The Trans Ultra Collection Vol 2

by Ursula Lovelace

  The player next to me at the table was an elderly man betting away his pension. The man didn’t know the first time about blackjack. He bet high when the tide was against him. The dealer was getting a free lunch out of him. There was a sucker born every day.

  One of the other players was a woman. Well, it might have been a man. I’d seen more than my share of cross-dressers in this city. Las Vegas attracted all kinds of people.

  Me?

  I’m your humble, everyday blackjack player. You wouldn’t guess I was professional at this from the way I looked. Then again, being a professional meant keeping a low profile.

  Across the aisle, I heard the sound of slot machines. I couldn’t help but shake my head at the sight of people letting the machines munch on their money. These days, the slots were all computerized and gave pre-determined payouts. You couldn’t take advantage of a defective machine.

  It was why I played blackjack. Sure, there was poker as well. A skilled poker player could win big. Unfortunately, I never had the knack for it. I wasn’t good at reading other players.

  With blackjack, I could take advantage of the moments where the count was in my favor. I just had to bet big when I had the advantage and bet small when the odds shifted to their favor.

  It was harder in practice than in theory. The method itself was sound. However, you had to concentrate and avoid distractions. You could easily lose your train of thought and forget the count. Casinos took advantage of this by allowing drinking, smoking, beautiful waitresses, and anything else that would interfere with a player’s concentration. It’s why I liked playing at bigger tables. It gave me some much needed privacy.

  There was a downside to being too good at this job. Casinos didn’t like losing. So they kicked people like me out the door and told me to never come back.

  By now, casinos had the technology to track known card counters. Computers kept track of players and analyzed their betting habits. Hell, some of the top end casinos used cameras with facial recognition software.

  That’s why I played in disguise with a fake set of eyeglasses. I’ve been banned by more casinos than I’d care to admit. I wasn’t ready to turn to undergrounds casinos where they would kill you for card counting.

  Of course, legitimate casinos couldn’t just ban you for card counting. You needed to actually cheat, such as using a calculator. However, they could hit you with some petty violation and get you barred for life. It was essentially the same result as a ban for card counting.

  They got me with a parking ticket. Apparently, I had parked in the lot for too long. This meant my gambling privileges at their fine establishment had been suspended indefinitely. It didn’t have much legal ground to stand on but I couldn’t beat a big casino in court.

  Nonetheless, playing with a fake ID and disguise was a much more serious offence. If I got caught, then I could end up in the big house. It didn’t help that I had to go into a bit of debt to pay for my fake ID.

  You see, casinos had gotten savvy with tracking players. Most casino chains required an ID to enter and play their games. Even a simple slot machine required an ID card. It tracked your habits and tailored your experience so you would end up spending more. It also strengthened security so banned players couldn’t play again.

  However, there was a way around it. Someone working from inside the casino could create fake IDs for banned players. It was risky to mess with casino’s database but players like me were willing to pay good money for it. Hell, I had bought multiple fake IDs. You got a bulk discount that way.

  I glanced down at my fake ID. My real named was Aaron West. My fake ID was Adam Williams. It was actually harder to keep track of my different fake IDs than the actual card counting.

  I just needed to make back my investment by winning a few more chips. The system was working well so far. I was making a few bad bets to throw off the dealer while still raking in a profit. With a few more bets, I’d have more than enough to pay my debts. Hey, those fake IDs didn’t pay for themselves.

  When you came down to it, gambling was really just probability and statistics. Take the roulette table for example. It has several numbers alternating in red and black. It also has two numbers in green. The big payout comes with those two numbers but they’re a fraction of the total amount of numbers the ball could land on.

  Of course, I would never play a game like that. Slots, wheels, and dice were all games of chance. I couldn’t control the turn of the wheel or which side the dice would land. They were firmly in the house’s favor.

  That’s when I saw a guard approaching my table. He was scanning around for someone. I gulped when he looked in my direction.

  Worse, there was another man following the guard. This man wore a dark suit. He was eagle-eyed with the way he scanned the tables. I gulped when I realized who he was.

  It was Roger Smith.

  The man was a security consultant for hire. He worked with various casinos to catch players who cheated or gamed the system. Roger hunted card counters like a predator. I had a few run-ins in the past with him and barely escaped. I knew nothing good awaited me if he caught me in a disguise.

  I thought about calling quits and collecting. I had made a few grand over the course of the night. Nonetheless, I didn’t want to risk getting apprehended while cashing the chips in. I needed to make my escape now.

  The chips were protected by computer software as well. I couldn’t take them out of the premises and cash them in later. At least I could make the dealer’s night.

