they are obviously not in the business of being a friend to man, there has to be a profit motive. It would therefore seem to follow that their hospitality is offered only to those who have—or are likely to lose—an enormous amount of money at the tables. Where do such people— and so many of them—come from?”
“I was thinking just about the same thing, sir,” Fernando said.
“Excuse me, sir, for my breach of courtesy. I am Winslow Masterson.”
“My name is Lopez, sir. Fernando Lopez.”
“And you’re a Westerner, Mr. Lopez. May I say I admire your boots?”
“Thank you, sir. Texan. San Antonio,” Fernando said.
Masterson drained his drink and made another.
“Mr. Castillo tells me you’re cousins,” Masterson said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Years ago,” Masterson offered, “I had some business dealings with a delightful chap in San Antonio, who had your Christian name, Mr. Lopez, and your surname, Mr. Castillo. I don’t suppose . . .”
“You may be talking about my—our—grandfather, sir,” Charley said.
“Did your grandfather have a magnificent Santa Gertruda bull named ‘Lyndon J.’?”
“Grandpa was not an admirer of President Johnson,” Fernando said, “and Lyndon J., even as a calf, produced amazing amounts of droppings, so when it came to naming the calf for registering . . .”
“So your grandfather told me,” Masterson chuckled. “What is it they say about a small world?”
He’s making small talk, Charley thought. He’s delaying hearing what he knows he won’t like to hear.
What do I do? Bring him back to earth, so I can go out to his farm?
No. Fuck it. Vic’s out there. The Mastersons are safe.
We just brought his son home in a flag-draped casket.
Let him do whatever he wants to do.
“I was distressed to learn he had passed,” Masterson said. “My deepest condolences to you and your family.”
Then he turned and walked to the plate-glass windows and looked out at the twinkling lights on the gulf.
A very long moment later, with his back to them, Masterson said, “Gambling has been going on here on this coast for centuries. Did you know that?”
“No, sir,” Charley said, “I didn’t.”
“No, sir,” Fernando added.
“The very first gamblers were the freebooters, the pirates,who plied their profession here,” Masterson went on. “They had the custom of raffling off the more comely of the females they had removed, together with other valuable property, from vessels they intercepted entering or leaving the Mississippi River.”
“I didn’t know that,” Fernando said.
“It is, I suspect, why my wife is a bit vague when discussing our ancestors. It is one thing to take some pride in them having been free men of color in New Orleans, before the war of cessation, and quite something else to acknowledge how they achieved that status.”
“Excuse me?” Fernando asked.
Masterson took a long sip of his drink, and continued: “After the Battle of New Orleans, Jean Laffite was pardoned for his services. As were his officers and men. Most of them stayed in Louisiana, but some of them, including a notorious scoundrel, Captain Alois Hamele, and his son, Captain Francois Hamele, originally from Haiti, and before that of course from Africa, came here, where the land was cheaper and there were a number of bays and coves where ships not wishing to pass their cargoes through customs could unload.
“Captain—they used the French term, maître, in those days—Hamele and his son—commonly known as the fils de le Maître—decided, upon hearing that Jean Laffite had returned to his sinful ways, and knowing that the authorities would almost surely come looking for other pardoned freebooters, that a change of name was probably—”
“I know where you’re going,” Charley said. “Son of the Master, right? Masterson?”
Winslow Masterson slowly turned from the window, smiled, and nodded.
“Over the years,” he went on, “the Masterson family acquired rather extensive land holdings in this area. Some of it was splendid farmland; some was in timber, and some, like the land on which this splendiferous gambling hell is built, was essentially useless swamp.”
“And now,” Fernando said, smiling, “I think I know where you’re going.”
“Perhaps,” Masterson said, smiling.
“About fifteen years ago, some gentlemen from Las Vegas came to see me about acquiring this property. I suspect, perhaps unkindly, that they were disappointed when they found that I was not plowing my land walking barefoot behind a mule.”
Castillo and Fernando chuckled.
“And I know they were disappointed when I told them I wasn’t interested in selling the property. I didn’t tell them that not only do I dislike selling property, but in this case my wife had also weighed in. She truly believes that proprietors of