FOURTEEN
ACCORDING TO TITO, THE KISMET, BUILT JUST AFTER WWII
,
had represented something of a gamble that the city of North Las Vegas
was about to be the wave of the future. Instead, everything moved south
ward, and Las Vegas Boulevard South entered legend as the Strip, and places like the Kismet languished.
Heading up North Las Vegas Boulevard, away from the unremitting storm of light, episodes of darkness began to occur at last, like night breezes off the desert. Parked trailers and little lumberyards and air-conditioning shops went drafting by. The glow in the sky over Las Vegas withdrew, as if into a separate
“
page right out of history,
”
as the Flintstones might say. Ahead presently at the roadside, much dimmer than anything to the south, a structure of lights appeared.
“
Place is a dump, man.
”
Tito wheeled into the entrance and under a weathered
porte-cochère
. Nobody was there to notice let alone greet them, in the reduced light. Once there must have been thousands of lights, incandescent, neon and fluorescent, all over the place, but these days only a few of them were lit, because the present owners couldn
’
t
afford the electric bills anymore, several amateur gaffers, sad to say, hav
ing already been fulminated trying to bootleg power in off the municipal lines.
“
We
’
ll be back in a couple hours,
”
Tito said.
“
Try not t
o get your ass
shot at too much, okay? You bring enough to play with? Here, Adolfo, give him a black.
”
“
That
’
s a hundred dollars, I can
’
t—
”
“
Please,
”
Tito said.
“
I
’
ll get a secondhand kick.
”
Adolfo handed over a chip.
“
It
’
s what they tip with here,
”
he shrugged.
“
We don
’
t even know how many of these we got by now. It
’
s fuckin crazy.
”
Doc got out and strolled under a Byzantine archway and into the seedy vastness of the main gaming floor, dominated by a ruinous chan
delier draped above the tables and cages and pits, disintegrating, ghostly,
huge, and, if it had feelings, likely resentful—its lightbulbs long burned
out and unreplaced, crystal lusters falling off unexpectedly into cowboy hatbrims, people
’
s drinks, and spinning roulette wheels, where they bounced with a hard-edged jingling through their own dramas of luck and loss. Everything in the room was lopsided one way or another. The
ancient bearings on the roulette wheels made them spin erratically faster
and slower. The classic three-reel slots, set long ago to payout percentages unknown south of Bonanza Road and perhaps to the world, had
since each drifted in
it’s
own way, like small-town businessfolks, toward
openhanded generosity or tightfisted meanness. The carpets, deep royal
purple, had been retextured over the years with a million cigarette burns,
each fusing the synthetic nap to a single tiny smear of plastic. The all-over effect was of wind on the surface of a lake. The level of the main floor was ten feet below that of the desert outside, providing natural insulation, so the chill in this vast indeterminate space wasn
’
t all from
air-conditioning, which had been set on low in any case to save current.
Grill cooks, tire salesmen, house framers, eye doctors, stickmen and
change girls and other black-and-whites off shift from ritzier rooms where they weren
’
t allowed to play, old horsemen fallen on faster and
more crowded times, their feelings of custody now transferred to F-lOOs
and Chevy Apaches, were ranged sparsely in the softly shadowed light,
weaving in place as if trying to stay alert. Drinks here weren
’
t free, but
by way of real-life neighborhood civility they were cheap enough.
Doc had a grapefruit margarita and then, dropping into mental cruis
ing gear, began to drift through the immense casino, scanning for Puck
and Einar. At some point a presentable young lady in a paisley Qiana
minidress and white plastic boots came up and introduced herself as Lark.
“
And without meanin to pry or nothin, I notice you
’
re not playing,
just sort of wandering around, meanin you
’
re either some deep guy,
mysterious master of intrigue, or one more jaded sharp looking for a
bargain.
”
“
Hey, maybe I
’
m the Mob.
”
“
Wrong shoes. Give me some credit, for goodness
’
sakes. I
’
d say L.A.,
and like every other tripper in from L.A., all you think you want to do is
bet the Mickey book.
”
“
The, uh
...
?
”
Lark explained that the Kismet offered a kind of sports book where you could bet on the news of the day, such as the recent mysterious dis
appearance of construction mogul Mickey Wolfmann.
“
Mickey enjoys
some name recognition in this town, so for a limited time we
’
ve been
offering even money on Dead or Alive or, as we like to call it, Pass or
Don
’
t Pass.
”
Doc shrugged.
“
Readin me like the
Herald-Examiner,
Lark. There just comes a time for the dedicated player when the NCAA don
’
t quite
do it no more.
”
“
Come on.
”
Motioning with her head.
“
I bring you back there as a
guest, I get a commission.
”
The Kismet race and sports-book area had
it’s
own cocktail lounge,
furnished in shades of purple Formica that glittered with metal-flake
accents and made Doc feel right at home. They found a table and ordered
frozen mai tais.
Doc knew the lilt and tessitura of most every sad song in the pro
fession but still liked to take a glance at the sheet music. Seems Lark
had grown up in La Vergne, Tennessee, outside Nashville. Besides hav
ing the same initials, La Vergne was also at the exact same latitude as
Las Vegas.
“
Well actually the same as Henderson, but that
’
s where I live now anyway, me and my boyfriend. He
’
s a professor at UNLV? And he
says when Americans move any distance, they stick to lines of latitude.
