“What can I say?
“Who else?”
“Lon McAllister, Sonny Tufts, Charlie Coburn…a few others.”
Siegel’s face had slowly gone from red to white. “I advertise Ava Gardner and instead give ’em Sonny Tufts, is that it?”
“Hell, I think it’s white of Tufts to show, considering the pressure.”
Siegel, calming, said, “Yeah, you’re right. I’m not gonna take it out on the ones with stones enough to show. What about Jessel?”
“He’s coming. He’s set to emcee.”
“Yeah, he can deliver the fuckin’ eulogy.”
“Ben, there’ll be enough stars to justify your advertising and everything. And Wilkerson says that all the reporters you invited are coming.”
Siegel smirked humorlessly. “After the free ride I promised ’em, you can bet on it. I sent out cases of whiskey to a couple dozen of the bastards.” Abruptly he stood, looked sharply my way. “Have you seen Chick around?”
Chick was Virginia Hill’s twenty-one-year-old brother, a nice enough kid, who was working as a robber, that is, one of the trusted hands who emptied the slot machines and hauled the bags of coin to the counting room.
“Yeah,” I said, “he’s working. If he isn’t on the floor, he’s in the counting room.”
“Get him, would you?”
I didn’t much like playing gopher to Siegel, but I didn’t much feel like telling him to go fuck himself, either. I found Chick in the counting room and hauled the boy back.
“What do you need, Ben?” he asked. He was wearing a white shirt and black pants-which was one of the two standard casino employee uniforms, the other and more common being a tux; even just the modified formal wear looked odd on Chick, who was a kid with dark blond hair, slicked back in the Raft manner, and pointed, callowly handsome features.
Siegel, still standing, dug in his pants pocket; he withdrew a wad of bills and peeled off ten one-hundred dollar bills; he scattered them on his desk like more notes to himself.
“There’s a grand,” he told the kid. “Take it and do some shopping in L.A. Get some nice presents for the reporters, the columnists. Neckties, shirts. Oh, hell, you know.”
“Sure, Ben. Should I drive, or what?”
“Naw, I want you back by tomorrow afternoon. Catch the first available flight.” He peeled off another hundred.
Chick collected the money, smiled goofily like a teenager whose dad just handed him the keys to the new DeSoto. He stood there with the money in his hands for a few moments, until Siegel rather irritatedly waved him off, and the kid slipped out the door.
“We’ll keep these reporters happy,” Siegel said. Then he put his cigar out in a tray and came out from behind the desk and Raft stood and the men went out into the lobby; I trailed behind, not having been dismissed yet.
“Let me show you the pool,” Siegel said, his arm around Raft now.
I was about to fall away, but then decided to go along. I wanted to see if Peggy was playing bathing beauty today.
Turned out she wasn’t. Just a bevy of waitresses, cigarette girls and hookers, soaking up the winter sun.
So was a guy in a tux, his tie loose around his neck.
Siegel’s face reddened again.
He broke away from Raft and went over and kicked the chaise longue, whose pale, round-faced, startled occupant sat up and looked at Siegel with wide, terror-filled eyes.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Siegel snarled.
“Just-just s-sitting here…”
“Get back to work, you bum, before I boot your ass out on the highway.”
The round-faced man looked at me and then at Raft, whom he obviously recognized but was too bewildered by Siegel’s performance to be impressed by the presence of a mere movie star.
The man could only stutter: “B-but I’m a ga-ga-ga…”
“Spit it out!”
“Guest!”
“What?” Siegel said. Taken aback.
“I don’t work here…I’m a guest.”
Raft covered his mouth but I didn’t bother. My hand wouldn’t have been big enough to hide the grin.
Siegel, very embarrassed, started brushing off the shoulders of the guy’s tux, as if it had gotten dirty, which it hadn’t. He did his best to make it up to the guy, handing him one of the same courtesy cards the newspapermen got, giving him a free ride on everything except gambling itself.
We walked back into the casino and Siegel said, “Brother, is my face red.”
Frequently.
“I guess I oughta watch my fuckin’ temper…shit! Do you see who that is?”
A tall, slightly heavy-set man in a pinstripe suit, with satanically shaggy eyebrows, was standing at a slot machine, studying it like a sociologist might a pygmy hut.
Raft said nothing, but the mask of his face was grim.
“Pegler,” I said.
Siegler looked at me with a vicious, self-satisfied smile. “Westbrook Pegler is right.”
I shrugged. “Well, you wanted to attract newspapermen.”
“That bastard’s been cutting me up. Called me a hoodlum and carpetbagger. Called me Bugsy. In syndication.”
I could see Siegel’s shoulders tensing; his hands were fists.
Raft put a hand on Siegel’s arm. “Ben-he’s been cutting me up in his column, too. Ever since that gambling bust, but so what? That’s his racket. Live and let live.”
“I’m going to kill him,” Siegel said, quietly, smiling, “I’m going to kill him. I’m going to kill him.”
It was times like these I wished I’d taken my father’s advice and finished college.
“You’re not killing anybody,” Raft said. “You’re going to ruin it for yourself, if you do. Get a grip, baby-blue eyes.”
Siegel visibly softened.
But he walked over to Pegler, who had inserted a quarter into the slot machine and was yanking back the arm.
Raft and I followed; we seemed to be backing Siegel up, but in reality we were poised to grab and brace him, if necessary. Pegler, who I’d had a run-in with in Chicago back in ’39, looked right at me and didn’t recognize me. Like him, I was older and heavier, now.
“Mr. Pegler,” Siegel said.
“Yes?” Pegler said, losing his quarter, turning his gaze on Siegel, eyebrows raised, voice patrician. Pegler was one of those columnists who made a big deal about being for the common man while at the same time considering himself above just about everybody.
“My name is Ben Siegel.”
Pegler began to smile; he was searching for the right pithy comment, when Siegel stopped him.
With Pegler’s own weapon, words: “This is my casino. If you’re not out of here in five minutes, I’m going to take you out. Personally.”
Pegler’s smile wilted. He looked at Siegel carefully, slowly. Siegel’s back was to me, so I don’t know what expression he was showing Pegler. Whatever it was, it was enough to make the powerful columnist swallow thickly, tuck tail between his legs and go.
Siegel turned to us and opened his two hands like a magician displaying something that had disappeared. “See? I can control my temper when I want to.”
“Good,” I said. “Because it’s time you knew something.”
“What’s that?”
I turned to Raft. “Why don’t you park yourself at a blackjack table or something, for a while? Your face
