“No,” she said fearfully.
“Then give me back the money. That’s all I’m asking.”
Rebecca held up the diamond pendant and stifled a tiny sob. “He bought me this.”
Bronco stepped forward and stared at the pendant like his eyesight wasn’t so good. Scrunching up his face, he said, “You don’t have the money?”
“No, sir.”
He scratched his chin. “Would you be willing to earn it back?”
“I’d be willing to do whatever you want, mister,” she said.
Two minutes ago she’d been ready to shoot him. He hadn’t lost his touch, and he flashed the thinnest of smiles.
“Good,” he said.
“Have you ever heard of an overpay?” Bronco asked.
Rebecca Klinghoffer was driving her SUV toward the Peppermill casino in downtown Reno while looking in her mirror. Karl Junior was strapped in the backseat, watching videos on a tiny TV. “What’s that you’re watching?” she asked suspiciously.
“Just cartoons,” her son replied.
“Not Japanese cartoons?”
“No ma’am.”
“Japanese cartoons are evil,” Rebecca said, glancing at Bronco in the passenger seat, and then, finally, at the road. “What’s an overpay?”
“It’s a flaw in a slot machine’s wiring which causes it to overpay, and give away jackpots. The people who service the slot machines occasionally discover them. They’re supposed to fix the machines, but sometimes they don’t. Instead, they sell the information to someone, and that person goes and plays the machine.”
Rebecca lowered her voice. “Is that what my husband did?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Bronco said.
They had reached the Peppermill’s entrance, and she pulled behind a long line of cars waiting for a valet, and threw the SUV into park. “You haven’t told me how I’m supposed to earn this money back,” she said.
“Inside the Peppermill is a slot machine which also overpays. I’ll tell you how to play the machine. You will win a jackpot slightly under ten thousand dollars, which you’ll give to me. Once you do that, we’ll be even, and I’ll disappear from your life.”
Rebecca swallowed hard. “Wait a minute. That’s stealing.”
“That’s the deal. Take it, or leave it.”
She thought it over. He had scared the daylights out of her with the talk of prison, and he saw her nod. “All right. I’ll do it. Are you going in with me?”
“I’ll be nearby with your son.”
“He can be a handful,” she said.
Bronco glanced at the kid in back. Karl Junior wore the glassy-eyed expression of a child that watched too much television, but otherwise seemed a normal kid.
“Nothing that an ice cream cone won’t cure,” Bronco said.
My baby is with a strange man, Rebecca Klinghoffer thought, sitting at a Drew Carey Great Balls of Money slot machine on the main floor of the Peppermill. It didn’t matter that Karl Jr. and the man were standing only twenty feet away, or that her son was eating a chocolate ice cream cone. It still felt wrong. Rebecca waved to her son, while thinking about what she was going to do to her husband once he got out of the hospital. She would make Karl Sr. pay, that was for sure.
She unclasped her purse while remembering the man’s instructions. Put three coins into the machine, pull the handle; then drop two coins, pull the handle; then drop one coin, and pull the handle. Once she’d done that, Rebecca was supposed to drop five coins — the maximum — and pull the handle. That would make the Drew Carey machine overpay.
She took a roll of half dollars out of her purse which she’d gotten at the cage a minute ago. She fed three coins into the machine, and heard an electronic plunk!Then she grabbed the machine’s handle. Her daddy the preacher called slot machines the Devil’s playthings, and said they were evil. She pulled the handle anyway.
The reels spun, then stopped. Two cherries and two lemons. A loser. From out of the machine came Drew Carey’s unmistakable voice.
“Step right up— we need another sucker!”
The woman playing the machine beside Rebecca started laughing. Rebecca didn’t think it was funny at all. It was more like a slap in the face. She put two coins into the machine and repeated the process. This time, three strawberries and an orange came up. Another loser.
“Don’t give up,” Drew Carey’s voice proclaimed. “We want to build another wing on the casino!”
Rebecca glanced at her son, and saw him pigging out on his cone, wearing it on his chin and shirt. She hated when he did that, but right now it seemed the most wonderful thing in the world. She deposited a single coin, and pulled the handle. Another loser. “Ohhh, I’m so sorry, I guess that means another walk to the A.T.M.!”
Rebecca wanted to kick the machine. Drew Carey’s sarcastic comments had gotten her so mad that she no longer felt bad about ripping the Peppermill off. The machine had injured her, and she was about to injure it right back. What did it say in the Bible? An eye for an eye. And then some,she thought, putting five coins in and pulling the handle.
Within thirty seconds of winning a jackpot, a team of security people were swarming around her. Rebecca remained seated, and said nothing. The woman who’d been laughing at her a minute ago had become her new best friend, and whacked Rebecca enthusiastically on the back while calling to others in the casino to come over, and see what Rebecca had done.
What Rebecca had done was to win a ninety-six hundred dollar jackpot andshut Drew Carey up, the comedian not offering a single word of praise. Slot machines were evil things that preyed upon human weakness, and Rebecca promised herself that she’d never play another one for as long as she lived.
She glanced over at her son. Karl Jr. had finished his cone, and was clapping his hands enthusiastically, the man from the casino standing behind him, his hand on Karl Jr.’s shoulder. In church, Rebecca had heard stories about parents who lifted cars off their children in order to save their lives. The minister had attributed these incredible feats to God, but Rebecca knew better. They were acts of desperation, fueled by fear.
She had not wanted Karl, Jr. to go to a foster home. Anything but that.
She blew a kiss to her son, and saw him smile.
Chapter 35
Valentine was on the balcony of his suite on the eleventh floor of the Peppermill, watching the neon gradually replace the fading sun, when his cell phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket, and stared at its face. It was Bill.
“Hey.”
“How you feeling?” Bill asked.
Valentine frowned into the phone. He’d been assaulted, shot at, and believed he’d lost his son, all in the space of a few short hours. How did Bill think he was feeling?
“Never been better. What’s up?”
“Something just came up I think you should be aware of,” Bill said. “Are you in your room at the Peppermill?”
“Sure am.”
“Good. One of my field agents just called me from the Peppermill. A woman just won a jackpot on a slot machine. My agent was in the surveillance control room, and watched the woman play the machine. The agent said the woman didn’t get excited or show any real emotion.”
“Maybe she was looped,” Valentine said.
“That’s what I thought. My agent did some digging, and discovered two things that make me think he’s on to something. The woman is the wife of the guard who Bronco attacked at the police station this morning.”
“I thought the guard nearly died. What’s she doing playing the slots?”
“That’s why my agent was wondering. The second thing is, the slot machine she played is the same one that my agent inspected this morning. He gave it a full diagnostic test with his laptop computer.”
“Was the machine clean?”
“Yes,” Bill said. “My agent said that the woman went to the machine, sat down, and won the jackpot in less than a minute.”
Valentine walked onto the balcony with the cordless phone. Down below, the Peppermill’s entrance was lined with cars, the real day for the casino about to begin. Gambling was like sex; people seemed to enjoy it most at night.