So it was like fate for me, I was always supposed to head due west. The second I saw Hoover Dam, I knew for the first time that I was
really home.
”
“
Ever done any pickin or singin, Lark?
”
“
You mean living that close to Nashville why didn
’
t I want to go into
music. You try it, dariin. Your feet
’
ll get mighty tired waitin in
that
line.
”
But Doc noted an evasive sparkle in her eyes.
“
Not another assassination trifecta, I hope.
”
This gent looked like a
banker in an old movie, wearing a bespoke suit with one button open
on each sleeve just to let you know it. Lark introduced him as Fabian
Fazzo.
“
Lady tells me I can bet straight up or down about whether Mickey
Wolfmann is still alive.
”
“
Yes and if your interests run to the more exotic,
”
replied Fabian,
“
may I suggest an Aimee Semple McPherson-type bet, which assumes
that Mickey staged his own kidnapping.
”
“
How would a person ever prove something like that?
”
Fabian shrugged.
“
No ransom note and he shows up alive? allega
tions of amnesia? Police Chief Ed Davis
doesn
’
t ho\A.
a press conference?
If Mickey had himself snatched, even money—if he didn
’
t, a hundred to
one. More depending how many zeros in the ransom note, if and when
one shows up. We can put it all in writing, with anything we forget to
write down considered a push, money back and no hard feelings.
”
Well, said Doc to himself, well, well. The smart money—here came a
brief visual of a hundred-dollar bill wearing horn-rim glasses and reading
a book about statistics—for
it’s
own excellent reasons, which he would have to look into, was expecting Mickey to stage a headline-grabbing
return from an exile of his own invention. For these wise folk, it was all
but a sure thing. Fuck them, however. Doc found Tito
’
s black chip in his
pocket.
“
Here you go, Mr. Fazzo, I kind of like that long shot.
”
In the business Doc had learned to live with some contemptuous looks, but the one Fabian threw his way now was almost hurtful.
“
I
’
ll go write this up,
won’t
be long.
”
Exited shaking his head.
“
You must know better
’
n at,
”
Lark fiddling with the umbrella on her drink.
“
Oh, just one these naive hippies, Lark, can
’
t be cynical about nothin,
not even the motives of a L.A. land developer
...
”
Fabian was back shortly, with a new attitude.
“
You mind stepping
upstairs to my office for a minute? Just one or two details.
”
Doc wiggled his foot discreetly. Yep the little Smith was still there in
it’s
ankle rig.
“
See you, Lark.
”
“
You go careful, darlin.
”
Fabian Fazzo
’
s office turned out to be as cheerful as Doc had expected it to be sinister. Framed kindergarten art on the walls, an avocado tree Fabian had planted as a pit in an institutional-size lima-bean can back in 1959 and been tending ever since, and a long photomural of Fabian flanked by the entire Rat Pack plus a number of other faces Doc could nearly recall from all-night movies on the tube. Frank Sinatra was playfully attempting to stuff a huge Cuban corona into Fabian
’
s not-altogether-unwilling face. Sammy Davis Jr. was joking delightedly with somebody just out of the frame. Attached to the lower lip of Dean Martin, who was also brandishing a bottle of Dom Perignon, smoldered what Doc
could’ve
sworn was a hastily rolled joint.
Fabian put Doc
’
s hundred-dollar chip on the desk.
“
No offense, but you have the look of a private gumshoe, or do I mean gum
sandal
. As a professional courtesy, I
’
m offering you a chance to rethink your bet on Mickey Wolfmann, and I figured we
’
d have a little more privacy here, cause right at the moment there
’
s FBI in the building.
”
“
What
’
s that to me? I
’
m just in town on a quick matrimonial, no interest in gambling license irregularities, improper casino ownership, none of them what Marty Robbins
’
d
call foul evil deeds
”
Fabian shrugged elaborately.
“
It
’
s what feds do in Las Vegas I guess,
this big master plan to get the casino
s away from the Mob. Been going
on ever since Howard Hughes bought the Desert Inn. But I
’
m just middle management here, nobody tells me anything.
”
Doc taking an educated leap,
“
Mickey Wolfmann—he
’
s another big
spender with a history here, isn
’
t he? I heard someplace he met his future
bride when she was working in Vegas as a showgirl?
”
“
Mickey dated a lot of showgirls in his day, loved the town, old Vegas
dog from way back, built a house out by Red Rock. Also had this dream
about putting up a whole city from scratch someday, out in the desert.
”
Fabian took off his reading glasses and threw Doc a thoughtful squint.
“
Suggest anything to you?
”
“
Mickey
’
s in the market for a casino too?
”
“
Folks in the Justice Department would love to see that happen.
”
“
And the Kismet here
’
s on the list?
”
“
You
’
ve seen this place. They
’
re desperate for somebody non-Mob to
come in and spring for the renovation. They keep bringing around their
own blueprints, everything state of the art—all these old three-reel slots?
forget
‘
em, what Uncle Sam wants is video screens, every time you play a
machine, you get a little animated picture of reels spinning, something
coming up on the payline. But it
’
s all electronic, see. Plus controlled from
someplace else. Old-school slot hustlers will all be shit out of luck.
”