Wild Card

Chapter 29

They drove to Resorts in Valentine’s Pinto. Along with being a fire trap, his car was also a lemon, and sputtered uncertainly each time he put his foot to the gas. Izzie seemed amused, and Valentine caught him smirking several times.

“If you can beat any casino, why don’t you live in Las Vegas?” Valentine asked.

“You’re joking, right?”

“Why, is Vegas dangerous?”

“The casino owners out there will put a bullet in your head and bury you in the desert if they catch you cheating. Road hustling is easy.”

“Is that what you do?”

“Yeah. Guys who cheat private games are called hustlers. Guys who travel and cheat are called road hustlers, and guys who cheat casinos are called cross roaders.”

“You know a lot of hustlers?”

“Sure. I bump into other hustlers in games all the time.”

“What do you say — ‘Hey, I was here first?’”

They had reached Resorts. The valet wrote up a ticket, and they walked through the front doors. “Say I’m working a game,” Izzie said, “and another hustler sits down, and starts cheating. I’ll talk about a hunting trip I took, and how I killed some rabbits. That’s a signal that I’m a cheater.”

“Rabbits?”

“That’s right. Usually he’ll ask in code if I’ll cut him in.”

“Will you?”

“Sure. It’s good etiquette.”

They walked around the packed casino. Izzie’s purple eye was drawing stares, and they went to the cocktail lounge and grabbed a table.

“So how did you learn this stuff?” Valentine asked. “Did you have a teacher?”

“Everyone in my family cheated,” Izzie said. “They taught me the moves, and I practiced in front of a mirror. Once I felt confident, I tried the moves out in a soft game. Then, I graduated up to bigger games.”

“How about cross roaders? What’s their deal?”

“Cross roaders are different. They’re tough people, and most have criminal records. They’ll get together in someone’s house, and practice a scam. Then they’ll try it out, like a casino night at a church. If they’re successful, they’ll hit Vegas. Or your place.”

“Sounds risky,” Valentine said.

“Depends on the ringleader,” Izzie replied.

“What does he do?”

“He scouts the casino and looks for green dealers. Casinos have such high turnover that you can usually find one on every shift. The team goes in, and sets up. They try the scam, except they don’t actually do it. It’s called a splash move.”

“As in getting your feet wet?”

“Right. If the dealer doesn’t squawk, they do it later for real.”

A waitress took their drink order. As Izzie flirted with her, Valentine stared through the lounge at the casino. He still didn’t believe what Izzie had said back at the station house about all the games being susceptible to cheating.

“When does the lesson start?” he asked.

Izzie made a grandiose gesture with his arm toward the casino. “Whenever you want it to, my friend.”

“Start with blackjack.”

A bowl of salted peanuts sat on the table. Izzie popped them into his mouth while speaking. “Gamblers call it BJ, as in blow job, because that’s what you get if you play by the rules. Want to know how many types of BJ cheating I’ve seen in Atlantic City?”

“Sure.”

“I’ve seen cards nicked and daubed; I’ve seen teams switch cards under a dealer’s nose. I’ve seen guys add cards to a shoe, and guys take cards away. I’ve seen steer teams move cards under the dealer’s nose. And, I’ve seen players with cameras in their ties. How many is that?”

“Seven,” Valentine said.

“There’s more.”

“Start with these.”

“Nicked you know about. Daub is a substance that can only be seen through special glasses or contact lenses. It’s made with aniline dye.”

Valentine borrowed a pen from their waitress and began to scribble furiously on a cocktail napkin. “How do you switch cards?”

“You need a good turn. A turn is a hustler’s secret weapon. It’s used to turn the pit boss’s attention from the table. Usually, it’s a pretty girl. But it can just as easily be a geezer with a hearing aid.”

“What about the eye-in-the-sky?”

“Cameras can be turned, too. A couple having an argument works pretty well. So does a drunk falling down. I heard of one team that set a curtain on fire.”

Valentine kept scribbling. Things like Izzie was describing happened every night inside Resorts: It was the byproduct of serving free liquor to people.

“You said guys add cards to a shoe, and take them away.”

“Different moves, same outcome. If I secretly add ten high cards to a shoe, my odds of winning go way up. Same thing if I remove ten low cards.”

“What’s a steer team?”

“Two players make up a team. The first watches as the cards are shuffled. He spots the top card during the shuffle, and signals its value to his partner. The second player is offered the cards to be cut by the dealer. The second player cuts at a certain number, and both players know where the card lies in the deck.”

“So what?”

“They silently count to the card during the game. If the card is an ace or high card, they will draw cards in order to get it during the next round, when they’ll bet big. It guarantees the team a big payoff every round.”

The bowl of peanuts was empty. Izzie had eaten them like they were his last meal. Valentine wanted to ask Izzie if his mother had taught him any manners, but had a feeling that she’d been too busy teaching her boys how to fuck people.

“Cameras in ties,” Valentine said.

“The cheater has a tiny camera hidden in his tie. The camera transmits to a van parked outside. A guy inside the van types the card’s values into a computer that card counts. Then he radios back to the player what to do.”

Valentine had run out of room on his cocktail napkin. Bill Higgins had said that millions of dollars disappeared from Las Vegas’s blackjack tables every year, and had attributed most of it to employee theft. Bill’s going to be surprised, he thought.

Valentine motioned to the waitress for the check. Izzie rubbed his stomach like he was still hungry. Valentine took the hint, and said, “Want something else to eat?”

“Depends how much more you want to hear,” Izzie replied.