People always find ways to cheat casinos, and it was a full-time job keeping up with the schemes. Scam artists like Windell cheated slots with slugs, wires to trip payoffs, magnets to tilt the reels. But the biggest losses were in the gaming games—blackjack, roulette, craps. Sometimes it was just skillful players, but we made little distinction between cheats and skilled players—both took our money. When someone got too lucky, even if we didn’t see a gimmick, we quietly told them their play was too rich for the house and asked them to take it elsewhere.
The biggest problem was dealers conspiring with players. A good dealer can shuffle a deck to create a “slug” of cold cards, cards that haven’t been shuffled. A slug is a set of unshuffled cards arranged for the player to win. The dealer buries the slug in with the other decks and when the cards start coming out of the shoe, the player in on the scam knows what cards will be dealt and when to increase bets.
It is impossible for a pit boss to spot this sort of thing. It can only be done by studying the surveillance tapes and even then it is often hard. I caught one dealer using a slug by standing back and watching his hands as he shuffled. He was good, Embers would have been proud of him, a real card mechanic, but what threw him off was the bull’s tail didn’t wag: Halliday’s cards have a bucking bull on the back; as the cards are shuffled, the tails fly in a blur. Watching the deck through the dealer’s fingers, I could see a stationary tail—the top card on the slug that wasn’t being shuffled.
Another scam was the dealer signaling to a player the value of the hole card in blackjack. Sometimes dealers do this by accident. We called it “spooking.” A team of card sharps would spot a careless dealer. One player positions himself at a spot behind the dealer where he gets a peek at the hold card and then signals the player at the dealer’s table. People even try “peeping” at the hole card with a miniature camera.
Skilled dice mechanics used crooked dice—beveled, loaded, shaved, or otherwise gaffed—in a dozen different ways to cheat. You even had people who try to cant a roulette wheel. We got hit by a group of astrophysicists, the Einstein mafia we called them, who used physics to determine the area a roulette ball would drop into. They used hidden cameras that transmitted to a van in the parking lot, where a computer used the data to predict the winning numbers. They busted their bankroll trying it.
Most cheaters had one thing in common: They gave themselves away by changing their bets, suddenly upping their bet when the gaff comes into play. And that’s what made the current situation so frustrating—the security people hadn’t spotted any suspicious betting patterns.
I was in the security room viewing surveillance tapes when Morgan came in breathing fire.
“I need to talk to you, now!”
“Wait just a minute.” I was concentrating on the tape of a roulette croupier. I couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong, but my Geiger counter alarm was working again.
“No, I can’t wait. How dare you bar me from the counting room? Who the hell do you think you are?”
I jerked my head back at her and told my security manager, “Tell her why she’s barred from the counting room.”
Rod cleared his throat. The employees were all terrified of her. “Owners and their families aren’t allowed in the counting room.”
“And when did Mr. Riordan make that rule?”
He cleared his throat again. “I think it’s a regulation made by the IRS or the state people, ma’am. It’s to keep them from skimming.”
“That’s it. Look,” I said to Rod, “the croupier’s using a false cup.”
The roulette croupier had a small round tube that looked like a stack of five-dollar chips. When he pulled in bets, he would bend over his chip pile and fill the cup with four hundred-dollar chips. He would eventually pay off a bettor who was playing odd and even with what appeared to be four five-dollar chips, with four hundred-dollar chips in the false stack—not a bad racket.
“Bust them,” I told Rod.
Morgan had her arms folded and was still fuming, ready to explode at me, as soon as she figured a way to blame me for the antiskimming rules. I took a firm grip on her arm and pulled her toward the conference room we use for private interrogations.
“Take your damn hands off me!”
I shut the door and pushed her against the wall. She started to step around me but I took her hands and pinned them behind her back so she couldn’t move.
“Don’t you ever talk to me like that again in front of the help.”
