“Just because you talked me off that balcony doesn’t mean I owe you anything.”
“I wasn’t helping Nick when I met you,” he replied.
She had to think about what that meant. His breakfast was getting cold, and he sat back down, picked up his fork, and resumed eating. To his surprise, so did she.
The best thing about getting old was you appreciated how precious time was. They decided to start over. Lucy went first.
She’d grown up in Cincinnati. At seventeen, she drove to Las Vegas with her belongings tied to her car, became a dental hygienist, got hitched, had two kids, got divorced, and lost custody to her ex. She’d played slot machines for relaxation. She called her current financial situation “a setback.”
Then it was his turn. His life was no movie — he’d been a doting husband, a good cop, and a so-so father, according to his son — and she stopped him when he’d said he was retired. “I know this is none of my business, but how old are you?”
“Sixty-three.”
“I would have guessed fifty-three. I’m fifty-two.”
He saw her smiling. It was starting to feel like a date, and he decided to put the conversation back on track. “After my wife died, I started consulting. Back when I was a cop in Atlantic City, I had this knack for catching cheaters. I could pick one off the floor, even if I didn’t know what he was doing. Hustlers call it grift sense.”
“How can you spot a cheater, if you don’t know what he’s doing?”
“Cheaters are actors. They know the outcome, so they have to fake their emotions. That’s the hardest part of the scam.”
“You can tell the difference between a realie and a phony?”
“That’s right.”
“So what am I?”
“A realie,” he said.
He saw her smile again, and motioned to the waitress for their check.
They left the coffee shop. Of all the joints in Vegas, he had a soft spot for Caesars. There was live entertainment everywhere you looked, plus beautiful statues, Olympian wall art, and a staff that made visitors feel special.
They stopped at the Forum Shops. A sign for the TALKING ROMAN GOD SHOW said the next performance was in ten minutes. He’d seen the show before. Animatronic statues of Roman gods narrated a wacky story to the accompaniment of lasers and booming sound effects. It was brainless, yet lots of fun.
They found an empty bench. Lucy sat sideways, her knee almost touching his. It was hard to believe she was the same woman he’d met yesterday. She’d bounced back quickly from the edge of despair.
“How can you tell I’m a realie?”
“I don’t think Sharon Stone could fake the emotion I saw on the tape of you winning at blackjack,” he replied.
For some reason, this made her laugh. “Okay. If you could tell by the tape that I’m not a cheater, then why did you want to talk to me?”
She was grinning like a cat, and he wondered if she was trying to trap him into admitting there was an ulterior motive in him inviting her to breakfast. There wasn’t, so he answered her honestly.
“Because there are two things bothering me.”
Her smile faded. “Oh. What are they?”
“The first is the simple fact that you started with ten thousand dollars, and you ended up with twenty-five thousand of the casino’s money.”
“So? Aren’t people allowed to win sometimes?”
“They are, but not like that.”
“What do you mean?”
He hesitated. Lucy was a gambler. Most gamblers thought they understood the games. They did, when it came to the rules and strategy. But few understood the math, especially when it came to winning and losing. In that department, just about everyone who gambled was a sucker. He stood up. “I’ll be right back.”
He bought stationery in the gift shop. When he returned to the bench, a guy with a bad dye job and lots of gold chains was putting the moves on Lucy. Seeing him approach, the guy shrugged and left. Valentine sat down and tore the plastic off the paper.
“All right,” Lucy said, “show me why I’m not supposed to win.”
He drew a chart on a piece of paper. It was the same chart he used when he gave talks at Gamblers Anonymous. Finished, he turned the paper upside down. Her eyes locked onto the page.
She lifted her eyes from the page. “Is this for real?”
“Afraid so,” he said.
“But how can the casino’s edge increase? Doesn’t it always stay the same?”
“For each hand, yes.”
“So the edge doesn’t change.”
“No, but it eats into your bankroll. The edge gives the casino one-point-four cents of every bet you make. You lose gradually, which makes your objective of doubling your bankroll impossible. The more bets you make, the worse it gets. It’s what pays for this place, and every other place in town.”
“The edge,” she said.
“That’s right. Over the long haul, you can’t beat it.”
“Only I did. Did I get lucky?”
He pointed at the top of the chart with his pen. “Luck is betting all your money on a single hand. The first bet, you’re playing nearly even with the house. If you win, that’s luck. You played for five hours, and won over fifty percent of your hands. Luck had nothing to do with it.”
She drew back into herself, not sure where the conversation was headed. “You said there were two things bothering you. What’s the second?”
He hesitated. Lucy caught it, put her hand on his knee and dug in her nails hard. Grimacing, he said, “Your story sounds like a fairy tale. You never played blackjack before. Well, why did you play? My guess is, someone talked you into it.”
A startled look spread across her face.
“I also think this same person staked you ten grand. He talked you into playing blackjack at the Acropolis. You had a deal with him.”
“Why do you think someone staked me?” she asked, growing angry. “Why couldn’t it have been with my money?”
Because you owe money all over town he would have said to anyone else sitting on that bench. Only he didn’t want to hurt this woman. She’d been through enough.
Her hand was still on his knee. He rested his hand on hers.
“Greasy guys with diamond pinkie rings bet five hundred a hand,” he said. “Or oil tycoons wearing Stetsons. But a novice playing her first time? A hundred a hand I could live with. Not five hundred. Someone told you to do that.”
He saw the flicker of understanding register on her face. He was on to her, and she knew it. “Lucy, please, level with me. Who staked you? What’s going on?”
“I... can’t tell you that.”
“Please.”
She shook her head. “I have to go.” She jerked her hand free of his grasp and abruptly stood up. She walked away quickly, purse clutched to her chest, eyes scared.
“Lucy—”
“No!”
He saw the guy who’d been hitting on her emerge from one of the Forum Shops. Walking over, he tried to start up a conversation. Mister-Never-Give-Up. Lucy stopped long enough to slap him in the face, the harsh sound reverberating across the Forum’s domed ceiling like a gunshot.
16
Taking cabs in Las Vegas was a waste of time, so Valentine hiked back to the Acropolis. It was only three blocks, plus the long walk down Caesars entranceway. The casino had moving sidewalks to bring people in, but not out.
The air was brisk and clean, the sun a metallic sliver in the vivid sky. He walked quickly, wanting to burn off the bad feelings weighing him down. Lucy was somehow involved in this scam, and he didn’t want her to end up getting hurt. He normally didn’t feel that way about cheaters, and found himself trying to rationalize his feelings. She didn’t seem to be a part of a gang, and was probably just a patsy. She was being taken advantage of, he decided.