Mr. Lucky

roaring with flames; then the walls would melt; then he’d catch on fire like Rita.

He went to the railing and started to climb over. So far, the fire had confined itself to the main hotel, and he stared down at the glass rooftop of the hotel’s plush spa, where a pair of identical Swedish bimbos named Olga and Hilga gave body massages and had a waiting list three months long. Next to it was a swimming pool, and what Ricky remembered about the pool was that at its deep end it was pretty deep, at least twelve feet. If he jumped and hit the deepest part, he’d probably break every bone in his body, but he might also survive, and that was all he cared about right now. The question was, did he feel lucky?

“Well,” he said, puffing his chest in his best Clint Eastwood imitation, “do you, punk?”

All his life, he’d been stealing tough guys’ lines from the movies, and it had never made him any braver. His ex-wife had asked him to stop a thousand times. Like he’d told her at the divorce trial, he didn’t know how. The words just leapt out of his mouth.

The railing was growing warmer; soon it would be too hot to touch. His time was running out. Well, he thought, at least I get a say in the matter. He put one foot into space, then hesitantly drew it back. Jump, or turn into a cinder. What a choice.

“Your move, Mr. Bond.”

His move indeed.

2

The sharp wind that blew through Tony Valentine’s house made the hurricane shutters rattle and the bamboo trees in his yard shake their branches. It dropped the temperature by several degrees, and he felt his skin harden beneath his clothes. A storm sitting out in the Gulf of Mexico was churning up the ocean, and a small-craft advisory had been issued for boaters. A good night to stay indoors, the TV weatherman had cautioned.

Sitting at the desk in his study, Valentine stared through the lone window at his backyard. Although he could not see the ocean from where he lived, he could taste it in the air, and that was all that mattered. Even on a night like tonight, it was a friend, always there to comfort him when his soul was troubled.

The phone on his desk rang. His private line. The caller ID said UNKNOWN, but his gut told him it was Lucy Price, a woman in Las Vegas he had helped out a month ago. At the time, it had seemed like the right thing to do; only, he hadn’t counted on her tracking him down in Florida.

“Go away,” he said to the phone.

It kept ringing. The sound was like a hammer tapping on his conscience. He had nothing to say to her; nothing that would change the horrible thing she’d done. Another stiff wind blew through his house and infused the air with the ocean’s spirits. It made him feel better, but only for a little while.

Finally the phone went silent. On his desk was a clock in the shape of a roulette wheel. It was nearly ten. Normally, he didn’t work this late, preferring to read a book until his eyes gave out. Only, he’d let his work pile up, too disturbed about the situation with Lucy to put in a full day’s work. He stared at the pile of FedEx envelopes stacked on his desk. Each was addressed to Grift Sense, his consulting company. He’d opened it up as a way to fill his days after his wife had died, never expecting it would lead to a second career.

He pulled the thickest envelope from the stack. Inside was a certified check for three thousand dollars, his usual fee, along with several decks of playing cards and a letter from the manager of the Golden Dragon Casino in Macau.

He’d worked for casinos in Macau before. It was a strange place. Gambling was the number one source of revenue, with prostitution a close second. It could be reached by boat from mainland China, and every day, thousands of rich Asian businessmen made the trek and descended upon the island’s casinos like hungry locusts.

According to the letter, one of the Golden Dragon’s blackjack tables was bleeding money, and the casino’s head of security, an Aussie named Crawford, was convinced the cheaters were using “paper,” which was cheater’s slang for marked cards. The problem was, Crawford couldn’t find the marks.

Crawford had never used Valentine for a job before. But according to his letter, he’d heard through the casino grapevine that Valentine was good at reading paper, so he’d taken a chance and overnighted a few decks, along with his money. Crawford was desperate.

Valentine was good at reading paper. Twenty years policing Atlantic City’s casinos had exposed him to hundreds of marked-card scams. So many ways existed to mark cards that he’d developed a test that was as good as any for finding the work. It required a normal deck of cards, which Crawford had sent him straight from the plant.

The Golden Dragon used cards manufactured by the United States Playing Card Company in Cincinnati, Ohio. They were thicker than regular cards, so that the ink wouldn’t rub off after continued use. Opening the normal deck, Valentine removed a single card and held it next to a suspected marked card beneath the light on his desk.

To the naked eye, the two cards looked identical. But that didn’t mean anything. He placed the marked card beneath the normal card. Then, he snapped the normal card away and stared intently at the marked card for several seconds.

He did this twenty times. By the twentieth time, his eyes had found the marks. They were in the center of the card, white, and almost microscopic. Cheaters called them block-outs. Usually, cheaters marked cards at the table with a substance called daub, or with lipstick or nicotine. The Golden Dragon’s cards were being marked by a professional on the outside, then brought into the casino by an employee. Which meant it was an inside job.

He put the cards down and smothered a tired yawn. Tomorrow was judo practice. He went three times a week to a dojo in Clearwater and always tried to get plenty of sleep the night before. He would call Crawford tomorrow and break the bad news. He started to turn off the light on the desk, then stared down at Crawford’s letter. His eyes caught the last line on the page. Management’s given me twenty-four hours to solve this.

He flipped the FedEx envelope over and stared at the label. It had been sent yesterday morning. Which meant Crawford’s hourglass had just about run out. He didn’t know the man but couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. He found Crawford’s phone number on the letter and picked up his office phone.

It was tomorrow in Macau. Crawford was at work, watching his blackjack tables through the monitors in the casino’s surveillance control room. Valentine explained what he’d found, and took Crawford through the test with the two cards. Crawford let out a laugh when the marks on the cards became apparent.

“Would you look at that? They’re right in front of my nose.”

“You’ve got a rotten employee bringing the cards into the game,” Valentine said.

“That would be the dealer at the table,” Crawford said. “He’s got a real gripe with management. Only one problem, though.”

“What’s that?”

“These cards won’t hold up as evidence.”

Valentine had started to file the Golden Dragon’s marked cards with the hundreds of similar marked casino decks he kept in a drawer. “Why not?”

“My casino is filled with cigarette smoke. You can hardly read the cards when they’re faceup. No judge will believe this is anything more than a printer’s mistake.”

Valentine smiled into the phone. He’d liked how Crawford had reacted to seeing the marks. Like he knew he’d been bested and didn’t mind learning something new. Valentine said, “You’ll need to take the judge through the snapping test. Then show him how the snapping test is no different than when the cards are dealt from a shoe. The cheater stares at the shoe and frames the cards as they come out. Whenever a marked card is dealt, the eye instantly knows.”

Crawford let out another laugh. “If I had a hat, I’d take it off to you, mate.”

“You’re welcome,” Valentine said.

“One more request. The gang we suspect is in the casino right now.”

Valentine smothered another yawn. “Want me to look at them, see if I can tell who’s doing what?”

“I’d be forever in your debt,” Crawford said.

Valentine booted up his computer. He subscribed to a high-speed Internet service called Road Runner, and within a minute, he was staring at a live surveillance picture of the Golden Dragon’s blackjack pit, courtesy of a feed