by James Swain
I’m seeing a counselor several times a week to address my gambling problem. We talk about a lot of things that I would rather not dredge up, like how I left my children locked in the car so I could play the slots inside a casino, or lied to my ex about having my purse stolen when in fact I’d lost the money on slots.
The thing I am most ashamed of is that I once knowingly helped a man who was probably a cheater. This man approached me in a casino bar, and asked me to play a particular machine for him. He was a smooth-talker, and claimed he’d discovered a way to tell when a slot was going to pay a jackpot. I played the machine he directed me to, and it paid off $9,800. He let me keep 20%. I told my counselor about this, because it has bothered me for a long time. My counselor thinks this man was a nut, and probably just coming on to me. He also thinks it was luck that I hit the jackpot. I hope he’s right. I’d hate to think I ripped off a casino, along with all the other things I’ve done.
Valentine shook his head. It would be easy to dismiss the man who’d approached Lucy as a masher, only the slot machine he’d asked Lucy to play had paid off, and Lucy had sensed that something was wrong. The man had somehow rigged the machine, and talked Lucy into being his claimer. Which meant that everything Bronco’s lawyer had told Bill Higgins was true.
“Jesus Christ,” he said.
Chapter 6
Gerry Valentine had been gambling since he was ten. Ever since he could remember, placing a bet had gotten his adrenaline pumping, and made him feel good all over.
Until today.
He was sitting at his kitchen table with Yolanda, eating take-out Chinese food from paper cartons. Back when he was a kid, his family had eaten Chinese food this way. Yolanda found it funny but went along with the ritual. Maybe that was why he loved her so much. She put up with his nonsense.
“Why the long face?” she asked, twirling her chicken lo mein with a fork.
He took a deep breath. Along with the three thousand his father had given him, he’d won another six grand by picking the Daily Double at Tampa Bay Downs. Only, the win at the track hadn’t made him feel very good. Through the intercom on the table he listened to Lois talking in her sleep from the bedroom.
“She sounds like you,” Gerry said.
“You think so?”
“Yeah. She whispers in her sleep. You do that.”
“You didn’t answer my question. What’s wrong?”
Gerry couldn’t hide it anymore. He pointed at the money he’d won at the track lying on the table. “This.”
Yolanda continued to eat her food. When it came to gambling, she was as pure as freshly fallen snow, and didn’t understand the odds against picking two horses to come in first in two different races.
“You won,” she said. “What’s wrong with that?”
“I cheated.”
The lo mein noodles on her fork escaped back into the carton, and she put the utensil on her plate. “You did what?”
Normally, Gerry would have lowered his head in shame. This was the classic response to someone getting chewed out; lower your head and beg forgiveness. But, he wasn’t going to do that with Yolanda. She deserved better.
“I cheated the track.”
“Explain yourself.”
“When we got to the track, I grabbed a racing form. On it were the names of two horses that I recognized from my bookmaking days. These horses were excellent runners, only their owner had his jockeys hold them back in races.”
“He made his own horses lose?”
“Yeah. Over time, they became long shots. When I saw them in the first and second races today, I had a hunch he was going to let them really run.”
“Why?”
“Because the Daily Double only happens in the first and second races. If a bettor picks both winning horses, he wins a bundle. Since these two horses were long shots, the odds they paid out were astronomical.” He pointed at the money lying on the table. “I won that on a hundred dollar bet.”
Yolanda stared at the stack of bills. “But there was no guarantee those horses would win, was there?”
“No, but they were sure things.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning I used insider-information. Normally, it wouldn’t bother me. But then a funny thing happened. I saw that hustler who nearly scammed me with the silking, and told my father. And we caught him. And you know what?”
“What,” his wife said softly.
“It made me feel better than winning the Daily Double.”
“It did?”
“Yeah. And it made me realize something else. I can’t be a cheater, and also catch cheaters. It had to be one, or the other. So, I’m giving it up.”
