Murder in Vegas

EVEN GAMBLERS HAVE TO EAT by Ruth Cavin

It was a local scandal-the kind exciting enough that the neighborhood women kept making some excuse to run to the grocery store to discuss a new twist of the plot with their friends. First, Aaron Plotkin was leaving Akron and his good job at Topnotch Tire for some deserted place in the West. And why? As he put it, to “change his life for the better.”

“What could be so better?” inquired the women of one another. The rest of his life, he could stay at Topnotch Tire-he’s their genius, no? Could they make tires without him? Who else can add and subtract like Aaron Plotkin? [The speaker’s knowledge of accounting skills was not extensive.] “And in this Depression yet, where college graduates are selling apples on the sidewalk! And what about Molly? She’s supposed to go out to the middle of the desert with him? Thank God they aren’t already married! It’s meshuggah! Crazy!”

The desert wasn’t in Molly’s future. She flatly refused to go. “Leave Mr. MacReady in the lurch?” Molly felt the weight ofher position; she was Vice President MacReady’s private secretary. (The women speculated, possibly unfairly, just what that word “private” signified, in this case.) “Give up my own job?” Molly told Aaron scathingly. “Uh-uh! I stay here!”

But Aaron went. Leaving Molly, both parents and six siblings back in Akron, he followed his dream. The gossip chorus would really have sizzled if the women had got wind of that tidbit. Because Aaron’s almost lifelong dream was to cook for a living.

The bug had bit him as he watched his mother, who cooked for her brood with love and grumbles. But men didn’t cook-not unless they were paid for it, not unless it was their job, not unless they could be called “chefs.” Aaron wanted to be a professional chef. Reading in the newspaper about job opportunities in the West, he saw his chance. He’d live simply and work until he had enough saved to open a restaurant. A small one. No fancy stuff. Good home cooking. To start, at least. Later on-who knows?

And that’s how it worked out. He got a job. He rented a tiny room in a town called “Las Vegas.” A Mexican on his shift said the words meant “The Meadows.” Some “meadows” in the middle of the desert!

Aaron missed his family terribly, even Max, his wild younger brother. (Molly hardly at all). But his dream restaurant was taking shape in his mind. Las Vegas would grow from its present size-one church, a few rackety bars and the only store, selling whatever was available, to a place sought by tourists. Meanwhile, he worked, slept and saved.

He had made casual friends with a few of his coworkers, all men. He knew no women-the women in Las Vegas were either married or questionable. The few entertainers arriving with the new hotels, could, of course, have been from another planet as far as Aaron was concerned. And the “ladies of the night”-he found it embarrassing just to walk by the building near his rooming house where they held forth. He did invite Molly to come “just for a visit,” but her answer-“Not on your life!”-didn’t upset him the way he would have expected. Aaron was much more interested in his kitchen than his bedroom. Much as he’d like to see her, he would have had to step away from his stove and look after her. In spite of a rapidly growing influx of tourists, Las Vegas was still a gritty town. Fistfights were a regularfeature of barroom evenings. Visitors and some residents had been knocked out and robbed after midnight on the night streets, and the few respectable women in Vegas never went out unaccompanied after dark. There had been some shootouts, and there was talk of clandestine meetings of the Ku Klux Klan. Vegas kept the sheriff on his toes.

Now, with the horizon bright with the imminent repeal of the gambling ban, bad boys from the East were hurrying into the town. They were bad boys with money and visions of casinos as cornucopias overflowing with the gambling dollars of tourists from Los Angeles and other lucrative settlements as far as the Pacific Coast and-who knows?-the Atlantic Coast as well. But they were hardly making the town respectable; gangsters didn’t miraculously turn into gentlemen when they stepped off the train in Nevada.

There were plenty of rumors that some of the men paying visits to the new hotels on the street that had been named the Strip were bootleggers from the East, trying to set up moneymaking gambling deals. Only half believing it, Aaron stepped carefully when the new people were around.

From the start, Aaron’s Eats picked up a customer base. Well, it was the only real restaurant in town.

The day before the celebration of “One Year Anniversary of Aaron’s Eats,” Aaron was up on a ladder hanging crepe paper ribbons above the tables when he heard someone open the street door. A little nervously, he turned and was amazed to see his youngest brother, Max, standing in the middle of the floor.

“Max!” he cried, hastily climbing down from the ladder. “What in God’s name are you doing here?” The fervor of his greeting had an undertone of something different. You couldn’t help loving Max, but their grandfather had rightly always called him Der kleine Tyvel-the little devil-and it was only partly from affection. Max was not always in trouble, but then again, he wasn’t always out of it either.

