by James Swain
She pulled into the casino parking lot exactly on time . The lot was filled with cars and tour buses, and she spotted a tall, striking looking Indian male with long flowing hair standing by the entrance. He was dressed in jeans, a flannel shirt, and cowboy boots, and as he stepped out from the shadows, the years showed on his face like cracks in an old wall. He pointed at a parking space that had been cordoned off with tape, and Mabel realized he’d had it saved just for her.
Running Bear introduced himself, and led Mabel into the casino while explaining that the tribe’s seven elders were waiting upstairs. The dealer in question had filed a formal complaint against Running Bear, and claimed he was being harassed.
“Don’t tell me your job is in jeopardy,” Mabel said.
“I am an elected official, so I can’t lose my job,” the chief said. “But I can lose my integrity, and that means as much to me.”
Besides being packed with people, the casino was filled with smoke. As they walked past the tables, Mabel saw several employees staring at her. Their looks made her uncomfortable, and she stayed close to the chief’s side.
They reached the elevators and Running Bear hit the button. He looked worried, and without thinking Mabel patted him on the arm.
“Don’t worry, chief. We’ll straighten this situation out, trust me.”
“Thanks,” he said.
A minute later, Mabel and the chief entered a conference room with carpeted walls. The Micanopy’s seven elders sat at a long table with three pitchers of ice water with lemon, and a tray of upturned glasses. That was it for the niceties.
The elders rose, and nodded to their visitor. Like Running Bear, they were dressed like they’d just come off a farm, and wore jeans and flannel shirts. They were in their seventies, and Mabel guessed they shared similar blood lines, their faces identical in many ways. Like bullets fired out of the same gun, she thought. Running Bear pulled two chairs in front of the table, and they seated themselves.
“Ms. Struck is employed by Tony Valentine, the consultant who helped us catch the cheaters at our south Florida casino last year,” Running Bear said. “Ms. Struck has watched the poker dealer who’s under suspicion, and like me, believes he should be terminated. I asked Ms. Struck to come here, and explain why this dealer’s actions are harmful to our casino. Ms. Struck, the floor is yours.”
Mabel stared at the elders. They were sour pusses, and she smiled at them pleasantly. The elder in the center seat cleared his throat. He looked close to eighty, and wore his silver hair in a pony tail.
“Ms. Struck,” he began.
“Call me Mabel,” she said brightly.
“Very well, Mabel. I’d like —
“Excuse me, but I didn’t get your name,” Mabel said.
His eyes narrowed. Mabel saw an elder sitting at the table’s end whisper in the ear of the elder beside him. The man broke into a smile.
“William Bowlegs,” he said. “Call me Billy.”
“Very well, Billy. What can I do for you?”
Bowlegs poured himself a glass of water from one of the pitchers. Mabel guessed he wasn’t used to being spoken to like a normal person, which was too bad. It was what got so many important people in trouble. Bowlegs started again. “I have also watched the poker dealer who’s under suspicion, and cannot understand what all the commotion is about. Yes, the dealer is guilty of making a mistake in the way he handled the cards. But he was not working with any players at the table — we’ve proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt. Therefore, the dealer wasn’t cheating. And if he wasn’t cheating, I don’t see how we can terminate him.”
Mabel heard defensiveness in Bowlegs’ voice, and wondered what the dealer’s connection was to him. It was common among native American casinos to have dozens of family members working together, a practice that was unheard of anywhere else.
“Billy, have you ever heard of a man named John Scarne?” she asked.
Bowlegs shook his head. The elder sitting beside him said, “He wrote several books on gambling, didn’t he?”
“That’s correct. Scarne was considered the world’s authority on gambling. He was also an authority on cheating with cards.” Taking her purse off the floor, Mabel removed a deck of cards and opened it. “Scarne believed the most important aspect of every game was enforcing the rules. Back in his day, there were different rules in different parts of the country. This was true in private games, and inside casinos.
“It was also a common form of cheating. A sucker would be brought into a card game, and lose to a nothing hand. The locals would tell the sucker that the losing hand was a “Lolapalooza,” and the strongest hand you could get.”
The elders broke into smiles. Suddenly, one of them laughed. Then, all of them laughed. When the noise died down, Bowlegs said, “Is that really true?”
“It most certainly is,” Mabel said.
“White men!” he said.
The elders started laughing again.
After a minute, the elders had their poker faces back on.
“When World War II broke out, Scarne heard stories about soldiers being swindled in crooked games,” Mabel went on. “He went to the Army, and offered to tour the camps, and teach soldiers how to protect themselves. Now, you may wonder what this has to do with your problem and it’s simply this: One of the things Scarne did was to get everyone to play by the same rules. This was especially true for poker. And because of Scarne’s hard work, everyone now plays by the same rules. Except for you folks.”
The words had come out of her mouth with just the right amount of punch, and the elders straightened in their chairs. Mabel leaned forward, and looked them dead in the eye. “You’ve got a dealer who’s dealing off the bottom, and that’s a cheating move. Watch.”
