Jackpot tv-8

by James Swain

  “You keep it hidden, huh?”

  Bronco opened the photo section and saw a smiling picture of Yolanda taken when she was a third-year medical student at New York University’s School of Medicine. He stared long and hard at the photo.

  “She got it,” Gerry said.

  Something resembling a smile crossed Bronco’s face, but it didn’t last very long. Still holding the wallet, he said, “You won the money at the track two days ago, but you told me you quit the rackets.”

  “I quit the day I ripped off the track. That night, actually,” Gerry said.

  “Why?”

  That was a hell of a good question. Why had Gerry quit? He could say his old man shamed him into it, but that wasn’t the truth. He’d done it because his life had gone down a different road, and he needed to change, or risk turning his life into a train wreck. The truth was, he’d finally been forced to grow up. That was why he’d quit the rackets.

  “Turn the page,” Gerry said.

  Bronco shot him a blank stare.

  “Look at the next picture in my wallet.”

  Bronco flipped to the next picture. It was of Lois, taken a few days ago, his baby daughter lying on the rug in his father’s house, the same rug Gerry had lain on as a baby.

  “I quit because of her,” Gerry said.

  Bronco stared long and hard at the photo.

  “Didn’t want her growing up thinking her old man was a crook, huh?”

  Gerry nodded, surprised Bronco would understand. Then he remembered the woman’s clothes hanging in his closet in the house in Henderson. Maybe in his past there had been a family.

  Bronco tossed the wallet into Gerry’s lap. He pointed up the road. They were on a deserted stretch except for a convenience store sitting off to the side. Even from the distance Gerry could read the neon Budweiser sign shimmering in the window.

  “Here’s the deal,” Bronco said. “You’re going to take your forty bucks, and make it grow.”

  “I am?”

  “That’s right. Otherwise, I’m going to kill you.”

  Bronco quickly explained the scam. The convenience store, like many in Nevada, had a row of slot machines in the back. Bronco had checked the store not long ago, and discovered an old Bally among the machines. The Bally had a unique feature: A player could stick his fingers up the payout chute, and hold the door open. This turned a small payout into a large one. Since the machine paid out a jackpot roughly every thirty pulls, Bronco believed Gerry’s money could be turned into a quick profit.

  “I’m going to stand outside, and watch you,” Bronco said. “Do anything stupid, and I’ll come in and shoot you, then rob the place.”

  They were sitting in the car, parked outside the store. The midday sun beat down unmercifully on the rental’s windshield. Behind the counter, a teenage girl with braces on her teeth, probably still in highschool.

  Gerry said, “What about her?”

  “I’ll kill her, too.”

  Gerry stuck his hand out. “Give me the money.”

  Bronco took the wilted bills off the seat and laid it onto his palm. “The machine probably has a sensor for overpays. If you leave the payout door open too long, the candle will come on, and an alarm inside the machine will go off.”

  “The candle?”

  “The white light on top of the machine,” Bronco said. “That’s the candle. They start blinking when something’s wrong.”

  “How long will it take for the sensor to come on?”

  “Ten seconds, more or less.”

  “More or less? What if it’s less? What if the alarm goes off?”

  “Then I’ll have to kill you,” Bronco said.

  Gerry got out of the rental and so did Bronco. Bronco went to the corner of the convenience store, and stood there and smoked his cigarette, one eye on the road, the other looking inside the store. The shotgun hung at his side, hidden from the street and from the girl working the counter. The guy knew all the angles.

  Gerry entered the store. As he came in, the girl behind the counter smiled and said hello. Her face had the wonderful freshness of someone on their first job. He handed her his money and asked for change.

  “You okay, mister?” she asked.

  He looked at himself in the mirror that was directly behind her. He saw his face, which was white, then saw Bronco staring at him while blowing smoke rings. He looked back at the girl. Real young, sixteen if she was a day.

  “Fine,” he said. “Quarters please.”

