Authors: James Swain
“Your father is a policeman?”
“Retired.”
“Do you work with him?”
“I’m his partner. I’m getting my cards next week.”
Pash tore away the paper napkin tucked in his collar. He suddenly looked scared. “Why are you telling me this? What do you want?”
Gerry smiled at him. “My father sent me to Bart’s school to learn card-counting. What I learned was, it’s a good business, and it isn’t illegal. There’s only one drawback, and that’s if you get photographed. Then you’re screwed.
“My father does consulting work for casinos all over the country. He knows which casinos have sophisticated surveillance equipment, and which don’t. Did you know that the Mississippi riverboats have the least amount of surveillance equipment?”
“Why is that?”
“The riverboats are made of wood and have certain weight restrictions. They cut down on the cameras and recording equipment so they can carry more passengers.”
“This is very valuable information.”
Gerry had gotten his attention, and leaned forward. “You and Amin have worn out your welcome here. You need to move to greener pastures, and I can help you.”
Pash fingered the business card and said, “How much do you want?”
“One-third, same as now.”
“Will you still rat-hole chips for us?”
“On weekends, sure. It will be a breeze.”
“A breeze?”
“Easy as pie. Your risk of getting caught will drop to zero.”
“You think so?”
Gerry nodded. He’d thought it out and saw no flaws in his plan. “There’s a brand-new casino opening every week. Most don’t know their ass from third base when it comes to spotting counters. I’ll tell you and Amin where those casinos are.” He smiled, saw Pash smile along with him. “You’ll be in fat city.”
“Fat city? Where is that?”
Gerry took out his wallet and paid for the meal.
“It’s right next door to heaven,” he said.
19
V
alentine spent the morning on the balcony of his suite, enjoying the beautiful weather while waiting for Gerry to call him back. By noon, his patience had run out, and he called the Red Roost Inn. The manager answered sounding all out of breath.
“I hate to cause you work, but would you mind going to my son’s room and knocking on his door? I haven’t spoken to him in days. Save an old man from worry.”
The manager said sure and dropped the phone on the desk. Valentine found himself grinning. He’d never used the senior citizen angle before and was surprised at how well it worked. Maybe getting old wasn’t so bad.
“Room’s empty,” the manager said when he returned. “Your son came by earlier, asked if I had a road map he could look at. I think he was going to Pahrump.”
“Is that an animal, mineral, or vegetable?”
“It’s a little town up in the mountains, about an hour’s drive.”
“What’s the attraction?”
“Beats me,” the manager said.
Valentine thanked him, and hung up feeling mad as hell. There was no doubt in his mind that Gerry was avoiding him. Some days, he wondered why he wasted his time trying to help his son. Going back inside, he slammed the slider closed.
The surveillance photograph of Frank Fontaine lay on the dining room table, beside it the cordless phone. He’d been weighing calling Bill Higgins for several hours. Fontaine had cost Las Vegas’s casinos millions over the years, and Bill would start an investigation once he’d heard that Fontaine had ripped the Acropolis off.
What had stopped him from calling was Lucy Price. He’d left breakfast this morning convinced Fontaine had tricked her into participating in his scam. The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question was, how had he done it? If he could find out, he might be able to save Lucy from getting hauled off to jail.
He removed the card with her phone numbers from his wallet, then picked up the phone. She’d left breakfast pretty angry, and he wondered if she’d take his call. There was only one way to find out, and he called her at home. She answered on the first ring.
“I need to talk to you,” he said.
Lucy lived in a modest condo in the community of Garden Terrace in Summerlin, ten minutes from the Strip. He arrived at her front door at twelve-thirty, expecting to take her to lunch. She was wearing jeans and a faded red polo shirt. It was a great color on her.
“My turn, this time,” she said, ushering him inside.
The place wasn’t much to look at—a sagging couch, an ancient TV with rabbit ears, a few mismatched chairs, some art show prints on the walls—but she’d somehow made it feel like home. As he followed her into the dining room, he noticed an abundance of flowers and potted plants that tied it all together. She had a green thumb; something was blooming wherever he looked.
