Jackpot

Chapter 42

Garrow was nearly dead by the time the Reno police broke down his front door.

Garrow lived in a fancy gated community with a guard at the front. His house had the best security system money could buy. Neither of those things had stopped Bronco from getting on the grounds and breaking into the house. He’d tied his attorney to a chair, and beaten him to a pulp.

Garrow was cut free, and laid on the floor with a pillow placed beneath his head. Bill called for EMS on his cell phone.

“I want to talk to him,” Valentine said.

“I don’t think he can talk,” Bill replied.

“He’s a lawyer. He’ll be talking five minutes after he’s dead.”

“Go ahead.”

Valentine got a cold beer from the refrigerator. It was a St. Paul’s Girl. He popped the top and poured some into Garrow’s mouth. The lawyer smiled weakly.

“That tastes good,” Garrow whispered.

“I want you to help me catch Bronco,” Valentine said.

“Give me some more beer.”

Valentine drained half the bottle into his mouth. “You want more, start talking.”

“Prick.”

Valentine took that as a compliment. “Tell me about the Asian. He was supposed to exchange scams with Bronco. A Pai Gow scam for Bronco’s slot machine scam.”

“Right. The Asian robbed me, stole my wallet. The slot machine scam was in it, although I don’t think he knows how it works.”

“What is the scam?”

“It’s an EPROM chip. The chip contains a special code. If you plug it into certain slot machines, they become rigged.”

“How does that work?”

“Beats me. Give me some beer.”

Valentine pulled Garrow’s head up and fed him more beer. Giving him liquor was a dirty trick, not that he cared. Garrow was scum, and scum deserved whatever they got.

“What’s the Pai Gow scam?”

“The Asian showed me a pair of dominos. They looked normal. Then he said ‘Red not black.’ and laughed.”

“You examine them?”

“They were clean. More beer.”

Valentine gave him the rest of the beer. It was easing the pain and loosening his tongue at the same time. “So the Asian doesn’t know how the slot scam works.”

“Right. He needs Bronco to explain it . That’s why Bronco came to see me. He wants to hook up with the Asian, and do the exchange.”

“How they going to do that?”

“Easy. The Asian stole my cell phone. I told Bronco that all he had to do was call my number, and he’d get the Asian.”

“Is that why Bronco didn’t kill you?”

Garrow nodded weakly. Then his eyes rolled up into his head, and he passed out.

An EMS team came into the house and attended to Garrow, and Valentine got out of their way. A code. The slot secret was a code, whatever the hell that meant. Gerry stood in the doorway with a funny look on his face. He pulled his father into the next room.

“What’s the matter?” Valentine asked.

“I just figured out how the gaming agent is stealing jackpots,” his son said.

“Be still my beating heart.”

“Come on, Pop. I do have a brain, you know.”

“I never doubted that. Just your ability to use it.”

“Thanks. Bet you a steak dinner I’m right.”

“You’re on.”

“I’m in my bar in Brooklyn, eating lunch. White-haired guy comes into the bar who services the juke box. He serviced half the juke boxes in Brooklyn, and was always busy. I watched him open up the machine, and I realized that he used a key on his regular key chain, which was pretty small. For some reason, it didn’t feel right, so I stop him and said, ‘Look, I know you service all these different machines, how come your key chain is so small?’ And the guy gives me this sheepish look and says, ‘I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but they all can be opened with the same key.’ And I say, ‘All the locks are the same?’ And he says, ‘Yeah. The manufacturer did it to save money.’”

“What does this have to do with the slot scam?”

Gerry smiled. He seemed to be clearly enjoying the fact that he had his old man over a barrel. “Remember when we were in Bronco’s house, and I asked you about those key rings hanging off the wall in Bronco’s work area? You told me that Bronco had discovered that casinos used skeleton keys to open up slot machines, which is similar to what the juke box company uses.”

“So?”

“Think about it, Pop. Both these things share one thing in common: the manufacturer skimped on cost, and created an exploitable flaw. Well, I think that’s what we have here with the slot machines. Remember what Impoco told us at the Peppermill? He said that each slot machine had a 32-word and number fingerprint, and that a cheater would have to know the fingerprint in order to hack the machine, and gaff the Random Number Generator chip.”

Valentine felt goose bumps rising on his arms. “And you think that a manufacturer didn’t do this, and instead has the same fingerprint on all its machines?”

“Right. The manufacturer didn’t think anyone would notice. Well, the only people who could notice would be the people who check slot machines for the ESD. They look at this stuff everyday. Somebody over there discovered the flaw, but instead of exposing it, he decided to use it to steal jackpots.”

“It’s a good theory.”

“It’s not a theory. It’s a fact. I can prove it.”

This was scary. His son was starting to sound like him.

“How?”

“It stands to reason that if I’m right, all the machines which have been ripped off where manufactured by the same company. Well, we know of two machines which were ripped off. The first was by Karl Klinghoffer at the Gold Rush. The second by his wife at the Peppermill. So I called the casinos, and asked them to tell me the make of the machines the Klinghoffers played on. Guess what? Both were made by a company called Universal. I Googled them on my cell phone. Universal makes twenty percent of the slots sold around the world. I’ll bet my house they all have the same fingerprint.”

“That’s brilliant Gerry.”

His son grinned. “I want a potato with my steak, and a Caesar Salad.”

“Coming right up.”

A uniformed cop entered the room. He pulled a spiral notebook out of his pocket along with a pen. “Which one of you was the last to speak to the deceased?”

Valentine glanced into the adjacent room. Garrow was lying motionless beneath a white sheet. He’d been so busy talking to his son, he hadn’t heard Garrow croak.

“I was.”

“What did he tell you?” the cop asked.

Valentine hesitated. Did he really want to tell the cop what Garrow had said, or Gerry’s theory? It was the kind of information that could destroy the casino business over night, which was exactly what he’d been hired to prevent.

“Nothing.”

The expression on the cop’s face said he didn’t believe Valentine.

“You sure about that?” the cop asked.

“Positive,” Valentine said. “He didn’t say a thing.”

The cop flipped his notebook shut. “Whatever you say.”