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  A major problem remained. Access. Las Vegas was still difficult to get to.

  Jonas Cord had contributed significantly to the solution of that problem. In 1947 he had instituted daily Inter-Continental Airline flights to Las Vegas from Los Angeles and San Francisco. Shortly he made that two daily flights. His airplanes flew at high altitudes, in the smoother, cooler air. They flew faster. On Inter-Continental, Las Vegas was only ninety minutes from Los Angeles. Players could fly to Vegas on an afternoon flight, gamble all night, and return on the morning flight. Hostesses served drinks during the flights.

  Airline hostesses had originally all been nurses, expected to hover over passengers and to help them through likely bouts of airsickness. Even after they were no longer nurses, hostesses remained treacly solicitous. The Vegas flights were supposed to be fun, and Jonas asked his hostesses to wear shorts. They were the first airline hostesses in the world to wear shorts. They wore T-shirts too, lettered intercontinental—las vegas. Most flights were full, or nearly so. Other airlines saw the profitability of the market, and in 1948 other flights began to come in from as far away as Denver, Dallas, and Chicago.

  Jonas Cord had made a major contribution to the success of Las Vegas, and his name was known there. He had never paid for a room, had never paid for a drink or a meal, on any visit.

  He would never have thought of coming to Las Vegas to stay while the enthusiasm for subpoenaing him died down. That had been Nevada's idea. He knew Nevada would have made good arrangements.

  6

  The little frame house at the end of the ramp was indeed a private club for owners and pilots. They could eat, drink, play one of the dozen or so slot machines in the hall, or visit rooms upstairs with one of the girls who sat in the bar.

  "Don't know about you," said Nevada, "but I could stand a nice thick steak."

  They took a table by a window overlooking the runway and ramp. The table and chairs were solid maple furniture. The tablecloth and the curtains on the window were of red-and-white-checkered cotton. A candle had been allowed to burn down and cover with wax the neck of a Chianti bottle in a basket. The napkins were paper.

  Jonas asked for a bottle of bourbon and two thick steaks, rare, with potatoes.

  "Who's renting me the top floor of The Seven Voyages?" Jonas asked.

  "The man who owns it," said Nevada. "His name is Morris Chandler."

  "I've heard the name," said Jonas.

  "Maurie and I go back a long, long way."

  "Longer than the time you've known the Cords?" Jonas asked.

  "Longer than that."

  Jonas did not pursue the subject further. A part of Nevada's life was a closed book. Jonas knew the broad outlines of it, as his father had known, but Nevada Smith was not the kind of man you cross-examined.

  One of the girls from the bar came to the table. She was a short bleached blonde wearing too much red lipstick. She wore a white peasant blouse to show off her oversized breasts.

  "You guys bored?" she asked.

  "As a matter of fact we're not," said Jonas. "And we've got business to discuss."

  "Oh. Well, if business gets boring, I'll be in the bar."

  When she was out of earshot, Nevada said, "Maybe you oughta take her up on it. Settle your nerves."

  "The bourbon will take care of my nerves. I suppose I should call Monica and tell her where I am."

  "Wait till you're in your suite," said Nevada. "Chandler has got the phones hooked up so they relay through an office in San Diego, which makes it impossible for somebody to trace your call and find out where you are. Besides, whatta you wanta bet they got your home phones tapped by now?"

  "How am I going to talk to my offices?"

  "Trust Chandler. He'll put scramblers on your phones, too. I talked to him about it. I told him you'd have to be able to reach the people that work for you. Hey! You're not the first guy that's holed up on the top floor of The Seven Voyages."

  " 'Trust Chandler'?"

  "I do."

  As they talked, Jonas watched the tractor pull a Twin Beech out of the hangar. Shortly two black cars drove onto the ramp. Five men got out and climbed into the Beech. It taxied to the end of the runway, turned, and came roaring back. It needed all the runway available to take off and rose into the air just before the pavement ended.

  "We're staking a lot on this Morris Chandler," said Jonas.

  "Don't worry about it," said Nevada. "Maurie and I go back a long way."

