She pursued the woman. “Drink cost six pound, seventy-five pence, change come to thirteen pound, twenty-five pence—”
“You incompetent bitch!” the woman exploded, turning on her with a great swirl of color and advancing, face bright red.
“So sorry.” Anh Minh retreated with the trayful of money, the woman glaring after her. She returned to the bar, poured tonic water over ice, and added a slice of lemon. She found Pendergast strolling through the crowd, gazing this way and that.
“Drink, sir?”
He looked at her, and she fancied she could now see amusement dancing in his eyes. He spoke low and rapidly. “You’re a quick study. Now, do you see that man sitting at first base at the table to your right? Go spill this drink on him. I need his seat. Quick, now.”
Bracing herself, Anh walked over to the specified table. “Your drink, sir?”
“Thanks, but I didn’t—”
She joggled the tray and the drink fell upside down in his crotch.
The man leapt up. “Oh for God’s sake—!”
“So sorry, sir!”
“My new tuxedo!”
“Sorry! So sorry!”
The man plucked a handkerchief from his breast pocket and used it to brush away the ice cubes and liquid. Pendergast glided over, ready to move in.
“So sorry!” Anh repeated.
“Just forget it!” He turned to the dealer. “Color me up, I’m outta here.”
He scooped up his chips and stormed off, and as he did so Pendergast quickly slid into his seat. The dealer shuffled, laid down the deck, and handed the cut-card to Pendergast. He inserted it in the deck, and the dealer cut and loaded the shoe, inserting the end-of-play card unusually deep.
Ahn Minh hovered nearby, wondering what crazy thing Pendergast would ask her to do next.
Aloysius Pendergast looked around the table with a big grin. “How we all doing tonight? Getting lucky?” The Chinese man at third base—his mark—did not acknowledge. The two middle-aged women in between, who looked like sisters, nodded wary greetings.
“Dealing good cards tonight?” he asked the dealer.
“Doing my best,” the petite woman replied evenly.
Pendergast shot a glance across the room and noticed that the lady in the muumuu, who pretended to be chatting on a cell phone, was now spotting their table. Excellent.
“I’m feeling lucky.” Pendergast put a ten-thousand-pound chip into the betting circle, then dropped another in front, as a toke for the dealer.
The two women stared at his bet for a moment, and then advanced their own more modest thousand-pound wagers. The Chinese man pushed a chip into the betting circle—also a thousand.
The dealer pitched out the cards.
Pendergast stood on two eights. The two women played, and his mark drew a twelve and busted on a face card. The dealer drew a twenty in three cards and collected all their money.
The waitress came back with another drink and Pendergast took a good slug. “Rotten luck,” he said, laying the drink down on a coaster and advancing his next bet.
Several more hands were played, and then Pendergast failed to bet.
“Your bet, sir?”
“Going to sit this one out,” Pendergast said. He swiveled around and spoke to Anh Minh. “Gimme another gin and tonic,” he slurred. “Make it dry.”
The cocktail waitress scurried off.
The Chinese man bet again, five thousand this time. The look on his tired, middle-aged face had not changed at all. This time he stayed on fifteen with the dealer showing six, and the dealer busted.
The play moved deeper into the shoe. Out of the corner of his eye, Pendergast could see that another marked player, being spotted by the young blond man, was winning at the next table. The trick would be to force this one to lose bigger, to compensate. The slug of cards that he had tracked through the shuffle wasn’t far off, and it promised to provide some fireworks.
The spotter in the muumuu had evidently also tracked the shuffle. Now, as the play worked up toward the beginning of the slug, Pendergast’s running count was already a good plus eleven. The mark slid a pile of chips into the betting circle: fifty thousand.
A murmur rose.
“Hell, if he’s doing it, I’ll do it too,” Pendergast said, pushing in fifty. He winked at the mark and lifted his drink. “Here’s to us, friend.”
The ladies each bet a thousand, and the cards were dealt.
Pendergast stood on eighteen.
The mark drew, asked to be hit on a twelve with the dealer showing a five—a violation of basic strategy— then drew an eight card.
An
came from the crowd.
The ladies drew a series of low cards, one eventually busting. The dealer then completed her own hand: three, five, six, five: nineteen—a win for the mark.
A few more hands were played, most of the cards coming low out of the shoe. Pendergast’s running count kept climbing. Many of the tens and most of the aces were still undealt. On top of that, they were now just into the slug that he had meticulously tracked in the shuffle, using his acute eyesight and prodigious memory. That—and the peek he’d gotten during the shuffle and cut—alerted him to the precise location of seven cards in that slug, along with an educated guess on the location of many others. His side count of aces stood at three—thirteen more were in the pack, and he knew the location of two of them. This would be his opportunity if he could get it right. It all depended on controlling the downstream flow of cards.
This deal he would have to bust, and do it in four cards.
He bet a thousand.
The mark put in a hundred thousand.
Another
from the crowd.
Pendergast was dealt a fourteen.
The mark was dealt fifteen, with the dealer’s upcard a ten.
Pendergast took a hit. A five: nineteen. The dealer was about to move on when Pendergast said, “Hit me again.”
Bust.
There were snickers in the crowd, whispers, a derisive laugh. Pendergast took a swig from his drink. He glanced over at the mark and saw the man looking at him, a sudden faint look of contempt in his eyes.
The mark took a hit and was dealt an eight: bust. The dealer raked in his hundred thousand.
A quick mental calculation told Pendergast the running count was now twenty, the true count going even higher. Almost unheard of. The dealer was seventy-five percent through the shoe and still only three aces had been played, the rest concentrated in the remaining slug of cards. This was a combination no card counter could resist. If the mark followed the Kelly criterion—which he would if he had any brains—he would bet big. Very big. The key to
