. The government’s got no idea how much the tables take in. You can skim the hell out of it and then write off other shit. It’s the perfect set-up. That’s what going legit can do for you, and one day, before you know it, the boys back east are gonna wake up to it.”

I chewed on that for a while. Then I said, “I want to ask you something, Ben-and I need a very straight answer.”

“Ask and I’ll answer,” he shrugged. “Straight.”

“If I find out somebody’s been screwing you, where your black market supplies are concerned, what are you going to do about it?”

“Put a stop to it, what else? Oh. I get you. You don’t want to be part of any rough stuff.”

“I understand Miss Hill is allergic to cactus. Well, I’m allergic to being an accessory to murder.”

He shook his head. “Don’t worry about that. I’m on my good behavior out here. I’m a legitimate businessman, after all. I’m building a tourist trap, Nate-neither me nor my backers are about to spill any blood in this sand. The only killin’ in Vegas is gonna be the one I make when the Flamingo opens, day after Christmas.”

Virginia Hill, smirking as she sucked up her sixth stinger, said, “Me, I wish you’d just sell the crummy joint, before you fall the fuck apart.”

Siegel whipped his face around till it was bearing down on hers; his baby blues had turned to ice. Sedway was eating his food, calmly, seemingly oblivious to all this; Peggy was obviously unnerved. As for La Hill, she smiled at Ben blandly, untouched by his withering gaze.

“I’m not falling apart, and don’t ever call the Flamingo a crummy joint, understand?”

“Sure, Ben, sure.”

“Falling apart,” he said. “What the hell do you know about it?”

All the insolence melted away in her expression and she took his chin in her fingers and beamed at him in an apple-cheeked way that belied everything I knew about her. “I just think you deserve a rest, honey, that’s all. I think you should think about handing the Flamingo over to the boys-and take a piece of the action, a nice piece, for putting your heart and soul in it. And then go to Europe and live a little. Rest a little. You’ve earned it, the easy life.”

His expression softened and he smiled back at her, the long lashes fluttering over the no longer icy blue eyes. “Maybe down the road. Right now, I don’t want to think about that-my baby ain’t even born yet. But thanks, Tab. Thanks for thinking of me.”

“Your best interests are all I ever have in mind, baby,” she said, butter wouldn’t melt.

I thought I saw something like a smirk, and a disgusted one at that, pass over Peggy’s face; but it was momentary and she returned to picking at her modest plate of food.

“So, Nate,” Siegel said, turning his benevolent gaze on me, “tomorrow morning we get started?”

“Sure,” I said. “But I got to caution you-I have a work problem that may take me back home on short notice.”

“Oh?”

“You know how it is,” I said, evasively, “when you run your own business. Damn thing’s falling apart without me.”

He nodded that he understood, said, “But I’d be very disappointed if you didn’t stick around.”

At least there was no menace in the voice.

I said, “I’d have Fred Rubinski send somebody top-notch to replace me.”

“You’re who I want, Nate.”

I waved it off. “It probably won’t happen, but I just wanted to be up-front with you, Ben.”

“I appreciate that,” he said, and he finally began to eat his steak, which was surely cold by now.

After dinner, he painted a picture of the gala opening he was planning, including dozens of Hollywood stars that George Raft and Billy Wilkerson were lining up for him. He had Jimmy Durante and Xavier Cugat booked in as the floor show.

He was still holding court, the little group drinking cocktails, when at a few minutes after ten I stood and excused myself.

“Where you headed?” Siegel wondered.

“To my room,” I said. “Train travel tires me out.”