by Eric Hodges
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“Good morning, Watonaka Casino, how may I direct your call?” the young chipper voice said with way too much enthusiasm for six o’clock in the morning.
Jack Hudson replied into his cell phone “I would like to speak to the morning manager please.” He hoped his voice would get the first usage fuzzballs out before the manager came on the line.
“One moment please.” The pretty voice was replaced with Musak that gave Jack a chance to plan for his first coffee before meeting with the manager. It didn’t take long.
“This is Tim Russell, how may I help you?” Jack noticed his even delivery and matter of fact tone.
“Good morning, my name is Jack Hudson. I am an investigator sent down from Sacramento to do a partial audit to verify some items from last month’s gaming report. Would you be able to meet me in the front lobby in 15 minutes?” Jack didn’t give Tim a chance to interrupt.
“Well certainly, Mr. Hudson” he stammered slightly. “Do I need to alert my accounting department? There is nobody in the office at this hour.”
“That really won’t be necessary, Mr. Russell. This will not be an in depth audit, it is just a spot check. I’ll see you in 15 minutes.” Jack hung up without letting Russell respond. Jack did want this to be abrupt. Now for the coffee.
Jack walked out one of the side entrances and put his empty cup in the trash and felt a bit more awake. He made a mental promise to get a proper breakfast when he was finished. He entered the main lobby right at 6:30 and saw a well groomed, medium build man in a tailored suit standing next to a nervous older man, fidgeting with a clipboard.
Jack reached out his hand “Hi, I’m Jack Hudson.”
“Good morning, I am Tim Russell, the night manager and this is Greg Sandy, my account manager.”
Handshakes completed, Jack asked “Is there somewhere we could go that is a bit more private?”
“Certainly, this way” and Tim led them to the Employees Only hallway he had seen previously and into a conference room.
Jack pulled out his credentials and said “I am with the White Collar Crime Unit and I am here to verify your cash on hand.” Jack could be a bulldozer when he wanted to be. He continued “I know this is irregular, but if you would call the White Collar Crime Unit and ask for the Director, Captain Bronson, he will verify my credentials.”
Tim Russell’s concern was relieved a bit as he realized he would at least have a fig leaf of assurance that this guy in his conference room was not a crook. He had just been asked to open up his vaults and was not comfortable displaying the cash to anyone.
“Just a moment please” Russell said as he left the room. Poor Greg’s panic was rising and his fidgeting had not abated. He was not a front man accustomed to dealing with the public by any means, and to be trapped in a closed room with a fed was more than he could take. Jack felt sorry for him.
“So tell me, Greg was it?” Greg nodded, unable to speak. “Yes, Greg. Can you tell me what you do here?” Jack was using his most gentle demeanor usually reserved for kids at a crime scene.
“Wwwell, I k-keep track of the money.” He was looking at the conference table like there were coins under the varnish.
“Excellent, you are just the person I am going to need to help me. Are you willing to help me?”
“I guess so” Greg said, calming down a bit. “What do you want me to do?”
“All we are going to do is count the money that is in the casino.” Jack paused to let the request sink in.
Greg looked up from his table search in a panic and asked “All of the money? In the whole casino? There’s a lot of it out on the floor going back and forth to the cashiers. Do you want to count it all? We’ll have to shut it down!” Greg started panting at the prospect of shutting down the whole casino.
“Oh no, we won’t have to shut down the casino.” Jack said in his best reassuring tone. “Don’t the cashiers count the drawers at every shift change? We could take them at their word and not check. We could just copy their tally, couldn’t we?”
Greg was noticeably relieved and retreated into himself to ponder the process. Good, Jack thought, he is the one that would help and he would know what to count. He was too nervous to be part of any scheme to hide money and he would probably explode trying to keep any secret.
Tim Russell rejoined them in the conference room “It looks like you check out Mr. Hudson. How can we help you?”
“Very good, Mr. Russell. What I would like to do is count the cash that you have on hand here in the casino.” Russell showed a more dignified version of Greg’s shocked expression as his mind spun through the various degrees of disruption this could cause in the casino.
Jack forestalled the question “We can take the cashier’s tally from the shift change and not go out on the floor. I am willing to take their sheets and just count the vault and any other storage you have behind the scenes.” Jack had watched the hallway the other day and convinced himself the only path for the money was down the end of the hallway then left. “What I want from you Mr. Russell is access to the vaults you have and we can get started.”
