Wild Card

Chapter 30

An hour later, Valentine’s head was swimming. Izzie had devoured six bowls of peanuts, three draft beers, and two orders of shrimp cocktail while explaining how to scam every casino game in the world. He was an encyclopedia of grift and cons.

“Well, I think that’s it,” Izzie said.

“You tapped out?” Valentine asked.

“I’m sure there’s a few things I’ve forgotten.”

“What about sports betting?”

“That isn’t legal in Atlantic City,” Izzie reminded him.

No, Valentine thought, but it was legal in Las Vegas, and he owed Bill Higgins a huge favor for all the advice he’d passed along. “Tell me anyway,” he said.

“Sports betting is cheaters heaven. A player can beat them by being a better handicapper, or fixing the game, or by past-posting.”

“You mean placing a bet after the fact?”

“Yeah. It’s not as hard as it sounds. Especially with the ponies.”

A diner at another table had ordered nachos dripping with melted cheese, and Izzie stared at the mess while rubbing his stomach. Valentine got the waitress to bring them a plate, then pressed Izzie while he shoveled food into his mouth.

“Past-posting a sports book is easy,” Izzie said. “ Just bribe a guy who works for the power company.”

“What does he do?”

“He reduces the amount of electricity going to the sports book. He slows the clock down gradually, until twenty seconds are shaved off. That’s all you need to find out a race’s outcome, and get a bet placed before the betting is halted. Later the electricity is increased, so the clocks are kosher the next day.”

“You ever try this?”

“Yeah. Did it on a bookie in New York. Cleaned him out.”

Izzie was smiling. Over the years, Valentine had learned a lot from talking to criminals, but none had ever pulled back the curtain, and shown him the inner workings like Izzie was now doing. It wasn’t normal, and he guessed it had something to do with them knowing each other as kids. Izzie wanted to show him how smart he was, even if he was under arrest. His pride was at stake, so he’d let it all hang out.

Valentine drove his prisoner back to the station house without bothering to turn the car’s heater on. It was freezing outside, and Izzie began to shiver, his sports jacket and slacks offering scant protection from the cold.

“You want me to put the heater on?”

“Yeah,” Izzie said emphatically.

“Tell me Vinny’s last name.”

“I told you, he didn’t tell us.”

Instead of turning the heater on, Valentine rolled his window down, and the car’s interior dropped another ten degrees. Izzie protested loudly.

“You knock a guy out, you’re going to look through his wallet,” Valentine said. “Give me his name, and I’ll let you go.”

“First get me warm.”

Valentine rolled up his window and turned the heater on.

“His name’s Vinny Acosta,” Izzie said.

“What do you think his deal is?”

Izzie didn’t hesitate with his answer this time. “There’s a scam going on in Las Vegas right now, Cleveland mob is behind it. My guess is, Vinny’s got something similar going on here.”

“What’s the Vegas scam?”

“It’s pretty cool. Some hotel employees are skimming quarters from slot machines. Instead of trying to get the coins out of the casino, they’re converting them into bills at the cage. Every time a little old lady buys a bucket of coins, they put the bill into a briefcase. The briefcase gets taken out each night.”

“How much they stealing?”

“Millions.”

Valentine reached the station house, found an empty spot in the lot and parked. Izzie had set off a light bulb in his head. Every dollar in a casino went through the cage. If someone was going to scam Resorts in a big way, the money had to come from there.

Izzie started to get out, and Valentine grabbed him by the sleeve. “I want you to promise me that you and your brothers will never step foot in Atlantic City again.”

“Are you really going to let me and my brothers go?”

“I gave you my word, didn’t I?”

Their eyes met. Izzie believed Valentine was cutting him a deal, and he beamed.

“On my mother’s grave,” he said.

The first thing Valentine did upon returning to Resorts was check the cage for hidden suitcases. The cage was the most tightly watched area in the casino, and he called upstairs to the surveillance control room, and spoke to Mickey Wright.

“I need to do a search. We just got word that there might be some counterfeit money in our tills,” he said. “I’ll wave to you through the camera when I’m done.”

Mickey grunted into the phone and hung up.

Valentine did a thorough search of the cage. There were no suitcases lying around, and he checked each teller’s drawer for hidden sleeves to drop bills, or other secret places that money might be squirreled away.

The cage was clean. He thanked everyone for their patience, then went upstairs to the surveillance control room. Mickey was waiting for him as he walked through the door, his eyes filled with panic.

“You find anything?” Mickey asked.

“False alarm,” Valentine said. “The cage was clean.”

Mickey put his hand over his heart. “Don’t do that to me, Tony. You know I got a bad ticker.”

“Sorry, Mickey.”

Mickey walked away, and Valentine went into his office and shut the door. From his desk he removed the casino’s weekly financial statement. Every week, the Casino Control Commission conducted an independent audit of Resorts’ operation. Each game was financially dissected, with the “holds” carefully scrutinized. He looked at these statements religiously; they were usually the first evidence there was cheating on the floor.

He opened the report to the section on slot machines. The slots were Resorts’ biggest money-maker. The casino kept 8 % of every dollar put into a slot. And that was exactly what the report showed. Which meant Izzie was wrong. Vinny Acosta’s scam wasn’t at the cage, or with slots. That left BJ, craps and roulette.

You’re getting warmer, he thought.

He put the report back in his desk, picked up the phone, and dialed Bill Higgins’ work number from memory. His friend answered on the first ring.

“What if I told you the Cleveland mob is ripping off one of your casinos for millions of dollars,” Valentine said.

There was dead silence on the other end.

“You still there?”

“Who told you the Cleveland mob was out here?” Higgins said stiffly.

“A little bird with a pointed head. You know about this?”

“Sure do. The teamsters union loaned the Stardust money for a renovation. The teamsters have ties to the Cleveland mob. We’ve been watching the casino for a year, but haven’t caught anything. What have you got?”

“They’re stealing quarters,” Valentine said. “Lots and lots of quarters.”