Dark Maze

never snitched once on nobody and it would have been easy, but she didn’t. Out of professional honor, which is a laugh if you ask me. Anyhow, that’s when even me and Celia had our complications and it’s when I changed over to Stein, since Furman wasn’t such a hot name to have in the gambling business no more. I had to start lying real low and go back to the magic routines, you know?”
    “Until you found this place, of course,” I said.
    “Well, running one kind of a clip joint’s pretty much like running any other kind. Only if I had my choice between a straight-out casino like upstairs and a hi ya sailor joint like I got downstairs here, hell, I’d take the casino every time, on account of that way you don’t have so much female trouble.”
    Speaking of which, Delilah had now returned.
    “Thanks a bloody hell of a lot!” she sniffed. She looked at Moe, who was still shaking a little and whose undershirt was damp with his tears and she said, “Moe, you’re a goddamn mess! You ain’t even dressed up in the monkey suit, and we’re on in five minutes. What’s been going on in here anyways?”
    Stein looked at me like he wished I could somehow rescue him from Delilah, but I only said, “You hear the lady, Moe. The show must go on.”
    He said, “You sit here telling me that old gag? Give me a freaking break!”
    I stood up.
    Stein got panicky and asked, “Where do you think you’re going? I thought I was getting some protection.”
    “What’s he talking about?” Delilah asked, wandering over to her dressing table where her blond wig waited.
    Stein ignored her.
    I said to Stein quietly, “Don’t worry, I’ll be out watching. I’m going to get a drink at the bar.”
    I left his dressing room then, thinking about a couple of things that Stein had failed to mention in his story. One thing I could clear up by talking with Benny. The other thing was the name of Celia’s baby.
    But I had already made that connection.

    Hock, you got to see things my way!
    I done what I done because I think everybody ’s got to pay to play. Ain’t that right ?
    Damn straight!
    Like it says right in the holy goddamn bible, “He that loveth not his brother abideth in death."

TWENTY-FOUR

    Benny was surprised to see me back at the bar. Surprised and suspicious once again.
    I ordered a red.
    “I thought you was wanting to get in on the action upstairs,” Benny said when he put my drink down on the bar.
    “You mean the casino?”
    “Yeah...” Benny sounded like he was sorry to have answered me so openly.
    I started to say something, but I was interrupted by some loud recorded music that announced the start of The Great Morris’ first set that night. I turned toward the stage and saw Delilah all dolled up in her blonde finery, and The Great Morris in his tux and top hat. Moe looked a little wobbly.
    “I’m just crazy about mentalist acts,” I said. Benny looked relieved the subject had changed. Which made me go right back to it. “So, you’re running a gambling operation here on the premises?”
    “This don’t sound right,” Benny said.
    I reached into my suit coat and pulled out my gold shield
    and dropped it on the bar. I sipped my Scotch and looked over at the stage, where The Great Morris was starting a run of card tricks and the lovely Delilah was picking out audience participants.
    “What the...”
    I introduced myself. “Detective Neil Hockaday.”
    “I see you ain’t from Vegas after all,” Benny said.
    “No, you were right all along.”
    “What is this?”
    “Oh, I was just telling your partner all about myself, how I’m a cop, what I’m working on nowadays, that sort of thing. Moe was telling me quite a bit about himself, too. And this place the two of you have got here, upstairs and downstairs.”
    “Why’d Moe go blabbing that to you?”
    “Because I need to know if I’m going to catch his brother Charlie before Charlie comes and kills him,” I said in my best deadpan. “Aren’t you afraid Charlie might come kill you, too, Benny?”
    “Picasso!” And now Benny had lost some of his bravado. He went a little blue and shivery, like he had been standing in a meat locker for an hour or two.
    “I had a hunch you knew the connection.”
    Benny fingered the gun in his belt and looked around the room. “You’re the cop who’s hunting down that freaking lunatic?”
    “Correct.”
    Benny turned and poured himself a Bushmill’s, drank it down and asked, “Is Picasso—is