It was perhaps an hour later that Bob Rogeen went down the main street
of the Mexican town, also headed for the Owl. Off this main street
only a few lights served to reveal rather than dissipate the night.
But under the dimness Mexicali was alive--a moving, seething,
passionate sort of aliveness. The sidewalks were full, the saloons
were busy. In and out of the meat shops or the small groceries
occasionally a woman came and went. But the crowd was nearly all
men--Mexicans, Chinamen, American ranchers and tourists, Germans,
Negroes from Jamaica, Filipinos, Hindus with turbans. All were
gathered in this valley of intense heat--this ancient bed of the sea
now lower than the sea--not because of gold mines or oil gushers, but
for the wealth that grew from the soil: the fortunes in lettuce, in
melons, in alfalfa, and in cotton.
"Odd," thought Bob, "that the slowest and most conservative of all
industries should find a spot of the earth so rich that it started a
stampede almost like the rush to the Klondike, of men who sought sudden
riches in tilling the soil."
Across the way from a corner saloon came the twang of a mandolin; and
half a dozen Mexican labourers began singing a Spanish folk song. In a
shop at his right a Jap girl sold soda water; in another open door an
old Chinaman mended shoes; and from another came the click of billiard
balls. But most of the crowd was moving toward the Owl.
As Bob stepped inside the wide doors of the gambling hall the scene
amazed him. There were forty tables running--roulette, blackjack,
craps, stud poker--and round them men crowded three to five deep. Down
the full length of one side of the room ran a bar nearly a hundred and
fifty feet long, and in the rear end of the great barnlike structure
thirty or forty girls, most of them American, sang and danced and
smoked and drank with whosoever would buy.
Bob stood to one side of the surging crowd that milled round the gaming
tables, and watched. There was no soft-fingered, velvet-footed glamour
about this place. No thick carpets, rich hangings, or exotic perfumes.
Most of the men were direct from the fields with the soil of the day's
work upon their rough overalls--and often on their faces and grimy
hands. The men who ran the games were in their shirt sleeves, alert,
sweatingly busy; some of them grim, a few predatory, but more of them
easily good-natured. The whole thing was swift, direct, businesslike.
Men were trying to win money from the house; and the house was winning
money from them. This was raw gambling, raw drinking, raw vice. It
was the old Bret Harte days multiplied by ten.
And yet there was a fascination about it. Bob felt it. It is idiotic
to deny that gambling, which is the lure of quick money reduced to
minutes and seconds, has not a fascination for nearly all men. As Bob
stood leaning with his back against the bar--there was no other place
to lean, not one place in that big hall to sit down--the scene filled
him with the tragedy of futile trust in luck.
All these men knew that a day's work, a bale of cotton, a crate of
melons, a cultivator--positive, useful things--brought money, positive,
useful returns. And yet they staked that certainty on a vague belief
in luck--and always, and always lost the certainty in grabbing for the
shadow.
Most of these men were day labourers, clerks, small-salaried men. It
cost a thousand dollars a day to run this house, and it made another
thousand dollars in profits. Two thousand dollars--a thousand days'
hard work squandered every night by the poor devils who hoped to get
something easy. And some of them squandered not merely one day's work
but a month's or six months' hard, sweaty toil flipped away with one
throw of the dice or one spin of the ball.
While Bob's eyes watched the ever-shifting crowd that moved from table
to table he saw Rodriguez, the man for whom he was searching. He was
with Reedy Jenkins and three others coming from that end of the
building devoted to alleged musical comedy. Besides the natty
Madrigal, the sad-looking Rodriguez and Reedy, there were a Mexican and
an American Bob did not know. All of them except Rodriguez wore
expensive silk shirts and panama hats, and had had several drinks and
were headed for more. Reedy, pink and expansive, chuckling and
oratorical, was evidently the host. He was almost full enough and
hilarious enough to do something ridiculous if the occasion offered.
After two more rounds of drinks the party started for the gaming
tables. The crowd was too thick for them to push their way in as a
body, so they scattered. Reedy bought ten dollars' worth of chips at a
roulette table, played them in stacks of twenty, and lost in three
minutes. As he turned away he caught sight of Bob Rogeen and came
across to him.
"Hello, Cotton-eyed Joe," he said with drunken jocularity, "let's have
a drink."
