Super Con

Forty-Two

Billy sat at the dining room table in his condo, sipping a bourbon. The five hundred grand they’d stolen from Broken Tooth sat in a towering pile at the table’s center. Some heists were sweeter than others, and this one had a special taste all its own.

The gaming board would eventually learn that the money in their possession was bogus. A bank would give them the bad news, or a gaming agent would steal some of the money and attempt to spend it. And then all hell would break loose.

Billy didn’t care. As far as the gaming board was concerned, Billy had never touched the money and could not be blamed for the fact that it was counterfeit.

Billy’s crew had blown out of town. Cory and Morris had flown to Cancun and were staying in Billy’s beachfront condo, Gabe had gone to San Diego to spend time with his ex and his two daughters, while Misty and Pepper were LA-bound for some R&R. Billy had told them to enjoy their time off and that he’d contact them when it was safe for them to return home.

He drained his glass. He needed to go see Night Train and break the bad news that the NFL knew that he’d been approached to fix the Super Bowl. The NFL would put so much heat on the game that Billy didn’t think Night Train would want to risk fixing a single play.

He poured himself a fresh bourbon. The fix had just gone down the toilet, and so had Victor’s super con. On the plus side, Leon was still breathing, and Mags could pursue her acting career without interference. It hadn’t worked out all bad.

He took his drink onto the balcony. The Strip’s blinking neon called to him like a gang of childhood friends wanting him to come out and play. Not tonight. The gunshot blasts from the shootout were still ringing in his ears, and he needed to sleep them off.

Inside the condo, his cell phone rang. His crew was supposed to call only in case of an emergency. He went inside and retrieved his cell phone from the table. It was Victor.

“I was going to give you a call,” he said. “Grimes found the rented house and just missed busting your family. I got him off your scent, but I can’t promise you much more.”

“How did you get him off our scent?” Victor asked.

“It’s a long story. Did your kids make it back to Sacramento okay?”

“Everyone got home in one piece, thanks to you.”

“Anytime, Victor.”

“I want to ask you a question, Billy, and you need to be up front with me. Nico wants to hit Vegas next week and pull the super con. He thinks that we can wear disguises and get away with it. I don’t think that’s wise. Vegas is your town. What do you think?”

Billy hesitated. Nico was Victor’s favorite son, so he crafted his response carefully. “I think that would be unwise. Your family isn’t off the gaming board’s radar. Grimes will create profiles of Nico, Kat, and Tommy and share them with the town’s casinos. I hate to tell you, Victor, but your family needs to stay away from Vegas for a while.”

“Nico thinks disguises will work. Not so?”

“You can’t hide who you are. You left enough information at your rented house for the gaming board to find you. They picked through garbage cans to see what kind of food your family likes to eat. And they’ll contact the cable company and find out which programs and movies you watched during your stay.”

“There’s a record of that?”

“Yes. The smart box on every TV records the shows that are watched.”

“What good does that do them?”

“It’s all about information. Let’s say your family returns to Vegas and stays at Aria. Nico goes into the casino, and the facial recognition program built into the eye-in-the-sky spots him. Nico’s in disguise, so the casino can’t be entirely sure it’s him, so they follow him.

“Nico goes to a restaurant and orders a burger. The casino checks the profile and sees that your family likes McDonald’s hamburgers based upon what they found in your garbage. Then Nico goes to his room and watches TV. The casino compares the programs to those watched at the rented house. Maybe Nico likes rugby on ESPN, and there’s a record of that from the house. Those are three matches, so the casino contacts the gaming board and relays their suspicions. The gaming board will put Nico under surveillance, which is the kiss of death.”

“I didn’t know the gaming board was that sophisticated,” Victor said.

“Afraid so. And they’re getting better every day.”

“Can we ever come back?”

“Give it a year. Pick a busy holiday weekend and stay in a hotel off the Strip. You’ll fly under the radar. It’s all about picking your spots. It’s how I’ve lasted so long.”

He had done enough talking. He’d warned Victor that his family was in danger, and that was all he was required to do. The bourbon burned going down.

“Are you still interested in working our super con?” Victor asked.

“Afraid not. My crew’s no longer available. You’re going to have to put it on hiatus.”

“Can’t. The secret won’t be good for much longer.”

“Are you going to tell me what it is?” Billy asked.

“I’m surprised you haven’t figured it out. The cards in the game are marked with luminous paint.”

“But there’s equipment at the table that sees the marks.”

“That’s the flaw. The equipment doesn’t work.”

“Is this true at all the casinos in Vegas?”

“No, just the MGM Grand properties. MGM hired a company in the Philippines to make their blackjack tables, and the company screwed up. The people running MGM will figure it out eventually. We have to move fast.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“You must know another crew you can trust. Bring them on board and scam the MGM properties this weekend. You’ll make a killing.”

He put his glass on the table and gave it some thought. He might be able to recruit a crew on short notice, but there was always the chance that once they knew how the super con worked, they’d cut him out of the action and keep the money for themselves.

He needed a crew he could trust. A group of seasoned grifters who could waltz into a casino, start playing blackjack for big stakes, and not draw heat. Thieves with larceny in their hearts who’d do what he told them.

His eyes locked on the towering pile of greenbacks on the table. The Super Bowl fix was off, but what if he made Night Train another offer, one that could make the famous football player and his buddies lots of money? Would they do it?

He didn’t see why not. Night Train and his boys were practiced in the art of stealing and would be as effective scamming a casino as they were cheating at poker. Best of all, the casinos thought they were dumb jocks and wouldn’t mind losing money to them, believing they’d eventually win it all back.

He smiled into the phone. “Now that you mention it, maybe I can find another crew.”

“Who do you have in mind?”

“Some professional athletes. They’re built in with the casinos and are staying at Caesars.”

“How big are their credit lines?”

The bigger the credit line a sucker had, the more money the sucker could wager. And if the sucker was cheating, the casino’s losses could be staggering. Night Train and his pals were regulars in the casinos, and Billy had to think their credit lines were substantial.

“Big enough,” he said.

“All the better,” Victor said. “For the super con to work, the cards need to be painted. Are any of your new crew painters?”

Painting the backs of playing cards was an art honed from years of practice. Billy didn’t think Night Train had ever put anything on the back of a card except an accidentally spilled beer.

“No, afraid they’re not,” he replied.

“How about yourself?” Victor asked.

“I’ve done it a couple of times and didn’t get caught.”

“You feel comfortable painting all the high cards in a single-deck game? You’ll need to do this in multiple casinos for the super con to work.”

He swallowed hard. “That’s a lot of cards to paint, Victor.”

“Yes, it is. Kat and Nico do the painting for my crew, and they were going to split up the duties between them when we pulled this off. It’s a lot of work, but the payoff’s huge.”

Victor had thrown him a curveball. Victor had never mentioned that painting was involved in the scam because he planned to have Kat and Nico handle it. But with Victor’s family out of the picture, the job of painting the cards now rested on Billy’s shoulders.

A bad thought flashed through his mind. Maggie Flynn was a painter, and a damn good one at that. She had a unique technique that let her paint five cards at a time before having to return to her purse to apply the special substance to her fingertips. A single-deck game at multiple casinos would be a day in the park for Miss Maggie.

Mags was perfect for the job. But would she do it? His gut told him no. She was done with the life, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to ask her. There was too much money at stake for him not to ask her. The worst thing she could do was throw another glass at him.

“I know somebody,” he said. “Her name’s Maggie Flynn.”

“She any good?” Victor asked.

“They don’t come any better than Mags. Now, tell me about this flawed piece of equipment at the MGM properties. It’s killing me not knowing.”