Quarry in the Middle - Max Allan Collins [13]
I had no problem. I even got a table by the picture window, and all it had cost me was my charming smile. The river was reflecting the moon and a silverivory shimmer made it very romantic, except for the part where I was sitting at a table for two by myself.
The food wasn’t pricey—my assumption was, the casino was the money maker—and I took my time eating a fried scallops dinner, including their “signature” beer-battered baked potato. The thing was pretty good, even if it didn’t rise to the status of a Famous Bacon Cheeseburger.
This far down from the bar, the piano noodling was fairly distant, and didn’t cover up the lowend pounding of drums and bass guitar above. Couldn’t pick any tunes out, but you could tell it was rock and not country. Between whatever songs were going on up there, you could make out the muffled music of slots and poker machines below, playing their bells-and-whistles refrain.
I killed maybe an hour with the meal, which included two glasses of Diet Coke with twists of lime. I left the waitress a nice tip, then walked back to the restrooms, to get rid of some of the cola. I noticed an elevator tucked back behind the coat check, and went over to the hostess to ask her about it.
“Is that for the casino?” I asked her.
She had big brown eyes and lots of blue eye shadow that clashed, but her lips were full and red-lipsticked, so I forgave her.
Friendly but guarded, she said, “That’s for our Key Club.”
“Ah. How do you join?”
“You take that elevator down, and go to the window that says ‘New Members.’ ”
“Cool. Thanks.”
So I had a look at the casino. First I joined, of course, and it cost all of ten bucks. I wasn’t sure how joining made this any more legal, but it must have had something to do with the arrangement with the local law. The “New Members” window was just one of half a dozen cages, the rest of which were to buy or cash in chips.
The casino wasn’t the Flamingo but, for the middle of the Midwest, was impressive enough. Certainly was hopping, a couple hundred guests partaking of half a dozen blackjack tables, a trio of roulette wheels, the latest Vegas-style slots on one side, video poker on the other. The far end had a bar with some booth seating along another river-view window.
What decoration there was ran to riverboat stuff, paintings of Bret Maverick-type gamblers and Mark Twain in a captain’s hat and paddlewheels on the river. Mostly, though, the room was just a charmless space of sandblasted brick walls crammed with gambling gear. I noted a security staff—rugged-looking characters in black trousers and red satin vests and white shirts with string ties and no name tags, all blessed with the craggy, humorless mien of the strip-club bouncer.
I counted six of these characters, roaming, keeping a hard eye on things, occasionally communicating with either a boss or their musclebound brethren by walkie-talkie.
I had a beer in the casino bar, served by a perky little redheaded waitress in a red satin outfit that was little more than a low-cut one-piece bathing suit with mesh stockings and black heels; if her push-up bra had pushed any harder, her nipples would’ve popped out.
Half a dozen little booby-displaying beauties were weaving around the casino, providing free drinks. I made conversation with mine and learned she was a community college student across the river—most of the girls were.
“So,” I asked her, “you don’t live in Haydee’s Port?”
“No!” she said, eyes so wide you’d think I goosed her. “Nobody lives in Haydee’s Port!”
“What about your boss?”
She got coy. “What boss is that?”
“Mr. Cornell. Does he live across the river, too?”
My knowing the boss’s name was enough for her to replace coy with chatty. “He lives close. A regular mansion. Ever see Gone with the Wind?”
“Sure.”
“Like that. White pillars and everything.”
“He lives in Tara and you’re a wage slave, huh?”
“Yeah, minimum wage, but the tips are good.”
I considered kidding her about darkies all working on the Mississippi, but figured the reference would