The Wheel of Darkness

by Douglas Preston

  “We can’t allow you to cheat either, Mr. Pendergast.”

  “Why, Mr. Kemper,” Pendergast responded, his voice full of hurt, “did I say I was going to cheat?”

  Kemper said nothing.

  “A characteristic of card counters is that they stick by their system. A normal player will quit if he’s losing heavily—but not a professional card counter. He knows the odds will eventually come around. That’s to our advantage.” Pendergast looked at his watch. “Eleven-thirty. That leaves three hours of prime play ahead. Mr. Kemper, be so kind as to extend me a half-million line of credit.”

  “Did you say half a million?”

  “I’d hate to find myself short just when things got going.”

  Kemper thought hard for a minute. “Are you going to get back our money?”

  Pendergast smiled. “I shall try.”

  Kemper swallowed. “All right.”

  “You’ll need to have Mr. Hentoff warn your pit bosses and dealers that my play might be eccentric, even suspicious—although it will always remain within legal bounds. I’ll take my seat at first base—on the dealer’s left—and I’ll be sitting out about fifty percent of the hands played, so please tell your people not to move me if I’m not playing. Hentoff should instruct his dealers to give me the cut at every normal opportunity, particularly when I first sit down. I’ll appear to be drinking heavily, so make sure when I order a gin and tonic I’m brought only tonic water.”

  “All right.”

  “Would it be possible to lift the maximum wager at one of the high-stakes tables?”

  “You mean, no upper limit to a bet?”

  “Yes. It will ensure the counters mark that table, and it will make taking the money back much more efficient.”

  Kemper felt a bead of sweat trickling down his brow. “We can do that.”

  “And finally, please have Mr. Hentoff staff that table with a dealer with small hands and thin fingers. The less experienced, the better. Have him or her place the end-of-play card high up in the shoe.”

  “Do I dare ask why?” said Kemper.

  “You dare not.”

  “Mr. Pendergast, if we catch you cheating, it’s going to be extremely awkward for both of us.”

  “I will not cheat—you have my word.”

  “How can you possibly influence play when none of the players ever touch the cards?”

  Pendergast smiled enigmatically. “There are ways, Mr. Kemper. Oh, and I shall need an assistant, one of your cocktail waitresses, someone invisible, discreet, and intelligent, who will bring me my drinks and be on call for some—how shall it put it?—unusual assignments I may suddenly give her. They are to be performed unquestionably and without hesitation.”

  “This had better work.”

  Pendergast paused. “Naturally, if successful, I shall expect another favor in return.”

  “Naturally,” said Kemper.

  Pendergast rose, turned, then glided through the office door into the central monitoring room beyond. Just before the door closed, Kemper could hear his honeyed southern voice raised. “My word, now it’s the apadravyas position. And at their age!”

  27

  THE ELDERLY WOMAN IN STATEROOM 1039 TURNED SLIGHTLY IN HER bed, mumbling in her sleep.

  A moment later, she turned again, the mumbling growing fretful. Something was interfering with her slumber: a rapping sound, loud, insistent.

  Her eyes opened. “Inge?” she croaked.

  The only reply was another rap.

  The woman raised one gnarled hand, grasping a steel bar that ran across the length of the headboard. Slowly, painfully, she raised herself to a sitting position. She had been dreaming; a rather lovely dream involving Monty Hall, door number 2, and petroleum jelly. She licked her desiccated lips, trying to recall the details, but they were already fading into a fog of elusive memories.

  “Where is that girl?” she mumbled, feeling a twinge of fear.

  The rapping continued. It came from somewhere beyond the bedroom.

  From beneath countless layers of satin and sea-island cotton, a withered hand emerged. It plucked dentures from a dish on the bedside table, seated them over anemic gums. Then it reached out—flexing, grasping—until it closed over the handle of a cane. With a series of groans and imprecations, she raised herself to her feet. The ship was rolling noticeably and she kept one hand against the wall as she moved toward the bedroom door.

  “Inge!” she called.

