Super Con

Eleven

Billy and Victor spent the next hour working out the super con. Their plan called for five teams to descend upon five different Strip casinos next Saturday evening with the purpose of scamming a high-stakes blackjack game. If successful, each team would steal two million bucks of their respective casino’s money.

Ten million bucks in a single night. In the old days, stealing that much would set off alarms. But times had changed, and it was not uncommon for high rollers to win millions of dollars during a single outing. The unlucky casino had no choice but to accept the loss.

The five teams would be evenly split. One member of Billy’s crew paired up with a Boswell. Billy, Travis, and Victor would act as monitors to deal with emergencies and make sure no one screwed up.

The five casinos they planned to hit were the Mirage, Aria, Mandalay Bay, Luxor, and the MGM Grand. Because of his limited mobility, Victor would cover a single casino, the Mirage, while Billy would cover Mandalay Bay and Luxor, leaving Travis the MGM Grand and Aria.

“Hungry?” Victor asked when they were done.

“Thanks, but there’s a poker game at Caesars that I’ve got a seat in.”

“What scam are you pulling?”

“The gift shop play.”

“That usually gets the money. Good luck.”

Whenever time permitted, Billy took the Strip. The casinos lined it like fortresses filled with gold and treasures, and the sight of them never failed to get his heart racing. Like a kid in a candy store, he just couldn’t get enough of them.

He got a call from Gabe on his cell phone. He’d tasked his crew with figuring out how to fix the Super Bowl and guessed they’d stayed up all night devising a plan.

“Good morning,” he answered. “Or should I say good afternoon. How’s it going?”

“It’s going great. I’m here with Cory and Morris and the girls,” Gabe said on a speakerphone. “I’ve created a gaffed coin that will let us rig the coin toss at the Super Bowl.”

“And not get caught,” Cory chimed in.

“You’re going to love this,” Morris added. “It’s spotless.”

“They tried it out on Misty and me. It really works,” Pepper said.

“The scam uses a transmitter hidden inside a cell phone that works up to a hundred yards away,” Gabe said. “If we have one of our crew sitting in the front row near the fifty-yard line, it will work. All we have to do is get the head referee to play along, and we’re home free.”

“How do you plan to do that?” Billy asked.

“Morris and I are having breakfast with the head referee in Phoenix tomorrow morning,” Cory said. “He seems amenable to talking with us.”

“Think he can be bought off?” Billy asked.

“Yes. Word is, he has gambling debts, so we’re taking lots of cash with us.”

Billy smiled into the phone. His crew had done their job; now it was his turn to get Night Train and his teammates on board. The turn for Caesars was up ahead, and he flipped on his indicator. “I’m going to meet the football players. Wish me luck.”

“Good luck,” his crew chorused.

He pulled into the valet area and popped the trunk before getting out. He kept a strongbox next to the spare tire filled with money, and he removed two ten-thousand-dollar stacks of hundreds and slipped them into the pockets of his sports jacket.

Entering Caesars was always a thrill. The joint was a testimonial to excess, the design overblown and over the top. In a winding, centralized hallway was a life-size replica of Michelangelo’s David. A shop called Emperor’s Essentials sold booze and overpriced branded accessories, the manager a young woman with a gorgeous smile. Her name tag said ELLE/DALLAS. “See something you like?” she asked playfully.

“Just window shopping,” he said.

“There’s no charge for looking. What’s your name?”

“Billy. You’re new here, aren’t you?”

She feigned surprise. “I am. How did you know?”

Caesars was a favorite target for Billy’s scams. Management gave dealers a loose rein and left them more susceptible to being compromised by cheats. As a result, he knew the joint like the back of his hand, including the stores and restaurants.

“I come here a lot. How long have you worked here?” he asked.

“I just started part-time. I’m enrolled at UNLV’s hospitality management program.”

“I hear that’s a good school. Do you sell playing cards?”

“It’s one of our biggest items. How many decks do you need?”

“Four.”

