"Don't, Beano. Okay? I'll do my end, you do yours. It's about Carol, not about you and me." She looked at Duffy. "You get the perfects?" she asked, referring to the casino dice.
"Twelve sets. I'm blowin' farts on 'em right now t'keep 'em warm," he grinned.
They ordered dinner but said very little. There was a strange tension between Beano and Dakota that cut through the air like words screamed in silence. Finally, after they finished their coffee, the beautiful mack put down her napkin. "If you're looking for company, you should take Victoria out. Show her your multi-terrain personality. Might stir up some of her bottom sediments."
"Maybe I'll do that," Beano said.
Then Dakota turned and walked out of the restaurant… Neck cartilage snapped all around her.
"You two should lay off," Duffy said.
"I fell in love with her once. She spit me out like fish bones."
"So it's over."
"I know." He tapped his head. "At least in here, I know." Then he got up, pulled Duffy away from the table, and pushed him out of the room.
Chapter Eighteen.
VICTORIA WAS STILL DOWN BY THE GOLF SHOP, WAITing with Roger, when Beano finally called and told her to get Duffy's overnight case from the car and come to the fire door on the east side of the hotel. The little terrier followed her as she got the small blue canvas bag out of the van and went off in search of the door. She found Beano standing outside, looking out at the moonlit ocean.
"How'd it go?" she asked, handing him the bag.
"We got the casino perfects. We're comped into a High-roller suite on ten. It's a key-locked floor. How you doing, Rog?" he said, and the little dog looked at him and cocked his head as if he wasn't certain. "Come on," Beano said.
He opened the door, which he had propped open by leaving his shoe in the threshold. He removed the loafer, slipped it on, and they climbed the stairs to the third floor. He opened the door there and checked the hall before leading Victoria and Roger-the-Dodger out to the elevator. They got in and he used his key to activate the button to the tenth floor. They rode up without speaking as calypso music from the recessed speaker washed over them.
Victoria followed him out on the tenth floor and over to Suite 10-B. Beano knocked on the double doors and Duffy opened one a crack and peaked through before opening it wide. Victoria walked into a magnificent beige and white suite with a twelve-foot exposed-beamed ceiling, a wide balcony, and louvered windows to deflect sunlight. The furnishings were tasteful, but slightly bland, the major exception being several pieces of Bahamian metal sculptures of native spear fisherman that she thought were truly stunning. Beano and Duffy had ordered caviar and champagne which they had barely touched and, since she was starved, she took several toast squares and loaded them with the tiny black fish eggs, wolfing it down. She fixed one for Roger, who sniffed it before looking up at her with wise eyes that seemed to say, "What, are you kidding me?"
"It's an acquired taste," she said to the dog, while Beano handed Duffy the blue canvas bag. Duffy opened it and started laying the contents out on the blond-ash dining room table. The plug-in drill and bit were very small.
"Dentist drill," Duffy explained as Victoria wandered over, holding the last toast square with caviar. He laid the drill carefully on the table. Then he unpacked an assortment of blades, several dark glass vials that Victoria assumed contained the cellophane gas, and a jar of epoxy, plus a bottle of white paint. The last thing he removed was a small case that contained several tiny single-hair paint brushes.
"This is gonna take a while," he said as he attached a small vise to the edge of the table. Victoria moved over and looked at the twelve pairs of casino dice that were lined up on the far end of the table.
"These the perfects?" she said, picking one up and examining it. "Aside from being perfect cubes, I don't see any difference between these and the counterfeits your brother made," she added.
"Look at the 5 in Sabre," Duffy said.
She held it close and squinted at it. "The 5 is closed at the bottom, like an eight," she said.
"Right. That's the intentional flaw. There's also some dye in the dice. Look't this…" He picked up a small black light and plugged it in.
"Hit the light switch, Beano," and Beano turned off the dining room lights. Duffy put the dice Victoria had in her hand into the table vise and then shined the ultraviolet light through them. There was a purple glow that ran diagonally through the cube.
"Very cool," she said softly.
"Okay, Beano," Duffy said and Beano switched the overhead lights back on.
"We gotta drill this so we don't interfere with that purple stripe. What I do is, I go right through the white spot on the face of the die, create a little hollow tube with the dentist drill. We put the cellophane gas next to the open oven to warm it, which makes it heavy and thick so we can pour it in, then fill the drilled hole halfway up, leaving room so it can expand when it cools and turns to gas. Then we fill the top of the hole with epoxy, closing it, hollow it out slightly to match the others… and paint the dot white again with these single-hair paint brushes."
"How long is all that gonna take?" she asked.
"'Bout four hours if I hurry." He looked at his watch. "We should be ready to run the tat by three A.M. Dakota is gonna get Tommy hammered and get him to her room around one."
Beano turned and moved unexpectedly out of the dining room and into the living room. She could hear him slide open the balcony door and go out, then a patio chair scraped against the concrete deck as he moved it.
"Can I help?" she asked Duffy.
"Nope. This is an art form. Very delicate work. One little slip and the pair are ruined. We might need all twelve." He took the vials of cellophane gas and put them on a chair in the kitchen, next to the open oven. Then he turned the flame on and came back. He picked up the first of the translucent red dice and put it into the vise. "Gonna make my set of weighted sevens first. That means I drill the one and the three, which then brings up the light side, which is two and five." He then picked up the dentist drill, affixed a tiny round drill bit, and turned the instrument on. It made a light whirring sound. Then he poised over the single die in the vise and slowly began to drill out the center spot in the three. Occasionally he would shine the U.V. light to make sure he hadn't hit the purple strip. "In the old days I used ta skip roll the dice," he said, as he worked. "Perfected my Greek shot… That's a controlled roll, where the dice hit the rail one on top of the other so the bottom cube doesn't roll over. Only an expert could do it, but it's easy for a Box-man to spot. Then I started using flat passers; they're basically shaved dice so the four, five, nine, and ten turn up more frequently. Then I invented electric dice," he grinned.
"What're they?"
"Drilled dice loaded on one side with tiny steel slugs. Hadda get in the casino storage room where they worked on the tables and install an electromagnet under the felt. Tough to install, but worth the risk. 'Course that was back when the Pit Bosses were called Ladder-men 'cause they sat up on ladders and watched the tables. That was before TV surveillance, before the Eye-in-the-Sky. I used ta' only work carpet joints 'cause the ritzy casinos didn't float the dice. Them metal slugs would take my loadies straight to the bottom of the glass." Victoria watched in fascination as he talked and finished the work on the first one. "I done 'em all. Worked every tat there is, from Dead Aces to beveled dice with rounded edges, but I ain't never come up with nothin' as good as this." He grinned as he placed the second cube in the table vise. "While I finish this, go out there and calm Beano down. Something's wrong, he ain't been actin' right."