Authors: James Swain
20
M
abel Struck was examining a Gucci handbag that had cost a casino in Reno a hundred thousand bucks, when the phone on Tony’s desk lit up.
“Darn it,” she said under her breath.
She’d come to work early that morning, wanting to play with the handbag that UPS had delivered the night before. The handbag was a gift from the Reno district attorney for Tony’s testimony at trial. Mabel had several friends who liked to boast about how much they spent on handbags, and she couldn’t wait to tell them that she had a Gucci bag that could actually
make
money. She snatched up the phone.
“Grift Sense,” she answered cheerfully.
“Ms. Struck?” a man’s voice asked.
“That’s me.”
“This is Special Agent Romero with the FBI.”
“Good morning, Special Agent Romero. How are you today?”
“I’m fine. I wanted to thank you for your help the other day. The man we arrested was running crooked gambling parlors in twenty different locations. He’s going to jail for a long time.”
By looking at some photographs that Romero had sent, Mabel had determined that a craps game in the basement of a man’s house was crooked, the table positioned against a wall with a large magnet hidden inside, the dice loaded with mercury. The information had allowed Romero to catch an elusive suspect, and had made Mabel a new friend.
“That’s wonderful news,” Mabel said.
“Something urgent has come up, and I wanted to get ahold of you. I need to tell you something which is extremely confidential.”
Mabel leaned into the desk. Although she’d never met Romero, she’d formed a mental picture of him. Early fifties, with jet black hair, boyish features, and an engaging smile. “Is there something the matter?” she asked.
“Unfortunately, there is…I’m terribly sorry. Someone just walked into my office, and I need to speak with him. Will you excuse me for a moment?”
“Of course.”
Romero put her on hold. Mabel took the handbag off the desk, and peered inside. It contained a video camera with a high-powered lens. The bag had a small hole in the fabric, and she thought back to what Tony had told her about the case.
Once, every casino in the world had let people playing blackjack cut the cards, the practice considered a common courtesy. Then, for security reasons, the practice had been discarded. Except at the Gold Rush casino in Reno, where old habits died hard. It was here that the crossroaders had struck.
The gang’s members were a family, consisting of a husband, wife, and son. The scam happened during the cut. The husband would riffle up the center of the deck, and let four cards drop. He would then cut the cards. This placed the four cards he’d dropped on top of the deck. To anyone watching, his actions looked normal.
Using the camera inside the bag, his wife, who stood behind him, secretly filmed the four cards during the cut. The information was sent to her son, who sat outside the casino in a van and watched on a computer screen. The son then sent a text message to his father on a cell phone, and told him the cards’ values. Since the father was playing heads-up with the dealer, he knew his first hand
and
the dealer’s, and bet accordingly.
Romero returned to the line. “Sorry about that.”
“So, how can I help you this morning?” Mabel asked.
“Well, I’m about to help you. The other day when we spoke, I passed along some confidential information about a mob boss named George Scalzo, who is presently under FBI surveillance.”
“I remember,” Mabel said.
“The agent handling the Scalzo case called me a short while ago, and informed me that George Scalzo put out a contract on your boss’s life last night. The attempt failed. So, he’s gone and put another contract on your boss.”
“What a horrible man. Are you going to arrest him?”
“I wish we had the evidence to,” Romero said. “Scalzo owns a contracting business, and uses a special code when he wants to talk to his underlings. The code uses building materials as passwords for criminal activity he wants done. When he orders a specific material, it means he wants a certain job done. In this case it was concrete, which means he wants a person killed.”
“How clever.”
“I figured you would know the best way to contact your boss, and give him a heads-up.”
The receiver grew warm in Mabel’s hand. Tony was always saying that the deeper he got into a case, the more dangerous it became. It sounded like it was time for him to come home.
“I’ll call him once I hang up the phone,” she said.
“I’m afraid there’s more bad news,” Romero said. “The agent who’s handling the Scalzo case also in formed me that Tony’s son, Gerry, was responsible for the death of an associate of Scalzo’s in Atlantic City.”