“I just have to make a call and we can go” Tim Russell said.
“Excuse me Mr. Russell, but I can’t let you alert anyone to our plans, it must be an accurate count” Jack said in a firm voice.
“Certainly, Mr. Hudson, I would like to call security to escort you to the vault and remain while you are in there. We have a strict policy prohibiting individual people from having access alone. And, since you are not an employee, I must insist that our security people be present. They will not intrude.”
“Very well” Jack said evenly as he relaxed a bit. “I have just one more request. May I borrow Mr. Sandy here to help me with the count and collect the cashier forms?”
“Most certainly” Russell said, standing up from the conference table. “It is his area you will be investigating. I’m sure he will be an attentive assistant.” They were joined by a pair of large, stern faced security personnel in the hallway and they all walked away from the noise of the casino down the hall.
They turned left at the end on the hallway that could be seen from the casino and continued a fair distance to an unmarked side door toward the end and all entered in single file into a small lobby with a reception counter manned by an older, uniformed security guard. The woman behind the counter looked bored but at least she was awake.
“Good morning Sylvia,” Tim Russell began, “Mr. Hudson is going to accompany Mr. Sandy here into the vault and they are not to bring anything out except the clipboard” he motioned at Greg “and the papers they bring in.”
“Yes sir” Sylvia replied as she turned the register around on the counter. Greg stepped forward to sign in and handed the pen to Jack to do the same.
Russell turned to Greg and said “Let me know when you are finished and I will walk Mr. Hudson out.” He turned and left without waiting for an answer. Jack followed Greg through a rear door that Sylvia opened with an electric button and they were followed by the two silent security escorts. Jack noted that they were half his age and twice his size and seemed to have expressions that screamed ‘no funny business.’ Jack wasn’t tempted.
The two of them entered the solid steel vault door and the two escorts stayed in the anteroom. With no fanfare, Greg pulled down a tray from the lower shelf closest to the door and said “We’ll start here. This is my normal routine when I count the vault by myself.” He put the tray down on the table in the center of the vault and they began. Jack did not impede the progress and mostly watched as Greg fed the bills through an electronic counting machine. Jack realized that the machine they were using was one of the cheaper models that had no counterfeit detectors, so the bad bills would go through undetected. At least they had a bill counter.
As the bills flew through the counting machine, Jack got into the rhythm of pulling money trays off the shelves and replacing them when Greg finished. There were a lot of tray
s but they did finish in about an hour. Greg kept a tally on his clipboard and showed it to Jack.
“Is this about the normal amount in your count?” jack inquired with a nonchalant tone to his voice as he looked at the column of numbers.
“This is about right” Greg answered, “Sometimes there is a bit more when there is a special event like a Poker Competition, but other than that, this is normal. Would you like to go with me to get the tally sheets now?” Greg’s jitters had all but subsided now that he was surrounded by his comfortable money. He did belong hidden away in the vault and he seemed to like it.
“That would be good but it would be less disruptive if you were to go alone. I presume you do that sort of thing anyway?” Jack was pretending to be proper and respectful to the operation of the casino, but he really just wanted another coffee.
“Well sure, but don’t you want to verify something. I don’t know, watch maybe?” Greg was starting to fidget. Jack was more sure now that Greg couldn’t be part of anything even suspicious.
“No Greg, you go and I’ll just wait in the outer room, maybe get a coffee” he suggested, hoping Greg would get the hint.
“Sure, the security boys will take you down to the break room” Greg said, leading Jack out of the vault into the anteroom to the security guards. Greg led the procession out the way they came in and the two burly guards silently followed Jack two doors down, through an unmarked door into a bland, bare room with a coffee pot on a counter and plastic chairs and table in the center of the room. Jack helped himself to all of it and settled comfortably at the table to think and plan. He had the clipboard and mentally added the column of figures in his head, sort of. He did not want the count that Greg would give him, he just wanted round numbers. His round count was just under four and a half million and he had no idea if that meant anything and he didn’t care. He wanted the exercise to rattle up the food chain to try to start some kind of damage control and then find out who the big players were. It might work.
Greg joined him by the second cup of coffee and had gotten another clipboard with a tally of the cashiers filled out. This list amounted to about $200,000 and Greg proceeded to add both lists together while Jack watched. He handed the summary over and Jack noted only the total: $4.68 million. That would do nicely.
