Wild Card (Tony Valentine Series)

by James Swain

  “What kind of deal?” Valentine said.

  “You want a scalp, right? Let’s forget Vinny, and talk about some real scalps.”

  Valentine leaned back in his chair. “You know something I don’t?”

  “I sure do.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “Your casino is getting ripped off,” Izzie said. “My guess is, you’re losing fifty grand a week, maybe more.”

  “To who?”

  “Professional gangs of cheaters, working different shifts.”

  “Cut the bull. Tell me Vinny’s last name, or the DA will throw the book at you.”

  Izzie stared at him with his good eye. “You’re just like every other casino cop. You think you’re smart. You’ve got the eye in the sky and video tape machines and the other gadgets. And that’s just great, except for one thing. I can beat that stuff, and so can plenty of other guys.” Izzie paused, then added, “Want to learn?”

  Izzie was being serious. Valentine leaned forward. “What’s the price tag?”

  “Let me and my brothers go.”

  By law, Valentine had to let the Hirsch brothers go. Only Izzie was scared, and he decided to milk that fear as much as he could. Taking the handcuff key from his pocket, he uncuffed his prisoner from the leg of his chair.

  “Show me,” he said.

  Chapter 29

  They drove to Resorts in Valentine’s Pinto. Along with being a fire trap, his car was also a lemon, and sputtered uncertainly each time he put his foot to the gas. Izzie seemed amused, and Valentine caught him smirking several times.

  “If you can beat any casino, why don’t you live in Las Vegas?” Valentine asked.

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “Why, is Vegas dangerous?”

  “The casino owners out there will put a bullet in your head and bury you in the desert if they catch you cheating. Road hustling is easy.”

  “Is that what you do?”

  “Yeah. Guys who cheat private games are called hustlers. Guys who travel and cheat are called road hustlers, and guys who cheat casinos are called cross roaders.”

  “You know a lot of hustlers?”

  “Sure. I bump into other hustlers in games all the time.”

  “What do you say — ‘Hey, I was here first?’”

  They had reached Resorts. The valet wrote up a ticket, and they walked through the front doors. “Say I’m working a game,” Izzie said, “and another hustler sits down, and starts cheating. I’ll talk about a hunting trip I took, and how I killed some rabbits. That’s a signal that I’m a cheater.”

  “Rabbits?”

  “That’s right. Usually he’ll ask in code if I’ll cut him in.”

  “Will you?”

  “Sure. It’s good etiquette.”

  They walked around the packed casino. Izzie’s purple eye was drawing stares, and they went to the cocktail lounge and grabbed a table.

  “So how did you learn this stuff?” Valentine asked. “Did you have a teacher?”

  “Everyone in my family cheated,” Izzie said. “They taught me the moves, and I practiced in front of a mirror. Once I felt confident, I tried the moves out in a soft game. Then, I graduated up to bigger games.”

  “How about cross roaders? What’s their deal?”

  “Cross roaders are different. They’re tough people, and most have criminal records. They’ll get together in someone’s house, and practice a scam. Then they’ll try it out, like a casino night at a church. If they’re successful, they’ll hit Vegas. Or your place.”

  “Sounds risky,” Valentine said.

  “Depends on the ringleader,” Izzie replied.

  “What does he do?”

  “He scouts the casino and looks for green dealers. Casinos have such high turnover that you can usually find one on every shift. The team goes in, and sets up. They try the scam, except they don’t actually do it. It’s called a splash move.”

  “As in getting your feet wet?”

  “Right. If the dealer doesn’t squawk, they do it later for real.”

  A waitress took their drink order. As Izzie flirted with her, Valentine stared through the lounge at the casino. He still didn’t believe what Izzie had said back at the station house about all the games being susceptible to cheating.

  “When does the lesson start?” he asked.

  Izzie made a grandiose gesture with his arm toward the casino. “Whenever you want it to, my friend.”

  “Start with blackjack.”

  A bowl of salted peanuts sat on the table. Izzie popped them into his mouth while speaking. “Gamblers call it BJ, as in blow job, because that’s what you get if you play by the rules. Want to know how many types of BJ cheating I’ve seen in Atlantic City?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ve seen cards nicked and daubed; I’ve seen teams switch cards under a dealer’s nose. I’ve seen guys add cards to a shoe, and guys take cards away. I’ve seen steer teams move cards under the dealer’s nose. And, I’ve seen players with cameras in their ties. How many is that?”

  “Seven,” Valentine said.

  “There’s more.”

  “Start with these.”

  “Nicked you know about. Daub is a substance that can only be seen through special glasses or contact lenses. It’s made with aniline dye.”

