“Yeah,” Bill said. “They’re at a table in the corner.”
“Does one of them look like a boxer who went too many rounds?”
“Right again.”
Valentine was still burned that Gerry had lied to him, and come to Las Vegas on the sly. A little payback was in order so he said, “I want you to backroom them.”
“On what grounds?”
“The guy in the bar is my son. He needs to be humbled.”
“Got it,” Bill said.
Backrooming was a casino’s way of dealing with undesirable people. The person or persons would be led by security to a windowless room, where they were read the riot act by someone who worked for the casino. It was about as much fun as getting arrested, and a perfect reality check for his son.
“You coming upstairs?” Bill asked.
“Of course I’m coming upstairs,” Valentine said, opening his cell phone. “But first I’d like to make a phone call, if that’s okay with you.”
“Sorry,” his friend said.
18
Mabel Struck had returned from her cruise ready to go back to work. It wasn’t that cruising wasn’t fun — seven days in the Caribbean was most people’s idea of a dream vacation — and she’d enjoyed the food and nonstop activities. But after a couple of days it had become predictable, and by the week’s end she’d been downright bored. Going away on vacation had convinced her that she had the best job in the world, and she’d come home eager to get back to it.
She unlocked the front door to Tony’s house and punched the code into the security system, then took off her shoes and walked to Tony’s office in the back. Tony had gotten her in the habit of taking her shoes off, and the house was usually so quiet she could hear a pin drop. Better to hear yourself think, her boss had explained.
She found a note from Tony Scotch-taped to the computer. Gerry and Yolanda were in San Juan, while Tony was in Las Vegas investigating a poker tournament. Her boss had left a stack of letters on the desk that needed to be addressed, plus a few dozen unopened e-mail messages. He ended by telling Mabel he hoped she’d had a good time, and hadn’t gotten too sunburned.
Mabel found herself smiling. That was the thing she liked about Tony. He always cared about the personal things. As she started to go through the letters, she glanced at the clock in the shape of a roulette wheel on the desk. It was three P.M. Right about now, the square dancing lessons would be starting on the ship, and the midafternoon tea. It was fine if you liked prepackaged fun, only Mabel had decided that there was only so much of that kind of thing she could take. The nitty-gritty of the real world was more to her liking, and she was happy to be home.
The phone rang as she was scrolling through Tony’s e-mails. Normally the afternoons were quiet around the office, no doubt because most casinos were quiet in the afternoon as well, and she answered the phone with a cheerful, “Grift Sense.”
“Are you a shopping service for crooks?” a familiar voice said.
“Only if they have a sense of humor,” she replied.
“Sign me up,” Tony said. “It’s nice to hear your voice.”
The fun part about working for Tony was that he never took the job too seriously. As he was fond of saying, no one had ever cried when a casino lost money.
“Yours too. How is sunny Lost Wages?”
“Hasn’t changed a bit. I read in the paper that they’d built a brand-new elementary school within five hundred feet of a brothel, so they’re going to have to move it.”
“The brothel?”
“No, the elementary school. Can’t keep those girls out of work. So, how was your cruise? Did the unlimited buffet live up to your expectations?”
“The food was incredible,” she said. “But there was one thing which happened on board that bothered me.”
“Let me guess. You had to beat off all the eligible men who wanted to dance with you.”
Mabel felt herself blush. Her late husband had been fond of calling her beautiful, but that was her husband. Hearing Tony say she was attractive made her wonder if there was something to it. “No, it was in the ship’s casino. They shut it down one night, right when everyone was winning. When they reopened the next night, they’d lowered the limits on the table games to twenty-five dollars. Do you know why they did that?”
“I sure do,” he said. “If I tell you, will you answer a question for me?”
“What is it?”
“How do you get a fly to land on a sugar cube?”
She burst out laughing. “Oh, Tony, my great-grandmother taught me that trick. Don’t tell me someone pulled it on you?”
“Actually, he pulled it on a roomful of guys, and won twenty thousand bucks in the process. It kind of had me baffled.”
“He’s a fly whisperer.”
“A what?”
“Just kidding,” Mabel said. “You go first, then I’ll explain.”
“Here’s the deal,” Valentine said. “Cruise ship casinos have a problem. They’re only open at night. As a result, they only have a limited amount of time to win money. Most casino games grind you down. A player’s chances of winning are much greater in a casino the less amount of time they stay there.”
“Really?” Mabel said.
“Yes. You lose in a casino, but only gradually. That’s what keeps you playing. However, in the first few hours, you also have the best chance of winning some money, because you have your entire bankroll. Make sense?”
“Yes,” Mabel said. “The cruise ship casinos are only open during the evening, and are susceptible to more losses than a casino that stays open longer.”
“That’s right. Because of this situation, some cruise ship casinos have been known to cheat their customers. They short the decks in blackjack and don’t pay jackpots on slot machines. Since they operate in international waters, there isn’t much the authorities can do about them.”
“Is that why they call them ‘cruises to nowhere’?”
“No, but it should be.”
“Do you think the ship I was on was cheating?”
“No,” Valentine said. “They closed down early because they were getting beaten. That’s standard procedure. When the casino starts losing money, management stops the hemorrhaging.”
“That hardly seems fair,” Mabel said.
“Casinos don’t gamble. Your turn.”
Knowing a con or scam that Tony didn’t know was rare, and Mabel could not help but savor the moment. Excusing herself, she went to the kitchen and poured herself an iced tea, then returned to the study and sat down in Tony’s big comfortable chair. Only after she’d taken a gulp of her drink did she pick the phone back up.
“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?” he said.
“To the max. You’re so hard to pull the wool over, I consider it a special occasion.”
“It’s really something stupid, isn’t it?”
“Simple, but not stupid. Let’s use your famous Logical Backward Progression, and analyze what happened,” she said. “Explain to me what you saw.”
“A sucker put ten sugar cubes on the table, and picked one. Rufus waved a coffee stirrer over it. A fly was let out of a mayonnaise jar, and it flew around, then landed on the sugar cube the sucker picked.”
“What didn’t the fly do?”
“You’ve lost me,” he said.
“The fly didn’t land on the other nine cubes,” she said. “Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
“Because those cubes have no smell. Flies are attracted by smell. Sugar in its pure form doesn’t have an odor. But, if you add moisture to sugar, it will release a powerful odor. That’s what attracted the fly to the cube.”