Authors: James Swain
30
“Y
ou’ve never gambled, have you?” Bill Higgins asked.
“Never,” Valentine replied.
“Ever tempted?”
“No. I got the cure.”
“What happened?”
They were sitting in Celebrity’s sports bar, waiting for their hamburgers. Bill had given Sammy Mann another chance, and they’d left him in the control room to come downstairs for lunch. All around them sat guys who’d been knocked out of the tournament and relegated to watching the action on the giant-screen TV behind the bar. DeMarco had lost a twelve-million-dollar pot, and the room was buzzing.
“Two things,” Valentine said. “The first was because my old man was a gambler, and I saw what it did to my mother. The second happened when I was eighteen. I lent three hundred bucks to a friend of mine who
thought
he was a gambler. That cured me.”
“Did your friend blow the money?”
“Yeah.”
Lunch came, and they dug in. Once upon a time, food in Las Vegas was a real bargain. Then the corporations had taken over. Now, a burger cost ten bucks, and the french fries could be counted on the fingers of two hands.
“What happened?” Bill asked.
“It was the summer of my eighteenth birthday,” Valentine said, “and I was caddying at the Atlantic City Country Club. The pay was fifty bucks a week, and I’d saved three hundred bucks and was planning to buy a used car. There was another caddy named Kenny Keane. Kenny was a degenerate gambler and would bet on anything. One day, he begged me to lend him three hundred dollars, said he needed to see a doctor. I was pretty naive, so I lent it to him.
“Kenny immediately marched into the clubhouse and challenged the club champ to a match. Kenny was an eight-handicap, and the champ was a scratch golfer. They went out and started playing. Luckily, the champ played tight when there was money on the line, and on the last hole, Kenny sank a miracle thirty-foot putt, and won by a stroke. As we were walking back to the clubhouse, Kenny said, ‘I told you I could beat that guy!’
“I told Kenny I wanted my money. I was dreaming about owning that car. Kenny said sure, and we went to take a shower. When I got out, I found Kenny in a poker game in the locker room. I looked at his hand. He had absolutely nothing. A stone cold bluff. I begged him for my money. He said, ‘I can beat these guys.’ And he did. They folded, and Kenny won two grand.
“We went into the clubhouse, and Kenny headed for the casino in the back room. Gambling was illegal in Atlantic City then, but that didn’t stop anyone. I told Kenny to give me my money or I’d never speak to him again. He said, ‘Can’t you see I’m on a roll? I’m going to make us famous tonight.’
“I watched Kenny play blackjack and double our money. Then he played craps, and doubled it again. The guy was absolutely on fire. Then he went to the roulette table, and put everything on the black. The ball rolled and I remember saying a prayer when it dropped. It landed on the red.
“Kenny didn’t stop yelling for ten minutes. I remember wanting to cry, only there were too many people around. As we were leaving, another caddy came up and asked Kenny how much money he’d lost. Kenny said, ‘Just three hundred bucks that I borrowed from this dope.’”
Bill’s cell phone was lying on the bar, and began to crawl between their plates. It was on vibrate mode, and Bill picked it up and stared at its face.
“I need to take this,” he said.
Bill retreated to a less noisy area of the bar, and Valentine continued eating while watching the TV behind the bar. The players had taken a break, and the network was showing a replay of the monster pot DeMarco had lost. Valentine hadn’t paid much attention to it the first time—everyone lost when they gambled—but watching it a second time, he felt the hairs on his neck stand up. The player who’d beaten DeMarco was a scruffy Houston gambler named Skins Turner, a lanky guy with a hooked nose, a prominent Adam’s apple, and a vagrant wisp of hair on his head. But his arresting feature was his hands. They were large and delicate, with long tapering fingers and manicured fingernails. They could have belonged to a surgeon, or a concert pianist, but in the world of gambling, they belonged to another animal. They were a mucker’s hands.
The camera shifted to DeMarco, who’d lost a third of his chips to Skins. DeMarco was shaking his head, and Valentine sensed that the kid knew he’d been cheated.
