Connie Heath sat alone in her hotel room, looking out at the glittering lights of the casinos. It was time for her to face up to the cruel facts of life and she knew it. She could no longer put off the inevitable. She was broke and she needed money. Big money. The kind of money she had to have if she was ever going to make a big killing at the roulette or dice table. The kind of money a girl could never earn working as a waitress or secretary. There was only one way to get that kind of money...
Connie stared across the room into the mirror. Why not? She wouldn't have to do anything she hadn't done before. She was young and pretty and she knew how to please a man... whatever his type, whatever his need. It wouldn't be easy at first but after a while, it would become a habit, a routine, a business of give and take.
She rose to her feet and walked over to the telephone and stared down at it. The important thing was the money. She had to keep thinking of the money. She couldn't waste time with any squares; she had to make contact with the fast-action boys, the big-spenders, the high-rollers. She had that contact.
Connie dialed the number and waited for Dolly to answer. "Dolly? This is Connie Heath. I've been thinking about what we discussed the other day." She paused, drawing a deep, long breath. "When do I start?"
CHAPTER ONE
Connie Heath pulled the sheaf of papers from her typewriter, slipped out the carbons, dropped the original atop the letters awaiting signatures. Lushly lashed blue eyes, dark with restlessness, consulted her watch. Thank heaven, the end of the day! The end of the week.
Connie pushed her chair back from the desk, sighed as she lifted the statuesque, stacked body that had won her half a dozen small-town beauty titles at seventeen. Six months today at Carmine Enterprises. She glanced about distastefully at her own small, strictly utilitarian cubicle, the equally uninspired cubicles that flanked hers. What would have happened to Connie Heath if she hadn't got married at eighteen, and had herself disqualified, right in the semi-finals, for the state beauty title? Resentment stirred in her, even six years later, because she still suspected that George reported their secret marriage to the contest committee.
Six years ago, Connie thought with a flicker of humor, she might even have been impressed at working in an office high above Sunset Boulevard. In those days Sunset and Vine was the epitome of glamour. Her major reading consisted of movie magazines, with their publicity-born stories of the stars. How far might Connie Heath have gone if she had used her head?
She dropped the letters into a folder, reached into the top drawer for the small envelope, too conscious of the envelope's contents. The round-trip ticket to Las Vegas, for her boss. In Los Angeles over a year, Connie remembered wryly, and she had never made the popular trek to Vegas. Of all people, Connie Heath!
Connie left her cubicle, sauntered down the un-carpeted corridor, aware that the clatter of her high heels automatically commanded the appreciative attention of males along the route. She paused before the oak door that led to her boss's inner sanctum, knocked lightly, and entered. He was on the phone, both feet propped across desk drawers pulled forth for just that purpose.
"Honey, I just got through telling you," he was saying with exaggerated solicitude. "Why do you want to waste a weekend sitting around a hotel room in Frisco? I'll be all tied up in business conferences." He shook his head eloquently, for Connie's benefit. "Look I'll try to catch an early train back Sunday evening, and we'll go out somewhere for dinner, okay?" He covered the phone, whispered to Connie. "You pick up the reservations?"
"Right here." She smiled reassuringly, dropped the airlines envelope before him. "Seven o'clock flight," she warned.
"That's my doll," he crooned, then released the hand across the mouth of the phone to graze her curvaceous rump.
That was as far as he would go, Connie reminded herself. Touching lightly and looking. Right now, as he listened to his wife at the other end of the phone, he was growing restless in his chair because Connie's breasts jutted unbelievably beneath her summer knit as she arranged the letters before him for signature. Touching lightly and looking had netted her a substantial increase in salary, Connie reminded herself realistically.
"Have fun in Vegas," Connie whispered, smiled provocatively and sauntered from the room.
In the washroom, the cluster of girls before the mirror were absorbed in makeup repairs. The room wore the convivial air of a pre-weekend afternoon. Connie reached into her purse for a brush, coaxed the almost-black hair into a flattering fillip about her perfectly chiseled jawline.
A faint smile touched her mouth. The other girls here in the office still didn't entirely trust her. Oh well, she was accustomed to this. Who needed them? Still, there were times when she would have been glad for a real friend, feminine gender. None, since she had begun to pop out that way at fourteen. Always, a string of fellows, though.
The blonde receptionist standing beside Connie watched with a glint in her eyes while Connie fastened a necklace about her throat, added matching earrings, thus giving the black summer knit date status.
"Fabulous weekend?" the blonde drawled curiously.
"Usual," Connie shrugged, blue eyes noncommittal.
She inspected herself with cool objectivity. Her milk-white skin was a standout beside the California tans. Frank Lodge was about to go out of his mind for her, she remembered with momentary complacency, anticipating tonight's date. Frank was the top salesman in the firm, drawing fifteen thousand a year, rumor advised. Frank was good-looking, even in this town of good-looking men, Connie conceded.
"What's that perfume you're wearing?" the blonde sniffed appreciatively.
"Here, try it," she offered, knowing the girl would be impressed by the name on the bottle.
Frank had been dating her, irregularly, for three months. Now he was beginning to press. She hadn't slept with anybody for six months, Connie thought humorously. She felt almost like a virgin again. Okay, maybe tonight, she promised herself, thinking of Frank, parked at the curb downstairs, waiting for her in his current-model white convertible. Maybe that way she could get rid of this awful restlessness.
It was that lousy ticket for Vegas, Connie thought-- that and keeping clear of the action these six months at Carmine--that had her so hopped up today. Nothing but a few bucks a week on the number, another few on the ponies. She churned with a need to get into action again. Vegas was supposed to be a real gasser.
"See you Monday," the blonde chirped, handing back the perfume bottle with a look of respect. Wondering how Connie Heath, with her ninety a week salary, managed to buy perfume that cost twenty bucks an ounce?
Thank goodness, the washroom mob had ebbed away to nothing. Connie thought in relief. She needed these few minutes alone before she dashed downstairs to meet Frank. Her mind had been churning all day, ever since the old boy had given her the order to pick up the Vegas flight reservation, with the knowledge that Connie Heath had piled up a delicious nest egg of seven hundred. All in tens and twenties, tucked away in a separate wallet in her one-room efficiency.
There was a time when a ten dollar bill was like a quarter now, Connie thought reminiscently, when she was on a winning kick. But the kicks never lasted! How far would seven hundred take her in Las Vegas? Excitement spiraled in her, lending a glow in her eyes. What would it be like with a bankroll in Vegas?
Connie glanced at her watch. Frank would be at the curb. She hurried from the washroom, down the corridor, out into the reception room to ring for the elevator. She heard her boss's voice in the rear, in jocular conversation with a pair of salesmen. Making cracks about his weekend in Vegas. Out there, it was legal-- all the action you wanted! Black jack, roulette, craps, the works. Connie shuddered. God, that awful last time at the tables, when the police raided the room! She had managed to get out clear, but badly shaken.
The elevator slid to a stop at her floor. The door opened. Connie walked into the elevator with a sense of escape. How she hated working in an office! She balked at taking orders. She loathed living within a budget. With a fleeting nostalgia, she remembered the two years of her marriage. For a while it had been fun. To be able to sleep as late as she liked in the morning, no worrying about getting in to a job. Until the boredom set in. That was the beginning of the end. Even now, four years after George flew out to Reno to divorce her, it was painful to remember those final few months.
"Off for the weekend?" The elevator operator grinned with breezy admiration. He was the one who took numbers for the building. He steered her to a bookie, too, though with frank reluctance. To him the ponies were strictly for suckers.
"Not with what I've been winning with you," she chided, obediently falling in with his Friday afternoon pleasantry. They were alone in the elevator until it stopped four floors below.
Connie sauntered through the lobby, her mind returning compulsively to the airlines ticket to Vegas. But she was through with the real gambling! Just the few bucks each week on numbers and the ponies. She had sworn off, Connie reminded herself, dodging a closed-in feeling of panic.
Frank was in the car, as she expected. He leaned forward to open the door for her. "Hello, Beautiful."
"Hi," she murmured throatily, aware of the way his eyes swept over her voluptuous length. The body that was supposed to carry her right to the top. So far there had been little of the cream. "Hope you're feeling rich," she warned. "I'm starving."
"I'm starving, too." His eyes were candid as they met hers. "The way you keep me out in the cold!"
"I hate being rushed." She moved in closely, so that her hips brushed his. Frank Lodge was good-looking, ambitious, hard-working. Every single girl in the office looked at him with the same idea in mind. Except Connie Heath.
Marriage had been such a horrendous disappointment. She really thought she had it made when George blew into town, made that wild pitch for her. Why had he wanted a wife? To him sex was dirty, something to be grabbed in the dark, to be hid. He had been shocked when she was responsive.
"I haven't exactly rushed you," Frank reminded gently. "If it were any other girl, I would have left the range long ago."
"I know." She bestowed a dazzling smile on him. His patience was monumental, in a town where beautiful girls popped up like grass. "Frank, you're sweet."
"Give me a chance to prove it." He was silent for a few moments, piloting the car through the tangled rush-hour traffic.
"Maybe I will," she capitulated softly. She wasn't the type to lead a celibate life. No gambling, no sex-- no wonder she was ready to jump out of her skin.
"How about a drink before dinner?" he offered casually. Connie recognized the undertone of excitement in his voice. "My place."
"Okay," she acquiesced. Better this than a crap table.
They pushed their way through the maze of traffic, finally turning off into a thinning area. Frank's building was a high-riser, faintly pretentious, and she sensed he took pride in having a good address. He could afford it--single and on his salary. The trouble with her, Connie rebuked herself, she had long since lost her sense of values. What was fifteen thousand a year in this age of inflation?
"The place is small," Frank said as he shoved open the door for her to enter, "but it's comfortable."
"It's lovely," she admitted instantly, not expecting anything quite so expensively furnished. Good taste, too.
"I had a winning streak over a weekend out in Vegas," he said, touching off sparks in her. "I grabbed the loot in my hot little hands and ran," he grinned.
"Smart boy," she approved. Why couldn't she ever be that bright? God, how she had gotten into hock, that last year with George! She had owed every two-bit bookie in Sacramento! She tightened inside, not wanting to think about the finance company who cleaned the house of every stick of furniture when she couldn't meet the payments. The contempt in George's eyes when he found out his wife was a compulsive gambler. Oh, he had run out fast!
"What are you drinking?" Frank sauntered behind the bar, his eyes resting with warm anticipation on the lavish dimensions of her breasts.
"It doesn't really matter," Connie said frankly. "Whatever you're having."
"Scotch," he said, eyes trailing down the length of her. "Go provide us with music." He nodded towards the hi-fi.
"Whatever you say," she said with mock demure-ness, her hips swinging provocatively as she crossed to the hi-fi. She would lay odds he was madly passionate, Connie guessed, aware of an eagerness within herself. None of George's phoniness, either. George never let her forget he had made it before they got married. To her husband, every woman was a potential tramp.
Music sneaked seductively into the room, enveloping Connie, building excitement in her. She swayed, eyes closed, giving herself up to the rhythm of the swelling orchestra. It had been so long since a man touched her! Now she tingled inside, shaky with anticipation. A familiar bravado blending in with the anticipation because George Heath had made her believe that it was somehow shameful for a woman to be so responsive to passion. At least, in those stretches of time when George went off on his business trips and left her alone, she hadn't chased around with other men. Gambling became the other man in their marriage.
"I wish I didn't have that long drive ahead tonight," Frank was saying regretfully. She had forgot; Frank told her they would have to break early tonight. He was driving up the Coast for an early business appointment tomorrow morning. Nobody touched Frank for sales, Connie remembered the office grapevine. Frank was the fair-haired boy. "But we'll make up, Connie." His voice was a husky murmur as he walked to her, glasses in hand. "Skoal."
"Skoal." Connie touched her glass to his, then sipped at the Scotch. A light scotch, pleasing to the taste. Resting warm inside her, "You've been keeping me awake nights, baby," he rebuked. He took a long swig from his glass, set it down.
"On you it looks good." She shot him an enigmatic smile, whose potency she knew.
"Save some of that for later," he chuckled, taking the glass from her, setting it beside his own. "Besides, I have a better use for this." He grazed her mouth with a fingertip, then reached to pull her in closely against him.
"Like what?" she mocked, because her breasts were nuzzled against his shirt front, nipples already hardening.
"Like this."
His mouth came down on hers. Even in high heels she wasn't as tall as Frank, Connie thought with subconscious satisfaction. His mouth opened, tongue sought entrance to find hers. Passion rippled through her. Her arms tightened as his were tightening. Their tongues met, made frenzied love. A pulse came to life deep within her. It had been such a long time, she thought in glorious relief!
"It's worth waiting for the real thing," Frank whispered, his hands stroking her breasts, finding the nipples beneath the delicate knit of her dress. Building the passion in her to exquisite torture. Not like this, she rejected silently. His hands on her, with nothing between them.
"Waiting's over," she reminded, voice low with desire. Let him not waste another minute, she thought, impatience surging through her. Her hips moved insinuatingly into his. He wanted her, she thought pleasurably. The way she wanted him!
"That's right."
His body moved with hers as his hands cruised about her back. One hand settling on the zipper of her dress, coaxing it down its track. Connie waited, eyes half-shut, mouth moistly parted. Oh, she needed this!
"Let me," she said urgently after a moment because Frank was having difficulty. The rotten zipper would have to get stuck.
Connie reached behind, maneuvered, guided the zipper down its length. Heard the low sound of excitement in his voice as he guided the dress from her shoulders, saw the curvaceous whiteness of her bounce into sight. Nipples taut, set in huge dusky circles, unhidden beneath the sheerness of her brassiere.
"You'd make a mint posing for girlie magazines," he quipped, his hands reaching to capture the high spill of her.
"I'm not the type," she reproached, pleased at his response. On impulse her hands reached for the hooks of her brassiere, released them. George had slapped her across the mouth once, for doing that.
"Oh, baby," he groaned.
His mouth was at a nipple, the tongue coaxing passion to unbelievable heights in her. To George it was all right for him to go crazy. The woman was supposed to be passive. What kind of a woman could be passive at a moment like this? Her hands cradled Frank's head. Fingers finding an earlobe, encouraging.
His hands were at her waist, grappling with the knit sheath, impatient to free her. The touch of his hands, his mouth, making her exquisitely conscious of her body. Her clothes in a heap about her feet as she swayed before him. Eyes shut, all of her abandoned to the joy of feeling.
"Wait for me," he ordered, husky with impatience, stripping swiftly before her. He was built so well, she thought with pleasure. And passionate! Wow!
"I'm not going anywhere," she reminded with low laughter. Glad that her body was designed to please a man. Better than at seventeen, she gloried, relishing the looks Frank shot at her as he stripped. And she had learned, Connie admitted with inner candor. Even from George, who loved her almost in defiance, she had learned. And the others after George, because for a while she found savage pleasure in the number of men to whom she could give herself. As though in this way getting back at George. Yes, she had learned!
"Correction," Frank said hoarsely. "We're going somewhere. Straight to the moon!"
His hands on her. Everywhere. His mouth on her. Everywhere. Her body clamorous, ecstatic, demanding. Her voice whispering impassioned entreaties, inhibitions dissolved. Bodies writhing, searching, finding. Exploding.
"Oh, Frank, Frank!" A scream of ecstasy escaped her as she clung to him and was drowned in his desire. "Oh, Frank, darling!"
* * *
They lay together on the wide, low sofa, Connie's head pillowed on Frank's shoulder as he talked.
"You'll see, baby," he promised. "I'll be a district manager before this year is over. Seventeen thousand for sure. We'll buy a house, maybe out in the Valley. You'll have your own car. We'll have it made, baby."
"Frank, don't push me too fast," she said urgently. Suddenly she was tense with uncertainty. She felt so good now, so relaxed. But marriage? Seventeen thousand a year, a house in the Valley? Could Connie Heath settle for that?
"I know," Frank chuckled. "You hate being rushed. So we'll wait a few months." A hand closed in at her breast. "So long as we have nights like this one to keep me from going stir crazy."
"Frank, you said you have to leave early." She clutched at an excuse to break away. "If you have an early appointment, you should get a decent night's sleep. How can you talk business properly if you're bushed?"
"But it's so early, honey," Frank rejected.
"It's a long drive." Suddenly Connie churned with a need to put distance between them. "You know what weekend traffic is like."
"I hate to break up this way," he said reluctantly, yet Connie sensed he was thinking about the long drive ahead of him tonight.
"There'll be other times," she insisted briskly, untangling herself. "Get yourself set, drop me off at my place, and make tracks for your appointment."
"Making noises like a wife already," he protested kiddingly.
"Frank, I was married before," she said slowly. "It was an awful bust."
"You don't faze me," he said softly, with masculine certainty. "I'm willing to gamble."
"Get ready for your trip," she ordered, an edge to her voice. What did Frank Lodge know about gambling? What did he know about the depths to which a woman could drop when she needed money for action? But she had never sold herself, she remembered with a shaky pride. She had held back from that. She had lied, cheated, borrowed, begged. She had posed for a series of nude pictures, twice. But nobody had touched her. They had merely looked. Connie felt sick when she remembered those pictures.
"I'll drop by Sunday night if I don't get back into town too late," Frank promised. "Okay, baby?"
"You do that," Connie murmured, with a synthetic glow of encouragement.
She didn't want to marry Frank Lodge, Connie admitted in inner rebellion. She wasn't ready to settle for a twenty-eight thousand dollar split level, a new car every four years, her clothes bought off a rack in a department store. She wasn't ready to settle for that! Not with the money loose in this world!
Seven hundred dollars in that wallet stuck away in the bottom of her closet. How far would seven hundred take her in Las Vegas? Exhilaration rose to high tide in her. Tonight, for the first time in months she felt like living. She felt lucky. How long would it take her to drive to Vegas tonight?
CHAPTER TWO
Connie poised indecisively before her closet, her mind collating information she had collected through the years about Vegas. This was a swinging town, on an around-the-clock basis. This was the Big League. On weekends it was jammed with visitors from California. If you were hip, Connie remembered, you showed up in evening dress. The only way to walk into a casino on the Strip.
Exhilaration lending a glow to her face, a lift to her body, Connie pulled down a black cocktail dress--a relic of a winning streak. She unzipped the black knit, shoved it down to the floor, kicked it aside. The cocktail dress was cut as low in front as the law allowed. There was a built-in bra, so that all she needed to wear beneath was a pair of sheer black briefs.
Connie inspected herself in the mirror. High white mounds rising above the low-cut neckline. Waist slim, hips narrow, legs fabulous, she summed up without conceit, totaling assets. She opened the small black beaded bag, counted the folded bills. Seven hundred. In this dress, with her bankroll, she could walk into any carpet joint on the Strip and belong.
She hadn't felt so lucky in years, Connie decided jubilantly. This was the way it happened, in a matter of hours. Suddenly, the whole world was yours. You walked in with seven hundred, walked out seven hours later with seventy thousand. It happened! Why not to her?
Connie sauntered to the door, hesitated. Okay, take along a valise, just a few things. She walked to the closet, pulled out a weekender, carried it across to the sofa-bed. She dug into a chest, indiscriminately, dumping night clothes, underthings into the weekender. She returned to the closet, pulled down a bathing suit, a turquoise sheath. She wouldn't be staying more than a day or two, she reminded herself guiltily, but didn't it make sense to take along a change of clothes?
One great thing about Vegas--the action never stopped. Tonight was meant to be. Everything kept yelling "Vegas" at her. Buying the airline tickets on her lunch hour, having Frank throw Vegas at her when he talked about furnishing the apartment with the killing he made, her being alone on a Friday night. Vegas was written on the slate for her!
Connie glanced about the motel unit. Not a mirror in the room. Well, she hadn't checked in here to look at herself. Just to have a local address. Maybe there would be a mirror in the bathroom. She walked inside, discovered a 5x7 faintly distorted mirror hanging above the wash basin. For the next few minutes she concentrated on touching up her makeup. It was wild, she thought with exhilaration--heading for the gambling casinos at this hour of the night!
She locked the door to Unit Fourteen, making a mental note of the number. She hurried to the ancient-vintage convertible, won six months ago at a poker table, slid beneath the wheel, conscious of the high feeling that always preceded a chance at the brass ring.
"Oh, damn!" Connie swore exasperatedly, clutching at the wheel as it swerved to the extreme left. What a devil of a time to have a flat!
"Troubles?" a masculine voice inquired sympathetically, from her right.
"Oh, I'm having a ball," she tossed back bitterly. Then decided on a switch in tactics. The blue eyes were luminous, wistful, as they regarded the man standing beside an old-model suburban in the next parking area. Subconsciously, she recognized that he was young, undeniably good-looking. "What do you do around this town about a flat?" she asked softly, leaning forward so that he couldn't miss the eye-catching dimensions of her bustline.
"Wish I could help," he apologized, held up a strapped wrist. His smile was warm, pleasing. "Sprained this a couple of days ago."
"Tough luck," she sympathized, waiting.
He hesitated a moment. "I can drive you into town if that'll help," he offered, dark eyes settling on the view. "I can still manage to drive. You can have the flat fixed first thing in the morning."
"Would you?" Connie accepted with alacrity, edging across the seat to the door. He was just being nice --she wouldn't have to worry about trouble with him. "I drove out tonight on the spur of the moment. I have to be back at my job in Los Angeles Monday morning."
"That figures." He smiled whimsically, pulling open the door for her.
Any other time, if the casinos were not waiting for her, Connie thought, she would be highly impressed by his potential. His suit was good but not expensive. He had the wide shoulders, narrow hips, flat tummy, that could get by without custom tailoring. His car looked one step from the junkyard. But his was the kind of face that told her he wasn't run of the mill. Different. Interesting. A quality that touched off sparks in her.
"I'll die if I don't get a crack at the casinos!" Make it sound tourist-y, Connie coached herself. "You know how everybody hears about Vegas and the fabulous places--and here I was with an open weekend." She switched on the Connie Heath charm, full blast, noting that his eyes followed the length of her legs as she stepped from the car.
"You could do better with an open weekend than drive out to Vegas," he said, a tight look about his face. A loser, Connie interpreted.
"How long can you live in Los Angeles without succumbing to Vegas?" Connie challenged.
He held open the door to the suburban, for Connie to slide through to the other side.
"I never lived in Los Angeles," he said leisurely. "I came all the way from the East Coast. Non-stop." A secret humor, that seemed aimed at ridiculing himself, in the volatile brown eyes. He settled himself behind the wheel, closed the door, reached for the ignition.
"New York?" Connie asked with rising interest. She had never got further east than Chicago.
"That's right. From the city to the desert wilderness. I should have kept on teaching school." Bitterness creeping in now.
"You were a school teacher?" Laughter lit her eyes. It would have been her last guess!
"I flew out to Vegas during the Christmas holidays," he said wryly. "With a system. Anybody ever tell you the folly of a system?"
"I believe in luck," Connie said firmly. "Either you have it, or you don't." He was really attractive, Connie decided. And nice, to drive her into town this way. She wouldn't have trouble with him, she guessed instinctively. By now she knew when a fellow was plotting a pass. When luck was on your side, it went all the way. Even to the kind of men you met.
