The tech brought his face so close to the picture that his breath fogged the screen.
“Well, I’ll be. But where did he get the king from?”
“He mucked it out earlier,” Valentine said. “Hustlers call it doing ‘the chop.’ When he tossed his cards to the dealer, he only tossed one.”
“The dealer didn’t notice?”
Valentine shook his head. The technique of stealing a single card during play had been developed by blackjack cheaters, and it flew by most dealers. Stealing a card was even easier in poker, since no one paid attention to a player when he dropped out of a hand. Valentine made the tech restart the tape.
“Now watch the switch,” he said.
The tape continued, and they watched Skins cover his cards with his hands. The tech slapped his knees. “Holy cow. He peeked at his cards without letting the hidden camera in the table see them,” the tech said. “That’s on purpose, isn’t it?”
Valentine nodded. The kid caught on fast.
“Okay,” the tech said. “Now he’s doing the switch, even though I can’t see the move.”
“Cameras can’t see through hands,” Valentine said.
“No, but I can tell when someone’s got a card palmed, and this guy does.” The tech pointed at Skins’s right hand, which rested on the table edge. “He’s got the card he just switched hidden in his palm, doesn’t he?”
“Correct.”
“What will he do? Destroy it later on?”
“No,” Valentine said. “He’ll add it to his cards, and toss it into the muck. That way the deck won’t be short. Hustlers call it ‘cleaning up.’”
On the monitor, they saw Skins drop his guilty hand into his lap and stick the switched card into the bug. If a problem arose during the game, Skins would simply toss the card beneath the table.
“So let’s arrest this guy,” the tech said. “We’ve got enough evidence.”
It was the sanest thing Valentine had heard anyone say since he’d started investigating the tournament. He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up. Bill Higgins was standing behind him with a grim look on his face. Valentine got up, and they went to a corner where no one could hear them.
“I just got some bad news from the FBI’s Las Vegas office,” Bill said. “Guess who escaped from Ely prison this morning.”
“Someone I know?”
“Al ‘Little Hands’ Scarpi. The FBI thinks Scalzo was behind it.”
Valentine clenched his teeth. Every holiday, postcards from Ely State Penitentiary appeared in his mailbox, the name
“Look, Tony, I won’t be mad if you say you want to leave town,” Bill said. “This is getting awfully hairy.”
Valentine shook his head. He would leave Las Vegas after he busted Scalzo. It was that simple.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said.
31
“I’ve never ridden in a helicopter before,” Little Hands shouted, gazing down at the flat, unforgiving landscape of northern Nevada. The pilot, an athletic blonde wearing aviator shades with mirrored lenses, flashed a toothy grin. He’d picked Little Hands up on a dusty field outside the Ely Conservation Camp ninety minutes ago, tossed a bag lunch into Little Hands’s lap, then pointed his chopper toward Las Vegas.
“Where do you pee in this thing, anyway?” Little Hands asked.
The pilot continued grinning. It was a long trip, over 250 miles, and Little Hands had wished like hell he’d taken a leak before departing.
“You got a radio to listen to?” Little Hands asked.
The pilot continued to grin. Then Little Hands got the picture. The pilot couldn’t hear him over the roar of the helicopter’s blades. Little Hands felt like a fool and folded his hands in his lap. In prison, he’d gone to the library every day and tried to educate himself. If he’d learned anything from the books he’d read, it was that the best thing a dumb person could do was keep their mouth shut and say nothing at all.
Rows of identical tract houses littered the landscape, the roofs dotted with satellite-TV dishes. Past them, a giant steel structure shaped like a needle pierced the sky. Little Hands realized it was the Stratosphere, the tallest casino in Las Vegas.
The pilot tapped him on the arm, then pointed at a sprawling industrial park down below. Behind the park was a concrete helipad with a car parked beside it. Little Hands sucked in his breath as the helicopter descended.
Once the helicopter’s blades stopped whirring, Little Hands climbed out and stretched his legs. It was hard to believe that less than five hours ago he’d been pumping iron in the prison weight room. The pilot pulled a duffle bag out of the helicopter, and dropped it on the ground.
“This is yours, buddy,” he said.
Little Hands unzipped the duffle bag and pulled out its contents. New clothes to replace his prison work out fit, a set of car keys for the vehicle parked beside the helipad, and an envelope stuffed with twenty-dollar bills. The envelope also contained a typed sheet with the hotel and room number where Tony Valentine was staying. Taking the money out, he quickly counted it.
One thousand bucks.
He ran over to the helicopter. The pilot had restarted the engine and was about to take off. Little Hands tapped on the pilot’s window, and he pulled it back.
“Where’s the rest of my money? I get five grand for a job.”
“You’ll get the rest when the job is done,” the pilot said.
“Fuck that shit. I want it now.”
“Do the job, then call the number on the back of the instructions. They’ll meet you, and give you the rest.”
“I want it now.”
“I don’t have it,” the pilot said.
“You’re saying they didn’t pay you, either?” Little Hands shouted.
“What they paid me is none of your business. You should be happy you’re out of jail,” the pilot said.
Little Hands stuck his hand through the open window and got his fingers around the pilot’s throat. Before he could squeeze the life out of him, the pilot drew a gun from the console between the seats and stuck it in Little Hands’s face.
“Want to die, asshole?”
Little Hands let go of the pilot and withdrew his arm.
“You’re a dumb son-of-a-bitch, you know that?” the pilot said. “Now, stand back.”
Little Hands retreated a few steps. The helicopter rose uncertainly, like a bird testing its wings. When it was at face height, Little Hands leaped forward and wrapped his arms around the landing gear, called skids. He twisted and pulled the skids as the helicopter continued to rise. He wasn’t going to let the pilot call him dumb.
When the helicopter was higher than a house, Little Hands let go, and fell back to earth. He landed on the grass and rolled onto his back. He waited for the pain in his legs to subside while staring into the sky. The helicopter was spinning crazily, the skids twisting. The pilot wouldn’t be able to land without crashing.
Little Hands saw the pilot shaking his fist and cursing him. He laughed.
He drove into Las Vegas thinking about the money. A thousand stinking bucks. He’d never taken a job with out getting paid up front. Either his employer didn’t know the rules, or wanted to keep him on a short leash.
He came into town on the north side, where the Riviera, Frontier, and Sahara were still struggling to survive, and parked beneath the Frontier’s mammoth marquee, its giant letters proclaiming BIKINI BULL RIDE, COLD BEER, DIRTY GIRLS.
Across the street from the Frontier was the Peppermill restaurant and lounge. The local cops didn’t like the prices, and as a result criminals often used the cocktail lounge for meetings. He needed time and a place to think,
