The Randall Garrett Megapack

by Randall Garrett

  Howley nodded apologetically and pulled off everything but two thousand dollars worth of chips.

  The third time around, the croupier had his eyes directly on Howley as he repeated the chant: “Thirteen, Black, Odd, and Low.” Everybody else at the table was watching Howley, too. The odds against Howley—or anyone else, for that matter—hitting the same number three times in a row are just under forty thousand to one.

  Howley didn’t want to overdo it. He left two thousand on thirteen, raked in the rest, and twisted the dial on his gadget over a notch.

  Everyone at the table gasped as the little ball dropped.

  “That was a near miss,” whispered a woman standing nearby.

  The croupier said: “Fourteen, Red, Even, and Low.” And he raked in Howley’s two thousand dollars with a satisfied smile. He had seen runs of luck before.

  Howley deliberately lost two more spins the same way. Nobody who was actually cheating would call too much attention to himself, and Howley wanted it to look as though he were trying to cover up the fact that he had a sure thing.

  He took the gadget out of his pocket and deliberately set it to the green square marked 00. Then he put it back in his pocket and put two thousand dollars on the Double Zero.

  * * * *

  There was more than suspicion in the croupier’s eyes when he raked in all the bets on the table except Howley’s. It definitely didn’t look good to him. A man who had started out with a fifty-dollar bet had managed to run it up to one hundred seventy-four thousand two hundred dollars in six plays.

  Howley looked as innocent as possible under the circumstances, and carefully dropped the dial on his gadget back a few notches. Then he bet another two thousand on High, an even money bet.

  Naturally, he won.

  He twisted the dial back a few more notches and won again on High.

  Then he left it where it was and won by betting on Red.

  By this time, of course, things were happening. The croupier had long since pressed the alarm button, and five men had carefully surrounded Howley. They looked like customers, but they were harder-looking than the average, and they were watching Howley, not the wheel. Farther back from the crowd, three of the special deputies from the sheriff’s office were trying to look inconspicuous in their gray uniforms and white Stetsons and pearl-handled revolvers in black holsters. You can imagine how inconspicuous they looked.

  Howley decided to do it up brown. He reset his gadget as surreptitiously as possible under the circumstances, and put his money on thirteen again.

  “Thirteen, Black, Odd, and Low,” said the croupier in a hollow voice.

  The five men in evening dress and the three deputies moved in closer.

  Howley nonchalantly scraped in his winnings, leaving the two thousand on the thirteen spot.

  There was a combination of hostility and admiration in every eye around the table when the croupier said, “Thirteen, Black, Odd, and Low” for the fifth time in the space of minutes. And everyone of those eyes was turned on Jason Howley.

  The croupier smiled his professional smile. “I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen; we’ll have to discontinue play for a while. The gentleman has broken the bank at this table.” He turned the smile on Howley. “Congratulations, sir.”

  Howley smiled back and began stacking up over three hundred thousand dollars worth of plastic disks. It made quite a pile.

  One of the deputies stepped up politely. “I’m an officer, sir,” he said. “May I help you carry that to the cashier’s office?”

  Howley looked at the gold star and nodded. “Certainly. Thanks.”

  The other two deputies stepped up, too, and the three of them walked Howley toward the cashier’s office. Behind them came the five men in dinner jackets.

  “You’ll have to step into the office to cash that much, sir,” said one of the deputies as he opened the door. Howley walked in as though he hadn’t a care in the world. He put his chips on the desk, and the deputies followed suit, while one of the dinner-jacketed men closed the door.

  Then one of the deputies said: “I believe this gentleman is carrying a gun.”

  He had his own revolver out and had it pointed at Howley’s middle. “Carrying a concealed weapon is illegal in this city,” he went on. “I’m afraid we’ll have to search you.”

  Howley didn’t object. He put his hands up high and stood there while his pockets were frisked.

  “Well, well,” said the deputy coolly. “What on Earth is this?”