“Let me go. I’m going to tell Arthur—”
She was breathing heavily, her breasts moving up and down with each breath. I looked at the fire in her eyes. “Fuck Arthur! Tell him this.” I kissed her long and hard on the mouth. She resisted like a trapped animal grappling to get free but then I felt her body relax and she stopped struggling. I kissed her again but this time she didn’t resist. I was so tight against her body I could feel her jutting nipples on my chest.
“Let go of my arms.”
I released my grip on her and we both stared at each other for a moment.
“How dare you!” she said.
“You’ve been hot for me from the first time you saw me.”
“Well, I’m not anymore, you bastard. I’ve changed.” She walked toward the door, straightening her dress. “I’ve had better.”
Like hell she had.
“Bitch,” I yelled after her as she slammed the door.
43
“Wan is a gangster, is that what you’re telling me?” I asked Chenza, as I sat behind the wheel of my new car, a Jaguar XJ12.
We were on our way to meet with Wan at Caesar’s Palace. Big shots in town drove Cadillacs and Lincoln Continentals. I chose the Jag because it was exotic and different. Like Chenza’s Aston-Martin. It was another element in making me a class act.
“Just as Hong Kong’s owned by the British, Macao’s a Portuguese colony the size of a postage stamp on the Chinese mainland. It’s been Portuguese for four or five hundred years but remains predominantly Chinese.”
“How come the Reds haven’t taken it over?”
She shrugged. “Ask Wan. I suppose they will someday. Anyway, the place is overrun by triad gangs. Italy has the Mafia, the Japs have their Yakuza, and the Chinese have the triads. They’re like the others, but more dangerous and aggressive. After the Chinese Communists won the mainland, fleeing criminals and Nationalist soldiers formed triads in Hong Kong, Macao, and Formosa. Before the fall, Wan was important in Chiang Kai-shek’s army—he ran some sort of Gestapo. He called his group the Dongchang, or Eastern Depot, after an old-time Chinese Imperial secret police unit. He escaped to Macao and set up a triad there and later expanded to Hong Kong.”
“How do you know all this stuff? Does Wan talk in his sleep?”
She burned the back of my hand that was on the center gear shift knob with her cigarette.
“Don’t be crude. Wan used to bring along a dancer that worked at one of his clubs. She told me all about Wan.”
I didn’t risk more burned skin by asking if the dancer had talked in her sleep. Chenza’s taste in sex was eclectic, to say the least. She recently fired her housekeeper and hired a brother-sister team to replace her—they both looked like Jackie Chan in a wig. I always had a fascination for feminine faces of the Orient, women with golden skin and almond eyes that conveyed the mystery of temple doors. Of course, I immediately gave the sister the once-over and got a chewing out by Chenza that left me with the impression she was more concerned about the girl’s unfaithfulness than mine. Sure as hell, she was doubling her pleasure and balling both of them.
“There’s a war going on in Macao for control of the gambling. Like Vegas, the place is a tourist area, with the main industry being gambling, hotels, and organized crime. Only the Jewish and Italian thugs in Vegas are pussies compared to triads who were cutting each other’s throats back when Europeans carried stone axes.”
“So does Wan have an interest in any Vegas casinos?” I asked.
>
“I don’t think so.”
“I can see why he has to use someone else’s casino to wash his money. The feds and state gaming people would gut him like a stuck pig if he tried to buy into this town. Not to mention the hard boys from Chicago and Jersey who consider Vegas their private turf.”
“Whatever he wants to see you about, you can be sure there’s money in it for us,” she said.
I didn’t miss the “us” bit. “Don’t you ever think about anything besides money?”
“I’m dominated by the same two things you are. What’s in my pocket and what’s between my legs.”
Mr. Wan was waiting for us in his lavish VIP suite. I found out from Chenza that his full name was Wan Kin Yung, and that the way the Chinese do it, Wan was his last name. When I was a kid, Betty’s boyfriend Hop told me everything was backward in China because they were upside down from us. I guess he had it right.
Ling, the dark-suited sumi-soldier who clung to Mr. Wan like a shadow, was seated next to him. I didn’t bother saying hello to Ling—I never heard him speak one word.
