Loaded Dice (11 page)

A startled look spread across her face.

“I also think this same person staked you ten grand. He talked you into playing blackjack at the Acropolis. You had a deal with him.”

“Why do you think someone staked me?” she asked, growing angry. “Why couldn’t it have been with my money?”

Because you owe money all over town
he would have said to anyone else sitting on that bench. Only he didn’t want to hurt this woman. She’d been through enough.

Her hand was still on his knee. He rested his hand on hers.

“Greasy guys with diamond pinkie rings bet five hundred a hand,” he said. “Or oil tycoons wearing Stetsons. But a novice playing her first time? A hundred a hand I could live with. Not five hundred. Someone told you to do that.”

He saw the flicker of understanding register on her face. He was on to her, and she knew it. “Lucy, please, level with me. Who staked you? What’s going on?”

“I . . . can’t tell you that.”

“Please.”

She shook her head. “I have to go.” She jerked her hand free of his grasp and abruptly stood up. She walked away quickly, purse clutched to her chest, eyes scared.

“Lucy—”

“No!”

He saw the guy who’d been hitting on her emerge from one of the Forum Shops. Walking over, he tried to start up a conversation. Mister-Never-Give-Up. Lucy stopped long enough to slap him in the face, the harsh sound reverberating across the Forum’s domed ceiling like a gunshot.

16

T
aking cabs in Las Vegas was a waste of time, so Valentine hiked back to the Acropolis. It was only three blocks, plus the long walk down Caesars entranceway. The casino had moving sidewalks to bring people in, but not out.

The air was brisk and clean, the sun a metallic sliver in the vivid sky. He walked quickly, wanting to burn off the bad feelings weighing him down. Lucy was somehow involved in this scam, and he didn’t want her to end up getting hurt. He normally didn’t feel that way about cheaters, and found himself trying to rationalize his feelings. She didn’t seem to be a part of a gang, and was probably just a patsy. She was being taken advantage of, he decided.

He strode past the entrance, the sun’s harsh rays showing every crack and paint chip. Behind the dreams there was always a harsh reality. Lucy’s reality was that someone had staked her to play blackjack and pointed to a specific table. That same someone gave her a Basic Strategy card and told her to follow it. Wily had polygraphed the dealers who’d worked Lucy’s table. But that didn’t mean someone else wasn’t involved in the scam. Perhaps it was one of the other players. Or someone standing behind the table, out of the surveillance camera’s range. That person had engineered the scam and later stolen Lucy’s winnings from the safe in her room. It was the only possible explanation for what had happened.

He walked up the Acropolis’s winding entrance. A workman was scrubbing Nick’s ex-wives with a soggy mop, the soapsuds clinging to all the wrong places.
Nowhere else in America could someone get away with this,
he thought.

Going inside, Big Joe Smith pulled him into One-Armed Billy’s alcove, and he got his picture taken with a gang of tourists, autographed their visors and T-shirts, then left.

“Hey, Mister Celebrity,” Wily said when he entered the surveillance control room a minute later. He’d been watching on the monitors, and was laughing.

“I need to ask you some questions,” Valentine said.

“Your wish is my command.”

“The night you taped Lucy Price, did you film her from any other angles?”

“We filmed her from every angle but up her skirt,” Wily said.

“Was anyone standing around the table, watching her play?”

“There were a couple of people watching her, now that you mention it,” Wily said. “Think they might be involved?”

Valentine wanted to smack Wily in the head. Fifteen years working for Nick, and Wily was lucky he found his way to work every day. Lucy Price was an
amateur
. Other players never watched amateurs play.

“Yeah, I think they’re involved. Let me see the tapes.”

“No problem, Kemosabe.”

Wily went to the raised console that sat in the room’s center. The console was the casino’s version of central command. Sitting in front of a computer, he pecked a command into the console’s keyboard, then leaned back in his chair and waited for a response.

Since nearly being ripped off by Frank Fontaine, Nick had bought an advanced surveillance system called Loronix. Loronix recorded digitally and could hold seven days’ worth of film. The picture had a special watermark that showed any foul play or image altering after the fact. That way, the tapes would always stand up in court.

