by James Swain
He chose an NRA camouflage cap that he’d bought off a farm boy down on Fremont Street. The cap had “outdoors” written all over it. He got dressed and appraised himself in the mirror. He liked what he saw, except his face. His skin was too smooth to be a ranch hand, his teeth too straight. From a drawer he grabbed a bridge and stuck it into his mouth. The bridge gave him a wicked overbite and distorted his face to the point of being unrecognizable.
He again consulted the mirror. Better but not perfect. Ranch hands lived outdoors and had bronze-colored skin. His skin was a pleasant tan and might get spotted by a sharp pit boss if he wasn’t careful.
In the bathroom, he pulled a can of fake spray tan off the shelf and applied it to his neck, face, and the back of his hands. Before his eyes, his skin changed color and took on a darkish hue. He returned to the bedroom and had a look.
“Yee-haw,” he said to the mirror.
His final stop was the wall safe. He removed two five-thousand-dollar stacks, which he slipped into his pants pockets. Before he started painting cards, he needed to lose. By losing, he’d further establish himself as a sucker and draw no heat.
Time to leave. At the front door, he realized he’d forgotten the tin of luminous paint. He asked himself if he was really cut out for this job. Painting was an art, and he was a mere apprentice. He was putting himself at risk.
But the reward was worth it. Seventeen million bucks for a single day’s work. It didn’t matter that the money would be split with the football players and with Victor. It was still a huge score, and he didn’t walk away from huge scores.
The tin of luminous paint in his pocket, he took the elevator downstairs. Walking outside to the valet stand, he took out the bridge and removed his camo cap. The valet did a double take anyway, the clothes not in character for the tenant who occupied a penthouse suite.
“Sorry, Mr. Cunningham. The clothes sort of threw me,” the valet said.
“I’m slumming it today,” he explained.
“You buy a tanning bed?”
“Got a little too much sun on the golf course. You know how it is.”
“Tell me about it. I’m out in the sun all day. I’ll bring your car right up.”
The valet hustled away. Billy retreated to the shade and put his disguise back on. Then he worked on his new identity. He decided to call himself Ty Lubbick because it sounded like a cowboy name. Having just gotten paid, Ty had driven to Vegas looking for a good time.
“Name’s Ty, Ty Lubbick. Nice to meet you,” he said, working on his drawl.
A red Corolla nudged the curb. The vehicle looked familiar but not the train wreck who climbed out. A blonde wearing hideous purple fingernail polish and too much makeup chewing on a wad of bubble gum. She threw him a disapproving glance.
“You can’t be the valet.” Her accent was back east and harsh.
“No, ma’am,” he said. “If you’re in a rush, you can leave your keys with the front desk manager. His name’s Jo-Jo, and he’s an honorable fellow.”
“You don’t say. Don’t I know you?”
“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”
“What’s your name?”
“Ty Lubbick.”
“I’ve seen you before, Ty, haven’t I?”
“I wouldn’t know. I work on a ranch roping cattle.”
“You don’t say. A real live cowboy.”
Trying to smile while wearing a bridge was difficult, but he did it anyway. The blonde was still trying to place him, and he refused to wilt beneath her stare. Finally, she gave up.
“Thanks for the help,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
She went inside. Her dress was of simple design and hung straight to the ground. The type of dress an overweight woman might wear, only the blonde didn’t look overweight. He glanced into the Corolla and spied a pack of Kools stuck in the cup holder.
“For the love of Christ,” he swore.
He went inside to find her standing at the front desk. Jo-Jo was on the phone and hadn’t gotten to her yet. He took the dangling set of car keys from her hand.
“Didn’t expect to see you again,” he said quietly.
Her head snapped. “Billy? As I live and breathe. I had no idea.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I changed my mind. I want in. I know it sounds crazy. Please don’t blow your top.”
“Let’s take this outside, shall we?”
His car idled at the curb, the valet standing by the driver’s door. Billy tossed him the keys to Mags’s car. “Do me a favor, and park my friend’s car for me.”
“Sure, Mr. Cunningham. You guys going to a costume party?”
Billy didn’t want the valet telling the other tenants about this. The building was filled with old people who had nothing better to do than gossip and spread rumors. Pulling a hundred off the stack in his pocket, he stuffed the bill into the valet’s shirt pocket.
“Put a lid on it.”
“Of course, Mr. Cunningham. My lips are sealed.”
Leaving Turnberry, Billy took Paradise to East Sahara. Instead of heading west to the Strip, he chose the opposite direction and pushed the accelerator to the floor.
“You’re going in the wrong direction. Slow down,” Mags said.
“Don’t tell me how to drive,” he said. “I’m going to ask you some questions, and if I don’t like the answers I get, I’m going to toss you out of the car while it’s still moving.”
Mags started to argue, then thought better of it.
“Fire away,” she said.
“What the hell is going on? I made you the deal of a lifetime yesterday, and you slapped me in the face. Now you show up on my doorstep wanting in. Did something happen in the last couple of hours I should know about? And don’t you dare bullshit me.”
“My daughter talked me into it.”
