It was a long, wide room with a partition separating half of it. The front half contained pool tables and domino tables and both were well patronized. Voices came above the click of the balls and the slap of the dominoes on the wood.
Tom Bender went through the portieres into the rear half.
Here were dice tables, a chuck-a-luck game, a keno game and a stud poker game going full blast. Dealers were at each game, wearing green eye shades and small black sateen aprons and a number of hard-looking workmen were waiting their chances to play.
Bender sauntered over to one of the dice tables and watched a boisterous roughneck who smelled of cheap perfume throw a double ace for ten dollars, a double six for twenty dollars and then get six for a forty-dollar point. He lunged all around it but no six, and eventually tossed a four-tray for craps. The roughneck rubbed his hands, backed out and said nothing, and the space was quickly filled by another eager gambler.
A waiter passed by with a tray filled with drinks and Bender stopped him and asked where Botchey was. The waiter said he was in the back and Bender asked him where the back was. The waiter pointed to a door and went on.
Bender went to the door and opened it without knocking.
It was a little office lighted by a single light that was suspended from the rafter on a single cord and the glow was deflected down by a shade to cut through the smoky atmosphere in a lurid shaft. Three men were inside. Two of them were sitting at a table looking at magazines and the third was leaning back in a chair with his feet propped up against an opened drawer.
He was forty, sallow and hook-nosed. He wore a soft hat, no coat, his sleeves were rolled up and his collar was open.
None of them got up as Bender entered. They stirred and the man at the desk said: “All right?”
Bender stopped beside the table and said he was looking for Botchey Miller. The man at the desk stood up and walked over slowly saying: “I'm him, brother.”