“Gerry killed someone?”
“Yes. Gerry was protecting an undercover policeman, and won’t face criminal charges. But that doesn’t change the situation.”
“Which is what?”
“That your boss and his son have gotten themselves into a blood feud with one of the most ruthless men in the United States. Your boss has a reputation for being a resourceful individual, and I’m sure his son is as well. But I’m afraid this is a fight that is stacked against them.”
“Why do you say that?” Mabel asked.
“Scalzo has connections all over the country, especially in Las Vegas, where he is now. And he has a small army on his payroll in New Jersey. If Scalzo is gunning for someone, he’ll usually get them.”
Mabel sighed. If she’d learned anything working for Tony, it was that her boss didn’t know the meaning of the word
quit,
and neither did Gerry. They were stubborn males, and not inclined to run away from a fight. “Thank you, Special Agent Romero. I appreciate the call. I’ll make sure Tony and Gerry are warned.”
“You’re welcome. May I ask a favor?”
“Certainly.”
“Please keep this conversation between you and your boss.”
“It will go no further.”
“Good-bye, Ms. Struck.”
Mabel nestled the receiver into its cradle. Pushing her chair back from the desk, she steepled her hands, and rested her chin on her fingertips. It was her thinking pose, and she sat silently, contemplating what to do.
When the phone rang fifteen minutes later, she was still absorbed in thought. She glanced at the Caller ID on the phone and saw that it was Gerry’s wife, Yolanda, calling on her cell phone. Yolanda had gone to Puerto Rico to visit her family a week ago, and Mabel had missed her company. She picked up the phone.
“Hello, Yolanda. How is sunny Puerto Rico?”
“I left three hours ago,” Yolanda replied. “I’m at the Miami airport, waiting for a connection to come home.”
“Is everything all right?”
“No. I mean yes. Oh, I don’t know.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I had this horrible dream last night,” Yolanda said.
“I wouldn’t have given it any weight, only my mother had the exact same dream. So, I decided to come home.”
Yolanda’s eighty-year-old mother was psychic, and had premonitions when bad things were about to happen. Mabel said, “Tell me what happened in your dream.”
“I was in a cemetery. It was freezing cold and pitch dark. I was looking at a tombstone with Gerry’s name on it and I was sobbing. I laid flowers on Gerry’s grave, then put flowers on a grave with a tombstone that had Tony’s name on it.”
“You saw both their names?”
“Yes,” Yolanda said quietly.
“And your mother had this same dream?”
“Yes,” Yolanda said. “She saw tombstones with Gerry’s and Tony’s names as well. Now, will you please tell me something?”
“Of course, my dear.”
“Are Gerry and Tony all right? Please be truthful with me.”
Mabel hesitated. Then her eyes fell on the frame hanging over Tony’s desk. It contained five playing cards—two black aces, two black eights, and the five of diamonds. Wild Bill Hickock had been holding aces and eights the night he’d been shot in a poker game, murdered by a gang of cheaters who were afraid of being run out of town. They were known as a Deadman’s Hand, and had been bought by Tony as a reminder that no job was worth getting killed over.
“I’m afraid they’re up to their eyeballs in trouble,” she blurted out.
“So my dream was a premonition,” Yolanda said.
“I hope not,” Mabel said.
There was a loud noise in the background, and Yolanda said, “They’re boarding my plane. I need to run. I’ll be home soon.”
The phone went dead in Mabel’s hand. Identical dreams couldn’t be a coincidence. Tony and Gerry were going to get hurt if they didn’t do something. She stared at the Deadman’s Hand, then shut her eyes and prayed, not wanting Wild Bill’s fate to be Gerry’s and Tony’s as well.
21
“I
owe you a big steak,” Eddie Davis said. “I might just take you up on that,” Gerry replied.
Davis was signing paperwork so he could be released from the emergency room of Atlantic City Medical Center. The ER was relatively quiet, the groaning drunks and shooting victims and other casualties of the night having been treated and moved out. A bearded doctor stood beside Davis, holding a medicine bottle filled with white pills. He shoved them into Davis’s hand.