  3

  1

  THE DESERT SETTING OF LAS VEGAS INSPIRED SOME OF the men who came to invest to give their hotels fanciful names from the Arabian Nights — fanciful Arabian Nights films being a Hollywood fad in those years. The Seven Voyages was a reference to the Seven Magic Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor. The hotel was built in a Moorish style, actually in what Morris Chandler's architects had adapted from the style of a dozen movie sets. It was in the middle of a vast irrigated green lawn where twenty luxuriant palm trees swayed on the desert wind. Long three-story wings angled away from the five-story central building.

  Water played an important role in the character of The Seven Voyages. Jets of bubbling water shot up from fountains in front. A swimming pool dominated the rear. As Jonas was to see when they were inside, fountains and pools were important elements of the interior decor.

  At night everything outdoors was lighted. Underwater lights gleamed in the pool. White lights shone on the palms. Colored lights played on the fountains. Warm-yellow floodlights lit the facade of the hotel.

  Jonas parked the car in the lot behind the hotel, and he and Nevada entered through a rear door. Nevada knew his way around in The Seven Voyages and led Jonas directly to Chandler's executive office on the second floor.

  A dark-visaged man in a black suit stopped them for a moment but only for a moment, since he recognized Nevada. He opened the door to the inner office and said he would go and find Mr. Chandler, and they should be comfortable in the meantime.

  The style there was not Arabian Nights. To the contrary. Chandler's office reminded Jonas of his father's office — his own for many years now — at the Cord Explosives plant. The furniture was heavy dark oak, the chairs upholstered with black leather fastened down with ornate nails; the drapes and carpet were green; and a brass banker's lamp with a green glass shade sat on the desk. The office was old-fashioned, functional, and unglamorous.

  Morris Chandler was not the man Jonas had expected to meet. He was about seventy years old, at a guess — about the same age as Nevada. Though he was erect and looked well put together, he was short and thin — a little man. Silver-gray streaked his black hair. His brows arched above weary brown eyes. His nose might once have been long and sharp, but it was flat now, undoubtedly broken at some time in his life. His face was asymmetrical; his eyes didn't match; and Jonas guessed his right cheekbone had been fractured. His mouth was wide, and the lower lip was heavy. Deep wrinkles scored his flesh at the bridge of his nose, under his eyes, and around his mouth. The skin on his neck sagged. He wore a conservative dark-blue pinstriped double-breasted suit, precisely tailored to fit him perfectly.

  As he entered the office and extended his hand to be shaken, he pulled a thick black cigar from his mouth with his left hand. The sharp, strong smoke swirled around him and reached Jonas's nose. The cigar was not just strong but cheap.

  "Mr. Cord," he said, taking Jonas's hand in a firm grip. "I am pleased to meet you." He turned to Nevada. "Hello, Nevada. It's good to see you again."

  "H'lo, Maurie," said Nevada.

  2

  It was true that Nevada Smith and Morris Chandler went back a long way, back in fact to September 21, 1900. They met in a state prison camp just outside Plaquemine, Louisiana. Morris Chandler was then Maurice Cohen. Nevada Smith was Max Sand.

  That day was the worst day of Chandler's whole life. He had arrived from Baton Rouge on the back of a wagon — chained to the back of the wagon. In the yard, in view of anyone interested, he'd had to strip and put on a
prison uniform: black-and-white-striped pants and a shirt much too large for him. Then he'd sat on a bench, put his legs on an anvil, and watched in horror as a guard riveted shackles on his ankles: steel bands joined by about a foot and a half of chain, with a large steel ring in the middle. They gave him no shoes, and he was barefoot as he lurched across the yard toward the warden's office.

  The warden was a big ruddy-faced man who wore round steel-rimmed spectacles and now pulled them off as he squinted over a paper that had been handed him by a deputy. He read what was on the paper and looked up. His face was not unkind, not even stern. He shook his head.

  "Boy," he said, "you gotta be some kind of dumb. Some kind of dumb to get yourself a year in a place like this for no more'n the petty racket you was runnin'." He shook his head again. "Jew-boy from N'Yawk. That ain' gonna make it no easier for you, boy."