"I'm Bert Reid," he introduced himself. His voice was low, mellow. "Ex-mathematics teacher, ex-gambler, currently a Black Jack dealer at the Coronet. You must have heard of the newest addition to the Strip," he drawled with dry humor. "It makes a Hollywood set look like the side show."
"I've heard," Connie nodded. "Connie Heath, secretary," she added casually. "Out to see the town."
For an instant his eyes left the road. She was startled at the intensity in the fleeting look. "If you're half as bright as you look, Connie Heath, you'll blow before you put down a buck," he warned. "Or sightsee, gape at the suckers, then beat it back to your safe little pad."
"Why aren't you back teaching mathematics?" she countered. No money in teaching, her mind registered automatically. He couldn't have been teaching long-- he couldn't be much over twenty-five.
"I told you," he reminded calmly. "I flew out here with a system. A wing-ding world beater. So I wound up a shill for two months, a runner for seven weeks.
Pay, ten bucks a day," he said with grim humor. "Three weeks ago I got promoted to Black Jack dealer. When I build up the bankroll to pay for a flight out, back I head home."
"I stayed away a long time," she said after a moment. "Just puttering around these last six months. Numbers, ponies, even church bingo," she admitted with a little laugh. "Then tonight--" she snapped her fingers. "I couldn't stay away any longer. You know the feeling you get sometimes? You know it's your time?" Her eyes swung to him. Dark blue with exultation. Bert Reid knew the score; he would understand. "I'll find out fast enough if I'm handing myself a line."
"How much you planning to lose?" he asked harshly.
"Two hundred," she said quietly. "That's as far as I can go." Seven hundred, she sang inside. Seven hundred that could run up to almost anything!
"I'll go with you," he offered. "You won't have to worry on the Strip. You'll get an honest shake. You lose your two hundred, baby," he said gently, "then you get into your California-licensed convertible and head for home."
"I have a flat, remember?" Her mouth parted in a provocative smile. She liked Bert Reid, even if he could never be a permanent fixture in her life. Not on a teacher's salary.
"I'll find somebody to fix it," he promised. "Maybe you'd rather head down for Glitter Gulch?" he suggested. "Down on Fremont. It's loud, gaudy, and you can lose two hundred in a sawdust joint pretty fast. Ever see a sweet-faced old lady of seventy-three playing four slot-machines at a time?" He chuckled, yet Connie felt his compassion.
"I'm not interested in sweet old ladies of seventy-three," she demurred. "I want to see the real action."
"Okay," he sighed. "The glamour deal it is."
"The Coronet?" Excitement zigzagged through her.
"Why not? What are you playing? Roulette?" he guessed.
"That's right." Her heart was hammering in anticipation now. They weren't a pair of good-looking young people driving through the late night, she thought subconsciously. They were a pair of gamblers, which somehow made them sex-less. "How did you guess it would be roulette?" Actually, she had never taken a whirl at this. The prospect, Connie acknowledged, was stimulating.
"Women usually flip for roulette," Bert explained. "You see it in the casinos all the time. It's the big, beautiful movie bit. A gorgeous babe leaning over the roulette table, winning like mad." His eyes made the trip to the low neckline again, reluctantly retreated.
"The odds are good," Connie reminded. "Right?"
"Best in the casino." He slowed down, waiting for a light to change. "Where did you get so hip so fast?" His eyes probed curiously yet with warmth.
"I started young," she said, bitterness undercoating her voice despite her air of flippancy.
"You won a beauty contest, made tracks for Hollywood," Bert guessed.
"Won contests, yes," she conceded. "Hollywood, no. I'd heard too many stories." Connie stared ahead, oddly disturbed by those probing glances. Bert Reid didn't fit the typical picture. What kind of a line was he throwing her?
"Sure you want to drop that two hundred?" he tried again.
"Sure," she said crisply.
"Okay," he sighed. "I'll buy you dinner first at a chuck-wagon. You can't play roulette on an empty stomach."
* * *
Connie tried not to look impressed as Bert pulled up before the spectacular oasis in the desert that was the Coronet Hotel. What a fabulous sight! Acres and acres of landscaped grounds surrounding a cluster of low, long buildings. Fantastic expanses of glass and stone and rare woods. The block-long sign that announced that this was The Coronet!
"Live up to its press?" Bert asked softly as they walked together from the car to the wide sweep of steps that led to the Coronet lobby. "Of course, even in Vegas the Coronet is a queen."
"Fantastic," Connie admitted, peering through the sweep of glass doors directly ahead of them into the lushly carpeted, exquisitely appointed lobby.
"Most lobbies in hotels, even here on the Strip, are the size of a telephone booth," Bert chuckled, "but the Coronet has gone all out." A doorman opened the doors to admit them into the air-conditioned masterpiece of architecture and the interior decorator's art. "Even piped-in music."
"Where's the casino?" Connie asked, fighting to hide her eagerness. Bert knew, of course. He must have come here with something of the same madness that plagued at her right this minute.
"Off to the side here," Bert said, guiding her through an avenue of machines, all offering games of chance.
That would be the enormous wing she noticed when they drove up, Connie realized, puzzled at the lack of windows. Only high, narrow slots, almost at the roof. They crossed to the wide, double doors that opened automatically at their approach. But the doors with their electric eyes to make entry so simple were guarded. Bert grinned as he caught the startled look on Connie's face when she saw the six-feet-four, two-hundred fifty-pound guard on duty just inside the doors.
"Quiet little spot," Connie jibed, masking her excitement at the view that sprawled before them. It sounded like the Tower of Babel! The looks on the faces of the players captured her attention. These were people who--like her--took their gambling seriously.
"You said roulette?" Bert lifted an eyebrow in wry humor. "Right?"
"Right." Her heart pounded with anticipation, with that familiar sense of having her whole life hanging in limbo.
Bert guided her through the noisy throng, towards the single layout roulette table Connie spied far down the over-sized room.
"No windows," he pointed out in amusement. "Just the high slots up towards the ceiling, conveniently draped. "No clocks. Nothing to distract the player's attention from the tables. Not even a place to sit--except at the tables."
"Good enough," Connie accepted exuberantly.
Her eyes rested, with brief curiosity, on an exquisite Oriental girl with lilac hair to match her gown, who leaned absorbedly over a Black Jack table. Across from the girl sat an immensely heavy man in an oddly high wheel chair, dozing.
"He'll be there all night," Bert whispered, following her gaze. "The wheel chair was built so he could see above the table without trouble. He's been here for months--the talk is he's lost over a hundred thousand so far."
Two o'clock in the morning, Connie marveled, but it might have been nine in the evening! Clusters of lights made the room brilliant. The appointments shrieked of extravagant outlay: wall-to-wall carpeting, hand-painted brocades, casino equipment that must represent a fortune in cash. Mink stoles and dinner jackets as common as swimsuits at the beach.
Involuntarily, Connie's eyes widened as she swung about to look at a familiar pair across the room. A pair of top Hollywood names, draped over a crap table, completely absorbed in the game. She could imagine the stakes for which they were playing!
"This is one of the top spots," Bert reminded her. "Twenty tables in operation, night and day. The action never stops--the shifts of employees just change."
"The roulette table," Connie said, excitement cy-cloning in her. "That's for me."
Connie's eyes rested on the two dinner-jacketed croupiers, the expensively garbed players in varying moods. Bert pulled out an empty chair. She sat down, reaching for the small beaded purse.
"What are the odds?" Connie asked Bert, knowing but eager for confirmation.
"Thirty-five to one."
The shining gold, red, and black against the brilliant green felt, the metallic glitter of the wheel, everything about the roulette table exhilarated Connie. She opened the small beaded bag, covertly pulled forth bills, bought chips from the croupier.
"What's the maximum on a straight number?" she asked Bert, hovering above her with a look of unease.
"Twenty-five," he said apprehensively.
"I feel lucky." She smiled dazzlingly. The number of her motel unit. Fourteen. She placed chips on Number Fourteen, Red.
"Hey, baby," Bert whispered. "Don't be in such a rush."
"I told you," she tossed back. "I feel lucky."
"No more bets," the dealer announced calmly, and Connie stiffened to attention.
The ball slowed down, fell back the back track, came to a stop. Connie's heart pounded, her eyes glistening.
"Fourteen red," the dealer verified, briskly collecting losing bets, paying off the winner.
"See what I mean?" Connie gloated, her eyes challenging Bert's.
"It happens," he agreed. "It would be useless to suggest you stop?"
"I'd be a nut," she laughed, exhilaration charging her. "Forty-one, black," she said, her mind settling on a plan. Fourteen in reverse, reverse color, then back again, to fourteen red! She was on a winning streak! She knew it!
"No more bets," the dealer announced again, and Connie leaned forward, mouth parted breathlessly, Blue eyes fastened to the ball.
"Forty-one black," the dealer identified the winning number.
"Lovely, lovely," Connie crooned as the dealer waited for the croupier to stack chips to be delivered to her. Here it was, finally, that winning streak that could mean the world! Already, Connie sensed the interest in the others about the table, watching for her next choice. "Fourteen red!"
"Why don't you cut out after this?" Bert coaxed as the ball began its spin.
"When I'm winning?" Connie reproached, her eyes aglow with confidence. "Bert, with a thirty-five to one pay-off? When I'm winning?"
"It won't take long to lose that," he reminded.
"I'd like a drink," Connie said exuberantly, aware of the cocktail waitresses moving about the room. Drinks on the house, she remembered. "Order something for us."
"All right," he said tiredly, and signaled.
Connie fastened her eyes to the wheel again. A tightening in the pit of her stomach as the dealer identified the winning number.
"Fifteen black."
"A drink and we'll clear out," Bert tried again, sounding casual. "Tomorrow the tables will still be here." He kept his voice low. He was an employee of the Coronet, Connie remembered. It was out of character for an employee to drag away business.
Her jaw tightening in determination, Connie placed a bet again. The maximum. No small-time stuff tonight. Not when she felt this way. She lost, three times running, but the winnings were enough to make such losses a trifle. On the fourth round, she won. Again on the fifth, the sixth. Many players at the table stopped to watch. Her mind multiplied in dizzy ecstasy. There was a woman somewhere who walked away with fifteen thousand in one night! In five days took the roulette bank for seventy thousand! When she hit ten thousand, Connie promised herself in heady triumph, she would pick up her chips and cash them in.
A pit waitress brought drinks; Bert collected a couple of chips from the table, dropped them on the waitress' tray. Connie sipped at her glass without tasting, aware only of the exhilaration within her. The money suddenly hers! The attention beamed in her direction, the rumor spreading that there was a heavy winner at the single roulette table. How far ahead was she? Close to seven thousand!
Bert bent low, his mouth close to her ear. "I'll be back in a few minutes," he said softly, but she was hardly aware that he had spoken.
"Miss Heath?" A well-spoken masculine voice intruded gently between plays.
"Yes?" Connie swung to face him, wary at being called by name. Where was Bert? There, behind the dinner-jacketed man with the deferential air. Looking faintly discomforted. "What is it?"
"I'm the casino host," the smiling man introduced himself. "It's late. We've taken the liberty of assigning a suite to you. I'm sure you'll find it to your liking. It faces the pool. There's a terrace. If you wish, we'll send a boy to bring your car and luggage to the hotel immediately."
The ball was spinning again. The dealer boredly calling out "No more bets". Connie hesitated, her mind whirling. The dealer called out the winning number. If she had played, she would have lost.
"My car has a flat," she warned with laughter, already reaching for the key. Bert had been summoned, she understood now, and probed for her identity. "My luggage is in Unit Fourteen at the Sunset Motel."
Why not ride with the tide, Connie decided exultantly? Close to seven thousand on the table before her, in just over an hour's play. She would stake off five thousand, not to be touched. She wouldn't go haywire, Connie cautioned herself. The other two thousand to try at the tables again tomorrow. Look at the woman who took a roulette bank for seventy thousand in five days! How good could she make out before Monday morning? She didn't have to worry about Monday morning, her mind pinpointed. No time limit now. Not with this bankroll. She was on a winning streak. Only an idiot walked out on that.
The casino host pulled back her chair, signaled to the pit boss to cash in Connie's chips. They waited while he made out the cash-out slips, sent a runner to the pit cashier. Bert gave her an odd salute of farewell, turned his back and disappeared into the crowd.
Why was Bert dashing off that way, Connie wondered in irritation? He was the only person she knew in Vegas. Couldn't he bear to see her win?
"Would you like supper sent up to your suite?" the casino host was suggesting with solicitude. "A maid to help you get settled? The hotel gift shop will be happy to send up whatever you need until your luggage arrives."
"Supper for one," Connie ordered coolly, caught up in a glorious unreality. "Surprise me."
She would sleep late tomorrow, go for a swim in that magnificent pool Bert and she saw as they drove up to the Casino. And then back to the tables, Connie told herself with a fresh rush of anticipation. Nobody could stop her now!
CHAPTER THREE
Connie sat before the supper room service had supplied, but ate with little relish. It was too empty, to eat alone in a moment of such heady glory. She finished quickly, then waited, oddly at a loss for activity --because how could she sleep after such a triumph in the casino?
The door chimes sounded in the stillness. Connie suppressed a giggle as she walked to the door. The boy with her valise and car keys, she guessed. The Sunset Motel must have been impressed when a Coronet Hotel station wagon pulled up.
"Luggage, car keys, and a little something for celebration." Bert grinned in the doorway, holding up a bottle of champagne, a pair of glasses sandwiched between his fingers.
"I thought you had deserted me," Connie reproached, exhilaration warming her. There was nothing unusual about their drinking champagne in the morning, she told herself. This was Las Vegas.
"I went on the champagne hunt," he said, rather loudly, then put a finger to his mouth as he walked cautiously about the room, searching behind picture frames, beneath furniture.
Connie closed the door. "What are you looking for?" she demanded, puzzled.
"To see if the suite is bugged," he explained. "I guess they didn't have time to take care of that little item."
"They wouldn't dare!" Connie exclaimed, startled.
"Oh, yes, they would," Bert insisted calmly. "You took the bank for seven thousand tonight. They've got a stake in you, Beautiful."
"I hope you brought along a corkscrew," she said uneasily, only part of her mind on the champagne bottle. The idea of having her suite bugged unnerved her.
"Right here," he said, reaching into his jacket. "Want me to carry that inside for you?" he asked, nodding towards the valise.
"It isn't that heavy," she said quickly. "You mind if I change while you're opening that thing?"
"Go ahead, sweetie. Get out of your working togs and relax," he jeered good-humoredly.
Connie picked up the valise, sauntered into the bedroom. Everything about tonight was unreal. Her winning so fabulously, Bert's being here in her suite at this hour. He might be on the Coronet casino payroll, but the payroll wasn't responsible for the look in Bert Reid's eyes every time they looked at her.
Bert was different from most of the men she had known, Connie thought again. He had tried to get her away from the tables, when it was his job to keep her there! He had been honestly concerned for her, Connie Heath. Most men she had known, Connie remembered in candor, had been mainly interested in what they could get from her.
She dropped the valise across the king-sized bed, reached inside for the red velvet floor-length hostess gown she had bought in an extravagant moment because it made her feel like someone adored and cherished and spoiled. George had been furious whenever she wore red; he said it made her look like a high-priced call girl. But Bert Reid wouldn't say that, she decided, trying vainly to push down a tidal wave of anticipation. She was hungry for the look the red velvet hostess gown was sure to elicit from Bert. Her pulse quickened as she visualized Bert's eyes.
Connie unzipped the black cocktail dress, wriggled so that it slid to the floor. She picked it up, tossed it across a chair, reached for the red velvet. Now in the early morning hours there was a desert coolness drifting in through the open windows. The red velvet was cozily caressing as she pulled it about her near-nudity. Only the sheer black bra and matching panties were beneath.
The first time she had worn black undies, George had cracked her across the mouth. Even now, all these years later, Connie stirred with resentment. It was the first and last time a man had hit her. That had been the end of her marriage, even though they kept up the pretense another year. She wasn't a wife to George. She was a wanton harlot masquerading as his wife. Every time another man looked at her--and with her kind of looks, it was quite often--there would be, afterwards, a loud ugly scene, laden with four-letter invectives that had at first shocked her. It was a relief when he went out to Reno, to the divorce mill.
"Wow!" Bert said with candid admiration when Connie sauntered out into the living room. "You look like some young Hollywood beauty being groomed for the big promotion."
"No talent," she sighed, but was pleased with his reaction. "The story of my life."
"You're a kid." His eyes were somber, despite the tone of raillery. "Your life is just beginning."
"I'm twenty-four," she said calmly, accepting the glass Bert extended. "Old enough to have been married, divorced, on the loose again for four years."
All right, so that sounded like an invitation, Connie admitted self-consciously. They were both old enough. So right this minute she had this absurd need to be loved by Bert Reid. So she had only known him a night. This was Vegas, unlike any other town in the world. Everything was normal in a town where she could walk from a roulette table with seven thousand in winnings in an evening!
"You got hurt in that marriage," Bert said softly.
"No," she denied, head high, eyes bright.
"It shines out from you," he insisted.
"To Vegas!" Connie held her glass to his with a determined conviviality, refusing to accept the serious note.
"To Vegas," he capitulated, and sipped experimentally at the champagne. "Imported," he approved. "You rate. Tonight," he added with a glint of amused warning.
"I wouldn't know the difference," Connie admitted.
Anticipation quickened her pulse because Bert was looking at her with impassioned eyes that made love to the high sweep of her breasts beneath the unexpectedly demure neckline of the red velvet. But there was nothing demure about the way the red velvet displayed the lush breasts, the faintly swelling hips, as it fell to uncompromising narrowness to the floor, the slit at the sides hinting at the beautifully fashioned legs beneath.
"If you're half as bright as I think you are, you'll clear out," Bert said quietly, reaching for her hand. Her eyes widened in astonishment. "Tomorrow," he amended with an indulgent smile.
"I don't see you running," she reminded huskily, welcoming his closeness as he drew her near.
"I'm not the type to hitchhike back to New York," he pointed out. His hands were at her back, moving with excitement.
"Why not give Los Angeles a whirl?" she suggested.
She didn't like the idea of a whole coast between Bert Reid and herself, Connie realized in amazement. But that was tonight, she tried to consider logically-- part of the Vegas picture. You didn't lose your whole perspective over a man you had just met. He had been a ride to the casino for her, Connie reminded herself sharply. She was out of her mind, welcoming him this way I Yet it was going to be right with Bert, she thought with dizzy exhilaration. More right than with anybody, ever.
"New York's my town," he said, but Connie knew he was only making conversation now to mask the towering passion that had enveloped him. "I'm through with the gambling kick. It's off my back."
His mouth met hers, gently exploring at first. And suddenly there was no room for gentleness. His tongue sought the passionate cavern of her mouth. His body swayed with hers as their tongues tasted, tangled, played their absorbing game.
"Wait," he whispered, his mouth at her ear, and she regretted his withdrawal.
She stood in the center of the lush living room, trembling because she couldn't wait to be loved by a man she hardly knew--yet felt she had known forever. Bert was at the window, taking elaborate care to make sure the blinds were tightly shut, the drapes drawn snug. He was so cynical about the whole Vegas picture. Not much older than herself but there was a quiet authority, a strength about him that made him seem older. A man, she thought exultantly.
Her husband had been a child, to whom moments like this, emotions like this, had been dirty. He told her once that his mother had never once appeared before him and his brother except fully clothed. It had infuriated him when she walked about the apartment --on miserably humid days, in the midst of a heat wave, with blinds fully shut--in bra and panties. As though his own arousal were shameful.
"Satisfied?" she mocked when Bert left the windows and crossed the room to her again. She knew this time would be different from any other.
"Cold?" he asked, because she was trembling.
"No." Her eyes met his--luminous with desire. "Not cold," she refuted with a keyed-high laugh. Hot! Oh, how hot!
"I'm glad I was at the motel when you had that flat," he said, his fingers reaching for the button high at her throat.
"But you keep sending me away from Vegas," she reminded, her breasts rising and falling rapidly beneath the red velvet.
"Not now," he refuted, his mouth coming down to meet hers again.
She welcomed the impatient, exploring tongue again, while at the same time his fingers groped for the buttons down the front of the red velvet. The neckline parted. His hand slid beneath, grazed the fragile sheerness of her bra, caught the stiffening tip between strong fingers. Her hands tightened at his shoulders. A man who was neither afraid nor ashamed to love!
"You taste delicious," he murmured with satisfaction, the hand at her breast building her to frenzy. "Nothing phony about you, Connie Heath."
"I don't know how to play games," she admitted huskily. The pink tips taut now in their dusky circles. "That must have been left out of my education. Oh, when he touched her that way!
"With you it's an art," he corrected. "You make me glad I'm a man!" His hand cruised beneath the velvet, over the fragile blackness. A moan rose in her throat, spilled over into the heavy stillness of the room. He wanted her as she wanted him, she rejoiced.
"Bert, let's go inside," she whispered, her body going berserk. For six months she hadn't been near a man, until Frank last night; but now she knew she would be crawling the walls if Bert didn't make love to her. Now, this minute!
His hands thrust aside the limp red velvet, lifted her from the pool of color it made at her feet. Her arms tightened about his neck, her mouth at his ear as he walked, with urgent swiftness, across the thick carpeting into the low lamplight of the bedroom.
"You're beautiful," he murmured, dropping her across the bed, his eyes sweeping the seductive length of her. The lush fullness of white breasts rising like twin mountains from the black net of her bra, the full thighs, beautifully tapered legs.
"I want to be beautiful, for you," she whispered, reaching behind for the snaps of her bra, anticipating his rush of excitement at the white spill of her.
She closed her eyes as he came to her. Strong, knowing hands loving her. Mouth loving her. The hard, lean length of his body impatient now, as she was impatient. Her thighs flexed in painful excitement. Oh, it was going to be good! So good! A cry built in her throat, burst forth, filled the room. As his passion filled her.
"Bert, I could die like this," she whispered in frantic rapture. "Absolutely die!"
* * *
Connie stood at the window, staring at the huge orange-red sun beginning to rise over the desert.
"The management would be pleased with you," she said with a desperate flippancy. "You've made a choice guest very happy." Play it brazenly, Connie exhorted herself. Let Bert Reid know she understood it was all part of the act.
"Cut it," Bert ordered, a dark stain rising up his throat. "I'm not for hire! You know better than that."
"I'm sorry." Instantly, Connie was contrite. "It's just that--that I didn't come to Vegas for that. I wanted you to know."
He smiled wryly. "I know why you came to Vegas, honey. And since when have you short-changed yourself so much as to think a man needed any incentive to make a pitch for you?"
"Sometimes I feel like a tramp," Connie said with candor. "I was a virgin when I married George. Would you believe that? Eighteen, and I'd been pinned beneath a steering wheel all through high school--but I kept drawing lines always. Maybe because everybody expected the worst of me. Ever since I was fourteen.
"You don't need to apologize for tonight," Bert said brusquely. "We're not kids--we knew what we wanted. Stop giving yourself titles, Connie." His eyes were somber, enigmatic as they rested on her.
