He went back inside. Something was staring him right in the face and he wasn’t seeing it. Lying on the bed were the files of the seven agents from the Electronic Systems Division that Gerry suspected of being their slot cheater.
“You still there?” Bill asked.
“I’m here,” Valentine said. “Let me ask you a question. The laptop computer that was used for the diagnostic test. Is your agent responsible for programming it?”
“No, that’s done in Las Vegas.”
“By who?”
“The Electronic Systems Division. They’re responsible for programming all the laptop computers we use.”
Bingo, he thought. “You just figured out the scam.”
“I did?”
“Yes. Your cheating agent is programming the laptops to scam slot machines all over the state. He’s letting your field agents do the dirty work for him.”
“For the love of Christ.”
“Where’s your field agent right now?”
“He’s still in the Peppermill’s surveillance control room,” Bill said. “It’s on the third floor of the casino.”
“Call him, and tell him I’ll be right down.”
Valentine ended the call and went to the door that joined his room to Gerry’s. He rapped loudly, and his son appeared a moment later wearing nothing but his briefs.
“Put your clothes on,” Valentine said. “I need you to help me catch a cheater.”
The Peppermill’s surveillance control room was a chilly, windowless space filled with some of the most sophisticated electronic surveillance equipment money could buy. The five technicians on duty were required to watch four rotating video monitors, while fielding phone calls from the floor below. Valentine had once heard the job likened to air traffic control. Long hours of boredom punctuated by random moments of stark terror.
The Nevada Gaming Control Board field agent who’d called Bill Higgins was waiting for them. His name was Jim Impoco. Tan, early forties and with an athletic build, he wore a blue blazer and a blazing red tie. GCB agents could go anywhere they wanted inside a casino, and Impoco had commandeered a corner of the surveillance control room for himself.
“That was fast,” Impoco said, shaking their hands.
“We’re known for our service,” Valentine said. “Show me what you’ve got.”
Impoco sat down at a computer, and typed a command into the keyboard. A tape of a young woman playing a Drew Carey slot machine appeared on the screen.
“That’s Rebecca Klinghoffer, the lady who won the jackpot,” Impoco said.
Valentine brought his face up to the screen. As Rebecca Klinghoffer played, she kept glancing nervously off to her right. Valentine had watched thousands of people play slots, maybe more. She wasn’t acting right.
“Where is she now?”
“Still downstairs on the main floor,” Impoco said. “The casino is stalling her, having her sign some meaningless papers.”
“That your idea?”
Impoco nodded.
“I want to see the tape of what she was looking at,” Valentine said.
Impoco called a technician over, and told him what he needed. The technician looked like a kid that had grown up wearing a cap with a little propellor on top. The technician noted the date and time on the tape of Rebecca Klinghoffer, then said, “This is going to take a few minutes, gentlemen.” and walked away before either of them could respond. Gerry, who hadn’t spoken a word since getting off the elevator, pointed at Impoco’s briefcase lying on the floor.
“Is your laptop in there?” his son asked.
Impoco nodded.
“Would you mind showing us how you use it to run the diagnostic test?”
There was a strained look on Impoco’s face, as if he knew that his running the inspection test and Rebecca Klinghoffer winning the jackpot were somehow linked. He put his briefcase on the desk, removed a Mac and powered it up. Within seconds they were hovering around the small but powerful computer.
“My laptop has a computer chip called a DEPROM, which can talk to the slot machine’s computer chip, called an EPROM,” Impoco explained. “With the DEPROM, I’m able to run tests on the slot machine’s computer, specifically its Random Number Generator chip.”
“Can someone inspect a slot machine without a DEPROM chip?” Valentine asked.
“No,” Impoco said. He played with the mouse on his laptop, and opened up the software used to run the inspection. “Each test lasts about fifteen minutes, with the slot machine running billions of numbers, which the laptop periodically analyzes to see if they’re truly random. The results are stored in the laptop, and sent back wirelessly to our headquarters.”
“So headquarters knows which machines are being inspected,” Valentine said.
“Yes. Our bosses read printouts every day. One bad machine can cost a casino a lot of money. We also collect information on the machine’s hold, which is sent to headquarters as well.”
The hold was the amount of profit the slot machine was making. Impoco played with the mouse some more, and brought up a sheet of information. “This is what I took off the machine after I did the inspection. Everything looksnormal. But my gut tells me that I did something to alter that machine.”
Valentine understood exactly what Impoco was saying. Human beings had been listening to their guts since the beginning of time, and it was still the best barometer when dealing with crime.
“So what you’re saying is, if someone could gaff the DEPROM chip in your computer, they could corrupt any slot machine in the state,” Valentine said.
“Right,” Impoco said. “Only, there’s one problem. The software program would be huge, and take up a large portion of my hard drive.”
“Which you’d notice,” Gerry said.
“I sure would,” Impoco said. “I scanned the hard drive earlier. There are no hidden programs.”
Valentine felt like they were talking Greek. He knew how to start his computer, how to send and receive e-mail, and that was about it.
“Why would the program have to be large?” he asked.
“Because each slot machine has its own source code,” Impoco explained, “which is essentially the machine’s internal blueprint. The source code is protected by an electronic fingerprint, which is a string of thirty-two numbers and letters. Since there are over one hundred thousand slot machines in the state, and my testing is purely random, my laptop would have to have allelectronic fingerprints in order to crack the machines.”
“And that would take up a lot of space,” Valentine said.
“Enough for me to notice,” Impoco replied.
“Here’s the surveillance tape you requested,” the tech called out from the other side of the room. “Hope you find what you’re looking for.”
A tape appeared on the monitor. Impoco, Valentine and his son leaned forward to stare. It showed the area of the casino which Rebecca Klinghoffer had been staring at. An elderly man with stooped shoulders stood in the picture. Beside him, a boy eating an ice cream cone . Valentine stared at the boy’s face. The apple hadn’t fallen very far from the tree. It was Rebecca’s son.
Valentine shifted his attention to the elderly man. He looked like he was developing a humpback, which happened to older people with arthritis. His face was a road map of the hard life, with more wrinkles than you could count. The elderly man didn’t look familiar, yet there was something about him which wasfamiliar. Not his face or his appearance but something about the image he was projecting.
Valentine stepped back from the monitor. Sometimes the best way to look at a puzzle was from afar, and he kept stepping back until it hit him what was familiar.
It was the elderly man’s pants. They were hispants.
“Did Bronco steal myclothes out of the trunk of the car?” Valentine asked his son.
Gerry had seen it as well, and was practically jumping up and down.