Sin City by Harold Robbins Page A

opportunity assignment.
    â€œYou a wise guy?”
    â€œNo, sir, you can ask Tony about me, I ran the rag pushers for six months and paid him a cut. I was with him once when you drove up, but you probably didn’t notice me.”
    â€œWhat’s your name?”
    â€œZack Riordan, sir.”
    â€œRiordan. Yeah, I know who you are. Your old lady got popped by that car salesman.”
    I felt my blood rising. “Can I have the job?”
    â€œHow old are you?”
    â€œTwenty-one.”
    His squint deepened. “You’re shitting me, kid. You ain’t a day pass nineteen.”
    I grinned. “I’m almost twenty-one. Besides, if I get busted, I’ll be a first-time youth offender. I won’t do any time.”
    â€œYou got an old man?”
    â€œNo. But I don’t need anyone.”
    â€œYeah, that’s right, you were a big-time rag pusher.” He threw back his big head and laughed.

    The man who had been at the table with him came back from the john. Morty pointed his cigar at him.
    â€œThis is Sam. He’ll show you how to work the route. You know how to count, kid?”
    â€œCount? Sure, I’m good with arithmetic.”
    â€œMake sure you count real accurate, kid. You won’t have any fingers or toes to help you add with if I catch you skimming.”

19
    â€œWorking the route” meant hanging around the streets, watching the action. After you got to know the players—the pimps, prostitutes, and drug pushers—it was pretty easy to estimate what they were taking in. Once each night I took a collection from the players, stuffing the money in my jacket pockets. Sometimes it was nickel-and-dime stuff from a pusher, but a pimp was usually good for a couple hundred. Sam and Morty knew from past history exactly what each player should pay. I got grilled when it wasn’t exactly what they expected. I kept track of the take using a code scribbled on a piece of paper small enough to swallow it if I got busted.
    Most of the action took place downtown in Glitter Gulch. Streetwalkers and overt pushers were a no-no on the Strip. Most whores got sent over to the Strip by a call from a hotel bellman. A few hung around the cocktail lounges after slipping a bartender a twenty, but the lounges in the big clubs had service managers who, following the universal policy, tolerated prostitution only if it was done subtly.
    Once a night I made a run up to the Strip and hit the bellmen and barmen on the route. I needed a car for that; it didn’t look good for a mob bagman to ride a city bus, and I asked the old guy I rented the trailer from if I could use his station wagon for a few bucks when I needed it. He let me use the car as long as I kept gas in it, accompanying me several times just to get out of the house. His name was Paul Embers and I was right about his prior occupation. He was an old-time dealer and gambler, now living poor.
    â€œI worked all the old clubs,” Paul told me, “from Cal-Neva on the California-Nevada border in South Tahoe, to Harold’s Club and Harrah’s in Reno, down to Binion’s Horseshoe on Glitter Gulch and the Dunes on the Strip. I dealt blackjack the night the Flamingo opened. Bugsy stood right next to me watching me deal to George Raft, who came in to help his pal Bugsy. I’ve seen mushroom clouds from the
atomic blasts at the testing grounds. In ‘fifty-six I saw Elvis when he opened at the Frontier. He sang ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ and ‘Blue Suede Shoes.’ He flopped and they fired him after a week. I’ve seen so many Helldorado Day parades I should be the grand master.”
    Embers hadn’t been just a casino dealer, but a professional poker player, the kind of guy you would call a card sharp. Despite his hands being deformed, he could still shuffle and deal better than me.
    I asked him what happened to his hands.
    â€œJack slipped and a car dropped on my hands when I was