"My husband was suspicious every time I smiled at a clerk in a store, or even at a delivery boy." Her face was tense with memory. "That was two years of hell-- and when it was over, I went on such a tear!" She closed her eyes eloquently for a moment. "I shudder when I remember."
"When are you going to stop punishing yourself for being beautiful, passionate, and desirable?" Bert asked quietly. "Is that how you started on the gambling streak?"
"I was alone so much. And I never went near another man. At first it was nothing more than bingo, an occasional day at the track with another girl whose husband was on the road a lot. And suddenly, all at once, there was nothing else." She shook her head in disbelief. "How does it happen, Bert? How do you get so tied up with that insane urge that nothing else matters?"
"Maybe you've never found anything else that mattered enough," he offered slowly. "With me it was different. I had to prove to myself I wasn't nearly as bright as I thought I was. I found out," he chuckled. "Now I'm pulling out the hard way."
"Six months ago I got caught in a wild hassle," Connie admitted. "A room where I played was raided. Somebody tipped off the cops, who knows?" she shrugged. Anyhow, the next thing I knew I was in a police line-up. Luck was on my side. I wiggled out, scot-free but scared to death."
"For a while," Bert said softly. "Because here you are at Vegas, in the biggest game of all. Connie, get out of here. Take your winnings and climb aboard the first plane for Los Angeles," he insisted urgently.
Connie shook her head. "I can't. I guess I still haven't found something that matters enough to make me quit."
CHAPTER FOUR
Connie stirred, dropped a hand across her eyes because a wide swathe of mid-afternoon sunlight lay across the king-sized Coronet Hotel bed, intruding upon her slumber. Slowly, consciousness was returning to her. Bert Reid. Her heart pounded in remembrance. Today, it all seemed unreal. The way she had talked to Bert. They way they had made love. She felt so good now, she thought in tender astonishment. None of the guilt that usually haunted her. Because Bert Reid was special.
But what had it meant to Bert, Connie asked inwardly, refusing to be generous with herself. An exciting interlude for the night? How could she expect it to mean anything else? What did they know of each other? Bert knew enough, she reminded herself brutally. He knew she was a compulsive gambler.
Connie forced herself to pilot her thoughts away from Bert. Last night, at the casino. All that marvelous loot! Hers, this morning! Money was something you could grasp, believe in, use as you wished. A low sound of exultation escaped her, filled the quietness. Seventy-seven hundred dollars, in the small beaded purse she had carried last night. Tucked, this minute, within a pocket of her valise. She had walked in with her piddling nest egg--and walked out with that gorgeous loot. They way she had dreamed it would be someday.
The darkly-lashed blue eyes flickered open, fully awake. What a fantastic feeling, to win, spin after spin of the wheel that way! People at the table had stopped playing to watch. After a while, some of the players at the other tables had come over because the word was around that a girl was winning heavily at the single roulette table.
Somebody--Connie couldn't recall who--had whispered to her that the tall, heavy-set man who stood directly opposite her, with that inscrutable smile on his face, was Carl Norton. He was an incredibly wealthy construction man from the mid-west. It was nothing for Carl Norton to drop twenty thousand in an evening.
Connie inspected with approval the fanciful decor of her sprawling bedroom, which looked as though it might have been designed with a Hollywood movie starlet in mind. Her gaze moved past the open door to the living room beyond, expensively if rather ornately furnished. Man, this layout must be costing her a fortune every twenty-four hours!
Connie lay still, her mind clicking away rapidly. Seven thousand, almost, collected last night from the cashier, plus the seven hundred with which she had arrived. Exultation soared within her, lent a glow to her eyes, color to her cheeks. She had picked up more at the table last night in an hour than she could earn a whole year as a secretary. The fast, easy buck-- that was the way Connie Heath yearned to live.
Breakfast, Connie thought, conscious of first hunger, and reached across to the night table to pick up the white-and-gold phone.
"Room service, please," she requested, enjoying a sense of opulence.
It was unbelievable--twenty four hours. ago, she was sitting behind her grubby typewriter, going out of her mind with restlessness, envious because her boss was heading out to Vegas for the weekend. It would be a riot if she were to run into him somewhere around. But when he wasn't tied up in a crap game, he would be busy with a flamboyant showgirl from one of the bare-chested stage shows for which Vegas was famous.
While part of her mind revolved about ordering breakfast, the other part was absorbed in planning her day. A swim first, she decided with relish, then to the casino again. It was only Saturday afternoon. The weekend was just beginning. Connie tossed back the fine-textured gold-bordered white sheet, slid her feet into scuffs. The familiar anticipation stirred within her. Breakfast, a swim, and then the roulette wheel again.
Connie was just emerging from the glass-doored stall shower when the door chimes sounded.
"One moment," she called through the sweep of open doors, reached for the aquamarine terry cloth robe lying in readiness across the small gilt bathroom chair.
She hurried into the bedroom, detouring to her purse for a bill, then sauntered to the door to admit the waiter.
"Good morning." The waiter smiled with a mixture of guest-dictated deference and masculine admiration. It was past two, Connie noted subconsciously. The waiter looked as though he might be a fugitive from a Hollywood television set. Young, almost too handsome, and eager to please.
"Good-morning," Connie said crisply, pulling the door wide so that he could roll in the service table. She couldn't be really annoyed at the stealthy, admiring glances he bestowed on the length of bare legs beneath the turquoise robe.
"Breakfast on the terrace?" he asked, already heading there.
"That seems the best spot," Connie agreed, waiting pointedly by the door. The looks shot in the direction of her legs were now less stealthy, had ventured boldly over the length of her. Involuntarily, she tightened the belt about her waist. The heel, the thought in a blend of amusement and annoyance, he knew she wore absolutely nothing beneath the robe. She might have been standing here in the raw.
"If there's anything else... " His eyes met hers, candidly, eloquently.
"Nothing," Connie said quickly and reached to sign the tab.
He was a kid, she thought in astonishment, no more than seventeen or eighteen. And the body beautiful was up for hire. Well, not for Connie Heath! The humor of the situation brought forth a responsive chuckle. Perhaps there were guests who might be interested in his service.
Connie seated herself at the small, linen-covered table, relishing the setting. Everybody was behaving as though she were a Texas oil millionairess. It was a pleasant feeling. She was really hungry, Connie realized, lifting the cover from the plate of perfect eggs and bacon, reached with the other hand for the meticulously iced orange juice. The aroma from the steaming coffee pot triggered her appetite. Enough coffee there for a party of four. Had the waiter expected to be invited to stay?
Connie leaned forward slightly, intrigued by the sight below. Guests were splashing about in the fantastically designed pool, involved in noisy horseplay. Others lounged at the pool edge, drinking, playing cards. Several curious glances were being shot in her direction, and for a moment Connie felt self-conscious.
This was probably one of the celebrity suites, she guessed. The Coronet took pride in its roster of celebrities. To rate in this town, Bert said last night, you had to be a celebrity or have "juice." Your status in the casino depended upon your bankroll.
Connie squinted for a moment. Something familiar about a tanned figure in trunks, a strip of white about his wrist. She leaned forward for a less obstructed view, trying to deny the clamor of interest in her. Bert. As though conscious of her scrutiny, he looked up, waved leisurely.
Maybe he wanted to forget about last night, Connie pondered in discomfort. Maybe today it was back to the old footing. He was a Coronet employee.
Last night Bert had brought her luck, Connie reminded herself. A flurry of excitement brushed her. Could she persuade him to go with her to the casino again--or would he be tied up on the job tonight? Bert had brought her luck. It was urgent for him to accompany her to the casino. When you were on a winning streak, you played it to the hilt.
Bert moved away from the edge of the pool, disappeared behind an avenue of palms. Connie ate breakfast with lesser appetite. Where had Bert gone? Back to the motel, she wondered unhappily? Should she bother with a swim, or head right back to the casino? That was why she was in Las Vegas, for a whirl at the tables. She could swim any time. Where was Bert Reid?
Connie poured herself a fresh cup of coffee--not because she wanted it but it was an excuse to remain inactive. Roulette again--the odds were so beautiful. What the devil would she wear today? Not the black cocktail dress again. Today, the turquoise sheath she had packed seemed ridiculously inadequate. She would stop by the beautiful, small shop she had noticed last night. Anticipation rippled through her; last night their price tags would have frightened her away.
The doorbell chimed again. Caught in an aura of unreality, Connie rose from the table, strode across the lush carpeting of the living room to the door. Hoping, with an unfamiliar young eagerness, that Bert waited on the other side of that door. She reached for the knob, a tentative smile of welcome on the passionate, sometimes petulant mouth.
"Still feel lucky?" Bert mocked, smiling. A disarming friendliness about him that seemed to block out the memory of last night.
"Oh, absolutely." The blue eyes sparkled like a chunk of the Mediterranean. She gestured in invitation. "Come have coffee with me on the terrace." All right, so she was glad to see him--for more reasons than one. Right now, one counted; he was her luck.
"You're living," he commented. His brown eyes were dark with a restlessness that Connie recognized. But he wasn't envious, she told herself quickly; there was a look of something akin to compassion on his lean, tanned face.
"I'm having fun," Connie flipped, feeling oddly uneasy. "Try it sometimes." So she was a female gambler--she lifted her head in audacious defiance. Bert and she were not really so different. Except that she was on a winning streak.
"I have tried it." A wry chuckle escaped Bert. "One problem: it doesn't last."
"I'll quit when I'm still ahead," Connie said quickly, defensively. "How do you take your coffee?" So little she really knew about him.
"Straight." He sat down opposite her, a faint smile about his sensuous mouth, that was a sharp contrast to his clean-cut scrubbed good looks. He waited for her to pour, silent now, eyes enigmatic.
"I'm superstitious about you," Connie confided after a moment. Bert would understand that. "You brought me luck last night."
"You want me to go with you to the casino today," he guessed.
"Will you?"
There was something different about Bert Reid, Connie analyzed. Nothing she could yet put into words. But she knew last night: he reached her in some strange way, as no man had ever done. Silent laughter welled in her--imagine all that being wasted in a classroom!
"That's why I'm here, Connie," he said bluntly, catching her by surprise. "Honey, this is Vegas, the biggest race of them all." His eyes held hers. "I work for the casino, hence I take orders from the pit boss. He said, get that beautiful babe back to the tables. To lose back that loot, of course." He picked up his coffee cup, sipped it, nodded his approval of the dining room product. "It's part of the routine. If you were a man, you would have a life-sized baby doll up here to keep you company. Objective, back to the tables."
"You're here," she pointed out.
"I tell you, clear out," he reiterated. "Don't be a sucker."
"I had a charming young waiter this morning," Connie reported, switching conversational tracks. "He couldn't have been more than seventeen or eighteen, and he made it plain that whatever services I desired would be available. Do I look the type?" she mocked. A pinkness stained the high cheekbones as she remembered last night.
"Jock slips up on no possibilities," Bert grinned. "They want you back at the roulette table."
"I'll be there. So this is a business call, in reality," she forced herself to add after a brief pause. She ought to be grateful for Bert's candor, she exhorted herself; yet, somehow, she was disappointed.
"Let's say I'm combining business with pleasure," Bert amended. He frowned, his mouth set. "Connie, take your winnings in your hot little hands and clear out of town!"
"No," she said flatly, staring into her half-filled coffee cup. "Bert, you know how it is. I can't leave-- not when I'm on a winning streak! Have you any idea how much I might walk away with before I'm through? I've read some fabulous stories, and Bert, they're true! There was a woman down in Havana who walked out with seventy thousand cold cash in five days!" Anticipation brought a glow in her eyes.
"I know a woman who told me--right down in the Coronet casino--that she'd gone through six million in six years," Bert said calmly. "And I know it's true. Of course, she happens to have the kind of money that makes it possible to lose six million."
"Oh, Bert," Connie whispered, shivering at the thought of six million. "Wouldn't it be marvelous to be able to live the way those people live?"
"I don't know." There was an odd glint in his eyes. "I'm not so sure, Connie."
"I walked out with close to seven thousand last night," she reminded triumphantly.
"Tomorrow night you might be whistling for carfare back to L. A.," he warned grimly.
Connie shook her head firmly. "I can't quit now. I'd never be able to live with myself."
"You can't win, Connie."
"People do," she challenged. "We both know that."
"Freakish accidents--and they don't tell you about the next time. Honey, you don't have a chance against the tables."
Connie's eyes widened. She stared in disbelief. 'You mean they're crooked?"
Bert sighed, shook his head. "No. They don't have to be. The odds are too heavily in their favor. I ought to know." He chuckled unexpectedly. "I've made a scientific study of the business. You win, and they'll make sure you hang around till they collect on those odds. It's a big, beautiful, glamorous trap!"
Let's go for a swim," Connie suggested tightly. He was wrong! It didn't have to be a trap. "I take it you're free for escort service?" He was dressed for the pool. He made nice scenery, Connie conceded inwardly.
"You call the plays," he smiled ruefully. "Go climb into a suit. I'll be waiting beside the pool."
Connie strolled through the lobby, a knee-length shift in pink and orange covering the one-piece black, net mid-riffed suit beneath. Even in the Coronet Hotel, where gambling was the consuming passion, she garnered interested male glances. Feeling slightly self-conscious, she stopped off at the desk to ask that the small, beaded purse be put into the safe for later. She was still too respectful of money to leave seventy-seven hundred dollars lying around a hotel suite.
Bert rose to his feet when she sauntered out of the lobby towards the pool. His eyes paid homage to the voluptuous spill of whiteness above the low-cut neckline of the black suit, the slim waist, the tapering hips, the long, full thighs.
"You hang around the pool looking like that," he whispered, his eyes warm, "you'll wreck business at the casino. Who'll want to make a play at a gambling table?"
"They'll do all right," Connie laughed, dropping the pink and orange shift across a chair. "How's the water?"
"You really want to find out?" he asked with a look of surprise.
"I take my swimming seriously," she taunted, walked to the edge of the pool, shot a provocative glance at him before she dived into the sun-warmed water.
Bert swam swiftly behind her, catching up with a pleased grin.
"They'll have a beautician up at your suite before you have time to get out of your swimsuit," he chuckled. "To make you get your hair done in time to make it back to the tables before dinner."
"I ought to scare them," Connie teased. "Suppose I decide to go slumming tonight? It might be fun to see Fremont Street."
"You want to get my throat cut?" he clucked humorously, and yet Connie sensed an undertone of alarm. "You take your money out of the casino, I'll be an ex-employee of the Coronet."
"Later," Connie compromised. "Later I'll take a run down to the sawdust joints," she said with a surge of exhilaration. Her luck couldn't run out, not this time!
"Race you across to the other side," Bert said with a show of exuberance that Connie guessed was phony.
They swam awhile, then were content to lie in twin chaises flanking the pool. Most of the guests were forsaking the water, planning their evening diversion.
"Tell me about you," Connie ordered lazily.
"Not much to tell," Bert hedged.
"I don't believe that," she objected. "What brought the ex-schoolteacher all the way from New York?"
'You know that. I had a system I was sure was unbeatable. Believe it or not," he said, his eyes cynical, "I was something of a mathematical wonder back in college. I'm supposed to have one of those crazy minds. Anyhow, I worked out a system."
"It didn't work?" she asked compassionately.
"It took Vegas apart," he said reminiscently. "I had over a hundred thousand dollars stashed away at the end of two weeks. This town was on its ear. So," his jaw tightened for an instant, "they got old Bert tied up with this gorgeous young Amazon who strips in a stage show." He whistled eloquently. "She arrives at my suite one night, floats in, and zingo, she's mine," he said bluntly. "That little kewpie doll got me loaded on champagne, took me by the hand back to the tables. Before that glorious weekend was finished, I was down to fifty bucks--and I owed a seven hundred buck hotel bill," he said grimly. "Plus they've got an iron-clad ruling around Las Vegas; Bert Reid can't play at the tables."
"How can they stop you?" Connie stared in astonishment.
"They have the right. Their tables. The word spread throughout Vegas--even down to the crummiest sawdust joint. Bert Reid has a system; Bert Reid isn't allowed to play. So for a while I was a shill, then a runner. Three weeks ago, for being a good boy, they promoted me to Black Jack dealer. I told you that," he reminded. "I'm building up a bankroll to get out of town. As a Black Jack dealer, the way isn't bad." He smiled ironically. "In fact, it beats teaching in the public school systems."
"Let's go," Connie said quietly, reaching for her shift. "I want to shop for a dress before dinner." Bert Reid had just stripped some of the glamour from Vegas, she thought unhappily. But nobody was going to stop her from playing; she was running on the popular commodity, luck. Connie Heath had no system. She didn't need a system.
CHAPTER FIVE
Connie sat across the table from Bert in the Coronet dining room, pushing down an impatience to be done with dinner and back at the casino. There was only a sprinkling of diners this early. But she spied Carl Norton, with a bosomy movie starlet hovering amorously at his left. Now Connie's memory pinpointed the vague familiarity about Norton's name. He was mentioned in columns lately; he was supposed to be throwing money into independent movies. Also, a Hollywood columnist claimed Carl Norton had dropped three hundred thousand dollars one night at Black Jack.
"You aren't interested in waiting for the floor show?" Bert jibed good-humoredly as the waiter swooped down upon their table with dessert and coffee, and Connie quickly shifted her glance from Carl Norton's table back to Bert. "It won't be for quite a while, and it's a glorified burlesque show."
"Not interested," Connie flipped. "I find a roulette wheel infinitely more fascinating." She surreptitiously glanced in the direction of Carl Norton's ringside table. With his bankroll, he rated the best, Connie recognized with respect. She caught her breath in astonishment because Carl Norton was sending less furtive looks in her direction. Feeling herself grow warm, she listened with seeming absorption to Bert's current story about bad luck at the poker table.
"Sorry I can't ask you to dance." Bert surveyed the room, conspicuously lacking in dancing area, with a look of regret. "But that would be in competition with the tables. The management disapproves. The only place you dance in Vegas is in your room."
"I'm not really in the mood for dessert." Connie stared restlessly at the elaborate concoction sitting before her. Saturday night. Tomorrow night she was supposed to return to Los Angeles, and Carmine Enterprises. But not with seven thousand ahead! Maybe more--much more--by tomorrow night.
"Eat it," Bert chuckled. "It's costing you a mint. Oh, I'm presumably signing the tab for our meal," he confided with bitter humor, "but the house will find a way to foist it on your bill."
"You hate it here," Connie reproached.
"I hate what gambling does to people," Bert said quietly.
"You mean you're finished with it?" She lifted an eyebrow in skepticism. There was a barrier up for him in Vegas. What about Bert Reid, set down in Puerto Rico or Monte Carlo?
"I have no choice," he shrugged.
"Vegas isn't the only legal gambling spot," Connie reminded. Was that what he meant? The ban on his playing? Or being broke? With the money he was earning he wouldn't be broke long. As a Black Jack dealer, he admitted he was good for thirty to forty dollars a day, depending on his tips. And unlike other, casino employees, Bert was in no position to give most of it back to the tables. But then, Connie considered, Bert had been a Black Jack dealer only a short while --and he was frank about his back-log of debts about town. It wouldn't be healthy to try running out, if he were the type.
"Drink your coffee," he ordered. "And I'll trot you back to the roulette wheel."
They made a brief detour to the lobby so that Connie could collect her bankroll. When they walked again into the casino, Connie felt as though she had left it only minutes ago. The scene had changed not at all. The action had stopped not at all, Connie remembered with recurrent wonder. The tables were busy around the clock.
The beautiful Oriental girl Connie had noticed last night, with the spectacular lilac hair and matching gown, was at the same table, only tonight the hair was green to match another sumptuous gown. She probably owned wigs the way the average girl owned kerchiefs, Connie guessed.
"Her husband is a well-known San Francisco importer," Bert whispered, following her gaze. "They fly out every weekend in their private plane so she can drop a bundle."
"The crowd's heavier tonight," Connie decided, excitement gripping her as they headed for the roulette table at the end of the room. "Saturday night."
The croupier greeted her with a faint smile of recognition. Connie was aware of the exchange between Bert and him; the croupier no doubt congratulating Bert on bringing her back on schedule. She opened her purse with a tremor of anticipation. The croupier was aware that her bankroll was healthy-- that was obvious in the way his eyes kept traveling to her. She pulled off a sheaf of bills from the roll, bought chips.
Connie sat tensely as the croupier completed the selling of chips. She watched as the wheel began its counter-clockwise spin. The croupier flipped the roulette ball onto the track. The wheel and ball in motion. The ball slowed down, was at the point of dropping off the back track.
"No more bets," the croupier said briskly.
Connie held her breath, waiting for the ball to come to rest. Her eyes glowed, mouth parted slightly in anticipation. A soft sound of pleasure escaped her. She had placed her chips on the winning number! She shot a triumphant glance at Bert, standing behind her. No system. Luck on her side.
For almost an hour Connie vacillated between winning and losing. With the odds so generous, she could afford to lose, she told herself defensively. But the winning interludes were becoming sparse. Nervously, she asked Bert to order her a drink. Not that she honestly wanted a drink; it was a bravado gesture.
For the next three hours, Connie doggedly sat before the roulette wheel, trying to repeat her previous night's run of luck. Repeating last night's combinations, telling herself she wasn't resorting to a system. The room was pleasantly air-conditioned, but her forehead was moist with anxiety. She kept pulling bills from her roll, buying additional chips from the croupier. Chips that were time after time raked away in favor of the bank.
Once her eyes moved involuntarily from the wheel to Bert, hovering behind her. His face was tired, the eyes unhappy. Bert must be exhausted, she realized guiltily. There was nowhere to sit--not one spot in the entire lavishly adorned casino where an onlooker might rest. To sit in the casino was to play.
Connie, you're five thousand in the red," Bert whispered desperately. "Cut it for tonight."
Her glance wavered from the table to Bert, catching the narrowed eyes of the croupier as he watched them.
"No, you're wrong, Bert," Connie said distinctly, making sure the croupier heard. "My luck won't change tonight. I've had it for the evening."
Connie cashed in her few remaining chips and Bert and she made their way through the noisy clatter of the casino floor to the exit. In the lounge Connie's attention was caught by the array of flamboyantly made-up, strikingly dressed girls sitting about.
"Showgirls," Bert murmured in explanation. "They have to hang around after the show to dress up the lounge--and cater to the customers if they're interested in hanging on to their jobs," he added dryly. "There are two favorite pastimes in Vegas. One of them is gambling."
"Let me stop off at the desk," Connie said with a tight little smile. "I'll feel better if I check what's left of the bankroll.
They walked through the lobby to the desk. It was still startling to Connie to brush past celebrities this way. The Coronet lived up to its reputation, she acknowledged. She was just turning away from the desk, about to say something to Bert, when her eyes settled on her boss from Carmine Enterprises. A hand was tight around the waist of a showgirl at least four inches taller than himself, and his eyes were glued to the cleavage on lavish display. He had probably seen her nude on stage earlier, Connie guessed cynically, and now couldn't wait to take her up to his room.
Connie's eyes swerved away nervously when she realized her boss had spotted her. For a moment he looked startled, then brashly waved across the lobby to her, sure she was aware of his presence. She pretended not to see him. She didn't want to remember about L. A., about that other life that tonight seemed a lifetime away.
