the standard ’30s tilted cocktail glass and the words INTIME ROOM in blue letters. Another billboard in front of the doors announced that the Intime Room opened for dinner at 7:00 and that the music started at 9:00. Nearby was a gated ticket window staffed by a smiling young woman painted up like a Busby Berkeley hoofer. Fallon put on a smile as he walked up.
Before he could say anything, the woman said in a chirpy voice, “We’re sold out for supper, sir, but bar space is still available. The Intime Room has
“Can I ask you a question before I decide to buy a ticket?”
“Oh, sure. About the Jazzbos?”
“Yes. I thought I recognized the trumpet player in the billboard photo downstairs. Eddie Sparrow?”
“Yes, sir. That’s right.”
“Well, I knew Eddie in San Diego,” Fallon lied. “Is there any chance I could see him for a couple of minutes, say hello?”
“You mean now? Oh, I don’t think he’s here yet. The musicians don’t usually come in until about an hour before they’re ready to go on.”
“They allowed to mingle on their breaks between sets?”
“With the customers? Oh, sure. The management likes them to do that.”
“You said three bars. They have names?”
“Names? No, they’re just bars. You know, one on each side and one in back where you go in.”
“So I can pick any one I want.”
“Oh, sure. Wherever there’s room. But you have to buy a ticket.”
Fallon said patiently, “I will. I’d also like to leave a message for Eddie.”
“Message? You mean with me? I won’t see him when he comes in-I’ll still be working here in the booth.”
“You could pass it on to someone who will see him, couldn’t you?”
“Pass it on?” she said doubtfully. “Well… I guess I could.”
On a page in his notebook Fallon wrote:
“The extra ten is for you,” he said.
Her smile got even brighter. “Thanks! I’ll pass it on. The message, I mean.”
“One more question,” he said as he pocketed the ticket. “Would you know of a casino where the employees wear gold sleeve garters with black ruffles?”
“Sleeve garters?”
“Like women’s garters, only around their upper arms.”
“Oh.” The smile turned into a thinking frown. “Gold with black ruffles… well, I know I’ve seen them somewhere… Oh! Oh, sure, the Golden Horseshoe.”
“The Golden Horseshoe.”
“It’s in Glitter Gulch,” she said.“You know, the Fremont Street Experience?”
Glitter Gulch. The Fremont Street Experience. That was downtown Vegas, a mile or so north of the Strip-five blocks of casinos, restaurants, lounges in a covered mall dominated by a ninety-foot-high, multimillion-dollar Viva Vision screen, the largest on the planet. One of the city’s big attractions. Fallon had gone there once with Geena-for ten minutes, all he could stand of a constant assault on the visual and aural senses. Larger-than-life animations, integrated live video feeds, synchronized music on a high-tech canopy the length of more than five football fields. State of the art fiber-optic light shows and what was billed as 550,000 watts of concert-quality sound.
Deafening noise, to him. The kind that shattered silence like a sledgehammer powdering glass.
Two minutes inside the mall and his head ached; his eyes felt as raw as if he’d been staring into the noonday desert sun. Milling, jostling crowds as thick as those on the Strip. Shills offering come-on gambling packages, hawkers handing out prostitutes’ calling cards and extolling their services even though prostitution was technically illegal in the City Where Anything Goes. Walking here or on the Strip on a Saturday night was like being trapped on the shrieking, neon midway of a madman’s carnival.
It was almost a relief to walk into the Golden Horseshoe. Almost. Electronic bells and whistles and bongs and burbles, rattling dice and clicking chips and clinking glassware, chattering human voices, laughter, shouts and cries and all the other myriad sounds made by men and women caught up in the gaming fever-a pulsing din that kept rising and being bounced back down from the low glass ceiling. Didn’t matter what casino you entered during peak times, from the megaglitz palaces to the low-roller clubs like this one-the noise level was the same. Loud, loud, loud.
The motif here was Western, the old Hollywood movie variety. Waitresses dressed like saloon girls, croupiers and dealers and stickmen and pit bosses in ruffled shirts and string ties and cowboy boots. And all of them wearing gold armbands with black-ruffled edges.
Fallon took a long, slow walk around the casino. Making it look casual when he paused near one of the blackjack, craps, or roulette layouts for a look at a male employee who more or less fit Casey’s description of Banning. None of them had a dragon tattoo or wore a cat’s-eye ring.
A crowd of people was grouped around one of the crap tables, hooting and hollering whenever the dice were rolled. Fallon stepped over that way for a look at the stickman, all but invisible in the crush, whose droning voice reminded him of the handful of crap games he’d gotten into in the army.
“Ee-o-leven, a winner! Pay the line. Same lucky shooter coming out… Eight, hard way eight, eight a number. Place your come and field bets… Nine, eight the point…”
Once more the dice rattled off the board. This time the crowd groaned.
“Ace-deuce, three craps-a loser. Pay the field… New shooter coming out. Place your bets… Seven! Seven, the winner. Pay the front line…”
Fallon moved on.
After a second circuit, to make sure he hadn’t missed anybody, he went into a raised, neon-lit lounge bar. The Western-etched leather stools were mostly filled, the barman busy, but only half the tables were occupied, mostly by players studying the big keno board on one wall. He picked a table along the outer rail, at a distance from the nearest players. A tired-looking cocktail waitress, thirtyish, wearing a Miss Kitty outfit and one of the distinctive sleeve garters, drifted over. He ordered a beer. When she brought it, he laid a ten-dollar bill on her tray.
“Busy night,” he said.
“I’ve seen it a lot busier.”
“Bet you have. Been working here long?”
She gave him an up-from-under-look.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “I’m not going to hit on you. I asked because I’m looking for a guy I know. I’ve been told he works here.”
“Is that right?”
Fallon said, “No, keep it,” as she started to hand over his change. “If you’ve been working here a while, you probably know him. This friend of mine.”
“Maybe. What’s his name?”
“Well, he called himself Banning when I knew him.”
“Called himself? What does that mean?”
“Claimed he had a good reason for not using his real name.” Fallon shrugged. “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”
“I don’t know anybody named Banning,” she said.
“So maybe now he’s using his real name again. He’s in his midthirties, heavyset, kinky black hair. Dragon tattoo on his right wrist, wears a gold cat’s-eye ring on his left hand.”
She made a face. “Doesn’t sound like a guy I’d want to know. What do you want with him?”
“He owes me some money.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet. What are you, anyway, some kind of cop?”
“Do cops give out five-dollar tips?”
“I don’t know any cops,” she said. “Or any Bannings. Or any guys with dragon tattoos. Thanks for the tip.” And
