Take Down

THREE

Coming out of the parking garage stairwell, Billy slipped the fake teeth into his mouth and made sure the gaffed dice were finger-palmed in his hand in a way that could not be seen. There were surveillance cameras everywhere in Vegas, and he could never be too careful.

Hurrying down Fremont Street, he spotted Cory and Morris standing outside the Four Queens and let out a shrill whistle. Tossing away their cigarettes, they followed him inside.

The Four Queens craps pit was by the front doors. It was that way in most joints. The action was loud and frenzied and drew people the way honey draws flies. Travis was still throwing the bones, swigging on a beer bottle filled with water, pretending to be loaded. Billy pressed his body to the table and secretly passed the crooked dice to the big man.

“They’re still warm,” Travis whispered.

“So blow on them,” Billy said without moving his lips.

Cory and Morris came to the table and threw down sizeable cash bets. At the same time, Travis scooped up the casino dice and switched in the gaffed ones in his hand. He wasn’t the greatest dice mechanic who’d ever lived, nor did he have to be. The boxman, dealer, and stickman were trained to watch the money. Everything else was secondary, including obnoxious drunks, screaming women, and people flopping dead from heart attacks. An elephant could have stampeded past, and they wouldn’t have looked up.

The eye-in-the-sky wasn’t watching Travis, either. If the surveillance cameras had been taping Travis, they might have caught the switch. But the cameras weren’t watching because Travis had been losing, and that made him a sucker. Surveillance never watched suckers.

“Yo, Eveline, lost her drawers in the men’s latrine!” Travis shouted.

Travis sent the crooked dice down the table. Misty and Pepper pounded the railing, urging him on. They had also placed cash bets. The game was locked up.

Eleven, a winner.

The table erupted. Suckers sometimes got lucky, and the boxman, stickman, and dealer displayed no emotion. Travis kept throwing the dice, and their winnings began to add up. Two grand, five grand, then fifteen-the boxman, dealer, and stickman shaking their heads at the sudden turn of events. Like crew hands rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, they were clueless.

When their winnings hit thirty grand, Billy gave the signal to end the play. He’d done his homework and knew how much the Four Queens would lose before security was sent to the table. Winning too much, too often, had gotten more than one crew in hot water.

Small bets were placed on the table. Travis switched out the gaffed dice for the regular pair and threw them hard.

Two, a loser.

The table groaned. The boxman, dealer, and stickman visibly relaxed, and the losing bets were picked up. Resting his arm on the table, Travis dropped the crooked dice into Billy’s hand.

“Where we going for dinner?” Travis whispered.

“Golden Steer,” Billy whispered back.

“That’s a winner.”

Possession of a crooked gambling device inside a casino was a felony, and Billy headed down Fremont clutching the gaffed dice in his hand until he’d reached a construction site for a new casino. New casinos were always popping up in Vegas, even when the economy sucked. He heaved the gaffed dice over a tall wooden fence plastered with “NO TRESPASSING” signs.

His skin was tingling as he headed for the elevated garage. There was no greater rush than ripping a joint off, and it wouldn’t be very long before he’d want to do it again. He’d recently done a walk-through of the Luxor, and decided it was easy pickings. That was what made Vegas so great. There were so many scores and so little time.

His Droid vibrated. Only a handful of people had his number, and he yanked the phone from his pocket. Caller ID said it was an old grifter named Captain Crunch. Crunchie was about as friendly as a coiled rattlesnake, but that was how it was with most of the old-timers.

“Hey, I need to call you back,” he answered.

“This can’t wait,” the old grifter said.

“Everything can wait. I’ll call you later.”

“You’ll talk to me now.”

“I’m on a job, man.”

“Fuck your job. There’s a lady blackjack dealer in the high-roller salon at Galaxy that’s flashing every fifth hand, and the dumb shit management hasn’t caught on. This might be the single biggest score on the Strip.”

High-roller salons catered to whales capable of losing millions of dollars without breaking a sweat. The salons were awash in money, and it was every hustler’s dream to take one down. No hustler in town ever had, and Billy would have relished being the first.

“You want me to be a whale?” he asked.

“That’s right. Interested?”

“Of course I’m interested. How are you going to get me into Galaxy’s salon?”

“It’s all been taken care of. Just show up and work your magic. It will be like stealing candy from a baby.”

“What’s your take?”

“We’re straight partners, fifty-fifty.”

“Make it eighty-twenty, and you’ve got yourself a deal.”

“Sixty-forty, and that’s my final offer. Take it or leave it.”

Billy hated to cave but didn’t see that he had any other choice. If he said no, Crunchie would call another hustler, and cut him out of the action.

“I’m in,” Billy said.

“Meet me at the Peppermill at ten o’clock, and I’ll fill you in.”

“See you there.”

He ended the call and headed up the stairwell. Salons had the highest betting limits around and were known to let whales wager $100,000 a hand. If this lady dealer was flashing every fifth hand, he could steal a hundred grand every five rounds, or roughly seventeen hands per hour, which translated into one point seven million bucks for an hour’s work. It got him excited just thinking about it.

But what if he played longer? If he stayed on the tables for several hours, he could cheat Galaxy out of four or five million easy. Normally, casinos cut off a player when he won too much, but the rules were different for whales. The casinos expected whales to occasionally get lucky and take them for a major score, knowing they’d win the money back later on. As a result, whales rarely got cut off.

Whales also got special privileges and were often allowed to play in private rooms, away from the other players, and with employees whom they liked. If a whale was fond of a particular dealer, the whale could request for that dealer to deal his game, and the request would be honored.

Crunchie wasn’t kidding when he said it was the best score on the Strip. It was the best score of the last ten years. And all Billy needed to do was pretend he was some superrich asshole, and the money would be his.