His foot involuntarily came off the gas, and the car slowed. “Your kid told you to?”
“In so many words, yes.”
“Why? Is she hard up for cash and plans to hit you up?”
“It was nothing like that. Amber realized I took the TV gig to impress her. Seems she was already impressed with her old lady. My baby’s got a hard-on for the casinos. I got her on a plane, went home, put on my Molly Maid disguise, and drove over. If that doesn’t work for you, I’ll get out at the next block. No hard feelings.”
It sounded crazy enough to be true. “Does your kid cheat?”
“No. But she’s been tempted. She carries around a gaffed die that I used back in Providence to scam businessmen at the bars.”
“Are you cool with that?”
“That’s none of your fucking business.”
“Normally, I’d agree with you. It isn’t any of my fucking business. Only you want to do a job with me, and I need to know where your head is at. Now answer the question.”
“No, I’m not cool with it. I made Amber promise me that she’d never resort to thieving, and she gave me her word.”
“Are things good between the two of you?”
“Yeah. It was a good trip, even if my show did get cancelled.”
“You’re not bitter about that?”
“Sure I’m bitter. But I’ll get over it. Life marches on.”
He’d heard enough. Mags had a thick skin; it was one of the reasons she’d lasted for as long as she had. At the next intersection, he did a U-turn and reversed course, causing the Strip’s gaudy skyline to appear in the windshield. Mags managed a smile.
“Are you really going to give me half a million bucks for this job?” she asked.
“Have I ever lied to you before?”
“No, but there’s always a first time.”
Mags didn’t fully trust him. Billy couldn’t say he blamed her. Running out on her after sharing a bed had to be one of the stupidest things he’d ever done.
“You’ll get every penny. You have my word,” he said.
“There you go,” she said.<
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FORTY-NINE
If there was any person inside a casino who Billy feared, it was the pit boss.
Pit bosses ran the blackjack games and were trained to watch dealers and players for any suspicious behavior. If cheating was suspected, a pit boss would pick up a house phone, call security, and have the offending party hauled away.
There were more than five hundred pit bosses employed in Las Vegas. One hundred of these were seasoned pros who could smell a hustle a mile away. The rest didn’t know jack and had gotten their jobs because they had juice within the casino.
Billy maintained a database of pit bosses, which included the pit boss’s name, his casino, a description of his physical appearance and hair color, and whether or not he was a problem. The information was kept on Billy’s phone, giving him easy access.
The first MGM property he and Mags visited was the Luxor. The most outrageous joint on the Strip, the Luxor was designed like an Egyptian pyramid and had a three-hundred-thousand-watt beam spitting out of the top along with an ersatz Sphinx guarding the front entrance.
“I’ll wait for you in the bar,” Mags said.
He took a stroll through the blackjack pit. He counted four single-deck games where a dealing shoe was not in use. One of these games would soon have its cards marked with luminous paint. A flashy female pit boss with red hair stood in the pit’s center, supervising the action. He pulled her up on his database. Her name was Lexie Lowman, and she was new.
He found Mags at a table in the bar. “Pit boss is green. This shouldn’t be too hard.”
“You going to run interference for me?” she asked.
“That was the plan.” Taking a stack of hundreds from his pocket, he slipped them to her beneath the table. “Here’s your play money. There are four tables with handheld games in the pit. Pick any one. I’ll join you in a few minutes.”
“Got it. That bridge in your mouth is hideous.”
“I was just going to say the same thing about your disguise.”
“Thanks. By the way, did you bring the paint?”
Taking the tin of luminous paint from his other pocket, he also passed it beneath the table. Mags slipped the tin into her purse and rose from the table.
“It’s great to finally be running together,” he said.
She flashed a smile. Beneath the hideous makeup and sloppy wig, she was still a beauty, her smoldering green eyes an invitation for the best kind of trouble. Slinging her purse over her shoulder, she sauntered out of the bar and entered the blackjack pit.
It didn’t take Mags long to pick her spot. Like a shark smelling blood in the water, she sat down at a table with a break-in dealer, which was a dealer in training who worked a low-limit game during slow times, and threw three hundred-dollar bills onto the felt. The dealer made the exchange and pushed two stacks of chips toward her.
Billy left the bar a few minutes later and approached Mags’s table. The seats had filled up, leaving only one empty chair. He grabbed it.
“Name’s Ty Lubbick,” he announced. “Nice to meet you all.”
The other players at the table grunted hello. Casinos were fun places at night. But in the morning, they were deadly, the atmosphere as lively as a supermarket checkout line.
“Is this a lucky table?” he asked, keeping up the banter.
“It hasn’t been so far,” one of the players grumbled.
“Maybe we can change that.”
He tossed $200 onto the felt, and the dealer turned it into chips. The dealer said, “Place your bets,” and each player placed chips into the betting circle.
The dealer clumsily sailed cards around the table, hitting drinks and stacks of cards. Sailing cards was an art that this dealer had yet to master, and he mumbled an apology.
