Burke’s Gamble
Bob Burke Action Thriller 2
a novel by
William F. Brown
Copyright 2016
CHAPTER ONE
Atlantic City, New Jersey, 12:30 a.m.
To paraphrase the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, “All winning gamblers are alike; each losing gambler is unhappy in his own way.” If US Army Sergeant First Class Vinnie Pastorini had ever read Tolstoy or had even heard of him, he probably would have agreed, but Vinnie knew nothing about Russian literature. What he did know a lot about was Special Operations, “asymmetrical” warfare, weapons, fighting, drinking, gambling, and losing.
Vinnie had spent countless hours at the tables in Las Vegas, Monte Carlo, Biloxi, the Indian casinos in North Carolina and northern California, even here in Atlantic City. Along the way, he had experienced his share of long winning streaks and even longer losing streaks, but the past few months were his all-time worst. As they say, bullets can miss, hand grenades are fickle bitches, life’s short, sometimes the wrong guy gets killed, and sometimes “stuff happens.” For all that, Vinnie knew his luck was about to change. He knew it! What goes up must come down, and what goes down must always come back up. One hand! One big hand was all he needed for his luck to snap back and get the juices flowing again. It was going to happen, here and now, in Atlantic City. He could feel it!
On his previous trips to Atlantic City, Vinnie had played in most of the casinos, but he had never played at Caesars down on the Boardwalk before. When he walked inside, it was almost midnight and he immediately liked what he saw. The big action never got going in any of them until at least 11:00 p.m., when the heavy hitters came out and a guy could win some serious money. Vinnie hoped that was the case, because he was in dire need of winning some very serious money, and they said Caesars was the classiest casino with the best-heeled clientèle on the Boardwalk. The Bimini Bay, the Tuscany Towers, and the Siesta Cove casinos up in northeast Atlantic City were newer and nicer, but they were owned by Boardwalk Investments and he couldn’t go back there until he recouped at least a major down-payment on what he owed them. The Borgata and Harrah’s were nicer too. He didn’t owe them anything, but they were too close to the Bimini Bay for comfort. They would be the first places that Shaka Corliss and his goons would look for him, and that was far too risky. No, he had to try the casinos on the south side along the Boardwalk and win his stake back before they caught up with him. If not, he’d be a dead man walking.
Strolling casually through the front doors of Caesars, he glanced at the gambling tables. The maximums were higher here than at Resorts or Bally’s, and that was good. Even so, they weren’t high enough. He put his hand in his pants pocket and felt what was left of his cash. No need to count. He knew he had a shade over $7,000 left, which meant he had already lost the $100,000 he brought back from North Carolina earlier that day, plus another $100,000 he had conned two other casinos out of. Vinnie shook his head and laughed at himself. Somehow, he’d managed to blow $218,000 in a little over seven hours. That was a record even by his standards, and now he owed a lot of money to the wrong people.
So what, he thought. Oh, Patsy was going to be super pissed at him, and Shaka Corliss and his goons would talk tough and shove him around a bit. In the end, however, they wanted their money back, and a dead man couldn’t do that. Oh, he’d have to sell the new house and sign some promissory notes, but that would only put him back where he started three months before. The Army? What could they do? Bust him a grade? “Send him to Iraq?” as the old running Army joke had gone since Vietnam. Iraq? Afghanistan? He'd been there and done that too many times to count, and he was still on the right side of the grass looking down at all of them.
Vinnie’s slide began two weeks before, when he and Patsy came up here for a little R&R. They had just bought the new house, paid cash, and had $30,000 left over. That was the perfect number for an insane weekend in Atlantic City, he thought, so they hit the road. Insane? You might say that, as Vinnie knew better than most. In two days, he blew through the $30,000 plus two $50,000 advances he talked the casino out of. It never ceased to amaze him what people would do for a Vet, if he flashed a big smile and an Army ID card. Unfortunately, that bill came due like any other; and when you owe the money to New Jersey casino operators, they come collecting with a baseball bat. So, he and Patsy drove back down to Fort Bragg, saw the Credit Union, and took out a $100,000 loan on the house to get them off his back before the Army heard about it.