“For my new casino in Macao, I want to introduce some Las Vegas features, perhaps similar to what you did for Halliday’s. This casino is for tourists and low-end gamblers from Hong Kong.”
We discussed comps, contests, and other things I had done to make Halliday’s friendly to the average Joe. Wan struck me as a man of secrets, layers of them, like one of those Russian dolls you opened up to find one after another hidden inside. I had the impression that he wanted something more out of me than just giving his casino a Vegas feel. I asked him about it but didn’t get a straight answer.
“I do have a problem in Macao,” Wan said. “A matter of small importance but annoying nonetheless.”
He survived Mao, the fall of China, the triad wars, and had the annual income of a small country. That meant he didn’t have any “small” problems. Any problem that couldn’t be solved with a bullet probably needed the United Nations.
“So much skimming goes on by employees in Macao casinos, it is the equivalent of an organized-crime syndicate. To control the thievery, I had a computerized system installed. The system monitors our slot machines and table games, keeping a running total of our wins and losses.”
“I’m not familiar with the system,” I said. “We don’t have anything like it in Halliday’s.”
“Yes, I know. It is a British system. The team who set it up in a London club are in Macao running the system and working out what they call ‘bugs’.”
“What are the bugs?” Bugs had a double meaning for me. A “bug” in gambling was a gimmick that aided cheating. A “bugged” slot did not pay off fairly.
“Technical problems with the system. I have no interest in them. My concern right now is that my revenues have dropped millions since the system was installed, a system that was intended to reduce thefts.”
“You have any suspects for the thefts?”
“Hundreds of them. Naturally, Mr. Riordan, I will make it well worth your while to come to Macao and give my casino a Vegas ambience. In a few months you could earn more than you would in several years at your present employment. Have you ever been to the Far East, Mr. Riordan?”
“Does eating at Lo Fat’s Shanghai Café count?”
44
When I got back to Halliday’s, Moe, a casino security guard, was waiting for me.
Con had turned Morgan’s wedding into a Glitter Gulch parade and celebration, with the wedding at a local church, then a parade to the club, where a private reception was taking place on the top floor of the hotel wing. The outside of the club looked like a wedding cake. Con even had “souvenir” silver dollars made with the happy couple’s pictures minted on them and gave them out as comps—naturally expecting the suckers to lose another hundred for every dollar he gave them. I hadn’t received an invitation to the wedding. Or the reception.
Moe had been around a long time. He was pretty embarrassed when he stopped me as I entered. “I’m sorry, Mr. Riordan, but my orders are to escort you to your room to pick up your personal effects and then out of the building. You’re not to go anywhere else in the place, especially the count room.”
I paused for a moment, not knowing if I was going to laugh or explode. Poor old Moe wiped the sweat off the back of his neck with a soiled handkerchief. He had been around plenty of times when he saw me get physical with grifters and troublemakers.
“What’s happened, Moe, has there been a palace coup?”
“Miss Halliday’s been named president of the casino.”
“I kind of suspected that. Go tell Morgan I need to see her in my room.”
“She’s at her wedding reception.”
“Then you know where to find her. Tell her I need to give her the codes.”
I was happy he didn’t ask me about the codes. I didn’t know any codes. What I planned to give Morgan was a piece of my mind. And Con, too, for pissing on my years of work.
When I got to my room, my bags were already packed and lined up, ready to be taken out. Very efficient of Morgan. No doubt she searched my stuff before she had a maid pack me. But she would have come up with snake eyes. The moment I saw Con was buying into her act, I moved my loose change from the couch to a safe-deposit box.
She came in without knocking and slammed the door behind her. “How dare you interrupt my wedding with a command? What are these codes you’re talking about?”
“Which question did you want me to answer first, your majesty?”
Brides always look radiant on their wedding day, but Morgan was a knockout in her wedding dress. Since she had come back from school, I kept asking myself why I had brushed her off years ago.
