It was Takarama’s turn to serve. Rufus made a motion to throw him the ball, only to drop it on the floor instead. There was a loud crunching sound.
“Shit! I stepped on it,” Rufus said.
The Greek pulled a Ping-Pong ball from his pocket, and tossed it to Takarama.
“Here you go. Whip his ass.”
Takarama won the next five points. He was effortlessly moving the ball around the table, making Rufus swing at air. What had started as a one-sided contest was still one, only the person getting the beating had changed. With the score thirteen to twelve, both sides decided to take a break.
“I’m open to suggestions,” Rufus said, sucking on a bottle of water.
Valentine did not know what to say. Rufus had met his match, and everyone in the room knew it. Gloria stepped forward with an encouraging look on her face.
“I have an idea,” she offered.
Rufus brightened. “Yes, Ms. Curtis.”
“Moon-ball him.”
“You want me to moon him?” Rufus said.
“No, I mean throw up some moon balls,” she said.
“What are those?”
“Lobs, like they do in tennis. It’s a great way to throw off your opponent’s rhythm. I saw Tracy Austin lob Martina Navratilova in the final of the U.S. Open Tennis Championship. Martina won the first set and was rolling. Then Austin started throwing up moon balls. It threw Martina off, and she lost the match.”
Rufus tossed away his empty water bottle. Then he retrieved his skillet from the floor, and pointed the flat side straight at the ceiling, visualizing the shot.
“I don’t know,” he said skeptically.
“What do you have to lose?” she asked.
It was Rufus’s turn to serve. He sent the ball over the net, and Takarama shot it back. Rufus lunged to his right, and hit the ball straight into the air like he was sending up a missile. The ball went so high it nearly touched a chandelier, then fell back to earth and landed on Takarama’s side of the table. It bounced so high that Takarama had to tap it back, giving Rufus a perfect kill shot.
Only Rufus didn’t kill it. Instead, he lofted the ball into the air, then paused to watch its flight. He appeared to be thoroughly enjoying himself.
“Take that,” the old cowboy said.
Takarama made a face that was part anger, part disgust. He had a lot of pride, and Valentine was not surprised when he took a step back from the table and changed his grip on the skillet. As the ball bounced on his side, he leaped into the air.
“Aieeee!” he screamed.
Takarama hit the ball on the rise, and sent it screaming past Rufus at a hundred miles an hour. His swing, loaded with top spin, finished with his arm coming up by the right side of his forehead. With a normal Ping-Pong paddle it wouldn’t have been a problem. With a skillet, it caused him to smack himself in the face.
The sound of the impact was awful. Takarama dropped the skillet on the floor, then brought his hands to his eyes, and staggered around the room muttering in Japanese. The Greek rushed to his aid.
“You okay?”
Takarama said something that sounded like a curse.
“Time out!” the Greek announced.
“For how long?” Rufus asked.
“How the hell should I know?” the Greek said.
Takarama walked in a serpentine pattern around the room, and Valentine guessed he’d given himself a concussion. Reaching the doors, Takarama pushed them open and staggered into the lobby. The Greek hurried after, followed by Rufus, Valentine, Gloria, and Zack, with the suckers bringing up the rear.
Takarama walked on rubber legs across the lobby and into the busy casino. He approached a roulette table surrounded by people. He pushed his way through to the table, and plucked the little white ball as it spun around the wheel.
“My serve,” he said.
Then he fell face-first to the floor, taking a tray of colored chips with him. The crowd parted, and the croupier came around the table, looking down at Takarama in disgust.
The Greek stood several feet away, crying his eyes out. Rufus threw his arms triumphantly into the air.
“I win,” Rufus said.
20
Mabel Struck was examining a Gucci handbag that had cost a casino in Reno a hundred thousand bucks, when the phone on Tony’s desk lit up.
“Darn it,” she said under her breath.
She’d come to work early that morning, wanting to play with the handbag that UPS had delivered the night before. The handbag was a gift from the Reno district attorney for Tony’s testimony at trial. Mabel had several friends who liked to boast about how much they spent on handbags, and she couldn’t wait to tell them that she had a Gucci bag that could actually make money. She snatched up the phone.
“Grift Sense,” she answered cheerfully.
“Ms. Struck?” a man’s voice asked.
“That’s me.”
“This is Special Agent Romero with the FBI.”
“Good morning, Special Agent Romero. How are you today?”
“I’m fine. I wanted to thank you for your help the other day. The man we arrested was running crooked gambling parlors in twenty different locations. He’s going to jail for a long time.”
By looking at some photographs that Romero had sent, Mabel had determined that a craps game in the basement of a man’s house was crooked, the table positioned against a wall with a large magnet hidden inside, the dice loaded with mercury. The information had allowed Romero to catch an elusive suspect, and had made Mabel a new friend.
“That’s wonderful news,” Mabel said.
“Something urgent has come up, and I wanted to get ahold of you. I need to tell you something which is extremely confidential.”
Mabel leaned into the desk. Although she’d never met Romero, she’d formed a mental picture of him. Early fifties, with jet black hair, boyish features, and an engaging smile. “Is there something the matter?” she asked.
“Unfortunately, there is... I’m terribly sorry. Someone just walked into my office, and I need to speak with him. Will you excuse me for a moment?”
“Of course.”
Romero put her on hold. Mabel took the handbag off the desk, and peered inside. It contained a video camera with a high-powered lens. The bag had a small hole in the fabric, and she thought back to what Tony had told her about the case.
Once, every casino in the world had let people playing blackjack cut the cards, the practice considered a common courtesy. Then, for security reasons, the practice had been discarded. Except at the Gold Rush casino in Reno, where old habits died hard. It was here that the crossroaders had struck.
The gang’s members were a family, consisting of a husband, wife, and son. The scam happened during the cut. The husband would riffle up the center of the deck, and let four cards drop. He would then cut the cards. This placed the four cards he’d dropped on top of the deck. To anyone watching, his actions looked normal.
Using the camera inside the bag, his wife, who stood behind him, secretly filmed the four cards during the cut. The information was sent to her son, who sat outside the casino in a van and watched on a computer screen. The son then sent a text message to his father on a cell phone, and told him the cards’ values. Since the father was playing heads-up with the dealer, he knew his first hand and the dealer’s, and bet accordingly.
Romero returned to the line. “Sorry about that.”
“So, how can I help you this morning?” Mabel asked.
“Well, I’m about to help you. The other day when we spoke, I passed along some confidential information about a mob boss named George Scalzo, who is presently under FBI surveillance.”