Free Chance by Robert B. Parker Page B

hundred?"
    "Gambling ain't for lazy people," Hawk said.
    "You going to make a living at it."
    "Wouldn't it be easier to work?" Susan said.
    Hawk smiled.
    "Or do what we do," he said.
    "The thing is most people don't gamble hundreds of hours," I said.
    "Most people come to Vegas, say, for a weekend. Most of them don't have a system. They just play because that's what you do here."
    "And they lose," Susan said.
    "Absolutely," I said.
    "If they didn't enjoy the experience they might as well mail in a check."
    "I'd love to try it," Susan said.
    "Blackjack?"
    "Anything. It sounds like fun."
    "You got a system?"
    "Of course I do. You and Hawk tell me what to do."
    Hawk looked at me without expression.
    "Be a first," Hawk said.
    "She won't do what we tell her," I said.
    Susan smiled.
    "I will if I want to," she said.
    In the lobby bar a young woman with a tight red dress and a blonde ponytail was belting "Hey Look Me Over" to three guys at the bar and one woman sitting near the lounge feeding coins into a nickel slot. I looked at my watch. It was 7:45 A.M.
    Susan and I stood for a moment outside The Mirage watching Hawk move away down toward the Strip. He was wearing a white straw planter's hat, a dark blue linen shirt, white slacks, and blue suede loafers. People studiously avoided looking at him until he was past them. Then they stared at him over their shoulders.
    "People notice him," Susan said.
    "Yeah."
    "He frightens them."
    "Yeah."
    "Have you ever figured out why?"
    "They know," I said.
    "Yes," Susan said.
    "They do."
    We stood for another minute watching the Hawk's progress.
    Then the tram from Treasure Island arrived and we were swarmed with heavy people in colorful shirts. We fought our way through them and went first for a look at the white tigers in their climate controlled habitat. Then we backtracked, and looked at the people lounging by the pool.
    "It's amazing that no matter how small women's bathing suits get, they still manage to cover all they're supposed to," I said.
    "Do I hear disappointment in your voice?" Susan said.
    "Yes."
    The desert air lived up to its cliches. It was hot, but the dryness made it seem less hot. We moved north along Las Vegas Boulevard, casino by casino. The hotels were garish, but the north side was less so than the south. It was Hawk who got to go into Caesars Palace, which looked like ancient Rome, and the Luxor, which looked like a pyramid, and Excalibur that looked like a fortress, and MGM Grand, which looked like Oz. We had only Treasure Island, which looked like a Caribbean seaport, though we did get the live pirate show where one ship sinks another in the Treasure Island Lagoon, while the mist machines on the perimeter cooled us down. The rest of the hotels on our part of the strip looked like big ugly hotels, a fifth-grader's dream of luxury, and nighttime excess, shopworn in the unblinking Nevada sunlight.
    The street crowd was mostly the same kinds of people who dream those kinds of dreams, people who'd decided this year to come to Vegas instead of Disneyland, people who looked like they'd just come from a square dance, people who looked like they'd just arrived on a freight car, pink shorts, small plastic mesh baseball hats, small children, Instamatic cameras, white boots, large bellies, plaid shirts, high top sneakers, camcorders, just married, street peddlers mostly black and Hispanic, private security people wearing black shorts and yellow shirts, riding bicycles, and carrying Colt Python revolvers, people in pointed shoes and checked sports coats with dark glasses and their shirts unbuttoned, a little guy with a big nose, wearing a flowered shortsleeved shirt and a Panama hat, and a perfectly dressed sophisticate from Boston with his stunning companion.
    Inside the hotels, the casinos seemed interchangeable: air-conditioned, windowless, artificial light, no clocks, the pinball colors of the slots dominating the room, the carnival chatter of the slots overpowering all other