“I want you off of the premises. You’re fired, in case you haven’t noticed. And that comes from my father, too.”
“No problem. I just need to collect my severance pay.”
I pulled her toward me and she immediately began to squirm out of my arms, ready to slap my face, but I caught her hand just in time. “Why are you fighting me? I know you want it.” She bit my hand.
“You want to play rough, I can play rough, too.” I pushed her up against the wall and pinned one of her arms behind her. She beat at me with her fist until my lips connected with hers and I shoved my tongue against her teeth. She opened them long enough to clench down and bite. I managed to pull her dress up with my other hand and was surprised to find she wore nothing underneath her dress. Her nakedness excited me even more. My hand lingered on her smooth and silky bare thighs until I found her bushy pubic hair.
She bit my tongue again so hard, I tasted blood.
“Don’t fight me, Morgan,” I groaned. “I know you want my cock inside you. I can see it in your eyes.”
“No, I hate you.”
I knew deep down she didn’t mean those words and wanted me just as much as I wanted her.
I clamped my mouth back on her lips while my hand found her clit and I rubbed it slowly. She was dry at first until I put my finger in her hole and her fluids came and made her slippery wet with excitement. She let out a loud moan and her body shuddered against me. Her tongue now shoved past my lips and her arms came around my neck as I unzipped my pants and took out my throbbing organ. I was ready to come any minute and I plunged my cock into her cunt. She let out a gasp. My hands were on her firm baby-smooth buttocks, and I lifted her up and down on my hard shaft.
I exploded into her, our bodies pressed together, both of us breathless in the throws of ecstasy. I looked at her face. Her eyes were clear. The wildness and anger were gone but I noticed a sort of taunting triumph in them. The sexual pleasure she experienced in her body a few moments ago was gone. Her arms and legs relaxed. I slowly lowered her, still holding her close to me.
“Morgan,” I started, and was about to apologize for my animal behavior, when she suddenly twisted away from me and hit me so hard I rocked back on my heels.
She triumphantly adjusted her dress and opened the door. Moe and anothe
r security guard were standing in the hallway.
“Escort Mr. Riordan off the premises.” She glared back at me with those powerful eyes. “Through the back door, the way he originally came to Halliday’s.”
This woman wasn’t satisfied with having me drawn and quartered; she wanted me chopped into eighths.
45
MACAO, 1982
Mr. Wan’s private jet was waiting for us at the airport. Leaving Chenza in Vegas was not an option. Hong Kong and Macao were notorious money pits.
She brought along a video of the 1952 movie Macao, starring Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell, for us to watch on the plane. My mind wasn’t exactly all there. I still had Morgan in the back of my mind. She had some magnetic clamp on me that affected me in the worst way. But it just wasn’t in the cards for the two of us to be together.
I tried to focus on the film. I liked Mitchum. He was my kind of guy. In this movie he played a down-at-the-heels soldier of fortune and Russell was a torch singer with a big heart. They get tangled up in murder and intrigue with an unscrupulous Macao casino owner. There was also a great performance by William Bendix as a traveling salesman with more up his sleeve than contraband nylons. They sure didn’t make movies like that anymore, especially with those kinds of movie stars.
“Howard Hughes made the movie,” Chenza said, “back when he owned RKO. He made Jane Russell and Mitchum into major stars.”
I didn’t tell her Hughes was my father. I didn’t want that part of me exposed. The only one who knew that was Embers, and he was dead now. I had arranged a high-stakes poker game for the old man, the first he’d played in decades. He died at the table, quietly, just heaving a sigh as his life oozed out. The other players with him gave me the last cards he was holding in his hand when he died: aces and eights—a pair he wouldn’t bet on.
Howard Hughes was a part of my life that I didn’t want opened or revealed. When Betty and I had moved to Vegas, one day she got scared when she thought she recognized two men who entered a restaurant where we were grabbing a hamburger. It was a false alarm, but that was the day she told me why her little finger was crooked. It killed any feeling I had for him.
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