"It's early," Bert reminded. "Feel like some sightseeing?"
"You won't get in trouble?" In Vegas there was no such thing as early or late, Connie thought with a touch of surprise. Time stood still. You could play in the casino at six in the afternoon or six in the morning.
"You're my assignment," he reminded, chuckling. "That was quick covering for me back in the casino," he added with a wry smile. "You were making me a nervous wreck, the way the money was sailing away into the wild blue yonder. I guess I don't have what it takes to be a real gambler when you get down to facts."
"It made me pretty sick, too," Connie conceded. "But I'll be back at the casino ten o'clock tomorrow morning." Sunday, when she would be heading back for home. Unless the tables turned for her. She had to win again!
They walked out into the crisp night air, stood surveying the throngs that made up the Saturday night circus at the Coronet. Almost everyone in evening dress. An air of determined gaiety on some faces, the more familiar air of sober concentration on others. Vegas guests took their gambling seriously.
"We'll drive down to Fremont Street," Bert decided. "See the less plush side of Vegas."
"I've seen the side I like," Connie said with an edge of defiance. "You can't discourage me."
"The tables will do that," Bert said, his voice suddenly harsh. "You go through your bundle, you're through in Vegas."
"I still have over two thousand," she reminded. Damn, last night it had been seven thousand. She had to win again. She had this crazy hunch, deep inside, that this was her time.
"I might have taken a stab at driving back to New York," Bert said in wry amusement as they arrived at the parking area. "But I doubt if my jalopy would hold up much beyond the state line."
"Ever think of trying L.A.?" Connie asked, and instantly felt self-conscious.
"Back to New York," he reiterated. "My town. In Vegas there are two diversions, in New York a thousand. You ought to give it a whirl, Connie." His eyes rested on her with an intensity that was oddly disturbing.
"I can't think much beyond Vegas," she said after a moment, while Bert fumbled for his car keys. In Vegas you kept everything locked up. The hockshops did a thriving business. A gambler down on his luck would try to hock anything. "If I have just one really fabulous run of luck, I can quit, Bert. Really, I can."
"It never works out like that." He busied himself with getting the car in motion. "The fabulous luck never holds out."
"You expected to take your winnings and light out," Connie reminded.
"But I didn't, did I?" he flashed back. "It's always that way."
Connie leaned back, her gaze on the road ahead as Bert moved out of the parking area. Bert didn't see her fully as a woman, she thought bitterly--first, she was a compulsive gambler. That made her different.
She closed her eyes for a moment, hearing in retrospect the invectives George had hurled upon her, time after time, when he discovered her latest gambling foray.
For six months, ever since the raid, she had kept clean, Connie reminded herself uneasily. It was that rotten ticket to Vegas that she had to pick up for the office, she sulked bitterly. She wouldn't be here tonight if that airlines ticket hadn't been taunting her that way. But she was still two thousand ahead, she remembered in mild triumph. By tomorrow night she could run that up to almost anything. With luck on her side.
They drove through miles of desert, saying little, a silent companionship between them because the desert at night was something worth seeing--for the boy from a skyscraper town and the small-town girl who had never traveled through such beautifully austere emptiness.
"Glitter Gulch coming up," Bert announced briskly as they approached the commercial center of Las Vegas. Loud, garishly lighted, with a carnival atmosphere. "On these two blocks of Fremont Street, you'll fund more gambling than in any one spot in the world." His voice was cool, almost amused. "Not much different from the Strip--just without the fancy trimmings."
"I don't have any cash with me," Connie said, excitement beginning to take root in her as Bert scouted around for a place to park.
"I know," Bert said humorously. "And I have all of ten bucks. That's why I figured it was safe."
They parked, left the car, walked along Fremont. Connie gave herself up to the sightseer role. These were the so-called sawdust joints, she knew, frequented by the smaller people of Nevada. The cab drivers, the factory workers, the shop girls, the cowboys. And little old ladies who spent every free hour in front of a one-armed bandit.
"They're unbelievable," Connie breathed, staring past an air-conditioned blanket into a veritable field of slot machines. No doors, no walls--and beneath the ceiling not a pole to obstruct the view.
"They're open around the clock, of course," Bert contributed. "Feel like throwing away a buck?" With a grin he was already reaching into his wallet.
They went to the change booth to break the dollar, and Connie felt discomforted by the look of contempt the change girl bestowed on them. They walked along the aisles, brushing past a circulating change girl in a cerise jump suit, looking for a slot-machine not in use.
"Here," Bert took her by the wrist, swung her about before an unoccupied one-arm bandit.
On one side of Connie, a brassy blonde in a lush mink stole was simultaneously feeding coins into three machines. In one hand she held a jeweled cigarette holder. The other hand wore a heavy leather driving glove, to cut down the wear and tear on her delicate palms. On Connie's other side was a carbon copy of Whistler's mother, with a pocket full of change and a dedicated look.
"If I win, I'll drop dead," Connie chuckled, dropping in a coin, reaching for the arm.
Simultaneously, Connie and Bert broke into exuberance as coins gushed forward.
"Bert, I told you," Connie bubbled. "I'm on a winning streak! Tonight at the casino was a fluke. Come on!"
"Where?" Bert appeared startled.
Her eyes glowed with fresh fervor. "Back to the casino!"
* * *
Bert was furious with her, Connie thought, resting against her side of the car as they sped back towards the casino. He hadn't said a word since they got back into the car. He had only contempt for a woman with an instinct for gambling.
"Bert," she said softly, reluctantly to return to the casino on this note.
"Yeah?" His tone was cool, impersonal.
"Why don't we stop for awhile?" she coaxed, a stirring low within her. The desert was so beautiful at night--the moonlight almost like a stage prop, hanging high in silver splendor, turning the sand to a daylight white before them.
Silently, Bert turned off the main road, traveled a short distance, pulled to a stop. They might have been in the middle of the Sahara, Connie thought, awestruck by the silence, the emptiness about them. On the main roadway, cars continued to speed past, leaving behind only a faint whir.
"You're angry with me," she attacked. "Why?" Her head high as she refused to acknowledge Bert's fury was aimed at her gambling.
He turned around to face her, "You're bad for me, Connie. You get me all mixed up."
"Like what?" she flipped, her pulse racing.
"I have no use for gambling, nor gamblers," he said bluntly. "I came out with my system, a mathematical equation." He permitted himself a slight smile. "But deep in me there's not one iota of the true gambler. I know what it's like. I saw my father throw away his salary on poker games and crap tables. I saw my mother eat her heart out because my father couldn't stay away from a game any more than a two-year-old from an ice-cream cone. Months, Connie, when we were out on the street because the rent money had gone to the ponies! I grew up like that, Connie. Hating it! When I came out here with a system, it was with hate in my heart. To get even for my father. When he wasn't gambling, he was the sweetest, most charming character you could ever encounter. But my mother died too young-- worried herself into the grave. And my father?" He shrugged, his face taut. "Who knows? Wherever there's a game small enough for him to sit in on. I haven't seen him since my last year in college. I graduated a year late because the money I'd saved for the final year went to save him from the bookies."
"You think I'm rotten," Connie whispered, a knot twisted in her stomach. "You think I couldn't get much lower."
"I didn't say that." Involuntarily, Bert's hands gripped at her shoulders. "I said I couldn't afford to get emotionally involved. I've had all I can take for one lifetime, Connie!"
"It doesn't have to be that way," she contradicted, her face hot in the cool desert night because she remembered the things she had hocked, the loan payments she hadn't been able to meet. The furniture repossessed by the finance company.
"That's the way it'll be until you're able to sit in front of a gambling table and feel nothing," he said insistently.
"You make me feel so ashamed," she said, her pulse racing because Bert's arms were bringing her in close.
"Connie, baby," he said urgently, and his mouth closed in compulsively on her.
She clung to him, her mouth hungry for the reassurance that he wanted her. Her body tingling beneath the hard, lean strength of him. Triumph taking root in her because she knew how much he wanted her.
"Did I really meet you only last night?" Bert marveled, his mouth at her ear. Teeth nipping lightly, sending shivers of excitement through her.
"It was years ago," Connie said, exhilarated by his passion, aware of its echo in her.
"Let's go in the back," he said huskily.
"All right."
Her heart pounded in anticipation as they scrambled from the front of the car, hurried with a mounting impatience into the rear. The moonlight ribboned the back seat, lending an unworldly air to the setting. She felt the heaviness of Bert's breathing as he helped her back across the width of the seat, his impatience showing in his hands.
"Bert, is it all right here?" she asked in sudden alarm. The narrow skirt of the expensive cocktail dress she had bought in the Coronet Hotel show was riding carelessly high about her thighs. His hand stroked the hot, bare skin, and excitement catapulted in her.
"It's all right," he murmured, as though impatient with himself. But he was dying to make love to her, Connie reminded herself defensively. As badly as she wanted him!
"I'd hate an audience," she admitted frankly.
"Relax, sweetie." Surprisingly, he chuckled.
"How can I?" She retaliated. "You make me crazy." She never talked this way before, she thought uneasily, remembering George's fury when she confessed to passion. But Bert wasn't George, she reminded herself with a fresh wave of anticipation. Bert saw nothing wrong in making love. Not between two adults who knew the score. They weren't a pair of hot young teenagers living dangerously.
"I'm not exactly the embodiment of calm," Bert pointed out gently. "Honey, the way you turn me on!"
He pulled her forward, all at once in a hurry to find the zipper down the back of her dress, and she clung to him, relishing the heat of him, his obvious desire. The zipper made a faint, complacent sound as he rode down its tracks, and the rich high spill of her poured forth into the moonlight. No bra; the dressed provided its own.
"Bert, kiss me," she ordered urgently.
His mouth came down, almost harshly on hers, and his hands caressed the panting white mounds, teased the taut pink tips. She thrust her hips eagerly towards him, willing herself free of all encumbrances. Oh, this need in her! This need to be touched, to claim him, to draw his passion!
"Baby, it's so good," he said finally, his mouth leaving hers, finding fresh directions.
Connie's hands cradled his head as his hot mouth loved her. She moved beneath him with soaring desire, reached to touch. She glorified in the instant, impassioned response from him. It was a symphony, the way they made love, she thought in glorious exhilaration.
"Bert," she pleaded finally, all of her trembling. A pulse going insane low within her. "Oh, Bert!"
"Sssh," he cautioned, yet with pride in his voice.
An impossible ecstasy shot through her as they met, battled together, reached Olympus. Rockets exploded within her. Oh, it was wonderful! Wonderful!
* * *
They lay together, awkwardly, confined by the narrowness of the car, yet content with the nearness of each other. His mouth brushing her hair, his hand firmly holding one of hers. A strange peace momentarily engulfed Connie, as though time had stopped.
"I should be taking you back to the hotel," he said finally. "Besides," a note of humor crept into his voice, "tomorrow I may be shifted back to Black Jack in the casino."
"You mean they think they've milked me of enough cash?" Connie stiffened slightly.
"When you've thrown back this much," he said with a note of caution, "they have a solid hunch the rest of your winnings will go the same way."
Connie sensed his unease now.
"Bert, I won't lose the rest," she said with a strange calm. "I know that now."
"Why?" he challenged. "Because you won a few bucks at the slot machine?"
"It was an omen," she said insistently. "Losing tonight was nothing. I have to go back with the other two thousand. After all, it's all winnings, anyhow," she tried to rationalize calmly.
"Fill your car up with gas and head across the state line in the morning, Connie," Bert said sharply. "You don't know what can happen to a girl in this town!"
"No," Connie said flatly. "Drive me back to the casino. Now. I feel terribly lucky, Bert."
CHAPTER SIX
Bert stood beside Connie at the casino entrance, his face hauted.
"Connie, you're out of your mind to go back to the tables now," he tried again.
"No," she rejected, head high, eyes flashing. All that loot at the tables! She had to win. "Coming with me?" The blue eyes mocking, daring him.
"I can't bear to sit in at the kill," he refused grimly. "I've seen enough around this town since Christmas."
"Then I'll see you around," she flipped audaciously, while inside she was a shambles because Bert refused to return to the casino with her. She knew, inwardly, that she could twist that refusal later--in the event her luck did not hold out--into an alibi for losses.
When she returned to the roulette table where she made a point of playing, Connie noted that Carl Norton, too, had switched to roulette. Probably, she realized, because of the daringly dressed champagne blonde who was clinging to his shoulders as she leaned above him. Women were five to three at the tables, compared to men. For an instant her eyes met Carl Norton's, by accident on Connie's part. He allowed himself a flicker of a smile, as though in recognition, before he returned to his betting.
"Chips, please," she said nervously, reaching for bills again. A pit waitress hovered near, and Connie signaled for a drink. Why did gambling build up such a thirst? Whether you were winning or losing...
Again, it seemed to Connie that she was most certainly on a winning streak. Not steadily, but enough to put her ahead again. Almost a thousand, she figured jubilantly, unconsciously reaching for the champagne cocktail that the waitress had refilled without an order. She reached for a chip to drop on the waitress's tray as a tip.
It would have been impossible not to be aware that Carl Norton was finding her attractive. The champagne blonde was beginning to sulk. Once she lowered her mouth to whisper in Carl's ear, and a smile crossed his face as his eyes turned to Connie again. He was amused that the blonde was annoyed. Carl Norton was not only extremely rich--he had the kind of cruelty, Connie guessed, that would find amusement in kicking a stray kitten.
Then, with a determined vengeance, it seemed, Connie's luck turned again. Spin after spin, the small ball stopped at a number other than hers. Time after time, her batch of chips was raked in for the banker. The thousand she had won disappeared.
Connie fought drowsiness for a while, caught her second wind. A peculiar smile about his mouth, Carl Norton withdrew. The man in the specially-designed wheel chair, whom Connie had not at first noticed at the table, began to drowse, but no one bothered to wake him or ask him to leave the table. It was said he had dropped half a million this year so far. It helped kill off some of his boredom at being chained to a wheelchair.
What time was it, Connie wondered, fighting panic.
No clock anywhere in the casino, of course. She hadn't bothered to wear her watch tonight--it had seemed to clash with the expensive new cocktail dress. But what did it matter about the time, she jibed at herself? She was going nowhere else.
The faces at the table began to change. The croupiers changed. White-faced, stubborn, Connie stayed at the table. Losing steadily. Betting with soaring frenzy because the two thousand had dwindled down to a few hundred. There was still the seven hundred of her original stake, Connie remembered, and dug into the final winnings for more spins of the wheel.
"More chips," she said.
Her voice was barely audible, but the croupier understood. His face was impassive as he counted off the chips, slid them across the table to her. Her attention was pinioned to the wheel. She placed her bet, waited, turned white as she was on the losing side again. Playing the maximum on each spin. The pile of chips had evaporated. Connie reached again into her purse. Pulled forth five hundred from her original stake. Bought chips. Lost.
Caught up in a feeling of unreality, something close to panic, Connie pushed back her chair. The champagne cocktails had taken toll. She walked with the careful deliberation of one who isn't entirely sure of his sobriety. She was down to her last two hundred-- the words streaked through her brain, around and around, as though on a conveyor belt. How much was her hotel bill? Connie shuddered, felt sick.
There was no need to stop off at the desk tonight, Connie mocked herself in disgust. Not with two hundred left in her bankroll. She would have to do something about moving into a less expensive room tomorrow, she cautioned herself conscientiously. No thought in her mind of returning to Los Angeles.
* * *
Connie frowned, still half-asleep, conscious that the door chimes were sounding insistently. She turned over on her back, inspected the clock on the night table. Five-forty. Afternoon, she decided, clutching at her head. Champagne cocktails always gave her a headache. How many had she had? Three, four? The chimes repeated with a note of urgency.
"One moment," she called out in irritation, tossed back the bedclothes, reached for the robe at the foot of the bed. The red velvet hostess gown that Bert had found so irresistible, she thought bitterly, stifling a yawn.
She pulled open the door, foggily wondering who could be crass enough to break in on a guest who had spent the night at the tables.
"A note from the management," a polite flunky smiled, handing her a small white envelope. "I hope I have not disturbed you?"
"Not at all," she smiled grimly, guessing the contents of the management's note.
The flunky disappeared down the richly carpeted corridor, and Connie shut the door to contemplate the envelope in solitude. She ripped it open, shuddered at the figures on the bill. She owed a hundred and ninety dollars so far, for her two nights in the suite. Thank heaven, she had not signed a tab for the dress, she thought.
The croupier must have reported her losses, Connie guessed cynically. That, together with the fact, that she had made no stop at the desk when she left the casino, gave them the word that she was near-broke.
There was no place in the Hotel Coronet or the Coronet casino for a guest without money.
Connie dropped into a chair, trying to cope with reality. If she paid the bill, she would be left with ten dollars and change--not enough for tips. She couldn't walk out this way, broke, with her tail between her legs. It was no good. What was it today, she asked herself quickly? Sunday. Late in the afternoon. Where could she raise money in a hurry?
She stared compulsively at the phone, debating within herself. Maybe it was a rotten trick, but she was desperate. She walked across to the dresser, reached inside for her purse, her telephone book. What was Frank's number? Let him be home! As she flipped through the book for his phone number, her mind was already framing the words, plotting the excuse.
Connie went to the phone, dialed the operator, asked for the number to be put through. It was late Sunday afternoon--he should be home, she persuaded herself nervously. The phone rang, over and over without anyone picking it up. Who else was there, she asked herself in panic, about to put down the phone.
"Hello." Frank's voice, exuberant, friendly. He must have had a good trip, she thought abstractly.
"Frank, it's Connie," she said breathlessly.
"Baby, how are you?" His voice held a lilt of enthusiasm. "I just got back in town. Busy tonight?"
"Frank, the craziest thing popped up. I told you about my sister in Las Vegas--the one whose husband is an accountant." She hadn't, and the sister with the husband who was an accountant lived in Seattle. "He was involved in a wild smash-up on the parkway last night, and she called me to come up. She's in such a bad state--" Connie paused for breath, her heart hammering. She hoped the switchboard operator never eavesdropped on calls! "Anyhow, I drove up--and my car just conked out cold about a mile from Seattle. I got a hitch into town, and the car was towed in. They're having to do a complete transmission job. But Frank," she moaned convincingly, "the bill is two hundred and I came up here with just eating money."
"You want me to drive up tonight and bring you back?" he offered, concern in his voice. "I could manage, I suppose... "
"No," she said quickly. "I won't be able to leave for a few days. Not when he's still on the critical list. But could you wire me two hundred--until I can get back into town? Oh, and explain it to the office, will you, Frank?" she went on, her face hot. The boss saw her in Las Vegas; he would know it was a lie. But he was in no position to call names, she reminded herself with a sigh of relief.
"Okay, honey," Frank agreed, but he sounded worried. "You're sure you're all right?"
"I'll be fine as soon as I can get the car out of hock," she said matter-of-factly, satisfaction warming her. She would be all right, with another two hundred to get her rolling again. "I want to be sure it's there the moment I can pull out of here." Let Frank not get any ideas about asking for her phone number, Connie thought in panic. "Oh, Frank," she added quickly. "Wire me the money care of Western Union in Las Vegas--I don't want Betty to realize I had to send back home for money. I can pick it up when we drive into town to the hospital in the morning."
"I have that much cash around," Frank reassured her. "I'll go out now and wire it to you, to be sure it's there. Take it easy, baby."
"Frank, you're sweet," she crooned, fighting down guilt. "I knew you'd come to my rescue. I'll buzz you in a day or two, let you know when I can break away."
Before Frank could say anything else, do anything about asking for a phone number or address, Connie dropped the phone back into place, relieved at the click that told her the connection had been broken. Frank was going down right now to wire her the two hundred. That meant she could drive over to Western Union, down there on Fremont Street, and pick up the money probably late tonight. No trouble about identification; she had her driver's license, and she was still a guest at the Coronet Hotel.
Connie collected fresh underthings from a drawer, walked across to the closet to pull down the turquoise sheath rejected earlier as being not in keeping with her current status. It would be good enough for walking into Western Union to claim the two hundred Frank had sent her. Maybe she should have asked for three, she thought uneasily as she headed for the bathroom, and then was ashamed for the thought. But she would pay Frank back, she promised herself conscientiously. It was a loan.
Connie walked into the bathroom, reached to run a tub. No shower today. A hot tub, that might take away some of the awful tightness between her shoulders, at the base of her neck. Tension, built up from hours of sitting so stiffly at the table. Before she drove down to Fremont, Connie determined, she would stop off at the desk and pay the bill, have that much off her mind. There was no doubt in her mind that Frank would come through for her. He was hit pretty hard, she thought detachedly, especially after Friday night.
She watched the clock with mounting apprehension, not wishing to walk into the Western Union office before the money had arrived. She felt mildly relaxed after the long soak in the tub, was conscious now of growing hunger. She wouldn't eat here at the hotel, Connie exhorted herself with a touch humor--not at Coronet prices. She would stop off at a chuck-wagon on Fremont, eat, and then go over to Western Union.
Slightly past seven, Connie sauntered over the carpeted corridor to the bank of elevators. There was much activity. The weekenders checking out, heading back for their dull, respectable lives. Let the two hundred be there at Western Union, she thought desperately, as she walked into the elevator when the door slid open at her floor.
Stop off at the desk and pay the bill, Connie reminded herself sharply, because for an instant the idea of dropping into the casino for a quick whirl had entered her mind. No, not the casino. Pay her bill, drive down to Western Union, and head for the sawdust joint where her luck had been on the upswing, before the one-armed bandits.
Connie dallied over the meal in the chuck-wagon, uncomfortably remembering how Bert had brought her here Friday night. Bert was disgusted with her, she thought miserably, feeling suddenly so alone in Vegas. Amazing, how Bert had gotten beneath her skin, so quickly! But Bert should know, she tried to vindicate herself. Of all people, Bert should understand. He could afford to be self-righteous, when he wasn't allowed to play anywhere in Vegas.
According to Connie's speculations, it was time to go into Western Union. Business never stopped here, she thought wryly as she approached the small office. Three men, one woman, were seated about in various poses of unrest. Like her, Connie guessed, a coldness settling over her; waiting for a hand-out to take them back to the tables.
"Connie Heath," she said crisply to the man behind the desk. "I'm expecting a wire."
For a moment, as the man shuffled through papers piled high on a desk, quietly shaking his head, Connie turned sick inside. Then another man emerged from the rear, handed over a fresh sheaf. The first man looked, smiled, nodded in her direction. Thank heavens, the money was here. She reached swiftly into her purse to dig up the necessary identification.
* * *
Connie stood in line before the change girl's booth with a glow of anticipation about her because the two hundred lay snug within her wallet, except for the twenty she had pulled off for transference into quarters. It was the same slot-machine oasis she had visited with Bert. Some of the faces looked the same, but on closer observation the mink-stoled blonde with the heavy man's glove was not the one she had noticed before--only a brassier version. A showgirl down on her luck, Connie guessed as she moved up to the window to collect her quarters.
Picking up the technique of a gum-chewing old lady next to her, Connie fed quarters into three machines simultaneously, using one hand to feed, one hand to pull. Waiting with mounting impatience for the noisy clank that announced a jackpot had been hit.
