Sucker Bet (19 page)

35

Bill Higgins was reading the last section of the Sunday newspaper when Saul Hyman’s rattling Toyota pulled up alongside his rental. The passenger window on the Toyota came down, and Saul said, “Don’t you ever go home?”

Higgins stared at the elderly con man. He’d stayed outside Saul’s condo because he didn’t feel like staying in his hotel room. It was a pleasant day, and he’d read the newspaper from cover to cover while listening to a baseball game in Spanish on the radio.

“No,” he said.

“Tony asked you to watch me, didn’t he?” Saul asked.

“Tony who?”

“Valentine. I just saw him. I gave him enough evidence to put that scumbag Rico Blanco behind bars.”

Bill put his newspaper down. Maybe hanging around hadn’t been a waste of time. A bus had pulled up behind Saul’s car and blared its horn. Saul shook his fist at the driver in his mirror, then said, “Want to come inside for a drink?”

“You’re on,” Higgins said.

Saul’s condo was about what Higgins had expected. Nothing great. He’d known lots of criminals in his life. Few ended up with much when they got old. He stared at the apartment houses across the street that were blocking Saul’s view of the ocean. Between them, he could see a tiny slit of blue, but just barely. Saul appeared and handed him a glass of ice tea.

“Salud,” he said, clinking glasses.

Higgins took a sip. “Remember when I ran you out of Vegas?”

“Like it was yesterday,” Saul said. “You were very nice about it, as I remember.”

“Don’t think I didn’t consider roughing you up,” Higgins replied.

Saul acted like no cop had ever laid a hand on him. “Why didn’t you?” His guest shrugged, and he said, “Because of my size? I avoided a lot of beatings because I was small.”

“That had nothing to do with it,” Higgins said.

The phone rang. Saul picked it up, listened, then said, “Who sends packages on a Sunday?” He listened some more. “It’s from Tony Valentine? Okay, send the guy up.” He hung up, then said, “Indulge an old man. Why didn’t you?”

“The guy you ripped off had been caught cheating at poker at one of the casinos,” Higgins explained. “The casino looked the other way because he was a high roller. I never liked it, and figured he got his due when you fleeced him.”

Saul smiled. “The arm of justice is long, huh?”

“Something like that,” Higgins said.

“Would you mind telling me what you’re doing in Miami with Tony Valentine?”

“None of your business,” Higgins said.

The doorbell buzzed. Saul said, “Excuse me,” and left the room.

Higgins raised his glass to his lips. Sunlight flooded the room, exposing the old and faded furniture, and he guessed Saul was living on Social Security, with maybe a little something stashed away. Not a lot, but enough to get by. Higgins would be up for retirement himself in a few years. The thought did not thrill him.

He heard the angry retort of a gun being fired, then Saul’s scream. He jumped off the couch, the drink’s ice cubes hit the floor, and his hand reached for a pistol that wasn’t there. Saul came into the living room with blood pouring down his face.

“Run,” he said.

Higgins didn’t know which way
to
run. Saul bolted past him, followed by a man with a stocking over his face. He was holding a .45 Smith & Wesson and pointed it at Higgins. The next moment, Higgins was lying on the floor, clutching his thigh.

From the rear of the condo he heard the shattering of glass. Then the stockinged man returned. Kneeling, he went through Higgins’s pockets. He rose, holding Higgins’s cell phone, and left the condo.

Higgins examined the wound in his leg. Blood was spitting out like a geyser. Taking off his socks, he tied them together, then crawled into the kitchen and found a wooden serving spoon in a drawer. With the socks and the spoon he made a tourniquet, tied it an inch above his wound, and twisted it until the bleeding stopped.

He found the phone and dialed 911. He told the operator he’d been shot, and stumbled with the address.

“Just hang on,” the operator reassured him.

He limped through the condo, looking for his host. In the back was a guest bedroom, and Higgins peered through the open doorway. Blood was on the floor and bedspread, and the wind blew stiffly through a busted window. The room began to spin, and he realized he was about to pass out.

He took several deep breaths, then forced himself over to the broken window and looked down. Four floors below, Saul Hyman floated in the condo’s rectangular swimming pool, the water clouded with blood.

Laughing, Rico Blanco sped south on I-95. The look on the old man’s face as he’d jumped through the window had been a real keeper. Terrified, but also ashamed, like he’d known deep down that this was what happened to rats. They got drowned.