“This is penicillin. Follow the instructions on the bottle,” the doctor said. “The wound on your back could become infected. You need to watch it.”
“I will,” Davis said, pocketing the bottle.
The doctor handed Davis another sheet of paper to sign. It was printed in bold lettering, and stated that Davis had been given instructions from a doctor and fully understood them. Gerry guessed this freed the hospital from liability in case Davis got sick, and decided to sue. Davis scribbled his name across the bottom.
Outside in the parking lot they found Marconi sitting in a Chevy Impala, fighting to stay awake. Gerry guessed Marconi would rather be home sleeping than sitting there, only there was an unwritten code that said if your partner got hurt, you hung with him. His father had done it many times. Marconi climbed out of the car and whacked Eddie on the arm.
“Hey brother, glad to see you’re still in one piece. I spoke with the district attorney about Abruzzi getting killed outside Bally’s. Everything’s cool.”
“Did you nail the guy’s partners?” Davis asked.
“They escaped. I managed to grab a good piece of evidence, though.” Opening the back door of the car, Marconi took the gaffed Yankees cap off the passenger seat and handed it to Davis. “Take a look at this.”
Davis examined the cap, trying to hide his disappointment that Marconi hadn’t nailed Abruzzi’s partners. As he handed the cap back, Gerry stuck his hand out.
“Can I look at it again?”
Marconi handed him the cap. The cap had been bothering Gerry, only he hadn’t known why. Turning the cap over, Gerry ran his finger over the LEDs and receiver sewn into the rim. Most cheating equipment was crudely made, with the main emphasis on getting the money. The niceties were almost always ignored. But this cap was different. It was new and looked liked a tailor had stitched it. The transmitter and LEDs were unusually thin, and he suspected they’d cost a lot of money.
Then it occurred to him what was wrong.
Cheating equipment was expensive. Several underground companies sold devices to rip off games, and the equipment often cost several thousand dollars. The markup was incredible, the reasoning being that a cheater would make the money back in one night. Gerry tried to imagine how much the baseball cap would cost from one of these companies. They charged through the nose for anything electronic, and he guessed the cap would cost ten grand. He handed the cap back to Marconi.
“Can I ask you a couple of questions?” Gerry asked.
“Go ahead.”
“The gang you were chasing inside Bally’s, how many members were there?”
Marconi stuck the cap on his head. It was several sizes too large, and made him look like a little kid. He counted on the fingers of one hand. “One woman was nicking the cards. A second guy was reading the nicks and transmitting the information. And there was the guy wearing the cap and doing the betting. Three members.”
“Don’t forget Abruzzi,” Davis said.
“Correction. Four members.”
“Okay,” Gerry said. “Four members, but only one is actually stealing.”
“That’s right.”
“How much was the gang winning?”
“Around fifteen hundred a night,” Marconi said.
Gerry stared at the cap on Marconi’s head. Now he knew what was bothering him.
“That’s not enough money,” Gerry said.
Marconi shot him a puzzled look. “What do you mean?”
“Look at the overhead the gang has,” Gerry explained. “Four members, plus the cost of the cap and a police scanner. Oh, and there’s George Scalzo’s take to consider, since he’s bankrolling this operation. Fifteen hundred a night hardly covers the cost of doing business.”
“You’ve lost me,” Marconi said. “If fifteen hundred isn’t enough money, then why were they cheating Bally’s? For laughs?”
Gerry asked to see the cap again, and turned it over. The expert tailoring job was the clue. A pro had stitched this cap, and if his hunch was correct, many more just like it.
“If my hunch is right, there are more members of this gang cheating Bally’s, not just the ones you were after,” Gerry said.
Marconi and Davis snapped to attention.
“Can you prove that?” Davis asked him.
“I sure can,” Gerry said.
Marconi drove them to Bally’s with the gaffed baseball cap on his head. During the drive, he broke the news to Davis that his prized Mustang had been totaled from Gerry ramming it into Abruzzi’s car. Davis stared out the window and sulked.