Holding the cards in dealing grip, Mabel did her best impersonation of a bottom deal. It wasn’t pretty, but the elders got the picture.
“Just because it hasn’t affected the game doesn’t mean a crime hasn’t been committed,” she said. “The rules are the rules. If you won’t follow them, you don’t deserve to be in the casino business.”
“Couldn’t it have been an accident?” Bowlegs pleaded.
“No,” Mabel said firmly.
“But the players at the table —
“I know, none were involved,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean the dealer wasn’t cheating. Look, maybe one of the players was involved, only you somehow missed it. The fact is this: The dealer was setting you up. You caught him, and he needs to be terminated.”
“On what grounds?” Bowlegs said.
Mabel hesitated. Bowlegs was challenging her, despite everything she’d just told him. His hands were resting on the table, and she found herself staring at them. On the back of the right hand was a tattoo of a bird, just like the crooked dealer. The two men were somehow related, either by blood, or some tribal organization.
Mabel dropped the playing cards into her purse. She had stepped into a hornet’s nest, and saw no reason to let herself be stung. She rose from her chair.
“Excuse me, gentleman, but I think it’s time for me to go. Have a nice day.”
The elders mouths dropped open. So did Running Bear’s.
She left without another word.
Chapter 34
Bronco drove into Reno. There was not a cop in sight. The police had formed roadblocks on the highways, and were inspecting cars trying to leave town. He knew this because a dumb disc jockey was broadcasting it on his traffic report.
Pulling into a gas station, he got out and popped his trunk. Karl Klinghoffer’s uniform was balled up in the back, and he rifled the pants pockets and found Karl’s wallet and driver’s license. Memorizing the address on the license, he went inside, and found a helpful attendant. He repeated the address, and the attendant gave him instructions.
Karl lived on the fancy side of town. Ten minutes later Bronco parked across the street from the address. The street was lined with old three-story Victorian homes, many of which
had been restored and looked like something on a Hollywood movie set. It seemed out of a prison guard’s price range. Then, Bronco spied the dwelling behind the house. An old converted garage with an outside staircase. That was more like it.
He shuffled across the street, doing his best old man impersonation. He’d always been good at acting. A woman he’d stolen jackpots with in Las Vegas years ago had coached him. She’d had professional lessons and could play any role; lonely spinster, drunk, innocent country girl. Her acting was so good she’d flown under every casino’s radar. The last Bronco had heard, she was in Hollywood, acting on a popular TV sitcom. He walked up a path to Karl’s house. Reaching the garage, he pressed his face to the glass cut-out on the door. The interior was dusty, and a white SUV plastered with bumper stickers was parked inside. One said, HE IS RISEN. Another said, THE LORD LOVES ME — HOW ABOUT YOU?
He took the stairs to the second floor. He hadn’t pegged Karl as the religious type, but it made sense. Religion scared people into being good, but it didn’t mean they were good. It just meant they were more afraid of the consequences of being bad.
He reached the landing, and stopped to watch a police cruiser pass on the street. When it was gone, he found himself staring at the houses to either side of Karl’s. Many had swimming pools and backyard barbecues and all the trappings of the great American dream. It had been his dream once, too — he’d accepted long ago that he couldn’t steal from the casinos his whole life — but then his dream had been taken away from him. He got angry thinking about it, and rapped on the door.
No answer, so he rapped loudly again. Earlier that day, when he’d escaped from jail, he’d had Karl’s keys in his hand, but had no idea where they were now. Lifting his leg, he kicked the door. It was flimsy and easily gave way. He stuck his head in.
“Anyone home?” he said in an old man’s voice. Still nothing. Going inside, he shut the door behind him.
He entered the kitchen, a cold, impersonal room with yellow linoleum and bare counter tops. He was hungry, and opened the refrigerator to find milk, eggs and a loaf of Wonder Bread. He tried the pantry, and found it filled with canned goods and bags of rice. Maybe that was Karl’s problem; his wife didn’t feed him.
There was a small table in the kitchen’s center covered with sheets of paper filled with a child’s handwriting. Bronco picked up a page, and stared at verses from the Bible that had been painstakingly written, then glanced at the header. It said HOMEWORK. He placed the page back on the table, then saw a coloring book. Opening it, he stared at a kid’s drawing of a bearded man in a robe that he guessed was Jesus Christ. Jesus was holding a sign which said: Abortion. Big People Killing Little People.
“Drop it, mister,” a woman’s voice said.
Bronco dropped the coloring book on the table, and glanced over his shoulder. Rebecca Klinghoffer stood in the open doorway, aiming a handgun at him with both hands. He stared at the diamond pendant dangling around her neck, then into her eyes. She looked scared out of her wits. He stepped toward her.
“Give me the gun,” he said.
