Broken Wings (John Hardesty Z04 Book 3)

by Clay Moore

  John walked all the way up to the top floor of the stationhouse. From here he could look out on the squalor and sheer wealth of Snake Eyes. From the current window that he was looking through, he could see the first mega-casino.

  “That was the first to make a casino that was ever built. Its name is the Dragon. In fact, all of the names of the major casinos are names of animals. It seems that every one of the people out there has a certain animal that they have as a totem. They like to be in the casino that has their totem's name.”

  “Don't they know that odds don't change if you're inside a particular building," asked John.

  "This is something that the owners of these casinos realize. They're doing tens of millions of credits per day in profits. There is no need for them to monkey around with running crooked games. They all have gotten wealthy by being scrupulously honest and paying the correct odds. What they do to limit losses is inform the winner that they are playing too good today and they would like for them to return tomorrow. They might also give the winner something.”

  I did some comps like this-this for the Ellington club back on Eridani. I had always thought of the Ellington club as a watering hole for gentlemen. It is now a full-fledged casino. I don't mind my club dues are considered to be capital investment. At the end of the year, I get a small fortune.”

  "Are you telling me that you are a member of the Ellington club?"

  John furled his brow and took another look at the station chief. The more he looked, the more he realized that he was looking at a disguise.

  “Yes, one of the Z numbers told me about the club. I'm pretty good at most of the games of chance to have a better casino advantage.”

  "Blackjack and full odds craps.”

  “Have you given a look into baccarat?"

  time

  "I always thought it looked at the time a little bit like 21."

  "To the uninitiated, it might seem that way. You can bust someone out of his stake if you have a good run. And this ought to run your way, Z04. All the classiest women can be found at the Baccarat table. Since the money one by the Victor is provided by the user and not the house, this is the only game I know where you probably are not going to run into how security.”

  "I may have to run into house security before it is all over."

  “Did the service give you some sort of super pill?”

  “No, I know my limits. And when I go over my limit I have my blaster. With no existing government authority, I get to do things my way."

  "You are going to make things hot for us here. We won't be able to do anything for the service.”

  “You will do fine. Except in case of emergency, this will be my last visit here. In fact, if someone were to ask you about me, you could tell A that I went rogue."

  "That will be far from the truth.”

  “The hell of it is that you get credit for sitting on your hands while I shoot my way through to my objective.

  "So, I've checked in, and you've given me that briefing about the culture of things here. I told you of little about my plans for accomplishing my mission."

  John turned to leave the station house. After a couple of steps, he stopped and spun about snapping his fingers. "There is something that you might be able to do. When I find Anton Hecton's bolt hole, I will need someone to keep an eye on it. I don't think that Hecton will panic and head to a ship. In case he does I want someone there to let me know. I'll be somewhere in the area. Will do?"

  "Will do," said the station chief.

  John's spun around and walked out of the station. John stopped on the sidewalk next to the road passing the station. He stood for a right long moment trying to figure out what is next move would be. John knew the limits that John had to work with. That meant he could do anything except using a thermonuclear bomb. What John had to do was generate as much gossip as a thermonuclear detonation would generate. Why is he doing this? He wants to send the jungle running with sound. That will make it easier for John to sneak up on the crafty Anton.

  John didn't like having to use a bloodbath to cover his tracks. Yet, how much more time did Anton give those that he killed. Yes, by the time John became an upper-level executive with planetary interests his hands were pretty much white as snow. Yet, he could not say that was true if you look into the fact that he asked for others to do his dirty work. And there was the difference. John was not going to take Anton to a prison. He had too much wealth and influence to be able both to stay in jail. So, for Vivana he was going to in that man's life.

  If that is what he wanted to do, we had to begin the work. That meant going to the Dragon mega-casino. The casino's on Eridani were well regulated, and the rules did not change. This was a planet in which the rules were subject to change at any time. He had to just wait for that time to break the law.

  As John walked he varied his gait. This was one way that he could determine if he was being followed. When people follow another one they generally follow the beat. When John varies his gait, the sudden change in rhythm causes a misstep, a scuffle that he could hear. So far, no one was following him. It was time to change that.

  John just had to stop and gawk at the Dragon mega-casino. The building had to be at least two kilometers and 1/2 across. It rose from the pedestal base almost 30 floors. Most of those stories had some form of gambling. A few of the levels had hotel rooms of the beautiful kind. Here was where the whales were bedded down for the night. Depending on the owner of the mega-casino that whale might have either a male or female partner. The Dragon casino was owned by the hemp brothers. Their gang name indicated what they did to earn their money to build the mega-casino.

