The Select

by F. Paul Wilson

  "That's obvious. And that's probably a good thing. But..." He wrinkled his nose as a pungent odor seeped into the car. "Whew! What's that?"

  Quinn recognized it immediately. "Cows," she said. "Somebody's got a herd along here. You don't grow up on a farm without knowing that smell."

  "Yeah? Well, they do call this the Garden State. But let me lay the situation out for you. We're going to be customers of the casino, and since the casino's business is gambling, we're going to be called gamblers."

  "I'd rather be a customer."

  "Bear with me, Quinn. We're going to go into the casino and sit at the table with other gamblers. But we're not going to play each other. We're going to play the casino—the house. The house will be represented by the dealer. The dealer is nothing more than a guy—or lots of times a woman—who is paid to be a machine."

  "I don't get it."

  "Dealers have no decision-making powers. If the cards they've dealt themselves total sixteen or less, they deal themselves another card. When the cards total more than sixteen, they take no more. The casinos have calculated that this strategy gives them the best odds of staying ahead of their customers. And they're right."

  The whole concept baffled Quinn. "Well, if you know the casino—excuse me, the house—is going to win, why bother gambling at all?"

  "An excellent question, Quinn. A question many gamblers have asked themselves countless times."

  "It sounds to me like you should simply walk into the casino, hand your money to the dealer, and walk out again. You'd save yourself all the sweat and apprehension and maybe you could do something useful with the extra time you had."

  Tim stared at her, awe in his voice and a look of utter amazement on his face.

  "You're not kidding, are you? You're really for real, aren't you?"

  "The road, Tim," Quinn said, pointing through the windshield. "Please watch the road."

  He faced front again. "How about excitement, Quinn?"

  "What's exciting about losing money?"

  "But that's just it. You don't always lose. Sometimes you win. And it's not so much the winning or losing but the process itself that matters. It's a chance to beat the system—or at least a system. And everybody likes to beat the system. Especially me."

  "I think we've had this conversation before."

  "Right. While we were waiting to hear if The Ingraham was going to accept you. That was when I told you that I can beat the casinos' system."

  "Isn't it an old joke that if someone comes up with what he knows is a sure-fire, fool-proof, can't-lose gambling system, the casinos will have a car waiting for him at the airport to take him directly to their tables?"

  "Right. Because the casinos have got their own system: the structure of the pay outs, the ceilings on the bets, the simple mathematics of the law of averages—everything is geared toward guaranteeing them the lion's share of the action that crosses their tables. But no casino's system is set up to handle a wild card like me."

  Dustin Hoffman's face suddenly flashed before Quinn's eyes and she laughed. "You think you're Rain Man, don't you."

  "I beg your pardon, Miss Cleary. I may be an idiot, but I am not an idiot savant. Rain Man and I work differently. His brain was number oriented, mine is picture oriented. But the end result is the same: after a few decks have been played, we both have a pretty good idea what's left in the shoe."

  "Now I'm completely lost."

  Tim sighed patiently. "Okay. Casinos don't deal Blackjack from a single deck anymore since a bunch of people worked out a counting system that gave them a decent edge over the house."

  "But—?"

  He held up a hand. "Let me finish. So the casinos started shuffling up to eight decks at a time and loading them all into this hopper called a shoe and dealing from that. Most folks can learn to keep track of a fifty- or hundred-card deck, but not four hundred cards. But I can."

  "Your photographic memory," Quinn said.

  "Yep. I remember every card that's been played."

  "But what good is that?"

  "Not much until you get down to the end of the shoe. But when we do get down to the last hundred cards or so, I usually know exactly what's left in the shoe."

  "But if you don't know the order they're in, what good is it?"

  "I don't need to know the order. All I need to know is if there's a predominance of high cards or low cards. If those last hundred or so cards are tilted heavily in either direction, that's when I make my move. That's when I make my killing and beat their system. And you're going to help."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Know what this is?" He held up his right hand; his thumb and forefinger were extended, the three middle fingers folded down. He wiggled it back and forth. "It's the Hawaiian hang-loose sign." He wiggled his hand again. "In hoc signo vinces."

