by James Swain
“This isn’t a bribe,” he called after him.
Klinghoffer shuffled back to Bronco’s cell. His shoes were at least a size fourteen and he couldn’t walk without scuffing the floor.
“Then what is it?”
“Free money.”
“Ain’t no such thing.”
“Yes there is.” Bronco pressed his face against the bars. “There’s a casino in Reno called the Gold Rush. You know it?”
“Sure.”
“Go inside, and go to the first row of slot machines you see.”
“Front door or back?”
“Front. Third machine from the end is a Quarter Mania. Put three quarters into the machine, and pull the handle. Then put in two, and pull the handle. Then put in one, and pull the handle. Then you’re set. Make sure you bet the maximum amount of coins after that.”
Klinghoffer stared at him. There was a security camera watching them, and he was smart enough to answer while barely moving his lips.
“Why should I do that.”
“Because you’ll win a jackpot.”
“Machine rigged?”
“Never been touched.”
“Then how?”
Bronco pulled away from the bars and lay down on his cot. He propped his pillow against the wall, and lay on it with his arms behind his head. “It’s free money, my friend. I have the keys to the kingdom, and I’m willing to share them with you.”
Klinghoffer’s mouth twisted in confusion, his conscience battling with the devil called greed. He started to walk away, then halted, and turned to stare at his prisoner.
“Three, two and one?”
“That’s right. Make sure you buy your wife something nice.”
Chapter 8
The next day, Valentine and Gerry flew to Las Vegas to meet up with Bill Higgins. It was six hours of flying with all the stops, and when they got off at McCarren International Airport in Las Vegas, Bill was waiting for them outside the terminal. A Navajo by birth, Bill’s dark suit complimented his jet black hair and steely disposition.
“I’ve got some good news,” Bill said.
“Let me guess,” Valentine said. “You found the bad agent in your department, and we can go home.”
“No, but we did find Bronco’s apartment. He’s been living in Henderson under an alias. I figured you’d want to be there when we searched it.”
“Who’s we?” Valentine asked.
“Two of my best field agents, plus two detectives with the Metro LVPD.”
“And the three of us?”
“Correct.”
Bill was the smartest law enforcement agent Valentine knew who’d never been a cop. But there was something missing from not having that cop experience. As a cop, you got to learn how bad people could really be. Valentine fished a piece of nicotine gum out of his pocket and popped it into his mouth.
“Governor Smoltz said this was my investigation.”
“That’s right,” Bill said. “Smoltz gave you carte blanche.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning you can boss around whoever you want to.”
“Including yourself?”
Bill swallowed a lump in his throat. They’d been friends for more than twenty-five years, only Valentine wasn’t going to let that stand in the way of handling the investigation. Gerry excused himself, and ducked into a Men’s Room.
“Including me,” Bill replied.
“If you don’t mind, I want to excuse your two agents and two detectives, and search Bronco’s place ourselves.”
Bill’s face turned to stone. He didn’t like it, and Valentine fished another piece of nicotine gum out of his pocket, and handed it to him.
“Try this.”
“What for?”
“It helps control your temper.”
Bill popped the gum into his mouth and made a face. “That tastes terrible.”
“See, it’s working already. You’ve got your mind on other things.”
Dozens of people were swirling around them in the terminal, and Valentine lowered his voice. “Look, Bill, who’s to say your two field agents aren’t working with Bronco, or that Bronco doesn’t have cops on the police force in his back pocket? I know it’s a stretch, but why take risks?”
“You’ve got a point.”
“Besides the one on top of my head?”
Bill smiled, no longer pissed off. “Besides that one.”
“One more thing,” Valentine said. “I want some form of identification that will let me do this job.”
Bill thought it over. “How about a Nevada Gaming Control Board shield?”
“Beautiful. I’ll also need an ID for my son.”
“Isn’t he here on vacation?”
Gerry had come off the plane wearing khakis and a loud Hawaiian shirt, and had looked like every other person ready to have a good time.
“No. He’s working with me.”
Bill started to protest, then clamped his mouth shut. Bill had come close to having Gerry arrested six months ago, and was not a member of his son’s fan club.
“It’s your show,” Bill said.
Henderson was a bedroom community twenty minutes outside Las Vegas, and had everything the neon city had — casinos, nightlife, good restaurants — but a lot less tourists. As a result, it had less problems, and Valentine had always considered it one of Nevada’s better places to live. Bronco lived in an older housing development on the outskirts of town. The development’s name was plastered on a sign by the entrance, and Valentine forgot it the moment Bill drove past. Inside were endless rows of one-story, sun-bleached houses on streets with names like Whispering Hills and Emerald Greens, even though there were no hills for fifty miles, and nothing was green.