Bill was still on the other side of the bar, talking on his cell phone. Valentine borrowed a pen from the bartender and scribbled on a cocktail napkin that he was going upstairs to the surveillance control room. He tucked the note beneath Bill’s plate then threw down money for their meals and left the bar.
Entering Celebrity’s surveillance control room, Valentine went to the office where Sammy Mann was holed up. To his surprise, the old hustler had cleared out. He found a technician and asked him where Sammy had gone.
“He went home ten minutes ago,” the tech said.
Valentine talked the tech into pulling up the tape of the twelve-million-dollar pot, then he pulled up a chair to watch the action. The tech had a boyish face and didn’t look old enough to be driving a car. Sensing that something was brewing, the tech put down the Slurpie he was drinking, and stared intently at the video monitor.
They watched the dealer shuffle the cards then sail them around the table, with each player getting two. In Texas Hold ‘Em, the player’s starting cards were critical, with the best hand being two aces, followed by two kings. As Skins got his two cards, his hands covered their backs, and he lifted up their corners to peek at their values.
“See that?” Valentine asked.
“No,” the tech said. “What happened?”
“Play it again, and I’ll explain.”
The tech rewound the tape. He hit play, and they watched the dealer sail the cards around the table.
“Freeze it,” Valentine said.
The tech froze the tape, and Valentine pointed at Skins. “See his hands? He’s got a king palmed in his right hand. It was stuck in a bug beneath the table.”
The tech brought his face so close to the picture that his breath fogged the screen.
“Well, I’ll be. But where did he get the king from?”
“He mucked it out earlier,” Valentine said. “Hustlers call it doing ‘the chop.’ When he tossed his cards to the dealer, he only tossed one.”
“The dealer didn’t notice?”
Valentine shook his head. The technique of stealing a single card during play had been developed by blackjack cheaters, and it flew by most dealers. Stealing a card was even easier in poker, since no one paid attention to a player when he dropped out of a hand. Valentine made the tech restart the tape.
“Now watch the switch,” he said.
The tape continued, and they watched Skins cover his cards with his hands. The tech slapped his knees. “Holy cow. He peeked at his cards without letting the hidden camera in the table see them,” the tech said. “That’s on purpose, isn’t it?”
Valentine nodded. The kid caught on fast.
“Okay,” the tech said. “Now he’s doing the switch, even though I can’t see the move.”
“Cameras can’t see through hands,” Valentine said.
“No, but I can tell when someone’s got a card palmed, and this guy does.” The tech pointed at Skins’s right hand, which rested on the table edge. “He’s got the card he just switched hidden in his palm, doesn’t he?”
“Correct.”
“What will he do? Destroy it later on?”
“No,” Valentine said. “He’ll add it to his cards, and toss it into the muck. That way the deck won’t be short. Hustlers call it ‘cleaning up.’”
On the monitor, they saw Skins drop his guilty hand into his lap and stick the switched card into the bug. If a problem arose during the game, Skins would simply toss the card beneath the table.
“So let’s arrest this guy,” the tech said. “We’ve got enough evidence.”
It was the sanest thing Valentine had heard anyone say since he’d started investigating the tournament. He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up. Bill Higgins was standing behind him with a grim look on his face. Valentine got up, and they went to a corner where no one could hear them.
“I just got some bad news from the FBI’s Las Vegas office,” Bill said. “Guess who escaped from Ely prison this morning.”
“Someone I know?”
“Al ‘Little Hands’ Scarpi. The FBI thinks Scalzo was behind it.”
Valentine clenched his teeth. Every holiday, postcards from Ely State Penitentiary appeared in his mailbox, the name
U.R. Dead
scribbled in the return address box. Of all the twisted souls he’d put away, Al Scarpi was the one he still had nightmares about.
“Look, Tony, I won’t be mad if you say you want to leave town,” Bill said. “This is getting awfully hairy.”
Valentine shook his head. He would leave Las Vegas after he busted Scalzo. It was that simple.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said.