He turned on the radio. The three o’clock news came on. The day was still young. That had been one of John Gotti’s favorite expressions. They would steal something—a truckload of furs, or a container out of a plane at Kennedy airport, or something off the docks—and the Teflon Don would say, “The day is still young,” and they’d go out and steal something else. A real taskmaster.

His cell phone rang. Rico picked it up, then realized it was the cell phone he’d just stolen. He answered it anyway. The line was filled with static.

“Hey, Bill, it’s Tony Valentine,” the voice said.

So the guy he’d shot in the leg was also part of this. Rico wished he’d killed him.

“You’re a dead man,” he told Valentine.

Then he tossed the cell phone out the window and laughed some more.

Five minutes later, his own cell phone rang. Rico looked at the caller ID. It was Jorge. Rico gritted his teeth. Jorge was never supposed to call him, especially on his cell phone where it might be overheard. Soon the ringing stopped. He drove until I-95 ended and became Dixie Highway.

He took Dixie into Coral Gables and drove to an apartment complex. The complex straddled the line between dumpy Little Havana and ultrapricey Coral Gables. That was what you got in south Miami. The haves and the have-nots.

He went to the first building and took the elevator to the fourth floor. Jorge looked surprised when he opened the door and saw Rico. Jorge was dressed in his underwear, his six-foot-six body filling the doorway.

“I told you never to call me,” Rico said.

“Yeah, well, I got a problem,” Jorge said, ushering him in.

The apartment was trashed, the walls covered with Miami Dolphin cheerleader posters and a naked Pamela Lee stained by food. Jorge’s roommate, Lupe, slept on the couch, the TV bathing him in artificial light. He was two inches taller than Jorge, and his legs stuck comically over the edge. They went into the kitchen, and Jorge shut the door.

“It’s like this,” Jorge said. “I got this girlfriend, and she—”

Rico cut him short. “You need money?”

Jorge looked sheepishly at the floor. He was from Brazil, where men were supposed to act like men and not have to ask for things like money. “Yeah,” he whispered.

“You knock her up?”

“Uh-huh.”

“How far along is she?”

“Three months. She wants two grand for you-know-what.”

Rico hid a smile. Jorge was twenty-four and talked like he was twelve. A boy in a man’s body. “You’ll have all your money tomorrow.”

“All of it?”

“That’s right. Once the game is over.”

“Who we playing?”

“Duke.”

Jorge’s eyes lit up. The kitchen door swung in. Lupe entered, his Frankenstein hair standing on end. God had made him menacing-looking, and he stretched his impossibly long arms as he yawned, then slapped Rico good-naturedly on the shoulder, sending him sideways into the stove.

“You gonna give Jorge heeez money?” he asked.

“Tomorrow,” Rico said, clutching his arm. “You’ll get all your money tomorrow. Both of you.”

“What he talking about?” Lupe asked.

Jorge retrieved a basketball from behind the refrigerator and began dribbling it behind his back. Lupe had no education and relied on Jorge to fill in the blanks. They were both dumb as paint, and getting them accepted into Miami College had cost Rico a small fortune.

Jorge stopped dribbling the basketball and tossed it across the room. Missing Rico’s nose by inches, it landed with a loud
fhap!
in one of Lupe’s enormous palms.

“Tomorrow we play for real,” Jorge said.

36

Driving to the Micanopy casino with Gerry, Valentine called Bill Higgins’s cell phone and got a frantic busy signal. He didn’t like it when people threatened him, but his son said, “Pop, it was probably just a crossed connection. Happens all the time with cell phones.”

“The guy called me a dead man.”

“Welcome to south Florida.”

They found Gladys Soft Wings waiting for them inside the casino’s lobby. She wore her emotions on her sleeve and looked mad as hell. Tapping her wristwatch, she said, “Where have you been? The elders have been waiting a half hour. This is unacceptable.”

Valentine nearly told her to take a hike. He didn’t have to be doing this. He had his case against Rico. Running Bear’s problems no longer figured into the equation.

“You want us to leave?” he asked.

She glared at him. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Not at all. I don’t need you, or your crummy attitude. And I don’t need your tribe’s money, which, by the way, I still haven’t accepted a nickel of.” Valentine thought he saw steam coming out of her ears. He ducked around the corner into the men’s room. When he returned, she looked better, and he said, “Do we understand each other now?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Then let’s go.”

She escorted them through the back doors and across the parking lot to a trailer that was serving as a courthouse until a real one was built. Inside, they found the tribe’s elders sitting behind two long tables. To their left sat a shackled Running Bear. To their right, Harry Smooth Stone and the three accused dealers, also in shackles, and their lawyer. Behind them, the same six tribal policemen, still armed with Mossberg shotguns.

