The Mirror Thief

by Martin Seay

  Before we get started, Argos says, I ought to tell you something.

  Okay.

  About three hundred yards over your right shoulder, on top of the rise, there is a little clump of creosote-bush. Don’t look. Just take my word for it. Sitting in that clump of creosote-bush is a friend of mine, all decked out in camouflage. My friend has a rifle with a scope on it, and right now he’s got the crosshairs of that scope glued to the back of your skull. I’m sure you know more about these things than I do, Curtis, but my friend tells me that with his rifle three hundred yards is a pretty easy shot. So just keep that in mind, please.

  For an instant Curtis tenses, his skin crawling, but it doesn’t last. Argos is already holding a pistol on him; why mention the rifle? It has to be bullshit: the guy’s alone out here, and he’s scared. Scared enough to be dangerous, maybe. But definitely alone.

  You made pretty good time, Argos says.

  Thanks. What do you want?

  I want to make a deal. I’m sick of getting chased around. I want to get back in business, start putting teams together again. I’m not greedy, and I know where I stand. I want some specific and convincing guarantees from Damon that he’ll lay off me from here on out, and let me do my thing.

  What are you offering?

  Argos grins. His grin is crazy, but calculatedly so: a crazy grin. I’m not offering, he says. I’m giving. We’re having ourselves a little potlatch here.

  Okay. What are you giving?

  I’m giving up my memory. I’m forgetting any and all claims I have on any portion of my take from the Spectacular. Okay? I’m forgetting what happened in AC. It’s entirely forgotten. Hell, I’m forgetting that Atlantic City even exists. I’m never setting foot there again. All this I do unilaterally. No need for reciprocal gestures. You can tell Damon that it’s my gift to him.

  He and Curtis look at each other. The wind hisses through the salt-cedar. It makes a lot of noise, but Curtis can barely feel it.

  However, Curtis says.

  Argos sighs. However, he says, before I did all that forgetting, I wrote a few letters. I won’t say how many. I sent these letters to some friends of mine. Good friends, and not-so-good friends. I told these people that if they hang onto these letters, I’ll send ’em a little something every year for their trouble. Some cash. They don’t have to do anything. Unless, of course, if that little something of mine doesn’t show up one year. Then they’re supposed to forward the letter to the New Jersey State Police. You know how this process generally works, Curtis, I’m sure. I don’t have to spell it out.

  Curtis nods. His heartbeat is gathering steam, but he tries to keep his face calm. He’s getting close, but he doesn’t know how to play this guy. Then something clicks, and he does. He can see himself through Argos’s eyes now: who and what Argos thinks he is. It’s not a good feeling, but he can use it.

  Well, Curtis says, Damon’s gonna want to know what that letter says.

  Argos makes a face. What are you talking about? he says. It’s not about his techniques for cheating at the Links, Curtis. What do you think it says?

  That’s not good enough. Damon’s gonna want to know exactly what you said, and exactly how you said it. You say you know what happened in AC. Okay, that sounds good. But what do you actually have? You need to show some cards.

  What? Argos laughs. Does Damon want me to send him a copy of the letter? I hope he opens his own fucking mail.

  Tell it to me, Curtis says. Right now. Tell me, like you’d tell the cops.

  A weird twitch passes from Argos’s nose to his lips. As if his face might be changing shape. Curtis, he says, I don’t really have time—

  You need to make time, Curtis says. If you want to settle this.

  Argos is still for what seems like minutes. The wind ruffles his short brown hair. Okay, he says. Where do you want me to start?

  Curtis thinks back to Veronica’s story, trying to remember where the gaps were. Stanley and Damon put the cardcounters together, he says.

  Stanley put the team together, Argos says. I knew from Damon to expect his call. But Stanley didn’t know what Damon had planned for the Point. That was between me and Damon and the dealer. Though I’m sure Stanley’s figured it out by now.

  What happened at the Point?

  Look, Argos says. Do I really—

  Tell it, goddamn it. What happened at the Point?

  Argos makes an irritated little puff. The team moved into the tables, he says, just like it did at all the other joints. We got into position, and the dealers started burning us, just like Damon had planned. When my team scattered, I ducked into the restroom, I changed, and I headed for the high-limit area.