Elle opened a glittering display case containing decks of Caesars playing cards. These cards had their corners rounded to prevent cheats from reintroducing them into games.

“Sorry, but I need regular cards,” he said.

Elle closed the case. From a drawer, she removed four decks of Bicycle playing cards, two red, two blue, and placed them on the counter. The Bicycle cards weren’t big movers, which was why they lived in the drawer.

“Do you have any glue?” he asked.

“All we carry is Super Glue,” she said.

“That will work.”

Elle rang up the sale. Each deck cost $9.99, while the glue ran eight bucks. Out in the real world, the same items cost a third. Shopping in Vegas had once been a bargain; now it was like getting your pocket picked. She handed him his change along with his purchase in a plastic bag.

“Don’t be a stranger.”

“I won’t,” he said.

The men’s room had more tile than a quarry. He locked himself in a stall and placed the plastic bag at his feet. Taking out his Swiss Army knife, he flicked open the blade. There were a variety of different Swiss Army knives on the market. His was called Swisslite and was the smallest model the company sold with just a single blade.

From the bag, he removed a blue deck of Bicycles and held it up to eye level. With the precision of a surgeon, he made a perfect cut in the plastic at the bottom of the box. Done, he slid the box out of the plastic and placed the plastic in the bag for safekeeping.

Using the blade, he worked away the stamp that sealed the box’s flap. Bicycles had a stamp that guaranteed they’d been manufactured with the highest standards. Most players wouldn’t play with a deck without a stamp, fearful the cards had been tampered with.

Taking the deck from the case, he removed the jacks, queens, kings, and aces. He was going to turn them into what hustlers called “touch cards” so he could secretly know their value when they came off the top of the deck.

The rest of the cards were put in the bag along with the box. The jacks, queens, kings, and aces went into his lap. He opened the nail file on his knife and scuffed up the short end of each card. Jacks got one scuff, queens got two, kings three. For the aces, he ran the file down the entire end.

Done, he retrieved the cards from the bag and returned the touch cards to their spots in the order. The reassembled deck went into the box and was resealed. Then the box was slid into its plastic case, and the Super Glue made the casing whole again.

He repeated the procedure with the other three decks. By the time he was finished, it was two forty. He left the restroom with the bag and headed back to Emperor’s Essentials.

Elle acted happy to see him. “Back so soon?”

He placed the bag on the counter and removed the four doctored decks. “I’m sorry, but my friends have decided that they want to play with casino cards. Can I exchange these?”

“I don’t see why not. Same number?”

“Please.”

She took the four doctored decks out of the bag and returned them to the drawer. He hid a smile. A legendary hustler named Titanic Thompson had invented this hustle a century ago, and it hadn’t gotten old. Four decks of casino cards were removed from the cabinet and placed in the bag. She rang up the exchange.

“Anything else I can help you with?” she asked.

The exchange couldn’t have gone better. Only it wasn’t time to walk. He needed to create a moment that would distract Elle from what had just happened.

“May I call you sometime?” he asked.

“Depends what you have in mind.”

If the number of women he’d dated was any indication, he was a good judge of the female disposition. Elle impressed him as being a wild child and willing to take a dare.

“Rooftop rides on the Stratosphere.”

“Been there, done that.”

“Zip line down the Fremont Street Experience.”

“You talking about SlotZilla? I was there the day it opened.”

She was a toughie. He put his hands on the counter and leaned in. “How about if I take you swimming with the sharks at the Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay? Just you, me, and thirty whitetip reef sharks. It’s the most fun you can have with your clothes on.”

“But that’s just for special guests of the hotel.”

“I’ve got juice. What do you say?”

“You’re on, hotshot.”

Elle recited her number, and Billy entered it into his cell phone’s directory, then read it back to her. She nodded enthusiastically. He’d taken her thoughts to another place, the exchange of the cards fading into the recesses of her memory.

“I’ll call you in a few days,” he said.

She was all smiles as he left the store.