Twenty-five grand was a lot of dough. More than he’d made his first years as a cop in Atlantic City. When he and his wife retired to Florida, he’d figured his earning years were over. Then Lois had died, and he’d opened a consulting business to help casinos catch cheats. It kept his mind off the past. And the pay was good.
He caught the three men smirking and guessed it was his clothes. The airline had lost his luggage, and he’d bought pants and a shirt in Sin’s haberdashery for the meeting. The pants had set him back three hundred bucks and didn’t fit worth a damn.
A blackjack table sat in the center of the room, along with four stools and a dealer from the casino. Hitching up his trousers, he crossed the room and pulled a stool out from the table. “Care to join me?” he asked.
The three men elbowed up to the table. Shelly Michael had an annoying habit of continually looking at his watch. Valentine saw him do it again.
“Got a train to catch?”
Shelly glared at him. He wore an exquisite silk suit that was offset by a toupee too flat for his head. He also wore a wedding ring, and Valentine wondered why his wife hadn’t bothered to tell him how ridiculous he looked.
“You may begin,” Shelly said.
Valentine had a feeling that he wouldn’t be getting any jobs from Michael Gaming after today. That was okay. He had to draw the line in the sand somewhere.
“As you know, blackjack is the favorite table game of every casino in the world,” he began. “It is also, unfortunately, the game that’s most susceptible to cheating. I personally know of a hundred ways to cheat at blackjack, and that doesn’t include card-counting. That’s why casinos monitor their blackjack tables so zealously.”
He shifted his attention to the dealer behind the table, a good-looking Italian kid named Sal Dickinson. They’d talked briefly in the elevator. Sal was an A dealer, which meant he got to work the high-roller salon and made good tips.
“Sal,” Valentine said, “please shuffle up.”
Sal removed six decks of playing cards from a plastic shoe on the table and began to shuffle. Valentine turned his attention to the three casino executives.
“For every method of cheating at blackjack, casinos have devised a way to beat it. Computers, cameras, mirrors, daub, you name it, and the casinos have figured out how to stop it. Then something called Deadlock appeared on the scene.”
“So it does exist,” Shelly said.
“That’s right.”
“You’ve seen it, or just heard about it?” Shelly asked.
The challenge in his voice was unmistakable. Valentine could hear the soft purr of the cards being shuffled behind his back. “I own one,” he replied.
Chance Newman acted surprised. He wore hip designer threads and moved like he’d spent his life on a dance floor. “I thought they were impossible to get,” he said.
“They are,” Valentine replied.
“Then how did you get one?” Shelly demanded.
Valentine’s face burned. Shelly’s mother had obviously left him in diapers for too long. Taking out a pack of Marlboros, he banged one out and stuck it between his lips. Leaving it unlit, he said, “A casino in the Philippines I was doing a job for gave it to me. The casino’s security department raided the room of a gang of suspected cheaters. They found the device in a suitcase and thought it was a card-counting computer.”
“And you taught yourself how to use it,” Shelly Michael said.
“That’s right.”
Chance Newman placed his hand on Valentine’s shoulder. “Tony’s the best in the business. That’s why I asked him to give us this demonstration. If anyone is going to understand how Deadlock works, it’s him.”
Valentine turned to face Sal. The six decks were ready to be cut. He picked up the laminated cut card sitting on the table and jammed it in. Sal separated the cards at the spot and fitted them into the plastic shoe.
Then Sal started to deal.
Valentine played all seven hands at the table, a hundred dollars a bet. Within twenty minutes, the shoe was exhausted and he was down ten thousand dollars.
“This is cheating?” Shelly asked sarcastically.
Shelly was watching him like a hawk. So were Chance and Rags, only Shelly had breath that could melt your glasses. Valentine wondered if he knew how bad his breath was. That was the problem with rich people. No one was honest with them.
“It sure is,” Valentine said.
“But you’re down ten grand.”
“That’s right. I’m splashing.”
“You’re what?”
“Splashing. It’s a hustler’s term. I’m throwing money around, setting you up.”
“How so?”
“I’ve made you think I’m a sucker.”
Valentine placed his unlit cigarette in the ashtray on the table. Picking the ashtray up, he moved it next to the plastic discard tray where Sal put the cards after each hand was dealt. Beneath the ashtray, Valentine secretly held a “lug” — a piece of rubber band tied in a knot with its ends snipped off. With his middle finger, he shot the lug into the discard tray. Sal immediately put some cards above the lug. Then he removed all the cards from the discard tray and began to shuffle them.
Valentine turned around on his stool, effectively shielding Sal from the three men.
“What should make us think otherwise?” Shelly asked.
“My behavior,” Valentine said. “I lost ten grand, and didn’t start pissing and moaning.”
Shelly didn’t get it. Neither did Chance. But Rags was all smiles, his gold teeth glittering. In and out of prison as a kid, he knew the ways of street people, and said, “That’s a tell.”
“Sure is,” Valentine said.
“So what are you telling us?”
“That I’m about to rip you off.”
Rags grinned. “Sure you are.”
Valentine had been counting time in his head. Twenty seconds had passed, and he turned around and watched Sal finish shuffling. So did the other three men.
When Sal was done, he offered the cards to be cut. Valentine picked up a laminated cut card lying on the table and stuck it into the break in the cards created by the lug.
Sal watched him with a bored look on his face, playing his part perfectly. It had taken Valentine no time to explain the scam to him in the elevator. It was one of the things that made Deadlock so deceptive. A dealer could be easily recruited.
Sal fitted the cards into the plastic shoe and started dealing.
Valentine played all seven hands, a thousand dollars a bet. After ten minutes, he’d won his ten grand back, as well as twenty thousand of the house’s money.
“What the hell you doing?” Rags yelled at him. He was hanging on the table rail, staring in disbelief as Valentine won every single hand he played.
“Cheating,” he replied.
“Ain’t possible,” Rags said, looking at his peers for support. “Is it?”
“That, or he can walk on water,” Chance said, shaking his head in disbelief.
Shelly glared at him, refusing to acknowledge he was beaten. Valentine played another round, winning all seven hands. Rags slapped the table incredulously.
“Are you going to show us what you’re doing, or do we have to lie on our backs and say Uncle?” Shelly finally asked.
Shelly’s timing was perfect. The cards that Valentine was using to win had been exhausted. He couldn’t cheat anymore, not that he planned to tell Shelly that.
“Be happy to,” Valentine said.