“You’ll find another one,” Marconi said.
“Like hell I will,” Davis replied.
Bally’s entrance was jammed with tour buses. Marconi maneuvered around them and parked by the valet stand. As they got out, he said, “Boat people.”
Boat people was casino slang for senior citizens. Like every other casino in Atlantic City, Bally’s relied on seniors to make its nut. They were easy customers, staying long enough to squander their social security checks in slot and video poker machines. Inside they found a sea of white hair and polyester. They walked to the cashier’s cage where Marconi cornered the casino’s floor manager, a red-faced man wearing a purple sports jacket. Marconi explained why they were there.
“You want to do
what
?” the floor manager said.
“Go up to your surveillance control room and take a look at some tapes,” Marconi said.
“Gaining entrance to that room takes a fricking act of Congress,” the floor manager said. “I need to tell the people upstairs what this is about.”
Marconi took off the cap, and showed the floor manager the rim. “This cap was used to scam your blackjack tables. We want to watch the tapes of the guy who was wearing it. Think you can arrange that?”
The floor manager muttered something unpleasant and left. Casino people were fiercely territorial, and tended to bang heads with cops as a matter of principle. They went into a coffee shop to wait.
“Do senior citizens rip off casinos?” Marconi asked a few minutes later.
Gerry had ordered coffee and was gulping it down to stay awake. “Seniors can be as bad as anyone else. My father nailed a gang who were stealing six figures a year.”
“What were they doing, putting slugs in slot machines?” Marconi asked.
Gerry shook his head.
“Fudging their Keno cards?” Davis asked.
Gerry shook his head again. “It was a bus scam. The tour operator was in cahoots with them.”
Cops liked to think they knew everything when it came to crime. Davis and Marconi traded looks, then stared Gerry down.
“What the hell’s a bus scam?” Davis asked.
Gerry put down his coffee. “The casino was paying a tour operator ten dollars a head to bus seniors in twice a week. The seniors had a larcenous streak, and told the tour operator they’d inflate the count if he’d split the money with them.”
“They stole six figures doing this?” Marconi asked incredulously.
“Yeah. The tour operator was bringing in ten buses, twice a week. The count on each bus was being inflated by ten heads. That’s two grand a week.”
Marconi and Davis dealt with bad people every day, but this seemed to bother them. If Gerry had learned anything working for his father, it was that gambling made people do things that they wouldn’t ordinarily do. He finished his drink.
“How did your father nail them?” Davis asked.
“My father was working the casino on another case,” Gerry said. “He happened to walk outside, and saw the tour operator throwing unopened box lunches into a Dumpster. He mentioned it to management, and was told the casino gave each senior a boxed lunch as part of the deal. My father went outside, and counted all the boxes in the Dumpster. That’s when he figured out what they were doing.”
“Did the seniors go to jail?” Davis asked.
“No one went to jail,” Gerry said. “The tour operator gave his share back, and did community service. The seniors had spent theirs, so they worked it off at the casino.”
“That your father’s idea?” Davis asked.
Gerry nodded. His father believed in giving first-time offenders a pass, provided they were truly repentant. Everyone involved in this case had been. The floor manager appeared at the entrance to the restaurant, and motioned to them impatiently. They settled the bill, then came out to where the floor manager waited.
“You’ve got clearance,” the floor manager said.
Bally’s surveillance control room was the heart and soul of its security operation. Housed on the third floor, it was a windowless, claustrophobic room filled with the finest snooping equipment money could buy. The room was kept at a chilly sixty degrees, and each technician wore several layers of clothing. The floor manager led them past a wall of video monitors to a master console in the rear of the room, where a short, bespectacled man wearing a gray turtleneck sat with his fingers clutched around a joystick.
“They’re all yours,” the floor manager said.
The floor manager left, and Marconi introduced himself, Davis, and Gerry. The man at the console removed his glasses and quizzed Gerry with a glance.
“You Tony Valentine’s son?”
“Sure am,” Gerry said.