"Thanks," replied Bob, "my wildest dissipation is iced rain water."
Bob just then caught sight of Noah Ezekiel and moved away from Reedy
Jenkins. He felt it safer--especially for Reedy, to stay out of reach
of him.
Noah Ezekiel's lank form was leaning against a roulette table, a stack
of yellow chips in front of him.
"Hello," said the hill billy as Bob edged his way up to his side.
"How is it going?" asked Bob.
"Fine," answered Noah, carefully laying five chips in the shape of a
star. "I got a system and I'm going to clean 'em up."
Bob smiled and watched. The wheel spun around. The ball slowed and
dropped on 24. Noah's magical star spread around 7. The dealer
reached over and wiped in his five chips.
"You see," Noah explained, taking it for granted Bob knew nothing of
the games, "this is ruelay. You play your money on one number and then
rue it." The hill billy chuckled at his pun. "There are 36 numbers on
the table," he pointed a long forefinger, "and there are 36 numbers on
the wheel. You put your money or chip--the chips are five cents
apiece--on one number, and if the ball stops at that number on the
wheel, you win 35 times what you played."
"But if it doesn't stop on your number?" said Bob.
"Then you are out of luck." Noah Ezekiel had again begun to place his
chips.
"Of course," he explained, "you play this thing dozens of ways; one to
two on the red or black, or you can play one to three on the first,
second or third twelve. Or you can play on the line between two
numbers, and if either number wins you get 17 chips."
Noah won this time. The number in the centre of his star came up and
he got 67 chips.
"Better quit now, hadn't you?" suggested Bob.
"Nope--just beginning to rake 'em in," replied Noah.
"Wish you would," said Bob, "and show me the rest of the games."
Noah reluctantly cashed in. He had begun with a dollar and got back
$4.60.
"You see," said Noah, clinking the silver in his hands as they moved
away, "this is lots easier than work. The only reason I work for you
is out of the kindness of my heart. I made that $4.60 in twenty
minutes."
"Here is craps." They had stopped at a table that looked like a gutted
piano, with sides a foot above the bottom.
"You take the dice"--Noah happened to be in line and got them as the
last man lost--"and put down say a half dollar." He laid one on the
line. "You throw the two dice. If seven comes up---- Ah, there!" he
chuckled. "I done it." The face of the dice showed [3 and 4]. "You
see I win." The dealer had thrown down a half dollar on top of Noah's.
"Now, come, seven." Noah flung them again.
Sure enough seven came up again. A dollar was pitched out to him. He
left the two dollars lying. This time he threw eleven and won again.
Four dollars! Noah was in great glee.
"Let's go," urged Bob.
"One more throw," Noah brought up a 6 this time.
"Now," he explained, "I've got to throw until another 6 comes. If I
get a seven before I do a six, they win." His next throw was a seven,
and the dealer raked in the four dollars.
"Oh, well," sighed Noah, "only fifty cents of that was mine, anyway.
And the poor gamblers have to live.
"This," he explained, stopping at a table waist high around which a
circle of men stood with money and cards in front of them, "is Black
Jack.
"You put down the amount of money you want to bet. The banker deals
everybody two cards, including himself. But both your cards are face
down, while his second card is face up.
"The game is to see who can get closest to 21. You look at your cards.
All face cards count for ten; ace counts for either 1 or 11 as you
prefer.
"If your cards don't add enough, you can get as many more as you ask
for. But if you ask for a card and it makes you run over 21, you lose
and push your money over. Say you get a king and a 9--that is 19, and
you stand on that, and push your cards under your money.
"When all the rest have all the cards they want, the dealer turns his
over. Say he has a 10 and a 8. He draws. If he gets a card that puts
him over 21, he goes broke and pays everybody. But if he gets say
18--then he pays all those who are nearer 21 than he; but all who have
less than 18 lose."
While Noah had been explaining, he had been playing, and lost a dollar
on each of two hands.
They moved on to a chuck-a-luck game.
"This, you see," said Noah, "is a sort of bird cage with three
overgrown dice. You put your money on any one of these six numbers.
He whirls the cage and shakes up the fat dice. They fall--and if one
of the three numbers which come up is yours, you win.
Otherwise--ouch!" Noah had played a dollar on the 5; and a 1, 2 and a
6 came up.
