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supper, then back to the blackjack table. You know I got the house beat for almost fifty
grand and they've been grinding me for a week?"
"Yeah," Johnny Fontane said. "Who do you want to leave it to when you croak?"
Nino drained his glass empty. "Johnny, where the hell did you get your rep as a
swinger? You're a deadhead, Johnny. Christ, the tourists in this town have more fun
than you do."
Johnny said, "Yeah. You want a lift to that blackjack table?"
Nino struggled erect on the sofa and planted his feet firmly on the rug. "I can make it,"
he said. He let the glass slip to the floor and got up and walked quite steadily to where
the blackjack table had been set up. The dealer was ready. The pit boss stood behind
the dealer watching. The relief dealer sat on a chair away from the table. The cocktail
waitress sat on another chair in a line of vision so that she could see any of Nino
Valenti's gestures.
Nino rapped on the green baize with his knuckles. "Chips," he said.
The pit boss took a pad from his pocket and filled out a slip and put it in front of Nino
with a small fountain pen. "Here you are, Mr. Valenti," he said. "The usual five thousand
to start." Nino scrawled his signature on the bottom of the slip and the pit boss put it in
his pocket. He nodded to the dealer.
The dealer with incredibly deft fingers took stacks of black and gold one-hundred-
dollar chips from the built-in racks before him. In not more than five seconds Nino had
five even stacks of one-hundred-dollar chips before him, each stack had ten chips.
There were six squares a little larger than playing card, shapes etched in white on the
green baize, each square placed to correspond to where a player would sit. Now Nino
was placing bets on three of these squares, single chips, and so playing three hands
each for a hundred dollars. He refused to take a hit on all three hands because the
dealer had a six up, a bust card, and the dealer did bust. Nino raked in his chips and
turned to Johnny Fontane. "That's how to start the night, huh, Johnny?"
Johnny smiled. It was unusual for a gambler like Nino to have to sign a chit while
gambling. A word was usually good enough for the high rollers. Maybe they were afraid
Мультиязыковой
Nino wouldn't remember his take-out because of his drinking. They didn't know that
Nino remembered everything.
186
Nino kept winning and after the third round lifted a finger at the cocktail waitress. She
went to the bar at the end of the room and brought him his usual rye in a water glass.
Nino took the drink, switched it to his other hand so he could put an arm around the
waitress. "Sit with me, honey, play a few hands; bring me luck."
The cocktail waitress was a very beautiful girl, but Johnny could see she was all cold
hustle, no real personality, though she worked at it. She was giving Nino a big smile but
her tongue was hanging out for one of those black and gold chips. What the hell,
Johnny thought, why shouldn't she get some of it? He just regretted that Nino wasn't
getting something better for his money.
Nino let the waitress play his hands for a few rounds and then gave her one of the
chips and a pat on the behind to send her away from the table. Johnny motioned to her
to bring him a drink. She did so but she did it as if she were playing the most dramatic
moment in the most dramatic movie ever made. She turned all her charm on the great
Johnny Fontane. She made her eyes sparkle with invitation, her walk was the sexiest
walk ever walked, her mouth was very slightly parted as if she were ready to bite the
nearest object of her obvious passion. She resembled nothing so much as a female
animal in heat, but it was a deliberate act. Johnny Fontane thought, oh, Christ, one of
them. It was the most popular approach of women who wanted to take him to bed. It
only worked when he was very drunk and he wasn't drunk now. He gave the girl one of
his famous grins and said, "Thank you, honey." The girl looked at him and parted her
lips in a thank-you smile, her eyes went all smoky, her body tensed with the torso
leaning slightly back from the long tapering legs in their mesh stockings. An enormous
tension seemed to be building up in her body, her breasts seemed to grow fuller and
swell burstingly against her thin scantily cut blouse. Then her whole body gave a slight
quiver that almost let off a sexual twang. The whole impression was one of a woman
having an orgasm simply because Johnny Fontane had smiled at her and said, "Thank
you, honey." It was very well done. It was done better than Johnny had ever seen it
done before. But by now he knew it was fake. And the odds were always good that the