Dream Town

Chapter 44

Archer made the rounds, from the one-armed bandits, to the roulette wheels, to craps and poker, and every other game of chance the place offered. Along the way he greased the palms of employees who looked like they might know things of value. After several dry runs he was directed to a medium-height, wiry fellow with a brown handlebar mustache and matching eyebrows. The man was standing guard in a hallway reserved for what he called the “out-of-town big rollers.”

“Half of Boston and most of New York is in there,” he muttered to Archer, after money passed hands.

“What about LA?”

“They got their own room.”

“What about a man named Bart Green?”

“He may as well have his own room.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Not for the casino. I worked all over, friend. And I been watching Bart Green lose for years now at some of the biggest joints on the Strip. They love him.”

“How much are we talking about here?”

The man eyed his empty hand.

Archer filled it with a sawbuck, and he watched Alexander Hamilton disappear into the man’s pockets, as his eyes roamed the floor. “Shouldn’t be telling you this stuff.”

“What stuff?”

A tiny smile lifted the mustache. “He’s laid down markers all over town. If I were to add them up, I bet we’re talking over two million bucks just in the time I’ve seen him around.”

Archer let out a low whistle because he couldn’t help it. “And he made good on it?”

“What do you mean made good on it? He’s still breathing, right? Do you know who owns this town? Not people who let you walk away from your debts, that’s for damn sure. You can enjoy all the perks. But when you bet and lose, you gotta pay. That’s all ten commandments rolled into one, least for the sons of bitches who run these places.”

“Where’d he get that kind of dough?”

“He’s a big film guy. Didn’t you know that?”

“He’s a film producer. I didn’t think they made that much scratch. And that’s on top of all his other bills. And he’s got a big place in Beverly Hills. And his own plane.”

“What can I tell you, buddy? He pays what he owes. Else he ain’t producing no more movies, or no more nothing.”

“The casinos don’t forgive any of it?”

“You really are a choir boy. Forgive? What, you think God lives here or something?” He tacked on a snort.

“What’s his game?”

“Blackjack and poker, and he sucks at both. But he’s addicted. It’s an illness.”

“Where does he play?” asked Archer.

“Upstairs. Private room. Just a handful of big rollers.”

“Any chance of me getting in there?”

The eyebrows lifted. “You got a twenty-five-thousand-dollar stake? ’Cause that’s what it takes to play in that room. Either cash or certified bank check. Or else it’s a no-go, Kemosabe.”

“I’ve never even seen twenty-five grand all at one time.”

“You and me both, brother.”

“Does he play with a guy named Simon Jacoby?” asked Archer.

“No. Not in that room.” He pointed to one of the poker tables. “That’s Jacoby over there. On the far left. Poor, pathetic slob that he is.”

Archer eyed the man in a brown suit with broad shoulders and a thickening girth.

“Does he lose big, too?”

“Hey, it’s not like I keep a scoreboard on every Tom, Dick, and Harry that comes here.”

Archer passed him another sawbuck and got a flick from the brown mustache.

“But the big winners and losers attract my attention. So I can tell you Jacoby used to play in the private rooms all over town, but he got busted back down to the main floor with all the other riffraff.”

“So a big loser?”

“Who came real close a couple times to getting visits from the knee-and-back-breaker squads. But he found the money somewhere.”

“And he’s still here losing more.”

“The more you lose, the more you have to play so you win back what you lose. That way of thinking is the holy grail of the gambling business, and every casino counts on it. From the twenty-five-grand rollers to the nickel-slot suckers. But he’s not losing what he used to. He’s on a leash. A short one.”

“How about another friend of Green’s? Danny Mars?”

The man rubbed his fingers together again and Archer fed the machine once more.

“Danny Mars is like poor old Simon. Banished to the kiddie pool.”

“I hear his wife is loaded,” said Archer.

“She is. And I have it on good authority that the casino has knocked on her door to make good on some of his markers.”

“I bet she didn’t care for that,” noted Archer.