31
“I
’ve never ridden in a helicopter before,” Little Hands shouted, gazing down at the flat, unforgiving landscape of northern Nevada. The pilot, an athletic blonde wearing aviator shades with mirrored lenses, flashed a toothy grin. He’d picked Little Hands up on a dusty field outside the Ely Conservation Camp ninety minutes ago, tossed a bag lunch into Little Hands’s lap, then pointed his chopper toward Las Vegas.
“Where do you pee in this thing, anyway?” Little Hands asked.
The pilot continued grinning. It was a long trip, over 250 miles, and Little Hands had wished like hell he’d taken a leak before departing.
“You got a radio to listen to?” Little Hands asked.
The pilot continued to grin. Then Little Hands got the picture. The pilot couldn’t hear him over the roar of the helicopter’s blades. Little Hands felt like a fool and folded his hands in his lap. In prison, he’d gone to the library every day and tried to educate himself. If he’d learned anything from the books he’d read, it was that the best thing a dumb person could do was keep their mouth shut and say nothing at all.
Rows of identical tract houses littered the landscape, the roofs dotted with satellite-TV dishes. Past them, a giant steel structure shaped like a needle pierced the sky. Little Hands realized it was the Stratosphere, the tallest casino in Las Vegas.
The pilot tapped him on the arm, then pointed at a sprawling industrial park down below. Behind the park was a concrete helipad with a car parked beside it. Little Hands sucked in his breath as the helicopter descended.
Once the helicopter’s blades stopped whirring, Little Hands climbed out and stretched his legs. It was hard to believe that less than five hours ago he’d been pumping iron in the prison weight room. The pilot pulled a duffle bag out of the helicopter, and dropped it on the ground.
“This is yours, buddy,” he said.
Little Hands unzipped the duffle bag and pulled out its contents. New clothes to replace his prison work out fit, a set of car keys for the vehicle parked beside the helipad, and an envelope stuffed with twenty-dollar bills. The envelope also contained a typed sheet with the hotel and room number where Tony Valentine was staying. Taking the money out, he quickly counted it.
One thousand bucks.
He ran over to the helicopter. The pilot had restarted the engine and was about to take off. Little Hands tapped on the pilot’s window, and he pulled it back.
“Where’s the rest of my money? I get five grand for a job.”
“You’ll get the rest when the job is done,” the pilot said.
“Fuck that shit. I want it now.”
“Do the job, then call the number on the back of the instructions. They’ll meet you, and give you the rest.”
“I want it now.”
“I don’t have it,” the pilot said.
“You’re saying they didn’t pay you, either?” Little Hands shouted.
“What they paid me is none of your business. You should be happy you’re out of jail,” the pilot said.
Little Hands stuck his hand through the open window and got his fingers around the pilot’s throat. Before he could squeeze the life out of him, the pilot drew a gun from the console between the seats and stuck it in Little Hands’s face.
“Want to die, asshole?”
Little Hands let go of the pilot and withdrew his arm.
“You’re a dumb son-of-a-bitch, you know that?” the pilot said. “Now, stand back.”
Little Hands retreated a few steps. The helicopter rose uncertainly, like a bird testing its wings. When it was at face height, Little Hands leaped forward and wrapped his arms around the landing gear, called skids. He twisted and pulled the skids as the helicopter continued to rise. He wasn’t going to let the pilot call him dumb.
When the helicopter was higher than a house, Little Hands let go, and fell back to earth. He landed on the grass and rolled onto his back. He waited for the pain in his legs to subside while staring into the sky. The helicopter was spinning crazily, the skids twisting. The pilot wouldn’t be able to land without crashing.
Little Hands saw the pilot shaking his fist and cursing him. He laughed.
He drove into Las Vegas thinking about the money. A thousand stinking bucks. He’d never taken a job with out getting paid up front. Either his employer didn’t know the rules, or wanted to keep him on a short leash.
It’s like I’m still a prisoner,
he thought.
