Гарольд Роббинс - The Raiders

With Angie at his side, Jonas bought five hundred dollars' worth of chips. He played blackjack, the game where a smart player had the best chance, and in the course of an hour won a hundred twenty-five dollars. That was no big deal. When he cashed in, the cashier took no particular notice of him.

They walked through the hall where ranks of slot machines swallowed half dollars and silver dollars, spun, clunked to a stop, and did not pay. Slot-machine players were more emotional than the gamblers on the casino floor. When they won, they whooped and yelled — which was good for business. Some of the payouts were big, but they were infrequent. A twenty-five- or fifty-dollar payout was more common. It kept the players happy, kept them at the machines. The slots were pure profit. There was no risk the house would lose on them, even temporarily.

"The place is a license to print money," Jonas muttered to Angie as they returned to the top floor.

JONAS ADOPTED A NAME FOR THE GRAY-HAIRED JOWLY man who played blackjack: Al String. It was a play on the name Cord. He gambled night after night for a week in The Seven Voyages and lost eighteen hundred dollars. He moved from there to the Flamingo, where he played four nights and won three hundred. He moved on to some of the older howdy-pardner gaming rooms. Angie went with him every night. Nevada, dressed in a suit that would have looked right on a Texas oilman, complete with champagne-colored Stetson, went with him to the old places.

"I'm beginning to figure this thing out," Jonas said to Nevada and Angie one night when they sat down over a late supper in the suite. "The beauty of casino operations is that most of the money that passes through them is in cash. That's what attracts the kind of operators that are running this town. Think about it! Think of the opportunities."

"Like?" asked Nevada — though he was not so innocent that he didn't know what Jonas was about to say. "The simplest element of it is tax evasion," said Jonas. "What part of the take do you guess they report? Fifty percent? Seventy-five percent? In those back rooms they count cash. How much of it slips out of the hotel without being accounted for?"

"There's more to it than that," said Angie. "The casinos are owned by partners, most of them back East. They fly out here on junkets and gamble. They fly home with briefcases full of cash, which is their share of the partnership profits. If the tax boys happen to find out about their cash, they say they had good luck and won a lot of money. They never admit they own a part of the casino and get a regular distribution of the profits. The cash they get is skimmed off the take every night."

Their late-night snack was club sandwiches. Angie and Nevada drank beer with theirs. Jonas drank bourbon. He had pulled off his wig and had of course pulled from his mouth the wax which for some odd reason made him thirsty.

"A lot of the partners can't afford to be identified as partners," Angie went on. "They have criminal records, and the State of Nevada would lift the casino license if it were known that they own shares. So they come out here and play the tables, go home with 'winnings,' and no one's the wiser ... so they think."

"It's a stupid risk to take with businesses that could make a hell of a lot of money without skimming," said Jonas.

"There are partners they don't dare shove out," said Angie.

"You know a lot about this for a gal who's just a secretary," said Nevada.

"If you're around here awhile and watch, you see a lot of things," she said.

"I want to talk to Chandler," said Jonas.

Morris Chandler came up for lunch the next day. Angie was not asked to join Jonas and Nevada.

Chandler stood at the window for a while, looking down at the swimming pool. He put his eye to the telescope and peered at something, probably an exceptionally bare girl. Then he swept the telescope up and began to look at something else. "You figured this out yet?" he asked Jonas. "Well, I've looked at some of the bathing beauties, but —" Chandler turned toward him and grinned slyly.

"You're looking in the wrong direction. Take a look through it now."

Jonas put his eye to the tripod-mounted telescope and looked at what Chandler had focused on. He saw naked girls.

The penthouse atop the newest hotel had a terrace surrounded by potted shrubbery that shielded the girls from the view of everyone below. The top floor of The Seven Voyages had the only windows within a mile that were high enough to afford a view of the sunbathers. Several hundred yards separated the two hotels, and apparently the owners of the penthouse and their girls thought the distance was great enough to protect the girls' privacy. Morris Chandler had bought the astronomy-class telescope to give his fifth-floor high rollers a little something extra for their money. "The girls work there," said Chandler. "That's their job: to sit around naked."

"Tricks of the trade," said Jonas. He returned to the table and their lunch. He sat down. "The first night I was here, you started to give me some basic lessons in the casino business. Nevada says you'd be willing to give me more."

"What do you want to know?" asked Chandler.

"How much do you skim?" asked Jonas.

Chandler's face stiffened. He hesitated for a moment, then asked, "What if I say we don't?"

"Say it."

Chandler glanced at Nevada, who was watching him gravely, interested in his answer. He took a deep breath and blew it out. "I give you lessons," he said. "You should give me. You know too much already."

"Well, I'm hardly a government spy," said Jonas. "Hardly an informer."

"What was strictly illegal a hundred years ago is absolutely legal now," said Chandler. "What was immoral fifty years ago is acceptable now. And some things that used to be legal and moral are illegal and immoral now. Some big American families built their fortunes doing things the keepers of the public morality don't tolerate today. Like importing slaves. Like keeping whorehouses. It's just a matter of time. What goes around, comes around. Now we got these crap politicians, like Kefauver, making hysterical accusations for whatever political profit they can get. It's — "

"Who owns The Seven Voyages, Morris?" Jonas interrupted.

"I own eighteen points," said Chandler. "On the record I own sixty-one points, but all except the eighteen I hold for men who don't want their names associated."

"Men whose names you can't afford to have associated with the operation," said Jonas.

"Have it your way. A point, you understand, is one percent."

"Does Lucky Luciano own any points, directly or indirectly?"

"Are you kidding ? Luciano? No way."

"Frank Costello? Jimmy Blue Eyes?" Jonas asked.

Chandler shook his head emphatically.

"Meyer Lansky?"

"No. Meyer doesn't own any points. But he has a consulting contract with us."

"What's he consult about?"

"The contract is in writing and has been looked at by Justice Department snoops. It says he advises us on how to do our accounting and keep the casino honest. Everyone acknowledges he'd know. He's run plenty of illegal joints in his day. The Justice Department found nothing wrong with the contract, nothing wrong with our hiring him as a consultant. I don't know if you understand this, but Meyer Lansky has no criminal record."

"In point of fact," said Jonas dryly, "he tells you how to skim."

"In point of fact," said Chandler, "he tells us how to distribute the profits."

"Officially a corporation owns The Seven Voyages," said Jonas. "Seven Voyages Corporation owns the gaming license. You own all the stock."

"You checked," said Chandler. "Okay. Officially, legally, I own everything," said Chandler. "I'm like Meyer Lansky in one respect. I'm clean. I have no criminal record. So I make a perfect front man."