“Who would? Mars is a sap who loves to be with the big boys but doesn’t have the engine power and never will. Green keeps him around for laughs, I heard. And Mars is one fun-loving guy, if you catch my drift. Actually, he’d take the gals over gambling any day.”

“Did Mrs. Mars pay her husband’s markers?” The image of a female warrior thrusting her sword into Danny Mars’s chest flickered into Archer’s head.

“She and the hubby are still alive, right?”

Archer thought that might be the prime reason the Marses’ marriage was on the rocks. Just like men, women could get sex anywhere, particularly a woman like Gloria Mars. Money was another matter. Even for a lady with an oil well of cash from J. P. Morgan and U.S. Trust.

“Okay, what do you know about the muscle with Bart Green? Little Tony?”

The man grimaced. “He used to work here in Vegas.”

“Doing what?”

“His job was to make sure people paid their markers. If they didn’t, then Little Tony taught them a lesson, a tough one.”

“Why would Green have a guy like that hovering over his shoulder?” Something dawned on Archer, something close to what he had intimated to Green earlier, but hadn’t really thought through. “Wait a minute, is it so Little Tony won’t have to go far to break Green’s knees?”

The man gazed up at Archer. “You’re not a choirboy, are you?”

“So Little Tony is less guardian and more guard? For the casinos?”

“You didn’t hear that from me,” said the man as he nodded.

“Is Little Tony the one who almost had to break Simon Jacoby’s knees?”

The man rubbed his fingers over his palm, and Archer planted a fin there. At this rate he was going to run out of Lincolns and Hamiltons.

“Little Tony busted his nose and was about to do the same to his back in the alley behind the Flamingo.”

“What happened?” asked Archer.

“The money came through at the last minute.”

“How?”

The man shrugged. “I don’t wear the green visor, son. But the money did come, or else Jacoby would be in a wheelchair, sipping through a straw, guaranteed.”

Archer had one final question. “What do you know about a guy named Darren Paley?”

The man’s features tensed. “You don’t want nothing to do with that man. I was a Marine. Fought at Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal. And I seen all the tough guys in this town. He’s one of the few who really scares me. He’s got a couple screws loose and he’s meaner than a rattler.”

“I might not have a choice. So, what do you have on him?”

“He worked here in town. Deep with the mob. He ran enforcement for them. Little Tony was one of his foot soldiers, in fact.”

“But he’s in LA now.”

“Right. Heard he left the mob and was running a place down in LA’s Chinatown.”

“He is. The Jade Lion. What do you know about it?”

“I don’t know nothing about it. But I do know Paley. He’s a mob man through and through.”

“So maybe what he’s doing down in Chinatown involves still working for the mob.”

“You said it, not me.”

Archer left the man and walked over to watch Jacoby play and lose at poker.

Jacoby was an old-looking early forties. His hair was rapidly graying, and his face was long, loose, and pouchy, and the color wasn’t healthy. He had three half-empty drinks in front of him as he studied his cards with an unfocused air. His big belly was kissing the table. His ankles were crossed under his seat like a bobby-soxer waiting to be asked to dance for the first time. His trousers were ill fitting and rode up on the man. The few chips in front of him told Archer all he needed to know about the man’s abilities and prospects at five-card stud.

Archer thought of Jacoby’s elegant wife in her perfectly orchestrated attire in her perfectly designed mansion. He wondered how the dreamer Alice Jacoby handled this little weakness of her hubby’s. He thought the same about the flinty, give-no-quarter Mallory Green. Bart Green’s addiction could sink her as well as her husband. But perhaps neither woman knew the extent of it. And maybe their husbands were getting their bills paid in a way that wasn’t legal. And maybe the source of those funds had something to do with Darren Paley and the Jade. But right now, Archer had no idea how they might be connected.

He was so intent on Jacoby and his own thoughts that he only noticed Little Tony standing next to him when he felt the gun muzzle saying hello to his right kidney.

“Let’s walk, Archer. And just so you know, I will shoot you right here out in public and I’ll have five guys say it was self-defense, and the cops won’t hassle me one little bit.”

“Why do I believe you?” said Archer as they headed off.