King Con

Chapter Eleven.

"UNBELIEVABLE," VICTORIA SAID, HER VOICE TRIUMphant. "I never saw this much cash outside of a police property room."

"To Carol," Beano toasted, and they all raised a glass of champagne, including John, who was on the cellphone to Fit-Throwing Duffy in Cleveland. Beano had turned the cashier's check into fifteen hundred crisp $100 bills. They were stacked on the Winnebago's dining table. A celebratory bottle of Dom Perignon was being passed around.

John closed Victoria's flip-phone and raised his glass in a second toast. "Duffy's aboard. He's gonna catch the next flight to the Bahamas. I told him to find us a place to work out of, somewhere down the road from the Sabre Bay Club. Said he'd bring the drills, the cellophane gas, and the '97 McGuire Financial Listings, but he needs us to bring your wheelchair."

"Cellophane gas?" Victoria said. She was feeling a little giddy. She didn't usually drink, and just two glasses of the imported champagne had her off balance.

"For the tat," Beano said. "We drill the dice and load 'em with cellophane gas, which is the only substance on the planet that turns from a gas to a solid when you heat it. Every other substance goes from a solid, to a liquid, to a gas. Cellophane gas dice are much better than regular loadies."

"How so?"

"Duffy found out about this cellophane gas stuff in an article in Scientific American. He figured out how to use it in the tat. It's his discovery. No one else even knows about it, so don't spread it around. It's a family secret." She nodded. "Duffy is the best dice mechanic in the game. He'll switch out the table dice at Sabre Bay with close counterfeits he'll bring with him. This is important because all casinos change the dice at odd intervals and the official dice all have minor imperfections. The Pit Boss can quickly check a pair of dice to make sure they're casino issue. When we hit them big, they're gonna be checking the dice hard, and we need to be using their cubes. Once Duffy's got us ten or twelve sets of casino cubes off the tables, we'll go to our room and drill 'em and put the cellophane in. The way it works is, when the cellophane gas is heated by your hand, it turns solid. That loads 'em so when you roll the dice, they come up on whatever number they're weighted to make."

"Why do you need cellophane gas?" she asked. "Why not just use regular weights?"

"Because, once you start to hit these casinos, they get very nervous and, besides checking the dice, they send over a pit boss who's gonna stand at the table, watching the action. If you're winning too much, he'll also float the dice." Seeing her confused look, he explained: "That means he'll drop 'em in a glass of water. If they roll over, he knows they're weighted on one side and you're busted. Thing about cellophane gas is, it heats fast, but it also cools very fast. By the time he gets it into the water, it's already back to being a gas and therefore equally distributed, so the dice don't roll."

"Pretty clever."

"In order to get Tommy's attention, we're gonna have t'hit his casino for a pile of dough. Between the table and the 'fill cage,' I'd like to get as close to two million as I can. To do that, we're gonna have to be at that table for a while. They won't shut us down if they can't catch us cheating. These dice should have 'em stumped."

"Okay, so what's the deal with the wheelchair?"

"I'll show you." Beano got up and went out of the motor home. Victoria and John followed, watching as he climbed up the back ladder and untied the tarp on the roof. Then he handed down a Quickie Grand Prix Victory folding wheelchair with no seat. Victoria watched as Beano dug around on the roof for a minute. He climbed down with what looked like a portable toilet with a plastic catch basin attached.

"That's a Porta-Toilet seat," she said, grinning foolishly, still feeling giddy from the champagne.

Beano opened the chair, John handed him a rag, and Beano wiped the dust off. He then attached the Porta-Toilet to the seat on the wheelchair and looked up at her. "This is gonna be Fit-Throwing Duffy's work station. He's gonna be a gimp at the table. I wheel him in, park him, and create the distractions. Once he pulls the dice off the crap table, he drops 'em between his legs into the Porta-Toilet. At the same time, he makes a palm switch putting counterfeit dice in the game. Since we're going to be losing big at this point, the Stick-man on the table won't bother to check the dice. They never worry about dice being used by a loser. It won't be until the new Shift Manager comes on and they do a dice count that they'll find our dice, but since they're not loaded, they'll probably just fill out an incident report and do nothing. Neither the Pit Boss or the Shift Manager watching through the Eye-in-the-Sky camera will spot Duffy's switch. He can palm stuff like a close-hand magician. In an hour he'll get us twelve pairs of their trademark dice to drill." Beano turned the wheelchair upside down and showed her a specially designed cartridge clip under each arm where the drilled dice could be snap-loaded. "The doctored dice fit in here. If Duffy wants a seven, he pulls the ace from this side, the six from the other, and holds 'em for a minute, doing some player hooey to stall long enough for the gas to warm up and turn solid. At the same time, he ditches the table dice into the Porta-Toilet. He blows on the loadies, starts sayin' stuff like 'Come on, come on seven. Baby needs a new pair a'shoes,' some bullshit like that. Once the cellophane is solid, he rolls the number and wins".

