Well Now My Pretty

"Yes, sir."

"Lewis seems to expect trouble. I don't know why, but keep circulating. There's a lot of money in the Casino tonight."

"I'll take care of it, sir."

"Okay. I'll be here until midnight. Joe will be here all night. If anything starts . . . I guess I don't have to tell you what to do."

Lepski nodded.

"I'll take care of it, sir."

"And listen, Tom," Beigler said, "just because you are wearing that monkey suit, don't imagine you are one of those rich slobs who are trying to enjoy themselves. Keep off drink and away from the girls. Get it?"

Lepski again nodded.

"Yes, Sergeant."

"And take that James Bond look off your face. You're a cop, and you have a job to do," Beigler said.

"Yes, Sergeant," Lepski said, his face dead pan.

"Okay, Tom," Terrell said. "Get off. I hope we won't be hearing from you."

"Yes, sir," Lepski said and walked out of the office. He stabbed a finger at the door when he had shut it, and then walked down to where Charlie Tanner was handing over to another sergeant.

Tanner said, "I bet Joe loved you, dressed up like that."

"He did," Lepski said. He shot his cuffs, flicked at his tie and, leaving Tanner gaping with admiration, he walked down to the waiting police car.

* * *

At midnight, Harry Lewis locked away the papers on his desk, lit a cigar, and left his office. His secretary had gone home a few minutes before. Now, he could concentrate on the activities in the gambling hall. He would remain, moving around on the first floor until three a.m., before going back to his luxury villa. He took the elevator down to the first floor.

So far, the evening had been uneventful. The gambling had begun at ten-thirty. Every fifteen minutes, Lewis received reports from the croupiers. As was expected, the gambling had been high and reckless. So far the Casino was ahead, but there was a syndicate of Brazilians who could be troublesome. Lewis decided it was time he went down and watched the play.

As he wandered into the gambling hall, he spotted Lepski, his alert ice-blue eyes surveying the scene.

Lewis went over to him.

"Glad you are here, Tom," he said, shaking hands. "How is Carroll?"

Carroll Mayhew was Lepski's fiancée. They were hoping to get married at the end of the year, and Lepski felt certain Lewis would donate a handsome wedding present.

"Fine, sir," he said. "No trouble there. No trouble here. These guys are certainly tossing their money around."

"Well . . . if you have, you toss it . . . if you haven't, you shouldn't," Lewis said and smiled. "Your men around?"

"On the terrace, sir. They have instructions to wander in every ten minutes. You wouldn't want a bunch of flatfeet in here all the time."

Lewis laughed.

"I'll leave it to you, Toni. Just keep an eye on the money," and nodding he walked on.

There's a guy, Lepski thought. A real, nice, regular guy. He straightened his bow tie which was worrying him, then he went out on to the terrace where his four patrolmen were standing watchfully in obscure corners.

He wasn't to know he was wasting their and his time. When the attack was to come, it would come in the soft underbelly of the Casino — in the vault where no police officer was on guard.

The money passing across the green-baize tables was as nothing compared to the money steadily piling up in the vault. The gamblers were having a bad night. The money was flowing into the Casino's vault . . . thousands and thousands of dollars.

In the cool atmosphere of the vault Rita Watkins directed the operation of handling the in-and-out flow of the money.

The girls fed the stacks of money as the money came from the elevators into an electronic device that automatically sorted the bills into their various denominations. The machine then counted them, clocking the total on a calculator. The bills were then paper-banded in fifty lots by the machine and were fed through a slot where two other girls piled the banded money in its various denominations on a rack.

Money came in: money went out. When a red light flashed under a number on Rita's desk, she directed more money to be sent up in the elevator, noting the number of the table in the gambling hall that had called for more supplies. The work was fast and non-stop, and no girl could afford to fumble.

Watching them, seated on stools, either side of the steel door of the vault, were two armed guards.

One of them, a tall, rangy youth whose name was Hank Jefferson, was bored to tears with his job. He thought if he had to sit on this stool, watching all that money for another few weeks, he would go screwy. He was planning to put in for a transfer. Even walking around the outside of the Casino endlessly was better than sitting in this vault just staring at thousands of dollars.

The other guard, an older man, heavily built and slightly balding, was Bic Lawdry. He had the mind of a vegetable and was happy enough to watch the girls, studying their trim bodies, dreaming erotic dreams as he picked his teeth with a match end, satisfied that he had the softest job in the world.