"If I ever hit one of them things," the old lady sighed, ostensibly talking to herself. "I'd drop dead here on the spot." She was waddling away now with a look of resigned regret.
The twenty was quickly shot. Connie signalled to a change girl circulating along the aisles, corralled another twenty in quarters. What was the matter now, she asked herself in soaring desperation? Why couldn't she make at least one jackpot? The second twenty went the way of the first, and then on the first quarter of the third twenty, Connie hit a jackpot, Automatically, heads around her swung about in recognition, for an instant.
Four machines now, Connie decided in a rush of exuberation, attacking a fourth machine that was just vacated adjoining hers. She fed quarters frenziedly into the four machines, pulling the lever with such intensity her palms began to ache. She had to make a hit soon--the law of averages, Connie thought frantically. You were bound to connect if you stuck at it long enough.
With a shock of disbelief, Connie's eyes settled on the two bills in her wallet. Forty dollars! All that was left of what she had collected less than two hours ago at the Western Union office. How had it gone so fast? Panic touched her. She had to hang on to that forty. But it wasn't even enough to cover tonight at the hotel. Why hadn't she moved into another room? But it had been too late when she awoke; she would automatically be charged for another day after the check-out hour.
Connie pushed her way through the Sunday night rows of gamblers, headed out onto the garish, noisy street again, trying not to become enmeshed in panic. She settled herself behind the wheel of the car, thinking about tomorrow. She couldn't even afford to check out of the Coronet, with forty dollars left in her bankroll. But she could move, in the morning, into a single room, Connie exhorted herself in an effort to be practical.
Feeling self-conscious, embarrassed by the unspoken admission that she was broke, Connie stopped off at the reservation desk.
"I'd like to move into another room tomorrow," she said briskly, color staining her cheeks.
"The suite is not to your satisfaction?" the clerk asked politely, yet Connie saw the glint of comprehension in his eyes.
"The suite is fine, but I prefer something less expensive." She forced her eyes to meet his. "Would you have something available?" If they didn't, she would be in trouble, Connie thought nervously.
He checked through a file on his desk, smiling impersonally. "We can give you a single on the third floor at check-out time tomorrow," he promised. "I'm afraid I won't be able to have the room shown to you until then."
"It'll be all right," she said brusquely, relieved.
The new room was probably the least pretentious in the hotel, Connie thought as she hung up the contents of her one valise. But even so, it was lush compared to the Sunset Motel. Still too expensive, she recalled uneasily--but right now, with what remained of her bankroll, anything was too expensive.
Would Bert try to reach her, she wondered? They would refer him to the new room, of course. But then why should Bert try to reach her? On a personal level, he was disgusted with her. Business-wise, she no longer merited the Coronet's velvet-carpet treatment. She was a loser. They would probably approach again with a bill, she guessed cynically.
She had gone to bed comparatively early last night, but sleep had been elusive. Not merely because she had slept into the afternoon, but apprehension refused to leave her about her shortage of cash. She couldn't call Frank again--that was out. Why hadn't she asked him for three hundred instead of two, she rebuked herself? There was absolutely nothing she could hock, except her watch. That would bring nothing to speak of; the watch had been, in hock before. The car? She might pick up a hundred for it, with luck. But how did you manage in Vegas without a car? She refused to remember that the car was her return passage to Los Angeles.
The chimes sounded, somehow taking her by surprise in the small room. Bert? Eagerly, she crossed to the door, her face lighted with a welcoming smile. She pulled open the door and the smile wilted.
"May I come in, Miss Heath?" He was one of the assistant managers, Connie recalled.
"Yes, of course." She stood aside to allow him to enter.
"Miss Heath, we assume that your luck has not been the best." He smiled indulgently, his eyes taking a swift inventory of her, though not with a masculine hunger. Rather, Connie thought in resentment, as if she were a heifer up on the auction block.
"That shouldn't concern you," she tossed back arrogantly. No bill in his hand. Was he just testing?
"We thought, perhaps we might be useful," he soothed, unruffled. "There happens to be a vacancy on the staff. A job as a cocktail waitress. It requires no real experience," he said swiftly. "You have--prime assets for the job." Now his eyes lingered--less the assistant manager, more the over-heated male--on the high rise of her breasts. "The job pays nothing," he said with an intimate smile. "Eight dollars a day. But a bright girl can pick up ten times that in tips. And I'm sure, Miss Heath, that you are a bright girl." His eyes were eloquent.
"Cocktail waitress?" she hedged, the prospect of earning the kind of money he talked about filling her with anticipation. "Just that? I might be awful," she tried to laugh casually. "I could spill drinks all over the place."
"You won't," he said with confidence. "Report to the pit boss as soon as you're settled in. He'll have a woman assign you a uniform." Again, his eyes trailed over her, and Connie remembered the revealing "uniforms" the cocktail waitresses wore. "I have an idea you will be assigned to the pit. This is a spot any waitress in the Coronet Hotel would lie, cheat, or--" he gestured expressively, "to latch on to. You're very lucky, Miss Heath."
"We'll see," Connie said, her mind hurtling over a dozen tracks, remembering Bert's sardonic insinuations about the jobs at the casino.
But a pit waitress, Connie recalled with rising respect. The smallest change a player would have at a gambling table, where the pit waitresses served drinks on the house, was a silver dollar. She herself had seen Carl Norton drop a handful of chips on a waitress's tray. A big winner would hand over a bundle.
Connie waited almost an hour before she went downstairs, to inquire as to the whereabouts of the pit boss. It was a job, she reminded herself defiantly-- a fantastically well-paid one. And right at this point, Connie Heath needed a job desperately.
Actually, her luck was unbelievable on this score, she remembered. Bert had told her how girls fought for these jobs in Vegas. Not only was she out of her hole about the hotel bill; she was in a position to pile up a fresh bankroll. Uneasily, she heard in her mind the caustic remarks Bert had ladled out, about employees who made unbelievable salaries, only to dump them back on the tables each week.
She repaired her makeup carefully, brushed the dark hair into a becoming sheen, then with an air of bravado for cover, she headed downstairs. It seemed to Connie that respect crept into the eyes of the man in the lounge whom she questioned about the pit boss's whereabouts. The status of the "pit waitress" at the Coronet was obvious. Unexpectedly, exhilaration took root in her.
She spotted the man who was the pit boss; he sat at a table before an expanse of glass, having his breakfast. She walked quickly to his table.
"I'm Connie Heath," she introduced herself breathlessly.
"Oh, yes." Interest infiltrated the pit boss's voice. He stopped eating to inspect her. In elaborate detail.
"I was told to report to you," she said, self-conscious before his scrutiny.
"That's right," he nodded. "We have a guest, a Mr. Carl Norton," he began, watching her closely.
"Oh?" The blue eyes glowed with suspicion.
"Mr. Norton is a guest to whom we cater here at the Coronet," he said smoothly. "He plays most heavily in the casino."
"I understood you were offering me a job as a pit waitress," she reminded, angry color touching the high cheekbones. The crust of him, she thought futilely.
"When the necessity arises, we ask a waitress a favor." His voice was flat. "You will take a bottle of champagne to Mr. Norton's suite immediately."
"To serve him champagne?" Her head lifted defiantly.
"To keep Mr. Norton happy," he said, his eyes cold steel. "Miss Heath, do you want this job or not?"
"I do not," Connie said tightly, and spun about and walked, without seeing, from the room.
She was beginning to understand Bert's contempt for Las Vegas and its demands. But she had just cut her throat financially, Connie realized in panic. Where did she go from here?
CHAPTER SEVEN
Connie walked out into the noonday heat, feeling herself lost at bay. She dropped into a chair at the edge of the pool, fighting off the trembling that had caught hold of her. She could just walk out, get into her car, drive straight back to Los Angeles. To the devil with her clothes, whatever remained in her hotel room!
But Connie knew she could never walk out today. In reality, she belonged behind a typewriter at Carmine Enterprises this Monday morning, but no power in this world could drive her back there just yet, she admitted. Why was Bert keeping away? Or was he working? Back at the Black Jack table. For a moment she toyed with the idea of going into the casino, then rejected this.
"Hi," a voice intruded softly behind her, and Connie swung about, startled, to face a tall busty redhead who looked as though she might have been a showgirl at one of the Strip Joints three or four years earlier. "Did you have a run-in with that old crab?" The green eyes, extravagantly framed in false eyelashes, beamed compassion.
"We didn't see eye to eye about a job," Connie shrugged.
"He holds out the best jobs around this state." The girl dropped herself into a chair beside Connie. "I worked for him for a while when he was at the Golden Oasis, until I started free-lancing." Her eyes were candid, unabashed by the inference.
"Not for me," Connie said quietly. "To each his own."
"I'm Dolly Smith," the redhead introduced herself. "Look, if you're in a rough spot... "
"I'm Connie Heath, and I'm in a rough spot," she acknowledged, waiting. "Only this job wasn't for me."
"I know of an opening," Dolly said after a moment of concentration. "It doesn't pay anything like the waitress bit, but you can pick up an easy buck."
"What do I have to do?" Connie's eyes met Dolly's frankly inquiring.
Dolly's wide mouth parted in an exuberant smile. "Only as much as you want," she conceded bluntly. "It's a massage parlor."
"I don't know a thing about massaging," Connie said quickly.
"You don't have to, baby. The boss'll give you a few tips, and you fake it. Mostly, it's the old guys, getting a kick out of being pushed around by a beautiful babe in shorts and tight-fitting top. You don't have to worry --they're too old to do anything more than look," she said candidly. "And if anybody starts up, you turn him down. He'll be luckier the next go-round." She shrugged in amusement.
"How much can I earn?" Connie asked, in an effort to be businesslike.
"That depends upon you," Dolly pointed out. "But even with drawing lines, you ought to pick up a hundred and a quarter a week, maybe more."
"What do I do?" Connie felt insecure with the job, yet what other "out" was there for her?
"Come on, I'll drive you over," Dolly ordered. "I don't dare go into the casino until after I pay my rent." She was on her feet, casting a wistful look in the direction of the casino. "Baby, if you knew what I leave back there some nights." She whistled eloquently.
Dolly's car was a current-model Lincoln Continental, and Connie was frankly impressed.
"The car's on loan to me," Dolly explained. "For the duration. He knows if he gave it to me I'd hock it in a minute."
"Did you ever work in this place?" Connie asked, trying to put down the uneasiness that threatened her slender hold on coolness.
"I was a showgirl, all along the Strip, until four years ago," Dolly explained uninhibitedly. "Then I figured out how I was wasting myself, with all the high rollers just pining to keep me happy. Like I say, I'm freelancing."
The massage parlor was located on the outskirts of town, discreetly situated in what appeared from the outside to be a California ranch house. There were a number of cars parked to the side, in a blue-stoned circular area. From the appearance of the cars, the massage parlor's customers must be well-heeled.
"Is it legal?" Connie suddenly thought to ask. Usually, men were massaged by men, women by women.
"It was until somebody got a cute idea to outlaw it back in 1962," Dolly conceded. "But nobody pays much attention to the ruling." A grin flitted across the kewpie-doll face. "They just raised their prices."
In the sprawling living room, furnished in what Dolly maliciously called "Miami rococco," Connie viewed the array of waiting clients. Most of them older men, a sprinkling of older women. A young-ish man stood at the window, gazing out, as though self -conscious about being here. Something about the set of his shoulders momentarily captured her attention. Oddly familiar, she thought, but Dolly was prodding her into a corridor now, past a pair of striking-looking, bosomy teenagers in shorts and knit tops. Kids like these working here, Connie thought in astonishment?
"This is Connie Heath," Dolly introduced her briskly to the short, squat man with the pinkie ring, sitting behind the desk. "Put her to work, Buck."
* * *
Connie took time out before her next appointment to retire to the girl's powder room to brush her hair. It was fantastic. Here she was twenty-four hours after Dolly had introduced her, working as a masseuse and getting away with it. Nothing so ghastly, she soothed herself--just pummeling an old man wrapped in a sheet, who got a thrill out of it. As Dolly said, nothing could happen except in his mind.
She took a swift check of her makeup, left the powder room to return to the surprisingly large room assigned to her. The client was already on the table, stretched flat on his stomach, wrapped in the customary sheet. Yet even as she stood in the doorway, Connie was aware of something oddly familiar. Like yesterday. The man at the window. No old man this time, she thought with mounting alarm.
"Hi, baby," the man drawled, turning around for a look at his masseuse.
Connie's blood turned to ice. "What are you doing here?" she gasped, staring in disbelief at the man in the sheet. "George, what are you doing here?"
"I might ask the same of you," he said, his thin mouth curved in amusement. "Though I can't say I'm surprised. What's the matter, doll? The gambling tables give you a bad time?" He sat up now, swinging his legs from the table. She had forgotten how tall he was, how powerful. Once she had been thrilled by that body.
"This is where you come for excitement?" she jibed, her face hot. But then, it figured, Connie thought.
"I had a business trip that took me eighty miles north," George explained, on his feet now, walking to the door. Connie watched, frozen into immobility, as he slid the bolt into place. "I figured on giving myself a three day rest in Vegas. Diversion besides gambling," he reminded, his eyes suddenly dark with excitement.
"What are you doing with yourself these days?" she asked, trying to be casual, discomforted by the way his eyes clung to her breasts, the full thighs beneath the short shorts. She wasn't his wife any more, she thought with rising alarm. Now he could look with lust.
"Married," he drawled, with a touch of braggadocio. "Two kids. Making up for lost time."
"How nice for you." Wariness colored her voice, along with sarcasm. He was before her now, his eyes glued to her breasts.
"In a way I miss you," he said softly. "You know in what way."
"Forget it," she flared. "Remember Reno?"
"So what about it?" His arms reached, pulled her roughly in against him. The sheet fell to the floor.
"Let me go, George," she ordered tightly.
"After the treatment," he stipulated, his eyes hot.
"Get on the table," she said, stiff in his arms. How dare he pull this, with the others outside. All she had to do was yell, and they'd break down the door.
"Later," he stipulated. "Connie, you don't want any trouble here on the job. How would it look to your sister up in Seattle, if you were arrested for prostitution?"
"What are you talking about?" she hissed in fury.
"All I have to do is spill to the vice squad," he pointed out, his hands racing beneath the blue knit top, trembling in their haste. Knowing he had shocked her into inaction.
"What have you got to spill to the vice squad?" she challenged, her legs weak with fear.
"These joints are outlawed," he reminded. Her bra went limp, and he hastened to capture the lush spill of her. "I know--they advertise on the radio and TV, all that crap. But according to law, men massage men and women massage women. No mixing of the sexes, Beautiful." His voice was husky, his hands rough.
"George, you're hurting me!" she gasped, her voice low. Tomorrow, her breasts would be black and blue!
"You'll forget all about that in a few minutes," he promised.
"George, let me go," she tried again, struggling futilely. Realizing her efforts only triggered his excitement. The blue knit top rode high above her head, was thrust to the floor. His mouth replaced the fragile, now limp lace bra. "All of a sudden I'm irresistible to you?"
"You're not my wife any more," he reminded with satisfaction. "You're a slut, made for this! Don't tell me you haven't been shelling out to the others?" he demanded, his smile a thin cruel line.
"No," she insisted, anger blending with frustration. "No!"
"Try telling that to the vice squad! Pretty picture, Connie," he gloated, his hands everywhere as her body writhed in an effort to free itself. "Your sister reading about it in the papers. Connie Heath arrested on charges of prostitution. Who'll they believe, in a setup like this? And if a complaint is lodged, they won't dare let it ride. The cops'll close in so fast, you won't be able to run."
"You wouldn't dare," she tried to brazen it out. But she knew he would. He would get a crazy satisfaction out of it. Bert's face flashed into her mind, and she turned sick inside. Bert would believe it.
She swayed before him, hating the touch of his hands, his mouth. Knowing it was a matter of waiting, because she couldn't scream. That was one gamble she was too smart to try. She was off her feet, his breathing heavy on her neck. The small cot beneath the high windows receiving the weight of her rigid body.
"Relax," he commanded as he crouched above her. "You never used to be so independent!"
"I hate you, George Heath," she whispered hoarsely. "I could be happy seeing you dead!"
She shut her eyes as he forced himself upon her, exhorting in gutter language, furious because she refused to respond. The nights she had cried herself to sleep because he was away on business trips and she lay alone in the double bed in their bedroom! The nights she felt shame because he was shocked at her response to his passion. Now she felt only disgust at his hands touching her.
"You little witch," he muttered. "Like a dead log! That wasn't the way it used to be!"
"I used to be your wife," she shot back in pent-up hatred.
Finally he stopped the frenzied drive to satisfy himself, lay limp. Maybe, if she kept perfectly still, Connie thought, sick at heart, eyes shut tight in a vain effort to stem the tears of frustration and humiliation, maybe he would just get up, dress, and get out of here.
* * *
"Buck wants to see you," a stunning seventeen-year-old brunette chirped as Connie lingered before the powder room mirror, struggling to calm herself. "Right away."
"Thanks," Connie stammered.
Had George complained to Buck? He had that kind of crust, she thought in contempt. She stalled a few moments, aware of the young brunette's curiosity. The door slammed, leaving Connie alone. Okay, go face the music, she ordered herself.
Connie knocked lightly at Buck's door, waiting tensely.
"Yeah?" he barked.
"Connie Heath," she said quietly, though none of the clients waiting could probably hear over in the far wing that housed Buck's office and living accommodations.
"Come in," he said brusquely.
Buck sat behind his desk, winging about from side to side in the swivel chair. His heavy-lidded beady eyes swept over her appraisingly.
"You run into a tough joe?" he asked with deceptive quietness.
"He complained?" Connie lifted an eyebrow in contempt.
"Sit down," Buck said. "Look around here, Connie, we cater to all kind of customers. Anything they want, they can get. You find you can't handle a guy, you give me a buzz--I'll find somebody who can." But the beady eyes never left her, making her miserable.
"How do I buzz?" Connie asked warily.
"Sit down," he ordered, nodding towards the chair. "I guess the girl didn't tell you. We got a buzzer right under every table. You find a guy you can't handle, you buzz three times."
"I didn't understand," Connie explained, relief flooding her.
"But don't get me wrong, baby," Buck shot out sharply. "If it's a routine trick, I expect my girls to go along. I'm talking about special services. You dig me? We get all kinds around here."
"I understood the job was massaging clients," Connie said with a show of bravado. "I didn't expect this." Her face was hot.
"Oh, come off it, baby," Buck scoffed. "You know the score. Maybe with most of our customers, it's all in the mind--but when a live one comes along, you play."
"No thanks," Connie said tightly. "I'm out of my league."
"Collect you pay from Rosie," he rapped out with a flicker of annoyance. "I can't waste my time on temperamental broads."
"That's fine with me." She pushed back the chair, rose to her feet, shaking inside. Buck was right; of course she should have realized the situation.
"What was it with that guy?" Buck said curiously.
"He was my ex-husband," Connie explained tersely. "He was interested in forgetting about the divorce. I doubt if he'll cause any trouble." A cynical smile touched the passionate lips. "He was only concerned in getting me fired."
"I don't think you would have lasted long around here, anyhow," Buck confided. "Not till you get more hip to the pitch. You change your mind, give me a ring."
Connie collected her two days' pay, ignoring the wise-eyed looks of Rosie, the "office manager," covertly beamed in her direction. She hurried out to the parking area, impatient to be behind the wheel, to put distance between the massage parlor and herself.
She drove swiftly back in the direction of the Coronet, her mind trying to cope with the problems ahead. Somehow, she had to bail herself out of the hotel, move back to the Sunset Motel. She wasn't going to walk out of Vegas broke, though, Connie promised herself. She had to have another shot at the tables. It had been a mistake, that switch to the Fremont Street sawdust joint and the slot machines. Roulette was her speed.
Connie holed up in her room for a large chunk of the evening, chain-smoking, trying to get George Heath out of her mind. What was it with Bert? Was he actually giving her the brush? He was disgusted, sure, because of her gambling, but what about the other part? She excited him the way he excited her. Lying in the darkened room, Connie felt the reminiscent stirring within her as she remembered how it could be with Bert and her.
Connie sat up at the edge of the bed, her heart pounding in anticipation. There was the money she collected today--in reality, she had hardly finished a half day's work. Buck didn't have to pay her for a full day. She reached to switch on the lamp, her mind made up. She would go down to the casino. So she had turned down the cocktail waitress job--that didn't mean she was entirely broke. She lifted her head defiantly, an odd stimulation taking root.
Connie pulled down the black cocktail dress from a hanger, walked with it into the bathroom. Shower, Connie decided in exhilaration, do her face to the hilt, dress, and head straight for the casino. Maybe Bert would be working at one of the Black Jack tables. He usually worked this late evening shift, Connie remembered. The night she met him at the Sunset Motel had been his evening off.
Connie showered swiftly, impatient to be done. But she forced herself to take time with makeup because there was a kind of protection in the masculine admiration she could collect when she walked into a room. Her eyes glowed darkly beneath the dramatic thickness of her lashes, the turquoise eyeshadow. Her hair shone to near-blackness, lending a striking contrast to the creamy skin, the deliberately pale lips. A faint smile showed itself as her gaze rested on the high rise of her white breasts clamoring above the low, low neckline of the black cocktail dress. She reached for her purse, an audacious glow about her. No roulette tonight. Black Jack. At Bert's table, if he were working.
Connie walked quickly from the elevator, through the lobby, to the casino entrance. Head high, a certain pride in the number of male glances shot her way. She walked quickly so that no doubts would arise that her business at the Coronet might be anything other than gambling. She passed through the wide entrance with a flicker of recognition for the guard on duty.
Instantly, her ears were assaulted by the loud frenzy of voices blending into a discordant symphony of excitement. Her eyes swept over the clusters of players, the groups of on-lookers, that were omnipresent at every table. She glanced about carefully, searching. Exultation pricked her. Bert was on duty. Let him ignore her tonight.
Connie pushed her way through the throngs, heading for the Black Jack table where Bert was dealing. She refused to consider how fast her small bankroll could evaporate in a casino where the minimum bet was one silver dollar. She wasn't entirely new to Black Jack, she reminded herself defiantly. There had been a room she played where Black Jack was offered. Bert was absurd, the way he insisted Black Jack was a game of skill. It was luck, like with any game.
A shaky triumph rode through her as she saw the startled look in Bert's eyes as they met. There was an empty spot in the Black Jack game. Connie sat down, reaching into her purse. She nodded to Bert to count her in, her eyes smoldering in response to the reproach in his. She waited, breathlessly, for him to hand across a stack of silver dollars. She was the only woman at the table, but the men were serious gamblers. Only cursory glances were shipped her way.
All bets were down. Bert extended the deck.
"Cut please," he said to Connie, this time avoiding a direct meeting of their eyes.
Connie tried to concentrate on the game as Bert dealt, one card face down to each player, one face up to himself. Then the second round--one card to each player, one to himself, all face down. Rotten cards, she saw with distaste, struggling to keep her face impassive. Bert would be glad, she thought rebelliously.
It would turn him sick to see her win--because then he would be proved wrong.
"Stay," Connie said quickly, aware that Bert was waiting on her.
