The Honest Dealer

Chapter Four

The city of Las Vegas began a short distance beyond the luxurious El Casa Rancho.

After a few minutes Johnny turned into Fremont Street and Sam Cragg exclaimed, “Look at those signs! Every place is a gambling joint.”

Johnny grinned crookedly. “Looks like we’re going to have a bit of trouble finding the one that’ll accept our check.”

Sam scowled. “You ain’t kidding!”

Johnny parked in front of an all night restaurant. There was a lunch counter down one side and a row of booths on the other. Every available bit of wall space contained slot machines, nickel, dime, quarter and half-dollar machines.

Johnny chuckled. “One-arm bandits.”

They seated themselves at the counter and picked up menus. The prices were quite reasonable. “Let’s have a good breakfast, at least,” Johnny said. They ordered ham and eggs and coffee, which would cost them fifty-five cents apiece.

“A dollar-ten,” Johnny said, “that leaves us thirty-five cents.” His eyes went to the slot machines.

Sam exclaimed. “No, Johnny!”

“What can we do with thirty-five cents?” Johnny got off his stool and went to one of the nickel machines.

He dropped in a nickel and pulled down the lever. The machine whirred and the “fruit” cylinders spun merrily. They stopped with a bang on three cherries and twelve nickels plumped into the slot below.

Johnny and Sam exchanged amazed glances. Then, without a word, Johnny scopped out the nickels and took them to the cashier. “Give me dimes for these.”

He got six dimes and took them to a dime machine. He fed them in one after the other and the machine retained them without paying any dividends.

“That machine was a come-on,” Sam said, bitterly.

There was thirty cents left of the original stake. Johnny got rid of the nickel in the nickel machine and then produced the quarter that remained over and above the amount necessary to pay for their breakfasts.

“I’ve got a hunch,” he said to Sam Cragg and dropped the quarter into the slot. He pulled down the lever, the cylinders whirred and... Johnny and Sam were total paupers.

Sam Cragg strode to the counter and mounting the stool, began to eat his ham and eggs. After a moment Johnny sat down beside Sam. They ate in complete silence, then left the restaurant and got into the car parked at the curb.

“Well,” said Sam, “what now?”

Johnny looked as the dashboard. “There’s two gallons of gas in the car; we could go about forty miles, which would leave us in the middle of nowhere.”

“What about the purple check?”

Johnny brightened, and reaching into his pocket, brought out the pack of cards, as well as the purple check. “Most of the places are still closed, but we might as well try those that are open, beginning with El Casa Rancho where we left the girl.”

He reached forward, turned the ignition key and stepped on the starter. The motor caught and he started a U-turn in the middle of the street. Before the turn was completed a man was springing into the street from the sidewalk. His hand was up in the air, palm turned toward Johnny Fletcher.

“A cop!” cried Sam.

Johnny stopped the car. “Want a lift?” he asked, innocently. The policeman wore plainclothes, but there was a broad leather belt under his coat, which contained a holster.

He came over to Johnny’s side of the car. “Stranger in town?”

“Just got in a half hour ago.”

“Passing through?”

“Why, no,” said Johnny, “we thought we’d stay a day or two.”

The policeman nodded. “All right, have a good time, but don’t make any more U-turns in the middle of the street. Catch on?”

“I catch,” said Johnny.

The policeman returned to the sidewalk and Johnny started the car again. Sam, beside him, exhaled in relief. “I thought sure he was gonna pinch us.”

“Nah, not in this town. They like people to stay here and spend their money.”

He turned right on 3rd Street and a few minutes later drove into the wide drive in front of El Casa Rancho. He parked the old coupe in a parking space and climbing out, headed for the hotel entrance. Sam fell in beside him.

A doorman opened the door for them. “Good morning, gentlemen,” he greeted them.

Johnny nodded acknowledgment. “A good morning to you.”

They passed into a wide hall. On the left was the casino, a room at least eighty by one hundred feet, containing more than a score of tables for various games, all at this time covered with felt cloth. Johnny stepped to the door of the room and glanced in. Around the walls were more than a hundred slot machines.

