The Nighttime is the Right Time

by Bill Crider

  It was a little after noon, and I ordered a sandwich. Cammie didn't want one. She was too wired to eat.

  "You look really dorky in those glasses," she said. Her voice was low and slightly husky, a quality I attributed to the cigarettes. "And where on earth did you get the pocket protector. 'Elmer's Plumbing'? Give me a break."

  "I thought it was nice touch," I told her.

  She took a deep swallow of coffee. "You probably think that stupid part in your hair's a nice touch, too, but it isn't."

  "It should fool the croupier," I said. "He won't know he's seen me before."

  "I guess. If you want to risk it."

  "I'm willing. What did you find out?"

  She blew a spiral of smoke and looked around. No one appeared interested in us.

  "I think you were right," she said, grinning.

  She looked good with a grin. Short blonde hair, blue eyes, a small mouth and nose. Sort of the gamin look. Not that she looked as good as Tony, but she looked pretty good.

  And like me, she could look quite different when the occasion called for it, as it had lately. Yesterday she'd looked like a fashion model on vacation, and the day before that she'd looked like a harassed mother who'd misplaced her three kids.

  We'd been watching the wheels in Monte Carlo's famous casino for four days, and we'd settled on the one at table four a couple of days earlier. My theory was that a system wasn't good enough. It would help if you could find a wheel that was just slightly out of balance.

  It didn't need to be out of balance much. Hardly any, in fact, and the odds against finding one were quite high in themselves. Casinos generally go to a lot of trouble to make sure that everything is perfect, but now and then someone slips up. It doesn't happen often. Hardly ever, in fact. But it does happen.

  We'd been looking for weeks. Monte Carlo wasn't our first stop, and it wouldn't have been our last had we not found the right wheel. It looked like we had.

  All we needed was a wheel that turned up one number more often than any other. To be sure that we'd found one, we had to watch it for at least twenty-four hours. We'd been watching for forty-eight, spread out over three days, in our various disguises. Cammie had just come off the final shift.

  "So it's the red five?" I said.

  She crushed out the cigarette. "It's the red five all right. Table four."

  The odds of any single number coming up are one in thirty-seven. The red five was coming up more often than that, more like one time in thirty. That was more than often enough to offset the house odds on a single zero wheel.

  "So if they don't adjust the wheel before tonight, we use the system on the red five," she said. "At table four. And you're the player."

  "That's me. Joe Nerd."

  "You're not going to wear that get-up. Not really."

  I told her that I was wasn't going to change much, and that I had a good reason. When I told her why, she wasn't happy with me.

  "You idiot! You actually told someone we had a system?"

  "Not we. I told her that I had a system. She doesn't know about you. And I didn't tell her anything at all about the wheel. So don't worry."

  Cammie showed instant suspicion, one of her less attractive qualities. "I should have known it was a woman. You always talk too much to women. What does she look like?"

  The waiter brought my sandwich, and I took a bite to avoid answering. After I'd finished chewing, I said, "She looks good. But not great."

  Cammie narrowed her eyes. I could tell she didn't trust me, not that I blamed her.

  Cammie and I had met two years earlier in Las Vegas, where she'd been dealing blackjack. I'd made a bundle at her table, and we'd gotten out of town just before anyone figured out how I was doing it, a little matter of a trick that involved her help and that was in violation of every casino rule in the book. We'd made a little money since, here and there, enough so that I had a pretty good stake, and then I'd come up with the idea of finding a roulette wheel that was just slightly out of whack. I'd never expected to find it in Monte Carlo, really, but I was just as happy that we had.

  "So why did you tell her?" Cammie asked. "I thought you were nervous around women."

  She knew me pretty well. I'd been nervous around her, too, as first, and talked too much, though if I hadn't had a drink or three too many, I'd never have tried to con her into helping me with the blackjack scam. As it turned out, she didn't need conning. She was eager to help.