"You guys have this down to a science."

"It's not a science," Beano grinned, "it's an art."

As they were talking, a brand-new red Corvette with the top down pulled through the arch at Shady Rest and parked next to the motor home. Behind the wheel was one of the most extraordinary creatures that Victoria Hart had ever seen. She had long, luxuriant jet-black hair and ivory-white skin. Her green eyes sparkled when she got out of the car. She was not saving anything. Her luscious frame was poured into skin-tight, ripped jeans. She was wearing a tank-top, her chest jutted, and when she moved it didn't look to Victoria like a silicone job. Beyond all of those breathtaking physical attributes there was something else, something intangible: a smoldering, musky sexuality that was palpable and sucked all the available oxygen from the spot where they were standing. Victoria was no wallflower, but she instantly knew she was no sexual competition for the Queen of Hearts.

"I understand you guys are looking for a capper to rope a mark," she said as she hugged John, but only looked over at Beano. They kept their distance. There was negative tension between them. "How you doing?" she said to him.

"I'm okay. I see you're having a good year," he said, eyeing the Vette. There was a coldness in the remark that startled Victoria.

"If you're still pissed, Beano, I'm sorry. I thought we were just screwing around."

"Yeah," he said, "I guess that's what we were doing."

"I wanna help. Don't freeze me out," she said, looking at him, holding his gaze until he spoke.

"You know we're talking about Tommy Rina?"

"So, I'll thumb some Vaseline up my nose to help with the smell. I can rope that little shit. I'll steer him for you, and if he comes off hot, I'll play the little monkey against the wall." Then, without warning, she turned to Victoria and threw out her hand. "Hi, I'm Dakota Bates."

Victoria shook hands and introduced herself. Victoria was five-nine but Dakota must have been close to six feet tall. She had showgirl dimensions.

"Come on inside," Beano finally said, and they moved into the motor home.

The cash was still on the table. Dakota looked at it. "John said you're running a moose pasture in Modesto with a Big Store in San Francisco." Beano nodded. "You think that's gonna be enough cash?" she asked.

"If we're careful. We need that to set up the field and rent offices. Victoria, John, and I are gonna fly to San Francisco tomorrow. We'll take around a hundred thousand, you take the other fifty and catch a flight to the Bahamas and meet Fit-Throwing Duffy there. Weil see you in two days. One of us will have to deliver the new McGuire Financial Listings to the casino credit department."

"How you gonna get Tommy to the Bahamas?" Dakota asked.

"I checked around. His latest roommate is a redheaded hooker named Calliope Love," Beano said. 'Boardwalk Radio is about to call her up and give her two free tickets to paradise."

"I thought you 'never pitch a bitch,'" Dakota said, turning to Victoria." Beano thinks girls tantalize but analyze, while guys just jump at the con feet first."

"Sometimes you gotta break the rules," he said.

Dakota nodded and put her overnight case on the table.

"By the way, you don't have to sleep with Tommy," Beano said awkwardly, "just steer him."

"Hey, sweetheart, let me handle my end of it. How I get this mooch to cooperate is my business."

"I'm just saying-"

"Don't," she interrupted firmly; then she saw Roger. "Hey, Rogie. Good to see you, honey." Roger-the-Dodger ran across the motor home and jumped up into her lap, putting his paws upon her magnificent chest.

"How you doing, Roge?" Dakota said to the terrier as she nuzzled him.

"A hell of a lot better than you," Victoria whispered to Beano softly.

Tommy Rina heard about the pearl at noon. When the rich Texan didn't show up to purchase the "matching" pearl, it took poor Donald Stine half a day to figure out what had happened to him. When he realized that he had just bought back the same pearl for a hundred and fifty thousand that he had sold the day before for fifty, he knew he was in big trouble. He couldn't figure out a way to hide the mistake, so he finally called Tommy, who was his boss, and told him what had happened.

Tommy was standing in the jewelry store in less than twenty minutes. "You fucking let this Texas goof sell you back the same fucking pearl?" he said, amazed. "Did you fucking check your brains at the Automat?"

"I didn't know it was the same pearl at first. The more I looked at it, the more I wondered. I had the guy from the Jewelry Mart who I originally bought it from come over. He told me…" Donald Stine was scared to death. He was sure that Tommy would take him out back and beat him to death with his trademark ballpeen hammer, but that wasn't what happened.

