Stiletto by Harold Robbins Page B

him. “And then cold champagne again?” she whispered.
    ***
    Jordan looked down at the Twister. This was the fourth time that black had won. The chips in front of the Twister amounted to almost nine thousand dollars now. “Don’t press your luck, Jake. Better pick up some of that loot.” He smiled, tapping the witness on the shoulder.
    Grotesquely the witness slid forward, face down on the table, his hands knocking the chips away from him, his face coming to rest on a pile of them.
    A woman screamed. Jordan lifted the Twister’s head. His eyes were open, expressionless. Jordan dropped his hand. “Help me get him out of here!” he snapped.
    The bodyguards moved quickly. They lifted the Twister expertly and started toward the assistant manager’s office. There was a brief moment of hysteria. But only a moment.
    The calm monotonous voices of the house men spoke up, quietly reassuring. “It’s all right, folks. The man just fainted. It’s all right.”
    Such is the promise of Las Vegas—the free money, the dream of tomorrow—that in a moment the wheel began to turn again and the man was all but forgotten by those who had sat at the table with him.
    That is by all but the croupier who was fired the next morning for stealing five thousand dollars from the pile of chips that had lain in front of the Twister.
    They turned to look as the men hurried past them carrying the Twister. Barbara looked up into Cesare’s face.
    His eyes were cold and shining, his mouth was slightly open as if in a twisted smile. He turned to look after them then back to her.
    A shiver ran through her. “Why do you look like that?”
    His face softened suddenly and his lips turned to a real smile. “I was just thinking that they have everything figured here. No matter what you do you can’t win.”
    He took a deep breath. The pain was in his gut now. He could hardly keep from crying out with it. “Come,” he said. “There is nothing for us here.”
    ***
    The telephone on Baker’s desk began to ring again just as he started to leave the office. He walked back and picked it up.
    It was Jordan. His voice crackled excitedly through the telephone. “They just killed the Twister!”
    Slowly Baker sank into his seat. “Killed? How?”
    “Stiletto! The same way they got Adams.” Jordan’s voice almost broke. “I’m sorry, George. We were on him every minute. I don’t know how they did it. There were over a thousand people in that casino tonight.”
    Baker’s mind suddenly cleared. “Look,” he said. “Call me back in an hour. I want to call Miami and make sure that Vanicola is okay.”
    He pressed down the button on the phone then let it come up again. The operator came on. “Get me Special Agent Stanley in Miami Beach,” he said.
    They know the witnesses, he thought to himself while the call was going through. They know. All the secrecy, all the preparation would be for nothing.
    They know.

7
    The room was silent except for the soft whisper of her sleep. He stared up at the ceiling, his eyes wide. It was so many years ago he had almost forgotten.
    The war. There had been nothing like it since. Everything else was a substitute. A substitute for death. The great danger, the great excitement, the feeling of power that ran through your body with the knowledge of the death-force inside you tearing its way out, bringing you closer to your own destiny.
    He smiled slowly into the dark, a feeling of well-being permeating his body. He reached for a cigarette on the night table. The package was empty.
    He slid silently out of the bed and crossed the room to the dresser, took a cigarette from the package there and lit it. Through the terrace doors the first gray streaks of dawn were lifting the horizon.
    “Cesare.” Her voice was a whisper from the bed.
    He turned toward her. He could not see her in the dark. “Yes?”
    “Open the second bottle of champagne.” Her voice was husky with sleep.
    “We already did,” he said.
    “But I’m