Slyde had a poker scam that could make them rich. The scam was foolproof, in that it required no confederates or crooked dealers. With this scam, Mags would know when her opponents were strong or when they were weak. With that information, she could not lose.
“Is this something new?” she’d asked.
“Brand new,” Slyde replied.
That was a lie. The scam had surfaced a few years earlier at the World Series of Poker Main Event, allowing the cheat using it to walk away with the eight-million-dollar grand prize.
The WSOP had seen plenty of cheating. Players had been caught using confederates to peek at their opponents’ hands and signal the information to them with cell phones. Other cheating players had brought extra chips into the game to gain an edge. But these scams were nothing compared to a swindle pulled by a punk out of LA named Garvey Jenkins.
Jenkins was an average player who took perverse pleasure in needling his opponents. While playing in the Main Event, Jenkins had correctly guessed when his opponents were bluffing time and again. His stellar play had led to the final table, and eventually the championship. Everyone had thought Jenkins was cheating, but no one could prove it.
When the tournament was over, Jenkins dumped his girlfriend. Out of revenge, she’d told one of Jenkins’s opponents how her boyfriend had used drugs to enhance his play and hustle the other players. The poker world was a small one, and word had quickly spread.
When Slyde learned of Jenkins’s scam, the gears had started turning. The scam required the cheat to take a cocktail of powerful drugs that altered the landscape of thought and alertness and was the equivalent of an athlete competing on steroids. The first drug was Modafinil, which kept the cheat awake while enhancing his short-term memory; the second was Adderall, a mixture of amphetamine salts that enhanced the cheat’s vision and hearing and overstimulated his brain; the last was good old-fashioned speed, which kept the cheat running longer than he should. Over time, these drugs would have a disastrous effect on the cheat’s health, and Slyde knew he had to pick his accomplice carefully.
His accomplice had to be someone without a family or loved ones. A person who’d run out of road. Someone who wouldn’t quit, even when the drugs took over.
A loser.
Mags was the perfect candidate. She had few friends or people who cared about her, just a daughter back east whom she rarely saw. The gaming board was after her, and it was only a matter of time before they caught her and threw her into the slammer.
Mags had no future, and a person without a future was just what Slyde was looking for.
Slyde knew the concierges of every Strip casino on a first-name basis. During the holidays, he sent them cans of peanut brittle stuffed with hundred-dollar bills. In return, the concierges got Slyde invited to high-stakes poker games held in private suites in their hotels.
Tonight’s game was being played in a Salon Tower suite at the Wynn. The game was No Limit Hold ’Em with a thirty-thousand-dollar buy-in. There were four players at the table: a real-estate magnate named Harvey Grubbs, two of Grubbs’s childhood chums, and Mags. Mags cleaned up well, and she wore a fetching low-cut purple dress and diamond earrings. Her hair was done up in a bun, exposing her cover-girl cheekbones and sensual neckline.
“Raise,” Mags said.
“You’re raising me?” Grubbs said.
“That’s right, Harvey, I’m raising you. You got a problem with that?” she asked.
Grubbs was getting clobbered. Because he was good at selling real estate, Grubbs thought he knew how to play poker. Sitting at the bar in the suite, Slyde had determined that Grubbs was actually a lousy player, his knowledge coming from bad commentary he’d absorbed watching TV poker shows. Mags went for the kill and shoved two monster stacks into the center of the table, which the hired dealer counted with a bank teller’s precision.
“The raise is fifty thousand dollars,” the dealer declared.
“You’re raising me fifty grand?” Grubbs asked.
“Do I hear an echo?” Mags deadpanned.
“You haven’t lost a hand,” Grubbs whined.
“What can I say. Beginner’s luck.”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were cheating me.”
“I’d tell you to go fuck yourself, but something tells me you’ve already tried.”
Grubbs had been an ugly little boy, was now an ugly middle-age man, and would age into an ugly old man. The remark cut to the bone and Grubbs’s face turned red.
“Get the strongbox,” Grubbs said to his friend Big Mike.
“Come on, Harvey, we’re done,” Big Mike said.
“No, we’re not. Go get the strongbox.”
Big Mike was a working-class guy from Grubbs’s hometown. Judging by his haircut and threads, Big Mike probably made ten bucks an hour slicing mouth-watering cold cuts at the local Piggly Wiggly. Big Mike was out of his league, yet he still knew more than his friend.
“Come on, Harvey, you’re drunk. Let’s cut our losses,” Big Mike said.
“The bitch’s bluffing. Get the strongbox.”
“How about I take you to a strip club, get you a lap dance. Like the good ol’ days.”
“Get the strongbox.”
Big Mike shook his head. He had the gravitas of a man fully grounded in life’s realities.
“You sure about this, Harvey? We were going to play with that money.”
“I’m not going down without a fight.”
“Whatever you say.”
Big Mike rose and shuffled into the adjacent bedroom. Upon his return, he placed a metal strongbox onto the poker table and lowered his massive body into his chair. Grubbs popped the clasp and removed several thick stacks of newly printed hundred-dollar bills.
“I’ll call your raise, and raise you another fifty thousand.” Grubbs tossed the money in the center of the table and crossed his arms triumphantly in front of his chest.
“I can’t cover your raise,” Mags said.
“So get it from your boyfriend,” Grubbs said.
Slyde didn’t like the direction the game was heading and hopped off the stool. Grubbs was a jerk and might cause them trouble by complaining to the Wynn’s concierge. Slyde came up behind Mags’s chair and leaned over.
“Let’s blow this joint,” he whispered.
“Fuck no. Give me the money,” she whispered back.
“It’s too much.”
“He’s holding rags. Give it to me.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
“I said, give it to me, or I’ll scratch your eyes out.”
The drugs had turned her into a raving bitch. She’d be awake all night, talking a mile a minute, and would need plenty of weed and Valium to come down.
“You sure he’s got rags?” Slyde whispered.
“Have I ever been wrong? Don’t go sideways on me, Jimmy.”
Slyde’s jackets were tailored with extra-deep pockets that allowed him to carry a great deal of cash. Out came enough money to cover Grubbs’s raise. Mags’s eyes danced as the stacks hit the table. She slid them across the green felt.
“Call,” she said.
“What have you got?” Grubbs said.
“A set.”
Grubbs choked. “You’ve got three of a kind?”
“It’s called a set.”
“Show me.”
Mags flipped over her two cards to reveal a pair of red sevens. There was a black seven on the board, giving her a set. Laughing under her breath, she began to rake in the monster pot.
“Don’t you want to see what I have?” Grubbs spouted angrily.
“All you’ve got are dreams,” Mags said.
Grubbs cursed under his breath. The real-estate baron knew he’d been had, even if he didn’t know how. Slyde grabbed Mags and got the hell out of there with their winnings before Grubbs’s anger got the better of him. Mags laughed all the way down in the elevator.