  His eyebrows arch over the rims of the sunglasses. As if this should be enough. Spell it out, Curtis says. What did you do?

  I sat down, Argos sneers. I began to play blackjack. I began to bet the table maximum, which was ten thousand dollars a hand. I broke even for a while, and then I asked them to double the limit. They doubled the limit. Then I started winning.

  How did that work?

  This is ridiculous, Curtis.

  How did it work?

  It’s fun, though, you know? I’m really enjoying it. I feel sort of like a kinky hooker right now. Can we do some more roleplay when we’re done? Scoutmaster and his young Cub, maybe? How does that grab you?

  Tell me how it worked, Argos.

  Argos stares at Curtis for a second, slackjawed. What did you call me? he says.

  The question catches Curtis off-balance, but he keeps the doubt from his voice. That’s what you go by, right? he says. Graham Argos?

  Argos smirks, shifts his weight in the rickety chair. Sure, he says. If you write a check to Graham Argos, I will have no trouble cashing it. Is that the name Damon gave you for me?

  Curtis leans forward, puts his elbows on his knees, and fixes Argos with a steady glare. I want you to tell me, he says, right now, how it worked.

  The ensuing silence is broken by a strong warm gust that sweeps ashy powder from the old lakebed. It hisses against Argos’s cooler and Curtis’s shoes, and forms a brief dancing spiral in the spreadfoot foundation of a nearby ruin. A few grains ping off Curtis’s safety glasses.

  The dealer was crooked, Argos says. That’s how it worked. It was pretty amazing, if you want to know the truth. He was as good a mechanic as I am a blackjack player, and I do not say that lightly. I knew exactly what he’d be doing—what to look for—and I still couldn’t see it. That is not a skill you hear praised a lot, but it ought to be. It is a shame and a sin that that guy is no longer in the world.

  How come they didn’t catch you?

  Like I said, the guy was good.

  Bullshit, Curtis says. Doesn’t matter how good he was. The casino was on high alert. They knew they had counters on the floor; they had already burned some. Who authorized increasing the limit? Why didn’t anybody see the money moving your way?

  They were looking in the wrong places, Argos says. Sure they knew they had counters on the floor. That was the beauty of it. I told you, I was in the high-limit pit. Cardcounting teams don’t work high-limit tables; they’d get caught there in a fucking snap. Too much attention, not enough traffic. Damon had pulled his hotshot pit bosses and his best eye-in-the-sky guys out of high-limit, to the regular tables. That’s where the perceived threat was. He was offering cash bounties for burning our team. Meanwhile, I’ve got a crooked dealer, a green pit boss scared of pissing off a whale, and a bunch of security freaking out because they’re missing the real action across the room. Plus—this is key—Damon had worked up a phony credit history for me, so on paper I looked like a whale. I could’ve gone into the drop with a fucking shovel and gotten away with it.

  What was your take?

  Argos grins nastily. Did Damon give you permission to ask me that?

  That’s between me and Damon.

  Yeah, Argos says. I guess it is. Okay, Curtis. At twenty K a hand, I cleared a million and a quarter in a
little under ten minutes. That’s the number I took to the cage, and that’s what I walked out with.

  They just let you leave with over a million dollars in cash?

  They didn’t like it much. They tried to hold me up with bullshit excuses about filing a Form 8300, so by then they must’ve figured something was off. But at that point, what could they do? Again, I wasn’t just some guy in a suit. I was a rated player.

  Curtis looks over Argos’s shoulder to the long grasses along the water, watching patterns form and vanish as the wind shakes them. Damon had you working at the Point before, he says. As a position player. After he burned you. Before any of this happened.

  Did he tell you that?

  Is it true?

  Sure, Argos says. So what?

  So you’re telling me that you used to play poker at the Point on a daily basis—and then you came in with your team, ripped off a high-limit table for over a million bucks, and cashed out at the cage—and nobody recognized you?

  Argos shrugs. I am good at what I do, he says.

