American Detective: An Amos Walker Novel Read Online Free Page B

turn of the wheel without having to share one’s winnings with Lansing and Washington. The legislators who swung the vote for legal casinos and the state lottery said such places were obsolete, but they failed to count on the universal American faith in the left-handed dollar.
    I climbed a rickrack set of steps angling steeply up from the beach and followed the decking around to the entrance, which fronted on the Dixie Highway. Cars were parked on the broken asphalt set aside for them, and on the edge under shade trees a double-bottom tractor-trailer rig idled, as long as the arcade. Out on the highway apron a pair of gulls squared off over a greasy Taco Bell sack, fluttering at each other and falling back to regroup. I flicked my cigarette butt their way, just to see if it would change the dynamic. A bird hopped over to investigate, pecked at the butt, and returned to the field of battle just in time to prevent the other gullfrom taking off with the sack. They fought, squawking like rusty car doors, and then things were back where they’d started. It was an
Animal Planet
moment.
    I didn’t have to contend with a peephole panel or a bouncer at the door; I barely had to contend with a door. It stood half open, blocked by a homemade boat anchor fashioned from an iron ring sunk in a paint bucket filled with cement. Famously, the pavilion wasn’t air-conditioned, like Wrigley Field before they installed lights. The dealers and customers counted for ventilation on the crossdraft between highway and lake, where glass doorwalls opened on screens looking out on the beach. Air circulated, as a matter of fact, but it smelled of crapshooters’ armpits and the sour pulp of mildew from the green baize on the game tables.
    A sign at the door prohibited bare feet and swimsuits, but apart from that the dress code was casual, shorts and sandals. They went like hell with the Japanese lanterns and pastel murals of peacocks and cherry blossoms. The age of the players gathered at the rails and perched in front of the slots ranged from First Communion to Last Rites. An eighty-year-old woman in a red wig and a blue sundress gave a cigarette cough of a laugh when her dealer dealt her blackjack; a boy of fourteen in a black T-shirt that hung to his knees cursed and struck a one-armed bandit with the flat of his hand. The house men and women were almost exclusively Asian; illegal enterprises almost never feel compelled to conform to equal opportunity employment. Wild hair and piercings seemed to be banned, but Hawaiian shirts and short skirts were okay, depending on the amount of growth on the chest and the girth of the thighs. It was a resort place, they didn’t want to scare off customers sticky from the beach. The slots and poker machines chimed and cackled and played Bach’s“Toccata and Fuge in D Minor” on the organ,
Phantom of the Opera
style; Disneyland for the decadent middle class.
    The pit boss by the roulette wheel was dressed to blend in with the customers, but they all run to 46 portly and haven’t a live nerve in their faces. I beckoned him over. He glided on rubber heels with his fingers curled under at his hips.
    “Boss lady in?” I asked.
    He had the face of a sumo wrestler, all ovals stacked one atop another, squashing his eyes nearly shut and his lips as tight as sliced bacon. He inserted his tongue between them to let words out. “Who’s that?”
    “Mrs. Sing. The name on the bail ticket every time the cops push the place in.”
    He said nothing for a glacial age, and when I remembered I had a summer tax bill due in September I foraged in the coat over my forearm and held out a card. “Give this to whoever’s watching the register.”
    The wheel paid out twice, then one of the hands rose and I stuck the card between two stubby fingers. He turned and left, moving steadily and without haste, but making time. Once you get a boulder going there’s very little that can slow it down.
    While I waited a couple of slots