“You’ll be glad I came,” Max said.

“Of course I’m glad you came.”

“I’ve got a great deal for you.”

“Yeah? I can’t wait to hear it. But sit down. I’ve got some cold beer.” And he established his brother at one of the oil-cloth covered tables while he went to the kitchen for the bottles.

“Now,” Aaron said. “What’ve you got yourself into now?”

“Into is right,” Max told him. “I’m right in there with a really smart bunch of fellows. From the old neighborhood.”

“From Akron!” Aaron was dubious.

“Akron, hell. These guys are from a real place-Brooklyn, New York!”

“You were in Brooklyn?”

“Jeez, Ary, don’t you read the papers?”

“The only papers we’ve got don’t write about Brooklyn, New York.”

“Naw! I met these fellas at home, our own home, Akron. See, you don’t even know nothing out here. The tire factory had a big strike. And these guys brought a bunch of people to work in the factories instead of those Bolsheviks, and see, they had to protect them, so they had their guys patrolling the buildings, making sure they were ok, and that the Bolshies didn’t do no damage. You should thank me, too. Molly was right there in the middle of it, but they knew that all they had to do is bother her one little bit and they’d have to deal with me!”

“Molly! My God! Are you sure she’s all right?”

“I told you. Sure she’s all right, with me taking care of her.”

“She never told me.”

“She’s pretty mad at you.” Max leaned over until he was right in his brother’s face. “Listen, Ary,” he said. “Little brother has gotten to know some people who will make you so rich, as soon as Molly hears about it she’s on the train to Nevada. So listen good.” He favored Aaron with the grin that his family-and a score of young women-found hard to resist.

“What people?” Aaron asked. “Who are they?”

“They’re businessmen. They’ve got piles of money to invest, Ary. And would you believe it? One of them took me out to lunch, and we talked about you. You’re in clover!”

“You and this businessman talked about me?”

“About your restaurant. You wait. He’s coming out here and he told me he’d be sure to get in touch. His name is Golding, Lucky Golding.”

Aaron couldn’t guess what Max was talking about, but he felthe didn’t need to take it seriously. It was just Maxie being Maxie.

Max, though, kept waiting anxiously for word from the “big businessman” from Brooklyn, New York. But in vain.

Until one evening, after about a month had gone by. Max, who was waiting tables, came running into the kitchen. He grabbed Aaron by the arm, nearly upsetting the stew his brother was stirring, and gasped “He’s here! He’s out at a table! He’s here!”

Aaron sighed, put down his spoon, untied his apron and went out into the public dining room. Going up to the man sitting alone with a highball glass and a cigar, he said, “My brother says you spoke to him in Akron.”

The man stood-he was really very small, and very slight, except for a pot belly. He put down his cigar and shook Aaron’s hand vigorously. “Golding. Lucky Golding. D’lighted to meetcha. Yeah, sure, I remember the kid. He told me what a great cook you are, and this meal sure proves it. You got a future here. You wait and see. As soon as that law goes out, there are going to be a lot more people coming here to gamble without having to worry that the state is gonna step in and take twice as much of what you win in fines. Listen, I’ll give you five to one we’ll even get soma these Mormons slipping over from Utah, pretending they’re just here to see the mountains. But you and I know different, no?

“Listen; we can’t talk business here. Come up to the Golden Gate-that’s where I’m stayin’. Gotta suite there. Little place, but wait till my hotel is done. Have dinner with me t’night?”

“My restaurant is open for dinner and I’m the only one cooking.”

“Okay, okay. Tomorrow, then. Come when you close. Close early, huh? Gotta talk.” He picked up his beer glass and drained it, and went out into the sun.

“Well, he sure means business, doesn’t he?” Max asked.

“Maybe, but not with me.”

But when the tables had been cleared and set up for the next day and the dishes washed and on the racks drying, Max begged Aaron to “at least talk to the guy, please, Ary.”

There was fear in his voice.

“What are you afraid of, little brother?” Aaron asked gently.

Max actually gulped. “He’s an important guy, Ary. He-he has ways of getting what he wants.”

Aaron sighed. “Well, let’s find out what he wants first, OK? Don’t worry, Maxele. I’ll be careful what I say.”

Aaron had never been in a hotel dining room. He was impressed by its size, by the huge vases of artificial flowers here and there around the room. He was struck to see that each table had a “tablecloth” actually made of cloth. But when the dinner was set before them, he couldn’t help comparing it to how he would have made it. He certainly wouldn’t have so disastrously overcooked the lamb shanks, for instance, nor let them swim in such a tasteless, watery sauce. There were never such lumps in his mashed potatoes, and he’d have handed in his apron before he’d serve a pie with so soggy a crust. But of course, he wasn’t there to criticize the food.

