Mr. Lucky

“You know, like you did with the chip scams.”

“You want me to figure out how you’re getting ripped off?”

“Only if you want to,” Lamar said.

Gerry felt breakfast turn over in his stomach. He’d watched videotapes of cheaters from his father’s library and had always been stumped. His lying was going to be the death of him one day. “Sure,” he said.

Lamar’s two men were named Kent and Boomer. Both had played football for Ole Miss and were likable guys. The only problem was their shoulders. Sitting between them, Gerry felt like he was wedged between two boulders.

Kent and Boomer had both worked for the Mississippi Gaming Commission for ten years and were knowledgeable about gaming security. Both men understood that the best way to detect a scam was to figure out which table was the problem, then work backward. His father did this all the time. He called it Logical Backward Progression.

They had isolated which tables were losing the most money in the casino, and determined that this was where the majority of cheating was taking place. The problem areas included a craps table, a roulette table, and a blackjack table. They had videotaped these tables for two days and were watching the tapes in slow motion in an effort to determine how the money was being stolen.

Gerry stared at the monitors while sipping a cup of bitter coffee. Watching videotapes was about as stimulating as watching paint dry. Knowing someone was stealing made it a little more interesting, but not by much. More than once his father had caught him switching channels when he was supposed to be studying casino tapes.

“We’ve watched these damn tapes forward and backward and still can’t see what’s going on,” Kent said, biting off the end of a candy bar. “It’s frustrating.”

“It’s probably something simple,” Gerry said.

Both men glared at him. So did Lamar, who stood in the corner.

“They can be the hardest ones to detect,” he added.

“Like the chip scams you showed us,” Boomer said.

“Exactly. Chip scams are considered the lowest form of stealing, yet they cost casinos millions a year.”

The three men stopped glaring at him. A short silence followed.

“So what are we missing?” Lamar said.

Gerry didn’t have a clue. Only, it was too late in the game to admit that and not get run out of town. Then he had an idea. He’d call his old man. “I need to look at these tapes in privacy for a little while. Would you mind if I used your office?”

“Gonna go consult your crystal ball?” Lamar said.

“Something like that.”

“Be my guest.” Lamar led him to his corner office. It was dark and about as inviting as a cave, and contained a desk with a computer and a phone. Lamar turned the computer on and told Kent to send the feeds from the video monitors they were watching to his computer. Seconds later, a matrix appeared on the computer screen, with the different feeds showing in each of the matrix’s boxes.

“There you go, sport,” Lamar said, showing himself out.

Gerry shut the door behind him. Getting behind the desk, he took his cell phone out and powered it up. As he punched in his father’s number, he was suddenly seized by a sense of panic. His father had promised a dozen times that he’d start leaving his cell phone on, but so far, it hadn’t happened. His old man was a dinosaur when it came to technology. Come on, Pop, surprise me, he thought as the call went through.

“When the hell are you going to stop lying to these people?” his father said after Gerry told him what was going on. His father rarely swore. And Gerry couldn’t remember the last time he’d sworn at him. Not that he didn’t deserve it. But his father had somehow always shown restraint.

“Is something wrong, Pop?”

“I just had a blind librarian tell me what a bum I was for avoiding Lucy Price,” his father said. “Do you think I’m a bum for avoiding her?”

Gerry stopped staring at the matrix on Lamar’s computer screen and shifted his eyes to the wall. His father sounded upset. Lucy Price was bad news. Gerry had discussed her with Mabel, and they’d both decided that the best thing his father could do was get Lucy out of his life. She was drowning and was only going to pull down his father with her.

“You bailed her out already, Pop. You gave her a chance to redeem herself. That’s all you can do with someone like that. The rest was up to her, and she blew it.”

“You really think so?”

“Yes. So don’t go flogging yourself over it.”

“Is that what I’m doing?”

“It sure sounds like it.”

His father took a deep breath. “Okay. Thanks for listening. Now, tell me what you’re seeing on these video monitors.”

Gerry shifted his gaze to the computer screen. He couldn’t remember ever giving his father advice before. “Where do you want me to start?” he said.

“Start with the procedures they’re using at each of the games,” his father said. “That’s usually how table games get scammed.”

“What do you mean?”

“Crooked dealers and croupiers will change a procedure. The change usually doesn’t look like much, but it’s enough to help them hide how they’re stealing money. They’ll use the new procedure for a while to see if it creates any suspicion. If no one says anything, they start the scam. Hustlers call this putting the eye to sleep.”

“Huh,” Gerry said.

“You know, I already told you this once before.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, about three weeks ago. I guess you weren’t listening.”

Gerry swallowed hard, then described to his father what he was seeing on the screen.

Ten minutes later Gerry walked out of Lamar’s office with his chest puffed out and a shit-eating grin on his face. He’d been able to nail each scam just by listening to his father and staring at the matrix on Lamar’s computer. His old man could be a bear sometimes, but he never let you down.

Kent and Boomer separated their chairs and gave him space to sit. Gerry took the seat and pointed at the monitors. “Where do you want to begin?”

Lamar was standing in the corner. “You figured out all three of them?”

“Sure did.”

“Well, paint me blue and call me Quincy. Okay, start with the roulette scam.”

A monitor in the center of the table showed roulette. Kent hit some strokes on his keyboard, and every monitor in the trailer switched to show the same thing.

The roulette table was crowded with people. Gerry pointed at the croupier, a guy with a pasty complexion and an ill-fitting tux. It was his job to control the game, spin the wheel and throw the ball, and collect bets at his end of the table. Gerry said, “The croupier is part of the gang. He’s changed a procedure at the table, which is letting his partners past-post.”

“You mean they’re betting after the ball drops,” Lamar said.

“That’s right. Before the wheel slows down and the ball starts to drop, the croupier is supposed to wave his hand over the layout and say ‘No more bets.’ That way the people watching through the eye in the sky know the betting is over.

“Well, this croupier isn’t waving his hand over the table. If you watch the tape, you’ll see that he’s saying it, which is why it hasn’t caught the attention of the security people on the floor.