Sucker Bet tv-3

by James Swain

  “I sure do,” Bill said. “I arrested him after he fleeced a Texas oil tycoon in a bridge game. The Texan was a world-class player, too.”

  “Let me guess,” Valentine said. “Saul had inside help.”

  Bill nodded. “Saul played the Texan at a table by the hotel pool. At the next table was Saul’s plant. The plant was reading a newspaper with a slit in it. He looked at the Texan’s cards, and by breathing through his nose, he signaled to Saul how to bet.”

  “The whiff,” Valentine said.

  “You’ve heard of it?”

  Valentine said yes. He’d seen his grandmother and one of her friends do it at a card game in the Catskills over fifty years ago.

  “I didn’t have enough evidence for a conviction,” Bill said. “But I took what I had to the state gaming board, and they barred Saul from ever returning to Nevada.” He picked up the pot and refilled their mugs. “So, why do you think he’s involved?”

  The coffee was unusually good, maybe the best cup Valentine had tasted in Miami. He’d be back here again. “I’m pretty good at knowing when people are lying to me. I didn’t think Saul was, but then I got to thinking. Saul says he hasn’t seen Victor Marks in years. That’s bull. He and Victor were friends for forty years. You ever have a buddy like that?”

  “Sure,” Bill said.

  “I bet you talk to him every few weeks.”

  “At least.”

  “So Saul’s lying. He should have said, ‘I haven’t heard from him since Thanksgiving.’ That I would have bought. But not in years.”

  Valentine wrote down Saul’s address on a napkin, then described the condo building right down to the height of the hedges. “There’s a wall around the property. If Saul tries to leave, he’ll have to go out through the front entrance. I saw his car keys sitting on a table. He drives a Toyota.”

  Bill paid for the coffee, and they rose from the table. Everything had seemed fine until that moment, then the facade on Bill’s face cracked and the deep worry lines broke through. Valentine said, “Something wrong?”

  “I got a call from the Broward police. A body was found in a Fort Lauderdale Dumpster. They think it’s Jack Lightfoot. They want me at the morgue to make an ID.”

  Valentine could tell that Bill was hurting inside. That was where they were different. He hardly ever felt bad for crooks. They walked outside to the valet stand.

  “You want company?” Valentine asked.

  “If you’re up to it,” his friend said.

  Whoever had dumped Jack Lightfoot’s body was not very smart. He had seaweed in his hair and swamp water in his lungs, and both arms and one of his legs had been chewed off. It was obvious that he’d died in a swamp.

  Enough of his face remained to make a positive identification, and Bill’s hand had shaken as he signed the coroner’s statement. An hour later, Valentine dropped him off at the Loews, then went back to his hotel. He felt dog-tired, and the king-size bed in his room was calling to him. Walking into the Fontainebleau’s lobby, he spotted an Indian woman in a dark business suit by the elevators. Late twenties, short black hair, flat face, a little stocky. She approached him with an expectant look on her face.

  “Mr. Valentine?”

  He nodded, and she handed him her card. Gladys Soft Wings. Her title was legal representative for the Micanopy nation. It was a deceiving name. There didn’t appear to be anything soft about her.

  “I’m here on behalf of my client, Chief Running Bear.”

  “Your client?”

  “The chief was involved in an altercation with five other tribe members. One of them died.”

  “I hope it was Harry Smooth Stone.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “He put an alligator in my car. Nearly bit my hand off.”

  Gladys took a square of paper from her pocket. Unfolding it, she handed it to him. “This is the only evidence I have against Smooth Stone. Running Bear found it in his trailer.”

  Valentine studied the equations written on the ledger paper, then handed it back to her. “The equations are the hold for five blackjack dealers at your casino.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The hold is the equation a casino uses to determine how much money it’s making at its games. If these numbers are accurate, these dealers are cheating.”

  “How can you be certain?”