A week later, they drove back up to Atlantic City with the best of intentions of getting a nice room for the night, paying off the loan sharks, having a good meal, and driving back south, suitably chastened and chagrined the next morning. And it almost worked. The Bimini Bay even comped him a room. After all, he’d racked up enough Gold Club Points for a top-floor suite with a nice view of the marina. Then, he took Patsy to Ruth’s Chris for a great steak, and told her there was no need for her to go down to the casino office with him. It would only take a minute for him to drop off the money and return to the room. Unfortunately, the guys in the Unit didn’t call him “double-down Vinnie” for nothing, but he knew his luck had changed. He could feel it, and there was no sense in giving all that money to those clowns when he knew he could win it back. That was seven hours ago.
Vinnie wasn’t stupid. When he left Patsy up in the room, he didn’t run straight to the tables downstairs at the Bimini Bay. Instead, he drove south to the Boardwalk and began at The Trump Taj Mahal. He then tried his hand at Resorts, Bally’s, the Tropicana, and finally at Caesars. Of the large, mainline casinos, this was the end of the line. By the time he left the Taj and Resorts, the $100,000 from North Carolina was gone. With his patented smile, Army ID, and a signature, they gave him lines of credit for another $50,000 at Bally’s, plus two $25,000 advances at the Tropicana. Now he was at Caesars with his remaining $7,000.
There was no time to waste. Vinnie quickly walked around the table groupings and saw most of the usual games — craps and roulette on the ends, and a long, double line of semi-circular card tables in between. Each table had its own dealer, tabletop graphics, and an illuminated glass sign, which named the game being played — Three Card Poker, Blackjack, Caribbean Stud, Texas Hold ’em, Crisscross, Let it Ride, Spanish 21, even Casino War. They had them all, and he had enjoyed playing most of them on his last few trips here, winning and losing a pile at each. Tonight, those games were tempting, but their stakes were far too low and he did not have all night. Maybe he had two or three hours at best. By then, Shaka Corliss and the goons would track him down, and he had better have enough cash to buy that bastard off. Patsy was sitting in that hotel room back at the Bimini Bay, their Bimini Bay, and the two of them would be in deep trouble if he didn’t.
Vinnie’s eyes finally came to rest on the Texas Hold ’em Parlor on the back wall of the casino. It wasn’t his favorite game, but they had unlimited stakes tables there, and that was what he desperately needed. He walked over and stepped inside and saw that it was a big room with dozens of tables, most of which were already full. Giving it no further thought, Vinnie stepped over to the control desk and told the man what he was looking for.
“You sure you want ‘no limit,’ young man?” the man asked.
Vinnie nodded, so the man pointed down the side wall. “A seat just opened up at table 22. But I’ll tell ya, that’s a fast crowd down there, so good luck.”
Vinnie smiled, walked down to the table, and took his seat. Fast crowd? Looking around at the nine other players, all he saw was the usual collection of World Series of Poker wannabes: seven men and two women. Most of the men wore the usual de rigueur combination of black sunglasses, “Beats” earphones, layers of gold chains around their necks, and backward
baseball hats. The others wore western shirts, bolo ties, and cowboy hats. The former stared at him with blank expressions, while the cowboys at least said, “Howdy.” The women were another matter. One was bright-eyed and straight out of a Dolly Parton look-alike contest, while the other had dark, dead, “shark” eyes. She had body art up and down both arms and her neck, big loop earrings, studs, and about anything else that could be stuck through her nose, lips, tongue, ears, and probably a few uncomfortable places he couldn’t see. Vinnie never could figure out what any of that had to do with the luck of the draw, much less beauty; but if that was “normal,” then the world was in big trouble.
The next hour went about as he had learned to expect. He started winning big early and got his $7,000 up to $35,000, before it all slowly went to hell again and he found himself staring at the small pile of $2,200 in front of him. The dealer button was Vinnie’s, not that it mattered. The house dealer was a woman for this set, and she seemed to know what she was doing when she opened a new deck and shuffled. The “blinds” were posted, the chips were down, and Vinnie was staring vacantly at the table as she began to deal the first hand. She got halfway around the table, when she froze in mid card. That never happened. Vinnie looked up and saw the pit boss and one of their big, uniformed security guards standing to her right and left. Surprisingly, they weren’t looking at Vinnie or anyone else at the table. They were looking behind Vinnie, over his shoulder.