"Okay," Tommy said, a strange, deadly calm coming over him. His close-set, prehistoric eyes blinked lazily. "I'm gonna get these sorry fucks and put 'em in a new category."

"Yes, sir," Donald said, figuring the new category was deceased.

"Happens again, you're gonna be more than sorry, you're gonna get some flashlight therapy. Gonna be a fucking Jersey River whitefish. Smarten up, asshole; this is your only mistake, don't make another." And the little mobster turned and walked out of the jewelry store without another word.

Tommy moved across the purple and red carpet of Bally's past the faro tables, past the banks of dollar slots, then across the lobby where the chemin de fer tables were located in a plush pit. He moved up to Gus Taggert, the Floor Boss, who was sitting on a regal velvet chair next to a mahogany elevator door that led to the High-roller tables on the second floor.

"I wanna see S.B.," he said.

"Come on, Tommy, I can't let you up there. You know you're not carded; I got gaming commission rules to follow." Gus had been given this job because he was harder to get around than a free safety.

"Hey, fuck you, Gus, and fuck your fucking rules. You want me for a fucking enemy, I'll turn your fucking world shit-black." Tommy was smoking mad. His prehistoric eyes now shone with carnivorous intent. There was something about Tommy when he was mad that melted all resistance.

"Okay, okay. Calm the fuck down, will ya?" Gus said, backing up, losing all his field position.

"You calm fucking down!" Tommy shouted back. "Some cowboy hit my jewelry store for a hundred K. I wanta see S. Bartly's cameras. You fucking better get on my team, Gus… or you're gonna have a fucking scar down where your snake used to play."

"Take it easy… You can go up, just don't say it was me that let ya, okay?" he said, folding under Tommy's withering glare.

Gus pushed the button on the mahogany elevator, the door opened, and Tommy went inside the brass-railed, carpeted box. Gus leaned in and put the key in a lock on the elevator panel, turned it, and stepped back as the door closed and Tommy rode up past the lush High-roller area to the third floor, where he got off.

The floor was sterile. It was a painted concrete utility area where shift supervisors and casino muscle hung out on folding metal chairs. The central security room was up here. Tommy knocked on the door and S. Bartly Kneeland opened it and looked out at Tommy, staring at the simian thug through Coke bottle glasses. S.B. was a thin, crater-skinned, tubercular-looking geek. He had designed all of the security video in the hotel, including the Eye-in-the-Sky that monitored everything. All of the surveillance feeds were wired to this room.

"Tommy, you can't be up here. You're not rated," S.B. squeaked.

"Fuck that," Tommy said and pushed the little man with the palm of his hand. S.B. stumbled backwards and was now standing in the center of a twelve-foot-square room full of TV monitors, each equipped with a VCR machine. Tommy moved into the room and looked at the equipment. He had never been up here before because, as everybody kept reminding him, he'd been denied a license by the gaming board and this whole floor was off limits to anybody without a gaming commission card. He'd heard about it, though, and it lived up to his expectations. There were more than thirty TV monitors, each covering a different part of the hotel. They kept a lookout for known casino cheats and card counters, along with the growing legions of slot bandits using wire triggers. These were tools bent in the shape of a 7 that could be slipped up inside slots to trigger payoffs. These cheaters were known in the casino security business as "7UPs."

There were monitors watching the High-roller rooms, along with monitors covering the entire casino, including the drive-up at the entrance out front. Since all of the surveillance was from ceiling cameras, the room was called the Eye-in-the-Sky. There were other technicians in the room who walked around constantly looking at the various monitors. On one wall hung ten or twelve large leather-bound photo albums that had pictures of card sharps. Each leather-bound volume had a spine slip indicating what kind of cheats were pictured inside. Besides dice tats and 7UPs, there were volumes for nail nickers and crimpers (card markers), hand muckers and mit men (card switchers), as well as card counters and shiner players.

"I need to look at the lobby tapes for two o'clock yesterday and nine o'clock this morning," Tommy growled. "I also wanna see the tapes on the pull-ups out front for both those times."

"You can't be in here," S.B. said. He was sweating and he straightened his glasses, which had been knocked askew on his beak nose when Tommy had pushed him.

"Hey, dickhead. I didn't hear you right. I think it sounded like you just said I couldn't be in here. I hope, for your sake, that ain't what you said." Tommy's balls were clanging.

'Tommy I-" But S.B. said no more as Tommy interrupted him.

"I pay rent to this fucking joint for my jewelry store. For what? My store just got clouted. I wanna look at the security tapes now." He moved toward the little man, who took a quick step back and finally nodded his head, which bobbed up and down on his pencil neck like a dashboard doll. S. Bartly Kneeland's balls didn't clang; they chimed like Baccarat.