Bronco’s house was at the end of a cul-de-sac, and was cordoned off with yellow police tape. A pair of Metro LVPD’s finest stood in the shade of the front porch, their thumbs hooked in their belts. Bill got out, and flashed his ID.
“We’re here to search the house,” he said. “I want one of you in front, the other in back. If you see anyone come up, yell.”
“Yes, sir,” the officers replied.
Valentine followed Bill across the front lawn with the sun burning on his neck. Gerry walked beside his father, ignoring the two cops’ stares.
“Next time, wear regular clothes,” Valentine said.
Bill used a crow bar to break down the front door. Then, he stepped aside. “It’s all yours,” he said.
Valentine entered and waited for his eyes to adjust, then stared at a living room straight out of a college frat house. On every table were empty beer bottles and plastic ashtrays overflowing with stale cigarette butts. On the floor were piles of newspapers and magazines that dated back several months. Gerry whistled under his breath.
“Reminds me of my room when I was growing up.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Valentine said. He watched his son head toward the kitchen. “Don’t touch anything.”
“Yes, sir.”
Valentine cased the living room. An 58" plasma screen TV hung from the wall. He had been thinking about getting a new TV, and had priced the same model at Best Buy, then decided he could live without it. It wasn’t that he couldn’t afford to spend five thousand bucks for a TV; there was simply nothing on TV worth spending five grand for. In front of the TV was a cracked leather chair that looked really comfortable. Next to it, a small table on which sat an empty fifth of Jack Daniels and three ashtrays overflowing with cigarette butts. It reminded Valentine of his father, who killed his evenings in front of the tube, smoking and drinking. He noticed a DVD on the table and picked it up. The writing on the DVD said, MARIE/FIRST DATE.
The remote control sat on the chair’s arm. Valentine powered up the TV, and the screen came to life. He inserted the DVD and hit play. A surveillance tape appeared on the screen, showing a group of people playing craps inside a casino. One woman stood out. Short, dark-haired and vivacious, with a melt-your heart smile.
She was throwing the dice, and appeared to be winning.
“Hey Pop, in here,” Gerry called from the back of the house.
“You find something?”
“Yeah, but I don’t know what it is.”
“You didn’t touch it, did you?”
His son didn’t reply, leaving Valentine to believe that he had. As Valentine crossed the room, he saw Bill leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.
“He’s learning,” Valentine said.
He walked through the kitchen. It was a disaster area, the sink overflowing with dirty dishes that looked like science experiments, the counter tops covered with empty beer bottles. Most hustlers tried to stay away from the sauce; it was bad for business. Bronco obviously had a problem he couldn’t control.
“Where are you?” Valentine called out.
“In the garage.”
He found a short hallway that led to the garage. He stuck his head in, and saw Gerry standing at a work table that ran the length of the wall. The garage had been converted into a workshop, and contained every power tool ever invented. Gerry pointed at several boxes filled with rings of keys.
“What are these?”
Valentine walked over and pulled a ring from one of the boxes. There was a tag attached to it that said Harrah’s. He pulled out another. The tag on it said Caesars.
“They’re skeleton keys to slot machines. Bronco can see a key once, and make a duplicate. At one time, he probably could open half the slot machines in Las Vegas,” Valentine explained.
“What happened?”
“The casinos changed all their machines.”
“Because of him?”
“He was one of the reasons.”
Gerry moved down the table. A hundred metal devices that looked like reading lights lay stacked in another box. “What are these?”
Valentine stared into the box. A wireless transmitter lay on top of the stack. He pressed the power button, and the lights on every device began flicking on and off. “Strobes,” he said.
“You going to fill me in, or do I have to hold my breath?”
Valentine turned the transmitter off, and the devices stopped blinking. “They’re called monkey’s paws. Every slot machine has an optical sensor to count payouts. The monkey’s paw is inserted up the payout chute, and causes the sensor to overpay. Slot machines also have anti-runaway relays to stop overpayments. My guess is, the strobe light defeats the anti-runaway relay.”
“But why so many of them?” Gerry asked.
That was a good question. Picking up one of the devices, Valentine noticed two tiny magnets, one glued to the top, the other to the bottom. Smiling, he showed them to his son. “Bronco is leaving the monkey’s paws inside the slot machines. Someone inspecting the machine won’t see it, unless they know what to look for. Bronco picks up money whenever he needs it.”
Gerry shook his head in wonder.
“Sweet,” he said.
Valentine returned to the living room. The surveillance tape in the VCR was still playing, the woman with the great smile still shooting craps. She was on a roll, and everyone at the table was reveling in her good fortune. Valentine guessed this was Marie, whose name was written on the DVD.