  She knew the translation, but..."I still don't get it."

  Tim reached over and patted her knee. "You will, Quinn. By the time we get to AC, all will be clear. And then we'll both beat the system."

  *

  Atlantic City wasn't at all as Quinn had pictured it. The postcards and photos she'd seen over the years had shown sunny beaches, tall, new, clean buildings, and a wide boardwalk filled with smiling, happy people. The city she saw as they came in from the marshy salt flats was old, worn, battered, and beaten, with vacant store fronts, peeling paint, rotting shingles, and broken windows. Equally dilapidated people—most of them black—shuffled or slunk along the narrow, crumbling, littered sidewalks in the halogen glow of the streetlights.

  "This looks like Beirut," Quinn said.

  "Yeah, but it's a Beirut laid out by the Parker Brothers."

  Despite the desolation, Quinn had to smile as they passed the avenues: Atlantic, Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania...

  "Right. Monopoly. I've bought these streets plenty of times. But I'd be taking a lot better care of them if they were still mine."

  "Consider this your reality check before stepping into the land of make believe."

  They turned onto Virginia, and moments later they were entering an Arabian Nights Neverland. Smooth, well-lit pavement lined with stone elephants led down a long, walled entry to a maharajah's palace—or rather a Hollywoodized vision of a maharajah's palace, with candy-colored cupolas and faux-Arabic script spelling out "Donald J. Trump presents the TAJ MAHAL." Tim pulled to a stop under the canopy where turbanned attendants unloaded their baggage and whisked the car away to the hotel garage.

  "Sort of like stepping out of Kansas into Oz, isn't it," Tim said as they followed their bags toward the registration desk.

  Quinn thought of the desolation outside and the costumed attendants swirling around her now in the opulent lobby.

  "More like entering the Masque of the Red Death."

  Tim gave her a sidelong glance. "Nothing like an upbeat literary analogy to set the tone for the evening."

  As the porter led them to the registration area, Quinn noted that the faux-Arabic script was everywhere—over the restrooms and over the VIP check-in desk where they stopped.

  "Can we have two beds?" Quinn said to the woman as Tim handed his comp invitation across the counter.

  "I'll see what I can do, ma'm." She checked her computer screen. "Yes. That will be no problem."

  "No problem for you, maybe," Tim muttered.

  Quinn laughed.

  *

  As soon as the bellman was gone, Quinn tossed her bag onto the king-size bed near the window.

  "I've got this one!"

  Tim dropped his on the other. "Then I guess this one is mine."

  Compared to the rest of the hotel, Quinn thought the room was rather ordinary. Almost a relief not to see minarets on the bedposts.

  "We can unpack later," she said. "Let's go downstairs. I'm not underdressed, am I?"

  He laughed. "No way. There's not much in the way of a dress code on the gaming floor."

  "Good. Are we ready, then?"

  She was getting into the mood, gi
ving in to a growing excitement. She couldn't help it. She wanted to see the casino and try out Tim's plan.

  "Fine with me," Tim said. "But how about a quickie before we hit the tables?"

  She could tell he was kidding—well, half kidding. And she was almost tempted...

  ...No foreign entanglements...

  She played indignant and pointed to the door. "Out."

  "For good luck?"

  "You told me you didn't believe in luck."

  He hesitated. "I did, didn't I. Why do I say things like that?" Then he brightened. "But I'd sure as hell consider myself lucky if—"

  She pointed to the door again. "Out!"

  *

  Quinn was taken aback by the casino's gaming floor. She'd expected the flashing lights and the noise, the bells, the clatter of the slots, the chatter of the voices, but she wasn't prepared for the crowd, for the ceaseless swirl of people, and the layer of smoke that undulated over the tables like a muslin canopy.