Wily pointed at the wall of video monitors. “Lucy’s on monitors one through four.”

Valentine crossed the room and stared. On the monitors, he saw two spectators watching Lucy play. A plump woman clutching a plastic coin bucket, and a skinny guy wearing a baseball cap and cheap shades. Wily edged up beside him.

“Recognize either of them?” Valentine asked.

“The woman’s a local,” Wily said. “She comes in and blows her Social Security check playing video poker.”

“Ever have any problems with her?”

“Naw. Wait. There was one time . . . she found a gold coin on the casino floor, thought it was Nick’s lost treasure. Got real upset when she discovered it was a piece of candy wrapped in tinfoil.”

Nick’s lost treasure was a part of Vegas lore. During one of his divorces, Nick had told a trusted employee to hide a cache of gold coins he’d bought from a treasure hunter. The coins were from a sunken Spanish ship called the
Atocha
, and worth a fortune. Nick’s employee had hidden the coins, then dropped dead from a heart attack. No map had been left, nor any clues leading to the coins’ whereabouts.

Valentine resumed staring at the monitors. The woman with the coin bucket left, leaving the man with the baseball cap. He was scruffy and hadn’t shaved in several days.

“Recognize him?”

Wily brought his face next to the screen. “No. Hard to see his face beneath the cap and the whiskers and the shades.”

“No kidding.”

“Think he has something to do with it?”

“Yes.”

They watched the scruffy guy for ten minutes. The man shifted his position and once walked away, but then came back. He was definitely watching Lucy play.

“See anything that doesn’t look right?” Valentine asked.

Wily was smart enough to know when he was being baited. He stared for another minute, then said, “I give up.”

“Take a look at his shoes.”

Wily did, and spotted the discrepancy immediately. “Cowboy boots made out of alligator or snake. Doesn’t go with the cheap sunglasses, does it?”

“No, sir.”

Wily trotted over to the master console and began typing. The picture on the monitor froze, and the man’s reptilian cowboy boots became enlarged. Valentine walked behind Wily, trying to figure out what the head of security was doing.

“What are you doing?” Valentine asked him.

A surprised look crossed Wily’s face. In a loud voice, he said, “Ladies and gentlemen, can I have your attention, please. Something historic has just happened.” Ten technicians in the room collectively lifted their heads. “I just did something that Tony Valentine—
the
Tony Valentine—hasn’t seen before. Please mark down the date and time for future reference. Thank you.” Turning to his guest, he said, “Hope I didn’t embarrass you.”

“Just answer the question.”

“Loronix has this great feature. I can freeze an image—like this guy’s cowboy boots—and compare it to the last seven days’ worth of film on the computer’s hard drive. Loronix will find all the matches and pull them up. It’s a great way to gather evidence on someone.”

Valentine was stunned. He’d been given a demonstration of Loronix, and this feature had never been mentioned. He patted Wily on the shoulder and saw him smile.

“Good work,” he said.

A yellow light on the console began to flash. Wily punched in a command. The console had a small screen, and a bunch of gibberish appeared. Wily spent a moment deciphering it, then said, “Looks like our friend with the cowboy boots was in the casino twelve times in the last week. Want to look at him some more?”

“I sure do.”

Valentine returned to the wall of monitors. The retrieved films of the guy with the cowboy boots appeared on twelve separate screens. The guy was a stroller, and the films showed him walking around the casino, pausing occasionally to watch the action at roulette, blackjack, the craps table, and the Asian domino game called Pai Gow. Not once did he stop and actually play.

On one screen, he was standing at a pay phone. As he brought the receiver to his mouth, he lifted his face. The surveillance camera caught his profile, and Valentine felt a knot tighten in his stomach.

“For the love of Christ,” he said under his breath.

He stared across the room at Wily. Wily had been there the night the Acropolis had nearly gone down. “It’s Frank Fontaine,” he said.

“Fontaine’s in the slammer, doing thirty,” Wily replied.

“Look at him.”

Wily came over and put his face up to the monitor. “There’s a resemblance, but that’s it. Besides, this guy has a scar on his face.”