  “Take it,” I sighed, shoving the whole damn stack in his direction. The man’s eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. It time to quit anyway. The count was too much in the dealer’s favor. “It’s your lucky night.”

  Chapter 2

  Keeping my head low, I slipped past the guards. Roger stopped at my table but I was almost at the exit by now. I didn’t know how the casino had spotted me. I hadn’t visited this casino chain in months since they had banned me.

  Perhaps, their system had flagged me because I was doing so well. Technically, this ID used to belong to someone else. It had been bought or stolen so banned players could use it. If the same person appeared at a casino after months of absence and won a lot of money, then it would attract a lot of attention within their computer systems. Still, the people I worked with were professionals. They only used IDs that had a healthy level of activity.

  The simple answer was that someone saw through my disguise. Perhaps, Roger had realized it was really me. I had a wig and a fake pair of glasses on. Unfortunately, casinos had thousands of cameras with computer software looking for guys like me. As I exited the casino, I discarded both items in a garbage can.

  I felt bad about leaving behind such a fortune. That payout could have lasted me for months. Nevertheless, I knew it was the right decision. Bad gamblers don’t know when to cut bait and quit. In my profession, people who held out ended up in the big house.

  Nevertheless, I did have a problem. I was in debt due to the fake IDs I had purchased. Worse, the people who made and dealt these IDs weren’t particularly nice. I knew they were a Las Vegas gang that had done its fair share of mayhem. I had promised them a cut of my winnings but I had come home empty.

  I did have enough money in my pockets to grab a drink at the local bar. They were common on the strip and I stopped to grab a seat at one of them. At least I could drown my worries in sorrow.

  As good as I was at my job, the casinos had much better security than in the past. Each table now had microscopic cameras. In the old days, it was much easier to pull a stunt like this off. The casino staff would just think you were unnaturally lucky.

  In fact, every game favored the house now more than ever. Slot machines were no longer mechanical contraptions. You couldn’t tell when a machine was hot or not. Instead, everything was computerized, including the payout. Periodically, a machine would pay out the jackpot. However, there was no way of telling when it was going to occur. It was no wonder why slot machines made up
the bulk of every casino’s revenue.

  As for overt cheating or stealing, it was near impossible. The chips themselves were electronic and linked to a casino’s computer systems. You couldn’t just steal the chips since the casino could track them. With a flip of the switch, a casino could void the chips and turn them into a heap of useless plastic. Like a dollar bill, each chip had invisible markers which made them hard to counterfeit. As far as I knew, no one had successfully fooled the casino’s payout with counterfeit chips.

  As I sipped my drink, I thought about the cards themselves. Back in the old days, it was possible to use sleight of hand to introduce marked cards into a card game. They would be marked with a special ink or trimmed so that they could be tracked by a cheater. These days, the cards themselves were electronic and kept track of by the dealer after each game.

  A man sat next to me and ordered a drink before asking me. “May I join you?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. I wanted to drink alone but I was too tired to protest. “It’s a free country.”

  “Aaron West?” the man said, sending my heart racing. His accent sounded Russian. I wondered if he was part of a Russian gang. That’s who I purchased my fake IDs from. “Or should I call you Adam Williams?”

  I stared at him. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Sergei,” he answered with a laugh. “Think of me as a friend of a friend.”

  My eyes narrowed. “Who sent you?”

  “I am a representative from the people who gave you that ID,” he said plainly. The man sipped his drink before continuing. “I heard you did well at the table. It’s too bad you had a run in with Roger Smith. Otherwise, you could’ve paid off your debt to us.”

  I felt a shiver down my spine. “Are you here to collect?”

  “No, you have a talent for blackjack,” Sergei said, a hint of admiration in his voice. “However, it seems that your disguise wasn’t good enough. I thought you were professional, Mr. West.”

  “I am a professional,” I protested. “I just got unlucky tonight.”

  “We all have bad nights,” he chuckled. “While others in my organization want to collect your debt, I believe you have the skills to pay back your debt. I’ll give you an additional week to pay us back. Or else.”

  It sounded more like a stay of execution. “I’ll get you the money.”

  “A hundred thousand,” Sergei replied. “Get us a hundred thousand dollars in a week and we’ll forget this

  I gasped at the amount. “That wasn’t what we agreed!”

  “Think of it as interest,” Sergei said plainly. The man did have a point. I was technically behind on payment. It was a better alternative to getting shot in the streets as an example to others. “You have one week.”

  He paid for both our drinks and left.

  How the hell was I going to pay my debt?

  When I got home, I collapsed in bed. I didn’t know how the hell I was going to pay back the Russians. I had lost Adam Williams as a disguise. I only had one fake ID request left from the Russians.

