“My father would offer to take the rug inside. As he and my uncle carried it in, I hid behind it. Once I was inside, I ran around stealing stuff. The next part was tricky. My father would tell the owner the actual price for the rug was two grand. The owner would pitch a fit, and my father would say the deal was off. My father and uncle would cart the rug out of the house, and I’d leave the same way I came in.” The ice cream was gone, and Nico licked the spoon. “That was my test. All of the kids pulled the rug scam, and I came out on top.”
“You were the fastest,” Billy said.
“I was the fastest, but that wasn’t the reason.”
“You stole the good stuff, and the others didn’t.”
“That’s right. My haul was always the most valuable. That was why my father decided I should run the show one day. I knew what to steal.”
“Is your father thinking of retiring?”
“He doesn’t want to, but his health sucks. I’ll be running things soon.” Nico gingerly touched his stomach.
“You okay?”
“Fucking guard punched me in the kidneys. I’ll piss blood for a few days. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you and leave when my family did. I learned my lesson.”
“You going to tell your father what happened?”
“I have to. Our family doesn’t hold back.”
“He’s not going to be happy.”
“I still have to tell him. Those are the rules.”
Billy nodded. Now he understood why Victor had chosen Nico to run things. The kid knew not to lie when the situation demanded the truth, no matter how painful the truth might be. You couldn’t teach a person a quality like that. It was something you were born with.
“I’ll give you something to lessen the pain. You play pinball?” Billy asked.
“I’m the best pinball player in the world. Ten bucks a game?”
“You’re on, tough guy.”
Many hustlers used fronts to launder their money. Bars, restaurants, and Laundromats were excellent fronts, as they did most of their business in cash. The Boswells used a bowling alley as a front that had a game room with pinball machines. Nico had grown up playing and could have beaten most people with his eyes closed, his feel was so good.
They played a game called Theater of Magic. It had all the prerequisite bells and whistles and gave out a lot of extra balls. To his credit, Nico didn’t rack up the score and make Billy feel stupid. Hustlers called this playing below speed, and it was a common tactic in pool halls. Playing below speed kept the sucker in the game without letting him win.
“How good are you at foosball?” Billy asked.
“Nobody beats me at foosball,” Nico declared.
Billy was a better than average foosball player, and they split games. As they knocked the Ping Pong ball around the table, Billy explained how the Carnivale scam worked and how Nico’s family could profit from it. It was a new angle, and at first Nico didn’t get it.
“Is that really possible?” Nico asked.
“Yes, sir,” Billy said.
“You’d better explain it to me again. I’m missing something.”
Billy went over the Carnivale scam a second time. The scam had a unique element. People not involved in its execution could profit from its outcome, provided they were in the know. That was not true for most casino scams, where only the cheats came out ahead. In that regard, the Carnivale scam was more like a fixed horse race. If a bettor knew which horse was going to cross the finish line first, the bettor could profit by placing a wager.
Nico got it this time. The Boswells could make a huge score, without incurring the risk normally involved with taking down a casino.
“That’s fucking beautiful,” Nico said.
“I thought you’d like it,” Billy said.
Thirty-Three
Billy beat Nico at foosball and won back the money he’d lost at pinball. Billy loved to win and so did Nico, and Billy had a feeling this was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
They left the arcade and took the escalator to the main floor. Billy walked Nico through the casino and outside to the valet area. He did not want security to have a change of heart and back-room Nico again. That wasn’t going to happen if Nico was by his side.
The uniformed valet said, “You need a taxi?”
“My friend’s going to the airport,” Billy said.
“No luggage?” the valet asked.
“No, he travels light.”
The valet stepped off the curb and blew his whistle. A line of yellow cabs was parked just off the entrance. The vehicle in front started its engine and drove forward.
“How did you know I was going to the airport?” Nico asked.
“Your car’s parked there, isn’t it?” Billy said.
“Who told you I had a car?”
Most hustlers who worked Vegas came by car, parked at McCarran, and cabbed it into town. Having a car at the airport gave the hustler the freedom to leave at the drop of a hat.
“Lucky guess,” Billy said. “Is your father’s health really that bad?”
“He never fully recovered from being shot by that fucking gaming agent,” Nico said. “My father should stop working, only he can’t. Stealing’s in his blood. Mark my words, he’s going to be rigging a slot machine when his heart gives out.”
“There are worse ways to go.”
“Tell me about it.”
The cab kissed the curb. Nico stuck out his hand.
“I owe you one,” Nico said.
“Yes, you do,” Billy said.
Billy returned to his special chair at the five-thousand-dollar blackjack table and lost more money. The odds were stacked against him and his stacks of chips shrank before his eyes. To ease the pain, a flirtatious cocktail waitress kept the drinks flowing. The pit boss also got in the act and offered to have a masseuse work the knots out of his back while Billy got fleeced.
Billy played along, but it wasn’t easy. Back in the carnival days, suckers would get a piece of chalk run down their back, which was where the expression “a mark” came from. Billy was the mark here, and every person working in the casino seemed to know it.
His cell phone vibrated. He pulled it out and saw a text had arrived. As he started to read it, the dealer cleared his throat. The dealer was an older man dressed in an embroidered guayabera in keeping with the casino’s Cuban theme. His name tag said Roland.
“Cell phones are not permitted at the table,” Roland said.
Billy picked up the last of his chips and pushed his chair back from the table. “Let me ask you a question, Roland. I’ve played more than a hundred hands and didn’t get a single blackjack. What do you think the odds are of that happening?”
Roland’s cheeks burned. On average, a player received a blackjack every seventeen hands. The odds of Billy not getting a blackjack were next to impossible, unless the house was cheating.
“Pretty high,” Roland admitted.
“Try astronomical. Tell the pit boss thanks for the massage.”
He left the table, steaming. Casinos that ripped off their customers were called bust-out joints and, if caught, could lose their license. Yet bust-out joints rarely got shut down. Instead, the corporations that owned the casinos were made to pay a paltry fine and clean up the games. In that regard, the rules were different when it came to cheating. Hustlers got thrown in jail, while the corporations got slapped on the wrist.
He forced himself to calm down before reading the text. It was from Misty.
Big trouble. You need to get upstairs.
Either Pepper had run off with Tommy Wang or Cory and Morris had gotten high and said something stupid that the hidden mikes had picked up.