“Good. On the next round, would you be suspicious if I decided to bet heavily on my hands? This is a hypothetical question, of course.”
Valentine thought about it. He'd started with a new deck and handled the cards throughout. If Diamondis had rigged the game, he was at a loss to explain how.
“How heavily?” he asked.
“Say, five thousand dollars a hand.”
“Yeah, I'd be suspicious.”
“But you wouldn't know why, would you?”
“No.”
“This time, deal five hands,” his host said.
Valentine did so, sensing that he'd been led down the garden path. The professor turned his hands over. He had a twenty, a blackjack, a nineteen, and a sixteen, which he drew a card on, and busted. Valentine flipped his own hand over. He had a seventeen. Had they been in a casino, Diamondis would have won twelve thousand five hundred dollars.
Valentine stared at the professor's cards. Three of his hands contained aces. Juraj had drawn a lot of aces as well. In blackjack, aces were the magic cards, and gave a player a 500 percent better chance of beating the house.
The professor stuffed a pipe with tobacco and fired up the bowl, thoroughly enjoying himself.
“Do it again,” Valentine said.
Valentine got burned the second time as well, but on the third go around the proverbial lightbulb went off in his head. It was the shuffle. Diamondis was having him shuffle the deck the same way
The professor thumped his desk. “Very good! You know, I have several graduate students who spent weeks trying to figure it out. I don't suppose you have a degree in mathematics?”
“Atlantic City High, class of '56.”
“I'll be sure to tell my students that.”
“I'm confused about one thing,” Valentine said.
“And what is that?”
“No dealer shuffles the same. How do you know when the cards you want will come up?”
“I cheat,” Diamondis said, puffing away.
“How do you do that?”
The professor grinned. He obviously enjoyed putting one over on a pro. “I have two methods. If the deck is new, the cards are in perfect order. I simply look for the cards which come before the aces. For example: The king of spades proceeds the ace of diamonds in a new deck. So, when the king of spades appears, I know the ace of diamonds is right around the corner.
“Now, if the cards are mixed, my job is tougher. The deck has to be played, and I must memorize the cards which come before the aces. These cards act as my cues.”
“But you don't know
“I offset any miscalculations by playing multiple hands,” the professor said. “By playing four hands, I ensure the aces will come to me. And since aces often produce blackjacks, I often get a better payout.” The professor glanced at his watch. “I need to run.”
“Did you ever try this out? I mean, in a casino?”
“Of course.”
“How much did you win?”
“A few hundred dollars. I'm not much of a gambler.”
A bell rang and a hundred pairs of shoes clattered noisily past the office. Shoving papers into a battered leather satchel, Diamondis headed for the door. Valentine grabbed his overcoat off the back of his chair and followed him.
They joined the throng of students in the stairwell and descended to the first floor. The professor entered an oval-shaped lecture hall that was quickly filling with students. Climbing onto the stage, he put his satchel down beside the podium. Valentine was right behind him. “One more question. Your system is limited to dealers who break the cards dead center and riffle evenly.”
“A colleague posed the same problem to me,” Diamondis replied, checking the podium's microphone. “So I devised a schematic for all known blackjack shuffles. It requires some mental gymnastics, but it works.”
Was his name Juraj Havelka? Valentine nearly asked, but thought he knew the answer.
“I published my findings last year,” the professor said. “Would you like a copy?”
“I'd be honored.”
Diamondis removed a stapled manuscript from his satchel and handed it to him.
“Good luck catching whoever you're trying to catch,” the professor said.
Valentine tried to hide his surprise. “Who said I was trying to catch someone?”
A smile flickered across the professor's otherwise serious countenance. “It's what you do for a living, isn't it?”
22
True Love
It had taken Gerry five minutes to squander his father's hundred bucks in The Bombay's casino.
Luckily, Yolanda hadn't seen him do it. She'd gone to play Funny Money, convinced that she'd duplicate her sister's good fortune and win a brand new car.
Gerry had lost his father's money playing keno. According to a tent card on the bar, keno was an ancient Chinese game, and had been used by the Chinese government to pay for the Great Wall. What the card didn't say was that it was a game for suckers, the house advantage an astonishing 35 percent.
Sitting at the bar, Gerry had bought a ticket, called a blank, from a cute runner in a miniskirt. Using a crayon, he picked ten numbers from the eighty on the blank, then gave the runner the blank and his money. Going to the keno lounge next door, the runner gave the blank to the keno writer who recorded the wager, then returned to the bar and handed Gerry the duplicate.
And stared at him.
Gerry squirmed. Taking fifty cents off the bar that another patron had left, he handed it to her.
“Good luck,” she said icily.
He sat and waited. And dreamed of winning the jackpot.
A buzzer went off, signaling the winning numbers were being drawn. He stared at the electronic keno board above the bar.
A man entered the bar and came toward him. His nose was zigzagged by white adhesive tape, his eyes ringed black. Gerry got off his stool.
“Get lost.”
“I want to show you something,” Joey Mollo said.
Gerry followed him across the casino to the front doors. A veil of snow had dusted the cars in the parking lot. A black Lincoln blinked its lights. Gerry stared. Big Tony and Little Tony sat in the two front seats. Sandwiched between them was Yolanda. Her eyes were filled with fear.