  Valentine borrowed a pen from their waitress and began to scribble furiously on a cocktail napkin. “How do you switch cards?”

  “You need a good turn. A turn is a hustler’s secret weapon. It’s used to turn the pit boss’s attention from the table. Usually, it’s a pretty girl. But it can just as easily be a geezer with a hearing aid.”

  “What about the eye-in-the-sky?”

  “Cameras can be turned, too. A couple having an argument works pretty well. So does a drunk falling down. I heard of one team that set a curtain on fire.”

  Valentine kept scribbling. Things like Izzie was describing happened every night inside Resorts: It was the byproduct of serving free liquor to people.

  “You said guys add cards to a shoe, and take them away.”

  “Different moves, same outcome. If I secretly add ten high cards to a shoe, my odds of winning go way up. Same thing if I remove ten low cards.”

  “What’s a steer team?”

  “Two players make up a team. The first watches as the cards are shuffled. He spots the top card during the shuffle, and signals its value to his partner. The second player is offered the cards to be cut by the dealer. The second player cuts at a certain number, and both players know where the card lies in the deck.”

  “So what?”

  “They silently count to the card during the game. If the card is an ace or high card, they will draw cards in order to get it during the next round, when they’ll bet big. It guarantees the team a big payoff every round.”

  The bowl of peanuts was empty. Izzie had eaten them like they were his last meal. Valentine wanted to ask Izzie if his mother had taught him any manners, but had a feeling that she’d been too busy teaching her boys how to fuck people.

  “Cameras in ties,” Valentine said.

  “The cheater has a tiny camera hidden in his tie. The camera transmits to a van parked outside. A guy inside the van types the card’s values into a computer that card counts. Then he radios back to the player what to do.”

  Valentine had run out of room on his cocktail napkin. Bill Higgins had said that millions of dollars disappeared from Las Vegas’s blackjack tables every year, and had attributed most of it to employee theft. Bill’s going to be surprised, he thought.

  Valentine motioned to the waitress for the check. Izzie rubbed his stomach like he was still hungry. Valentine took the hint, and said, “Want something else to eat?”

  “Depends how much more you want to hear,” Izzie replied.

  Chapter 30

  An hour later, Valentine’s head was swimming. Izzie had devoured six bowls of peanuts, three draft beers, and two orders of shrimp cocktail while explai
ning how to scam every casino game in the world. He was an encyclopedia of grift and cons.

  “Well, I think that’s it,” Izzie said.

  “You tapped out?” Valentine asked.

  “I’m sure there’s a few things I’ve forgotten.”

  “What about sports betting?”

  “That isn’t legal in Atlantic City,” Izzie reminded him.

  No, Valentine thought, but it was legal in Las Vegas, and he owed Bill Higgins a huge favor for all the advice he’d passed along. “Tell me anyway,” he said.

  “Sports betting is cheaters heaven. A player can beat them by being a better handicapper, or fixing the game, or by past-posting.”

  “You mean placing a bet after the fact?”

  “Yeah. It’s not as hard as it sounds. Especially with the ponies.”

  A diner at another table had ordered nachos dripping with melted cheese, and Izzie stared at the mess while rubbing his stomach. Valentine got the waitress to bring them a plate, then pressed Izzie while he shoveled food into his mouth.

  “Past-posting a sports book is easy,” Izzie said. “ Just bribe a guy who works for the power company.”

  “What does he do?”

  “He reduces the amount of electricity going to the sports book. He slows the clock down gradually, until twenty seconds are shaved off. That’s all you need to find out a race’s outcome, and get a bet placed before the betting is halted. Later the electricity is increased, so the clocks are kosher the next day.”

  “You ever try this?”

  “Yeah. Did it on a bookie in New York. Cleaned him out.”

  Izzie was smiling. Over the years, Valentine had learned a lot from talking to criminals, but none had ever pulled back the curtain, and shown him the inner workings like Izzie was now doing. It wasn’t normal, and he guessed it had something to do with them knowing each other as kids. Izzie wanted to show him how smart he was, even if he was under arrest. His pride was at stake, so he’d let it all hang out.

  Valentine drove his prisoner back to the station house without bothering to turn the car’s heater on. It was freezing outside, and Izzie began to shiver, his sports jacket and slacks offering scant protection from the cold.

  “You want me to put the heater on?”

  “Yeah,” Izzie said emphatically.

  “Tell me Vinny’s last name.”

  “I told you, he didn’t tell us.”

  Instead of turning the heater on, Valentine rolled his window down, and the car’s interior dropped another ten degrees. Izzie protested loudly.

  “You knock a guy out, you’re going to look through his wallet,” Valentine said. “Give me his name, and I’ll let you go.”

