Raft said, “Whatever happened to the old Rex? I heard you lost her in a twenty-four-hour crap game.”
Cornero nodded. “Yeah, after that bastard Earl Warren shut me down. That grand old girl went to war, eventually. The Nazis sunk her off the coast of Africa.” He shook his head, a sad expression taking momentary hold, as he considered this most heinous of war atrocities.
“You’re doing land-office business opening night,” I said. “Think you can keep it up?”
“Oh Christ, yes,” Cornero said, with an extravagant wave of the hand, happy again. “We’ll be open twenty-four hours a day. There’ll always be a full crop of squirrels to keep my ship afloat.”
“Squirrels? Is that anything like suckers?”
“Naw, my customers aren’t suckers. They’re squirrels-you know, lookin’ only for fun, entertainment. And that’s what I give ’em.” He offered his hand again and we shook again. “Mr. Heller, it’s nice to have you aboard the Lux.”
I smiled. “Always room for another squirrel, you mean?”
“Always room,” Cornero smiled. Then he leaned across the bar and told the bartender not to charge us for our drinks; Raft, incidentally, was drinking soda water with a twist of lemon.
Then the stubby broad-shouldered little guy disappeared back into his sea of squirrels, happy as a clam.
“Let’s see if Ben’s downstairs,” Raft said, edging off his stool. “Besides, we can grab a bite to eat.”
“Good idea,” I said, and I followed him and the starlet to a central stairway in the casino, leading down into a posh dining room trimmed in sky blue where the tables wore cloths and fancy place settings with dark blue napkins. The waiters were in tuxes and the bus boys were in white mess jackets, and it was like being in a fancy restaurant except that the air was a little dank. This dining room took up only half as much space as the casino above; an adjacent room, a five-hundred seat bingo parlor, took up the rest. According to Raft, the bingo parlor was used for off-track betting during the days, racing forms and scratch sheets provided free, cutting into Santa Anita’s action by paying track odds.
The maitre d’ treated Raft like a god and didn’t blink when he said he needed a table for eight for his party of three, in anticipation of the Siegel party joining us. We were led there, and sat, and ordered cocktails-well, Raft ordered soda water again-and then selected from the menu offering “cuisine by Battista, formerly of the Trocadero.” I ordered a fish platter, since it wasn’t every day I ate out on the ocean; but Raft nibbled at a small filet mignon while starlet Judy wolfed down a porterhouse that would’ve fed a South Side of Chicago family of six for a week.
We’d all decided against dessert when a pudgy, pasty-faced little man in a well-tailored dark gray pinstripe and blue and white striped tie, with an obvious underarm bulge, approached our table. The paleness of his flesh made his five o’clock shadow stand out, and he was just burly enough to make him seem bigger than he was. His nose had been broken any number of times, and a white scar stood out under his left eye; his mouth hung open, just a little, as if to say, I’m just a little thick, not terminally so. Nonetheless he looked like an exhibit for the defense in Clarence Darrow’s monkey trial.
“Mickey Cohen,” Raft whispered to me.
I nodded. I knew Mick from his Chicago stint; the little roughneck independent had run the biggest floating crap game in the Loop, before the war.
Cohen planted himself, smiled a little. “Hiya, Georgie.”
“Hiya, Mick. Ben here?”
“Yeah. He’s up top. He’s et already. He wants you should join him up in the casino.”
“We’ll be right up. How’d you get in with a piece on you? Cornero’s always had strict rules against hardware.”
“Rules was made to be broken,” Cohen grinned, good-naturedly. He had an edgy energy and a don’t-give-a-shit cheerfulness that would make him dangerous indeed.
“This is Nate Heller, by the way,” Raft said, gesturing to me. “Pal of mine from Chicago. Nate, Mickey Cohen.”
“Yeah,” Cohen said, squinting at me, as it dawned on him. “Heller! How the hell are ya? How’s your pal Drury?”
“Still kicking,” I said, smiling, shaking his hand.
“That Drury, some cop,” Cohen grinned. “Hates them Capone boys damn near much as me.” He gave us a little forefinger salute. “See yas upstairs.”
And he turned and went off with a bantam walk.
“That suit must’ve set him back two hundred and fifty big ones,” I said, wonderingly. “He didn’t used to dress like that.”
“He’s a regular clotheshorse now,” Raft said, matter of factly. “Ever since he got hooked up with Ben, anyway. If Ben takes one shower, Mickey takes two. If Ben gets his hair cut daily, Mickey goes twice.”
“When do these guys have time for the rackets?”
“The days out here are long,” Raft said, signing the check, getting up, putting Judy on his arm.
Back up in the casino, we spotted Virginia Hill, decked out in a clinging white suit with a big white picture hat and white gloves and lots of jewelry, emeralds and diamonds. Her lipstick was bright red, her wide mouth like an attractive wound. She was at one of the dice tables, shaking the bones in her cupped-together gloved hands, her smile white and a little crazed, cheering herself on, “Come seven, come on baby!” She hit her seven and hopped up and down like a kid dressed up in mom’s clothes.
Standing nearby, lending support but more restrained, was Peggy Hogan. She looked great, all that hair and those big eyes and cherry-red mouth; it felt good seeing her and it hurt to look at her. She was in one of those Eisenhower jackets, they called them, a square-shouldered, cream-colored crepe blouse drawn in and tied at the waist, with a black collar and skirt; it had a fake military insignia over her right breast, and big pearl buttons. I’d never seen her in that outfit before.
She was holding onto a big black purse-La Hill’s trademark bag, stuffed with cash no doubt-like the dutiful secretary she was. Neither she nor her boss lady spotted us as we moved along the edge of the crowd, heading toward the bar.
Which was where Bugsy Siegel was waiting for us.
He was perched on a bar stool, facing the casino, watching the action there with bland seeming indifference, a lean handsome man with languid light blue eyes, as sky blue as Jim Ragen’s, and dark, slightly thinning hair. He looked a little like Raft, actually, giving off that same sleepy sensuality that could get a guy inside a nun’s pants, a resemblance made startling by their wardrobe: Siegel, too, wore a white dinner jacket and black tie and carnation. Only in Siegel’s case the carnation was pink. I didn’t remember seeing a man wearing a pink carnation before, but I supposed if you were Ben Siegel you could wear a tulip in your ass if you wanted.
He had a drink in one hand and a pool cue of a cigar in the other, and didn’t notice us approaching. Cohen did, tapping him on the shoulder. Siegel hopped off the stool, setting the drink on the bar, and grinned at Raft and put an arm around his shoulder and hugged.
“How ya doin’, pal?” Siegel said, in a mellow medium-range voice. “Been a while.”
“Nice to see you, Ben. You been a stranger lately.”
“Lots of work to do on my baby, turning that desert into a paradise. You oughta come down and see the miracles we’re workin’. You’d be amazed.”
They broke ground on the Flamingo last December, Rubinski had told me.
“This is Nate Heller,” George said, nodding toward me.
Siegel turned his smile on me; it was a dazzler-white as winter and warm as summer. He pumped my hand and said, “It’s a pleasure, Mr. Heller. Really is.”
“Pleasure, Mr. Siegel,” I said, smiling tightly.