by James Swain
“How can they let him skate?”
“Bronco’s claiming there’s a Nevada Gaming Control Board agent stealing jackpots from Nevada’s casinos,” Bill said. “If we don’t let Bronco go, he’s going to release the agent’s name to the media, and ruin our business.”
Valentine whistled into the phone. Bill had just described the casino business’s worst nightmare. If the public thought the people policing the casinos were crooks, they’d stop playing. Overnight, business would dry up, and the casinos would go under. No wonder Smoltz was sweating through his underwear.
“Is Bronco telling the truth?” Valentine asked.
“Not sure,” Bill said. “We want you to have a look, and tell us what you think.”
“Which would put Bronco’s fate in my hands.”
“That’s right.”
Dusk had settled, and Valentine saw his backyard pool into darkness. Perhaps this was God’s way of rewarding him for living a clean life, or maybe it was just dumb luck. Either way, he wasn’t going to pass it up.
“Tell Smoltz I’ll take the job,” he said.
The Internet was a beautiful thing. Five minutes later, Valentine was reading three reports that Bill Higgins had e-mailed him concerning Bronco Marchese.
He started with the official police report. According to a statement made by a newlywed named Karen Farmer, Bronco had rigged a million dollar jackpot on a slot machine at the Cal Neva Lodge, allowing Karen and her husband to claim the prize. The next day, while cutting up the winnings, Bronco and Bo had gotten into a fight, and Bronco had shot and killed Bo, then left.
Karen Farmer had called the police and confessed. While being questioned, she had recounted eating dinner with Bronco in Sacramento two nights before, and Bronco paying with a credit card. The waitress had mistakenly presented the card to her husband, and Karen had noticed a different name on the card. Frank Revel.
Using that single piece of information, the police had tracked Bronco to a motel in Reno, and arrested him. While searching Bronco’s car, they had discovered a box of disguises, weapons, a welding kit used to make keys, and a diary with detailed notes about ten slot machine jackpots stolen from Nevada casinos in the past three years.
The second report had been written by Fred Friendly, the director of the Nevada Gaming Control Board’s Electronic Systems Division. The GCB was required to keep records of every jackpot paid out in the state, and Friendly had examined the ten jackpot thefts recorded in Bronco’s diary, and discovered four similarities.
1) All ten rip-offs had occurred in small, out-of-the-way casinos, where surveillance was less stringent than the state’s larger casinos.
2) Each jackpot was for one million dollars.
3) Each machine was a refurbished electro-magnetic model. By law, refurbs were not allowed in casinos, but some casinos used them instead of buying new machines in an effort to cut costs.
4) Each rip-off had occurred during a shift change in the casino’s surveillance control room, when the techs were less likely to notice theft.
The third report was a transcript of a meeting that had taken place between Bill Higgins and Bronco’s attorney, a mob-connected reptile named Kyle Garrow.
Garrow: “Bronco wants to cut a deal.”
Higgins: “No deals.”
Garrow: “Bronco has information that could destroy the gambling business in Nevada.”
Higgins: “Give me a break.”
Garrow: “I’m dead serious.”
Higgins: “You’ve got two minutes. Talk.”
Garrow: “Three years ago, Bronco was casing a casino when he spotted someone stealing a jackpot. He introduced himself, and the two became friends.”
Higgins: “How touching.”
Garrow: “The other cheater was an agent with the Nevada Gaming Control Board.”
Higgins: “An agent in my department?”
Garrow: “That’s right. Want to extend that two minutes?”
Higgins: “Keep talking.”
Garrow: “Bronco and this agent entered into an arrangement. Bronco taught this agent how to play the game. You know, pick dead times to beat the eye-in-the-sky, that sort of thing.”
Higgins: “What did Bronco receive in return?”
Garrow: “The agent told Bronco where all the refurbs were in the state. The agent knew the exact location of every one.”
Higgins: “Does Bronco know how many jackpots this agent has stolen?”
Garrow: “Hundreds. Maybe more.”
Higgins: “That’s (expletive deleted) and you know it.”
Garrow: “No, it’s not. The agent is stealing jackpots under ten grand so he doesn’t have to report them to the IRS. He’s flying under the radar.”
Higgins: “Keep talking.”
Garrow: “Bronco says your agent has developed a unique method of corrupting slot machines. I’m not talking old machines, either.”
Higgins: “Is this agent stealing jackpots himself?”
Garrow: “No. He’s using claimers.”
Higgins: “Different claimers for each jackpot?”
Garrow: “Yes. He recruits them.”
Higgins: “Let me get this straight. He’s corrupted hundreds of people to claim the money?”