“Nice,” he said to Sam.

He turned back. Straight ahead was a huge dining room with a dance floor and bandstand. And on the right was the hotel lobby and beyond it, a coffee shop and grill. Every piece of furniture in sight, in all of the rooms, was the best that craftsmen could make. The carpeting was thick and soft.

Johnny strode to the desk. The clerk, a short man of about forty-five, came forward.

“A suite,” said Johnny.

The clerk shook his head sadly.

“Crowded, eh? Well, how about a nice room with twin beds?”

The clerk shook his head again.

“Then what about a room with one bed?”

“Not a thing,” the clerk finally said, “not a room of any kind. Not even in the bunkhouse. We’re booked up.”

Johnny exclaimed. “But you’ll have some checkouts today.”

“Yes, we probably will,” the clerk admitted, “but we have four reservations for every checkout.”

Johnny smiled and leaned over the counter. “Look, chum, I’ve been around. I know the hotel racket. It’s hard to keep things straight and to prove it, I’ll bet if you looked real hard you could find a room for us.” He fixed the clerk with a meaning look. “I’ll bet ten bucks.”

The clerk snorted. “A man wanted to bet me fifty dollars yesterday...”

“All right,” said Johnny through his teeth, “I’ll bet you fifty.”

“You didn’t let me finish. I said the man wanted to bet me fifty. But I couldn’t do it...” He smiled thinly. “Because I really didn’t have the room.”

Johnny shook his head sadly. “So things are that tough?”

“Not only here, but at all the other hotels. You might find a motel room, but you’d probably have to go out quite a way. Of course if you wish to make a reservation, I might have something for you in about ten days.”

Johnny sighed. “No thanks.” Then he drew the purple check from his pocket. “This is one of yours, isn’t it?”

“No, ours are brown. That is, the five dollars ones. The twenty-five are yellow.”

“Know anyone named Nick?”

“I believe one of the bellboys is named Nick.” The clerk frowned. “What’s he done?”

“Nothing. A friend of mine told me to say hello to him, if I stopped here.”

“He doesn’t come on duty today until noon.”

“Oh! Well, I’ll probably drop in sometime during the afternoon or evening.” Johnny and Sam left the hotel. As they climbed into the car, Sam exclaimed. “Fifty bucks...!”

“Fifty was the bet; the selling price wasn’t reached. Well, we’ll try The Last Frontier and El Rancho Vegas.”

They did; neither had rooms and neither used purple checks. Johnny drove back into Las Vegas where the gambling houses were beginning to open for the day’s play.

They entered the Pioneer Club, a huge room, open to the sidewalk. The crap table was already receiving a good play. This early in the morning the players were mostly workers and men in from the outlying ranches, so silver dollars were used mainly, but the croupiers had checks in their racks. They weren’t purple.

They tried the Frontier Club, Joe’s Club, Mike’s Club, Pete’s Club, Jake’s Club — all the clubs on both sides of Fremont Street and a few on 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th Streets. They found purple checks in four clubs, but the designs didn’t match that of the check the dying man in Death Valley had given them.

At every place Johnny asked if Nick had been in yet. The reply in three-fourths of the place was, “Nick who?”

The other fourth knew Nicks. Nick Brown, Nick Jones, Nick Smith, Nick Pappas, Nick Genualdi, Nick Schick and Nick the Greek.

As the French would say, it was all quite décourageant.

“Well,” said Johnny, when they had completed the rounds of the gambling places that were open, “there’s only one thing left to do... work!”

“I’m willing,” Sam said, “but where can we get a crowd?”

“Where are all the people?”

“In the gambling joints...”

“Well?”

Sam exclaimed. “They’d throw you out.”

“The sidewalks are still free.”

Sam hesitated, then went to the car, and opening the luggage compartment took out an armful of books. Each had a nice dust jacket, with a picture of himself, wearing a leopard skin and nothing else. Above the picture was the title, Every Man a Samson. He also took out of the car a six-foot length of one-inch iron chain and returned to Johnny, who was standing before the open front of Mike’s Club.