It had been a mistake to switch from roulette to Black Jack, Connie reproached herself nervously. Only because she had this stupid urge to be close to Bert again! That wasn't the way to gamble. She wouldn't be able to stay in the game much longer, Connie noted with trepidation as her losses piled higher. She sensed the tension in Bert. He kept shooting covert, worried glances in her direction.
It was her last hand, Connie thought desperately, trembling with frustration. What rotten luck! Compulsively, she turned around, with the feeling of being watched. Her mouth parted in shock, a sickness in the pit of her stomach. Frank Lodge, a look of cold anger on his face, was approaching her as fast as the noisy throngs would allow. Frank knew she had lied. Her idiot boss, Connie sought frenziedly for an alibi. He had opened his big, fat mouth! With Bert sitting right here at the table, Frank Lodge was walking up to her!
CHAPTER EIGHT
Connie saw the glow of compassion in Bert's eyes, when she withdrew from the game, switch to shock as he intercepted her silent communication with Frank. A tight smile on her face, Connie stood up beside the Black Jack table.
"Hello, Frank," she said softly.
"Let's get out of here." He took her by the arm, prodding her towards the exit, his anger displayed in the strength of his grip.
Connie sensed that Bert was following them from the room. Probably completely wrong in his interpretation, Connie decided bitterly. She walked in silence with Frank until they were outside in the coolness of the night.
"I didn't believe it," Frank said in controlled anger. "The old man told me, and I almost called him a liar. I was charitable--I said he'd made a mistake!"
"I'll-pay you back the two hundred, Frank," she insisted unsteadily. "It's just a matter of time." She could never go back to Carmine now, she realized in panic. Not when both Frank and the old man knew. Not that she wanted to go back. Thank heaven, her rent was paid up until the end of the month, she recalled subconsciously. But she'd have to drive back to pick up her clothes.
"I'm not concerned about the lousy two hundred," Frank murmured heatedly. "Why did you have to lie to me that way?"
"Would you have sent me two hundred to lose at the tables?" Connie asked cynically.
"No," Frank conceded. "But I wouldn't believe him. I had to see for myself. Is that how your first marriage went on the rocks? Because you couldn't stay away from the casinos?"
"That's it, Frank," she said, suddenly impatient to be done with this farce. "I'm a gambler. Now you know." She didn't want to marry Frank Lodge. Only her mind had kept insisting he was a good bet. But she didn't want him! She wanted Bert Reid, her mind mocked truantly. For Bert Reid she could do anything. Or could she? Could she give up gambling for Bert? After a real run of luck, Connie grasped eagerly, she could stop. She honestly could--if Bert would be there to help her.
"I'm sorry for you, Connie," Frank said quietly. "I really am."
She watched while he strode across the terrace to the low, wide expanse of steps. She watched him disappear into the darkness, heading back for his car and Los Angeles. A closed chapter. She walked back into the lobby, almost fearing that some flunky would come charging towards her, even at this unlikely hour, with another little white envelope for her.
Connie let herself into her room. The phone rang. She reached eagerly, with a simmering hope that it would be Bert.
"Hello."
"Connie, it's me, Dolly. Feel like company?"
"Sure, come right up," Connie flipped. That was one crazy thing about Vegas she liked--the way nobody cared about the time.
Dolly must be furious at her because of Buck, Connie thought uneasily. After all, Dolly had steered her into the job. But nobody told her she would have to put out; that wasn't the way she understood it at all. She moved about the room, straightening up, nervous about greeting Dolly.
The door chimes tinkled. Connie crossed the room to pull open the door.
"Hey, baby," Dolly came inside, enormous eyes wide in sympathy. "What's this I hear about you running into trouble at Buck's joint?"
"It was one of those nutty things," Connie shrugged, and launched into a matter-of-fact account of what happened.
"Boy, that ex-husband of yours," Dolly said with contempt. "I know those heels."
"So here I am again," Connie said flatly, gesturing at the state of her bankroll.
"If you want to play it smart," Dolly said softly, "I can help you get set up real easy. You won't have to pay off to anybody. You're a free-lancer, like me." Dolly giggled, liking her interpretation. "Nothing but high-rollers, baby, and can they throw the cash around!" She wiggled her shoulders expressively.
"No," Connie said with a faint smile. She was too innately honest to pretend to be shocked. What Dolly did was her own business--and that it could be lucrative obvious. Only Dolly didn't hang on to the buck; there were the tables waiting to be beat.
"You can always pick up plenty of calls through the pit bosses," Dolly went on, more business-like. "You got any idea how much a pit girl can rake in?" Dolly's eyes glowed. "I know a blond around here who has seven mink coats, honey! She's paying off a hundred thousand dollar estate out in the desert. And the way she's making it, that house is going to be paid off in three years," Dolly said with solemn respect.
"I'll have to get some kind of job," Connie conceded uneasily.
"Try the waitress bit," Dolly urged. "Until it gets too hectic for you."
"After I turned him down cold?" Connie countered in surprise.
"He's got a hide like an elephant," Dolly said. "Try him."
Dolly sat down on the bed next to Connie, letting the ever-present mink stole slide from her shoulders. One arm settled about Connie in consolation, while she leaned across to the night table to pick up the opened pack of cigarettes there. Her hand grazed Connie's breasts as it returned with the cigarettes.
"I'll have to get out of the hotel," Connie said somberly. "All I'm doing is running up a mad bill. Even in this room."
"I can let you have a hundred, baby," Dolly soothed.
At first Connie didn't get the pitch, when Dolly's hand tightened at her shoulder. But then the other hand, with its fantastically-tapered fingernails moved unmistakably to the audacious thrust of her breast beneath the black cocktail dress.
"Dolly--" she began warily.
"Honey, men are such louses," Dolly crooned, prodding Connie back across the bed, the hand at Connie's breast suddenly clamorous. She tossed one long, voluptuous leg across Connie, pinning her down. "We can have ourselves a real ball without those stinking heels."
"Dolly, no," Connie said with rising insistence, swerving her head so as to miss the already parted mouth that aimed for hers. "Dolly, you're out of my depth!"
Surprisingly, Dolly giggled, pulling herself into a sitting position with no trace of rancor.
"So I tried," she shrugged. "Anything for kicks, baby. I mean, the way fellows are around here. They just take a look at you and aim. But I'm not one of those," she insisted, looking sharply at Connie. "Though now and then I run into a loaded broad who doesn't mind paying high for her kicks, so why be fussy?" She searched around for her purse, found it beneath the mink stole behind her. "But about that hundred, it's yours. No strings, honey--don't get that kind of idea." Dolly pulled out a hundred dollar bill, leaned across to put it on the night table. "Give it back to me whenever the dough is running in the right direction," she said airily. "I'll only leave it at the casino, anyhow."
* * *
Connie picked up the hundred dollar bill with an uncomfortable sense of guilt about accepting it. Maybe, she considered wryly, because she knew the source of Dolly's bankroll. She tucked the bill away in her wallet. Dolly would be the first person she would pay off when she hit a winning streak again. For a moment she stood there in indecision, the wallet still in her hand. No! The money was to go towards her hotel bill, not for the casino.
Connie shoved her wallet into her purse, walked over to help herself to a cigarette. Not that she particularly wanted to smoke but it was something definite to do. Tonight the walls of the room seemed to be closing in on her. She remembered that first night at the roulette table. Oh, the sweet victory of it!
She crossed to the window, stared out into the fading night without really seeing anything. Bert could afford to be so righteous, she told herself in self-vindication--he couldn't play anywhere in the state of Nevada. Don't think about the casino! Don't think about that little ball spinning to a stop on the roulette wheel!
She would take a bath, relax, then go to sleep, Connie told herself, waging a shaky battle against the compulsion to race back into the casino, pit her luck against the roulette wheel. She glanced at her watch. Bert must be going off duty now, anyhow.
Connie sauntered into the bathroom, with a determined air of self-possession. She leaned forward to adjust the faucets. Hot, to take some of the kinks out of her body. The tub began to fill with steaming liquid. She returned to the bedroom, pulled out a sheer ballerina nightie she had packed in a mood of frivolity. Ever since George, she made a habit of wearing sheer black underthings and nighties.
The water was hot. Connie stepped in gingerly, gradually settling herself into its depth. She leaned back after a few moments, accustomed to the temperature, lifting one full thigh to smile in amusement at the pinkness. She was out of her mind, Connie decided after a few moments. The hot tub was stimulating; she would never fall asleep now.
She stepped from the tub, dried herself carefully, viewing the lushness of her torso with bitter humor. This was the body that was to take her places! It was funny, the way Mom used to look at her--since the time she was fourteen--with that mixture of alarm and pride.
Mom was always so scared she would turn bad, and at the same time so proud that her younger daughter had the kind of build that made every man in sight take a deep breath. If Mom were alive, she would be disappointed. Connie was supposed to be heading for the top.
Anyhow, Mom guessed why she was disqualified in the beauty contest finals that time. Only to Mom it was kind of sweet that George didn't want his wife parading in a bathing suit before a string of male judges. Thank goodness, Mom never knew about George, about the way it ended with them. She shivered involuntarily, remembering George in the room at Buck's massage parlor. The louse. The stinking louse!
Connie reached for the black nightie, slid the fragile transparency above her head, over the pink-tinged whiteness of her breasts and hips, let it ride with a whisper about her thighs. Almost reaching her knees. Silver mules stood sedately in a corner of the bathroom. Connie slid into them.
Again, the knowledge that a hundred dollar bill was there, within reach, began to taunt her. She was lucky before, going to the tables late in the night. Maybe that was how it was supposed to be--go to the casino late this way. She would take the hundred, give herself a chance! Anticipation zigzagged through her. Why not?
The door chimes startled her. She wavered a moment, then walked to the closet for the red robe. "Who is it?" she called over her shoulder. Bert? No, Bert was furious with her.
"Bert," he said, his voice low, carrying an undertone of urgency.
Connie swept to the door, buttoning the robe as she walked--not completely, just down to the knee. Exultation catapulted in her. Bert was here. He had come to her.
"Hi," she said softly, pulling the door wide for him to enter.
"Are you all right?" he asked self-consciously.
"Of course." She smiled tentatively. Why was he glancing about that way? Was he afraid he might have found Frank in her bed?
"I saw you leave the casino with that fellow. I got crazy ideas in my head," he said quietly. "I worried about you."
Tenderness welled in Connie. He hadn't thought that she was making it with Frank; he was worried about her, sensing trouble.
"He's a character who had a crazy idea he wanted to marry me. He couldn't believe the Vegas bit. He had to come see for himself."
"I'm sorry." Bert looked desperately uncomfortable, trying to avert his gaze from the velvet whiteness between her breasts because a button had carelessly popped open.
"Don't be," Connie rejected. "I wasn't buying it. I knew it wasn't right." The passionate glow about her face said that Bert was right.
"I should be getting to the motel," he began slowly.
"I suppose." She waited, mouth parted slightly, eyes challenging him to leave her now.
"Oh, Connie, Connie--" The words were wrung from him as he met her halfway, their bodies reaching hungrily for each other.
"Bert, don't hate me," she pleaded. "Darling, don't!"
"We both ought to have our heads examined," he muttered, but his mouth was headed towards hers.
She met his mouth with matching eagerness, her arms tight about his neck, her body impatient for the touch of his. His hands raced about her back as their mouths merged, tongues finding each other, absorbed in their passionate duel. This way, she could forget about the casino, Connie thought with dizzy triumph. Bert wasn't ashamed of love. He reveled in her response!
"I told myself I wasn't coming up here," Bert whispered huskily. "I said I was strong enough to keep away."
"Why?" she challenged, head leaning back as his fingers fumbled with the other buttons down the front of her robe. "Why stay away, Bert?"
"I'm afraid for you here in Vegas," he insisted, his eyes dark with excitement as they lingered on the audacious thrust of her breasts beneath the transparent blackness of the nightie. "You don't know what this town can do to a girl like you!"
The robe slid from her shoulders, her arms, to the floor, his hands moved swiftly about her swaying torso, arousing her to painful ecstasy. She reached to slide her fingers between the buttons of his shirt. Instantly, he removed the shirt, and she waited impatiently for the return of those strong, supple hands on her, the lean strength of his body coming in to meet hers.
"Bert, I feel so good with you!" she said, her breathing uneven as the sheer blackness cascaded about her, collapsed into a filmy heap at her feet.
Connie closed her eyes tightly, abandoning herself solely to emotion. His hands at her breasts. The tips hurt with pleasure. His mouth nipping lightly, and moaned in delicious reproach. With Bert she wouldn't need the tables--it would be enough to have this! His hands at her thighs, stroking, coaxing. A low cry welled in her throat. His mouth flicked across her flesh. She didn't care about anything else in this world, Connie thought exultantly. Only this!
His face close to hers again, their bodies swaying together. Why did he wait? Her hands clutched at his shoulders, her hips pushing to meet his. Soft moans of desire wracked her at the awareness of his matching desire.
"Bert, I love you," she whispered hotly. She had never said that to anyone. Not even George, not in the first heat of marriage--before her overtures to passion had been so brutally received. "Bert, don't ever leave me."
The room plunged into darkness. The firm mattress welcomed her tremulous body. His hot breath at her ear, his hands racing about her writhing length. And then a shuddering sob broke from her because there was no more waiting. Just this miracle of receiving. A single shadow across the bed as their passionate bodies claimed each other. His mouth silenced the exultant cry of satisfaction that welled in her throat, threatening to spill over. They clung, reluctant to relinquish the excitement of this moment.
* * *
Connie lay back against the pillows, the black ballerina nightie seductively pretending to masquerade her nudity. But the blue eyes were somber, unhappy, because Bert stood at the window, staring out over the desert, smoking with jerky, nervous motions.
"Connie," he began finally, swerving about to look at her. "It's no good, your staying on here at Vegas. You have to leave. If you need a few bucks to help you get back to L.A.--" His voice petered out, his eyes refusing to meet hers.
"You don't trust me very much," she accused, a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.
"Anything looks all right in Vegas," he tried to speak calmly. "Values get twisted. Honey, I know you," he said gently. "I know what the casino does to you."
Connie slid from the bed, crossed to Bert, dropped her arms about his neck.
"Bert, you come back to Los Angeles with me. You're practically out of hock now--you admitted that. All we need is a car to get us back! Somebody like you can pick up a job anywhere." His eyes searched his urgently.
"No, Connie," he rejected unhappily. "I can't leave yet."
"Why?" she demanded, anger mingling with frustration. "Why can't you leave? What is there about Vegas that keeps you trapped? You can't play anywhere in Nevada--you told me that!"
"I know I can't play," Bert said tiredly. "Neither can I pull down the kind of money I'm earning anywhere else just like that. It's a 'plus' that I can't throw it back to the tables." He tried for an amused chuckle, which came off badly.
"Bert, I'll go back now, in the next hour," she promised urgently. "If you'll go back with me."
"I can't," he said quietly.
"You mean you don't want to." She dropped her arms from around his neck, walked over to the foot of the bed to pick up the red robe. "You're no different from any of the others," she tossed at him, trembling now. "Only the line is slightly different!"
"I'm sorry, Connie," he said, his voice barely audible.
Connie watched as he swung away from her, opened the door, walked out into the brightly-illuminated lushly carpeted corridor. Out of her life. And then she tossed herself across the foot of the bed, and cried.
CHAPTER NINE
The phone buzzed, breaking discordantly into Connie's slumber. She rolled over, buried her face in the pillow, reluctant yet to face the day after a scant few hours of uneasy sleep. The phone continued its strident crusade to arouse her.
"Oh, shut up," she said viciously, but nevertheless, reached out with one hand to pick it up. "Yes," she said groggily, momentarily forgetting that she had left an early call.
"Ten o'clock, Miss Heath," the switchboard operator announced crisply.
"Ungodly hour," Connie complained. "Thank you."
She put the phone back, burrowed herself again into the pillow. To the devil with her determination to go down first thing this morning, to settle her bill and check out. She lay still, her mind relentlessly returning to consciousness. How could Bert behave that way? Lift her up to Mount Olympus one minute, and send her crashing back to earth the next?
Why, Connie pondered unhappily? Why did he insist on brushing her off? But naturally, she reminded herself cynically, she knew the answer to that. Compulsive gamblers turned Bert sick. His father, she thought with a jolt. She had forgotten about his father, that awful childhood of insecurity and fear. He wasn't taking a chance on a repetition of that.
But Bert was crazy about her! She swung over on her back, gazing up at the ceiling. He couldn't help coming to her last night that way, the way she couldn't help rushing to the tables. But for six months she had stayed away, hadn't she? Okay, so it was the awful shock of almost being handed a jail sentence. But with Bert to stand beside her, she could stay away forever.
The phone jangled again. Connie leaned across to pick it up, a fresh optimism taking root in her.
"Hello."
"Ten five, Miss Heath," the girl said softly. "Are you fully awake?"
"Thank you, yes."
Connie lay back against the pillows, bunching them together so that she was in a half-sitting position. Somehow, she had to make Bert understand that she could quit. When something was so perfect, the way it was with Bert and her, it was a sacrilege to let it escape.
She wouldn't settle her bill just yet, Connie compromised as she went about the business of getting dressed. First she had to talk with the pit boss, see if she could inveigle her way into a waitress spot. That hundred was a cushion against disaster. But what was she going to do about clothes? She stared distastefully into the closet. The handful of things she had packed for a weekend were woefully inadequate. The turquoise sheath again, she sighed. Or should she stop off downstairs again, buy a dress, sign a tab? Better not, she decided uneasily. The grapevine would have spread to the shop. Connie Heath was no longer velvet carpet fodder.
She went through the lobby without a glance toward the desk, heading out through the side, where outdoor tables were set up for breakfast. She could sign a breakfast tab, at least, she decided guiltily. The tables were all but deserted at this hour, except for a party obviously just leaving the casino and partaking of a late snack.
"Supper or breakfast?" the waiter grinned, bowing elaborately before her.
"Breakfast," Connie said crisply. "Orange juice, toast, black coffee."
"Right away," he crooned, his eyes sweeping over the curvaceous torso that rebuked such a starvation diet.
Connie tried to recreate in her mind that earlier encounter with the pit boss. She knew by now the value of the job of pit waitress, the kind of salary she could run up. Dolly had been dramatically clear about that. And the grubby pit boss, in his expensive silk suit and flashy pinkie ring, had said, she reminded herself, fighting down misgivings, that only in special cases did he ask a special favor of a pit waitress. She hadn't seen Carl Norton around since the weekend, Connie remembered hopefully. Maybe he had checked out.
The waiter returned with her breakfast. She ate slowly, watching for signs of activity inside. Tenseness crept over her when she spied the pit boss heading for the office which was his point of operation. Play it casual, Connie cautioned herself. All he could do was say "no." Right now, she desperately wanted the pit waitress job. Every waitress in Vegas coveted one of those jobs. And she hadn't seen Norton around!
She took another careful check in the mirror, drew a deep breath, signalled for the waiter. She hastily scrawled her name across the tab, keeping up light conversation with the waiter lest he get some crude idea about checking on her credit. The office inside, where she had been interviewed for the job before, stood open, as though in invitation. He was probably just checking in before his morning rounds, Connie guessed uneasily. Nab him now while he was there.
Connie knocked lightly on the half-open door, a faint smile in readiness.
"Come in," he said without looking up. "Leave the door open."
Connie walked self-consciously into the room, waited for him to be done with the notations he was making in a ledger. She hated leaving herself open for a refusal, but there was the fabulous salary a cocktail waitress could pick up. With cash in her hands, she would have another chance at the tables.
"Oh, it's you," he said humorously. "The temperamental Miss Heath."
"I'm applying for a job as cocktail waitress," she said casually. "Is there one open now?"
His eyes narrowed. "There might be."
"I'm available," she reminded, deliberately flip.
"Could it be?" he chuckled, "that you have heard our friend Mr. Norton is not at present among our guests?"
"It's possible," she conceded, allowing herself an answering glint of amusement.
"Understand," he said cautiously, "we make no requests of our waitresses other than duty serving drinks. Normally," he emphasized, pausing to give it weight, allowing himself the luxury of a lascivious inspection of her breasts. "But when we do make a special request, we expect this favor to be granted." His eyes watched her closely.
"I understand." She nodded self-consciously. She could work until the pit boss asked a special favor, Connie stipulated mentally--with luck on her side, she could pile up a small bankroll before she walked out.
"You'll need a uniform," he said smugly, leaning forward to pick up a phone. "Welcome to our staff, baby."
* * *
As soon as Connie arrived on the pit floor, she realized this was Bert's night off. Another dealer sat at the Black Jack table. Disappointment took the edge off the simmering excitement of being part of the casino picture. What would Bert think when he saw her working here? But she was a waitress. It wasn't as though she were a pit girl or a showgirl, Connie reminded herself defensively. Those were the girls who put out regularly--the professionals. Only now and then would a pit waitress find herself pushed into such extracurricular duties.
For the first couple of hours on the job, Connie was nervous. The brief, flimsy costume, her unfamiliarity with handling a glass-laden tray, the necessity to move through the jostling crowds in the casino, all joined together to keep her keyed up. Despite the fact that gamblers were notoriously single-track-minded, she was collecting an appreciative number of masculine leers. Gamblers were not too busy, no matter how serious their intent, for an inspection of a voluptuous bosom or well-fashioned legs.
Connie's eyes strayed about the crowds with cautious apprehension, reassured when there was no sign of Carl Norton, nor of any of his retinue. The bosomy movie starlet who was a favorite in the casino because she consistently brought Carl Norton to the tables-- and it was hinted collected a piece of his losses--was absent. The Amazon of a showgirl who hovered about him regularly was not in sight. Why had he suddenly developed this lust for her, Connie wondered nervously? In a way it was a compliment, to bat in the league of the movie starlet and the showgirl.
It was a rush night, for which Connie was grateful. Being so busy hopping about with drinks, she had little time to dwell on personal problems. Subconsciously, she became aware that her feet ached in the high heels that were part of the uniform--because they set off fabulous legs--that her back was tired. But a certain exuberance had settled about her. She understood now why the job was so coveted, Connie admitted in soaring astonishment. She had served two heavy winners in the pit tonight. Each had triumphantly dropped handfuls of chips on her tray as tips. Each chip was valued at one silver dollar!
Connie watched for the signal that her tour of duty was over. She was exhausted, her smile automatic. But by the time she checked in, she reminded herself, she would have earned--in addition to her eight dollar a day salary--close to eighty-five dollars! For one evening of swinging a tray. Naturally, not every evening would be so lucrative, Connie admitted realistically-- but the potential was there.
Relief surged through her. She was through for the night. She hurried from the casino, to the washroom shared by the waitresses. Past the showgirls draped about the lounge, under orders to "dress it up." And to extend favors to high rollers who made the pitch. Nobody said a showgirl had to come across, Connie overheard one waitress drawl, but if they didn't, there would be a call out for a replacement the next day. Were the cocktail waitresses in a better position, Connie thought cynically? The same situation if they were pushed. The showgirls happened to offer more interesting bait, Connie put it succinctly.
Dressed again in the turquoise sheath, Connie stopped off at the check-out desk, despite the hour. She was determined to eliminate this terrifying daily expense looming over her head.