In the center of the room were the props Valentine had told Gladys to bring: a blackjack table, an easel with drawing paper, and Magic Markers.

“Entertain them for a few minutes,” Valentine said.

She shot him a furtive glance. “What do you mean?”

“Start talking.”

She did, and he picked up a Magic Marker and began writing on the easel. When he gave lectures for casino executives, he would write while someone timed him with a stopwatch. The exercise never took more than five minutes.

Four minutes later he capped the marker and glanced at Running Bear. The chief was going to be a free man soon and would go back to helping his people build a better life for themselves. It was payment enough, he decided. Gladys picked up the cue.

“Mr. Valentine is now going to explain how our blackjack dealers have been cheating our customers. Mr. Valentine has informed me that this method of cheating—which he calls Big Rock / Little Rock—is something new, which I guess means that Harry and his gang are not just your average run-of-the-mill cheats.”

“Objection!” the accused’s lawyer said, jumping to his feet.

“Sit down,” the lead elder said.

“But—”

“Save it. Mr. Valentine, the floor is yours.”

Valentine walked over to the easel and pointed at his handiwork. “Before I start, let me ask you a question. Are any of you familiar with this chart?”

The five elders put their glasses on and stared at the easel.

The elders mumbled among themselves. Finally their leader said, “No.”

Valentine blew out his lungs. There were three hundred Indian casinos in the United States, and the majority of them didn’t understand the basic rules of their own games.

“Okay,” he said, “here’s the deal. Back in 1962, a mathematician named Edward Thorp wrote a book called
Beat the Dealer: A Winning Strategy for the Game of Twenty-one
. In the book, Thorp explained how to count cards at blackjack. I’m sure you’re familiar with card-counting?”

The elders nodded in unison.

“Good. Thorp also explained something called Basic Strategy. Basic Strategy is the best possible way to play blackjack. The rules of Basic Strategy differ, depending on the number of decks of cards in use. This chart is based upon the number of decks you’re using in your casino.” He paused as the elders stared at the chart. “This making sense?”

Again, the elders nodded.

“Now, Basic Strategy is known by most blackjack players. And by
all
dealers and pit bosses. Most casinos sell laminated cards with Basic Strategy printed on them in their gift shops. Players are invited to use them at the tables.”

One of the elders mumbled under his breath. Now they really felt stupid, Valentine thought.

“What this means is simply this: Basic Strategy is how the game is played. So much so, that if a player doesn’t use Basic Strategy, another player will spell it out to them. Or the dealer will.”

“Huh,” one of the elders said.

Valentine went to the blackjack table. Taking a deck of the casino’s cards out of its box, he shuffled them. The cards had been canceled, the edges cut short so they could not later be introduced into a game. He dealt three hands, two for the players, one for himself.

For the players, he dealt the cards faceup. His own hand he dealt one card faceup, the other facedown. His faceup card was a six. He pointed at it.

“To play Basic Strategy, you assume the dealer’s hidden card is a ten. That’s because there are more tens in the deck than any other cards. Since I have a six showing, my cards probably total sixteen, which is a weak hand. Make sense?”

“Yes,” the lead elder said.

Valentine pointed at the first player’s hand. It was a pair of sevens. To the elder sitting at the far end of the table, he said, “Sir, let’s pretend these sevens are yours. How would you play the hand?”

The elder stared at the chart. “I’d split my cards.”

“Very good.” He pointed at the second hand, an eight and a two. To the same elder he said, “How would you play this hand?”

The elder again looked at the chart. “I’d double-down my bet.”

“Correct. Now, both of these bets are risky. When you split pairs, you double your wager. The same thing occurs when you double-down. But according to Basic Strategy, it’s a good time to do this, because the dealer is probably going to lose. Make sense?”

The elders said yes. Valentine glanced at Harry Smooth Stone and the three accused dealers. Pancakes of sweat were showing through their clothes, their lives about to be changed forever.

Picking up his hand, Valentine flipped his cards. His second card was a ten. He dropped the cards on the table so the ten was showing, the six now hidden.

“Let’s pretend I just dealt the cards, only this time, instead of having a six as my faceup card, I have a ten.” He pointed at the first player’s sevens. To the elder on the far end of the table he said, “How would you play these cards now?”

The elder looked at the chart. “I’d take a card.”

“You wouldn’t split them?”

“No,” the elder said.

Pointing at the eight and two, he said, “What about this hand?”

“I’d also take a card,” the elder said.

