Max Collins: Neon Mirage

“Shit. Great. Can he beat the rap?”

“I don’t know. And both colored witnesses recanted, to boot, so those three West Side bookies who pulled the shooting are home free.”

“What a world,” Fred said, shaking his head. “Drury may go to jail, and the shooters walk. How do you figure it?”

“I figure I’m better off in the private sector. If Bill shakes loose of this thing, I’m going to try to get him to come aboard A-1.”

“I’m for it,” Fred said, with a tight smile, nodding. Fred’s intercom buzzed and he answered. “Yes, Marcia?”

“A gentleman’s here to see you, Mr. Rubinski.”

“Does he have an appointment?”

“No…”

“Well, I’m in conference. Make an appointment.”

“It’s Mr. Siegel, Mr. Rubinski.”

“Ben Siegel?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Send him in.”

Ben entered, looking dapper as ever in a gray plaid suit and a dark blue tie; but he’d lost weight, had a pallor odd for a guy who operated out of sunny Vegas. And he wasn’t even bothering to use make-up on the darkness circling his baby blues.

His smile was as dazzling as ever, though. “Nate Heller! Jesus, this is a pleasant surprise…”

I stood and grinned at him and we shook hands.

“What’s this I hear about you gonna be a father?” he said, still pumping my hand.

“It’s a fact,” I said. “Late September, if the docs know what they’re talking about.”

He pulled up a chair, and I sat back down. He said, “The little woman must not be so little, these days.”

“She’s out to here,” I admitted.

“You gonna name it after me?”

“Only if it’s a girl.”

Siegel frowned. “Just so you don’t call her Bugsy.”

And then he laughed and so did I.

Fred, smiling, said, “What’s the occasion, Ben?”

He pointed a thumb behind him. “I stopped in to see my lawyer, Joe Ross.”

Ross also had an office in the Bradbury Building.

“Went over the account books,” Siegel went on, “and some legal problems concerning the hotel. Joe’s doing Virginia’s tax returns, for one thing.”

“How’s Ginny doing?” I asked.

He shrugged, smirked. “She’s in Paris. We had a fight and she took off. She’ll get over it.”

“Hope it’s not serious.”

“Naw, it’s nothing. I’m even staying in her place. So, how are you guys getting along, now that you’re in bed together?”

“Fine,” I said.

“No complaints,” Fred said. “I’m glad you dropped by, Ben. You probably want to find out how I been doing with your checks.”

“That’s right,” Siegel said smiling, but a little anxious.

“It’s not good news,” Fred said, with a fatalistic shrug. “All I’ve got is five hundred dollars for you.”

Siegel’s mouth twitched disappointment in what was otherwise a business-like expression. “Hell, Fred, you’ve got better than one hundred thousand bucks worth of checks you’re working on…”

“There’s not much we can do. It’s not a violation of the law in this state to refuse paying gambling debts. Of course, these welshers can’t go back to Nevada, but if they were still in Nevada, you wouldn’t need me. We can call them, write them letters, go ’round and see them; but we don’t go in for bullying tactics. You knew that when you hired us.”

“That rough stuff’s no good for business, anyway,” Siegel said, distantly.

“More than that, I was informed just yesterday by the Bureau of Standards that our detective license doesn’t permit us to collect bad checks.”

“So,” Siegel said, a hint of irritation entering his voice, “you’re just going to kick ’em back to me?”

“No, not exactly,” Fred said, soothingly. “We’re just going to farm them out to a collection agency. Mutual. Any objections?”

Siegel shook his head no, his expression a little glazed. The baby blues looked quite bloodshot.

“How is business at the Flamingo, Ben?” I asked.

“Bad,” he said, distractedly. Then he turned his gaze and his smile on me: “Actually, real good. That advice you gave me to close up and clean house and start over was just the ticket.”

Siegel had closed up less than two weeks after his gala opening; he had re-opened in March, the hotel completed, a largely new staff in place.

“We cleared three hundred thousand in May,” he said, proudly. “Problem is, we still got a lot of creditors hounding us. And then that fucking Wilkerson…” Bitterness twisted his mouth. “…he gets a phone call from J. Edgar Hoover and pees his pants.”

“What?” I said. “Hoover called Wilkerson?”

“Yeah,” Ben said, waving it off. “Hoover calls Billy and asks him if he knows he’s ‘in league’ with a gangster. And the little fucker pretends he never knew a thing about my background. So he decides he has to get out of the Flamingo ‘immediately if not sooner,’ ’cause of how it ‘might look,’ publisher of the Hollywood Reporter ‘hobnobbing with unsavory characters.’”

“Christ, he was one of your first investors.”

“Well, all I know is, before I die, there’s two guys I’m gonna kill. Sedway and Wilkerson, the two biggest bastards that ever lived.”

I was used to hearing him say things like that, but it was still a little chilling.

Fred said to me, “Wilkerson insisted Ben buy him out, overnight, and said if he didn’t, he’d blackball him with the press.”

“Over a hundred grand, it cost me,” Siegel said.

“How’s the situation with the boys back east?” I asked.

“They know I’ve turned the corner,” he said, trying to sound confident and not quite making it. His smile was not dazzling at the moment, more like a wrinkle in his thin face.

“I understand Trans-American is still running,” I said.

He nodded. “I compromised. I withdrew my demand of two million dollars to shut the wire down. Instead, I just asked ’em to let me keep it running for one more lousy year. That should catch me up, financially…of course there’s some grumbling over my price hike…”

“What price hike?”

He shrugged matter-of-factly. “I doubled the cost of the wire to the bookies. That brings me over fifty grand a week, from Trans-American. A year of that, and a year of the Flamingo on a roll, and I’m in like Flynn.”

“How, uh, are your customers taking the price hike?”

“Who the fuck cares? Those bookies are rolling in dough. And so will I be, with their help-and now that the summer tourist season’s in swing.”

I couldn’t imagine the bookies would sit still for this gouge, nor that Lansky, Luciano and the Combination would approve. But it was none of my business, so I said nothing.

“Well,” Siegel said, slapping his thighs, standing. “I guess that’s it. You gonna keep me posted about the bad-check situation, Fred, or somebody at Mutual?”

“Mutual,” Fred said. “They’ll be contacting you.” He stood behind his desk and shook hands with Siegel.

Who crooked his finger at me, smiling a little, and said, “Walk me out, Nate.”

He went out and I followed, looking back at Fred and shrugging some.

Outside the office, dappled with sunlight filtering in the Bradbury Building skylight, Siegel put a hand on my shoulder. “What are you doing tonight?”

“Nothing,” I said, shrugging again. “Maybe I’ll go to Grauman’s Chinese and see if my feet fit Gable’s.”

“I got a better idea. Let me buy you some supper. We’ll talk old times.”

“Sure,” I said. “Shall I meet you somewhere?”

“Good idea. We’re trying a new place called Jack’s-at-the-Beach.”

“Where’s that?”

“At the beach, schmuck. It’s in Ocean Park.”