He took a big breath. “You know, Mr. Golding, when my brother came here-that is, he thought-he hoped you could find some kind of job for him. At your hotel, I mean,” he added hurriedly.

Golding nodded. “Sure, sure. The hotel ain’t finished, but when it is-sure; don’t you worry; we’ll find something for him. Always something for a smart young guy to do. Open a new hotel in a new town-there’s lots of jobs. Tell him not to worry; we’ll get to him.” All of which sounded to Aaron what it was-a put-off. Max would be lucky if he ended up a bellboy.

“Here’s the deal,” said Golding, when they had gotten to coffee and the New York man’s cigars. “I’m building this hotel here, see? You know about it; everybody knows about it. It’s going to be something-the best architects, the best designers. Costs millions. Wait and see. Knock your eyes out.”

Golding waved to a tough-looking man whom Aaron had noticed standing near the window during the whole dinner. The man left the room and returned with glasses and an unopened bottle of bootleg bourbon while Golding was still describing the wonders of his hotel. He opened the bottle and Golding poured two drinks, topped them up with water from the carafe on the table, and handed one to Aaron. Well, Aaron thought, hesure isn’t suffering under Prohibition-and later realized that Golding was not only not suffering, Prohibition was making him the millions he had for building hotels.

“Now you know,” Golding went on, after drinking half his highball in one long draught. “There’s a lot of movement in the state legislature to repeal the ban on gambling in Nevada. Hell, we’re in a Depression. The state needs money, and there ain’t a better way to get it than to open it up to tourists who come here and want to spend, spend, spend. Now listen to what I’ve planned.”

He leaned over the table. “I got the architect-and believe me, he’s the number one architect in the country-maybe the whole world. I got him to put in a whole extra floor. Maybe if somebody wants to have a convention there or a big wedding or something they can use it; it’s gonna be finished and all. But really, it’s a waiting room.” He laughed loudly. “That’s what I call it, ‘my waiting room.’ He leaned so close Aaron could feel his breath.”It’s waiting for that law to be repealed, and the next day I’ll open a casino that’ll make the Frenchies who own Monte Carlo jump into the Mediterranean ocean!”

Aaron started to speak, and Golding held up his hand.

“I know, I know. You wanna know where you come in.”

Aaron opened his mouth again, but Golding forestalled him. “Here’s where you come in, Plotkin. I want my casino opened the day that bill gets signed. I wanna get ahead of everybody else, but my hotel won’t be done yet. That restaurant of yours is just in the right place. I want to fix her up-I’ll pay you good, and I’ll pay all the expenses. I want it to be whatcha might wanna call my ‘Casino in Waiting.’ We run the games from there until the hotel is ready and then we move the whole kit and caboodle over. And you don’t have to worry,” he added. “There ain’t nobody in this town-in this state-who wants to discourage building up Las Vegas with gambling. Nobody!”

Aaron thought that was a somewhat extravagant statement, but he saw what Golding was getting at. Legal gambling would draw crowds from the whole West Coast-even the whole country.

However, he wanted nothing to do with gambling. If he could have stopped the rough poker games that his current clientele insisted accompany their laden plates, he would have. He wassmart enough to know that it wouldn’t be the food but the gambling that was going to bring the crowds in. But they had to eat, didn’t they? Tourists from California and Utah (Mormons to the contrary notwithstanding) and then from farther and farther away would want more than the plain meat and potatoes that was all the railroad workers and construction workers were perfectly happy with.

He also was wary of any connection with the “businessman” from Brooklyn or his like. As diplomatically as he could, he turned the offer down.

Nevada’s repeal bill went through the legislature, the governor signed it and the antigambling law was history. The town began to change drastically. The Strip became more colorful every week as another entrepreneur entered the race for tourist money. Aside from his worries about Max, Aaron was happy. The restaurant was getting a real reputation; tourists were filling the tables and often waiting in line to get in. He had some steady customers, who swore Aaron’s food was the best this side of-wherever they came from. Aaron was so busy he hardly had time to write to Molly, but he sent her brief (and tantalizing) notes, telling her she would really like Las Vegas now. The town was becoming civilized. The restaurant was doing real well, and it was fixed up beautiful; she’d love it. He got a postcard back from Virginia Beach, where she’d gone with her mother and Aaron’s oldest sister for a vacation. “Having wonderful time,” it said. Period. Well, he didn’t wish he was there, either.