She’d set the dining room table for two. On it was a basket of toasted bread, a bowl of tuna fish, another of egg salad, a basket of potato chips, and two glasses of lemonade. It reminded him of the picnic lunches he and Lois had shared when they’d first dated. He pulled out Lucy’s chair.
“Such a gentleman,” she said, taking her seat.
He sat across from her. Staring into her eyes, he saw a slight puffiness. Had he made her cry earlier? He nearly asked her, then bit his tongue.
“How was your morning?” she asked.
He took two slices of toast when she offered him the basket, and made a tuna fish sandwich under her watchful gaze. “I watched some surveillance tapes.”
“Learn anything?”
She wasn’t touching the food, preferring to watch him. He always got hungry when he was working, and he nodded and bit into his sandwich. The tuna fish was spicy, just the way he liked it. He finished the sandwich, then helped himself to the potato chips. Her eyes never wavered, and once he saw her start to grin, only to see it fade.
“That was good,” he said. “You shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble.”
“I wanted to see you again,” she said.
The words had a more powerful effect on him than he would have liked. Being married forty years, he’d taken for granted that there was a woman in his life who wanted to see him again. Losing that had been one of the hardest things he’d ever endured.
“Oh,” he said.
“I have something for you,” Lucy said.
He followed her into one of the bedrooms. It was as Spartan as the rest of the house, with none of the furniture matching. On the bed lay three pairs of men’s pants, one tan, one black, one brown. She said, “My ex’s. Don’t know why he left them behind, maybe to remind me of something.”
Valentine checked the labels. Waist 35, leg 34. His size. Lucy said, “If any of them fit, they’re yours,” and walked out of the room, shutting the door behind her. For a long moment he stood there, not knowing what to make of the offer, and then realized she was just trying to be nice. Taking off his pants, he began trying the clothes on.
The black pair fit just right.
He appraised his reflection in the vanity. Black had always been his best color. A strange thought occurred to him. Lucy resembled his late wife in many ways. Did he bear any resemblance to her ex-husband?
He looked around the room for a picture. On the dresser he spied a plastic frame, turned facedown. He picked it up. It was of Lucy, taken several years ago. Her hair was frosted, but otherwise she looked the same. She was holding a giant check and smiling. The check was from the Flamingo casino, and made out to her for $250,000.
He stared at the picture for a long moment. In his mind’s eye, he saw her at the Flamingo, sitting in front of a slot machine, the reels showing
JACKPOT
and the machine going bonkers. Saw her jump up and down and scream. Felt all her joy.
It answered all the questions he’d had about her. He put the picture back the way he’d found it and walked out of the bedroom. He found her on the couch in the living room, leafing through a glossy magazine. Before he could sit down, she made him walk in front of her, and nodded her head approvingly. “That’s much better. Those other pants made you look—”
“Like an old geezer?”
“Frumpy,” she corrected. “These make you look sexy. Wish they’d made my husband look that way.”
Sexy. He couldn’t remember anyone ever describing him that way before, and he wasn’t sure he believed her. The couch sagged as he sat down. She threw the magazine to the floor and turned sideways. He tried to think of a tactful way to say what he wanted to say, only he’d never been good in that department, so he just spit it out.
“I just had an epiphany,” he said.
“I thought only Joan of Arc had those.”
“I’ve had them since I was a kid,” he explained. “I’ll look at something that doesn’t make sense, and my brain will turn it upside down, and then it does make sense.”
“Are they accompanied by bolts of lightning and clashes of thunder?”
He shook his head. “Nothing that dramatic.”
“Are you going to share yours?”
“It’s about you.”
Her jaw tightened. “Well, then I guess I’m entitled to hear it.”
He put his hands into his lap, suddenly feeling uncomfortable as hell. Taking a deep breath, he said, “In the bedroom I saw a picture of you winning a quarter million bucks. Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Was it your first time playing the slots when you won that jackpot?”
She drew back in surprise. “How did you know that?”
“It’s a common denominator among people who play a lot.”
“You mean among slot queens?”