Frank Fontaine was the greatest casino cheater of the past twenty-five years. His scams were works of art, and always involved employee collusion. There was no doubt in Valentine’s mind it was him.

“You think I’m wrong?” Wily said.

“Yes.”

“Tony, you’re getting old.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m going to tell Nick.”

A look of apprehension crossed Wily’s face. “You
really
think it’s him?”

“Yes.”

Wily went to the console, punched in a command, then crossed the room to the laser printer in the corner. A printed sheet came out. He held it up so Valentine could see it. It was the photograph of Fontaine talking on the phone.

Walking over to a technician, Wily handed him the photograph and said, “Make a few hundred copies and distribute them to every employee. If anyone sees this guy, tell them to send up a flare.”

Valentine watched the technician leave. Then he looked at Wily. He hadn’t liked the crack about getting old. That was the thing he hated the most about Las Vegas. People didn’t stay your friend for very long.

Walking over to the printer, he removed Fontaine’s photograph and left without saying a word.

17

M
abel got up Saturday morning, fixed herself a fruit smoothie, and walked down the street to Tony’s house. She drank her breakfast while sitting at Tony’s desk, fielding e-mails and phone calls from panicked casino bosses that had come in the night before. In a business that never went to sleep, Friday nights were particularly hectic, and she spent an hour going through Tony’s messages. At ten o’clock the phone rang. It was Tony’s private line, and she snatched it up. It was Yolanda.

“Can you come over here?”

“Of course. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Yolanda said. “It’s about Gerry.”

“Be there in five,” Mabel said. She exited Tony’s e-mail, then shut his computer down. They lived in the lightning capital of the country, and leaving the computer on was an invitation for disaster. As she rose from her chair, the business line rang. She stared at the caller ID, then brought her hand to her mouth.

“Oh, no,” she said.

The caller was Richard Beamer, manager of the exclusive Liar’s Club in Beverly Hills. He had overnighted a certified check two days ago and been calling ever since.
And she’d forgotten to tell Tony.

Beamer’s check lay on the desk. It was for three grand, Tony’s usual fee. She’d grown up during the tail end of the Depression and could remember eating three-day-old bread, and standing on line with a wooden bucket to scoop sauerkraut and pigs’ feet from a barrel. She answered the call.

“Grift Sense. Can I help you?”

“This is Richard Beamer. Did you speak to your boss?”

“He’s on a job in Las Vegas,” she said truthfully. “He asked me to take the information. Once he figures out what these cheaters are doing, he’ll call you.”

“They were here last night,” Beamer said. “The other members want them thrown out. My job is at stake.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“I can’t expel them without proof. They’ll sue the club.”

“What game are they playing?”

“Poker.”

Mabel had an idea and put him on hold. From the bookshelf, she removed one of Tony’s favorites: Poker to Win, by Al Smith. Tony said that 99 percent of the guys who cheated at poker used three scams described in the book: Top Hand, the Cold Deck, and Locating. She opened the book to the table of contents and picked up Beamer’s line.

“I’m back. Let me ask you some questions.”

“Is Mister Valentine going to call—”

“Do your cheaters sit beside each other when they play?”

“Why yes, they do,” Beamer said. He sounded like someone who’d had acting lessons, his voice animated. “How did you know that?”

“It’s common among cheaters. Now, does one of your cheaters always drop out of the game, and the other wins?”

Beamer gave it some thought. “No. Sometimes they both stay in.”

Mabel smiled. That ruled out playing Top Hand, which was the signaling between players of who had the strongest hand, with the weaker dropping out. “Next question. Have you seen either player spill a drink on his cards, and replace them with a new deck?”

Another pause. “Not that I can recall. Let me guess. The new deck is stacked so they’ll win.”

“Yes. It’s called a Cold Deck,” she said, reading from the book. “The cards are usually false-shuffled when they’re introduced into the game.”

“I would have noticed that,” Beamer said. “I’m a card player myself.”

“Last question. Have you noticed the cheaters comparing hands after they’ve both dropped out?”

Beamer didn’t hesitate this time. “Yes. They do that a lot. They’ll drop out of a hand and then compare the cards they had. I thought it was harmless.”