“You really think you can turn hell into paradise?”
“Haydee’s Port wasn’t always a den of sin. You know, it was named for fur trader Robert A. Haydee, who established a trading post on the land under us right now, back in 1827.”
Somehow I didn’t imagine Robert A. had cohabited with a coke-snorting vixen, but then I’m not that up on my history.
But Cornell went on with his sales pitch, letting me know that Haydee’s Port had once been a thriving city, home to five thousand God-fearing residents, a port serving the surrounding farming community. God, unimpressed, had sent a flood in 1912 that wiped the town out, and the businesses that were able relocated across the river. What had grown up in its place was the mini-Sin City we all knew and loved, a population of less than two hundred with a dozen bars and two casinos.
I asked him, “You really think the Illinois state government is going to get in bed with the mob?”
“Are you kidding?”
I shrugged. “Yeah. That was pretty dumb.”
He beamed down at his little play town. “My wife’s father will think I’m the New Improved Jesus if I can find a way to put the Giovannis out of business in Haydee’s Port.”
“What will Tony’s brother Vincent think?”
Cornell shrugged dismissively. “He’ll have to go along. The mob backs a winner.”
“My understanding is that Tony and Vincent Giardelli are rivals-two godfathers, each looking for a way to topple the other.”
“Yes, but they can’t go after each other frontally. They’re brothers — one family member, that high up in That Thing of Theirs, murder the other? No. They can pretend to peacefully co-exist, while trying to undermine each other, yes. But murdering your own blood…that just isn’t done.”
“That must be those family values I keep hearing about.”
He gestured to his toy town. “You have to understand, Mr. Quarry-Haydee’s Port is a microcosm of the situation in Chicago.”
“What’s a microcosm?”
“In this case, it’s a big struggle reduced to one small battlefield. If I triumph here, Tony’s stock rises in Chicago.”
“Okay,” I said, not giving a shit. “What do you want done?”
“Why don’t we start with me giving you ten grand to play in that poker game?”
“What did you say the buy-in was?”
“A thousand.”
“I can probably get by on five.”
“Good. I have that in my office safe downstairs. Go get the lay of the land, Mr. Quarry, and come back to me with a recommendation.”
“You mean, whether to pop pop, or his kid, or both?”
“You are a man of quiet eloquence, Mr. Quarry.”
“Fuckin’ A.”
So now I was in the dreary Lucky Devil casino, where I lost twenty bucks playing craps but won fifty at blackjack, the dealer of which was a redheaded gal with short permed hair and a trowel of well-arranged makeup on her almost pretty face.
“Is there any poker here?” I asked. I had her to myself at the moment.
She wore a black vest over a white shirt with a black string tie. “There’s a private game. Strictly for high rollers.”
I decided not to be a jerk and point out that there was no “rolling” in poker, high or low or otherwise, and said, “How much is the buy-in?”
She confirmed it as a thousand and I said, “I can make that happen. How do you make the game happen?”
“Doesn’t start till one. Goes all night.”
“Define ‘all night.’ ”
“Dawn or so. Usually breaks up around six.”
“Just one table?”
“Yeah. The boss himself deals.”
“Just deals?”
“No, he plays, too. He says the house always has an advantage, and his advantage is, he always deals.”
“But does he always win?”
“No. It’s a straight game. Would I lie to you?”
I showed her a hundred. “Would you?”
She took it. “No. What’s your name?”
“Jack Gibson.”
“In five minutes, I take a break. You’re lucky-Wednesday’s the only weeknight there’s a game. I’ll put your name in then, if there’s an opening. I’ll let you know.”
I played an ancient slot till she came over and said, “You’re in,” giving me a white chip with a magic-marker checkmark on it. “Go in at quarter till.” She nodded toward a door next to one of the lifeguard-stand bouncers.
This meant I had around two hours to kill, and I wanted to relax, so I wandered back through the Southern Rock dance club into the center bar and on through another set of double doors into the Lucky Devil’s strip club.
It was pretty basic-the music here, courtesy of an idiot DJ in a booth who was also flashing disco lights over the stage, consisted of relatively current hits-“Talking in Your Sleep” by the Romantics was going right now, and the short busty brunette in a cowboy hat and fringed vest and g-string was into it, working one of two poles on the single long narrow stage around which all the chairs were taken. Males of every variety, except gay, were seated there-young, old, blue-collar, college-kid, bank president, janitor, middle-aged, geezer, you name it, each with dollar in hand, eager for a stripper to come over, rub her tits in his face, and let him deposit the buck in her g-string.
I had no trouble finding a table toward the back. The room was lined in mirrors, which made it seem bigger and also put naked dancing female flesh everywhere, even though there was only one girl on stage at a time. Strippers in g-strings and pasties and feather boas and heels were trolling for guys to give table dances to, but not always succeeding, since that was five bucks not a single.
The girls were all under thirty, most closer to twenty, and seemed a mix of locals (possibly more of that community college talent) and gals on the circuit. I can’t explain how I knew this, other than to say about half of the dancers were breast-enhanced, and the others weren’t. Obviously, the road girls had the fake tits and the locals what God have given them. Most of the customers hooted and hollered and even invested in table dances, when the girls had big enough fake tits.
I had zero interest in fake tits, but to each his own. The girl I did find of interest, which is to say who hard-ened my dick, was clearly local-she was very pretty, blue-eyed, pouty of mouth, with straight blonde, seemingly natural hair, modified by a Farrah Fawcett flip that was a decade or so out of date. She had a pert dimpled ass that defied gravity, and wonderful pale creamy flesh, but her boobs were too small for the room.
They were just right for me. They perched on her rib cage with tip-tilting authority, perfect handfuls that these other cretins couldn’t appreciate. This cretin and his throbbing dick were most appreciative. I was on my third beer, by the way.
And in fact, I had just gotten rid of it or anyway its predecessors and was heading back from the john for my table when I felt a hand on my arm, and turned to look right into the little stripper’s big blue eyes.
“Can you do me a favor?”
She was either actually asking for a favor, or damn good. No, I didn’t think she was in love with me…
“See that guy over there-stuffing a dollar into Heather’s g-string? Be subtle.”
I flicked a glance at a beefy, make that fat, biker with a leather cap and more facial hair than two Grateful Dead band members-kind of an awful hair color, too, a yellow that tried to be red but didn’t make it.
“He’ll want a table dance,” she said. “I have to work the room or get fired, so I can’t, you know, turn him down or just disappear.”
“You want me to buy a table dance, I’ll buy a table dance.”
This was not nearly as hard as she was making it. Not that she wasn’t making it hard…
“He’s been here before,” she said. “He’s persistent. He puts his hand down in my front. I don’t do that. I’m not that kind of dancer.”
This was interesting to hear, since the Lucky Devil’s strip club was raunchy indeed-the girls took off their pasties and g-strings at the end of their first song. And they danced to three songs…