The Honest Dealer

Chapter Six

Johnny strolled to the blackjack tables, of which there were five. They were high, felt-covered tables, shaped somewhat like the cabanas — semicircular, with the dealer on the inside. Nick Fenton was in his shirt sleeves. He was a rather short, smooth-looking chap in his late thirties.

He was leaning against his table, as he was without players at the moment. Johnny seated himself on a high stool.

“Hello, Nick.”

The dealer nodded acknowledgment and picked up a pack of cards. He riffled them three times about as smoothly as Johnny had ever seen cards riffled. Then he plunked down the deck for a cut and the dealer whisked the top card to the bottom, face up, so that he would know when he reached the end of the pack.

Johnny got out his roll of bills. “What’s the limit?”

“Hundred. Pay one and a half for blackjack.”

Johnny eased a hundred dollar bill out of his roll. He put it on the table. Nick whisked the ball away, stuck it into the slot and shoved it down into the box under the table, with the wooden plunger provided for that purpose. He placed four yellow chips in front of Johnny. Johnny let them remain.

Nick looked at him inquiringly. “The hundred?”

“Why not?”

Nick dealt Johnny a card, gave one to himself, then another to Johnny and a second turned face up to himself. It was a six. Johnny looked at his cards, found they were a king and an eight. He placed his chips on them. The dealer turned up his hole card, revealing a jack. He hit quickly — got an eight and broke.

“Always hit sixteen?” Johnny asked.

The dealer nodded. “We hit sixteen and stay on seventeen.” He scooped four yellow chips from his rack and placed them beside Johnny’s. Johnny drew back one of the stacks.

The dealer dealt out the cards again, turning up a nine for his second card. “Do I know you?” he asked suddenly.

“You called me by name... and I always remember the hundred dollar players... I don’t remember you.”

“I’m Johnny Fletcher. You’re Nick Fenton, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but damned if I can remember you...”

Johnny peeked at his cards, turned them up. “Blackjack.”

Nick put six chips beside Johnny’s four, scooped up the discards. Johnny reached into his pocket, brought out the purple check and placed it on the table. Nick shook his head. “You’ll have to turn that in to the cashier.”

“I’m keeping it for a lucky piece. Fellow gave it to me... over in California... Death Valley.”

“That so?” Nick’s tone was merely polite. He dealt the cards again, gave Johnny twenty and himself seventeen. Then Johnny turned up a second blackjack.

Another customer wandered up, took the seat beside Johnny and placed out a silver dollar. Johnny won his hundred dollar bet and the other player lost his dollar.

Johnny turned up a third blackjack.

Gambling is like that. You can roll the dice all evening and not make a single pass; you can lose twenty straight blackjack hands or feed a roulette wheel for two hours without winning a bet. You can sit in a gin rummy game and be triple-blitzed six times in a row. You can bet all the favorites at the track and all run out of the money.

And then comes a time when you can’t lose. You put a quarter into a slot machine and hit the jackpot. You make eighteen straight passes with the galloping dominoes. Percentages have nothing to do with it. In the long run they’ll beat you, but for that one glorious period, which may last a day, a week or even a month, you cannot lose a bet.

Johnny’s luck was in. He won fourteen straight blackjack hands, turning up six blackjacks. He lost one bet then, but came back with eight more straight wins.

He left the blackjack table with his pockets loaded down with yellow chips and went to the crap table. He got the dice and held them for twenty solid minutes. And then, to test his luck to the last degree, he got five silver dollars and went to the dollar slot machine.

His second dollar dumped out the jackpot. A tall, cold-eyed man helped him scoop out the silver dollars. “My name’s Honsinger,” he said. “Gilbert Honsinger.”

“I’m Johnny Fletcher,” Johnny said. “You’ll be hearing about me.”

“I already have,” said Honsinger. “I own the place... Can I cash in your yellow checks? They’ll be needing them at the tables.”

“Why not?”

Honsinger’s office was behind the cashier’s cage; a large luxuriously furnished room, with a steel door at one side, which led into a vault.

Johnny began taking yellow checks out of his pockets, huge quantities of them. Honsinger stacked them up on his desk. His fingers were well-manicured and nimble. They were probably very handy with a deck of cards.