“Here?”

“There’s fifty people inside. Forty-five of them will come out.”

“Okay,” said Sam, but he wasn’t happy about it. He took off his coat, folded it neatly and placed it on the sidewalk. He removed his tie and shirt and placed them on top of the coat. Three people came out of Mike’s Club to watch. Four people, passing, stopped. Sam picked up the chain and putting it about his massive chest, twisted the ends into a tight knot.

You know about Sam Cragg — he’s five feet eight inches tall, weighs 220 pounds, every ounce of it muscle and bone.

Johnny looked admiringly at Sam’s torso and threw up his hands.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he bellowed in a voice that rolled across Fremont Street on the one side and into Mike’s Club on the other. “Ladies and gentlemen, give me your attention for a moment...”

That was as far as he got. The cop who had caught him making a U-turn earlier in the day darted out of Mike’s Club and grabbed one of Johnny’s arms.

“Here, you, what do you think you’re doing?”

“Why, I’m going to give a little spiel,” Johnny replied calmly.

“And then?”

“Then my friend, Young Samson here, is going to break that logging chain merely by expanding his chest and after that I hope to sell these books at $2.95 per each.”

“You’ve got a license to sell on the street?”

“Oh, so it’s like that in Las Vegas.”

“That’s the way it is.”

“How much is the license?”

“I don’t even know if the chief d give you one, but if he did it’d probably cost you fifty or a hundred dollars.”

“In that case, let’s just forget the whole thing.”

“It’s just as well, because even if you did get a license to sell, we wouldn’t let you pull any phony chain-breaking stuff.”

“Phony? Sam, take off the chain.”

Sam obeyed and Johnny took the chain from him. He handed it to the policeman. “Look it over and if you find a weak link in it, I’ll eat the chain — without salt.”

The policeman dropped the chain to the sidewalk. “There’s a trick to it, somewhere, but I haven’t got time to work it out. No man could break a chain like that on the square.”

“Sam can. He does it right along.”

The policeman looked at Sam with jaundiced eyes. “Strong, huh?”

“Only the strongest man in the world,” Sam admitted.

“M’bongo, the gorilla I caught in the Congo, could tear you to pieces.”

Johnny looked sharply at the policeman. “You caught what gorilla in what Congo?”

“My name’s Mulligan. Remember? Catch ’Em Alive Mulligan?”

Johnny stared at the policeman. Mulligan laughed shortly. “Yeah, me, Catch ’Em Alive Mulligan; I’m a cop in Las Vegas. Eight years ago I was the toast of New York and Hollywood. But you can’t eat toasts.”

“You can’t eat books, either,” Johnny said.

“You’ve got a car; you can sell that.”

“The Finance Company wouldn’t like it.”

“You can sell your equity in it...”

“Yeah,” said Johnny, “I guess I could at that.”

“That is,” added Mulligan, “if you’re not behind in your payments and you got permission from the Finance Company to take the car out of California.”

“Oh, sure!”

Mulligan laughed without humor. “ ’S’ll right, I work for the city of Las Vegas, Nevada — not for the Finance Companies in California.”

Sam by this time had put on his shirt, tie and coat and he now picked up the books and chain. He took them to the car. Mulligan followed Johnny.

“Look, Mister,” he said, “when I was hunting wild animals in Africa, I gave it all I had. I always do — whatever I’m doing. I’m a cop now, a good cop. You violated a traffic law this morning, you broke another law just now and you’ve been going all around town asking about some guy named Nick...”

“Nick who?”

“Don’t try that on me, wise guy. I could take you down to the Blue Room and point out to you the error of your ways. But you don’t look like such a bad guy, so I’m just going to give you a friendly tip. There’s an awfully good road going east and another one going south. Get on one or the other...”

“Our gas tank is empty.”

Catch ’Em Alive Mulligan scowled. “I’ll give you a buck for one of those books.”

“The regular price is $2.95.” Johnny reached into the car and brought out one of the books. “But for you... one silver dollar!”