  "I found her cat," I said. I told her all about Tony, the cat, and Uncle Andre.

  "Uncle, my aunt fanny," she said. She got out a Players and lit it with a disposable lighter from her purse. "You should've kept your mouth shut."

  "Not really," I rationalized. "That's the beauty of it. She seems to know her way around here, and when word gets out that some geek broke the bank, she'll remember me and tell people about my supposed 'system.' People will think I got lucky. No one will ever know we had a fixed wheel."

  "It isn't fixed. It's just a little out of balance."

  "You're absolutely right. And they certainly can't blame us for that."

  She blew a smoke ring and stuck her finger through it. "Describe this Andre for me again."

  I did.

  "Dark hair?"

  For some reason, I don't usually notice men's hair, but now that she mentioned it, I remembered.

  "Yes," I said. "And a little curly."

  "I think I've seen him around the casino. Do you think he could be security?"

  He was certainly big enough, but I didn't think they'd use anyone that obvious.

  "Probably just another gambler," I said. "And remember what we just discussed. It's not our fault if the wheel's out of balance."

  She took a deep drag from the cigarette and turned to blow the smoke away from me. Or maybe she just didn't want me to see her face.

  "I'll remember," she said.

  3.

  I went to the casino just as night was falling. I had to walk, because parking in the crush of automobiles there is almost impossible, but I didn't mind. The casino is an impressive sight, worth looking at as you approach it from nearly any angle, especially at night when the floodlights are on.

  The floodlights brighten the ornate casino facade and throw into obscurity the high-rises that suffocate the area around it. Once, Monte Carlo must have been a beautiful place, but now it looks a lot like any city anywhere.

  Across from the casino, boats lined the harbor, and there was just the faintest tinge of azure still in the sky where it met the dark sea.

  I had on my thick-rimmed glasses, and I was wearing a dark three-piece suit that was about four years out of style, loafers with tassels, and a paisley tie. I was worth a second glance from the man who checked my passport, but no more than that. He didn't care how I dressed as long as I had on a tie.

  He returned my passport, and I walked into the American Room, which is filled with tourists who seem to want to lose their money fast. The smoky air was noisy with the sound of the one hundred and twenty slot machines and the balls clacking around the American-style roulette wheels.

  I walked right on through, with only a glance into the Pink Salon, the bar where Cammie would be waiting for me. The ceiling was painted with floating women, most of whom were nude and most of whom were smoking. I didn't see Cammie.

  As I paid my fee to enter the European Gaming Room, I had a qualm or two about the tie and about the tassels on the loafers; the standards here were somewhat higher than for the first room in the casino. But apparently I passed muster. I was allowed to enter.

  Besides being classier, the European Room was much quieter than the American Room. Nearly everyone was better-dressed than I was, and everyone looked quite serious about the business at hand, which was gambling. The chefs watched the tables from tall wooden chairs, their eyes bright and alert for any sign of trouble.

  I wasn't going to be any trouble. I was just there to win a large sum of money. I exchanged a huge wad of francs for chips and walked
up to the table, which was set up a bit differently from an American table. There are layouts for betting on both sides of the table, and in this room there were padded rails not far away so that onlookers could lean at their ease and get a few vicarious thrills by watching the real gamblers.

  I approached the table and put five hundred francs down on the black ten. I thought I might as well lose a little to begin with.

  Almost as soon as the money was down, one of the croupiers said, "Rien ne va plus." The tourneur spun the wheel and dropped the silver ball, which whirred and bounced and clicked. I took a deep breath and waited for it to drop.

  ~ * ~

  I don't know when Tony arrived. I noticed her about two hours into the game, standing at the rail directly across the table from me. She smiled when I looked up, and my concentration broke for a moment.

  That was all right. I needed a little break. I was almost 50,000 francs in the hole. It wasn't as bad as it sounds at first, since a dollar is worth five francs, but 10,000 dollars is still a lot of money. In fact it was about a third of my stake. Things weren't working out exactly as I'd planned.