“The cheating.”
“Yeah.”
Yolanda reached across the table and placed her hand atop his. In her beautiful brown eyes was a look that was both strange and wonderful. At any other time in their relationship, her look would have disturbed him. It was like she’d been waiting for him, and he’d finally arrived.
“You didn’t tell your father about winning the Daily Double, did you?”
He shook his head. Confessing to his old man would only reinforce every bad image his father had of him.
“But you learned your lesson,” she said.
“I sure did.”
She stared at the money, and Gerry found himself staring as well. Money had never seemed so important as it did once the baby had been born. His wife lifted her eyes to meet his. “Will you give the money back to the track?” she asked.
“Give it back? Are you, nuts?”
“Gerry!”
There was a knock on the back door. He rose, and flicked on the back porch light. Through the glass cut-out he saw his father standing on the stoop. Did he overhear us? He unlocked the back door and opened it.
“Hey, Pop, what’s up?”
“We need to talk,” his father said.
Gerry and his father took a walk into downtown Palm Harbor. As towns went, it wasn’t much, the main street consisting of two family-owned restaurants, a metaphysical bookstore, a real estate office, and a coffee shop. It was Small Pond, U.S.A., but in Gerry’s book that was okay. Palm Harbor’s strict zoning restrictions prohibited fast-food restaurants and strip shopping centers, and he liked knowing the town was going to stay the way it was. They stopped beneath a moth-encrusted street light.
“We have a problem,” his father said.
Gerry sucked in his breath. “We do?”
“Yeah. It has the potential to ruin us.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. You want an ice cream cone?”
Gerry hid the smile forming on his lips. His father had never let anything get in the way of eating.
“Sure. Chocolate swirl if they have it.”
His father walked into a restaurant, and emerged a minute later with a pair of double-scoop ice cream cones. He handed Gerry one, along with a paper napkin. It didn’t look like chocolate swirl, but Gerry didn’t complain. The suspense was killing him, and they walked down the street side by side.
“A Nevada Gaming Control Board agent is stealing jackpots from slot machines,” his father began. “I’ve been asked to take the case, figure out who the agent is, and how he’s doing it.”
“What makes that such a big catastrophe?” Gerry asked, licking his cone. “I mean, you’ve caught slot cheaters before.”
“This is different. Once the story hits the news wires, it could destroy the gambling industry in Nevada.”
“You’ve lost me, Pop.”
His father licked his cone, then made a face. “This tastes funny.”
“So does mine,” Gerry said. “I think you got frozen yogurt by mistake.”
“Crap.”
They tossed their cones into a trash bin. His father said, “Do you have any idea how much revenue slot machines account for in Nevada?”
Gerry shook his head. Slot machines had never interested him, simply because there was no way for playe
rs to get an edge. The earliest slot machines had given out candy and chewing gum, then some genius had started offering cash prizes, and an industry had been born.
“Take a guess,” his father said.
“Twenty percent?”
“Seventy,” his father said. “Slot machines generate seven billion dollars a year profit in Nevada, thirty billion dollars a year nationwide. They’re the heart and soul of every casino. They’re also responsible for most taxes which are collected.”
“So, this agent stole some jackpots. How’s that going to ruin the industry?”
“He’s a state employee, Gerry. He’s one of them. Don’t you get it?”
“No.”
“Understand the mind set of people who play slots. I’m not talking about your recreational player, either. I mean your hard core slot player.”
“Like your friend Lucy Price,” Gerry said.
“Exactly. Lucy sat down at a slot machine one day, and started feeding money in. She won a little, lost a little. First she’s up, then she’s down. Before she knew it, she was hooked.”
“Hooked how? It’s just a game.”
“Slots are different. The game uses intermittent reinforcement to make people want to play. B.F. Skinner showed how intermittent reinforcement works with a mouse in a box. You heard of him?”
Gerry nodded solemnly. His old man had a highschool education and was quoting B.F. Skinner. He was impressed.