In spite of Max’s fears (and to tell the truth, Aaron’s as well) Lucky Golding didn’t seem to resent the turndown. When the hotel was finished and opened with a grand blowout, he hired Max as a bellboy. The job wasn’t hard, he was a strong young man. The tips were generous and he got to mingle with-well, carry the bags of, say “Yes, sir,” and “Thank you, Madam” to-celebrities he had only read about in the tabloids or seen on the movie screen. Aaron kept at him about not doing anything really dumb, like trying to sell reefers to the guests or giving them tips on how to win at the tables (as if he knew). “You’re dealing with dangerous people here,” the big brother said. “Golding is pretty low to the ground, but so is a rattlesnake. You may think he’s your friend, but he couldn’t care a button for you, you’renobody. He’d only notice you if you did something stupid, and then, watch out!” Max would nod solemnly, which hardly made Aaron feel any better.

Golding opened his casino in the hotel, and sent his guests to Aaron’s Eats for dinner. That was fine with Aaron. His restaurant had a growing reputation now, little brother had brought him luck, and he was grateful. He was happy to be a citizen of this thriving town.

Of course, there were still street brawls and holdups. When the fifteen-month-old daughter of one of the railroad workers went missing, Aaron, along with the other volunteers, spent two full nights searching for her. They didn’t find her. Theories flew through the air and landed in the local newspaper: She had run into the desert and had died of sunstroke. She had fallen down a well. She had been taken for ransom (although no ransom had been demanded). Ugliest of all was the solution put about by a handful of rabble-rousers and directed at the few Jews who lived in Las Vegas and the Jewish tourists now coming in from the West Coast: The medieval canard that Jews kidnapped and killed Christian children in order to drink their blood at secret religious ceremonies was resurrected. “Well of course, you never know” started to be heard in the bars and grocery stores.

The missing child was discovered unharmed; she had wandered off and been picked up by a farmer who was trying to scratch out a living in the countryside beyond the town. She was too young to be able to tell him who she was, and it was several days before he trotted into town on his horse holding the little girl in his arms. By that time rumor had done its work.

And then one early morning Aaron arrived at the back door of Aaron’s Eats to find every window broken, shards of dishes littering the dining room, and Max, who usually worked at the restaurant on his day off, lying beaten and bloody amidst spilled and scattered food from the now-empty pantry shelves.

Aaron didn’t stop to check whether his brother was alive or dead. Max couldn’t be dead-he was the little brother. Aaron ran out into the street, waving at the sparse traffic coming down the Strip, howling “Help! Police! My little brother!” A milktruck stopped and the milkman and Aaron picked up Max’s limp body-he was still breathing, but painfully-and drove to the town’s only hospital.

Max had been badly beaten. He had two broken bones, three missing teeth, and a bad concussion. But the doctor was optimistic. Aaron blamed himself, letting his brother get mixed up with the gangsters from Brooklyn. But why? Why? Because he’d turned Golding down? Why?

He’d damn well find out-and right away. The doctor said he’d call him if there was any change, and he raced on foot to the hotel. There he frightened the desk clerk into giving him Golding’s suite number, and when the man stammered it out (and was subsequently nearly fired for doing it) Aaron didn’t wait for the elevator; he ran up the stairway to the fourth floor and pounded on Golding’s door.

It was opened by one of the grim bodyguards, who was just about to punch him-or possibly shoot him-when Golding appeared, wearing a bathrobe.

“What is it?” he demanded. “What the fuck do you want? Why are you breaking into my room, waking me up-are you crazy?”

“Yes, I’m crazy. Crazy to find my restaurant wrecked and my little brother almost dead on the floor.”

Shock showed on Golding’s face. “What! What are you talking about?”

“Don’t lie to me,” Aaron shouted. “I don’t care what your apes here do to me, you’ll be sorry! That’s my little brother you’ve nearly killed-maybe he is killed!” And he suddenly sank sobbing to the carpet.

Golding turned to his bodyguards. “Do you know what happened?”

They both shook their heads.

“I gotta find out. Maybe it’s that Dutch Horburg-maybe he thinks we’ve got a hand in that restaurant. Keep him quiet until I get some clothes on. But don’t hurt him! Understand?” They nodded.