That was when he felt a not-so-gentle tap on his shoulder. He turned his head and looked up to see two more beefy Caesars security guys flanking him. Behind them were Shaka Corliss and his twin goons. They were hard to miss. Corliss was black, with a gleaming, shaved head, white-capped teeth, wraparound Oakley sunglasses, a huge chrome-plated revolver in a shoulder holster, and a terminal case of arrogance and anger. Little more than average height, he rippled with the kind of phony muscles you get from too many hours lifting weights at a gym.
Between him and Vinnie, it had been mutual dislike at first glance. Maybe Corliss didn’t like white people, or Army sergeants, or just losers, but Vinnie doubted Corliss got along with anyone. The two look-alike, baby-faced goons standing on each side of him looked like they ran six foot six and around 270 pounds each, like football players from some small town in Nebraska. Corliss got off by ordering them around and being rude, arrogant, and insulting whenever he could. Vinnie guessed he must pay them a ton of money to put up with that crap, because they towered over him and either one of them could break him in half.
The Caesars security guy was nothing but polite. “I hate to interrupt, sir, but if you’d come with us, please?” he asked Vinnie.
“You’re kidding, I’m in the middle of a hand here,” he complained.
“We’ll hold your seat and your chips. It’ll just be a minute.”
“Like hell it will!” Corliss shoved the Caesars guy aside. “Tha’s our chips and our money, Sucker, and you already burned through all yo’ gonna burn through!”
Vinnie looked up at Corliss and thought about it as he slowly got to his feet. Obviously, the game was over and he wasn’t recouping any of the money he owed them. However, “in for a penny, in for a pound,” he thought as his right hand shot up in a perfect uppercut — compact, explosive, and straight to the ceiling. It caught Corliss under his chin and sent him flying back into his twin goons. All things considered, other than the Ruth’s Chris steak, the surprised, open-mouthed, stupid expression on Corliss’s face was the most satisfying highlight of the evening.
At six foot two and a solid, athletic 200 pounds, Vinnie was no small man himself, but after he got in that first punch, all he remembered was a blur of more punches, counter punches, kicks, and a good bit of pain. He had fought his way through six combat tours in two different official wars, and a lot more unofficial ones as an Army Ranger and Delta Force upper-level NCO Operator, although membership in that elite fraternity would always be top secret and never to be acknowledged. He was considered an expert with most weapons in the Army inventory and just as good in no-holds-barred, hand-to-hand combat, and had been in more than his share of old-fashioned bar fights at one Army post after another. Tonight, he was able to get in a dozen good shots at one goon after another. He even tossed one security guard onto a nearby poker table, breaking it in half, and tossed one of Corliss’s goons upside down into the wall. In the end, however, six to one, almost all of whom were bigger than he was, usually won. When someone broke a chair over his head and he went down for the count, that was all she wrote.
CHAPTER TWO
Arlington Heights, Illinois, 3:30 a.m.
Bob and Linda Burke lay naked in the center of their new king-sized bed, sound asleep in a tangle of arms, legs, and random body parts. He had bought the big bed three weeks before, just prior to their wedding, because he thought it would provide more mattress space than his old double bed had. Navigating the new bed frame and mattress set up the steep stairs and then pushing and pulling them around several sharp corners into the rear, second-floor master bedroom of his townhouse proved to be a job and a half. All of his old Army pals from Fort Bragg had come up for a monster two-day blowout bachelor party, followed by the big nuptial bash itself. After enough beer and brats, it was amazing how six big men could levitate a king-sized bed up a tight staircase, and all he had to do was watch.