  Curtis sits back and looks him over. He could be twenty-five, thirty-five, forty-five years old. Beneath the sunglasses his skin is smooth and uniform, like plastic, or clay. Something about him is creepy, not fully human. He resembles a regular person the same way a coyote resembles a dog. Curtis isn’t afraid of him at all anymore.

  What happened to the dealer? he asks.

  Curtis expects Argos to hesitate here, but he doesn’t. This is the part he’s been wanting to tell.

  After I cashed out, he says, I hid my take in a deposit box and met my team up at Resorts. There was a lot of hand-wringing and confusion and cussing the Spectacular, but nobody was heartbroken, because everybody made very nice money everyplace else. Stanley, I think, knew by then that he’d been fucked at the Point, and I think he knew that I’d been in on it. But he wasn’t feeling good, and he kept pretty quiet. It took us a while to work the split, then we went our separate ways. I went back to my deposit box to get the money, and then I went back to the Point.

  Wait a minute. You went where?

  Yeah. I wasn’t too happy about it either. But that’s where Damon wanted to meet to settle shares, because he and the dealer couldn’t get away from work for very long. Or at least that’s what he said. So I made some adjustments to my appearance, and I headed back. Very confused vibe on the gaming floor. Lots of people showing up from other casinos with congratulations, wanting to find out how the Point had burned us, while at about the same time, Spectacular management was realizing just how badly they’d been hosed. It felt like walking into a convenience store a few minutes after it’s been held up. Or coming through a little town after a tornado’s hit. Only nobody could see the tornado. Everybody was excited, keyed-up. I didn’t hang around very long. I hustled up to the room.

  What room?

  Just a regular room in the tower. I knocked, some guy answered.

  What guy?

  I’d never seen him before. I knew right then it was a setup. The thing was done, we had the money. Why bring in somebody else?

  What did he look like?

  Tall. Six-four, I’d guess. One-eighty, one-ninety. Greasy. Country-boy accent. Obvious muscle: a guy who’d done time. He let me in—the dealer was already there—and then he left. He said he’d be back in a minute with Damon.

  What did you do?

  I got the fuck out of there. What do you think I did?

  Why?

  Because I’m fucking smart, is why. Look: I show up, Damon’s not there, some hardcase thug I don’t know answers the door, checks to make sure I have the money, tells us to stay put, and splits. I mean, holy shit, Curtis. He might as well have spread out some plastic sheets and told us to lie down on them till he got back.

  You got scared.

  Maybe I wasn’t a hundred percent sure at the time. I just had a bad feeling, and I went with it. But look what happened to the dealer. The dealer stuck around. Now he’s a chumline in Absecon Bay.

  You didn’t actually see what happened to him.

  No, Curtis, I didn’t. I didn’t hide in the bushes while Damon and his triggerman loaded the body in a trunk. I didn’t follow them to the harbor like Nancy fucking Drew. You’re absolutely right. I’m being silly. The Jersey cops won’t give a shit about what I know. I’m sorry I wasted your time. But isn’t the lake lovely? Now come get your gun and shoot me in the head.

  Did you take any of the money?

  No, I didn’t take the fucking money! Is Damon saying I took the money?

  Why not? Why’d you leave it?

  Argos squirms, runs a hand through his hair. It wasn’t winnings, he says. It was stolen. Which, fine. But a lot of it was new bills. I wasn’t sure what to do with it. And Damon’s plan wasn’t seeming all that clever at the time. I opted to cut and run.

  What did the dealer do?

  He tried to stop me. He was freaking out. I tried to explain why I was leaving, but his English wasn’t too good. We got into it a little bit. I pushed him down. He probably would have chased me, but he didn’t want to lock himself out of the room.

  What was his name?

  He never told me. I didn’t see him until I sat down at his table, and then I didn’t think to look at his badge. When we met up later, I wasn’t there long enough to do any icebreaking activities. I found it on the internet yesterday, and wrote it down somewhere. Some Korean name.

  Curtis squares his jaw, looks at the water. Grinding his teeth. He’s angry, enough to scare himself. Thinking about ways to get to the guns. The sun is high now. Some of the big birds he had taken for gulls are white pelicans, gliding inches off the water, fishing the reedy shallows, pressing long bills into their breasts.

  What if the other guy wasn’t a hired gun? Curtis says. What if he was there to buy the cash?