“Not double-down?”

The elder shook his head.

“Why?”

“Because that’s what Basic Strategy says you should do,” the elder said.

Holding his two cards, Valentine walked forward. He flipped the six faceup and held it in his right hand. In his left, he held the faceup ten.

“Think of the six as a little rock, the ten as a big rock. These cards force the players into making certain decisions. The little rock hurts the dealer, while the big rock helps the dealer. Everyone with me?”

The elders nodded. So did Gladys and his son.

“So, here’s how the scam works. Your dealers have a tiny piece of sandpaper hidden on their clothing.”

“Objection,” the defendants’ attorney said. “There’s no evidence.”

Gladys Soft Hands rose and asked that the bag of evidence found in Karl Blackhorn’s locker be introduced. A tribal policeman brought the bag forward. The expired aspirin bottle was removed. The policeman opened it and displayed the piece of sandpaper.

“Oh,” the attorney said.

Valentine continued. “Your dealers are sanding the edges of the cards in their games. They sand one edge if the card is a big rock, another edge if the card is a little rock. That way, they know the cards by feel.

“The cheating happens during the deal. When the dealer deals his first card to himself, he feels what it is. When the second card comes out, he feels that, as well. Then he flips the
higher
of the two cards faceup. The big rock gets exposed, and the players are forced into making bad decisions. They have no chance of winning.”

“Why didn’t this show up in the take?” the lead elder asked.

The take was the amount of money each game was expected to make based upon its average winning percentage. Valentine pointed a finger at Harry Smooth Stone, who had shrunk in his chair. “Harry took care of that. He was skimming the difference and keeping it for himself and his dealers.”

“Surely our accountants would have picked up on this.”

“Are your accountants part of the tribe?” Valentine asked.

The lead elder bristled; so did everyone else at the table. Valentine decided he’d had enough of being nice, and got up close to the guys making the decisions. “Your accountants are involved. So are several other employees, including Billy Tiger. You can’t have this much cheating going on without lots of people knowing. The fact is, gentlemen, you’re running a crooked operation. You need to clean up your act, or risk getting exposed and ruining it for all the other Indian casinos around the country.

“You can start by educating yourselves in the games. Then you need to change a few policies. Like hiring ex-convicts to work for you. The fact is, you’re all
guilty
, either of stupidity or of not having enough common sense to police yourselves more closely.”

He heard Gladys let out a deep sigh. It was obviously not the closing argument she would have chosen. The elders went into a huddle. It lasted a few minutes, then the lead elder told Harry Smooth Stone and the three dealers to rise.

“Do you have anything to say in your defense?”

Smooth Stone stared straight ahead, the others at the floor. The air conditioner made a sound like it was about to blow up. One of the tribal policeman shut it off, and the trailer turned deadly still.

“No,” Smooth Stone muttered.

Neither did the others.

“Very well,” the lead elder said. “By the power vested in us through the Micanopy nation, this council finds you guilty of cheating the tribe and of the murder of Karl Blackhorn. You will be turned over to the Broward County police along with the evidence presented here today, and tried in the white man’s court.” He paused, then added, “You are a disgrace to your forefathers. To all of us.”

Then the tribal police escorted the guilty men out of the trailer.

Valentine watched them file out. The only evidence presented here today was
him.
Which meant he’d have to hang around for questioning, depositions, and a jury trial. He was going to become part of the system again, whether he liked it or not.

He could not believe how much the thought depressed him.

He went over to the defense table. His son was smiling, and Valentine realized it was the first time Gerry had actually seen what he did for a living. A tribal policeman removed Running Bear’s shackles. The chief stuck his hand out, and Valentine shook it.

“Jack Lightfoot taught them this trick, didn’t he?” Running Bear said.

Valentine nodded.

“By reversing the process and showing little rock, Lightfoot let the drunk Englishman win eighty-four straight hands.”

“Right again,” Valentine said. He watched the elders file out. None came over to thank him. He guessed they hadn’t liked the scolding.

“Let’s go,” he said to his son.

“The chief and I would like to take you and Gerry to dinner tonight,” Gladys said. “There’s a wonderful restaurant on Las Olas that we think you’ll like.”

Valentine nearly said yes. He’d been wanting a good meal for days. Only, his head wasn’t in the right place. He didn’t like helping casinos anymore, even ones that helped people. Tomorrow, he might feel different, but that was tomorrow.

“No thanks,” he said.

Gladys looked hurt. So did Running Bear. And his son looked as embarrassed as hell.

Valentine walked out of the trailer.