“Your father taught me the ropes,” the man said. “We used to say your father could see a gnat’s ass and hear a mouse piss. How’s he doing?”
“Great,” Gerry said.
“Glad to hear it. My name’s Lou Preston. I hear you want to watch some tapes.”
Gerry explained the blackjack scam with the baseball cap to Lou Preston. When he was finished, Preston’s head was bobbing up and down.
“So you think there might have been more cheaters wearing these caps,” Preston said. “Can you give me an approximate time when this took place?”
“Around four o’clock this morning,” Marconi said.
“What exactly did the caps look like?” Preston asked.
Marconi took the cap off his head and gave it to Preston. Preston placed the cap beneath the reading light on his console, and spent a few moments examining it.
“Let’s see if we can find this cap in our digital library,” he said.
Preston began to type on the keyboard on his console. Like most large casinos, Bally’s used digital video recorders to continuously tape the action on the floor. It was a far cry from the old days, when the tapes in VCRs had to be switched every hour. Within seconds, four tapes appeared on a matrix on Preston’s computer screen. Each tape showed a different man in the casino wearing a baseball cap while playing blackjack.
“These four gentlemen were playing blackjack in our casino at four o’clock this morning,” Preston said. “Is one of them your guy?”
Marconi pointed at the guy in the right-hand corner of the matrix. “That’s him.”
Preston dragged the cursor over the picture and clicked on it. The picture enlarged to show a guy in his early fifties wearing a Yankees cap and smoking a cigar. He wore his shirt open, and hanging around his neck were several thick gold chains.
Preston did some more magic with his cursor, and the baseball cap became the only thing on the screen. He struck the
ENTER
key, then leaned back in his chair.
“In sixty seconds we’ll know if your hunch is correct,” he told Gerry.
The hard drive on Preston’s console made a whirring sound. Marconi and Davis looked confused, and Gerry guessed they weren’t up to speed on the latest technology being employed by casinos to track cheaters. Pointing at the baseball cap, he said, “Lou just burned an image of this cap into his computer. He’s asked the computer to take a look at all recent tapes, and see how many similar caps turn up. Within a minute we’ll know how many there were.”
“I thought that took hours,” Davis said.
“
Used
to take hours,” Preston corrected him. “We now use Kalatel DVRs to record digitally. It’s light years faster than before. We can search the tapes for anything we want.”
“Beats using a catwalk, huh?” Gerry said.
“Personally, I liked the catwalks,” Preston said.
“Gave me plenty of exercise. They did have their drawbacks, though. One time, I was on the catwalk with a camera with a zoom lens, trying to photograph a cheater switching dice. There was a two-way mirror in the ceiling, and as I tried to photograph the switch, the cheater stared straight up at me. I must have leaned on the mirror, because dust was falling down on his head. Needless to say, he ran like hell.”
The hard drive had stopped whirring, and Preston hit
ENTER
again.
“Bingo,” he said. “Four matches.”
They huddled behind his chair, and Preston pulled up each match the computer had made. Four men, all Italian, with ages ranging from late forties to late fifties, wearing jewelry around their necks or hands, and wearing Yankees baseball caps.
“Looks like a casting call for
The Sopranos,
” Marconi said.
Gerry felt a hand on his shoulder, and glanced at Davis.
“Good job,” Davis said.
Preston e-mailed copies of each man’s image to the Atlantic City Police Department to be checked against its database of known criminals. Then he escorted his guests through the surveillance control room to the door. As Marconi and Davis walked into the hall, Preston turned to Gerry.
“One thing’s bothering me,” Preston said. “Why me?”
Gerry didn’t understand the question.
“Let me rephrase that. Why
my
casino?” Preston said. “There are a dozen casinos on the island; why did these guys pick mine? It’s a question I always ask myself when we get ripped off. Is there a flaw in our system, or did a security person on the floor get paid to look the other way? Or is there another reason?”
“Such as?”
“Maybe your hunch is correct,” Preston said. “Maybe the scam
is
bigger than everyone thought. Makes sense, don’t you think?”