  What are you talking about? Argos says. But he knows what Curtis is talking about; he’s been thinking it too. It’s in his voice, if not his face.

  You said yourself it was new bills, Curtis says. Maybe that was the other guy’s job, to wash the money. Maybe he wasn’t a shooter. Maybe the deal only went bad because you left, and they panicked, and they went after each other. Maybe this is all your fault, Argos. You ever think about that?

  Argos smiles wanly, makes a dismissive gesture. I tend not to dwell on such stuff, he says. It makes me unhappy. This business is all about attit—

  His smile evaporates. He sits up in his chair. What the fuck is that? he says.

  Curtis’s chin drops in disbelief. You got to be kidding, he says. I’m supposed to turn my back now, right?

  Something’s on the road.

  Argos picks up the two pistols, puts them on the concrete, and tips back the lid of the cooler: bottles inside, along with a pair of binoculars, which Argos lifts to his face. This would be a good time to rush him, but Curtis can’t psych himself up for it. Probably just your imaginary friend with the rifle, he says. Sick of waiting on you.

  It’s a car. Did you have anybody following you?

  Nobody followed me, Curtis says. Thinking about it, though, he never really checked the cab’s mirrors. Still, it doesn’t seem possible.

  Well, Argos says, I gotta run.

  He steps to the dirtbike, throws open the saddlebag, stuffs the binoculars inside. Keep your shit together, Argos, Curtis says. It’s probably just the park ranger.

  It’s not the ranger.

  Argos tucks his gun into his waistband, then unloads Curtis’s revolver and puts it and the loose bullets in the cooler. Curtis rises from his seat. You’re just gonna leave me in the desert, huh? he says. How do you recommend I get back to town? I can’t use my phone out here.

  Oh, you picked right up on that, didn’t you? Argos laughs. Pretty sharp. You got that phone from Damon, right?

  Curtis blinks. What’s that got to do with anything?

  He gave me one, too. Pretty nice phone. Funny thing, though. After I ducked Damon and his triggerman at the Point, for the next cou
ple of days, I kept having these crazy close calls. I’d be sitting at a restaurant or some random place, I’d look up, and there Country Boy would be, looking around with his beady eyes. A couple of places I had to leave through kitchens and windows. But you know what? After I dumped the phone, that shit stopped. Sure, I know what you’re thinking: correlation ain’t causation. But if you’re wondering why I wanted to meet up way out here, well, that’s why.

  Curtis shakes his head. You’re one paranoid son of a bitch, he says.

  Argos puts his pistol in the saddlebag, along with two bottles of water from the cooler. His crazy grin is back; it seems less affected this time. You think I’m paranoid, huh? he says. Okay. Let’s talk about our pal Damon for a second. What did Damon do after the Gulf War, Curtis? Embassy security. Where? Bolivia. Pakistan. Who hangs out at those embassies? You’re gonna tell me Damon didn’t network with those guys? Damon Blackburn? C’mon, Curtis. This guy knows the secret handshake, okay? He owns the decoder ring.

  Curtis laughs at that, shakes his head like it’s ridiculous, but at the same time he’s thinking: how did Albedo find me yesterday at New York?

  Argos pulls his binoculars from the saddlebag to scan the rise again. Curtis risks a glance of his own this time. Sure enough, there’s a pink column of dust there, fading in the breeze. He can’t see anything moving on the ground.

  A helmet hangs from the dirtbike’s handlebars; Argos pulls it on, fastens the chinstrap. Then he stows the binoculars and shuts the saddlebag. Wait a minute, Curtis says. We’re not done yet.

  Oh, I’m afraid we are, my friend.

  Curtis forces himself to think quickly, to get back in character. He still doesn’t have what he needs. Not enough. Not yet. You’re full of shit, man, he says. If you expect Damon to make a deal based on what you just told me, then you really are crazy. You’ve got nothing. Go ahead and give that story to NJSP. Damon’ll say you cooked it up. He’ll say you and the dealer put the scam together on your own, and that you whacked the dealer yourself. Anything you claim he did on the inside, he’ll say you could have done yourself from the outside with a little foresight. Who can corroborate?