  "He's a fancy dude." The deputy laughed. "Prettiest little suit of clothes you ever see. Celluloid collar. Pink satin necktie. High button shoes, with spats. An' he greased his hair down with some kind of stickum that smelt like geraniums. Personally, I like him better in what he's got on now. Th'other way kind of made a man sick."

  The warden read from the sheet of paper. " 'Maurice Cohen. Grand larceny by fraud.' Hell, boy, you shoulda robbed a bank. You'd had a better chance of gettin' some real money, and you'd done better time here. Ol' boys'd respect you if you was a bank robber. You gonna do bad time, Maurice Cohen."

  Maurie trembled. He was on the verge of tears. He was afraid his legs would fail him and he would fall on the floor.

  "Well, okay then," said the warden. "Mike, you take him out and give him ten stripes. Then he can have his dinner."

  "Ten stripes!" Maurie shrieked. "Why? What have I done to get — Sir! Sir! Why?" He wept, and his words blubbered out of him. "Oh, please ..."

  "Insurance," said the warden gently. "Seems like a man that gets ten the first day behaves better and doesn't think about tryin' to escape. Some way, they remember the feel of it, an' it makes better men of 'em."

  Mike was a huge Negro. He was a trusty. As he led Maurie out across the porch and toward the whipping post in the middle of the yard, he spoke quietly. "Don' you worry none, boy," he said. "I'm very good at what I do. It ain' gonna hurt like what you think."

  The big black man ordered him to strip off his uniform. He couldn't of course get his pants all the way off; he could only drop them down to his leg irons. When Mike lashed him to the post, Maurie was naked. He had an hour to stand there, bound to the post, before the work gangs came in and assembled in the yard to watch the whipping.

  The convicts found him a curious figure. He was a little man, short and slight, and his skin was almost white. Many of them had never seen a circumcised man before, and they walked around him, staring and commenting —

  — "Jeez Chrass! Somebody's cut th' end off him!"

  — "God, it must hurt like hell t' have that done!"

  — "It's what the Jews do. Talks about it in the Babble. Y' ever read the Babble, y'd find out where it tells the Jews to cut their boy babies like that."

  — "Makes m' flesh crawl!"

  Hanging in his bonds, Maurie saw a man as bad off as he was: naked as he was and locked inside a small cage in the middle of the yard, a short distance from the whipping post. The cage was so small the man could not stand up and could not stretch out. He was curled in a fetal position in a corner of the cage, confined with his own excrement, which lay about him on the ground. He seemed oblivious to the flies that crawled over his sweating body.

  When the work crews were all in, fifty or sixty men formed a circle around the whipping post to witness the lashing about to be given to Maurie Cohen. His knees kept buckling, and he hung on the rope that bound his wrists to the post. He glistened with sweat, and when the wind blew he shivered. He knew he was earning the contempt of the men he was going to be locked up with for a year. He dreaded that, but he couldn't do anything about it. When he saw the warden step out on the porch, his bladder let go. They all laughed.

  Then Mike, the big Negro, stepped up behind him. Maurie twisted his neck and looked. Mike was carrying the snake, a fearsome, threatening instrument of torture.

  Maurie looked at the warden. The warden nodded, and instantly Maurie felt the snake crack across his shoulders. It hurt like being seared with a hot iron must hurt — worse because he felt its cut. He opened his mouth to scream —

  Cold water crashed against his face. A lithe, muscular man with black hair stood staring curiously at him, empty bucket in hand. Oh, God, he'd passed out, and they'd revived him so he'd feel the remaining nine stripes! The man with the bucket wore a small quizzical smile. Maurie glanced around. The warden was gone from the porch. The convicts were in a moving line, going in the mess shack to pick up their food. All wore stripes the same as his. All wore leg irons. Except for the man with the bucket, no one was paying attention to him anymore. Maurie was still tied to the post. His back was ... What was it? It felt like it was on fire, and yet it ached, too, a deep, agonizing ache in swelling flesh.

  "Felt that fust one, din't ya?" asked the man. "But none of the rest. Like Mike tol' ya, he knows how to do what he does. That first shot went across your shoulders all right. But when he give ya the second one he made the tip hit ya sharp and hard on the back of the head an' knock ya out. Ya got th' other nine while ya wasn't feelin' nothin'. Ya didn't even have to feel the sting of the liniment Mike poured on to keep th' stripes from festerin'. You lucky. You git stripes ag'in, y'll git 'em the reg'lar way. Think on't."