  She felt another wash of fear. She hated being dependent, truly hated it, and she was scared and embarrassed by her frailty. All her life she had been independent, and now this rotten old age, this horrible dependency on others.

  She turned on the light and looked around, trying to master her fright. Where was that damn girl? It was outrageous, leaving her alone. What if she fell? Or had a heart attack? Take pity on a girl, bring her into your service, and how did she repay you? With disrespect, disloyalty, disobedience. Inge was probably out carousing with some low element of the ship’s staff. Well, this was the last straw: as soon as the ship was docked in New York, she’d send the vixen packing. No notice, no recommendations. She could use her charms—the tramp—to work her way back to Sweden.

  Gaining the doorway, the old woman stopped to rest, leaning heavily on the frame. The rapping was louder here—it came from the main door of the suite: and now she could hear a voice as well.

  “Petey! Hey, Pete!” The voice was muffled, coming from the corridor beyond.

  “What?” the woman cried. “Who is that? What do you want?”

  The rapping stopped. “Pete, come on!” the slurred voice replied. “We aren’t going to wait all night.”

  “Hey, Petey-boy, get your ass out here!” said another drunken voice from beyond the door. “Remember those babes we met in Trafalgar’s tonight? Well, after you left, they came back to the club. And we’ve been sucking down champagne ever since. Now they’re back in my room, shit-faced. Come on, bud, it’s your chance to get laid. And the tall blonde one’s got a rack that—”

  The old woman began to tremble with rage and indignation. She took a fresh hold on the doorframe. “Leave me alone!” she cried at the top of her lungs. “Get out of here!”

  “What?” came the first voice, a little bewildered now.

  “I said, go away!”

  A pause. Then a giggle. “Oh, shit!” came the second voice. “Rog, we fucked up!”

  “No, man, I’m sure he said 1039.”

  “I’m calling security!” shrilled the old woman.

  From the corridor beyond the door there came an explosion of mirth, then the sound of retreating footsteps.

  Breathing heavily, the woman pushed herself away from the doorframe and surveyed the room beyond, leaning on her cane. Sure enough: the couch hadn’t been slept in. The clock above the couch read half past eleven. She had been abandoned. She was alone.

  Turning slowly, she made her painful way back into the bedroom, her heart pounding. She eased herself onto the bed, laid the cane carefully beside her. Then, turning to the nightstand, she picked up the phone and dialed zero.

  “Ship’s operator,” came the pleasant voice. “How may I help you?”

  “Get me security,” the old woman croaked.

  28

  ANH MINH SAW THE HIGH ROLLER IMMEDIATELY UPON HIS ARRIVAL at the blackjack tables of the Mayfair Casino. Mr. Pendergast, that was the name Mr. Hentoff had given her. He looked like an undertaker in his black tuxedo, and she felt a little shiver as he stopped in the doorway and cast his pale eyes about the dim, elegantly appointed room. He must be a very high roller indeed for Mr. Hentoff to assign her solely to him as a cocktail waitress, and she wondered about the odd instructions that went along with the assignment.

  “Would you like a drink, sir?” she asked, approaching him.

  “Gin and tonic, please.”

  When she returned with the drink—tonic water only, as instructed—she found the strange-looking man over by the
high-stakes tables in conversation with a very nicely groomed young blond gentleman in a dark suit. She went over and waited patiently with the drink on her tray.

  “. . . And so,” the high roller was saying—in a completely different accent now—“I gave the guy twenty-two thousand six hundred and ten dollars, cash on the barrelhead, counting it out by hundreds, one bill at a time—one, two, three, four, and when I hit five, up came a twenty, and that’s when I realized I’d been cheated. The brick of hundreds had been plugged in the middle with twenties! Hell, was I pissed. Twenties, along with tens and even some fives and ones.”

  “Excuse me,” said the young man, suddenly angry, “I couldn’t care less about your hundreds or twenties or whatever the hell it is you’re talking about.” He moved off quickly, scowling, his lips moving as if thinking furiously to himself.

  Pendergast turned to Anh with a smile. “Thank you.” He lifted off the drink, dropped a fifty on the tray, his eyes roving the room once more.