"I'll be leaving right away," she said crisply, just managing to meet the tab with the aid of her evening's tips and Dolly's hundred. She must have been out of her mind to stay this long, Connie thought with a shudder, incredulous as she realized what she had handed over for room space in this brief span of time.
"We hope you will return soon," the check-out clerk said politely. With a note of curiosity, Connie suspected.
"I will," she murmured with a flicker of amusement. "I work here."
She hurried upstairs to her room, caught up in a mood of exhilaration because she was getting away from the Coronet Hotel's fantastic tabs. Part of that exhilaration--though she refused to concede as much, even to herself--due to the fact that she was heading like a bird dog, right back to the Sunset Motel. Bert stayed at the Sunset.
She packed her valise, carried it down to the beat-up convertible waiting in the parking area, slid behind . the wheel. Let there be a vacancy at the Sunset, she thought with intensity as she drove down the black-topped circular driveway that carried her away from the lush oasis in the desert that was the Coronet, to the highway. It was past the weekend, she reminded herself hopefully. Midweek there was apt to be a vacancy.
Connie spotted the Sunset sign well before she approached the turnoff. The sign announced that there were vacancies. Good! She made a sharp left, headed for the office to register. Feeling faintly self-conscious because she remembered the circumstances of her departure from the Sunset. But then they were probably accustomed to the sudden switch-overs, when a guest took a healthy chunk from a casino bank.
"Unit fourteen," the man behind the desk told her, reaching for the key, and excitement brimmed over in her. She had been in Unit Fourteen when she arrived in Las Vegas! It was a portent of good luck--she was sure of that.
"Thank you." She flashed him a warm smile as she accepted the key, wanting to ask about the number of Bert's unit yet unable to bring herself to frame the question.
The small room was sharply unpretentious in comparison even to the single room she. had occupied at the Coronet, after relinquishing her lavish suite. But the whole circumstances of her being in Vegas had changed. She was no longer a guest; she belonged here now. A vague uneasiness swept over her. How would Bert look at this when he found out? Would he understand that right now she was just working at a job that paid off so handsomely it was unbelievable? It was like winning a small pot each night! She wouldn't throw it all back into the casino, Connie vowed. Forget about building up a stake, she decided in sudden decision. Let her show Bert she could save up money and not gamble it away. What better proof could he ask that she could take or leave it? For Bert she could do that.
With a need to feel that she had roots here, Connie unpacked the one valise, hung away the dresses, transferred the other contents into drawers. She undressed swiftly, eager for sleep. She hadn't realized until this moment how exhausted she was. The bed felt deliriously welcoming. She stretched the tired muscles of her feet, wriggled her shoulders. The lamp, she remembered, and reached to bathe the room in darkness. Damn that noisy party next door, she thought drowsily, resenting the over-loud radio, the high-pitched liquored-up voices. But she was not annoyed for long. In less than five minutes Connie was entirely oblivious of the world.
* * *
Connie came awake swiftly, strikingly rested. For an instant the blue eyes flickered in uncertainty; she was not yet fully aware of her surroundings. Then the memory of last night's move, the new job, slid into place in her mind. Heavens, she had slept for close to eleven hours! Time to get out of bed, prepare for another evening of pushing trays around in the Coronet casino.
While she went about the routine of getting ready for the day, which already hovered on the brink of evening, Connie considered the advantages of the job. She had really landed a plum, she thought jubilantly.
No wonder every waitress in Vegas prayed for a job in a carpet joint casino!
Once she became adjusted to being on her feet, Connie decided in a rush of optimism, it would be a snap. So little different from maneuvering a typewriter and steno pad, when you considered it realistically, except that the money was so beautifully inflated. The old man back at Carmine liked to leer and touch. She had been leered at all evening, pinched occasionally. For that kind of money, she wouldn't allow herself to be squeamish.
Connie consulted her watch, debating about checking up on Bert. He must still be here at the Sunset-why would he move? Late, though, for him to be hanging around. But she could find out. No harm in that. She sallied forth from her motel unit in a glow of expectation, headed for the office.
"Is Bert Reid still registered here?" she asked casually.
"Yes," the clerk told her, a too-wise glint in the look he bestowed on her. "In Unit Twenty-three."
"Thank you." She ignored the look.
"Oh, he drove off twenty minutes ago," the voice called after her. "I saw him leave."
Connie walked back to the convertible, remembering that first time, when Bert offered to drive her into town. Even then she realized Bert was different. Time was different here than anywhere else on the earth, too. She felt as though she had known Bert for months.
She wouldn't think about Carl Norton, Connie promised herself as she slid the key into the ignition. Or a replica of Norton. Most of the high rollers aimed for more excitement than a cocktail waitress. The showgirls were more their beat. It might not happen again, the way it did with Norton, for weeks or months. In a few weeks she could be so far ahead, it would mean nothing to quit. She would have enough of a stake to try the roulette table again.
Connie's throat tightened as she realized the unconscious pattern of her thoughts. She was not going to gamble again--how could she forget that promise to herself? Well, maybe she could set aside a small stake, she compromised guiltily. Then guilt was trampled by expectation. She would take that stake and try the roulette table again. No more Black Jack, no craps, nothing except roulette. That was where she had found luck before--when she was staying in Unit Fourteen at the Sunset Motel.
* * *
Tonight, she felt more at ease on the floor, Connie told herself, pleased. So far she had been working at one end of the casino, with one of last night's heavy winners consistently ordering drinks. Not that he wanted the drinks, Connie guessed instinctively--he felt she brought him luck. Connie could understand.
Bert was on duty at his regular Black Jack table. So far he hadn't noticed her. Her gaze strayed compulsively to his table, waiting for the moment of discovery. Steeling herself for it. Yet why should she feel that Bert would be shocked. She was a cocktail waitress. Not a showgirl, not a pit girl, not one of the obvious professionals who floated about the various areas of the Coronet Hotel and its casino.
A woman signalled from one of the roulette tables, that was adjacent to Bert's table. She walked self consciously towards the woman, the smile set on her face. She leaned forward politely, accepting the woman's order, straightened up, clashed with Bert's shocked brown eyes.
"Hi." It was a silent salutation, hesitant because of that look of reproach.
She sauntered back in the direction of the bar. Why must Bert always fill her with this sense of guilt? She was doing nothing wrong! Besides, hadn't he been blatantly clear about where she stood with him? Fine, for a night. But he wouldn't leave his precious Black Jack table to go back to Los Angeles with her.
As she moved with studied grace about the crowded casino floor, Connie was aware of the veiled, somber glances that Bert shot regularly in her direction. What could he have to say now, she asked herself defiantly? What right did he have to order her back to Los Angeles, while he stayed here? He had no right to ship her out of his life!
Dolly strolled into the casino, fawning over a potbellied expensively-tailored Texan who was obviously a high-roller. She winked in broad approval as she spied Connie on duty, then concentrated completely on her companion, whose objective was a crap table.
Connie spotted Bert as he rose from the table for his relief. Cautiously, with a barely perceptible movement of his head, he gestured to her to meet him outside. She hurried with the tray to the bar, murmured that she was taking her relief.
She hesitated, trying to guess where Bert would be waiting for her. Then she saw him, at a side entrance, a cigarette in hand. He smiled faintly, sauntered through the door into the night. Swiftly, Connie followed him.
"What do you think you're doing now?" Bert demanded softly as she came towards him. He was in a cloistered corner, at least a dozen feet from the path.
"What does it look like?" she asked with a provocative tilt of her head. "Making money like mad."
"Proving what?" he asked.
"That I don't have to gamble," she said, part of her mind hoarding the stipulation about a "small stake."
"That I can take it or leave it if the reason is strong enough." The blue eyes tangled with his, telling him that he was reason enough.
"Connie, I don't like you working here," he insisted. "Things have a crazy way of happening! You get into situations, honey."
"Leave with me," she tried again. She wasn't wrong about one thing, her mind sang joyously. Bert honestly had flipped for her. Not just the bed thing--for real. For keeps.
"Baby, I can't just yet," he said desperately. "I have to get myself a bankroll. Connie, I get claustrophobia when I'm bust."
"When?" she challenged, waiting. Because there was another look in Bert's eyes now.
"Give me three months," he said after a moment. "Go back to Los Angeles, and I'll come to you in three months."
"How do I know you're telling me the truth?" she countered.
"Because of this," he said urgently, and reached for her.
"I guess that's reason enough," she conceded, after a long few moments, her voice husky.
"Quit tonight," Bert insisted. "Get out of this jungle before I lose my sanity."
"All right," she promised softly. "But if you're not there in three months, Bert Reid, I'll be right there at your Black Jack table!"
She couldn't go back to Carmine Enterprises again --not after everything that happened. But she wasn't concerned about finding another office job. That had never been a problem. For three months, she could manage, she thought in a surge of optimism, Bert's arms holding her close.
"We'd better get back inside," he said uneasily, releasing her with candid reluctance. "Let nobody get ideas."
"None of their business," she said rebelliously.
Nevertheless Connie walked back inside a good ten yards ahead of Bert, as though alone. She returned to the bar, picked up her tray, headed back into the casino. The pit boss was on the floor, an odd glint of satisfaction about his face. She moved forward without seeing the heavy-set man at the roulette table, leering pleasantly in her direction. Without his movie starlet or his showgirl in tow tonight.
"Say, Bert," Connie heard the pit boss say complacently to him, "tap the new babe on the shoulder. Connie," he added in explanation, "the brunette dish. Tell her to take herself over to Carl Norton at the baccarat table. Her boy is back in town."
Connie's steps faltered as panic ran roughshod through her. It was a setup, she thought furiously. As soon as she took the job, that louse contacted Carl Norton. Norton was the kind of character that found spice in a chase--up to a point.
"Connie," Bert said, his voice an ice-edged whisper. "Make tracks for the baccarat table. Norton's waiting for you."
His eyes were dark with disenchantment as they met hers for an instant. Then he turned on his heels and headed for his own table. Bert believed everything the pit boss told him, Connie thought, seething with rebellion. He didn't ask questions, he just believed!
Her head high in defiance, Connie directed her steps towards the baccarat table. Carl Norton sat there with his enigmatic smile. But his eyes were a dead giveaway. He was developing a Big Thing for Connie Heath.
CHAPTER TEN
"Scotch on the rocks," Carl Norton ordered in his surprisingly mellow voice.
"Right away," Connie smiled automatically, aware of the detailed inventory he contrived in this public encounter.
She headed with a self-conscious grace in the direction of the bar, feeling the weight of his eyes on her swinging hips, the length of bare thigh and leg highlighted by the brief costume that partially clothed the Coronet Casino pit waitress. She ought to be impressed by his attention, Connie reminded herself sharply. He had what it takes to impress a Hollywood movie starlet, the most fabulous showgirls on the Strip. The kind of money, Connie pinpointed, that other people could not even imagine!
She caught the pleased eye of the pit boss as she passed him on her way back to the baccarat table. She was by no means underestimating her value to the Coronet casino at this point. She was a major attraction for Carl Norton. She could keep him at the tables, keep him dropping his fabled losses for the benefit of the Coronet bank. Nobody had to tell her that the pit boss would see to it that she was financially rewarded. Not counting what Carl Norton might feel in the mood to lavish upon her!
Why not, Connie asked herself rebelliously? What did she have to lose? She wasn't some wide-eyed virgin panting to be led to the marriage license bureau. She knew the score. Why not collect? Why not, indeed! Hurt, disillusionment tugged at her recurrently as she remembered the look in Bert's eyes. How easy it was for him to believe what he saw on the surface! Because she was such an easy mark for him? Men were such heels--all alike. Only the trappings were different.
Carl Norton stayed till late at the tables, until almost an hour before she was scheduled to go off duty. Connie made a strong-willed effort to keep her gaze away from the table where Bert dealt, yet now and then their eyes clashed and she felt faintly sick inside. The regulars in the casino wore wise looks as they appraised the situation. Carl Norton was adding a new girl to his harem.
Dolly watched with avid curiosity, frankly approving--and impressed.
There was a certain envy in the woman's eyes as they inspected Connie at intervals. Knowing Carl Norton's fabulous wealth--and there was an odd attraction about the man, Connie conceded, despite his physical heaviness, the fact that he was well into his forties. There was the persuasive charm that no doubt built his early meager bankroll--or it was claimed-- into the vast holding that made him one of the country's wealthiest men.
The men looked at her as though they wished themselves in Carl Norton's shoes. She felt a stark discomfort before some of the bold stares that mentally stripped her there on the pit floor, made love to her as they suspected Carl Norton would be doing before this night was done. Let the image taunt Bert, she thought bitterly. Let him remember how it was with them-- and think of her with Carl Norton!
Think about Dolly Smith's white Lincoln Continental, Connie exhorted herself. Remember the closets laden with the most expensive clothes the Nevada shops could provide. Think about the blonde Dolly talked about, with seven mink coats and a hundred thousand dollar palace in the desert. That was living! If she were smart, acquired an iron-coated stomach, it would be hers. Who needed Bert Reid?
Carl Norton was withdrawing from the baccarat table.
"What a lousy night," he grumbled good-humoredly, shaking his head at the croupier. The pit boss gestured silently to Connie to move closer to Carl. Without looking, she was sure that Bert was watching, no matter how engrossing the game at his table: "My first night back and I drop eighteen grand! Some welcome!"
Carl Norton's gaze swung about to Connie, taking pleasure in the wide-eyed look of amazement wrested from her by the casual mention of eighteen thousand lost this evening. His sensuous mouth parted in amusement. He enjoyed being the cynosure of attention in the casino, where players were usually too engrossed in their own gambling to care about anybody else. But Carl Norton was a master of the spectacular, Connie admitted.
Did everybody here at the tables have to stop to leer at Carl Norton and her, Connie wondered in disgust? She stood still, hesitant, uncertain of the next move. Carl walked towards her, leaned his heavy bulk above her for a moment, a hand dropping to her shoulders, his eyes sweeping down the low-cut front of her costume. Savoring the rise of velvet whiteness that jutted brazenly above the neckline.
"Pretty baby," he crooned, his eyes hot with excitement as they lingered on her. "Pretty, pretty baby."
And then he was striding away from her towards the exit from the casino. Pausing briefly at the door to confer in whispered conversation with the obsequious pit boss. Carl Norton disappeared into the lounge. The pit boss gestured to Connie. She tightened inside as she walked to him, her heart pounding.
Let Bert's imagination run its full gamut, she thought defiantly. This was what he expected of her. That was the reason he turned her down flat when she asked him to go back to L. A. with her. He never intended to come out after three months, the way he said. Bert wanted her out of Las Vegas because she kept his mind off the gambling tables. She wasn't buying that bit about his not being allowed to play. He probably played every free moment he found available--she wasn't in the casino all the time!
"Connie," the pit boss said casually, his voice soft, "go over to the bar and pick up a bottle of champagne. Tell the bartender it's for Carl Norton. Take it up to his suite. He's in the Oasis Suite," the pit boss allowed himself a smirk. "The elevator operator will steer you there."
"My section won't be covered," she reminded, indecision looming suddenly above her.
"Who cares?" he grinned, his hand grazing her rear for an instant. "I'll send over a replacement. You won't be coming back to the floor any more tonight." His eyes meaningful as they met hers. "You keep Mr.
Norton at the tables, baby--you'll find a nice bonus in your pay envelope the end of the week. And I mean nice."
Connie collected the bottle of champagne--a special vintage kept on ice for Mr. Norton, the bartender said with visible respect--cradled it in the curve of one arm, sauntered towards the bank of elevators as though on a routine assignment. Dolly thought she was doing sensational, Connie tried to be brazen with herself. Those over-sized eyes of Dolly's all but popped out of her head when she saw the way Carl Norton was drooling.
Just this one episode, Connie coddled her self-consciousness. She had been in bed before without developing wild attacks of conscience. So this time there was a brass ring waiting to be grabbed. Like holding a winning sweepstakes ticket. Make like she was out of her mind for Carl Norton. Make herself believe it was Bert.
She paused before The Oasis Suite, the name garishly gilded on the door. One slender finger reached to press the bell. Inside, she could hear the chimes echoing through stillness.
"One minute," Carl called out.
Funny, hearing that melodic voice of his, you could forget he was about forty pounds overweight and droopy about the jowls. She willed herself to think of all the plus-angles about Carl Norton. The door was opened with a fast sweep, and he stood there before her, in a handsome richly embroidered dressing gown, the kind painstakingly produced by a team of tailors in Shanghai. The scent of an expensive after-shave lotion hit her nostrils as he dropped an arm about her shoulders to lead her into the room.
'Your champagne," she said breathlessly.
"That'll do for a start," he chuckled. "Let me take it, put it in the refrigerator until we're ready for it."
He took the bottle from her and disappeared into what Connie assumed was the serving pantry. Her eyes moved compulsively about the enormous living room with its overly-lush furniture and wall hangings. She was so impressed by her suite. In comparison to this one, it might have been a room at the YMCA.
"Tired from slinging that tray all evening?" he asked compassionately, sauntering back into view. "Kick off your shoes."
"A pleasure," she flashed back, making a provocative bit of disposing of the high-heeled pumps.
"I'll bet you're bushed, standing up all evening in those things," he pursued, crossing to stand before her. His hand at her shoulders. "Your luck at the tables was rotten, I take it. After the first good run."
"It made me sick," she said coolly.
"But you stayed on." His hand roamed about her back, coaxing her in to him until her breasts grazed the embroidered dressing gown. "Fascinating, hunh?"
"Absolutely," she concurred, waiting.
"You're fascinating," he said with satisfaction, desire leaping into his eyes. "I watched from the first night you popped into Vegas. A breath of fresh air. I'll bet you never did anything like this before?" His breathing heavy in anticipation.
"No," she said candidly. Not if he meant, had she ever made love to a man for money.
"You mean you've never been really loved by a man?" A torrent of excitement exuding from him.
"Up to a point," she lied, intuitively guessing that Carl Norton would flip right out of his skin if he could believe he was the first. It gave her a kind of vicious satisfaction to consider playing Carl Norton for a fool. She could carry it off, she thought with bravado. It wasn't too tough, if the girl used her head. And she had said, "up to a point."
"I have a warm tub waiting for you," he murmured, hands resting at her breasts, his eyes beamed to the valley between. "Help you relax."
"All right," she said softly, playing the wide-eyed, slightly insecure virgin.
The tub was a huge square Roman charmer, with two steps leading to its depth. The walls of the bathroom were mirrored on three sides. The scent of bath salts blended with the steam to give the air a heavy fragrance that was almost too much.
"I'll have a cigarette while you get rid of some of the kinks," he stipulated, sprawling in the deep boudoir chair that flanked one side of the tub.
"I'll need some help with the zipper," she warned, and turned her back to him. The costumes were so tight not one of the waitresses could manage the zippers alone.
His fingers were adept, guiding the zipper down its length effortlessly. A smile of anticipation settled about the sensuous mouth as he watched her pull the brief costume over her breasts, down about the narrow waist, over the slim hips, voluptuous thighs. Missing nothing in her deliberately slow undress. She wore no bra, only sheer black panties. Stretching for a moment, with the sinuous languor of a jungle cat, feeling the hot color in her cheeks refuting her coolness.
"Some music," he suggested, nodding towards the radio.
Connie fiddled with the radio dials for an instant, until he nodded approval. She struggled against an impulse to flee, away from this absurd unreality. But the tub waited--and Carl Norton waited. She stepped into the water, lowered herself into its depth, wiggling about like a mermaid until she found a position that was least unnerving. One leg flexed as though in invitation. Her shoulders drooping into the water, which rose to the dusky tips of her breasts.
Carl Norton rose from his seat, and for an instant she had a frightening idea that he was about to join her in the tub. Instead he walked about, grunting his satisfaction at the three-sided reflection of her seductive nudity in the mirrored walls. Maybe that's all there would be, she thought with a rising hope. Just this looking. Maybe that was all that could happen!
"My back itches like crazy," he complained, his eyes smoldering. "Come over and give me a rubdown."
"Like that?" she countered, stalling for time.
"Like this," he grinned, shoving away the jumble of pillows on the wide window seat, leaving an upholstered area wide as a twin bed. "Catch." He pulled a towel from a shelf, tossed it to her.
Connie lifted herself from the tub. That had been a quickie, she thought dryly, patting herself with the luxurious thickness of the towel. When she lifted her eyes again, the embroidered dressing gown lay on the floor. Carl Norton stretched on his ponderous belly while his eyes devoured the sight of her. Again, the hope nestled within her that Carl Norton's desires might stop short of active participation.
Connie stood beside the improvised bed, her hands kneading his back, too conscious of her short run as a masseuse. His hand trailed down to caress her leg, her thigh. Became more bold. She simulated a sigh of passion.
"I figured you for hot," he said complacently, riding over on his back, hands roaming about the faintly damp torso, with its lingering scent of bath salts. "You meant what you said before," he murmured softly. "You weren't handing me a line?"
"Does it make a difference?" Again, the wide-eyed approach, Connie exhorted herself, struggling for composure. Close her eyes, pretend it was Bert! His hands were strong, soft-textured, knowing. She could will herself to passion, Connie decreed.
"Lie down with me," he coaxed, moving over to provide a narrow wedge of space. His desire soaring. Nothing passive about Carl Norton, Connie rebuked herself, on the edge of hysteria. He couldn't wait!
She lay beside him, eyes shut, mouth moistly parted. The rapid rise and fall of her breasts no doubt being accepted as signs of desire rather than trepidation. She tried not to tense as his hands caressed, roamed, sought to arouse. She moaned softly, heard his grunt of satisfaction.
His arms were pulling her above his panting heaviness, pulling her face down to meet his. His tongue shooting avariciously into the warm cavern of her mouth while hands continued their frenzied efforts. She pulled her face from his, eyes shut tightly, mouth parted, ordering herself to remember the role as he sought to find her. A cry, synthetic but admirably realistic escaped her, and she heard the echo of excitement spill over from his throat.
"Easy, baby, easy," he crooned, his voice rich with desire. "Another minute and it's going to be sensational!"
His towering passion turning her sick, but she manufactured the coveted sounds of excitement. Oh, no, nothing passive about Carl Norton! If she could forget that it wasn't Bert! Pretend it was. Pretend!
"Oh, darling," she gasped. "Oh!" A loud, shattering, abandoned cry escaped her, echoed through the heavily scented room.
For a moment, almost, she had been able to tell herself that this was Bert and she, in her room at the Coronet.
"You're okay," he muttered, eyes smug. "Don't go away, Beautiful. The night is just beginning."
As thought to prove it, he tweaked at her nipple, his mouth nipping at the other. Why didn't he let her go, now, before she told him how sick he made her! Why couldn't he let her leave now?
* * *
Connie drove with reckless speed back to the Sunset, morbidly determined to put space between Carl Norton and herself. No matter what, she couldn't go through with what the job blatantly required. She would have to make that clear tomorrow. Nobody had to tell her; she would be through at the Coronet.
It would really hand Bert a laugh if he knew--she teetered now on the brink of packing up, climbing into her beat-up convertible, and turning her back on Vegas. Tonight had shaken her more deeply than she had believed possible. Tonight Connie understood to what depths a girl might fall to cope with the insatiable gambling instincts. She shuddered, tightened her grip on the wheel. She was way beyond her depth in this town!