  The red five hadn't been coming up, not often enough and certainly not when I had money on it. My real plan -- as opposed to the one I'd told Tony about -- had been to move the money around at first, putting a little on the red five now and then so that no one would be suspicious when I started playing the five exclusively. I'd win a little, lose a little, then get hot and break the bank.

  It had seemed like a good plan when I thought of it, but obviously it wasn't working out. I was losing more than I was winning. Maybe the wheel wasn't out of balance after all. Or maybe I was just unlucky.

  There was a TV commercial in the states when I left, something about never letting them see you sweat. Well, I was sweating, and if something good didn't happen soon, they were going to see me doing it.

  The break was over. I wondered if Tony's appearance at the rail might not be an omen. What the hell, I thought. I shoved all the rest of my chips out on the table, onto the red five.

  The tourneur gave the wheel a practiced spin and flipped the ball in the opposite direction. Time suddenly slowed down. The ball glided like mercury on tile, and then it began bouncing. Every time that it bounced, it seemed to hang in the air for several seconds before striking the wheel again.

  I looked at Tony. She was still smiling; it was as if she hadn't moved at all.

  I glanced back at the wheel, and things suddenly snapped back to normal. The ball bounced once, twice, three times, and landed in the red five.

  As the croupier called out the number, I let out a breath that I hadn't even known I was holding. I'd put nearly 25,000 francs on the number, at odds of thirty-five to one. That meant I'd won almost 175,000 dollars in one spin of the wheel.

  I straightened my glasses. "Let it ride," I said. It was time to go with the flow.

  The croupier called to someone, and a man dressed better than most of the gamblers came over to the table. There was a whispered conversation.

  I thought about the time all those years ago when the ball had landed in the black seventeen times in a row. I didn't need seventeen times in a row. I just needed to hit one more time. The odds against it happening were huge, but not as bad as you might think. The wheel didn't know that the red five had just come up. I had the same chance of hitting it again that I'd had the first time. And if the wheel really was out of balance, maybe the chance was better than it should be.

  The croupier was looking at me as the well-dressed man whispered to him. I tried to keep my voice level and repeated, "Let it ride."

  The man was finished with the croupier. Now he wanted to talk to me. I didn't blame him. If I hit, I was going to win something like six and a quarter million dollars. I was sweating a lot more now than I'd been when I was losing.

  The man was very polite, and he didn't appear to be as nervous as I was. Probably he dealt with large sums of money more often than I did.

  "Are you enjoying yourself, monsieur?" he asked.

  "Very much," I said, taking off my glasses and cleaning them with a tissue from my suit pocket. My heart was about to jump out of my chest, but my hands didn't tremble. Much.

  "Do you realize the value of your bet?" His voice was as calm as if he were discussing the beautiful autumn weather we were having.

  "I believe I do," I said, settling the glasses on my nose and returning the tissue to my pocket. I patted my hair just to the right of the part and smiled at him.

  "You have won quite a sum of money already. Are you sure that you want to risk it all on one spin of the wheel?"

  I shrugged. Casual Joe Nerd. "Easy come, easy go."

  He mumbled something then that might have been a reference to "stupid Americans," but I didn't quite catch it. I wasn't meant to.

  I looked around at the crowd. There were a lot more people watching now than there had been only moments before. All of them were observing us expectantly, Tony among them. She liked her lips in anticipation, and my heart beat even faster.

  "Everyone's waiting," I said. "I hope the casino won't let them down."

  The man didn't bother to look at the crowd. For that matter, he didn't bother to look at me. Six million dollars wasn't really that much money, not to him and the house. It wouldn't break the bank, though it would come close enough to satisfy me.

  The man nodded to the croupier, who said, "Rien ne va plus." The room became as silent as an empty cathedral.

  When the tourneur spun the wheel, it seemed to roar like a jet plane on take-off. The ball zipped around like an Indy racer, and when it bounced it sounded like a skull ricocheting inside a marble cavern.