  It was Howley’s gadget, and the dial still pointed to Thirteen—Black, Odd, and Low.

  * * * *

  The next morning, I went down to the jail in response to a phone call from Howley. The special deputies had turned him over to the city police and he was being held “under suspicion of fraud.” I knew we could beat that down to an “attempt to defraud,” but the object was to get Howley off scott-free. After Howley told me the whole story, I got busy pushing the case through. As long as he was simply being held on suspicion, I couldn’t get him out on bail, so I wanted to force the district attorney or the police to prefer charges.

  Meanwhile, I made sure that Howley’s gadget had been impounded as evidence. I didn’t want anyone fiddling with it before the case went to court—except, of course, the D. A. and his men. There wasn’t much I could do to keep it out of their hands.

  After throwing as much weight around as I could, including filing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus with Judge Grannis, I went over to Howley’s hotel with a signed power of attorney that Howley had given me, and I got a small envelope out of the hotel safe. It contained a baggage check.

  I went over to the bus depot, turned over the check to the baggage department, and went back to my office with a small suitcase. I locked myself in and opened the case. Sure enough, it contained three dozen of the little gadgets.

  Then I sat down to wait. By noon, Judge Grannis had issued the writ of habeas corpus, and, rather than release Jason Howley, the police had booked him, and District Attorney Thursby was getting the case ready for the grand jury. There was over a quarter of a million dollars at stake, and the men behind the Golden Casino were bringing pressure to bear. If Howley wasn’t convicted, they’d have to give him his money—and that was the last thing they wanted to do. A quarter of a million bucks isn’t small potatoes, even to a gambling syndicate.

  It wasn’t until early on the morning of the third day after Howley’s arrest that I got a tip-off from one of my part-time spies. I scooped up the phone when it rang and identified myself.

  “Counselor? Look, this is Benny.” I recognized the voice and name. Benny was one of the cabbies that I’d done favors for in the past.

  “What’s the trouble, Benny?”

  “Oh, no trouble. I just got a little tip you might be interested in.”

  “Fire away.”

  “Well, the D.A. and some of his boys went into the Golden Casino about ten minutes ago, and now they’re closin’ up the place. Just for a little while, I understand. Hour, maybe. They’re chasin’ everyone out of the roulette room.”

  “Thanks, Benny,” I said, “thanks a lot.”

  “Well, I knew you was working on that Howley case, and I thought this might be important, so I—”

  “Sure, Benny. Come by my office this afternoon. And thanks again.”

  I hung up and started moving.

  Within ten minutes, I was pulling up and parking across the street from the Golden Casino. I locked the car and dodged traffic to get across the street, as though I’d never heard of laws against jaywalking.

  There were still plenty of people in the Casino. The bar was full, and the dice and card games were going full blast. The slot machines were jingling out their infernal din while fools fed coins into their insatiable innards.

  But the roulette room was closed, and a couple of be-Stetsoned deputies were standing guard over the entrance. I headed straight for them.

  Both of them stood pat, blocking my way,
so I stopped a few feet in front of them.

  “Hello, counselor,” said one. “Sorry, the roulette room’s closed.”

  I knew the man slightly. “Let me in, Jim,” I said. “I want to see Thursby.”

  The men exchanged glances. Obviously, the D.A. had given them orders.

  “Can’t do it, counselor,” said Jim. “We’re not to let anyone in.”

  “Tell Thursby I’m out here and that I want to see him.”

  He shrugged, opened the door, stuck his head inside, and called to District Attorney Thursby to tell him that I was outside. I could hear Thursby’s muffled “Damn!” from within. But when he showed up at the door, his face was all smiles.

  “What’s the trouble?” he asked pleasantly.

  I smiled back, giving him my best. “No trouble at all, Thursby. I just wanted to watch the experiment.”

