Sucker Bet tv-3

by James Swain

  Jodisue’s fingers wore no rings, and the framed pictures on her desk contained nothing but panting canines. Another time, another place, he would have taken her out for a milk shake, if for no other reason than to say thanks.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “That’s what I figured,” Jodisue said.

  Back in his room, Valentine lay on the bed and called Mabel. “You still steamed at me?” he asked.

  “A little. You know, Tony, you need to think about people besides yourself every once in a while.”

  The truth be known, he did think about other people all the time—Gerry, Kat, Bill Higgins—but what his neighbor was saying was, he needed to start thinking about her more, especially if she was going to run his business.

  “I will,” he promised. “Scout’s honor.”

  “Good. Did you watch Jacques’s film?”

  “Yes. The cheater is the change man at the table. He’s using a double drop box.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The box has a second box hidden in one of its walls. He uses a plunger to push the money down a chute into the box. By pushing the plunger sideways, the money goes into the hidden box. It’s based on an old magic principle. Tell Jacques the man who empties the drop box is also involved in the scam.”

  “He’ll be so happy,” she said.

  “I know it’s late, but I need you to go on the Internet.”

  “I’m in your study,” his neighbor said. “Give me a minute.”

  Riding up in the elevator, he’d thought about the surveillance tape of Karl Blackhorn he’d watched earlier. Blackhorn was cheating, yet nothing on the tape looked suspicious, except for the one time he’d turned over the wrong card in his hand.

  “Ready,” she said.

  “Type in this address: www.blackjackedge.com.”

  “Done. It says I need a password.”

  “Griftsense,” he said.

  “How clever. Is this a site for people who cheat at blackjack?”

  Valentine acknowledged that it was. The site’s members were card-counters, mathematicians, and some of the smartest BJ hustlers in the world. “I want you to post a message for the discussion group.”

  “Go ahead.”

  He shut his eyes. “Dear group. I have a question regarding the change in house advantage on a two-deck game of blackjack when the following occurs. During the deal, the dealer’s cards are dealt facedown. Normally, the dealer would turn over his first card and expose it to the players at the table. Instead, the dealer turns over his second card. Does this switch alter the house advantage, assuming the players are using Basic Strategy? Thanks for your help.”

  “What’s Basic Strategy?”

  “It’s the best way to play blackjack without cheating. A mathematician named Thorp developed it. It shrinks the house edge.”

  Mabel read the message back to him. It sounded fine, and he told her to send it, then heard a knock on the door. Putting the phone down, he crossed the room and put his eye to the peephole. Kat stood in the hallway, dressed in a leather miniskirt and a red silk blouse. Attached to the blouse was the diamond pin he’d planned to give her. His heart did a little pitter-pat.

  Picking up the phone, he said, “I need to run.”

  Up until Kat, he’d slept with only two women in his life, and the effect she had on him as they sat on the bed was remarkable. His heart started to race, and his eyes started to see things better than they had in years. Even his voice sounded different.

  “I missed you,” she said, then explained the whole sorry episode with Ralph. When she was done, she said, “Zoe’s downstairs playing video games near the pool. I slipped a lifeguard ten bucks to keep an eye on her.”

  “You’re not mad at me?”

  “No,” she said.

  Her lips parted ever so slightly, and Valentine realized she wanted him to kiss her. Traveling with Zoe, they’d gotten good at finding moments to slip away, the sex always better on the sly. The clothes started to come off, then Valentine felt a stab of pain in his arm and pulled back.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I banged up my elbow the other night wrestling an alligator,” he explained.

  “Jesus. Wait till I tell Donny.”

  Pain, he’d learned from judo, was good at clearing a person’s head, and he took her hands and squeezed them gently. “I’m sorry about everything that happened in Orlando. But if I’ve learned anything in life, it’s that things happen for a reason.”

  “They do?” she said.

  “Yeah, they do. I needed to leave you for a while and help out a friend of mine.”

  “Is that why you’re here?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “What about our show in Memphis next week?”

  “I won’t be there.”