  She paused at the top of the two steps that led down to the gaming floor, hesitant about mingling with the flowing crowd. Everyone down there seemed to know what they were doing, where they were going. Suddenly she felt a little lost. She grabbed Tim's arm.

  "Don't lose me."

  He patted her hand where it gripped his bicep. "Not a chance."

  He led her gently into the maelstrom.

  "First we'll take a walk, get you oriented, then we'll find us a table and relieve Mr. Trump of some of his money."

  Quinn couldn't say exactly what she had expected to see in a casino, but this was not it. Not by a long shot.

  But it was absolutely fascinating.

  She had always been a people watcher, and this was a people-watcher's paradise.

  First they had to wade through the phalanxes of slot machines with their dead-eyed players, most of whom seemed old, and not too well dressed. Each stood—except for the ones in wheelchairs—with a cup of coins in the left hand, and a cigarette dangling from the lips as they plunked in coins and pulled the lever with their right hand. The machines dutifully spun their dials, and then the procedure was repeated. Endlessly. Robots playing robots. Even when the machines clanked coins into the trays, the players showed no emotion.

  Quinn had a sense of deja vu, and then she remembered an old silent film, Fritz Lang's Metropolis, in which laborers in the city of the future were shown working the machines of the future, pulling levers with soulless ennui.

  But this was no dank subterranean factory. Dozens of huge, magnificent chandeliers were suspended in recesses in the mirrored ceiling. Lights flashed everywhere.

  She heard excited shouting from a group of men crowded around a table.

  "What's that?"

  "Craps. I've tried to learn that game for years but I still don't understand it."

  "They sound like they're having fun."

  "That's because they're winning. But you can lose your shirt before you know it in that game."

  She followed him to the blackjack section, aisles of curved tables, some full, some empty.

  "Can we get a non-smoking table?"

  "That's not one of my criteria," Tim said, "but I'll try."

  "There's nobody at that one," she said, pointing to a table where a female dealer stood with her hands behind her back, staring blindly ahead over an empty expanse of green the color of sunlit Astroturf. She wore a purple vest festooned with gold brocade over a white shirt fastened at the throat with a gold broach. All the dealers, male and female, were dressed identically. "We could have it all to ourselves."

  "We don't want it all to ourselves," he said. "It'd take forever to work through the shoe."

  "But she looks lonely."

  "Quinn..."

  "Sorry."

  They wandered up and down the blackjack aisles. Quinn watched Tim's eyes flickering from table to table, searching.

  "What are we waiting for?"

  "I'm looking for the right table," Tim said. "It's got to be nearly full and the dealer is just starting a new shoe." He stopped, staring. "And I think I just found it."

  He led her to the right.

  "But it's only got one seat."

  "That's for you."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "I'll be standing right behind you, teaching you the game, waiting for another seat to open up."

  Quinn saw cigarettes in the hands of two of the four players already at the table.

  "About that non-smoking table?"

  "Quinn..."

  "Sorry."

  *

  As Tim pulled out the end seat on the dealer's right and held it for Quinn, he scanned the cards on the table. This was the first hand. He'd seen one of the players placing the yellow cut card and had moved quickly, despite the table limits: minimum $10 / Maximum $500. He would have preferred something higher. Once the cards already played were photographed and filed in his memory, he squared Quinn at the table and dropped twenty one-hundred-dollar bills on the table.

  "Hundreds," he said, and waited for Quinn's reaction.

  As the dealer called out, "Two thousand in hundreds," she didn't disappoint him: She nearly gave herself a whiplash as she snapped her head around to look at him. Tim winked, pushed the black-and-green chips in front of her, then moved behind her where he had a good view of the table.

  The other players were three deadpan middle-aged men with drinks in front of them—scotch or vodka on the rocks, Tim guessed—and an elderly, chain-smoking woman with orange hair.

  "What do I do now?" she said.

  "Bet a hundred. Put out one chip."

  "That's a hundred dollars!"

  "Please do it, Quinn." He winked at the dealer, a pretty blonde wearing a ton of eye shadow. "She's a beginner." The dealer favored him with a tolerant smile.