  “Can I get you anything else, sir?”

  “Yes, you can.” He gestured faintly with his eyes, his voice now low. “Do you see that woman over there? The overweight one in the muumuu drifting among the high-stakes tables? There’s a little experiment I’d like to conduct. Change this fifty and bring her a mess of bills and coins on your tray, telling her it’s change from the drink she requested. She will protest that she did not buy a drink, but you will pretend you don’t understand and start counting out the money. Just keep counting, reciting as many numbers as possible. If she is what I think she is, she may become angry like that young man I was just speaking to—so keep your cool.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Thank you.”

  Anh went to the cashier and exchanged the fifty for a miscellany of bills and coins. Placing them on the tray, she walked over to the woman in the muumuu.

  “Your change, ma’am.”

  “What?” the woman glanced at her, distracted.

  “Your change. Ten pound, five pound, two one pound—”

  “I didn’t order a drink.” The woman quickly tried to move off.

  Anh followed her. “Your change. Ten pound, three one pound, make thirteen pound, twenty-five pence—”

  A hiss of exasperation came from the woman. “Didn’t you hear? I didn’t order a drink!”

  She pursued the woman. “Drink cost six pound, seventy-five pence, change come to thirteen pound, twenty-five pence—”

  “You incompetent bitch!” the woman exploded, turning on her with a great swirl of color and advancing, face bright red.

  “So sorry.” Anh Minh retreated with the trayful of money, the woman glaring after her. She returned to the bar, poured tonic water over ice, and added a slice of lemon. She found Pendergast strolling through the crowd, gazing this way and that.

  “Drink, sir?”

  He looked at her, and she fancied she could now see amusement dancing in his eyes. He spoke low and rapidly. “You’re a quick study. Now, do you see that man sitting at first base at the table to your right? Go spill this drink on him. I need his seat. Quick, now.”

  Bracing herself, Anh walked over to the specified table. “Your drink, sir?”

  “Thanks, but I didn’t—”

  She joggled the tray and the drink fell upside down in his crotch.

  The man leapt up. “Oh for God’s sake—!”

  “So sorry, sir!”

  “My new tuxedo!”

  “Sorry! So sorry!”

  The man plucked a handkerchief from his breast pocket and used it to brush away the ice cubes and liquid. Pendergast glided over, ready to move in.

  “So sorry!” Anh repeated.

  “Just forget it!” He turned to the dealer. “Color me up, I’m outta here.”

  He scooped up his chips and stormed off, and as he did so Pendergast quickly slid into his seat. The dealer shuffled, laid down the deck, and handed the cut-card to Pendergast. He inserted it in the deck, and the dealer cut and loaded the shoe, inserting the end-of-play card unusually deep.

  Ahn Minh hovered nearby, wondering what crazy thing Pendergast would ask her to do next.

  Aloysius Pendergast looked around the table with a big grin. “How we all doing tonight? Getting lucky?” The Chinese man at third base—his mark—did not acknowledge. The two middle-aged women in between, who looked like sisters, nodded wary greetings.

  “Dealing good cards tonight?” he asked the dealer.

  “Doing my best,” the petite woman replied evenly.

  Pendergast shot a glance across the room and noticed that the lady in the muumuu, who pretended to be chatting on a cell phone, was now spotting their table. Excellent.

  “I’m feeling lucky.” Pendergast put a ten-thousand-pound chip into the betting circle, then dropped another in front, as a toke for the dealer.

  The two women stared at his bet for a moment, and then advanced their own more modest thousand-pound wagers. The Chinese man pushed a chip into the betting circle—also a thousand.

  The dealer pitched out the cards.

  Pendergast stood on two eights. The two women played, and his mark drew a twelve and busted on a face card. The dealer drew a twenty in three cards and collected all their money.

  The waitress came back with another drink and Pendergast took a good slug. “Rotten luck,” he said, laying the drink down on a coaster and advancing his next bet.

  Several more hands were played, and then Pendergast failed to bet.

  “Your bet, sir?”