  “Experiment?” He looked honestly surprised, which was a fine piece of acting. “We’re just checking to see if the table’s wired, that’s all. If it is, your client may be in the clear; maybe we can hang it on the croupier.”

  “And get a conspiracy charge on my client, too, eh? Well, if you don’t mind, I’d like to watch that table check myself. You know how it is.”

  Thursby hesitated, then he scowled. “Oh, all right. Come on in. But stay out of the way.”

  I grinned. “Sure. All I want to do is protect my client’s interests.”

  Thursby just grunted and opened the door wider to let me in. He was a shrewd lawyer, a good D.A., and basically honest, even if he did have a tendency to bend under pressure from higher up.

  * * * *

  They were checking the table, all right. They had three specialists going over it with everything from fine tooth combs to Geiger counters. They found nothing. No magnets, no wires, no mechanical gimmicks. Nothing.

  It took them an hour to take that table apart, check it, and put it back together again. When it was all over, Thursby glanced at me, then said: “O.K., boys; that does it. Let’s go.”

  The men looked at him oddly, and I knew why.

  “Aren’t you going to test my client’s gadget?” I asked innocently.

  Thursby looked angrily baffled for a moment, then he clamped his lips grimly. “As long as we’re here, I guess we might as well.”

  I knew perfectly well it was what he had intended to do all along.

  “One of you guys spin that wheel,” he said to the technicians. One of them gave the wheel a spin and dropped the ball. It clattered on its merry way and dropped into a slot. Forty-two.

  Thursby took the gadget out of his pocket. It was still set at Thirteen.

  The men who had surrounded Howley on the night of his arrest had been keeping their eyes open, and they had seen how Howley had handled the thing. Well—almost how. Thursby had the lens opening pointed at the wheel, but his thumb and fingers weren’t touching the silver plates properly.

  “Spin it again,” he said.

  Everyone’s eyes were on the ball as it whirled, so I had time to get my own copy of Howley’s gadget out and set it at Thirteen. I hoped the thing would work for me. I concentrated on Thirteen, making sure my thumb and fingers were placed right.

  Evidently they were. The ball fell into Thirteen, Black, Odd, and Low.

  A huge grin spread over Thursby’s face, but he was man enough not to turn and grin at me. “Try it again,” he said.

  Thirteen, Black, Odd, and Low.

  “I wonder how the thing works?” said Thursby, looking at the gadget in a sort of pleased awe.

  “You’d better be able to prove that it does work, Thursby,” I said, trying to put irritation into my voice.

  This time, he did grin at me. “Oh, I think we can prove that, all right.” He turned back to the technician. “Spin it once more, Sam, and show the defense counsel, here, how it works.”

  The technician did as he was told. “Thirteen, Black, Odd, and Low,” he chanted, grinning.

  “Let’s try another number,” Thursby said. He turned the dial to One. And this time, when he pointed it, his fingers were touching the plates in the right places.

  “Just a minute,” I said. “Let me spin that thing.”

  “Be my guest, counselor,” said Thursby.

  I spun the wheel and scooted the ball along the rim. It dropped into a slot. One, Red, Odd, and Low. I looked as disappointed and apprehensive as I could.

  “Co-incidence,” I said. “Nothing more. You haven’t proved anything.”

  Thursby’s grin widened. “Of course I haven’t,” he said with a soothing, patronizing tone. “But I don’t have to prove anything until I get to court.”

  Then he looked at the technicians and jerked his head toward the door. “Let’s go, boys. Maybe the counselor wants to look over the table for himself. Maybe he thinks we’ve got it rigged.”

  There was a chorus of guffaws as they walked out. I just stood there, scowling, trying to keep from laughing even harder than they were.

  * * * *

  Jason Howley sat next to me at the defense table, just inside the low partition that divided the court from the public. There weren’t many people in the auditorium itself; listening to some poor dope get himself sentenced for cheating at gambling is considered pretty dull entertainment in the State of Nevada.

