Free The Buck Passes Flynn by Gregory McDonald Page A

Sunshine Hospital.”
    “Didn’t he just lap it up, though? He came to LasVegas plannin’ to drink it dry. I told him it was nearly impossible, even for a young Texan. Got to give him credit for tryin’, though.”
    “You knew Alligator Simmons?”
    “Sure I know the Gator.”
    “He was shot dead in a Fort Worth bar.”
    “Ol’ Gator must have opened his mouth that once too many times. Put a pint of whiskey in him and he’d crow. Great one for sayin’ he could whup anybody. Gator’s allus been that way, ever since Lilly-Ann Wurkers beat the piss out of him in the schoolyard when they were sophomores in high school. Gator got shot dead, huh?”
    “You heard Ronald Ellyn shot himself, here in Las Vegas about ten days go?”
    “I heard. Helen mentioned something about that to me. Ol’ Ron never was sure which end of a gun was which. Look, mister … what are ya tryin’ to say? You want a drink?”
    So far the cocktail waitress had ignored Flynn. She was standing at the far end of the bar, in her G-string and bra and high-heeled shoes, concentrating on counting her tips.
    “How are you doing at roulette?” Flynn asked Spaulding.
    “I find I like the game.”
    “Win much?”
    “Sometimes. Not much recently.”
    In two nights—or mornings—Flynn had watched Spaulding lose over seventy-five thousand dollars at the roulette tables.
    “It’s an expensive game,” Flynn said.
    “I was doin’ all right at first,” Spaulding said. “Got way ahead. Thought I’d be able to buy Main Street out there, before I was done. In cash money. I’ve had two, maybe three big winning streaks since that time, too.”
    “How much of the six hundred thousand dollars do you have left?” Flynn asked.
    Spaulding smiled into his drink. “Whoever said I had six hundred thousand dollars?”
    “You have a wife and four kids,” Flynn said. “Each of you received one hundred thousand dollars in cash; six big manila envelopes all told: six hundred thousand dollars. How much of it do you have left?”
    Spaulding hesitated, sighed, sat back, reached into his pocket, and took out a stack of one-thousand-dollar bills. He counted them on the table.
    The waitress came over immediately.
    “You want anything?” she asked.
    “Go away,” said Flynn.
    Spaulding said, “Twenty-three thousand dollars.”
    He put the money back in his pocket.
    “That’s it?” said Flynn.
    “Well, I haven’t hit a winning streak lately.”
    “I guess you haven’t. What are you going to do when that’s gone?”
    “It won’t be gone. I had over nine hundred thousand dollars at one point. Cash money. Would you believe it?”
    “Tell me, Mister Spaulding: the last three months have you been keeping up the mortgage payments on your ranch?”
    Spaulding ran his fingers over his chin. “Why, no. I guess I haven’t.”
    “Where are your wife and kids?”
    “They’re upstairs, I reckon. Asleep. In the suite. On the eleventh floor.”
    “I suspect you haven’t been seeing much of them lately.”
    “Well, sure. I sleep and eat in the suite. My son, Parney, seems to be havin’ himself a high ol’ time. Fast cars and fast women make for a fast time. I’ve got to tell you, though: you get playin’ these games and I don’t know what happens to time. It gets all jumbled up. I go out and walk around sometimes, to cool off? Sometimes it’s daylight, sometimes it’s dark. I wake up at five o’clock in the afternoon. The peoplein the hotel are real nice, though. You want breakfast and they’ll give you breakfast whatever crazy time of day or night it is. You know?”
    “I know.”
    “What time is it now, for instance?”
    “It’s almost quarter past five in the morning.”
    “See? Wasn’t I just tellin’ you that?”
    The cocktail waitress had finished counting her tips for the umpteenth time.
    “Mister Spaulding, what was the source of the money your family received?”
    “I never said we received any money, Mister Flynn.”
    “Where do