by James Swain
“Bronco’s getting away,” Gerry said, sounding panicked.
“Let the cops run him down,” Valentine said.
“But Pop—
“He’s got a gun, Gerry. Stay here.”
His son reluctantly agreed. Valentine gazed down into the Asian’s face. He tried to remember the guy’s name? Was it Xing or Zing or Bling? He couldn’t recall. He looked like a decent enough sort, but most people did when they died, all the bad things they’d done seemed to seep out of them, and just the core remained, until that too was gone. The Asian’s eyes fluttered and his smile grew. What was that about?
“Anything I can do?” Valentine asked.
The Asian shook his head, and then he was no more.
One of the cops got a blanket from inside the Nugget, and laid it over the dead man’s body. Valentine stood up and crossed himself. Then he grabbed Gerry and went looking for Bill, who was handling the search for Bronco on Fremont Street. They’d caught a glimpse of their fugitive as he’d run away; he had disguised himself by shaving his head, and would not be hard to pick out of a crowd.
The Fremont Street Experience was still in full swing, with laser lights flashing across the steel canopy accompanied by blaring disco music that was a few seconds out of sync with the rest of the show. The Experience normally drew a good crowd, and today was no exception. Thousands of tourists were packed on the street, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with their plastic cups of beer and glazed expressions on their faces.
“Where did all these people come from?” Gerry asked.
“This is Vegas, Gerry.”
“I know, but this is unreal.”
They sifted their way through the throng. Soon they could barely move. Gerry was right — the crowd was huge, and seemed to be growing by the minute. There was no sign of Bill or his posse, although he could have been a few feet away, and Valentine wouldn’t have spotted him. They reached the end of the Experience where Fremont met Las Vegas Boulevard, and Valentine pulled his son out of the crowd to a secluded spot beneath a withered palm tree where a homeless man lay sleeping.
“Look at all those cars,” Gerry said.
Valentine followed his son’s gaze. The boulevard was jammed with vehicles, none of which were moving. An irate motorist honked their horn. Within seconds, everyone was making their displeasure known, the situation spiraling out of control.
“What do you think’s going on?” Gerry asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s ask someone.”
Gerry had a knack of being able to talk to complete strangers. He jogged over to one of the stuck vehicles, and struck up a conversation with the driver, a white-haired man traveling with his wife. The driver handed Gerry a sheet of paper, and Gerry thanked him and shook his hand. Then, his son jogged back.
“It’s some kind of promotion,” his son explained.
“Let me see.”
Gerry handed him the sheet of paper. It was an e-mail addressed to Harold and Lorraine Duffy, its sender THE LAS VEGAS CONVENTION & VISITOR’S BUREAU. The print was huge, and practically leapt off the page.
Dear Video Poker Enthusiast — Never let it be said that money doesn’t grow on trees! At three P.M. today, money will grow on trees in the form of five million dollar jackpots, payable to five lucky people playing a video poker machine at a Las Vegas casino. As any video poker player knows, the casinos are required to pay a certain number of jackpots, or risk losing their licenses. This afternoon, five lucky players will win a jackpot, courtesy of this wonderful rule. So, grab your honey and your money, and head to your favorite casino. Remember to do the following when you play:
1) Bet the maximum number of coins the machine allows
2) Be sure you are playing at 3:00 P.M.
3) Be at a Las Vegas casino.
Have fun and good luck!
Yours truly,
The Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Bureau
Valentine smelled a rat. A big, giant rat. Still holding the email, he crossed the street with his son and entered Fitzgeralds, one of the older casinos on Fremont Street. The joint was mobbed, and he had to push his way through the front doors.
He pushed his way to a bank of video poker machines. Every seat at every machine was taken, and there were lines of people standing behind each seat. He approached several of the people on line, and held the email in front of their faces.
“Did you get one of these emails?” Valentine asked.
The people on line said they had. He showed the email to the people in the seats, just to be sure. They’d all received the email as well.
The noise inside the casino was too loud to think. Valentine went back outside with his son, and stood beneath the withered palm tree. The homeless man was still sound asleep.
“Who do you think’s behind this email?” his son asked.
“Fred Friendly and his gang,” Valentine replied. “The convention and visitors bureau does email promotions to bring customers into town. Fred and his gang got their hands on the data bases, and sent this letter to them.”
“You think they’re trying to skip town, and this is their smokescreen?”
Valentine glanced at the email clutched in his hand. The letter hadn’t been written on a whim. Someone had spent time constructing it.
“I think it’s real,” Valentine said.
“You do?”
“Friendly and his gang have a score to settle with Governor Smoltz. I’m guessing they rigged a bunch of video poker machines to pay off jackpots, and planned to send out that e-mail if the law ever caught up to them. When they heard that Bill ordered the Universal slot machines taken out of commission, they put the plan into effect.”