"Okay, okay. I'll get 'em, Tommy." He turned and moved to the rack of tapes. He pulled the four tapes Tommy had asked for, then slammed the lobby tape for yesterday afternoon into a separate viewing monitor on the far side of the room. Tommy elbowed him out of the way, grabbed the remote, and scanned the tapes, looking for anybody in a cowboy hat. Finally he saw him: A big guy in a fringed jacket and cowboy hat was walking across the lobby with a hooker. The time code read: 2:35 P.M. He hit regular speed and watched. He didn't recognize the cowboy and it was hard to see him under the hat, but there was something familiar about the hooker. He didn't think he'd ever rucked her. He would have remembered, 'cause she was a beauty. Still, he thought he knew her.

"I think I know this cunt with him," Tommy said. "I know this fucking bitch from somewhere." His simian brain struggled to make the connection, and then the cowboy and the hooker walked off frame. Tommy ejected the tape, then slammed in the front entrance tape for yesterday. He rolled it down to a few minutes earlier, and started to fast-forward again until he saw a white Nissan pull up in front of the hotel. The time code read: 2:15 P.M. He saw three people getting out. He couldn't make out the older man because he moved immediately into the hotel. The hat still blocked a good look at the cowboy's face, but now he got a full-face shot of the girl in the miniskirt. He froze the tape; it was the hooker he'd run into coming out of the can yesterday. Then realization dawned…

"Fuck me!" he cried out in amazement.

"You know her?" S.B. said, wishing Tommy would get the hell out of his room.

"It's 'Tricky Vicky' Hart, all dressed up like a hooker. It's the fucking bitch who prosecuted Joey." Tommy took the tape out, grabbed the other ones, and started to leave the room.

"You can't take those," S.B. said. "The shift boss has to sign for all of them every twenty-four hours…"

But Tommy Rina was already gone.

He called his brother Joe from the lobby and told him about the pearl and the tapes and Vicky Hart and the cowboy. His brother greeted this information with dead silence.

"Joe, you hear what I'm fucking saying? This cunt hit us for a hundred large."

"Something else is going on, Tommy," Joe said calmly. He never let his voice reveal his emotions.

"Fuckin' A, this split-tailed D.A. stole a hundred K from us. I told ya this bitch needs to get hit by a speedin' car."

"Tommy, when the facts in evidence don't fit the parameters of common sense, there is usually a piece of the equation missing. It makes no sense for Victoria Hart, a prosecuting attorney, to commit a jewelry hustle at our store. So that means there's something else going on. Unless you misidentified her?"

"Joe, this is her. I been watchin' her on the news since you got busted. Lemme go get this twat and finish her off. This is nuts. We can't let these people piss on us."

"I'm gonna send Texaco down to work with you. In the meantime, check the airplane arrivals and departures for her name. Peter can do that for you. Let's see who Miss Hart is traveling with. Let's find out who this cowboy is before we make a move."

Tommy was frustrated. "What we gotta do, Joe, is get this caravan of camels outta our asshole."

"Don't do anything till I tell you," and Joe hung up.

When Tommy got to his penthouse on the top of the Ignatious Hotel, Calliope was standing there, holding two airline tickets for the Bahamas that had just come special delivery.

"Look what I won!" she trumpeted proudly as he came through the door, scowling. "I wasn't even listening to the dumb station. It was rock 'n' roll and I only listen to country, but I guessed 'Long-stemmed Roses' by Tanya Tucker, and guess what…? They were having a weekend country countdown and I won anyway. Is that lucky?"

Tommy wasn't listening. He was starting to call friends at other hotels in Atlantic City to see if Victoria Hart was registered.

"I won two round-trip tickets to Nassau!" she squealed, hoping he'd get interested by her excitement.

"I can't go down there right now."

"Well, I wanna go," she said petulantly. "They're my tickets and they're only good for two days."

"Look, I'll buy you tickets later, or we'll fly down to Sabre Bay on Joey's jet. Who da fuck cares about free airline tickets? I gotta deal with this thing. My jewelry store got hit. Ya know how that looks? Everybody knows that's my joint. Somebody hits my joint, they gotta catch a bus or I look like a piece a'shit."

"I'm going, with or without you," Calliope said, holding her ground, figuring that she had the advantage because she was a magnificent bed partner. She knew Tommy had never had better tube cleaning in his whole life, and Calliope wanted to go to the Bahamas on these tickets. There was principle involved… She had won them herself and she intended to use them.

The argument lasted an hour. "They do have phones in the Bahamas, y'know," Calliope reasoned savagely.

He finally agreed to go the day after tomorrow, just to shut her up. If he made that flight, it would put him at the Sabre Bay Club on the same day Victoria Hart and Beano Bates had planned to arrive in Nassau.