When Golding had gotten the story out of the enraged and terrified Aaron, he seemed to puff up and become not only larger, but taller. “You think I would do that?” he demanded. “You think I’m such a goniff that I’d do that to a young boywho made a mistake? What kind of a mistake so terrible could a bellboy make? Steal a shirt maybe? Even say he insulted a guest-you think Golding doesn’t have enough guests he couldn’t lose one or two? You think I’d do something like that? I ought to get you beat up for that. Sure I’d yell, that’s what you do when you’re mad. Listen, if somebody cheats me, if somebody rats on me-he’d feel it. But a young kid like your brother can’t do Golding no harm even if he tried-you think I’d do something like that? I’m a monster?

“Come on!” he took Aaron roughly by the arm.

“Where?”

“We’re gonna go back to your restaurant. Figger out who did that!”

He said something Aaron didn’t catch to his bodyguard, and almost dragged Aaron out of the hotel and down the street. When they got to Aaron’s Eats, Golding pointed to the front of the building. Covering most of the wall were huge letters, white paint dripping down from them. JEW BABY RAPIRS! they screamed. BABY KANIBLS! KILL JEWISH KANIBLS!

Aaron stared at it numbly. “You think I’d write something like that?” Golding demanded. “You couldn’t think I’d write shit like that in a million years.”

“Then why?” Aaron asked, his voice full of tears. “Why would they do something like that to my little brother?”

“I’ll tell you why,” Golding said harshly. “Because you’re a Jew, that’s why. Because they think if that little girl had been hurt or killed, it’s your fault, just because you’re a Jew. You and your little brother could have been in Kalamazoo since before she disappeared, and they’d still pick you for it. Look, Aaron, leave this to me. I know how to take care of the shitheads like this.”

“But how do you even know who they are?”

Golding’s laugh sounded more like a curse, “Listen, Aaron, any good businessman has to keep his eyes open for shits like these. You never know when you need the information.

“You want to go back to the hospital, no? McSorley!” he called out to the gorilla standing by the door. “Get the car!” He turned to Aaron. “McSorley will drive you there. I know you’re worried about the kid-what’s his name, Milton?”

“Max.”

“Okay, so it’s Max. You go be with Max.”

“But the police…”

Golding snorted. “The police! Listen, I wouldn’t faint with surprise, one or more of the slime under those white sheets they wear could be cops. Aaron, I keep on top of this stuff. I’m a businessman!” And with this rousing speech, he reached up to pat Aaron reassuringly on the shoulder and gave him a gentle push toward the door.

At the hospital, Aaron sat in his brother’s room, worrying. Never mind the restaurant. He’d give up the damn restaurant, he’d go back to Akron, he didn’t care. Just let Max live. Outside, the town was stirring, with no sign that something terrible had happened.

Some time in the late afternoon an orderly arrived pushing a wheeled stretcher. With a nurse helping, he got Max on the stretcher and went off down the hall-“X-rays,” the nurse told Aaron. The bed was still empty when the doctor came in; by that time Aaron had convinced himself that he’d never see his little brother alive again. But the doctor’s news was good. Good? Beautiful!

“It will take a while, but he’s going to be all right.”

“Thank God,” breathed Aaron. And when the orderly brought his brother back to the room, Max actually was able to open his eyes and manage a weak smile at Aaron before shutting down again.

Aaron spent the night at his brother’s bedside. Some time around five in the morning there was a commotion in the street; shouts, automobiles racing down the Strip. Aaron thought “drunken tourists” and forgot it until he heard the local radio station when he went home to change.

“The mangled body of Jonathan Whately, rumored to be the organizer and head of Las Vegas’s clandestine Ku Klux Klan, was found this morning at the edge of town. The police have no information on how he was killed. Several other Las Vegas residents suspected to be Klansmen seem to have left Las Vegas in a body, a welcome departure for all the good citizens of our town concerned.”

L’Envoie

Max did recover, after many weeks in the hospital. When he was discharged he moved in with his brother Aaron at Golding’s hotel, the Golden Peacock. They were living there rent-free, as befitted the most highly valued member of the hotel staff.

“Listen, it’s not for your good, it’s for mine,” Golding told Aaron. “That jerk I got in the kitchen can’t cook for shit. We’re gettin’ real high-class customers here. They want real high-class food. So I’m makin’ you my top chef.”

Aaron’s dream had come true. He moved his knives to the hotel kitchen without ever setting foot back in Aaron’s Eats. An entrepreneur from Los Angeles was delighted to clean up the mess that Max’s attackers had left. He transformed the site into a high-end women’s clothing and jewelry boutique.

An acquaintance of Golding’s taught Max to serve as croupier at the roulette table, and what with that and a changing supply of attractive and more or less unattached young women, he settled in.

Molly married the head of the Production Engineering department at Topnotch Tire, had four children in quick succession, and never did come out to see Las Vegas.