As they moved away Noah was shaking his head disconsolately.
"Money is like a shadow that soon flees away--and you have to hoe
cotton in the morning."
"Don't you know," said Bob, earnestly, "that everyone of these games
give the house from 6 to 30 per cent., and that you are sure to lose in
the end?"
"Yeah," said Noah, wearily. "You're sure to die in the end, too; but
that don't keep you from goin' on tryin' every day to make a livin' and
have a little fun. It's all a game, and the old man with the mowin'
blade has the last call."
"But," persisted Bob, "when you earn a thing and get what you earn, it
is really yours, and has a value and gives a pleasure that you can't
get out of money that comes any other way."
"Don't you believe it," Noah shook his head lugubriously. "The easier
money comes the more I enjoy it. Only it don't never come. It goes.
This here gamblin' business reminds me of an old dominecker hen we used
to have. That hen produced an awful lot of cackle but mighty few eggs.
It is what my dad would have called the shadow without the substance.
But your blamed old tractor gives me a durned lot more substance than I
yearn for."
They were still pushing among the jostling crowd. There were more than
a thousand men in the hall--and a few women. Soiled Mexicans passed
through the jostle with trays on their heads selling sandwiches and
bananas. Fragments of meat and bread and banana peelings were
scattered upon the sawdust floor. It was a grimy scene. And yet Bob
still acknowledged the tremendous pull of it--the raw, quick action of
the stuff that life and death are made of.
Noah nudged Bob and nodded significantly toward the bar, where Reedy
with his three friends and two or three Mexicans, including Madrigal,
were drinking.
"He's cookin' up something agin you," said Noah in a low tone. "Better
go over and talk to him. He's gettin' full enough to spill some of it."
Bob took the suggestion and sauntered over toward the bar. As he
approached, Reedy turned around and nodded blinkingly at him.
"Say," Reedy leaned his elbows on the bar and spoke in a propitiatory
tone, "I'sh sorry you went off in such a huff. Right good fello', I
understand. If you'd asked me, I'd saved you lot of trouble and money
on that lease." Reedy stopped to hiccough. "Even now, take your lease
off your hands at half what it cost."
"So?" Bob smiled sarcastically.
"Well, hell," Reedy was nettled at the lack of appreciation of his
generosity, "that's a good deal better than nothing."
"My lease is not on the market," Bob replied, dryly.
"Now look here!" Reedy half closed his plump eyes and nodded
knowingly. "'Course you are goin' to sell--I got to have four more
ranches to fill out my farm--and when I want 'em I get 'em, see? As
Davy Crockett said to the coon, 'Better come on down before I shoot,
and save powder.'"
"Shoot," said Bob, contemptuously.
"Now look here," Reedy lurched still closer to Bob, and put his plump
fingers down on the bar as though holding something under his hand; "I
got unlimited capital back of me--million dollars--two million--all I
want. That's on 'Merican side--on this side--I got pull. See? Fifty
ways I can squelch you--just like that." He squeezed his plump, soft
hand together as though crushing a soft-shelled egg.
"You are drunk," Bob said, disgustedly, "and talking through a sieve."
He moved away from him and sauntered round the hall. At one of the
tables he came upon Rodriguez, the man he was looking for.
He looked more Spanish than Mexican, had a moustache but did not curl
it, a thin face and soft brown eyes, and the pensive look of a poet who
is also a philosopher.
"Well?" Bob questioned in an undertone as they drifted outside of the
gambling hall and stood in the shadows beyond the light of the open
doors. "Did you learn anything?"
Rodriguez nodded. "They have two, three plans to make you get out.
Senor Madrigal is--what you call hem?--detec--detectave in Mexico.
Ver' bad man. He work for Senor Jenkins on the side."
Bob left his Mexican friend. He stood in the shadow of the great
gambling hall for a moment, pulled in opposite directions by two
desires. He remembered a red spot on Reedy Jenkins' cheek just under
his left eye that he wanted to hit awfully bad. He could go back and
smash him one that would knock him clear across the bar. On the other
hand, he wanted to get on his horse and ride out into the silence and
darkness of the desert and think. After all, smashing that red spot on
Reedy's cheek would not save his ranch. He turned quickly down the
street to where his horse was hitched.