“You’re the problem. Get dressed. We’re going for a walk.”
As they crossed the campus and walked down bitterly cold Mass Avenue, Billy wondered what he’d done. He’d tried to keep his nose clean since entering college, but it had been tough. There were too many stuck-up rich kids that needed to be knocked down a peg, and he’d cheated them at weekly poker games for extra spending money. The scores had been chump change, and he couldn’t imagine that it had led to anything serious.
His attitude changed as they’d entered the office of the dean of undergraduate education. The dean was at his desk, a squirrely fellow wearing a dated striped suit and tie, his face a study in odd tics and twitches. The dean had presented Billy with his award a few weeks ago, and they were on a first-name basis. With him was a lanky detective with a badge pinned to his suit coat. Parked in chairs by the window were two juniors named Brett Wolf and Dan Fleshman. Wolf and Fleshman were his buddies, although judging by their refusal to make eye contact, he sensed they’d just thrown him under the bus.
“Hello, Billy,” the dean said solemnly.
“Good morning, Dean,” he replied. “How have you been?”
“To be honest, I’ve been better. Do you have any idea why you’re here?”
“Because my friends are assholes,” he nearly said. Instead he said, “No, sir, I don’t.”
“Brett and Dan have implicated you in a plot to scam the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut. They claim you masterminded the operation, and attempted to steal a quarter of a million dollars from the casino.”
Billy swallowed hard. What had these two clowns done?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
“We have proof, Billy. Why don’t you fess up and save us the trouble?”
“Because there’s nothing to fess up to.”
“You’re making this hard on yourself, son.”
“I’m Detective Peret with the Boston Police Department,” interrupted the man with the badge. He had the ruddy complexion that came from too many pints, what the locals called a saloon tan. “As you probably know, the Mohegan Sun is run by the Pequot Indian nation. I’ve been asked by the head of Pequot’s tribal police department to speak with you. The Pequots are very disturbed by what your friends have done. Do you mind if I call you Billy?”
He wanted to kill Wolf and Fleshman. Instead of ripping off the Pequots for a few grand a week as they’d agreed to, they’d gotten greedy and gone for the big enchilada.
“Not at all,” he said.
“Good. Perhaps this will refresh your memory.” From the dean’s desk Peret picked up a kid’s video poker game made by Bally Gaming. The game had been a big seller last Christmas and in all the department stores. “Last night, your friends got caught stealing a two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar jackpot from a video poker machine at the casino. The video poker machine that got scammed was made by Bally Gaming. According to what your friends have told us, you figured out a way to use this kid’s game, also made by Bally, to scam the casino version. Is this ringing any bells, Billy?”
“They’re lying,” he said.
“Really? You created the software program they used to scam the game. We found the original on a computer in your statistics class. Your name was on it.”
Whoops. So much for covering his tracks.
“I want to speak to a lawyer,” he said.
“No, you don’t,” Peret said.
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t. I’m here to cut a deal with you. The Pequots want to know how your friends knew the cards that were going to come up on their video poker machine. If you explain how you did that, they won’t press charges, and I won’t arrest you.”
Rule number one of cheating was never to explain, because an explanation was an admission of guilt, and once you admitted your guilt, your goose was cooked. But the other option was no fun, either. Arrest, plea bargain, or maybe a trial, and jail time.
“Detective, you have yourself a deal,” he said.
Peret’s disposition grew more hospitable. The detective crossed the office and handed Billy the video poker game. “Explain how you did it, and don’t leave anything out.”
“You got it.” He hit the play button on the machine and the game came to life. “I saw this game in a store last Christmas, and it got me to thinking. I knew Bally made casino video poker machines, and I wondered if they’d programmed the game’s internal clock using the same software that they’d used for their casino games. It would save time, and lots of money.”
“Did they?” Peret asked.
“Yes, although it took me a while to figure it out. First, I analyzed the game on a computer, and discovered it used a random function to shuffle its internal deck of cards. The random function generates starting values, called seeds, which are randomly changed each time you play. It’s a simple formula. When a player hits the game’s start button, the random function looks at the number of milliseconds which have elapsed since twelve a.m. and uses that number to create the seed. With me so far?”
“Keep talking, smart-ass,” Peret said.
“Since there are eighty-six million milliseconds each day, the seeds should be totally random, ensuring a fair game. Because I knew the starting point was twelve a.m., I was able to work my way backward, calculate the seed, and then calculate which cards would come out. I was able to cheat the store game within a few hours.
“Cheating the casino version of the game came next. Brett, Dan, and I visited the Mohegan Sun, and Brett played a game of video poker while Dan read the cards off the screen to me with his cell phone. I was in our hotel room on my laptop, and I ran the cards through my software program using the twelve a.m. starting point. Sure enough, the internal clock on the casino game was identical to the store game. We started beating the casino game right away.”
“How much did you win?” Peret asked.
“Two grand. I told them not to win too much. You know they say hogs get fed, pigs get slaughtered. I guess they didn’t listen.”
“That would be an understatement,” the detective said.
Tired of talking, Billy bought a bottled water from a vending machine, which he split with Ly when he returned to their poolside chairs.
“You get thrown out?” she asked.
“Yup. Packed my bags and left that morning. The dean took the award back, gave me a real dressing down. It was humiliating. Then I went home. That was worse.”
“What happen?”
“My old man was in the kitchen reading the Saturday paper. I came in through the back door and dropped my suitcases on the floor and told him flat out what had happened. I didn’t even take my coat off. When I was finished, my old man didn’t say a thing. He just took off his reading glasses and wiped the tears from his eyes. I never saw him cry before. Not even when my grandparents died or my mom got thrown in jail. You understand what I’m saying? The man didn’t cry. I broke my father’s fucking heart.”
“What you do then?”
“I took a Greyhound bus to Vegas.”
“You no make up?”
“It was too late for that.”
He’d called his old man every week until he’d passed, but it had never been the same between them. Every man worth his salt dreamed of a better life, if not for himself, then for his children, and he’d shattered his father’s dream with the reckless disregard of a drunk shattering an empty beer bottle on the curb. It was a hurt that he could not fix, and he hadn’t even bothered to try.
“That sad,” she said.
“Tell me about it,” he said.
She rose from her chair and held out her hand.
“Let’s go back to room. I make you feel better.”
He looked up into her pretty face. It was tempting, but he wasn’t going there.
“You go,” he said.
“But…”
“Just go.”