Mulligan had already produced the cartwheel. “Buy some gas,” he said, and turning, walked abruptly back into Mike’s Club.

“Say,” said Sam, “he wasn’t such a bad guy.”

“Come on,” said Johnny.

“Where—?”

“What good’s a buck?”

Sam grabbed Johnny’s arm. “But you heard what the guy said, Johnny...”

Johnny grinned frostily and stepped into Harry’s Club, which was right next door to Mike’s Club. He headed for the crap table and laid the silver collar on the pass line. A big man in shirt sleeves had the dice in his hands. He shook them up and rolled them down the length of the table, so they hit the rubber cushions and bounced back.

“Seven,” the dealer announced. He added a silver dollar to Johnny’s. He collected other dollars, paid out a few. The big man rolled the dice again.

“Seven, with a six-ace,” droned the dealer. He put two dollars on top of Johnny’s two.

The player rolled an eight for a point, made two inconsequential rolls and made the eight. The dealer added four silver dollars to Johnny’s pile.

Johnny reached out and pushed the stack from the pass rectangle to the one lettered “won’t pass.”

The swarthy man promptly rolled a twelve and the dealer raked in Johnny’s sixteen dollars and replaced them with six blue checks and two silver dollars. Johnny smiled at him. Sam began breathing hoarsely down Johnny’s neck. “Pinch, Johnny, pinch...”

Johnny ignored him. The man with the dice threw ten for a point and sevened out immediately afterwards. Johnny’s stake was now sixty-four dollars.

The dealer gathered up the dice with his stick, added a dozen or so from in front of his place and slid the entire group over to Johnny.

“Your dice, Mister.”

Johnny selected two green dice from the lot and the dealer snaked back the rest. He looked inquiringly at Johnny. Johnny nodded.

“There’s a gambler in the house,” said the dealer, “he lets it ride.”

Johnny shook up the dice and rolled them out. They stopped on six-five.

“And he made it!” cried the dealer. He measured out chips and silver dollars, then pushed the stack over to Johnny’s side. “Two hundred’s the limit.”

“Shoot it,” said Johnny. He counted out eleven checks and one silver dollar and shoved the rest back on the pass line. He picked up his dice and tossed them out, carelessly. They came up six-one.

Five minutes later, Catch ’Em Alive Mulligan entered Harry’s Club and approached the crap table. He looked at Sam Cragg, then at Johnny Fletcher, then down at the chips in front of Johnny. There were a few blue checks in the pile, but most of them were a bright pink.

“Just the man I want to see,” said Johnny. He raked over his chips and found a lone silver dollar at the bottom of the pile. “Here’s your buck, Captain. The book’s on me. And thanks.”

Mulligan took the dollar, looked at it, then put it into his pocket.

Johnny rolled the dice toward the dealer. “I’m getting bored. Cash these in, will you?”

The dealer rang a bell and began stacking up Johnny’s checks. The manager of Harry’s Club came over to the table. “Gentleman cashing in,” said the dealer.

“How much?” asked the manager, indifferently.

The dealer finished stacking up the checks. “Eighteen-eighty, I made it.”

Johnny reached across and picked off a pink chip. He tendered it to the dealer. “Eighteen fifty-five.”

“Thanks, Mister,” said the dealer, putting the check into his pocket.

The manager went to the cashier’s desk and returned in a moment with a two-inch stack of bills. “Come again,” he said.

Johnny turned to Catch ’Em Alive Mulligan. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“Later. You’re staying in town now, I suppose?”

“If I could get a room.”

“Where do you want one?”

“El Casa Rancho — but they’re full up...”

“Follow me out there,” said Mulligan, heading for the street. Johnny and Sam followed, but once they were in their car, Sam exploded.

“Let’s scram, Johnny. We’ve never been this rich before and...”

“It’s only a measly eighteen hundred dollars. I can run it up to eighteen thousand...”

“Oh, no!” Sam howled. “Don’t try it. Please, Johnny! I don’t like Nevada. I want to go back to New York.”

“So do I. But I want to get there with a roll.”