Jackpot

Chapter 7

Bronco Marchese lay on his cot in his jailhouse jammies, staring at the concrete ceiling. His lawyer, bad- breathed Kyle Garrow, was running late. Garrow had never been late to an appointment before, but Bronco had never been in jail before. Bronco sensed a shift in their relationship that he didn’t like. The moment he got out of jail, he planned to set Garrow straight.

He shut his eyes. It was the strangest damn thing. His first time behind bars, and he wasn’t missing the taste of good food, or the rush of an ice-cold beer. What he was missing were the slots.

He’d started playing in New York forty years ago. Slots were illegal, only most bars in New York had them. He’d been fifteen, and had never experienced the kind of joy that coursed through his body after winning a jackpot. He’d fed his winnings back into the machine, expecting it to happen again. When it hadn’t, he’d gone and gotten a screwdriver, opened the machine, and stolen every last coin.

For the next two years, he’d stolen jackpots all over the city. His parents were dead and he had no friends, and it had kept him alive. One day while sitting at a bar, he’d overheard a conversation that had changed his life.

It was between two hoodlums, and they were discussing a gang of cheaters in Las Vegas who were rigging jackpots. The hoodlums had made it sound like the greatest scam ever invented.

“They’re stealing millions,” one of the hoodlums said.

“You’re garbageting me,” the other hoodlum said.

“No, I’m not.”

“Man, I’d like to get my hands on some of that money.”

Bronco had thought about the conversation for days. He guessed the Las Vegas cheaters were doing the same thing he was, but the jackpots were bigger. Suddenly, his life’s path had been laid out before him: He would go west, and make his fortune. The next day, he’d gone to the Port Authority Bus terminal on west 42^nd Street, and bought a one-way ticket to Las Vegas.

The trip had taken a week. When Bronco arrived, he’d been awed by what he’d seen. Las Vegas was a mega-watt shrine to greed that burned twenty-four hours a day. It made the gambling back east seem like kindergarten, and had only further confirmed his decision to come. He had no money, and slept under bridges and ate out of dumpsters, his nights spent in the casinos.

One night at the Riviera, he spotted five people bunched around a slot machine. Their movements looked suspicious, and he quickly made their leader, a red-haired man with a scarred face. When he approached, Red told him to get lost.

“I’m on your side,” Bronco said.

“Prove it,” Red said.

Bronco pointed across the casino floor. “See that guy by the change machine? He’s the house dick. Wait until he leaves before making your play.”

Red had liked that. The house dick wandered off, and the gang went to work. While Red opened the machine with a skeleton key and set the reels, his accomplices stood in front of the machine, blocking it from the surveillance cameras, while a fourth acted as a lookout. Once the reels were set, the gang dispersed, leaving a blonde woman to claim the prize. Bronco stood off to the side, awe-struck.

An hour later, everyone met up in a parking lot across the street, and cut up the jackpot. Red, whose real name was Glenn, handed Bronco five hundred dollars and said, “Kid, you’ve got a future in this business.”

Bronco had stared at the money. It was more than he’d ever seen in his life. He’d handed it back to Glenn, and saw surprise register in the older man’s face.

“You don’t want the money?” Glenn said.

“I want to learn,” Bronco said.

Glenn had taken him under his wing, and become his friend. According to Glenn, any idiot could rig a slot machine. All you needed was a skeleton key and a lot of nerve. The hard part was finding a claimer. They needed to be John Q. Citizens with squeaky-clean backgrounds. Otherwise, the casino would be suspicious when they ran a background check. The blonde at the Riviera was a perfect example. She was a first grade teacher, and had never broken a law in her life.

“But how do you convince claimers to work with you?” Bronco asked one night.

They were eating spaghetti and meatballs at a dump on Fremont Street, and Glenn put his fork down and stared him in the eye.

“You don’t,” his teacher said.

Bronco put his elbows on the table, and stared his teacher in the eye.

“You don’t convince them,” Glenn said. “That’s the secret to this business, kid.”

Bronco looked at his plate of food. He knew everything about rigging slot machines but the important part, and felt defeated. After a moment he lifted his head, and saw a softening in his teacher’s face, and realized Glenn was going to tell him.

“They convince themselves,” his teacher said.

“Hey, punk. Wake up.”

Bronco’s eyes snapped open. A hulking guard stood outside his cell door.

“You the pizza guy?”

“Very funny,” the guard said. “Your lawyer’s here.”

Bronco rose from the cot and held his hands out. The guard entered and handcuffed him, then led Bronco down a hallway to the visitor’s room.

The room was small and stunk of sweat. Garrow stood behind a pocked table wearing a concerned look on his face. Bronco sat down behind the table, and was handcuffed to the leg of his chair, which was hex-bolted to the floor. Garrow remained standing, his hands clasped in front of his chest.

“How you doing?” his lawyer asked.

“Having the time of my fucking life.”

“You’ve opened up Pandora’s box, Bronco.”

“I don’t know any broad named Pandora,” Bronco said.

Garrow unclasped his hands and stepped closer. He was small and greasy and knew how to get under people’s skin. “It’s a figure of speech. You’ve created a shit storm, in case you didn’t know it.”

Bronco knew exactly what he’d created. He stared down at the pocked table. In blue ink someone had scratched the words NO ONE GETS OUT OF HERE ALIVE into the wood. No one but me, he thought.

“Good,” he said.

Garrow gave him a no-nonsense stare. “Listen to what I’m saying. Governor Smoltz has put half the cops in the state on the case. He’s also bringing in outside help. And, he’s putting heat on me.”

“He can’t do that, can he?” Bronco said.

“You’re threatening the state’s livelihood. Smoltz will do whatever he wants.”

Bronco used his free hand to scratch his chin. He enjoyed seeing Garrow sweat; it brought the relationship back to a normal level.

“What kind of outside help?”

“Some casino dick named Valentine.”

“Tony Valentine?”

“Yeah. Don’t tell me you know the guy.”