He came into town on the north side, where the Riviera, Frontier, and Sahara were still struggling to survive, and parked beneath the Frontier’s mammoth marquee, its giant letters proclaiming
BIKINI BULL RIDE, COLD
BEER, DIRTY GIRLS.
Across the street from the Frontier was the Peppermill restaurant and lounge. The local cops didn’t like the prices, and as a result criminals often used the cocktail lounge for meetings. He needed time and a place to think, and decided it was as good a spot as any.
The lounge was behind the restaurant, a mirrored room with a sunken fire pit and plenty of intimate seating. The place was dead, and he took a seat at the bar and ordered a draft from the cute bartender, who seemed happy for the company. She set a tall one in front of him. “You look familiar,” she said.
It was his first beer since going to the joint. He savored it, saying nothing.
“Now I remember,” the bartender said. “You came in here awhile back, and stuck your hand in the fire pit.”
The fire pit was the lounge’s gimmick, the bright orange flames erupting from a bubbling pool of green water. Little Hands had stuck his hand into the flames on a dare and burned himself real good. “That was a long time ago,” he said.
She smiled like he’d made a joke, then tapped the screen of the video poker machine in front of him. Every seat at the bar had a video poker machine. It was how the lounge made money.
“Make sure you play Joker’s Wild,” she said.
“Why’s that?” he asked.
“It’s paying off real good.”
He drank some more beer. She played this game with every customer who came in. She sold them on the idea of winning, even though no one ever did. He needed to figure out how he was going to kill Valentine, and fished a twenty out of his pocket.
“Thanks,” he said.
The beer went straight to his head, and he could hardly sit upright in his chair.
This was how guys who broke out of jail got caught,
he thought. The bartender came back. “How you doing?” she asked.
He looked at the video poker screen. “Shitty.”
She watched him play a hand. On the screen five cards appeared. He had a pair of jacks. He discarded the other three cards by pressing on them with his finger. The machine dealt him three more cards. They didn’t help his hand, and he won a dollar. She reached over the bar and touched his wrist.
“Can I give you some advice?”
“Sure.”
“Play the maximum amount of coins each time. That way, if you get a good hand, you’ll win big.”
He’d been betting a quarter a hand, thinking it would let him play longer, which would increase his chances of winning. Only, she was saying that it was a bad strategy, and would deny him the chance to really win. He pushed the button on the screen that said
PLAY MAXIMUM AMOUNT
.
“There you go,” she said.
Five new cards appeared on the screen. The ace of hearts, king of hearts, three of clubs, nine of hearts, and ten of hearts. He started to discard all the cards but the ace and saw her eyebrows go up.
“Discard the three and nine,” she said. “That way, you might make a royal flush.”
A royal flush was the best hand of all. According to the payout chart on the screen, he’d get two grand for a royal flush.
“Nobody gets those,” he said.
“That’s because they don’t try,” she said.
The day had been filled with surprises. He discarded the three and the nine. Two new cards appeared on the screen, a queen of hearts and a joker. She let out a war whoop. “You won! You won!”
He stared at the screen. “No, I didn’t. That ain’t a royal flush.”
“Yes, it is. Jokers are wild. That’s why they call it Joker’s Wild.”
He realized the screen was flashing. It didn’t feel real, and he touched the
PAYOUT
button with his finger. A slip of paper spit out of the machine saying he’d won $2,000.
He handed it to her, and she went into the restaurant to get the money from the manager.
He sucked down the beer left in his glass. Living in Vegas, he’d heard countless stories about people winning big in casinos, and how it had changed their lives. He’d always assumed the stories were bullshit.
The bartender returned holding a thick stack of bills. She counted the money onto the bar then pushed it toward him. Lifting her eyes, she looked into his face expectantly.
He hesitated picking up the stack, wondering how many customers heard her spiel each day. Fifty? A hundred? Giving suckers hope was how she made her living. He knew that, yet it didn’t change how she’d made him feel.
He put three hundred on the bar and walked out.