  “The average hold for a blackjack table is twenty percent. Your dealers are showing a hold of forty-four percent. They’re pocketing twenty-four percent and letting the casino keep the other twenty.”

  Gladys looked relieved. “Running Bear said you would know. Now I need to ask you a favor.”

  “You want me to explain it to the police?”

  She seemed taken aback. “Actually, to the elders of my tribe. How did you know?”

  “It’s what I do for a living,” he said.

  The elders of the Micanopy nation were five pewter-haired men whose median age Valentine guessed to be seventy-five. They sat behind a long table wearing equally long faces. Each wore a dungaree jacket and a denim shirt, their faces road maps of the lives they’d lived. Valentine remembered reading how Micanopy warriors had prevented the white man from settling in Florida until the early 1900s. These men’s fathers and grandfathers, he guessed.

  To the elders’ right sat Running Bear and Gladys Soft Wings. To their left, Smooth Stone and his three accomplices and their attorney, a pointy-headed Indian kid in a cheap suit. Behind them stood six tribal policemen armed with Mossberg shotguns.

  Both attorneys presented their clients’ version of the story. Unlike a court of law, no one was asked to swear on a Bible, and a blindfolded statue called Justice did not look down on them.

  Then it was Valentine’s turn. He gave his credentials, then removed the piece of ledger paper that was Running Bear’s only evidence and laid it on the table. The elders collectively lowered their heads.

  “This piece of paper was found in a ledger of Harry Smooth Stone’s.”

  “Objection,” the pointy-headed lawyer said, jumping to his feet. “We don’t know if that came from a ledger of Harry’s or not.”

  “It’s his handwriting,” the lead elder said. “Sit down.”

  The lawyer swallowed hard. “You sure?”

  “I taught him to write,” the elder barked. “Sit down.”

  The lawyer returned to his seat. The lead elder shot him a look that said he wouldn’t tolerate another interruption. Valentine pointed at the equations on the paper and continued. “This is classic evidence of cheating—something I’ve seen in dozens of cases. The head of the gang keeps a ledger to assure the rest of the gang that no one’s getting shortchanged. It’s the only way everyone can get along.”

  The lead elder made a face. “Are you saying all of these men were cheating?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why didn’t our security people spot it?”

  That was a good question. Clearing his throat, Valentine said, “Your security people probably did.”

  The lead elder frowned. So did his colleagues.

  “Please explain.”

  “I need to ask you a few questions.”

  The lead elder considered it. “All right.”

  “How many people live on the reservation?”

  “Twenty-five hundred.”

  “How many are related?”

  “Nearly everyone,” he said stiffly.

  “How many people work in the casino’s security department?”

  The elder looked to Running Bear, who said, “Forty-six.”

  “All related?”

  Running Bear had to think. “Yes.”

  “Which means your security people are watching their cousins, aunts, and grandparents, which is the worst possible thing you could have in this business.”

  The lead elder stuck his jaw out. “Why is that?”

  “In most casinos, security people are ex-cops and detectives. They never fraternize with anyone on the casino floor, nor
do any socializing. This disassociation allows them to be objective observers. If you compare that to what’s going on in your casino—”

  “Excuse me,” the pointy-headed lawyer said. “But is anyone going to offer up a shred of evidence here? Or are we going to let this man run off at the mouth? My clients have rights.”

  The elders collectively frowned. They impressed Valentine as smart men who knew the truth when they heard it. What the lawyer was asking them to do was go backwards. It was the only thing the legal profession was really good at.

  “Do you have any more proof?” the lead elder asked.

  “Give me the surveillance tapes of these men dealing blackjack, and I’ll give you loads of proof,” Valentine said.

  “You can do this right away?”

  “I’ll need a day or two,” Valentine said.

  The elders went into a huddle, then took a vote.

  “Done,” the lead elder said.

  Before Valentine could say another word, the elders had filed out of the room, followed by Running Bear and the other accused men. He’d taken this job because he wanted to escape from his problems. It wasn’t working out that way, and he found himself wishing that he’d stayed home.