  “This job?”

  “I’ve decided to hang up the banana suit and retire the hair gel.”

  “Why . . .”

  “Three days ago in Orlando, I looked in the mirror and didn’t like what I saw.”

  “Which was what?”

  “A sixty-two-year-old guy dressing up like a cartoon character so he could impress a woman twenty years his junior.”

  Valentine heard the scraping sound of a plastic key being put into the door. Kat jumped off the bed and buttoned her blouse. Gerry came in with a greasy bag of Chinese takeout clutched to his chest. He looked at Kat, then his father, said “Whoa,” and started to back out the door. Kat said, “I was just leaving,” and brushed past him with Valentine following her down the hall with his shirt hanging out of his pants.

  At the elevator she said, “And I thought we had something wonderful between us.”

  A tray of food sat outside one of the rooms. The meal looked the same way he was starting to feel—devoured but not finished.

  “We did,” he admitted.

  “Then why are you doing this?”

  Because I wasn’t put on this earth to play the fool, he thought. The elevator doors parted and she got in, then stood with her arms crossed.

  “It’s Memphis or forget it,” she told him.

  Then she was gone.

  24

  Saturday morning found Billy Tiger sitting on an upturned orange crate in Harry Smooth Stone’s cell. Smooth Stone, Tiger’s uncle on his mother’s side, sat on a metal cot, his back to the concrete wall. In the room’s muted light he looked a hundred years old, the bars’ shadows forming a checkerboard on his sunken chest.

  “This isn’t good,” Smooth Stone said.

  Tiger had just come from the employee lounge. Gladys Soft Wings had obtained the elders’ permission to clean out the lockers of the four dealers accused of cheating. Tiger had seen what was in the lockers, and didn’t think there was anything that could incriminate the dealers. Then again, he didn’t know how the men were cheating.

  “It’s not?” he said.

  “If Valentine sees what’s in the lockers, we’re screwed.”

  Tiger cursed. He knew that Smooth Stone had been rigging the casino’s games for a long time. The slot machines shorted players on jackpots (“Who ever counts the coins?” Smooth Stone said), while others didn’t pay out at all, the EPROM chips that generated the machine’s random numbers having been gaffed. At bingo, when the jackpots got too large, stooges in the crowd sometimes won.

  Tiger had known it all along, but he’d never said anything. Smooth Stone had a reason for what he did.

  It had all started three years ago, when a group of Las Vegas gamblers had swindled the tribe. Somehow, these gamblers had learned that a particular make of video poker machine had an overlay in its computer. Anyone who played one of these machines continuously for an hour would win seventy-five dollars. It had been the Micanopys’ misfortune to have fifty of these machines in their casino.

  The gamblers had hired retired people to work for them. For eight hours a day, the retired people would play these machines. One of the gamblers would sub whenever someone wanted to eat or hit the j
ohn.

  The scam had lasted a month, then was spotted by the casino’s auditor. Smooth Stone had gone to the Broward County police, convinced the gamblers had ties to the game’s manufacturer in Nevada. When the cops had refused to help, he’d gone to the state’s attorney general, then the FBI. And gotten nowhere.

  The injustice had eaten a hole in Smooth Stone. Had the gamblers ripped off a casino in Las Vegas or Atlantic City or Biloxi, the authorities would have thrown them in jail and let them explain their way out. That was how it worked in the white man’s casinos.

  Smooth Stone slapped the cot with his hand.

  “What?” Tiger said.

  “Sit next to me,” Smooth Stone said.

  Tiger made the cot sag. When Tiger was a child, Smooth Stone had bounced him on his knee and told him stories. Smooth Stone cupped his hand next to Tiger’s ear.

  “I got something I want you to do,” Smooth Stone whispered.

  Tiger stared at the scuffed concrete floor. He had come to Smooth Stone out of a sense of loyalty, but now suddenly felt afraid. “What’s that?”

  “The key is Valentine. Without him, there isn’t a case.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “We need to scare him off.”