  “First get me warm.”

  Valentine rolled up his window and turned the heater on.

  “His name’s Vinny Acosta,” Izzie said.

  “What do you think his deal is?”

  Izzie didn’t hesitate with his answer this time. “There’s a scam going on in Las Vegas right now, Cleveland mob is behind it. My guess is, Vinny’s got something similar going on here.”

  “What’s the Vegas scam?”

  “It’s pretty cool. Some hotel employees are skimming quarters from slot machines. Instead of trying to get the coins out of the casino, they’re converting them into bills at the cage. Every time a little old lady buys a bucket of coins, they put the bill into a briefcase. The briefcase gets taken out each night.”

  “How much they stealing?”

  “Millions.”

  Valentine reached the station house, found an empty spot in the lot and parked. Izzie had set off a light bulb in his head. Every dollar in a casino went through the cage. If someone was going to scam Resorts in a big way, the money had to come from there.

  Izzie started to get out, and Valentine grabbed him by the sleeve. “I want you to promise me that you and your brothers will never step foot in Atlantic City again.”

  “Are you really going to let me and my brothers go?”

  “I gave you my word, didn’t I?”

  Their eyes met. Izzie believed Valentine was cutting him a deal, and he beamed.

  “On my mother’s grave,” he said.

  The first thing Valentine did upon returning to Resorts was check the cage for hidden suitcases. The cage was the most tightly watched area in the casino, and he called upstairs to the surveillance control room, and spoke to Mickey Wright.

  “I need to do a search. We just got word that there might be some counterfeit money in our tills,” he said. “I’ll wave to you through the camera when I’m done.”

  Mickey grunted into the phone and hung up.

  Valentine did a thorough search of the cage. There were no suitcases lying around, and he checked each teller’s drawer for hidden sleeves to drop bills, or other secret places that money might be squirreled away.

  The cage was clean. He thanked everyone for their patience, then went upstairs to the surveillance control room. Mickey was waiting for him as he walked through the door, his eyes filled with panic.

  “You find anything?” Mickey asked.

  “False alarm,” Valentine said. “The cage was clean.”

  Mickey put his hand over his heart. “Don’t do that to me, Tony. You know I got a bad ticker.”

  “Sorry, Mickey.”

  Mickey walked away, and Valentine went into his office and shut the door. From his desk he removed the casino’s weekly financial statement. Every week, the Casino Control Commission conducted an independent audit of Resorts’ operation. Each game was financially dissected, with the “holds” carefully scrutinized. He looked at these statements religiously; they were usually the first evidence there was cheating on the floor.

  He opened the report to the section on slot machines. The slots were Resorts’ biggest money-maker. The casino kept 8% of every dollar put into a slot. And that was exactly what the report showed. Which meant Izzie was wrong. Vinny Acosta’s scam wasn’t at the cage, or with slots. That left BJ, craps and roulette.

  You’re getting warmer, he thought.

  He put the report back in his desk, picked up the phone, and dialed Bill Higgins’ work number from memory. His friend answered on the first ring.

  “What if I told you the Cleveland mob is ripping off one of your casinos for millions of dollars,” Valentine said.

  There was dead silence on the other end.

  “You still there?”

  “Who told you the Cleveland mob was out here?” Higgins said stiffly.

  “A little bird with a pointed head. You know about this?”

  “Sure do. The teamsters union loaned the Stardust money for a renovation. The teamsters have ties to the Cleveland mob. We’ve been watching the casino for a year, but haven’t caught anything. What have you got?”

  “They’re stealing quarters,” Valentine said. “Lots and lots of quarters.”

  Chapter 31

  Sears had delivered their new furniture that afternoon, and Lois was the happiest person on her street. It didn’t replace the memories, but it was all new, and it gave the house a feel that it hadn’t possessed since they’d first moved in.

  That night, while Gerry sat in the living room watching Mork & Mindy on their new TV, Valentine helped his wife do the dishes. While he dried, he made a point of sucking on his swollen knuckle, and she took his hand and examined his injury.

  “Were you in a fight?”

  “I punched a suspect in the face,” he said.

  Lois eyed him cooly. “I hope he was doing something really awful.”

  “Just sitting in a chair.”

  The indignation rose in her face. “Tony, that’s barbaric. You should be ashamed of yourself. I’m ashamed of you.”

  “It was Izzie Hirsch.”

  “Oh. Why did you punch him?”

  “He told me he took your bra off in a sand trap on a golf course.”

  Lois dropped the plate she was holding into the sink. “That little bastard ripped my bra off, a
nd my blouse. He practically raped me. I hope you knocked every tooth down his throat.”