“You’ve got one of our old checks,” Honsinger said, picking out the purple check from a stack of yellows. “I’ll cash it for you.”

“No — I want to keep it as a souvenir. Or until I go broke.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to get it in. There’s only a few out and I may have to nullify them in a little while.”

“Let me know before you do,” Johnny said. “Just now I’d like to keep it.”

Honsinger shrugged and ran his fingers over the stacks of yellow checks. “A nice win,” he said. “Eight thousand, seven hundred and fifty-five. Would you like the cash, or would you prefer a check?”

“I’ve got a couple thousand in cash now,” replied Johnny. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to keep the eight thousand here and let me draw against it. I’ll take five hundred cash and keep checks for the rest.”

Honsinger nodded. “That’s quite all right. Can I give you a drink now?”

“I never drink when I’m gambling.” Johnny stowed away the remaining yellow checks in his pockets. Before he completed the job, there was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” called Honsinger.

The door opened and a man who looked like a retired wrestler came into the room. “Oh, hello, Whit,” said Honsinger. “Shake hands with Mr. Fletcher. Mr. Fletcher, Whit Snow, my manager.”

Snow took Fletcher’s hand in a beefy paw and put on the pressure. “Been watchin’ you, Mr. Fletcher. Having a run, eh?”

Johnny rescued his bruised hand. “Not as much of a one as I’m going to have before I get through.”

“Gonna break the place?”

“It could happen, couldn’t it?”

Honsinger smiled thinly. “Hardly.”

Johnny gave him a wink and left the room. He strolled back to the blackjack tables, then caught sight of a blonde head at the crap table and wheeled back.

She was wearing woman’s clothes now: a flowered print dress and high-heeled pumps. She held white gloves in her left hand and had a purse slung over her left shoulder. Her right hand was shaking up a pair of dice.

Johnny squeezed in beside her, but she was too intent on the game to notice him. She rolled out the dice, got ten for a point, then sevened out on the next roll.

“Damn!” she exclaimed.

She had a half dozen silver dollars and a brown check on the table in front of her. The dice came to Johnny.

He put out two yellow checks. “Bet with me.”

She sent a quick sideward glance and recognized him. Pressing her lips together, she picked up her five dollar check and reaching out, placed it in the section marked, “No Pass.”

Johnny chuckled and rolled out the dice. They came up seven. A dozen of the customers, who knew about Johnny’s streak, showered checks and silver on the pass line. Johnny let his own four checks ride.

The girl beside Johnny frowned and placed two silver dollars against Johnny.

Johnny got a four for a point, bet a hundred dollars that he could make it and came up with a trey-ace. The dealer and his assistant exchanged significant glances.

“Get wise,” Johnny said to Mrs. Langford. “I’ve got a streak.”

She picked up her four remaining silver dollars and put them on the “No Pass” line. Johnny shook up the dice, was about to roll them, when the girl suddenly reached out, retrieved her four dollars and put them on the pass line beside Johnny’s bet.

Johnny rolled out a nice eleven for her. “Let it ride,” he said, “I’m good for a couple more passes.”

He made twelve passes, before sevening out. Whit Snow was there for the last six.

“Run’s holding up,” he remarked.

“In a couple of days you’ll be working for me,” Johnny chuckled.

Whit Snow shook his head. “No, I won’t. Because we’ll get you in the end; wait and see.”

Johnny was stacking up his yellow chips. “Here’s another two thousand. Ask Mr. Honsinger to add it to the rest. These I’ll keep to fool around with.”

Mrs. Langford cashed in eight hundred and twenty dollars. “I’ve been here six weeks,” she told Johnny, “and this is the first time I’ve won.”

“Six weeks?”

“The day after tomorrow,” she said evenly, “I’ll be a free woman.”

Nick the bellboy came in from the hotel lobby. He nodded to Johnny. “Hello, Mr. Fletcher.” Then he addressed the girl. “There’s a gentleman in the lobby to see you, Mrs. Langford. He says his name is Langford.”

Her color faded. So did the light from her blue eyes. She looked at Johnny and said dully, “Excuse me...” Then she headed for the hotel lobby.

Nick said, “I hear you’re breaking the bank, Mr. Fletcher.”

Johnny handed him a yellow check. “What’s the guy look like?”