  Tiger gave him a look that said I don’t think so. He’d been in the surveillance control room when Smooth Stone’s gang had stuffed the alligator into the trunk of Valentine’s car, and he’d seen Valentine take the alligator and smash it headfirst on the pavement.

  “You’re crazy,” he whispered.

  “He has an old woman who works for him,” Smooth Stone said. “We’ll do it through her.”

  Tiger buried his head in his hands. Now they were going after old ladies. He wanted to argue, but it was too late for that. He was an accessory to everything that had happened, including murder. If Smooth Stone and the other dealers went to jail, so would he. He stared up into Smooth Stone’s face.

  “I hate this,” the younger man said.

  25

  Saul Hyman did not want trouble.

  He’d started the day with a luxurious hot shower, then fixed breakfast and gone onto his balcony. Munching on a bagel, he’d stared through the apartment buildings across the street at the sliver of blue that was the mighty Atlantic. It was a razor-sharp day, the kind that made all the nonsense of living in Miami worthwhile.

  And now it had been spoiled by the car parked across the street.

  The car was a navy Altima. What had caught his eye was that it was in a no-parking zone. A bicycle cop had pulled up and chatted with the driver. The bicycle cop had left, and the Altima had stayed. Had to be another cop, Saul decided.

  Going inside, he found the binoculars Sadie had given him for girl-watching. Whatever turns you on, she’d been fond of saying. Back on the balcony, he quickly found the car. The driver was reading the paper. Saul got in tight on his profile. He looked just like a cigar-store Indian, and Saul’s blood pressure began to rise. The man in the car was Bill Higgins, director of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, one of the most powerful law enforcement agents in the country. What was he doing here?

  Looking for me, Saul thought.

  He paced the condo, looking out his window at Higgins every few minutes. Saul hadn’t worked Las Vegas in ten years. The last time he’d tried, Higgins had intercepted him at McCarran airport, and Saul had flown out the same day.

  So why was he here?

  Only one reason came to mind. This Victor Marks thing.

  Saul kicked the furniture. Upon retiring, he’d promised Sadie he would never get involved with Victor again. Now he’d broken that promise, and look what had happened.

  “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” he said aloud.

  He needed to get out of the condo, to take a walk and think things out. Going into the bedroom, he turned on the light in Sadie’s closet. He’d kept all of her things, and he pulled out a floral dress he’d always liked. Stripping, he slipped it on, then opened a drawer and rummaged through her wigs. He’d always been partial to Sadie as a blond.

  He made his mustache invisible with pancake, then appraised himself in the vanity. Saul Hyman, ancient drag queen. A straw hat and a pair of sunglasses lessened the pain, but only a little.

  He didn’t want to risk seeing a neighbor, so he took the stairwell to the lobby. At the bottom he opened the fire exit and stuck his head out. Empty. He walked to the front doors and ventured outside.

  The fresh salt air invigorated him. He walked down the condo’s driveway toward the sidewalk. Plenty of people were out. He’d blend right in.

  He glanced across the street at Higgins in his car. The bastard was staring at him. Higgins’s face, normally as animated as granite, had broken into a sickening sneer.

  Saul started to sweat. Known cheaters put on elaborate disguises and tried to steal money from casinos every day. And guys like Bill Higgins saw right through them.

  “Oh, no,” he groaned.

  Higgins got out of the car and started to cross the street. Did he want to talk about the good old days, or did he want to talk about Victor? Saul beat a trail back to his building and spied Stan and Lizzie, his neighbors, sidling down the drive.

  “Saul?” Lizzie asked.

  Damn, damn, damn. Saul walked with his eyes downcast.

  “Saul, is that you?”

  “Morning,” he muttered under his breath.

  “Oh, my,” Stan said. They were regulars at the Wednesday night poolside barbecue, and Saul could imagine next week’s banter. Guess what. What? Hyman on four is a little light in the loafers. You don’t say?

  The lobby’s crisp air-conditioning hit him like a slap in the face. Sadie’s dress was clinging to his legs. He tried to disengage himself and felt the fabric tear. It had been one of his late wife’s favorites.