  The half-brothers were indeed a criminal gang. They still are involved in most of the rackets. The one that had brothers use the most is protection. All of the businesses around the casino had to pay protection money to the gang. Considering that the make a casino makes at least a billion credits per month, this other stuff was small potatoes. One day one of the rank-and-file is going to figure that out. He will suggest to the others that they not do any of the illegal stuff. And more of the casino money would be distributed to everyone in the gang. The only reason for the group would be to defend the mega-casino from other rivals.

  John stepped off the sidewalk, crossed the street, and climbed up the stairs to the open portal into the Dragon. Even before he entered the building, he could smell the oxygen that was being leaked into the casino floors. When John did his reading for casino lore, it was said that the casino operators the casino floor to keep the gamblers awake. John never understood that because the casino operators were giving their players a soporific called alcohol. Correct, the drink was watered down quite a bit, but it still had some punch.

  John accepted the oxygen as benefits to himself. He walked in the past the portal interests and the first stirrings of sound with the ever effervescent slot machine. It seemed like everywhere people were having jackpots because the sound of the coins hitting the payout pail was heard anywhere. The first floor of a multi-story casino establishment usually consisted of every single game that the casino offered. The levels above that were dedicated to a particular set. A poker style game called Texas hold 'em was announced to be on the second floor. Baccarat was in the third. If there was nothing indicated for a particular story, then that was the floor for the whales. There the usual minimum wager was a thousand credits.

  The Dragon did not have one kind of wagering though. The Dragon did not make book on sporting events. In the histories of the casinos, sports books were one of the most lucrative in the whole casino. Sportsbooks operated on a pari-mutuel wagering system. The house put up no money and merely distributed the money that was wagered amongst the winners. The casino made its money on the fee is charged every wager. Usually, it was 10%. A criminal gang may shy away from operating a perfectly legal sports book because they may have been in that business before. John actually preferred the action in the sports book than to all of the table games a casino offered.
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br />   He stopped in the middle of the main floor and scanned the area. In each of the areas where a table game was being played there stood a man in a bad suit with that equally lousy scowl on his face. This was the pit boss, and his job was to make sure that no one was cheating the house. When there was a determination that someone was trying to trick, then the pit boss would call upon how security. These people didn't care whether or not you left with all of your teeth or not. If you resisted, they were very likely to oppose you back. During the scan, John noticed that there were at least 10 of the house security within easy running distance of all of the table games.

  John turned towards the pit that contained the table game blackjack. John does the game very well. He knew it well enough that he could actually count the cards. Most casinos consider card counting to be cheating. John answers that it is a fact of the game and a limited choice always invites workarounds. That was why most of the casinos were using five or seven deck shoes. It made it considerably harder to count the cards. That was when the more technologically involved card counters started taking small computers tied to their legs into the casinos. Now those were cheating in John's opinion.

  John stopped about a meter and 1/2 away from the table and the players. Most players were happy to let you watch their play as long as you were far enough from the table. There were quite a large number of people who would go up to a table and start to siphon off of players chips.

  The dealer was a woman who wore the casino uniform. The uniform had a deep décolletage. There was no skirt. The costume ended in a high-rise short. She wore a name tag that had her name on it. It announced that her name was Charlotte. John had no doubt that that was not really her name. Knowing other men as he did, he knew that they would be on her if they knew her real name. Technology made it really easy to find someone when they were trying not to be noticed. The dealer was the prettiest lady in the house right now. John wanted to chat her up. The main reason for that was that she was an exquisitely beautiful and she worked on the floor of the casino. No doubt the Blackjack Dealer walked someplace else and then found her options limited to only dealing blackjack. John put two and two together and came up with that she was the girlfriend of one of the gang members, quite possibly the gang leader.

  She looked bored. She dealt the cards listlessly. Each card landed where they had to fall, but there was no panache. She was a showgirl who now was a dealer. She had to make less money dealing than a showgirl dancing with her top off. John thought that this was his way in. If the gang leader forced his girlfriend out of a lucrative gig, then he was very likely to respond forcefully when he notices another man paying attention to his girl.

  John noticed that the leftmost position was available. He believed that it was called third-base by the dealers. John walked over to the seat and reached his hand into his right inner coat pocket. He pulled out an actual bankroll. John took off the elastic around the outside, and John rolled off 20 100 credit notes. He recounted the banknotes to make sure that he had the correct amount. Then he put his bankroll back in the inner right coat pocket.

