Free You Never Know With Women by James Hadley Chase Page B

SIX
     
    NO TOURISTS ever go to Santa Medina and the millionaires shun it like a plague spot. After you’ve seen San Luis Beach I guess Santa Medina looks like a plague spot.
    The only thing that thrives in this small compact town of wooden buildings, sun-bleached awnings and beer saloons is Mick Casy’s gambling joint, where sooner or later every crook, twister, con man and gambler from the four corners of the States looks in to say hello and shoot craps. Casy’s joint is famous along the whole of the Pacific Coast. They say if it wasn’t for Mick Casy, Santa Medina would have folded up long ago, and some think the sooner Casy clears out of town and lets it fold up the better.
    The gambling joint dominates the town. You can see its big electric sign long before you even know there’s a town down there in the darkness. It is the only brick-tile building in the town, and it stands in a vacant lot with a broad concrete driveway up to the entrance.
    “I’ve known Casy for a long time. I ran into him years ago before he was in the money. He used to play pool for a living in those days. There wasn’t a smarter guy with a cue in the country, but his reputation went ahead of him and he had trouble in getting a sucker to play with him. He was always broke at that time, and when I ran into him he had got himself mixed up in a shooting affair in Mac’s old place on the San Francisco waterfront. It had been a political killing, and the cops were looking for a fall guy.. They picked on Casy, and the frame would have stuck if I hadn’t come forward as the surprise witness at the trial. I proved Casy didn’t do the shooting because I swore he was with me at the time. He wasn’t, but it didn’t seem right to me that because a guy was broke and had no influence, the cops could pick on him to save the neck of some greasy politician who was too weak in the head to hold his liquor.
    My testimony swayed the jury, and they threw out the case. Casy and I had to leave town fast. The cops would have given us a going-over if they’d’ve caught us, but we were too quick for them.
    Casy took himself very seriously. He swore I’d saved his life. He said he’d never forget it, and he didn’t. Whenever I looked him up everything was on the house, and he’d get mad if I wanted even to settle my gambling debts. It embarrassed me and I gave up seeing him. I hadn’t seen him now for maybe six months.
    Until I found out more about the compact and why Gorman wanted it so badly I decided to hole up with Casy. I’d be safe there and so would Veda. If Gorman tried any tricks, he’d find he wasn’t only bucking me but Casy and the whole town as well.
    I explained to Veda about Casy as she drove down the mountain road to Santa Medina.
    “All right,” she said out of the darkness. I could just see the outline of her head and the red spark of the cigarette she had in her mouth. “But I don’t want to talk now. I want to think. Do you mind if I think? We can talk later, can’t we?”
    I didn’t get anything else out of her until she pulled up outside Casy’s joint.
    “Is this it?” she asked.
    I helped her out of the car and pointed to the electric sign. It was twenty-four feet square, and even from where we stood we could feel the heat from the neon lights.
    “Speaks for itself, doesn’t it—” I said. “Come on in and meet Casy.”
    The guard at the door gave me a quick, hard look, then touched his cap. He was paid to know who could go in there without a frisk and who couldn’t. I guess he earned his money.
    “The boss around?” I asked him.
    “In the office.”
    “Thanks.”
    I took Veda’s arm and we went through the lobby, across a sea of drugget, past one of the five bars and down a passage that led to Casy’s quarters. Close by a very hot band was playing. There was a smell of tobacco smoke and whisky in the air.
    It wasn’t a luxury joint, but it served its purpose. You could find anything you wanted within its walls