Almost as soon as she turned off the road and prepared for the swing about the horseshoe arrangement of the Sunset units, Connie spied the white Lincoln Continental parked in the wedge next to Unit Fourteen. The redhead at the wheel leaned forward, waving exuberantly. Dolly. She was in no mood for Dolly tonight! Morning, she corrected herself grimly. Dawn streaked rosily across the sky as she reached for the door of her car.
"Hi," Dolly grinned, stepping out to meet her, her dress riding high above golden thighs. "Creepy's still at the tables. I told him I needed an hour off to go visit my dear old grammy," she giggled.
"Isn't it dangerous?" Connie asked, making conversation. Why did Dolly have to show up now?
"He's under control," Dolly shrugged. Her gaze swung away from Connie for a moment to a man emerging from a car a few parking spaces beyond them. "Well, the gathering of the clan," she drawled, her eyes wise as they returned to Connie. "Bert and you old friends, hunh?"
"I know him," Connie said shortly. Leave it to Dolly to have noticed their surreptitious meeting at the casino.
"Hi, Gorgeous," Dolly yelled blithely, and waved.
"Hi," Bert called back, smiled impersonally, and sought refuge in his own unit.
"I didn't come here just to pass the time of day," Dolly announced frankly, when the two were inside Connie's unit.
"What's doing?" Connie asked cautiously, hesitating about admitting to Dolly that she was through at the Coronet.
"I've got a sensational offer for you, baby." Dolly murmured, eyes brightly lit. "From competition. There's a certain casino that's interested in talking business to you."
"Why?" Connie flared bluntly, knowing the answer.
"Carl Norton, who else? You transfer, he'll follow along right at your heels. There's an appointment set for you tomorrow at two, if you feel like talking business. Oh, I'm not just being the girl scout," Dolly giggled. "I made the pitch, seeing as to how I had an inside track with you. It was a matter of time before the word passed along the Strip about Norton and you. The offers were bound to pile up."
"Carl Norton and I are finished," Connie said bluntly, her eyes not quite meeting Dolly's. "It's just no good." She smiled wryly. As she had admitted to herself before. "I'm just out of my depth."
"Shame, darling," Dolly sighed. "All that talent going to waste. But then there are broads that will and broads that won't. What's with you and the quiz kid?" she threw out suddenly.
"Bert?" Connie started. "He wants no part of a gambling gal," she said softly. "I'm like the plague."
"Not the way he looks at you," Dolly rejected. "I've been watching."
"That line he throws about not allowing to play in Vegas," Connie began tentatively.
"Nowhere in Nevada," Dolly emphasized. "He came into this town and really set it on its ear. Nobody could believe a guy could win like that without cheating! He's got some system, based on mathematics or something. Don't expect me to understand because the only figures I can add are on a bank statement. Anyhow, they got some showgirl to make a pitch, drag him back to the tables. I guess with his alcohol intake, his system wasn't working anymore. They broke him, banned him. Just like that." Dolly snapped her fingers dramatically. She inspected Connie somberly, then adjusted the inevitable mink stole about her shoulders. "If I wanted any guy that much, I'd go after him," she urged gently.
"See you around," Connie said with a show of nonchalance.
"I got to get back to that crap table. If he loses too much of a bundle, it's going to cost me money!" Dolly patted Connie on one shoulder. "I don't know why you want a guy who can't even play a one-armed bandit in a sawdust joint," she flipped, "but since you do, go shake him down."
She wouldn't, of course, Connie reminded herself grimly. If she had any will left at all, one grain of sense left in her head, she would pack up and get out of this town. Before she became a replica of Dolly Smith. A shudder wracked her as she sat at the edge of the bed. When your luck was down, you traveled so fast down to the bottom of the barrel! Like tonight, she forced herself to consider realistically as she prepared to crawl, tiredly, between the sheets. Would she have ever believed that Connie Heath could stoop to what happened tonight? Because of the rotten tables! Because of the need to sit in at a game and pray for luck!
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Connie lifted her valise onto the bed with a feeling of desolation. Logic told her to run--fast--from what Vegas could make of a girl in her predicament. There was nothing ahead for her but trouble. Forget about Bert Reid!
She walked to the tiny closet, pulled down the dresses hanging there. Okay, she forced herself to face reality as she carefully folded the black cocktail dress to fit the dimensions of her valise--Bert was never coming out to L.A. At least, he wouldn't be coming out to see her. A thousand to one he never intended anything like that. She wasn't the type to cry into her beer over any man. So Vegas was a fizzle. There would be other places, other times.
Connie stared as she heard the light knock on her door. Now what? Blue eyes aglow with hostility for the world, she crossed to answer the knock. Dolly again, with another offer, she wondered cynically, or was the sweet old pit boss sending word for her to arrive early? Ex-boss as far as she was concerned, Connie reminded herself, sick with the memory of Carl Norton.
"Yes?" she drawled with cool arrogance as she swung the door wide, and then gaped in astonishment because a somber, unsmiling Bert Reid stood there.
"I have to talk to you, Connie," he said, pushing past her into the room, slamming the door behind him.
"Do you think you can afford the tariff?" she tossed back, head high, eyes blazing. Another lecture?
"Cut it," he ordered sharply. "You're way out of your depth, Connie. I know that." His eyes met hers, Compassionate, self-reproachful. The unexpectedness of it tightened her throat.
"So?" She lifted an eyebrow in defiance. So Bert realized she was no Dolly Smith, what did that net her.
"So we're getting out of here, both of us," he said softly, his eyes on the partially packed valise.
"I had something like that in mind," she said unsteadily. How did he mean that, both of them? "Los Angeles, here we come?"
"Not right away," he said, again taking her by surprise. "Connie, I think we could make it on a permanent basis, but I have to be sure. I have to know when I leave the house in the morning, you won't be running to the nearest bookie, or crap table or poker game. Connie, I couldn't live with that again."
"How am I supposed to prove myself?" she flipped with shaky bravado. Another line? Oh, Bert was talented!
"I went into town and I bought passage for two, down to San Juan. I had enough laid away for that," he said, smiling faintly. "Plus a two hundred buck stake when we get there."
"What do we do with two hundred bucks in San Juan?" Connie lifted an eyebrow in skepticism. Bert was leaving her way out in left field.
"In San Juan, sweetie," he said, his fingers caressing her arm, "nobody will stop me from sitting down at a Black Jack table."
"And what do you expect to happen?" Connie tried to cope with the realization that Bert had flight tickets for both of them for Puerto Rico. He was asking her to go with him! The prospect was both exhilarating and terrifying.
"They don't know me yet down there," he explained with an unexpected twinkle in his eyes. "I can build up a terrific stake in the course of one night! Enough to set us up like people."
"Bert, come off it," she laughed uneasily.
"Connie, I have a photographic mind--I'll remember every card played--and in Puerto Rico all players' cards are dealt face up." Humor lit his eyes. "Before they catch on to that peculiar little faculty of mine-- and bar me from playing in Puerto Rico--we can have forty or fifty thousand dollars piled up. Of course," he chuckled, "the Internal Revenue Office will be interested in lopping off its share."
"You still believe you can win at the tables?" Connie taunted. "Bert, no matter how you dress it up, you're caught in this gambling bit, the way I am." It was a strange sort of victory, Connie admitted.
"I can quit, Connie," he insisted softly. "Let's find out if you can."
"What do we do?" she asked, forcing an adventurous smile. "Just pack up and walk out? Leave the old jalopies at the nearest used car lot?" Bert couldn't wait to get down to San Juan, she thought in uneasy astonishment. He was absolutely flipping because he wasn't allowed to play here. But suppose he lost down there in Puerto Rico? Where would they be? Stranded, broke, in a strange place. Somehow, Puerto Rico suddenly seemed like another world.
"We garage the car for a week," Bert said, his arms pulling her close, assurance lending a glow to his face. "We can always arrange to sell them later."
"When you win that fifty thousand?" she mocked, her heart pounding. Could he do it?
"That's right," he said calmly. "And when you prove to me that you can walk out of that casino with that bundle in our hot little hands. When you know you don't have to gamble to live, Connie."
"I think I can do it, Bert," she said with sudden honesty. "With you I think I can do it."
"We'll give it a whirl, baby." His mouth brushed her ear. Instantly, excitement vaulted within her.
"Bert, with you I won't need that kind of reassurance," she insisted urgently. "You'll see, Bert!"
But he wasn't listening any longer, Connie realized --and right now she didn't really care. His mouth at her ear, tongue softly probing. Hands at her breasts as her own tightened about his neck. Blot out the memory of last night, Connie thought painfully.
"I could have killed Norton last night," Bert whispered. "And I felt it was my fault. I should have got you away. You said you would go back to L. A. with me!"
"Don't talk about that, please," she whispered, her body going limp in acquiescence. Her breasts tingling. "Just love me, Bert. Please love me."
Her eyes closed tightly as his hands moved about her body, setting off a powder keg low within her. Bert made up for George, for all the rotten years after, she thought in a surge of exultation. She didn't have to be ashamed with Bert. She could be his wife and not be ashamed to enjoy the act of love. She wouldn't have to run to gambling tables for a reason for being.
"I wasn't going back to the job, Bert," she said, all at once impatient to know that he understood. "I told you--I was packing to leave. I wasn't going back to the casino!"
"I didn't even ask you that, baby," Bert reminded huskily. "All I knew was that I had to get you away, give you a chance. That's something you never have at the tables, Connie--an even break."
"It was so wild in the beginning," she laughed huskily. "Bert, all that money!"
That turquoise sheath, that would be her going-away dress, was sliding to the floor. Connie's mouth parted expectantly as they weaved together, caught up in the excitement of touching. His mouth fastened itself to hers, filled hers with his passion. Her hands tightened in mounting desire, the nails ripping into his shoulders.
"That's quite a fire you have going," he teased, his voice a hot whisper.
"Any objections?" she countered, a joyous singing within her. No objections, not from Bert.
"Do I look crazy?" he scoffed. "None of the dead log stuff for me. My girl knows how it should be!"
"Bert, you make me feel so completely a woman She was silent, caught up in the torrent of emotions that made being alive suddenly marvelous. Oh, his hands on her that way! Every nerve in her tingling in response. She moaned softly, impatient now, demanding.
His mouth, moist and knowing, burrowing in the hollow between her breasts as he guided her back towards the double bed. He lifted his mouth, and she was disappointed--for a moment.
"Oh, Bert," she whispered as the warmth of his tongue teased a stiffening tip. "Bert, darling!"
The mattress received their weights. His hands rippling about the passionate torso, making delay a torture. Her lips reaching eagerly towards his. Oh, yes, she pleaded inwardly. Now! Oh, Bert, now!
* * *
He lounged across the foot of the bed, chain-smoking as she completed the minor details of packing. His brown eyes tender as they followed her. He was everything that George had never been, Connie thought in soaring contentment. Warm, compassionate, understanding--and Bert had a sense of humor. Thank heaven for that sense of humor!
"Sure you haven't forgotten anything?" he jibed gently as she stood there before him with a small sigh of satisfaction.
"This," she remembered, and leaned forward to press the warmth of her mouth against his.
"Let's go," he said quietly, patting her gently on the rump. "We have a plane to catch."
"You're taking care of the cars?" she asked hesitantly.
It was an unfamiliar way of life, to know that there was someone to take care of details for her. Even in that, George had been different. He would leave the house before each road trip with a written list of chores for her to handle, leave the house in the morning with specified assignments for her to follow through. But even then, Connie recalled grimly, there had been so many stretches of idle hours. Hours when she was ready to climb the walls. Hours that found escape in gambling.
"I made a phone call before I came to you," Bert conceded. "It's all arranged. We leave your car keys here, and your car will be picked up. They'll collect mine at the airport. We don't have to pay until later," he chuckled.
"You have the tickets?" she demanded, laughing at her nervousness. "It would be awful to try to board the plane and find out you'd left them at the motel."
She was flying to San Juan with Bert; it was unbelievable as any part of these past two weeks. But for the first time in her life, Connie sensed with wonder, she felt as though she were not alone. Here was Bert. Let her not disappoint him. Let her not lose this biggest gamble of her brief but stormy life. The big jackpot was Bert Reid!
"We have to make the two o'clock flight out of Vegas," Bert said matter-of-factly. "Change planes in Chicago. We arrive at Kennedy Airport at 11:09. It isn't as long as it sounds," he reminded with a smile of amusement because she looked surprised at the duration of the flight. "We collect three hours time on the way east." He picked up her valise, moved with it to the door.
"I forgot," she laughed, excitement catching hold of her. She was flying to San Juan with Bert, with three dresses, a black net mid-riffed bathing suit, and little else! But it didn't honestly matter because they were together. She wasn't afraid of being stranded in San Juan, the way she was stranded here, Connie told herself with fresh confidence. Because face it, Connie ordered herself grimly, without that job at the Coronet casino, she was ready for a handout. "Oh, where is Kennedy Airport?" she asked, head tilted provocatively to one side as she walked from the motel room.
"New York," he said, a hand at her elbow as they walked to his car. Connie spied the two valises piled on the rear seat. "I'm afraid you won't get to see much of it this time, honey. We take a Pan-American flight that leaves at 11:59. One minute short of midnight. It'll be another day when we arrive in San Juan; 3:25 the next morning, to be exact."
"Sounds fascinating." She swayed towards him, resting her head on his shoulder for a moment. Still trying to adjust to this fresh turn of fate.
"It can be, baby," he insisted, his eyes unexpectedly serious.
"Trust me, Bert," she insisted. "Let's not leave here without that much between us."
"Trust you," he promised huskily. "Now get in the car before I prove it to you right out here in public."
* * *
Connie swore she was too keyed up to read, to do anything but gaze out at the expanse of scenery below them, but before they were an hour out of Las Vegas, she was asleep against the pillow -provided by the stewardess. Her sleep light, punctured by troubled dreams that centered around strange gambling tables, with croupiers who challenged her right to play. Bert shook her awake when they came into Chicago for the change of planes. She promptly fell asleep again before they were airborne.
"Honey," Bert's voice broke gently into her nightmarish sleep. "We're coming into Kennedy! Fasten your seatbelt."
Their plane had arrived eighteen minutes late. There was just enough time to grab a cup of coffee and a sandwich, because neither Bert nor she had bothered to eat on the flight east.
"My town out there," Bert grinned. "Too bad we can't pay our respects. Budget won't permit," he conceded.
"Afterwards," she stipulated airily. "When you've made your killing."
Did he mean it, she asked herself again, her confidence losing some of its impetus. After everything, could Bert be just another version of her? More clever, more subtle, but still the gambler after that one sensational pot? She shivered inwardly. Up until this minute, she had been able to avoid such cold, unpleasant logic. She could dodge no longer. What would happen, down there in San Juan, if Bert dropped his not too healthy bundle at the tables the first night? Where would they go from there? Would it be any different from Vegas?
When they boarded the plane bound for San Juan, Connie knew she wouldn't sleep. Her mind was jumping with too many questions. She had really put herself out on a limb with Bert. And then she was ashamed at the doubts that plagued her. Bert had left Vegas with her, as she asked. It didn't matter that the destination was San Juan rather than Los Angeles. Why couldn't she accept that?
"We're arriving right on schedule," Bert said with approval as the plane glided down towards its destination. "It's 3:25 on the nose."
A near-full moon splashed light on the ground below, on the surrounding territory. Connie caught a glimpse of hills in the distance, greenness, a beach shaded by palm trees. The plane dropped neatly to a runway on a striking modern airport. Even at this hour there was a crowd waiting.
"Bert, will we go straight to the casino?" Connie asked, a flurry in the pit of her stomach.
"Can't," Bert reported, taking her hand reassuringly in his. "Remember, everything is government controlled here. The casinos open at 8:30 in the evening, close at 3:30 the next morning. On Saturday nights curfew is extended another hour. Oh, you're in for some surprises," Bert warned good-humoredly. "This is a far cry from Vegas."
"Have you been here before?" Connie asked curiously, as they were being hurried with crisp efficiency through the luggage room.
"No, my father made a brief run," Bert said tightly. "We heard about it at great length, often." Bitterness crept into his voice.
"Bert, if it's government-controlled," Connie began with mounting alarm, "how does anybody ever manage to walk off with a killing?"
Bert laughed in frank amusement. "Baby, government control just keeps everything clean. Oh, feel like a drink?" he offered, pointing towards a bar. "Drinks on the house, courtesy of the local rum people.
"No drinks," Connie rejected, and they walked quickly out to the line of waiting taxis. "What does it mean?" she picked up her earlier conversation when they were seated and Bert and she carried on conversation with the driver about their destination. "About government controls on the gambling casinos?"
"The casino rules and regulations were set up to attract the tourist trade," Bert said, his thigh pressing reassuringly against hers as the taxi shot forward into the line of traffic. The night air brought along with its warmth the scent of ginger, jasmine, some exotic vegetation. "Also, the Puerto Rican officials were determined to keep the casinos honest, the professional gamblers out."
"What about you?" Connie asked quickly. "Can they cause trouble?"
"I'm not a professional gambler," he reiterated. "I'm a high school teacher with an off-beat type of memory and a peculiar mathematically-geared mind. So it happens to pay off well at a Black Jack table. By the time they've got the pitch and cut me off," he grinned. "We'll have ours."
The driver directed their attention to the Luguna Los Corozos, Water hyacinths, mangroves, palm trees formed a lush jungle, that moments later was made to seem a mirage because the suburbs of San Juan sprawled before them. Connie was aware of a pleasant stimulation as they drove through unfamiliar sights into the city, with her hand warmly encased by Bert's.
"Tomorrow you'll be a tourist," Bert teased. "Think you'll be able to bear up until the casinos open?"
"What about you?" she mocked. "I see that glint in your eyes already!"
They tossed the light banter back and forth between themselves, Connie thought, but there was an edge of desperation about each because this meant so much.
* * *
Connie awoke first, instantly aware that she was in a strange bed, in a strange city. Instinctively, she swung over on one side to look upon Bert, to reassure herself that he was here with her. The hotel was remarkably inexpensive, Connie thought with pleasure. Maybe it was an omen that everything would go well for them, that they were using their heads this way. No fancy suite at the Caribe Hilton or El San Juan.
"Hey, character," she jibed softly, letting a finger trail across the bridge of his nose. "You plan on sleeping all day?" It was almost four. They still had over four and a half hours until the casinos opened.
"It's practically daybreak," Bert objected sleepily, without opening his eyes. But a moment later, his hand reached out to find her, settled at her breast. He sighed in satisfaction.
"You won't get any work done this way," she warned, already aware of a stirring deep within her. It was astonishing, she thought with recurrent wonder. All he had to do was touch her. "Work tonight," she reminded firmly, deliberately rolling out of reach. "Slave driver," he reproached, but his eyes were somber when they opened to the new day.
"Let's shower, dress, and head for breakfast," Connie ordered briskly. "Sightsee until eight-thirty."
The day went by surprisingly fast, considering that both Bert and she were geared high with the knowledge that the casinos lay ahead of them. There was a restlessness about him that telegraphed his mounting tension.
They dawdled over dinner in a restaurant in Old San Juan, that had once been a seventeenth century colonial house. They were dining in the garden patio, on food that was surprisingly American. It's prices were reasonable, a major attraction at this point. By tomorrow night, Connie reminded herself, though not yet fully accepting the possibility, they might be dining at the Caribe Hilton.
"It'll be 8:30 by the time we taxi back to the casino," Bert announced briskly. His eyes glowed with anticipation as they met hers. "Ready?"
By the time they arrived at the casino, the large, attractively appointed room was open for business. Players were beginning to take their places at the tables. Only banking games were played, Connie noted in astonishment. Black Jack, Roulette, Chemin de Fer, Bank Craps. Not a one-armed bandit in view. The absence of cocktail waitresses hit Connie instantly.
"No drinking?" she whispered, walking beside Bert towards a Black Jack table.
"Nothing stronger than a coke," he confirmed humorously. "You order soft drinks, coffee, sandwiches. That's it."
Bert took his place at the Black Jack Table. Connie stood beside him, trying not to betray her excitement. The look of the avid gambler was little different from the looks in Vegas, she noted. The maximum stakes were controlled by the government though. A maximum betting limit of one hundred dollars.
Connie kept a determinedly casual smile on her mouth as she watched the game commence. Remembering how Bert said the edge was on his side because in Puerto Rican casinos all the players' cards were dealt face up. Bert started off with a non-spectacular bet. The dealer went into action.
Bert won with a consistency that was commencing to draw attention. His bets leapt up to the maximum. An echo of excitement seemed to hover above the Black Jack table. The dealer watched Bert sharply, astonished at his persistent good luck.
The word was beginning to seep about the casino. Others were wandering over to watch the game. Connie felt a tightening in her throat as she realized the extent of Bert's winnings. He was right, she thought in a heady mixture of admiration for his talents and a possessive pride--Bert was obviously remembering every card that was played!
They couldn't legally stop him from playing tonight, Connie guessed, Bert had until 3:30 tonight, when the casino closed, to keep up this winning streak. But she understood, too, that with Bert this was not gambling. Not a game of chance. He was utilizing strategy, teamed with a prodigious memory.
Connie's feet were aching but she left Bert's side only long enough to go over for periodic cups of black coffee. He looked exhausted, she thought in a rush of tenderness, her eyes sweeping to her watch. It was past two. He had been seated at the Black Jack table for almost six hours. Nobody had to tabulate Bert's winnings for her. At this moment he had cleared thirty-seven thousand dollars! The entire casino was in an uproar.
There was a whispered consultation between a pair of men who had just arrived on the scene, and the dealer.
"I am sorry," the dealer announced politely, his voice laced with excitement. "This table is closed for the night."
* * *
Bert and Connie left the casino behind them in an atmosphere of dizzy triumph. Thirty-seven thousand in cash, in large bills in Bert's wallet.
"It's only twenty-five to three," Bert said quietly. "The word is around--Bert Reid won't be allowed to play any more in Puerto Rico. Feel like trying your luck?" he asked with studied casualness.
"No," she said softly. "Who needs it?" Her eyes were luminous as they tangled with his.
"We'll try it for fun," Bert insisted, hailing a cab. "We have to know, Connie. Can you leave it behind?"
"Where shall we play?" she demanded, trembling inside.
"Not far away," he chuckled. "You'll have time to check that lucky streak."
They settled themselves in the cab. Bert reached into his wallet, peeled off ten one hundred dollar bills. Connie took them silently, excitement suddenly catapulting in her. A thousand dollar stake! Almost fifty minutes before curfew. What a bundle she could pull in during those minutes at roulette!
They walked into the still-busy casino. Bert prodded her, without asking, to the roulette wheel. Connie sat down, put a maximum bet on Number Fourteen, Black. Won. Played a maximum bet on Number Fourteen Red, her old routine. Won. Bert hovered above her, silent, a fixed smile on his face.
Connie collected her winnings, pushed back the chair.
"Shall we go?" she asked Bert softly. "You're sure?" His eyes searched hers. "Sure, darling," Connie smiled dazzlingly. "Who needs it?"