“I’ll do no such thing. You think you can break into my house and start ordering me around? Well, you’ve got another think coming, mister. I’m going to call the police and have them lock you up. You’re going to rue the day you ever decided to rob me.”
She looked about thirty, sounded about fifteen. Bronco said, “The gun.”
“Keep it up, and you’re a goner.”
Bronco stuck his hand out. “Give it to me.”
Bronco saw a child’s pair of eyes peeking around the doorsill. Rebecca saw them too, and said, “Karl, Junior, get back to your bedroom this instant, and lock the door.”
The eyes vanished. Bronco looked at Rebecca, and saw the gun trembling in her hand. He said, “Do you have any idea who I am?”
“Don’t know, don’t care,” she said.
“I work for the casino that your husband robbed yesterday,” he said. “Your husband stole a jackpot from my casino. We have it on a surveillance tape. I heard about your husband getting injured on the TV, so my casino is willing to offer you a deal. Just give us the money back, and we won’t have you and your husband arrested.”
Rebecca brought her hand to her mouth. “Oh, no. He didn’t —”
“Tell you where the money came from?” Bronco said.
Rebecca shook her head. “No. Honest, sir.”
“It came from my casino.”
She lowered the gun and started to cry. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God.”
“Do you know what happens to people that cheat casinos?” Bronco asked. “They’re sent to federal penitentiaries where they serve anywhere from four to six years, hard time. Their homes and cars and bank accounts are seized by the state, and their kids are taken away from them, and put in foster homes. You don’t want that, do you?”
“No,” she said fearfully.
“Then give me back the money. That’s all I’m asking.”
Rebecca held up the diamond pendant and stifled a tiny sob. “He bought me this.”
Bronco stepped forward and stared at the pendant like his eyesight wasn’t so good. Scrunching up his face, he said, “You don’t have the money?”
“No, sir.”
He scratched his chin. “Would you be willing to earn it back?”
“I’d be willing to do whatever you want, mister,” she said.
Two minutes ago she’d been ready to shoot him. He hadn’t lost his touch, and he flashed the thinnest of smiles.
“Good,” he said.
“Have you ever heard of an overpay?” Bronco asked.
Rebecca Klinghoffer was driving her SUV toward the Peppermill casino in downtown Reno while looking in her mirror. Karl Junior was strapped in the backseat, watching videos on a tiny TV. “What’s that you’re watching?” she asked suspiciously.
“Just cartoons,” her son replied.
“Not Japanese cartoons?”
“No ma’am.”
“Japanese cartoons are evil,” Rebecca said, glancing at Bronco in the passenger seat, and then, finally, at the road. “What’s an overpay?”
“It’s a flaw in a slot machine’s wiring which causes it to overpay, and give away jackpots. The people who service the slot machines occasionally discover them. They’re supposed to fix the machines, but sometimes they don’t. Instead, they sell the information to someone, and that person goes and plays the machine.”
Rebecca lowered her voice. “Is that what my husband did?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Bronco said.
They had reached the Peppermill’s entrance, and she pulled behind a long line of cars waiting for a valet, and threw the SUV into park. “You haven’t told me how I’m supposed to earn this money back,” she said.
“Inside the Peppermill is a slot machine which also overpays. I’ll tell you how to play the machine. You will win a jackpot slightly under ten thousand dollars, which you’ll give to me. Once you do that, we’ll be even, and I’ll disappear from your life.”
Rebecca swallowed hard. “Wait a minute. That’s stealing.”
“That’s the deal. Take it, or leave it.”
She thought it over. He had scared the daylights out of her with the talk of prison, and he saw her nod. “All right. I’ll do it. Are you going in with me?”
“I’ll be nearby with your son.”
“He can be a handful,” she said.
Bronco glanced at the kid in back. Karl Junior wore the glassy-eyed expression of a child that watched too much television, but otherwise seemed a normal kid.
“Nothing that an ice cream cone won’t cure,” Bronco said.
My baby is with a strange man, Rebecca Klinghoffer thought, sitting at a Drew Carey Great Balls of Money slot machine on the main floor of the Peppermill. It didn’t matter that Karl Jr. and the man were standing only twenty feet away, or that her son was eating a chocolate ice cream cone. It still felt wrong. Rebecca waved to her son, while thinking about what she was
going to do to her husband once he got out of the hospital. She would make Karl Sr. pay, that was for sure.
She unclasped her purse while remembering the man’s instructions. Put three coins into the machine, pull the handle; then drop two coins, pull the handle; then drop one coin, and pull the handle. Once she’d done that, Rebecca was supposed to drop five coins — the maximum — and pull the handle. That would make the Drew Carey machine overpay.
She took a roll of half dollars out of her purse which she’d gotten at the cage a minute ago. She fed three coins into the machine, and heard an electronic plunk! Then she grabbed the machine’s handle. Her daddy the preacher called slot machines the Devil’s playthings, and said they were evil. She pulled the handle anyway.