“Be your age, buddy. Be your age. Suppose the machines is illegal, and you catch a guy cupping the pay-off? Well, you kick him out in the street and cuss him, but you don’t arrest him, because he ain’t stealing nothing, and the reason he ain’t stealing nothing is because you ain’t got no machine, and the reason you ain’t got no machine is because the law says you can’t have it. Get me?”
“I get you.”
“Anything else you want to know?”
“You don’t know that girl’s name?”
“No.”
“How does she play the game? Is she on the make?”
“You mean with men?”
“Yes.”
He thought for a while, scratched the fringe of dark, woolly hair around his ears, and said, “Now you got me, buddy. Y’understand Las Vegas is different from other places. Girls come here to get a divorce. They have to wait to establish a residence. It ain’t a long time, when you just think of it as so much time out of a year, but when you stay here, it gets pretty long. The girls get lonesome, and if a good-looking guy gives ’em the eye, they figure what the hell. They ain’t got nothing else to do, and they fall. Back in their home town, they’d give him the icy stare, but out here, they want something to break the monotony and they’re just getting a divorce so they figure it’s sorta in between drinks, and a little cheating don’t count. You get me?”
“I get you.”