Billy looked across the table at his partner. Mags lit up a cigarette and returned the pack to her purse. Her fingers found the tin of luminous paint, unscrewed the lid, and applied a tiny amount to all five fingertips. Every painter had a unique style. For Maggie, it was the ability to load up for five applications at once.
As Mags checked her hand, her first and second fingers did the dirty work and painted the backs of the cards. The movement was light-years ahead of what he’d been practicing in his condo, her movements so polished they were nearly invisible.
The dealer coughed violently. Most dealers hated players who smoked but couldn’t voice a complaint without fear of losing their jobs. The consummate pro, Mags knew better than to have the dealer pissed off at her.
“Should I put this out?” she asked.
“That’s okay,” the dealer said.
“No, it’s not. You’re allergic. I’ll get rid of it.”
Mags crushed the butt into the metal ashtray built into the table. Billy loved it. Mags had turned the dealer into a friend, always a smart play when scamming a game. Mags could not paint all the high cards without some help. On the next round, Billy pointed at the words printed in gold on the felt layout. “Excuse me, but what does it mean, ‘Dealer stands on soft seventeen’?”
The dealer explained the rule. When the dealer received an ace and a six, it was considered a “soft” total of seventeen, and he was required to stand pat and not take another card.
“Got it,” Billy said.
While this conversation took place, Mags painted two more cards.
And so it went. For the next half hour, Mags painted cards while Billy kept the dealer distracted. It went without a hitch and reminded him of that day in Providence when Mags had recruited him into helping her sell fake cashmere sweaters to a bunch of hard hats working a construction job. That event was a turning point, and it led to his becoming a grifter.
Mags had made it seem easy to separate suckers from their money. In reality, hustling was hard work, dangerous as well. Except with Mags, for whom stealing was absolute child’s play. Leaving Luxor, they rode an otherwise empty tram to their next target, the MGM Grand.
“You haven’t lost your touch,” he said.
“Old habits die hard,” she said.
“How many cards in the deck did you paint?”
“All the high ones. I counted.”
The admission blew him away. Because the game was single deck, Mags had memorized each card she’d painted and kept the information stored in her head.
“I’m not just another pretty face, you know,” she added.
FIFTY
The pit boss at the MGM Grand was a rookie, and Billy and Mags found a single-deck blackjack game and went to work. The hotel was hosting a convention, and there was plenty of action inside the casino. As a result, Billy had to distract the dealer only a handful of times.
“Give me some ten-dollar chips,” he said, throwing money on the felt.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” the dealer said politely.
“Why not?”
“The casino doesn’t have ten-dollar chips,” the dealer explained.
“That’s crazy. Every casino has ten-dollar chips. What’s wrong with this place?”
The dealer acted confused. No casino in the world had chips with a denomination of ten dollars. But that hadn’t stopped cheats from posing this question to dim-witted dealers and momentarily distracting them while their partners did the dirty work.
Painting the deck at the MGM went without a hitch. Thirty minutes later, they walked out the front door and down the sidewalk to the intersection of Tropicana and the Strip. Their next stop was the Mandalay Bay, another MGM property. It was two blocks away, and they decided to hike it.
“I want you to explain something to me,” Mags said. “The casinos have equipment that detects luminous paint on the backs of cards. How do you plan to get around that?”
“The equipment at the MGM properties is flawed,” he said.
“It’s flawed at all their casinos?”
“Yup. The parent company switched suppliers, and the new company screwed up.”
“No wonder you want to jump on it. What happens when MGM
finds out the equipment isn’t working properly?”
“We’ll be long gone by then.”
“You said that you were using football players as takeoff men. Be careful. I worked a scam in Atlantic City with two guys who played baseball for the Yankees and they were a nightmare. Never again.”
“Why—did they try to hit on you?”
“Guys hit on me all the time. I don’t have an issue with that. The problem is with dumb jocks. Most of them are spoiled rotten brats who never grew up. You tell them to do one thing, and they say yes, then do another thing entirely. I later checked out the baseball players and learned they’d been in trouble their whole lives but were never held accountable. They were a total liability.”
“The football players have been working a poker scam. They’re part-time grifters.”
“Doesn’t matter. They’re still jocks, and used to having things their own way. Mark my words, one of them will go sideways on you. It’s their nature.”
The street entrance to Mandalay Bay resembled a temple and was designed to make visitors feel like royalty. Once inside, Mags headed straight for the Eyecandy Lounge while Billy wanted to check out the blackjack pit. The pit boss was another rookie. Beautiful.
He entered the lounge to find Mags watching a couple practice their moves on the dance floor. “Pit boss isn’t going to be a problem,” he said.
“Then let’s do it.”
Mags started to stand. Billy placed a gentle hand on her sleeve and she sat back down. “Would you reconsider joining my crew? Your chops are incredible. Run with me, and you’ll never get caught again. That’s a promise you can take to the bank.”
“I thought you already had a mechanic. What’s his name? Travis?”
“Travis is out of the picture. I need to find a replacement.”
“Is that what I am, a replacement? Not interested, thanks the same.”
“I’ll make you a partner. You’ll get half.”
“Jesus, Billy, what’s come over you?”
