Most televised poker shows featured small cameras that allowed the audience and commentators to see each player’s hole cards. The systems were tightly controlled and the games usually recorded ahead of time so there was no risk of using that information to cheat in real time, but that wasn’t Felter’s concern. A born showman, he wanted the tension of live drama: “What’s the excitement if the audience knows what everybody’s hand is? I want people at home to be on the edge of their seats. Hell, I want them to fall off their seats.
“Now remember, you’re live. Don’t pick your nose or grab your crotch.”
“Can I grab somebody else’s crotch?” Glickman asked.
McKennah and, despite the blonde on his arm, Kresge raised their hands.
Everyone laughed.
“And,” Felter continued, “you’ll be miked, so if you whisper, ‘Fuck me,’ we’ll bleep it but your mother’s going to know you said something naughty. Now, I want laughs and sighs and banter. We’ll have three cameras on close-ups and medium angles and one camera on top showing the board. No sunglasses.” This was directed to Brad Kresge, who was always wearing them. “I want expression. Cry, look exasperated, laugh, get pissed off. This is a poker game but first and foremost it’s TV! I want the audience engaged…Any questions?”
There were none and the contestants dispersed.
On his way to join Diane for a swim before the show, Mike O’Connor was trying to recall what was familiar about Felter’s speech.
Then he remembered: It was out of some gladiator film, when the man who was in charge gave his before-the-games pep talk, reminding the warriors that though most of them were about to die, they should go out and put on the best show they could.
Sammy Ralston and Jake were in a bar up the street from Elysium Fields Spa.
Jesus, it was hot.
“Why Nevada?” Ralston asked. “Why the desert? They oughta put casinos where the weather’s nicer.” Ralston was sweating like crazy. Jake wasn’t. Big guy like that and he wasn’t sweating. What was that about?
The biker said, “If the weather’s nice people stay outside and don’t gamble. If the weather’s shitty, they stay inside and do. That’s not rocket science.”
Oh. Made sense.
Ralston fed a quarter into the minislot at the end of the bar and Jake looked at him like, you want to throw your money away, go ahead. He lost. He fed another quarter in and lost again.
The two men had spent the last few days checking out the Elysium Fields. It was one of those places that dated from the fifties and was pretty nice, but also sort of shabby. It reminded Ralston of his grandmother’s apartment’s décor in Paramus, New Jersey. A lot of yellows, a lot of mirrors that looked like they had bad skin conditions, a lot of fading white statuettes.
Jake, with his tats and biker physique, stood out big-time, so he’d done most of the behind-the-scenes information gathering, from press releases and a few discreet calls to his union contact on the studio back lot. He’d learned that the TV show would be shot in the grand ballroom. At the beginning of the show, armed guards would give each player a suitcase containing his buy-in, which would sit on a table behind his chair. He’d take what he needed from it to play.
“Gotta be a big suitcase, I’d guess.”
“No. Two fifty takes up shit. If it’s in twenties or bigger.”
“Oh.” Ralston supposed Jake would know this. The most he himself had ever boosted in cash was about $2,000. But that was in quarters and he pulled his back out, schlepping it from the arcade to his car.
After the initial episode tonight was over, the money went back in the suitcases of the players who hadn’t gone bust. The guards would take it to the hotel’s safe for the night.
As for the surveillance of the Elysium Fields, Ralston had done most of that. He had his window-washing truck and his gear here, so he was virtually invisible. All contractors were. He’d learned that the ballroom was in a separate building. The guards would have to wheel the money down a service walk about sixty feet or so to get to the safe. Ralston had found that the walk was lined with tall plants, a perfect place to hide to jump out and surprise the guards. They’d overpower, cuff and duct tape them, grab the suitcases and flee to the opposite lot.
He and Jake discussed it and they decided to act tonight, after the first round of games; tomorrow, after the finale, there’d be more people around and they couldn’t be sure if the money would be returned to the safe.
The plan sounded okay to both men, but Jake said, “I think we need some kind of, you know, distraction. These security people around here. They’re pros. They’re going to be looking everywhere.”
Ralston suggested setting off some explosion on the grounds. Blow up a car or pull the fire alarm.
But Jake didn’t like that. “Fuck, as soon as anybody hears that they’ll know something’s going down, the money’ll have guards all over it.” Then the biker blinked and nodded. “Hey, you noticed people getting married around here a lot?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“And everybody getting their pictures taken?”
Ralston caught on. “All those flashes, yeah. You mean, blind ’em somehow with a camera?”
Jake nodded. “But we walk up with a camera, the guards’d freak.”
“How about we get one of those flashes you see at weddings. The remote ones.”
“Yeah. On tripods.”
“We get one of those, set it up about halfway along the walk. When they’re nearby we flash it. They’ll be totally fucking blinded. We come up behind. They won’t fucking know what hit them. I like it. Think we can find something like that around here?”
“Probably.”
The men paid for their beers and stepped out into the heat.
“Oh, one thing?”
“Yeah?” Jake grunted.
“What about…you know.”
“No, I don’t fucking know until you tell me.”
“A piece. I don’t have a piece.”
Jake laughed. “I’m curious. You ever used one?”
“Fuck, yes.” In fact, no, he’d never fired a gun, not on a job. But he was pissed that Jake seemed to be laughing at him about it.
When they were in the window-washing truck, Jake grabbed his canvas backpack from behind the seat. He opened it up for Ralston to see. There were three pistols inside.
“Take your pick.”
Ralston chose the revolver. It had fewer moving parts and levers and things on the side. With this one he wouldn’t have to ask Jake how it worked.
The banquet hall where Go For Broke was being shot was huge and it was completely packed.
The place was also decked out like every TV set that Mike O’Connor had ever been on: A very small portion — what the camera saw — was sleek and fashionably decorated. The rest was a mess: scaffolding, bleachers, cameras, wires, lights. It looked like a factory.
The contestants had finished with hair and makeup (except Kresge: “You get me the way I am, leave me the fuck alone”) and the sound man had wired them — mikes to their chests and plugs to their ears. They were presently in the greenroom, making small talk. O’Connor noted the costumes. Sandra Glickman was low-cut and glittery; Kresge was still in his hat-backward, show-the-tats mode. Stone T was subdued South Central and had gotten Felter’s okay to wear Ali G goggles, not nearly as dark as sunglasses; you could get a good look at his eyes (for the “drama” when he won a big pot or ended up busted, presumably). Charles Bingham was in another blazer and razor-creased gray slacks. He wore a tie but an ascot wouldn’t’ve been out of place. Dillon McKennah wore the de rigueur costume of youthful West Hollywood, an untucked striped blue-and-white shirt over a black T-shirt and tan chinos. His hair was spiked up in a fringe above his handsome face.