Valentine’s cell phone was vibrating. It was Bill, and he answered it.
“Bronco’s gone,” Bill said.
“Forget Bronco,” Valentine said. “I’ve got some really bad news for you.”
Chapter 55
Bill was at the other end of Fremont Street. Normally, it would have taken two minutes for him to walk to the sidewalk outside of Fitzgerald’s casino where Valentine and Gerry were standing. Because of the crowds, it took ten minutes.
Bill looked frustrated and angry when he arrived. Bronco was in the wind, and their chances of now finding him were slim. Valentine didn’t think his news would make Bill feel any better, and showed him the email. Then, he explained what Friendly and his gang were up to. When he was finished, a wall of resolution rose in Bill’s face.
“That isn’t possible, Tony.”
“Why not?”
“Because I personally worked on a project to upgrade the security of every video poker machine in Nevada,” Bill said. “This is one game which can’t be scammed.”
“You’re sure about that.”
“Damn straight I am. I’d bet my paycheck on it.”
Gerry started coughing. It wasn’t a natural sounding cough, and Valentine quizzed him with a glance. “What’s the matter?”
“Bill’s wrong,” his son said. “Video poker machines can be scammed.”
“They can?”
In a quiet voice, Gerry said, “Yeah. I helped scam one.”
Valentine stared long and hard at his son. There was a streak of gray hair on the back of Gerry’s head, just like his own. They were alike in so many ways, yet there were times that he felt he hardly knew his son at all.
“Go on,” Valentine said.
“This was back when I was running the bar in Brooklyn. This guy came in one day, a client of mine.” He glanced at Bill. “I used to be a bookie.”
“So I’ve heard,” Bill said.
“Anyway, this guy owed me five grand from some football games he bet on. He had this thing about the Jets, and their quarterback was having a lousy year—
“Get on with it,” Valentine said.
“Sorry. So, this guy offers me a deal. He says his kid brother, who’s a computer wiz, knows how to scam a video poker machine in Atlantic City. If I play
the machine, I can win my five grand back. I told him I wanted to know how his kid brother had scammed the machine. You know, just to be sure that it couldn’t be traced back to me.”
Valentine’s face felt like a four-alarm fire. He’d still been working for the Atlantic City police department when Gerry had his bar, which meant that his son had scammed an Atlantic City casino while he was still policing them. He knew Gerry had balls; he just hadn’t known how enormous they were.
“So the guy brings his kid brother into the bar the next day,” Gerry went on. “The kid explains how he got a video poker machine for Christmas. He analyzed the machine with his computer, and discovered that it used something called a random function to shuffle its internal deck of cards. This random function created different “seeds” which insured that the cards were always different.”
Valentine had little experience with video poker machines because the belief in the industry had been that no one had ever successfully scammed one. Looking at Bill, he said, “This make sense to you?”
Bill nodded. “Random functions generate starting values, which are called seeds. The seeds are randomly changed to insure a fair game.”
“Exactly,” Gerry said. “The kid discovered that his game used the machine’s internal clock to create seeds. When he hit the start button, the random function looked at the number of milliseconds which had elapsed since 12:00 A.M., and used that number to create the seed. Since there are eighty-six million milliseconds each day, the seed should have been random. Only it wasn’t, because the kid could generate the same eighty-six million seeds on his computer because he knew the starting point. That let him calculate which cards were coming out.”
“How did this translate to you beating a video-poker machine in Atlantic City?” Valentine said. “The kid was playing a game, for Christ’s sake.”
“The kid’s game was manufactured by a company that made casino video poker games,” Gerry explained. “He told his brother, and his brother went to Atlantic City, and played one of the company’s real games. Guess what? The same cards came out as his brother’s game at home. They were generating the same seeds.”
Bill crossed his arms. “Gerry, what you just described is ancient history. Remember what I told you before, about my being involved in updating the machines? We discovered that flaw, and made the manufacturers stop using internal clocks.”
“But what if a company didn’t?” Gerry said. “What if one company ignored your order, and didn’t change the program? You know, to save money.”
“Like Universal did when it used the same fingerprint on its slot machines,” Valentine said.
“Exactly,” Gerry said. “And Fred Friendly’s gang discovered the flaw. But instead of making the company update the machines, they keep it a secret, just waiting for the day when they knew they could screw the casinos with it.”
Valentine sensed where his son was headed. “If that was true, it would mean that those video poker machines could be scammed if a player played at a certain time, and a certain way. Just like the e-mail is telling them.”