“One day, Skinner put a mouse in a box. The mouse tapped a lever, and a food pellet appeared. The mouse ate the pellet, then tapped the lever again, and another pellet appeared. The mouse ate until it was stuffed.
“The next day, Skinner put the mouse back in the same box. The mouse tapped the lever, but no pellet appeared. After a while the mouse lost interest, and stopped tapping the lever.
“The third day, Skinner put the mouse in the box again. This time when the mouse tapped the lever, the pellets came out at infrequent intervals. Guess what happened?”
Gerry shook his head. He didn’t have a clue.
“The mouse tapped on that lever all day long. It didn’t matter that the mouse didn’t know when the food would come out. The mouse just knew that it eventually would. Skinner called this intermittent reinforcement.”
“And that’s how slot machines hook suckers into playing,” Gerry said.
“Yeah, but there’s a catch.”
“What’s that?”
“Slot players believe the more money they put in, the more likely the machine is to pay a jackpot. They think they’re priming the pump.”
“And they’re not?”
“No. Modern slot machines use silicon chips to control the game. The chip doesn’t have a memory, and can never be primed. Problem is, nobody who plays the slots believes that.”
“Why not?”
“They just don’t. Winning a jackpot is a dream to these people. If they read in the paper that jackpots are being stolen, they’ll think That guy stole my jackpot! and they’ll stop playing. Overnight, seven billion dollars in profits will go up in smoke.”
“Oh, wow,” Gerry said.
Another storm had rolled in from the gulf, and they walked back to Gerry’s house in rumbling darkness, stopping beneath a large cypress tree on the corner.
“How will this affect our business?” Gerry asked.
“This could hurt every casino in the country,” his father said. “If it does, the casinos will pare back, and stop using us.”
“What then?”
“Shuffle board for me, a real job for you.”
Gerry grimaced. “There’s got to be a solution.”
His father pulled a piece of nicotine gum out of his pocket and popped it into his mouth. Gerry knew it was nicotine because his father didn’t offer him any. His father said, “The governor of Las Vegas asked me to take the job. You know my feelings about Las Vegas, but I’m going to help him out. If I can catch this agent and the governor can keep it out of the papers, our business won’t suffer.”
Gerry nodded in the dark. His father had thought the whole thing out.
“Beautiful,” he said.
His father stepped out of the shadows. “There’s one catch. The police got this information from an informant. Bronco Marchese.”
The storm had caught up with them, the sky awash with brilliant flashes of lightning, the booms of thunder drawing closer. Gerry came out of the shadows as well. “The bastard who murdered Uncle Sal?”
“That’s right.”
“I’ve been wanting to get my hands on him for a long time.”
His father frowned. “This is a job, Gerry, not a vendetta. If you go, it’s as my partner. Otherwise, stay home.”
Gerry felt the indignation rise in his chest. Uncle Sal had been like a second father to him, and he forced himself to calm down.
“What do you want me to do?
“I’m going to question Bronco, see if I can get the agent’s name out of him,” his father replied. “I’m sure he’s not going to be cooperative. I want you to read him.”
“Read him how?”
“Get his vibes.”
“I don’t understand what you mean, Pop.”
His father put his hand on Gerry’s shoulder. “Look, Gerry. I realized something at the track today. You know how criminals and low lifes think. You were one of them, for Christ’s sake. That’s an asset in our business.”
“It is?”
“Yes. So start using it. I’ll interview Bronco, and you tell me what you think is going on inside his head. Sound like a plan?”
Gerry dipped his head. It was a habit he’d picked up as a teenager and never outgrown. It meant ‘Yes,” only was deeper than that. His father had asked for help, and Gerry wasn’t going to let him down.
“Good.”
They walked up the path to Gerry’s house between scattered raindrops. Reaching the front door, Gerry pulled out his house key and stuck it into the lock.
“One more thing,” his father said.