He nodded, glad she’d used the expression first.
“Is that what makes us addicts?” Lucy asked, her voice serious. “We won big the first time and thought we had the magic touch?”
He nodded, and added, “Winning changes people.”
“I can buy that. Is that your epiphany?”
“There’s more.”
“Fire away.”
He took another deep breath, then said, “I need to explain something. Have you ever heard the expression
takeoff agent
?”
“No.”
“Cheaters use takeoff agents to win money at rigged games. Usually, they’re guys between thirty-five and fifty who like to gamble and resent the casinos for taking their money. Cheaters usually find them in casino bars crying in their beers.
“The cheater takes the guy to a poker game and deals him several winning hands. The guy’s behavior is scrutinized. If he passes muster, he finds out the game is rigged and the other players are part of the team. Then his role in the scam is explained to him.”
“What does this have to do with me?”
“Not long ago, you were playing slots at the Acropolis, and you met a guy. He’s a smooth talker and a real charmer. So smooth, you stopped wondering where he got the scar on his face.”
Lucy swallowed very hard.
“He’s a crossroader—he rips off casinos for a living. Somehow he knew you had the magic touch. He got talking to you, and asked you if you’d ever played blackjack.”
Valentine hesitated. He was guessing now, and waited for her to respond.
“Go on,” she said.
“You said no, you hadn’t. He told you about virgin luck—how people who play for the first time often win. You knew what he was talking about, because you’d won a quarter million at slots the first time.”
Lucy’s face had turned stone cold. He could no longer read her expressions or her feelings. He said, “He took out a Basic Strategy card and taught you how to play. Then he took out a deck of cards and dealt you several hands. And an amazing thing happened. You won every hand. He was so impressed, he offered to stake you. He gave you ten grand, and pointed at a blackjack table. If you won, you’d split the winnings. If you lost, you wouldn’t owe him a thing.”
He stopped because Lucy’s eyes told him to stop. She said, “How the hell do you know that? Were you spying on me the whole time?”
Valentine shook his head.
“Then explain yourself. And don’t give me any more cock and bull about having an epiphany. I stopped believing in that nonsense when I quit reading romance novels.”
He stared at the worn patch of carpet between his feet. He’d never been good at sugarcoating things, and he knew that he’d hurt her.
“He set you up. He turned you into his takeoff agent, only you didn’t know it.”
“How did he do that?”
“He’s a mechanic. When you first played, he dealt you winning hands. There was no luck involved.”
“But I
saw
him shuffle the cards.”
“Half the deck was stacked. He shuffled the half that wasn’t. You couldn’t lose, trust me.”
“Which makes me what? An unwitting shill?”
Valentine said “yes” in a soft voice.
“The blackjack table he told me to play at,” Lucy said. “He was real specific about which one. Was that game rigged as well?”
“Yes.”
“Someone else involved?”
He nodded.
“But you don’t know who?”
“No, but I plan to find out,” he said. He lifted his eyes. Lucy was seething, her face hard and unforgiving.
“I get it,” she said. “You’re like the Royal Canadian Mounties; you always get your man. That’s what drove you to call me. You wanted to nail him. You didn’t care about the money I lost.” She spread her arms and said, “See the Taj Mahal I live in? I barely scrape by. That money was going to get me back on track. It was my salvation.”
He didn’t know what to tell her. The money had never been hers. Only Lucy wasn’t willing to accept that. He felt bad for her even if she was a sucker, and said, “Can I ask you something? Why did you go along with him?”
“Because he said Nick was a bastard, and he had it coming,” she said.
Valentine blinked. It
was
Fontaine. He saw her rise from the couch.
“Get up,” she said.
He rose slowly, his hands unconsciously making a conciliatory gesture. She pointed at the front door. “Leave. And don’t ever call me again.”
“Lucy, I’m trying to help you.”
“Sure you are. The next thing I know, the cops will be banging on my door.”
At the door he turned, his mind struggling for something to say. “Thanks for the pants,” he blurted out.
The words hadn’t come out right, and he made it out of the house before she threw an ashtray at him.