  She handed him a plastic bucket filled with quarters. “Play the machine on the very end. It’s been paying off lately.”

  Gerry walked to the back of the store. The slot machines hugged the wall, and took up about a fourth of the available floor space. There were probably as many slot machines in convenience stores and bars in Nevada as there were in the casinos. Gerry found the old Bally, and started to feed in a coin.

  “No, not that one,” the girl said, hanging over the counter. “The machine on the end.”

  Gerry felt sweat march down his back. He tried to ignore her, and the girl came out from behind the counter, and walked over to where he sat. Grabbing him by the arm, she led him to the machine on the end.

  “This one. I think the guy who adjusts it screwed up.”

  Gerry sat down at the machine. She stood beside him with her arms crossed, and he saw no other choice than to put two quarters into it, and pull the handle. The machine was themed after Star Wars, and space-age sounds serenaded him as the reels spun. When they stopped, two bars lined up, and realized he had a winner. He looked at the payout bar on the side of the machine. He’d won ten bucks.

  He cashed out, and walked with her to the front. He stopped by the cooler, and plucked out a pair of ice-cold Cokes. Paying for them, he handed her one.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Darlene.”

  “Thanks for the tip.”

  Darlene took a swig of soda, belched and covered her mouth in embarrassment.

  A cell phone rang behind the counter. Darlene answered it, and started yakking to her boyfriend. Gerry went back to the Bally and resumed playing it. Within a few minutes, he hit a small jackpot and stuck his fingers up the chute and hit the cash out button on the machine. Quarters flowed into his hand. He counted to eight, then pulled his hand out.

  He continued to play while Darlene spoke on her cell phone, hitting two more small jackpots and stealing three times as many coins during the payout. By now, the hopper was filled with quarters, and he grabbed a plastic second bucket off the machine and filled it, then put the remaining coins into his pockets. When he went back to the counter, Darlene was grinning like a Cheshire cat.

  “Well, look at you,” she said.

  His total win came to a two hundred and thirty-eight dollars. He walked outside and handed Bronco the money. Bronco peeled off five dollars and handed it back to him, then stuffed the rest into his pocket.

  “Go buy me some nail polish,” Bronco said.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Just do it.”

  Gerry came out a minute later with a cheap bottle of nail polish that Darlene had tried to talk him out of buying. He handed Bronco the bottle.

  “Get in the car.”

  Chapter 29

  Bronco made him drive to a sprawling storage facility on the outskirts of town. A sign said that air-conditioned units were available by the month or year. The facility was surrounded by chain link fence, and Bronco told him the code to open the gate.

  Moments later they were inside. Bronco pointed at a unit and Gerry braked in front of it. They both got out. Bronco punched another code into the keypad by the door, all the while holding his shotgun on Gerry. The sliding door went up, and Gerry stared at the brand new Ford Taurus sitting inside the unit.

  “We’re going to exchange cars, and park yours in here,” Bronco said.

  “Whatever you say.”

  They exchanged the two cars. As Gerry pulled the rental into the
unit and killed the engine, Bronco slipped out of the car.

  “Been nice knowing you,” he said.

  Coming around to the driver’s side, he pointed the shotgun at the side of Gerry’s head, then closed one eye and took dead aim.

  “Got anything you want to say?”

  Gerry shut his eyes, and tried to think of what he wanted his dying words to be. It didn’t really matter, yet somehow it did. He had to say something, only, he couldn’t, his body gripped in fear. Thinking about dying always did that to him.

  “No.”

  “That’s what you want to say?” Bronco asked.

  “No, I’m just…”

  “Spit it out, god damnit.”

  “… scared, man. I’ve got a wife and kid. She’s three months old.”

  “Say goodbye to them.”

  Gerry choked on the words. It had taken him a long time to realize that all he really wanted out of life was a woman who loved him, and a child to call his own. And now they were being taken away from him. It was the worst form of robbery, and he shut his eyes and started to cry. Bronco cursed him.

  “You little piece of shit. Why did you have to go and do that? Why?”