Bill’s face had turned ashen, and he clenched both his hands into fists. Out on the boulevard, traffic had gotten worse, the angry blare of car horns echoing across town. “How far are Fred Friendly’s offices from here?” Valentine asked.
“A couple of miles,” Bill said.
“We need to pay them a visit.”
Chapter 56
The Electronic Systems Division of the Nevada Gaming Control Board was headquartered in a nondescript three-story building on Sahara boulevard, two blocks off the strip. At a quarter of two, Bill pulled into the parking lot with Valentine and Gerry, and braked by the front doors. Bill had taken back roads, and it still took twenty minutes. Bill used his pass to enter the building’s elaborate security system, and they took an elevator to the third floor, where the ESD managers worked. The gang’s offices were at the end of a hallway, and stood side-by-side. Each had a brass name plate on their door. Haskell, Robinson, Lacross, Dolan, Howard, Ortiz, and Friendly.
Bill did a quick check of each office. Their personal belongings were gone from their desks, and their computer screens were blank. Fred Friendly occupied the corner office, and Bill sat down at his desk, and rifled the drawers. His elbow touched the keyboard for the computer, and the screen came to life.
“What is this?” Bill muttered.
Valentine edged up to the computer to have a look. On the screen was a spread sheet with a heading that said LV/VIDEO POKER. He touched the keyboard, and began to scroll through the document. “It’s all the video poker machines in Las Vegas.”
“Do you think Fred left this for us to see?”
“Sure looks that way. Looks like he highlighted some of them.”
They brought their faces up to the screen. Friendly had highlighted a quarter of the machines on the spread sheet. Each highlighted machine had a notation that said UNV. Valentine thought he knew what it meant, but asked anyway.
“It means Universal,” Bill said softly.
“Universal makes video poker machines, too?”
“Yes. They’re responsible for a quarter of the machines in town.”
Valentine drew back from the computer screen. The realization of what Friendly’s gang had done hit him over the head like a lead pipe. Friendly’s gang hadn’t corrupted five Universal video poker machines to pay out jackpots at 3:00 o’clock; they’d corrupted hundreds of them to pay out jackpots, then sent out emails to insure that the machines got played. Las Vegas’s casinos were about to lose hundreds of millions of dollars.
“What are we going to do?” Bill said.
“Run them down, and find out how to reverse what they’ve done.”
Bill looked at his watch. “It’s almost two. We’ve got an hour.”
“Piece of cake.”
Bill glanced up at him, and smiled grimly.
Valentine gathered the garbage pails from each office, dumped them on the carpet in Friendly’s office, and with Bill kneeling beside him, went through their contents. His guess was, the gang had split up, and taken different routes out of town. That was the smart thing to do, and these guys were as smart as they came.
The garbage didn’t say much, but then he found a coffee-stained receipt in the bottom of the pail that had come from the office of Janet Haskell, one of the two women in the gang. The receipt was for three paperback books purchased at the nearby Borders, and was from yesterday afternoon. Two of the books were mysteries by Valentine’s favorite authors, Michael Connelly and Elmore “Dutch” Leonard. The third book was a Fodor’s Guide to Acapulco. He showed it to Bill.
“You’re a genius,” Bill said.
Clutching the receipt in his hand, Valentine walked down the hallway to the empty office where Gerry had parked himself behind a desk, his fingers dancing across the keyboard as he tried to access the computer. His son looked up expectantly.
“You find something?” Valentine asked.
His son nodded. “I think this was left for us. I’m printing it now.”
The laser printer sat atop a metal stand in the corner. Valentine grabbed the sheets as they were spit out and quickly read the manuscript. It had been co-authored by the gang, and explained in detail why they’d gone bad. Every criminal had a “reason” for committing crimes, and the reasons were all bogus. Everyone on the planet knew the difference between right and wrong; even the severely retarded. But this gang surprised him. They weren’t saying they weren’t guilty. They simply stated in plain English that they were fed up with how justice was administered in Las Vegas.
A hand tapped his shoulder, and he turned to face Bill.
“There’s an American Airlines flight to Acapulco out of McCarren that leaves at two-thirty, ” Bill said. “I called TSA, and told them to ground that plane.”
They went downstairs and climbed into Bill’s car. Bill started to pull the vehicle onto the street, then jammed on the brakes. Traffic had reached critical mass on Saha
ra, and the cars looked glued together. Bill called the Metro Las Vegas police on his cell phone. They weren’t much help, and he cursed after hanging up.
“The city’s roads and highways are at a standstill,” he said.
Valentine was riding shotgun. “Where are the cops?”
“The cops have been dispensed to the casinos to keep things under control,” Bill said. “Thousands of people have come in for the promotion. They’re fighting over seats at video poker machines.”