  “Going to sit this one out,” Pendergast said. He swiveled around and spoke to Anh Minh. “Gimme another gin and tonic,” he slurred. “Make it dry.”

  The cocktail waitress scurried off.

  The Chinese man bet again, five thousand this time. The look on his tired, middle-aged face had not changed at all. This time he stayed on fifteen with the dealer showing six, and the dealer busted.

  The play moved deeper into the shoe. Out of the corner of his eye, Pendergast could see that another marked player, being spotted by the young blond man, was winning at the next table. The trick would be to force this one to lose bigger, to compensate. The slug of cards that he had tracked through the shuffle wasn’t far off, and it promised to provide some fireworks.

  The spotter in the muumuu had evidently also tracked the shuffle. Now, as the play worked up toward the beginning of the slug, Pendergast’s running count was already a good plus eleven. The mark slid a pile of chips into the betting circle: fifty thousand.

  A murmur rose.

  “Hell, if he’s doing it, I’ll do it too,” Pendergast said, pushing in fifty. He winked at the mark and lifted his drink. “Here’s to us, friend.”

  The ladies each bet a thousand, and the cards were dealt.

  Pendergast stood on eighteen.

  The mark drew, asked to be hit on a twelve with the dealer showing a five—a violation of basic strategy—then drew an eight card.

  An oooh! came from the crowd.

  The ladies drew a series of low cards, one eventually busting. The dealer then completed her own hand: three, five, six, five: nineteen—a win for the mark.

  A few more hands were played, most of the cards coming low out of the shoe. Pendergast’s running count kept climbing. Many of the tens and most of the aces were still undealt. On top of that, they were now just into the slug that he had meticulously tracked in the shuffle, using his acute eyesight and prodigious memory. That—and the peek he’d gotten during the shuffle and cut—alerted him to the precise location of seven cards in that slug, along with an educated guess on the location of many others. His side count of aces stood at three—thirteen more were in the pack, and he knew the location of two of them. This would be his opportunity if he could get it right. It all depended on controlling the downstream flow of cards.

  This deal he would have to bust, and do it in four cards.

  He bet a thousand.

  The mark put in a hundred thousand.

  Another oooh!
from the crowd.

  Pendergast was dealt a fourteen.

  The mark was dealt fifteen, with the dealer’s upcard a ten.

  Pendergast took a hit. A five: nineteen. The dealer was about to move on when Pendergast said, “Hit me again.”

  Bust.

  There were snickers in the crowd, whispers, a derisive laugh. Pendergast took a swig from his drink. He glanced over at the mark and saw the man looking at him, a sudden faint look of contempt in his eyes.

  The mark took a hit and was dealt an eight: bust. The dealer raked in his hundred thousand.

  A quick mental calculation told Pendergast the running count was now twenty, the true count going even higher. Almost unheard of. The dealer was seventy-five percent through the shoe and still only three aces had been played, the rest concentrated in the remaining slug of cards. This was a combination no card counter could resist. If the mark followed the Kelly criterion—which he would if he had any brains—he would bet big. Very big. The key to controlling play, Pendergast knew, would now be to stop the good cards while sending the bad ones downstream. The problem was the two ladies between him and the mark: the cards they would get, how they would play them, and all the complications that might entail.

  “Ladies and gentlemen?” asked the dealer, gesturing for the bets to be placed.

  Pendergast bet a hundred thousand. The Chinese man pushed out a pile of chips: two hundred and fifty thousand. The two ladies bet their thousand each, looked at each other, and giggled.

  Pendergast held up his hand. “Don’t deal yet. I can’t do this without another drink.”

  The dealer looked alarmed. “You want to pause the play?”

  “I’ve got to have a drink. What if I lose?”

  The mark did not look pleased.

  The dealer cast a quizzical glance at the floorman hovering nearby, who nodded his approval.

  “All right. We’ll take a short pause.”

  “Waitress!” Pendergast snapped his fingers.

  Anh Minh bustled over. “Yes, sir?”

  “A drink!” he cried, handing her a fifty, which he dropped. As she bent down to pick it up Pendergast leapt up. “No, no, I’ll get it!”