  “Nice job,” Gladys said as they left the trailer.

  18

  He followed Gladys into the casino through a back door, then into a stairwell marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. On the second floor they stopped at a door with a surveillance camera hanging over it. Gladys knocked once, then looked into the camera.

  “Come on,” she said under her breath.

  A lantern-jawed Indian wearing a blue blazer opened the door. His name was Billy Tiger, and he was running surveillance while Harry Smooth Stone cooled his heels in jail. He ushered them in.

  The heart and soul of every casino’s security was its surveillance control room. These rooms were generally darkened spaces filled with expensive monitoring equipment used to detect and videotape suspected cheaters. The air was kept a chilly sixty-five degrees so the equipment would not malfunction. It also kept the personnel from turning into zombies as they stared at black-and-white images on their monitors for eight hours a day. Tiger led them to a corner office and shut the door.

  “I figured you’d want some privacy,” he said.

  Valentine was missing something. How did Tiger know what they wanted? As if reading his thoughts, Tiger said, “I got a call from the elders. All five of them. They said you needed to see some tapes.”

  “All five of them?” Gladys said.

  Tiger wore the slightly bemused expression of someone who woke up every day with a smile on his face. “Yeah. It was pretty funny. They can’t make a decision without taking a vote. I’d hate to see them ordering takeout.”

  From his shirt pocket, Valentine removed the piece of paper that Running Bear had taken from Smooth Stone’s ledger. “I need to see a recent surveillance tape of each of these dealers, except Jack Lightfoot.”

  Tiger read the list. “That shouldn’t be too hard.”

  “And their personnel files.”

  “I’ll get right on it.”

  Tiger started to leave the room. Valentine had an idea and stopped him.

  “Which of these dealers has the least experience dealing blackjack?”

  Tiger took the paper and looked at it. “Karl Blackhorn. He was pretty new.”

  “How new is that?”

  “Four, five months.”

  “Let’s start with him,” Valentine said.

  Soon, Valentine and Gladys were watching a tape of Blackhorn. He was easily the sloppiest blackjack dealer Valentine had ever seen.

  “How did this guy ever get a job?” Valentine asked.

  “Running Bear,” Gladys explained. “When the casino has openings it can’t fill, he hires Indians from other tribes. If they have families, they can live on the reservation and go to school without cost. Other tribes around the country have adopted similar policies.”

  Valentine watched Blackhorn deal a round. Each player at the table was dealt two cards. As Blackhorn came to himself, he hesitated. Standard casino procedure called for him to use his second card to flip his first card faceup. Then he was supposed to slip his second card underneath his first.

  Only Blackhorn didn’t do this.

  Instead, he glanced at the players’ hands. Then he awkwardly turned his second card faceup onto his first. Valentine stared at the screen. Had Blackhorn forgotten the rules and flipped over the wrong card? It happened sometimes and, as far as he knew, made no difference to the game’s outcome.

  The piece of paper from Smooth Stone’s ledger lay on the desk. Picking it up, he stared at the numbers beside Blackhorn’s name.

  DROP: 12,104 WINNINGS: 5,812 HOLD: 42%

  Blackhorn had kept 42 percent of the bets wagered at his

  table. The best blackjack dealers in the world kept 20 percent. These dealers were considered A dealers and assigned to work the tables when “whales” came to town. And here was a wet-

  behind-the-ears kid winning twice as much money.

  “Let me see his file,” Valentine said.

  Gladys handed him a Pendaflex folder. Valentine read it, then said, “Blackhorn was in prison for armed robbery. Your casino did a background check and turned it up. Yet you still hired him.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Let me guess. This was Running Bear’s doing.”

  “Yes. Running Bear spent time in prison. So do a lot of boys on the reservation. It’s a by-product of high unemployment and poor schooling.”