  Gerry was watching his life pass before his eyes and regretting all the dumb things he’d done. Opening his eyes, he turned his head and stared into the shotgun’s barrel.

  “Do what?” he said.

  Bronco grabbed Gerry by the back of the head, and smashed his face into the steering wheel. “That!”

  Gerry looked straight down. His crotch was wet. He’d pissed in his pants, just like the night on the Boardwalk twenty years ago when his bowels had betrayed him. “Why did you do that?” Bronco yelled at him.

  “Because I’m scared,” Gerry whispered.

  Bronco cursed him some more. Gerry didn’t know what was worse. Dying, or being humiliated right before he died. He waited for what seemed like an eternity, then turned his head. Bronco was staring at him, his face twisted and confused.

  “God damn you,” he said.

  Walking outside the storage unit, Bronco punched a command into the keypad by the door. Moments later, the sliding door came down, and Gerry was enveloped in darkness.

  Gerry listened to the Taurus drive away, and took several deep breaths. He cracked open his door, and the car’s interior light came on. In the mirror he saw the purple-black bruise on the bridge of his nose. He touched it and winced.

  He pressed the button that released the trunk. He needed to call his father on his cell phone and tell him he was okay, but first he was going to change his clothes.

  He walked around to the trunk, and from his suitcase removed a pair of slacks and clean underwear. His heart was beating a hundred miles an hour and his head was spinning. Growing up Catholic, he liked to think there was a reason for everything. Maybe someday, he’d know the reason why Bronco hadn’t shot him.

  He changed in the light of the open trunk, then balled up his dirty clothes and threw them in the corner. He’d had some humiliating things happen to him in his life, and he’d always pretended later that they hadn’t happened. It had seemed like the easiest way to deal with them.

  But he couldn’t run away from this one. His father was going to want to know what had happened, and Gerry would tell him how he’d saved himself by pissing in his pants.

  And that was the only person he was going to tell.

  Chapter 30

  Valentine was standing on the side of the highway when his cell phone rang. The caller ID said GERRY. He fumbled hitting the Receive button.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Pop, it’s me.”

  Hearing his son’s voice brought a flood of emotions over him that Valentine couldn’t control, and he sat down on the shoulder and began to weep. He hadn’t done that since his wife’s funeral, and the tears burned his eyes.

  “You still there, Pop?”

  “Yeah,” he choked. “I’m here. Where are you?”

  “In a storage facility on the north side of town,” his son said. “I banged on the door, but no one came out. I didn’t see any people when we drove in, so I’m guessing the place is self-serve. I’m going to leave the cell phone on so you can find me.”

  A trailer truck appeared on the highway. The driver didn’t slow down, and Valentine guessed it was common to see grown men sitting on the side of the road, bawling their heads off. Rising, he dusted himself off.

  “How am I going to do that?”

  “Call my cell phone company,” Gerry said. “They’ll know which tower my phone’s signal is originating from. It will be within a five mile radius. Once you know that, the Reno cops can look at all the self-serve storage facilities within that radius.”

  Valentine saw another car coming up the road, the driver behind the wheel looking like Bill Higgins. Waving, he said, “How do you know that?”

  “I saw it on a cop-show on TV,” his son said.

  Valentine said goodbye to his son and killed the connection. Climbing into the passenger seat of Bill’s car, he told him that Gerry was still alive. Then, he explained his son’s clever solution to finding him in the storage facility.

  Bill called the Reno police on his cell, and asked them to call Gerry’s cell phone company. Hanging up, he said, “You realize Bronco did this to stall us.”

  The same thought had occurred to him. While they were finding Gerry, Bronco would be running away. Bill did a U-turn on the highway, and headed back to Reno. He drove way over the speed limit, the desolate scrub landscape going by in a blur. After a few minutes had passed, Valentine said, “Have I ever told you how smart my son is?”

  Bill shook his head.