  The casinos were probably on high alert for a guy like me. People like Roger hunted card counters for a living. Technology had gotten good enough to keep track of banned players. I was in big trouble if I got caught by Roger. Then again, getting caught and being put in prison sounded preferable to getting executed by the Russians.

  I thought about trying an underground casino. They had less stringent rules about IDs. I could play blackjack there without worrying about Roger. However, I couldn’t earn that kind of money in a week. Worse, these types of establishments were run by gangsters. They would kneecap me if they found out if I was counting cards.

  I didn’t even entertain the thought of running from the country. The Russians would chase me to the ends of the earth. I needed a way to pay back my debt.

  The following day, I tried to formulate a plan. I could request one additional fake ID. It was my only chance.

  There were other games of chance at the casino. Roger would be looking for me at the blackjack tables. Unfortunately, none of them could be gamed as well as blackjack.

  The reality of the situation was that casino security had gotten too good. They could track card counters or con men with ease. Hell, they even had a system for tracking drunks who had one too many cocktails.

  Some blackjack players would try to collude with a dealer. This was a monumentally stupid idea. Casinos had bounties out on catching cheaters. A dealer could make more money turning you in to their boss than working with you.

  Other blackjack players worked as a team. Instead of a single person counting cards, a whole team worked together to count cards. However, each player wouldn’t bet big when the count was in their favor. This meant that each player didn’t run the risk of attracting attention the casino’s attention.

  Instead, they would signal for a ‘closer’ to come to the table and take advantage of the count. A good closer could easily rake up thousands going from table to table. Casino security systems weren’t as well equipped to track table hoppers as they were to track card counters.

  Nevertheless, a lot of things could go wrong. Casinos would see it as a grand conspiracy rather than one man trying to take the house for a ride. It was a hell of a lot closer to cheating than solo card counting. Furthermore, more people meant a bigger chance of a single person breaking down and giving away the signal. Trust was a rare commodity in this line of work. Besides, I had never been a team player.

  I wished that I was like the other players at that blackjack table. They happily played the game without worrying about whether they would get caught or not. The other players at the table didn’t have to worry about getting killed by the Russian mob.

  Roger Smith was out for my blood. He knew what I looked like and what casinos I would visit. No disguise or fake ID could deceive him.

  That’s when I remembered the cross-dresser playing at my table. It was a pretty good getup. It may not have fooled me but it would’ve fooled others. Roger was on the lookout for a man.

  A woman would slip under his radar.

  An idea formed in my head. I still had access to Sergei’s fake ID system. I could make a new identity. However, I couldn’t just go in as a man with a fake mustache.

  I would play blackjack as a woman.

  Chapter 3

  Admittedly, this was a dangerous idea. Using card counting and a fake ID was bad enough already. Dressing up as a woman would land me in the nuthouse after a stint in federal prison. However, it was a matter of life or death for me.

  Nonetheless, I knew casino security better than most. They looked for patterns in behavior. That’s how they tracked cheats, card counters, and everything else in-between. I needed to break the pattern if I wanted to get Roger Smith off of my scent. This new identity would be a clean slate.

  At first, I had thought about hiring a woman to work on my behalf. However, I knew this would never work. She would need to be competent at blackjack. I couldn’t teach a novice how to count cards in a week.

  Besides, an expert player could make more money playing for herself than for me. I had no leverage over her. If anything, I was opening myself up to risk by working with someone else on a deadline. Another conspirator at the blackjack table work against me.

  So I would have to be that woman.

  Strange as it was, people always said I looked like a woman. I was nothing like those broad-shouldered, cigar-chomping gamblers that littered casinos. Instead, I had a build as lean as a cocktail waitress. My natural voice was high pitched. I actually had to make it sound less shrill when speaking to dealers.

  Cross-dressing was not uncommon at Las Vegas. The place was home to all sorts of eccentric people. I’d seen my share of transvestites at the casinos. However, I’d actually have to pass as a woman.

  To my credit, I had an effeminate build. Being a woman could give me a slight edge at the blackjack table. Most card counters tended to be men.

  I made my decision and created a new ID.


  Aaron West might have been out of luck but Erin Wells was in the game.

  Creating a fake ID was the easy part. Now, I needed to get into character. I needed a full makeover and wardrobe change.

  With little time and money, I ordered all that was required for my transformation. I got a makeup kit, a few dresses, and a wig. I needed to get a good photo of me for my fake ID.

  I bought a set of clothes and other accessories. I probably told the cashier they were a gift for a friend more than was necessary. Regardless, it put more pressure on me to make a believable disguise.

  As expected, dressing up as a woman wasn’t a straightforward affair. I had never put on women’s makeup before. I studied the makeup tips that make in the packaging religiously. Before long, I knew how to put on blush and eyeshadow.