“What’s that?”
“I overheard your conversation with Yolanda.”
Gerry froze. Busted again. Without another word, his father turned and walked away. He thought about all the bills that needed to be paid, then erased the thought from his mind.
“I’ll take the money back tomorrow,” he heard himself say.
His father waved in the darkness and then was gone.
Chapter 7
Bronco Marchese lay on his cot in his jailhouse jammies, staring at the concrete ceiling. His lawyer, bad-breathed Kyle Garrow, was running late. Garrow had never been late to an appointment before, but Bronco had never been in jail before. Bronco sensed a shift in their relationship that he didn’t like. The moment he got out of jail, he planned to set Garrow straight.
He shut his eyes. It was the strangest damn thing. His first time behind bars, and he wasn’t missing the taste of good food, or the rush of an ice-cold beer. What he was missing were the slots.
He’d started playing in New York forty years ago. Slots were illegal, only most bars in New York had them. He’d been fifteen, and had never experienced the kind of joy that coursed through his body after winning a jackpot. He’d fed his winnings back into the machine, expecting it to happen again. When it hadn’t, he’d gone and gotten a screwdriver, opened the machine, and stolen every last coin.
For the next two years, he’d stolen jackpots all over the city. His parents were dead and he had no friends, and it had kept him alive. One day while sitting at a bar, he’d overheard a conversation that had changed his life.
It was between two hoodlums, and they were discussing a gang of cheaters in Las Vegas who were rigging jackpots. The hoodlums had made it sound like the greatest scam ever invented.
“They’re stealing millions,” one of the hoodlums said.
“You’re garbageting me,” the other hoodlum said.
“No, I’m not.”
“Man, I’d like to get my hands on some of that mon
ey.”
Bronco had thought about the conversation for days. He guessed the Las Vegas cheaters were doing the same thing he was, but the jackpots were bigger. Suddenly, his life’s path had been laid out before him: He would go west, and make his fortune. The next day, he’d gone to the Port Authority Bus terminal on west 42nd Street, and bought a one-way ticket to Las Vegas.
The trip had taken a week. When Bronco arrived, he’d been awed by what he’d seen. Las Vegas was a mega-watt shrine to greed that burned twenty-four hours a day. It made the gambling back east seem like kindergarten, and had only further confirmed his decision to come. He had no money, and slept under bridges and ate out of dumpsters, his nights spent in the casinos.
One night at the Riviera, he spotted five people bunched around a slot machine. Their movements looked suspicious, and he quickly made their leader, a red-haired man with a scarred face. When he approached, Red told him to get lost.
“I’m on your side,” Bronco said.
“Prove it,” Red said.
Bronco pointed across the casino floor. “See that guy by the change machine? He’s the house dick. Wait until he leaves before making your play.”
Red had liked that. The house dick wandered off, and the gang went to work. While Red opened the machine with a skeleton key and set the reels, his accomplices stood in front of the machine, blocking it from the surveillance cameras, while a fourth acted as a lookout. Once the reels were set, the gang dispersed, leaving a blonde woman to claim the prize. Bronco stood off to the side, awe-struck.
An hour later, everyone met up in a parking lot across the street, and cut up the jackpot. Red, whose real name was Glenn, handed Bronco five hundred dollars and said, “Kid, you’ve got a future in this business.”
Bronco had stared at the money. It was more than he’d ever seen in his life. He’d handed it back to Glenn, and saw surprise register in the older man’s face.
“You don’t want the money?” Glenn said.
“I want to learn,” Bronco said.
Glenn had taken him under his wing, and become his friend. According to Glenn, any idiot could rig a slot machine. All you needed was a skeleton key and a lot of nerve. The hard part was finding a claimer. They needed to be John Q. Citizens with squeaky-clean backgrounds. Otherwise, the casino would be suspicious when they ran a background check. The blonde at the Riviera was a perfect example. She was a first grade teacher, and had never broken a law in her life.