“Her husband?” Nick grimaced. “Like that. I’m not surprised she’s divorcing him.” He shook his head. “I could go for her myself. She’s class with a capital K and I like class.”

“So do I,” Johnny said, “when it looks like that.” He turned and walked through the casino, across the driveway and into his room in the cabana.

Sam Cragg was still sawing wood. Johnny emptied his pockets of checks, making a small mountain on the dresser. Then he went into the bathroom to wash his hands. As he dried them, he heard muffled voices.

He put his ear to the wall. The voices were louder, but still indistinguishable. But they were excited voices. He came out of the bathroom and stepped to the door that connected his room to Jane Langford’s.

He didn’t have to put his ear to the connecting door. Jane Langford’s voice came through. “You’re wasting your time, Jim. I’m going through with it if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

“Maybe it’ll be the last thing,” grated a harsh voice.

Then Jane Langford exclaimed in sudden pain.

In two leaps Johnny was at his front door. He tore it open, ran down the cement veranda to Jane Langford’s door and without bothering to knock, whipped the door open.

Jim Langford had one of Jane Langford’s wrists in one hand; his other was raised to strike her. The hand froze in mid-air as Johnny hurtled through the door.

“Hold it, chum!” Johnny cried.

Jim Langford let go of his wife’s wrist. He was six feet tall and outweighted Johnny by at least twenty pounds. He was a swarthy, vicious-looking man of about thirty-five. He most certainly was not the type you would expect a girl like Jane Langford to marry. But then she was divorcing him.

Langford bared his teeth at Johnny. “What the hell’s the idea bustin’ in here?”

“I heard the lady holler,” Johnny said coolly.

“You the house dick?”

“As far as you’re concerned — yes.”

“This happens to be my wife.”

“She won’t be the day after tomorrow,” Johnny retorted.

Langford’s eyes gleamed wickedly. “Oh, you know about that. You wouldn’t happen to be the lad who expects to take my place...?”

“What if I am?”

Langford’s lips twisted into a snarl. “Well, I’m glad to meet you, sucker. Been wantin’ to for some time...” He started toward Johnny.

Jane Langford sprang forward. “Jim — stop it!”

“Let him stop — this...!”

Langford stepped around his wife and swung a fist at Johnny. Johnny ducked and stuck at Langford’s midriff. His fist hit a muscular stomach and brought a grunt from Langford... and a smashing blow that landed high on Johnny’s face and sent him reeling back. Jim Langford started to follow through for another crushing blow, but Jane grabbed his arm.

“Stop it, Jim!” she cried. “I don’t even know this man.”

“Let him go,” Johnny muttered thickly. “I c’n handle him.”

Langford shook off his wife. “Handle this!” He sprang for Johnny, hit him heavily on the right ear and as he went down to his knees, gave him his foot.

Johnny wound up against the wall, flat on his face. A roaring filled his eyes as he tried desperately to get to his hands and knees. He made it after considerable exertion and shaking his head, looked at Jane Langford and her husband.

Jane was standing in front of her dresser; a very efficient-looking little automatic was in her hand and pointed at Langford.

“Get out,” she said, “get out before I become a widow instead of a divorcee.”

Jim Langford laughed harshly. “Damned if I don’t think you’d shoot.”

“Make a move in any direction except the door and you’ll find out.”

Johnny struggled to his feet. “I can handle him, baby...” he mumbled.

“You sure can,” jeered Langford. “And maybe you’ll get another chance.” He gave Johnny a half salute and went to the door. He stepped out upon the veranda, then turned for a parting shot at his wife.

“And don’t count too much on that divorce, sweetheart.” Then he passed out of sight.

Jane Langford came over to Johnny. “Did he hurt you badly?”

Johnny rubbed the fog from his eyes. “Him? He hardly touched me...”

“There a mouse starting up under your eye,” Jane Langford said. “Better go to your room and put a cold cloth on it.”

Johnny nodded. Bees were still buzzing in his head. “See you later, baby...”

He went to the door, passed through and entered his own room, the door of which was still standing open. Sam was snoring as loudly as before.

Johnny went into the bathroom, moistened a cold wash cloth at the tap and put it to his face. After a moment he returned to the bedroom and, throwing himself on the second bed, went to sleep.