  “Yesterday, when we were at Bronco’s house, Gerry said that he thought your bad agent was stealing jackpots using computers. Well, since there’s no physical way to rig modern slot machines, Gerry must be right. Which led me to realize something. Your bad agent works for Fred Friendly in the Electronic Systems Division.”

  Bill looked stunned. “You think the bad agent is in ESD? That’s a stretch, Tony.”

  “No, it isn’t. Bronco said this bad agent stole hundreds of jackpots. A field agent couldn’t do that, simply because hundreds of stolen jackpots — even small ones — would be noticed if they occurred in the same part of the state. But, they wouldn’t be noticed if they were spread out across the entire state. Somebody working for ESD could do that.”

  Bill’s mouth worked up and down in silent thought.

  “You’re right,” he said.

  Another minute passed. They could see Reno ahead in the distance, the city a black dot on the brown landscape.

  “How many agents work for ESD?” Valentine asked.

  “Seventy-five,” Bill said.

  “Those are our suspects,” Valentine said.

  Gerry had discovered that being a father had its drawbacks. He couldn’t listen to loud music anytime he wanted to, like he had when he was single. So, he’d bought an Ipod, and plugged himself in whenever he got the chance. He was tapping his foot to Arethra Franklin’s soulful singing when his cell phone lit up. He’d turned the car’s interior light off, fearful of the battery dying, and stared at the cell phone’s illuminated face. It was his father.

  “Feel up to doing a job?” his father asked.

  “I don’t know, I’m kind of busy right now.”

  He paused, hoping to hear his father laugh. When he didn’t, Gerry said, “Of course I’ll do a job, Pop.”

  “In the trunk are the files of the nine hundred Nevada Gaming Control Board agents,” his father said. “I’ve winnowed the field down to seventy-five.”

  “Let me guess,” Gerry said. “You want me to pull those seventy-five out, and find the bad agent.”

  “That’s right. Sure you’re up for it?”

  Sure you’re up for it? That didn’t sound like his father at all. Maybe saving his old man’s life had erased some of the horrendous crap he’d put his father through over the years. Through the IPOD’
s earplugs lying on the seat he could faintly hear Aretha singing about respect, and found himself smiling.

  “I’m up for it,” Gerry said.

  He hung up, then got the stack of files out of the trunk and returned to the front seat of the car. Leaving the door ajar, he grabbed a handful of files, and began sorting through them. He pulled out every agent who worked for the ESD, and placed those files into a separate stack. When the larger stack was exhausted, he picked up the smaller stack and counted it. Seventy-five files, just like his father had said.

  The IPOD was still playing, and he considered plugging himself back in, then decided against it. This was work, and he needed to start acting serious.

  He heard the storage unit’s air conditioner come on, and felt the manufactured air cool the car’s interior. His father had once told him that to catch a criminal, you needed to know his motivation. He tried to imagine what the motivation was for a gaming agent to rip off the people he worked for. He’d once had a woman who worked for him as a bartender, and had discovered her stealing money out of the till. When he’d confronted her, he’d discovered that she’d been carrying a grudge because he’d never asked her out. The stealing had nothing to do with money. It was spite. The woman had also taken a lot of sick and vacation days, and worked all the angles.

  He thumbed through the stack, and pulled out the file of every agent who’d taken a high number of days off in the past few years. There were seven in all.

  He worked through the seven files. Two women and five men. Each had been out of work well above the norm. Maybe they’d been sick, or had to deal with a sick family member. He began to think he was barking up the wrong tree, when a thought occurred to him. If a bad agent was running around Nevada stealing jackpots, that agent needed to be taking time off to engineer those thefts. There was no way around it.

  He felt the tingle of excitement. One of these seven agents was their thief. His father was going to be proud of him.

  Another first, he thought.

  Chapter 31

  A few miles outside of Reno, Valentine had an epiphany. He’d been having them since childhood, and he asked Bill to pull the car into a roadside gas station. Bill took his eyes off the highway, and gave him a funny look.