Garrow: “That’s right.”
Higgins: “That’s (expletive deleted) and you know it.”
Garrow: “No, it’s not. Bronco taught him how to do it. Look at Bo and Karen Farmer. Neither has a criminal record, yet Bronco got them to help him rip off the Cal Neva.”
Higgins: “How does Bronco do that?”
Garrow: “I honestly don’t know.”
Higgins: “And Bronco is willing to give this agent up, provided we let him go.”
Garrow: “That’s the deal. Take it, or leave it.”
Valentine shut down his computer, and watched the screen become an iridescent blue dot. What Garrow was claiming was pure bull. Modern slot machines couldn’t be corrupted into paying off jackpots. They were sophisticated computers that had more anti-theft safeguards than most banks. At the heart of these computers were random number generator chips, called RNGs, which cycled hundreds of numbers per second, and selected jackpots. They were impossible to corrupt.
His stomach growled. The day he’d lost his wife, he’d stopped eating right. Yolanda was good about feeding him, but he tried not to make himself a regular at Gerry’s table. His son and his wife needed their space.
He decided on hot dogs, and was boiling water on the stove when he spied a note stuck to the refrigerator. It was from Mabel, informing him she’d left pot roast and mashed potatoes in the fridge. He tried to remember the last time he’d eaten homemade pot roast. It seemed like a hundred years ago.
He heated the food in the microwave, then ate with the sports section spread before him. Something was bothering him, and his eyes would not focus on the page.
Picking up his plate, he returned to his study.
Sitting at his computer, he retrieved the transcript of Bill and Garrow’s meeting. His brain had always been good at finding things that didn’t make sense, and turning those things inside-out. He stared at the screen.
Higgins: “Let me get this straight. He’s corrupted hundreds of people to claim the money.”
Garrow: “That’s right.”
Higgins: “That’s (expletive deleted) and you know it.”
It sounded familiar. Opening his desk drawer, he removed a stack of letters, and sorted through them. Lucy Price had written him weekly since going to prison nine months ago. Although he’d accepted that a relationship between them wouldn’t work, he still cared deeply about her. He found the letter he was looking for, and stared at Lucy’s flowing script.
I’m seeing a counselor several times a week to address my gambling problem. We talk about a lot of things that I would rather not dredge up, like how I left my children locked in the car so I could play the slots inside a casino, or lied to my ex about having my purse stolen when in fact I’d lo
st the money on slots.
The thing I am most ashamed of is that I once knowingly helped a man who was probably a cheater. This man approached me in a casino bar, and asked me to play a particular machine for him. He was a smooth-talker, and claimed he’d discovered a way to tell when a slot was going to pay a jackpot. I played the machine he directed me to, and it paid off $9,800. He let me keep 20%. I told my counselor about this, because it has bothered me for a long time. My counselor thinks this man was a nut, and probably just coming on to me. He also thinks it was luck that I hit the jackpot. I hope he’s right. I’d hate to think I ripped off a casino, along with all the other things I’ve done.
Valentine shook his head. It would be easy to dismiss the man who’d approached Lucy as a masher, only the slot machine he’d asked Lucy to play had paid off, and Lucy had sensed that something was wrong. The man had somehow rigged the machine, and talked Lucy into being his claimer. Which meant that everything Bronco’s lawyer had told Bill Higgins was true.
“Jesus Christ,” he said.
Chapter 6
Gerry Valentine had been gambling since he was ten. Ever since he could remember, placing a bet had gotten his adrenaline pumping, and made him feel good all over.
Until today.
He was sitting at his kitchen table with Yolanda, eating take-out Chinese food from paper cartons. Back when he was a kid, his family had eaten Chinese food this way. Yolanda found it funny but went along with the ritual. Maybe that was why he loved her so much. She put up with his nonsense.
“Why the long face?” she asked, twirling her chicken lo mein with a fork.
He took a deep breath. Along with the three thousand his father had given him, he’d won another six grand by picking the Daily Double at Tampa Bay Downs. Only, the win at the track hadn’t made him feel very good. Through the intercom on the table he listened to Lois talking in her sleep from the bedroom.
“She sounds like you,” Gerry said.
“You think so?”
“Yeah. She whispers in her sleep. You do that.”
“You didn’t answer my question. What’s wrong?”
Gerry couldn’t hide it anymore. He pointed at the money he’d won at the track lying on the table. “This.”
Yolanda continued to eat her food. When it came to gambling, she was as pure as freshly fallen snow, and didn’t understand the odds against picking two horses to come in first in two different races.
“You won,” she said. “What’s wrong with that?”
