aned over toward me and stuck her nose up against mine.
It was long, thin, and not a little red.

"Billy Joe!" she said, and sniffled loudly. "My darlin' Billy!"

How near-sighted can you get? I don't think there's such a thing as a
case of mistaken identity around a guy like me. I didn't know her
darlin' Billy from Adam's ox. But I'd have bet a pretty we didn't look
alike.

"You're wasting it," I told her, looking out over the crap tables. "It's
new, and different. But I'm not _anybody's_ darling." A jerk of my head
told her to move on.

But she sniffled and stayed put. I gave up and started through the press
of gamblers toward the Cashier's cage.

"Billy Joe!" this hustler moaned behind me, clawing at my jacket. "I
knew I'd find you here. And I came sich a fer piece, Billy Joe! Don't
make me go off again, darlin' Billy!"

While I prefer to gamble for cash, I had reason while on a job for
sticking to a known amount of chips. She stood there while I got a
thousand dollars worth of ten-buck markers, looking at me with some kind
of plea in her eyes. This again was not in the pattern. Most hustlers
can't keep their eyes off your chips.

She puppy-dogged behind me to the crap table I had decided needed my
attention. It was crowded, but there's always room for one more sucker.
And still one more, for the sniffly girl with the hair-colored hair
pressed in against my useless right arm when I elbowed my way in between
the gamblers, directly across from the dealers.

"Billy Joe!" she said, just loud enough to hear over the chanting of the
dealers and the excited chatter of the dice players. Billy Joe! What a
corn-ball routine!

* * * * *

I took stock before beginning to lose my stack of chips. There were more
than twenty gamblers of both sexes pressed up against the green baize of
the crap layout. Three stick-men in black aprons that marked them for
dealers were working on the other side or the table. We had at least one
dealer too many for the crowd. That screamed out loud the table was
having trouble. Big gambling layouts know within minutes if a table is
not making its vigorish. A Nevada crap layout, with moderately heavy
play, should make six per cent of the amount gambled on every roll.
That's its vigorish--its percentage. If the take falls below that, the
suspicion is that the table is being taken to the cleaners by a crooked
gambler, or "cross-roader." The table I had picked was