  The elevator came. He started to board it, then glanced outside. Higgins was gone. So was the Altima. A stupid cop trick, designed to scare the daylights out of him.

  It had worked.

  Pretending to be asleep, Gerry watched his father do his morning exercises. Jumping jacks, push-ups, deep knee bends, and a crazy judo exercise where he stood on his head in the corner. He did twenty minutes every day, no matter how he felt. Gerry had tried it for a week, and decided he liked being out of shape.

  Finished, his father sat on the edge of the sofa bed, and said, “Hey.”

  Gerry opened his eyes. “How did you know I wasn’t sleeping?”

  “You stopped snoring. You hungry?”

  Gerry sat up. “Yeah. You mind my asking you something?”

  “Depends what it is.”

  “It’s about Kat.” He followed his father to the bathroom and stood in the doorway as his father lathered up to shave. “I realize it’s none of my business, but how come you busted up with her? She seems okay.”

  “She is okay,” his father said, running the razor beneath the hot water. “I just couldn’t be the person she wanted me to be.”

  “I thought you liked the wrestling.”

  “I did. I also like Halloween. But not all the time.”

  “You told me yourself, the change was doing you good.”

  Valentine shaved, then wiped his face with a washcloth. “I had this case once, a guy who disappeared. He lived in New Jersey, ran an accounting firm. He was a heavy gambler, and he had lines of credit at every casino. One day, he cleaned out his bank accounts and bolted. Left his wife, his kids, even his dog. Boom, gone.

  “I got handed the case. I put a professional skip tracer on him, then went on to other things. There were so many places he could have gone, I didn’t see the point of killing myself trying to find him.

  “Two years later, the skip tracer calls me, says, ‘You won’t believe this.’ Turns out the guy has reappeared. He’s living in New Jersey, about fifty miles from where he lived before. He belongs to a country club and is married to a woman a lot like his first wife. His life is almost identical to the one he had before. The local cops arrest him, and I arr
ange to meet with the guy. I was curious, you know?”

  “Sure,” Gerry said.

  “His name was Stanley. So I say, ‘Stanley, why didn’t you run?’ And Stanley gives me a funny smile, and says, ‘There was nothing to run to.’

  “I thought about that remark for a while. And what I figured out was this. Once you reach a certain age, the patterns of your life are set. You may think otherwise, but you’re just lying to yourself. Stanley came back to New Jersey because it was the only life he had. There was nowhere else for him to go.

  “I got involved with Kat because I thought I could change who I was. My life was like a suit of clothes that I’d gotten sick of wearing. So I started wearing a different suit. Turns out, it didn’t fit.”

  “Can’t stop being a cop, huh?” his son asked.

  Valentine shook his head. “Not if my life depended on it.”

  26

  Saturday mornings were meant for tending to the garden or sleeping in, not for coming to Tony’s house and picking up messages left by panicked casino bosses. Mabel did it for only one reason, and that was because Tony asked her to.

  Tony’s voice mail was empty. Booting up his PC, she checked for E-mail. He had one message, the sender someone named mathwizard, its subject matter “Your Problem.” She clicked the mouse on it, and the message filled the screen.

  Hey Griftsense,

  Interesting BJ problem.

  There is no difference between which card is turned over by the dealer, provided the dealer does not know the identity of his cards before he turns them over.

  But if the dealer did know the cards’ identities, he could alter the game’s outcome by choosing one card over another. Here is how the players’ odds would be

  affected.

  Card Shown by Dealer Player’s Advantage (+)

  or Disadvantage (-) Deuce +10 Three +14 Four +18 Five +24 Six +24 Seven +14 Eight +5 Nine -4 Any ten, jack, queen, king -17 Ace -36

  The strategy, which I call Big Rock/Little Rock, has an enormous impact on the game’s outcome. When a dealer chooses to expose a Big Rock (any ten, jack, queen, king, or ace), instead of a Little Rock (deuce through seven), he’ll win most of the time.