“I cheated.”
The lo mein noodles on her fork escaped back into the carton, and she put the utensil on her plate. “You did what?”
Normally, Gerry would have lowered his head in shame. This was the classic response to someone getting chewed out; lower your head and beg forgiveness. But, he wasn’t going to do that with Yolanda. She deserved better.
“I cheated the track.”
“Explain yourself.”
“When we got to the track, I grabbed a racing form. On it were the names of two horses that I recognized from my bookmaking days. These horses were excellent runners, only their owner had his jockeys hold them back in races.”
“He made his own horses lose?”
“Yeah. Over time, they became long shots. When I saw them in the first and second races today, I had a hunch he was going to let them really run.”
“Why?”
“Because the Daily Double only happens in the first and second races. If a bettor picks both winning horses, he wins a bundle. Since these two horses were long shots, the odds they paid out were astronomical.” He pointed at the money lying on the table. “I won that on a hundred dollar bet.”
Yolanda stared at the stack of bills. “But there was no guarantee those horses would win, was there?”
“No, but they were sure things.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning I used insider-information. Normally, it wouldn’t bother me. But then a funny thing happened. I saw that hustler who nearly scammed me with the silking, and told my father. And we caught him. And you know what?”
“What,” his wife said softly.
“It made me feel better than winning the Daily Double.”
“It did?”
“Yeah. And it made me realize something else. I can’t be a cheater, and also catch cheaters. It had to be one, or the other. So, I’m giving it up.”
“The cheating.”
“Yeah.”
Yolanda reached across the table and placed her hand atop his. In her beautiful brown eyes was a look that was both strange and wonderful. At any other time in their relationship, her look would have disturbed him. It was like she’d been waiting for him, and he’d finally arrived.
“You didn’t tell your father about winning the Daily Double, did you?”
He shook his head. Confessing to his old man would only reinforce every bad image his father had of him.
“But you learned your lesson,” she said.
“I sure did.”
She stared at the money, and Gerry found himself staring as well. Money had never seemed so important as it did once the baby had been born. His wife lifted her eyes to meet his. “Will you give the money back to the track?” she asked.
“Give it back? Are you, nuts?”
“Gerry!”
There was a knock on the back door. He rose, and flicked on the back porch light. Through the glass cut-out he saw his father standing on the stoop. Did he overhear us? He unlocked the back door and opened it.
“Hey, Pop, what’s up?”
“We need to talk,” his father said.
Gerry and his father took a walk into downtown Palm Harbor. As towns went, it wasn’t much, the main street consisting of two family-owned restaurants, a metaphysical bookstore, a real estate office, and a coffee shop. It was Small Pond, U.S.A., but in Gerry’s book that was okay. Palm Harbor’s strict zoning restrictions prohibited fast-food restaurants and strip shopping centers, and he liked knowing the town was going to stay the way it was. They stopped beneath a moth-encrusted street light.
“We have a problem,” his father said.
Gerry sucked in his breath. “We do?”
“Yeah. It has the potential to ruin us.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. You want an ice cream cone?”
Gerry hid the smile forming on his lips. His father had never let anything get in the way of eating.
“Sure. Chocolate swirl if they have it.”
His father walked into a restaurant, and emerged a minute later with a pair of double-scoop ice cream cones. He handed Gerry one, along with a paper napkin. It didn’t look like chocolate swirl, but Gerry didn’t complain. The suspense was killing him, and they walked down the street side by side.
“A Nevada Gaming Control Board agent is stealing jackpots from slot machines,” his father began. “I’ve been asked to take the case, figure out who the agent is, and how he’s doing it.”
“What makes that such a big catastrophe?” Gerry asked, licking his cone. “I mean, you’ve caught slot cheaters before.”
“This is different. Once the story hits the news wires, it could destroy the gambling industry in Nevada.”
“You’ve lost me, Pop.”
His father licked his cone, then made a face. “This tastes funny.”
“So does mine,” Gerry said. “I think you got frozen yogurt by mistake.”
“Crap.”
They tossed their cones into a trash bin. His father said, “Do you have any idea how much revenue slot machines account for in Nevada?”
Gerry shook his head. Slot machines had never interested him, simply because there was no way for players to get an edge. The earliest slot machines had given out candy and chewing gum, then some genius had started offering cash prizes, and an industry had been born.
“Take a guess,” his father said.
“Twenty percent?”
“Seventy,” his father said. “Slo
t machines generate seven billion dollars a year profit in Nevada, thirty billion dollars a year nationwide. They’re the heart and soul of every casino. They’re also responsible for most taxes which are collected.”