As it turned out, all that effort proved unnecessary. Linda needed no extra mattress space, because she had no territorial respect whatsoever. Left side, right side, top edge, or bottom meant absolutely nothing to the woman. Her normal nocturnal preference was for full-body contact and she would wrap herself around him like a boa constrictor wherever he retreated to on the bed. So, it could be king-sized, a twin, a narrow army cot, or the rear seat of a Volkswagen. Any of those would have provided more than enough space for her, as long as he was there. Like everything else with second marriages, he realized this bed geography thing would take some getting used to.
That night, he finally fell into a deep, REM sleep, when the loud ring of the bedside telephone jarred him awake. Back in the day, Bob had ample experience with rude noises in the night, such as exploding Russian 107-millimeter rockets, 82-millimeter Chinese mortars, the crack of a rifle bullet, or the panicky shout of “Incoming!” However, in the three years since he left the Army, he managed to wean himself from the worst of those reactions. He no longer dove onto the sidewalk when he heard a car backfire, crawled under the bed when the alarm went off, or jumped into the bathtub if a door slammed. Now, all a telephone call in the middle of the night did was to snap him out of his usual recurring dream, which was a good thing.
It was always the same. He was under heavy fire, running down a narrow mountain trail in Afghanistan, with Gramps, Ace, Vinnie, Koz, Chester, The Batman, Bulldog, Lonzo, and the rest of his sergeants close behind. Bullets zipped past their heads and ricocheted off the rocks as they leapfrogged from boulder to boulder, returning fire at every turn, but being chased by a hundred screaming, turbaned, bearded Taliban tribesmen. The nine crack American riflemen were more than holding their own, even against the stiff odds. However, no matter how many Taliban they killed, the bastards just kept coming and coming, like ducks flying over an Iowa cornfield. The bad dream kept coming too, but he guessed that was the price one paid for fifteen years in the Army. He fought in a mechanized infantry battalion in the rock-strewn deserts of Iraq during the Second Gulf War, followed by savage counter-insurgency warfare in the mountains and high plateaus of Afghanistan, serving in the Rangers and ultimately in the Army’s elite Delta Force. Win or lose, regardless of the war, fighting at the side of good soldiers and better friends like those men were the things that rattled around inside a man’s head for years to come. So did the bad dreams. This time, however, the insistent ring of the bedside telephone broke in to save him.
“That had better not be your mother again,” he mumbled into the top of Linda’s head.
“I doubt it,” she answered. “I told her the last time that y
ou’d wring her neck if she wakes us up in the middle of the night again. I think she finally believed me.”
“Your mother? Come on, she loves me.”
“Bob, you’re a warm body with a steady job and a big paycheck, who took in her daughter and granddaughter. What mother-in-law wouldn’t?” With her face buried in the crook of his neck, somehow she managed to press even closer, throwing her leg over him as she began to rub his stomach with her free hand.
“Girl, you are insatiable.”
“Are you complaining?”
“Me? Never. But let me take care of the phone call first,” he answered, trying not to smile. Somehow, he managed to twist and turn his head far enough around to see the display on the dimly lit telephone console. The caller’s Area Code read 910. That was Fort Bragg, North Carolina, his former playpen and home away from home, and he immediately recognized the phone number as Vinnie Pastorini’s, one of his former Delta team leaders. Stretching back even further, he managed to get two fingers on the handset and bring it to his ear. “It’s 3:30, Vinnie. What’s up?”
“It’s… it’s not Vinnie,” he heard a young woman’s hesitant voice say. “It’s me… Patsy.”
“Patsy? Hey, girl, how’s everything going down there in God’s country? I heard a vicious rumor that Vinnie threw you over his shoulder and carried you down there after the wedding. Just remember, when you get tired of him, I’ll always have a job for you up here.”
“I appreciate that, Major, but that’s not why I’m calling.”
“It’s not ‘Major’ anymore, Patsy. Those days are long gone. It’s just plain old, decrepit civilian ‘Bob’ now.”
“I’m… I’m not down at Fort Bragg; I’m up in Atlantic City. Vinnie and I came here yesterday.”
“Atlantic City? And you two can’t figure out something better to do at this hour than to phone me?”
“Vinnie’s in trouble… Bob,” she finally blurted out. “No, we’re both in trouble, and I didn’t know who else to call.”
Burke's Gamble Page 1