  I couldn't watch. I closed my eyes. I may even have crossed my fingers.

  About ten years later, I heard the croupier.

  "Cinc." There was a pause of nearly a century, and I could hear the blood pounding in my head. Then he said, quite calmly, "Rouge."

  I opened my eyes. There was a clamoring and shouting like you might hear when an underdog wins the Superbowl. Men were pounding me on the back and women were trying to kiss me. My knees were weak, but I was rapidly gaining strength.

  I craned my neck above the sea of heads, trying to find Tony, but she was gone. I didn't wonder about her for long. Instead I looked back at the wheel and the silvery ball nestling in the red five.

  I'll admit it. There was an instant when I actually thought about saying, "Let it ride." If I hit again, I'd win over 214 million dollars. I really would break the bank at Monte Carlo, or come very close.

  Would the well-dressed man have let me take the chance? Probably, in the hope that I'd lose; the odds were certainly against me, unbalanced wheel or not. Or maybe he'd hustle me outside, unwilling to allow me the opportunity to win.

  It didn't matter. I told them to cash me in.

  "Follow me, monsieur," the well-dressed man said. I did, after making sure that the croupiers and the tourneur had nice tips. I could afford to be generous.

  I couldn't resist looking back, though, to see where the ball landed on the next spin.

  In the black, thirty-two.

  It was just as well I'd stopped.

  4.

  Cammie was in the bar when I arrived carrying a black leather case.

  "My God," she said. "You won."

  I nodded.

  She crushed out the cigarette she had been smoking, a sure sign that she was excited. "How much?" She didn't wait for an answer. "Was that cheering I heard in there for you? I thought it might be, but I couldn't bear to go in and find out."

  I said that the cheering was for me.

  "Oh my God! I can't believe it! How much?"

  I told her.

  She stared at the leather bag. "And it's all in there?"

  "Not all of it. They don't keep that much on hand, or if they do, they don't give it out to guys like me. But there's a lot. I told them I'd take a check for the rest."

  "My God." She fumbled in her purse for
her cigarettes, then gave it up. She looked back at the bag. "Everyone in that room knows you won. How are we going to get it to the hotel without being robbed?"

  I turned and gestured toward the doorway. There were two large men in tight suits standing there.

  "The casino was kind enough to provide an escort. No one wants to see a lucky gambler lose his winnings to a footpad."

  "A footpad?"

  "Cutpurse, mugger, what-have-you."

  "You talk funny when you're excited."

  "If you think I'm excited now, wait until we get to the hotel. I've always wanted to play Scrooge McDuck. You know. Throw it up and let it hit me on the head. Burrow through it like a gopher."

  "Now's your chance," she said. She hooked an arm through mine. "Let's go."

  ~ * ~

  We arrived at the hotel without incident, and the bodyguards left us without a word, except to thank me for the tip. I was about to have the bag put in the hotel vault when Cammie stopped me.

  "Scrooge McDuck," she said. "Remember?"

  I didn't suppose it would hurt anything. She deserved to see the money. And the check. We went up to the room.

  When we opened the door, we got quite a surprise.

  Tony was sitting in an armchair, waiting for us. So was Michelle, who was curled in Tony's lap, asleep.

  And so, unfortunately, was Uncle Andre, who was holding a very ugly pistol in his right hand. A Glock 17, ugly but very accurate, or so I've heard.

  "Shit," Cammie said, glaring at me. I didn't blame her.

  "Close the door," Andre said, moving the pistol barrel just slightly.

  I did what he said.

  "Who's your friend, Mike?" Tony asked.

  "Inspector Lestrade, Scotland Yard," I said, but no one laughed.

  "You're a very lucky man, Mike," Tony said, stroking Michelle's back. The cat began to purr so loudly that I could hear her across the room. "Didn't I tell you he seemed lucky, Andre?"