He watched Marie throw the dice. His gut told him she was your everyday, average player. He wondered why Bronco would watch a tape of her. Had she been a member of one of his gangs? She was wholesome looking, and didn’t seem the type. Gerry and Bill entered the living room.
“We’re going to search the bedrooms,” his son said. “I know, don’t touch anything I’m not supposed to.”
“Keeping your hands in your pockets will do the trick.”
“Thanks, Pop.”
They walked down the hall and disappeared. Picking up the remote, Valentine started to turn off the player, then saw something strange on the screen. A man was leaning over the craps table, his face exposed to the camera. It was Bronco.
As the banker at the table paid Marie off, he was momentarily distracted. The banker turned his head, and Bronco added chips palmed in his hand to Marie’s bet. It was called past-posting, and Bronco did it as well as anyone Valentine had ever seen.
Marie made a startled face. She’s not part of it, Valentine realized. The banker turned his attention back to Marie, and paid her off the higher amount. Marie hesitated, then picked up her winnings, and hurried away from the craps table.
Moments later, the tape ended.
Valentine shook his head in bewilderment. He’d seen a lot of strange things in casinos, but never anything like this. Bronco had added his chips to her bet, even though she wasn’t working with him.
He was still thinking about it when he heard Gerry emit a blood-curdling yell from the other side of the house. Moments later, his son ran into the living room followed by two man-eating pit bulls.
“I opened the wrong door,” he screamed.
Chapter 9
Karl Klinghoffer’s shift at the county jail ended at two P.M. Instead of driving home and eating lunch like he normally did, he drove straight into downtown Reno. The streets were practically deserted, and he guessed he could have driven around with his eyes closed and not hurt anybody.
He drove beneath the famous Reno Arch on Virginia Street. Neon letters bragged against the clear blue sky, “The Biggest Little City in the World.” On a fine spring day in 1928, the arch had been raised to honor the paving of a two-lane highway over Donner Summit to California. As a band played brassy ragtime, the town’s casino operators and bankers had celebrated their good fortune. So had Klinghoffer’s grandfather, a local bootlegger. It had been a glorious time.
A car’s horn snapped him out of his daydream. He was driving below the speed limit, and goosed the accelerator of his fading Tercel. He’d bought the car the same week he’d met Becky, a preacher’s daughter, at a party where he’d had too much to drink. Three months later they’d gotten married. Six months after that, Karl Jr. was born. The car was a constant reminder of how messed up his life had become since that night.
He turned into the Gold Rush’s parking lot. As he parked, his conscience spoke to him. You can still walk away. He sat at the wheel and thought about it.
There was no question in his mind that the slot machine Bronco Marchese had told him to play was rigged. How else could Bronco know that it was going to pay a jackpot? By Nevada law, Karl was supposed to report this information to the police, or risk becoming an accomplice. But was knowing this really wrong? Every casino in town ran promotions for slot machines that paid off 101%. The trick was finding out which machines they were. Why was knowing that any different than knowing which machine would pay a jackpot?
It wasn’t, he told himself.
He entered the casino. He was still in his uniform, and saw an armed security guard nod. Karl nodded back, then let his eyes slide across the glittering landscape.
The slots were the first thing he saw. They called them one-armed bandits, but that had never stopped people from playing them. Every sound that came out of a slot machine was a variation of the musical note C. Karl knew a lot about slots, and other stuff as well. Because he talked slow, people thought he was stupid. But he wasn’t stupid. Just unlucky.
He went to the cage and bought a plastic bucket filled with quarters. Then, he sat down in front of the third slot machine from the end. It was a Quarter Mania, just like Bronco had said. He realized his hands were trembling. What if the casino’s surveillance department was watching from the eye-in-the-sky? What if they knew the machine was rigged, and were just waiting to see who played it a certain way? There was still time to back out, go home, and eat his peanut butter sandwich.
“Screw that,” he said aloud.
A woman in a tracksuit at the next machine looked at him. “Excuse me?”
“Sorry, ma’am.”
He started feeding his quarters into the machine. He’d thought it over, and decided he should lose some money before he went for the kill. Otherwise, if would look funn
y if someone watched the tape later on.
He lost thirty dollars in the time it took for a cocktail waitress to bring him a beer. She was dressed like a cowgirl and sneered at his fifty cent tip. The bottle was cold in his hand, and he took a long swallow of beer. It made him relax, and soon his hands stopped trembling.
Karl did not remember feeding the coins into the Quarter Mania machine in the three, two, one order, but he guess he had, because soon the machine was ringing, and he was staring at the flashing number in the payout bar. He’d won $9980.45.