  So what, Valentine nearly said. No legitimate casino would allow a person with a criminal record to work for them. It was too damn tempting, the money flowing back and forth, night after night. Running Bear had a vision and thought he could change people by treating them well. Only, it didn’t work that way with criminals.

  “I’d like to see another tape of this guy,” Valentine said.

  They found Billy Tiger standing in front of a curved wall of video monitors, watching the action in the casino. Without taking his eyes away, he said, “You done?”

  “We want to see another tape of Blackhorn,” Gladys said.

  Tiger peeled his eyes away. And hesitated.

  Gladys said, “Is that a problem?”

  His bemused expression had faded. “Not at all,” he said.

  While Gladys and Tiger went looking for the tape, Valentine returned to the office. He suddenly felt exhausted. Maybe wrestling alligators had something to do with it. Or the sheer physical exertion of having to be nice with his son. His eyes started to droop, and he stared at the TV on the desk. It contained live feeds of the casino’s hot zones and included the parking lot. A black limousine was parked by the entrance. Beside it stood a redhead smoking a cigarette. He put his face so close to the screen that his nose touched it. One thing that hadn’t slowed down as he’d gotten older was his memory. He’d seen this woman before.

  She tossed her cigarette. Then said something to the skinny Hispanic driver and pointed at her watch. The driver made a conciliatory gesture with his hands. The tape of Jack Lightfoot, Valentine thought. The redhead was the raggle.

  She got into the limo. So did the driver. Reaching down, the driver removed a handgun from a pocket on the door and slipped it into his lap. Then he shut the door and drove away.

  Valentine ran out of the room, looking for Gladys Soft Wings.

  19

  Splinters had always considered casinos filthy places. In Havana, he’d gone to school in a building that had housed a casino during the Batista regime. Castro had closed the casino after the revolution, along with whorehouses and sex shows, and replaced them with schools and hospitals. Every schoolkid knew the story by heart. Even the bad ones.

  “You’re sure Nigel Moon said he’d meet me outside the Micanopy casino,” Candy said from the backseat.

  Splinters was driving on the twisting, single-lane road that eventually returned to the turnpike, and his eyes searched for
the break in the mangroves where he and Rico had dumped Jack Lightfoot’s body. “Yes, ma’am. That’s what he said.”

  In his mirror, Candy had a cell phone against her ear. They were in a dead zone, and she could not get a connection. She tossed the phone into her bag.

  “I’m going to kill him. Why are you driving so slow, anyway?”

  On the shoulder of the road Splinters saw a sleek black racer. It looked dead until it sprang to life and slithered away.

  “Kill who?” he asked.

  “Nigel fucking Moon, the bozo who hired you.”

  Splinters didn’t like that. Did she have a gun? That could be a problem.

  “How?” he asked.

  “How what?” she said indignantly.

  Splinters looked in the mirror. The hooker’s face was flushed and had turned hot pink. With the hair it almost made her look like she was on fire. He’d watched her from afar a couple of times and had memorized the contours of her body. More than once he’d imagined her naked, and him inside of her, and what her reaction would be.

  “You’re going to kill him,” he said.

  “With my bare hands.”

  He felt himself relax. The break in the road appeared. He tapped the brakes and tucked the gun in his lap behind his belt. “Damn,” he said loudly. “I got a flat tire.” He pulled off the road and parked beside the trail. It was well-worn, and he looked down it but saw no hikers or fishermen. He got out and opened Candy’s door. She gave him a look that suggested her patience had run out.

  “I’m not getting out in this fucking swamp.”

  “But—”

  “You heard me.”

  Her face was still a hot pink. The effect it had on him was remarkable, and he hid behind the door, not wanting her to see the erection in his trousers. He imagined screwing her, and her fighting with him like a wild animal. “Tire’s flat,” he explained. “I gotta change the tire.” She wasn’t budging, so he said, “It’s dangerous for you to stay in the car.”