  Maurie moaned.

  "It was nothin' special, got nothin' to do with you bein' a Jew-boy. They done it to me my first day here. My name's Max Sand. The Man ordered me to take care of you fer a while."

  Max untied him, and Maurie dropped to his knees.

  "That's th' way, boy. Pull them pants up and come on."

  Maurie followed him. He couldn't imagine trying to pull the shirt on over his back. Max led him to a shack, where there was a cot and a bucket. A chain ran from a ring set in a heavy block of concrete. Max padlocked that to the chain between Maurie's leg irons, and he went away and left him.

  Maurie sat on the cot. He couldn't lie down. He sat and wept.

  A little later Max returned. He brought a tin cup full of coffee and a tin plate heaped with food. Without a word, he put the cup and plate down and left, latching the door outside.

  Beans. Beans cooked in some kind of congealing grease that was almost certainly lard. The few little flakes of meat among the beans were undoubtedly pork. Forbidden food. But Maurie had learned from his days in jail that even mildly suggesting they should not serve him pork would win him laughter at best, a backhand slap across the mouth more likely. He picked up the spoon that was the only utensil they provided and ate a couple of mouthfuls of the unappetizing mess. He'd starve if he didn't eat whatever they gave him; he knew that. God forgive, he prayed as he shoved some more into his mouth.

  And then he wept some more.

  3

  The horror of his year's imprisonment had only begun.

  They left him in the shack for five days: time for his back to heal, or begin to heal. He was let out only when he carried his slops bucket to the latrine and poured the contents in. Max came to take him out. Max brought his food. Max was no trusty, as Mike was. He wore stripes and leg irons as most of the other men did, but Maurie noticed that Max didn't stumble. He'd learned how to walk in chains.

  Max sat down in the doorway of the shack and talked to him. He asked him what fool thing he'd done to get himself a year in this place.

  "They say ya done somethin' stupid. How stupid? What stupid?"

  Maurie sighed heavily. "I was selling insurance," he said.

  Max grinned. "Oh, yeah. And there wasn't no insurance company, right? I guess you just had a printer print up some fake policies for you, and —"

  "Right," said Maurie.

  "That's dumb all right. That is dumb. To risk being s
ent to a place like this ... That's dumb."

  "What are you here for, Max?"

  "Two years. Illegal use of a firearm."

  "What'd you do with it that was illegal?"

  "I killed a man."

  "You don't go out with a work crew."

  "I will, next week. A cottonmouth got me on the leg. I'm on half duty right now."

  At the end of the five days they took Maurie out of the shack. He was assigned to a cot in a barrack. At night they ran a long chain the length of the barrack, passing it through the ring in the middle of the chain that linked each man's leg irons. That confined them. The guards didn't even close the doors and windows, which were left open so air — and mosquitoes — could come in.

  The warden really was a man of kindly disposition. Realizing Maurice Cohen did not have the physique to work all day in the fields, he had him assigned to the kitchen.

  Routed out of bed and off the long chain before dawn, he shuffled around the kitchen shack, helping the trusty cook to bake cornbread and boil coffee. The convicts began their day with platters of cornbread soaked in molasses, a sticky-sweet melange that filled out their stomachs but rotted their teeth. Maurie managed to put aside some cornbread without molasses for himself. The cook noticed but said nothing. Similarly, Maurie kept the cook's secret: that he kept pots of molasses and water fermenting in various hidey-holes and in midafternoon ran a still that produced a fiery, heady kind of rum.

  His back healed, and he learned to sleep in a long room filled with the oppressive stench of unwashed men and unwashed clothes, blowing wind from the meals of beans, the night loud with their snoring and cursing, violent with constant jerks on the chain between their legs. He learned to live without baths or clean clothes. He learned not to vomit as he relieved himself as fast as he could in latrine shacks over reeking holes of excrement alive with flies. He learned to walk in leg irons. He began to believe he might survive his year.