  Thursby had managed to push the indictment through the grand jury in a hurry, but, as he sat across the room from me at the prosecution table, I thought I could detect a false note in the assumed look of confidence that he was trying to wear.

  Howley tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around, and he whispered: “How much longer?”

  I tapped my wrist watch. “Couple minutes. Judge Lapworth is one of those precisionists. Never a moment late or early. Getting jumpy?”

  He shook his head gently and smiled. “No. You’ve handled this even better than I’d have imagined. You thought of things I didn’t even know existed. I’m no lawyer; I can see that.”

  I returned the smile. “And I don’t invent gimmicks, either. So what?”

  His eyes looked at me from behind the distorting negative lenses. “I’ve been wondering, counselor—why are you so interested in this? I mean, I offered you a pretty good fee, and all that, but it seems to me you’re taking an unusual interest in the case.”

  I grinned at him. “Mr. Howley, my profession is Law—with a capital L. The study of the Law isn’t like the study of physics or whatever; these are manmade laws—commands, not descriptions. They don’t necessarily have anything to do with facts at all. Take the word ‘insanity,’ for instance; the word isn’t even used by head-shrinkers any more because it’s a legal definition that has nothing whatever to do with the condition of the human mind.

  “Now, any such set of laws as that can’t possibly be self-consistent and still have some use on an action level. A lawyer’s job is to find the little inconsistencies in the structure, the places where the pieces have been jammed together in an effort to make them look like a structured whole. To find, in other words, the loopholes and use them.

  “And when I find a loophole, I like to wring everything I can out of it. I’m enjoying this.”

  Howley nodded. “I see. But what if something—”

  I held up my hand to silence him, because the door to the judges’ chambers opened at that moment, and Judge Lapworth came in as the bailiff announced him. We all stood up while the bailiff intoned his “Oyez, oyez.”

  Thursby made a short preliminary speech to the jury, and I requested and was granted permission to hold my own opening statement until the defense was ready to present its case.

  Thursby was looking worried, although it took a trained eye to see it. I was pretty sure I knew why. He had been pushed too hard and had gone too fast. He’d managed to slide through the grand jury too easily, and I had managed to get the trial date set for a week later. Thursby’s case was far from being as tight as he wanted it.

  * * * *

  I just sat still while the prosecutio
n brought forth its witnesses and evidence. The croupier, the deputies, several employees of the Golden Casino, and a couple of patrons all told their stories. I waived cross-examination in every case, which made Thursby even edgier than he had been.

  When he called in the head of the technicians who had inspected the table at the casino, I made no objection to his testimony, but I made my first cross-examination.

  “Mr. Thompson, you have stated your qualifications as an expert on the various devices which have been used to illegally influence the operation of gambling devices in this state.”

  Thursby said: “Oh, if the Court please, I should like to remind counsel for the defense that he has already accepted the qualifications of the witness.”

  “I am not attempting to impugn the qualifications of the witness,” I snapped.

  Judge Lapworth frowned at Thursby. “Are you making an objection, Mr. District Attorney?”

  Thursby pursed his lips, said, “No, Your Honor,” and sat down.

  “Proceed with the cross-examination,” said the judge.

  “Mr. Thompson,” I said, “you have testified that you examined the table at the Golden Casino for such devices and found none. Is that right?”

  “That’s right,” he said positively.

  “Have you seen the device labeled People’s Exhibit A, which was found by the officers on the person of the defendant?”

  “Well…yes. I have.”

  “Have you examined this device?”

  Thursby was on his feet. “Objection, Your Honor! This material was not brought out in direct examination!”

  “Sustained,” said Judge Lapworth.

  “Very well, Your Honor,” I said. Then I turned back to Thompson. “As an expert in this field, Mr. Thompson, you have examined many different devices for cheating gambling equipment, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “How many, would you say?”

  “Oh…several hundred.”

  “Several hundred different types?”

  “No. Several hundred individual devices. Most of them are just variations of two or three basic types.”