  “Give me 25 credit chips."

  The woman whose name tag said Charlotte smiled at him. She scooped up the money and put it down her moneybox. This was how the casino managed the money and tallied the take. The formula was a simple as a total number of chips in public hands versus the amount of cash in the moneybox.

  Charlotte counted out 80 25 credit chips. A couple of the regulars who played the table got up and left. There are many reasons that they would do that, and none of them really had anything to do with John. They usually have some sort of superstition which said that a new player would change their luck generally for the worse. They did exchange pleasantries with John, who also exchanged polite noises with them. Then John put a 25 credit check on his spot.

  Now that Charlotte saw that everyone had a bet down she deals doubt two cards to everyone including herself. All the player's cards were faced down, and one of the cards of the dealer was face-up. The dealer's card was a nine. John had a 15 in his hand. The chances that the dealer had a 19 were excellent. The decks were fresh and had a great many face cards. If John tried to take a card, he did not have an excellent chance of drawing a small card. If he stood on the cards he had, he would probably lose anyway. John made his decision. Charlotte went around the table asking if anyone wanted a new card. A man wearing an old cowboy hat, or at least that was what it was supposed to look like, he took a card, and it was a small card. He did this until he got to a count of 18. Charlotte turned to him and smiled. John smiled back and gave her his most winning look. He waved his hand over his cards. Charlotte seemed a little disappointed, but she returned to her cards.

  She flipped over the card that was face-down. It was a four. That made her count 13. John smiled to himself. If he had known that she had a four, he would've made a few other bets. That's why it's called gambling. She was Drawn carts until she got to the count of 22. Since the game is called 21, the dealer busted. John flipped over his 15, and she put another 25 credit chip in front of his chip.

  All during the transaction that occurred with the game John was using a straightforward card counting technique. He was counting 10 spot cards as a +1, and he was counting seven or fewer spot cards as a negative one. This was the best card counting scheme that John could do. It allowed him to be a little more flamboyant with his counting if he wanted to. The big tipoff to the house would be for him to increase his bets at specific points in the life of the deck.

  The deck was relatively new, so John continued with his 25 credit bets. The man with a fake cowboy hat said his farewells. He tossed her a 10 credit chip. She picked up the disk and displayed her hands. Then she dropped the chip into her tips slot on the pit boss's podium. She turned around and said something to John.

  “What are you smiling at," she asked.

  "Nothing much. I just got a very nice view when you put a tippet to that podium."

  "Are you trying to talk me up?"

  "Of course I am. Every red-blooded man would try to get to know you better."

  Charlotte picked up her deck and deal about another round of 21 this time to two players. John picked up his cards. He noticed that it was a blackjack, an ace, and the Queen. Just like that John won 3 four two. He flipped over the cards and showed his blackjack. She was showing the five, so there was no way she could have a blackjack herself. The other player asked for cards until he busted. Charlotte scooped his wager and put the chip in her rack of chips. The man decided that he had enough that night and left. He gave her no tip.

  “Isn't that like them. The General Public come in here and in a large amount of money. Then their luck turns and they tried to throw good money after bad. In their mind they blame me."

  "How much do you do this?"

  "Why do you ask?"

  "Because I have a belief that your boyfriend works for this casino as well. I think he thinks this is his life. He wants you to spend your life here as well. That means no chance of children."

  John noticed the wince that came across her face when he said "no children." In any poker game, the game was partly to determine your opponents tell. You had to figure out how he gave away what he had to everyone in the room. Charlotte's tell was no prospect for children. He was getting to her.

  "I treat my women like they are people. There would be presents. There would be wining, dining, and dancing. The joints that we would frequent would require formalwear."

  Charlotte melted for a moment, as a John enumerated what he would do with her. Then the moment passed. She shuddered and dealt a hand to John and herself. John picked up his hand and saw that he had a queen and a Jack. It was 20. Unless she had a blackjack, she could not win this hand. The best that she could do was tie John.

  She flipped over her card and revealed that she had 15. The rules the casino required that she go all the way out. She drew another card, and it was a seven. She busted again.

  Charlotte paid John one more ti
me. This was the time that John thought it would be to his advantage in the other game he was playing with the gang. He pressed his luck by doubling his wager. In most card counting systems one had to wait for a while before increasing the bet. By doubling now, he was showing that he was a bit of a neophyte at card counting.

  "Check doubling of Wager."