Wild Card

right,” he said.

“Bill took the red eye out of Las Vegas last night, and is flying in this morning. I want you to help him nail these people. Think you’re up to it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Welcome back.”

He shook his superior’s hand, and saw him smile. It had been years since he’d seen Banko do that, and he left the office feeling better than he had in a long time.

Chapter 51

“Here we go,” Bill Higgins said a few hours later.

They were standing before the wall of video monitors in Resorts’ surveillance control room. A block of twelve cameras were isolated on a blackjack table with a five thousand dollar limit. Higgins hadn’t slept on the plane and looked like death warmed over.

Valentine studied the blurry images on the monitors. At the blackjack table sat the same two players from the tape Higgins had sent him. Both were in their mid-thirties with sandy brown hair and easy smiles. Cameras were recording them from every conceivable angle. So far, everything looked clean.

“You’re sure they’re cheating,” Valentine asked.

“Trust me,” Higgins said. “It’s a scam.”

Valentine wasn’t convinced the two players could be cheating. They were playing carelessly while flirting with four stewardesses playing at the adjacent table, which had a five hundred dollar limit. Everything looked on the square.

Then, after a few minutes, he saw something he didn’t like. The stewardesses had locked up their table, and were playing all seven hands. That wasn’t normal.

“I smell a rat.”

“You think the stewardesses are involved?” Higgins asked.

“Yes. I can count on the fingers of one hand how many women I’ve seen play multiple hands at blackjack. It’s strictly a guy thing.”

The two players had increased their bets to a thousand dollars a hand, and drawn the pit boss’s attention. At the same time, the dealer at the stewardess’s table began to shuffle, and Valentine saw the dealer’s muscles grow taut beneath his ruffled tuxedo shirt.

“You see that?” he asked.

Higgins stared blankly at the monitor. “See what?”

“The tell. The dealer at the stewardess’s table is doing sleight-of-hand. That shuffle isn’t real.”

“I’m not seeing it.”

“There’s nothing to see. He’s a mechanic. But look how tensed up his shoulders are. His adrenalin is racing. He’s working.”

“You sure?”

Valentine nodded. Izzie Hirsch had taught him this trick. Mechanics often gave away their moves through awkward body language. They watched the dealer finish his false shuffle, then offer the cards to be cut. One of the stewardesses picked up the laminated plastic cut card. She stuck it into the deck.

“I saw that,” Higgins said.

So did Valentine. The stewardess had stuck the cut card in a brief in the deck caused by a piece of rubber band placed there by the dealer. Hustlers called it a “lug.” The dealer finished the cut, and fitted the cards into the plastic shoe used for dealing. Then the stewardesses began to stall. One threw a wad of small bills on the table, and requested more chips. The dealer slowly counted the money, then killed more time converting the money into chips.

“What are they doing?” Higgins said.

Valentine wasn’t sure. But he couldn’t stop staring at the woman with the Coke bottle standing behind the table. He crossed the room to a raised platform where Doyle sat at the master console into which all the casino’s surveillance cameras sent their pictures. “I need you to rewind this tape we’re watching,” he said.

“How far back?” Doyle asked.

“Five minutes.”

Doyle sent the film back in time, then hit play. Valentine went to the wall and brought his face up close enough to kiss the image of the woman with the Coke bottle. Her lips were moving, and he found himself smiling.

“She’s talking into the bottle,” Valentine said.

“Must have a mini-transmitter,” Higgins said.

The wall had dozens of different feeds. Valentine found the monitor which watched the parking lot. Parked in a handicap spot next to the building was a white van with large, moose ear antenna on the roof. The woman with the Coke bottle was talking to someone inside the van.

“Put us back to real time,” he told Doyle.

The monitors returned to real time. The four stewardesses were still stalling. Then, one of the women looked at her watch, and made a Can you believe the time? face, and left the table. Two of her friends quickly followed. The one remaining stewardess looked lonely. Seeing her dilemma, the two players at the