  Quinn slid the chip forward and was dealt an eight and a ten. The dealer had a king showing.

  "What do I do now?"

  "Stick."

  The dealer turned over a nine and raked in Quinn's chip.

  "What happened?"

  "We lost."

  "We lost a hundred dollars? Just like that?"

  Down the table, one of the other players groaned softly.

  "Put out another chip."

  "How about half a one?"

  "Quinn..."

  "Sorry."

  She placed the chip and got a four and a five in return. The dealer had a seven showing.

  "What do I do now?"

  "Take a look: The very best she can do is eighteen. Since that's over sixteen, she has to stick. You're a sure loser with what you've got, so take another card when she comes around to you."

  The dealer looked at Quinn, her eyebrows raised questioningly.

  "I'll take another card, please."

  Tim said, "Real gamblers say, 'Hit me,' or just tap their cards."

  Quinn tapped her cards. "Hit me. Please."

  Tim scanned the cards showing and noticed an indulgent smile on two of the other players.

  A ten of clubs landed in front of Quinn. The dealer turned over a queen. She placed another green-and-black chip next to Quinn's.

  "I won?" she said.

  "You won."

  "That means we're even. Maybe we should quit now."

  "Quinn..."

  "Sorry." She reached for one of the two chips in front of her.

  "Let them ride," Tim said.

  "Two hundred dollars all at once? I hope you know what you're doing."

  The pit boss, dressed in a gray suit, stepped up to Tim's side and spoke in a low voice. "Is there anything the casino can do for you, sir?"

  Tim had been expecting him. Two thousand tossed on the table tended to attract the right kind of attention. That was why he'd bought all his chips at once.

  Tim shrugged. "Our room's already comped."

  The pit boss nodded sagely. "In that case, may we offer you dinner, perhaps? And the show? Julio Iglesias is here tonight."

  "Dinner will be fine," Tim said.


  The pit boss bowed and walked off.

  Meanwhile, Quinn had been dealt a jack of clubs. Then came an ace of diamonds.

  "Blackjack!" Tim said and Quinn screeched excitedly as the dealer pushed three more chips in front of her.

  "I like this game!" she said.

  The others were smiling openly now, nudging each other. They loved her.

  Of course they did. Tim put his hands on her shoulders and gently kneaded the tight muscles under the fabric of her blouse. How could they help but love her?

  *

  Quinn was feeling a little more comfortable with the game now. She'd caught the rhythm of the table, of the play, but she was behind in the winning category. Her pile of hundred-dollar chips had shrunken.

  She didn't like this gambling thing. She didn't like any of it—the casino with its noise and congestion, the city around it, the people within it with their dead eyes and their cigarettes, their endless, air-fouling, breath-clogging, eye-stinging cigarettes.

  And she would have been completely loaded by now if she'd taken advantage of the complimentary cocktails. Every few minutes a long-legged waitress in a short skirt and a feathered fez—it had taken awhile for Quinn to get used to that fez—would be at her side, asking her if she wanted a drink. Quinn ordered her usual Diet Pepsi.

  She had a moment of uncertainty when the orange-haired lady quit her seat and Tim strutted to the far end of the table to claim it, taking half of her remaining chips with him.

  "I guess it's time for me to show Mr. Trump how to play this game for keeps," he said in exaggerated basso voice, a perfect parody of macho overconfidence.

  He gave her a reassuring wave from the other end and she realized why he hadn't hesitated to move: the curve of the table gave her a clear view of him to her right. She missed the reassuring pressure of his hands resting on her shoulders but realized it was probably better if there was a little distance between them. It would make it easier to see the series of hand signals Tim had set up between them.

  He'd said they'd be a very unpopular couple if the casino tumbled to what they were up to. That was probably the reason she had this prickling at the back of her neck, this feeling she was being watched. She'd glanced around a few times when the feeling had been exceptionally strong but had found no one staring at her.