“How much weight have you lost?”
“Fifteen pounds. You wouldn’t believe how fat the camera makes you look.”
“Are you taking speed to keep the weight off?”
“Whatever gave you that idea?”
“Your voice is too high-pitched. I studied substance abuse in school. They taught us how to recognize the different symptoms of drug abusers.”
“And you think I’m abusing speed. How wonderful.”
“Are you?”
“Does it really matter?”
“It does to me. You’re the only mother I have, even if I hardly know you.”
A horrible silence passed. Tears raced down Amber’s cheeks. This was just as excruciating for her as it was for Mags. They both put their wineglasses on the coffee table. Then Amber crawled into her mother’s arms, and they shared a good cry.
“Have you ever heard of a website called Silk Road?” Amber asked.
They had graduated to room-service nachos and cold beer. It was 2:00 a.m. and Mags was going to feel like crap tomorrow, but she didn’t care. Something wonderful had passed between them, and Mags was going to hold onto it for as long as she could.
“That’s the site that sold illegal stuff, like weapons and heroin.”
“Right. Its creator’s name was Ross Ulbricht, and he lived secretly in San Francisco. Here’s the amazing part. The person who tracked Ulbricht down was a DEA agent named Gary Alford who works in Manhattan. Alford found Ulbricht without leaving his office.”
“How’d he pull that off?”
“He used Google. Seriously.”
Mags smiled through a mouthful of nachos. She hadn’t eaten junk food since going on her diet, and she’d forgotten how truly great it tasted.
“For my class project, I had to track down a criminal using just Google, then write a paper about all the crimes the person had committed,” Amber said.
“That sounds interesting. Which criminal did you pick?”
“You.”
Mags choked on a nacho. She sucked down the rest of her beer, and the storm clouds passed. Amber’s eyes had gone moist again.
“So you know about the cheating,” Mags said.
“I figured it out when I was little,” Amber said. “I always had new clothes and got great toys for Christmas even though Grandma and Grandpa were on Social Security. Then one day I got the mail, and it contained an envelope from you. I steamed it open and saw the money.”
Back in her grifting days, Mags had carried a stamped envelope in her purse addressed to her parents. When the sucker was cleaned out, she’d stuff half the money into the envelope, find the nearest mailbox, and send it off.
“How much about me did you find?”
“A lot,” Amber said. “You were busted more than a dozen times, but the charges never stuck. You must have had some good lawyers.”
“How can you find that stuff if the charges didn’t stick?”
“There’s a website that has mug shots from every police precinct in the country. If you’ve been hauled in, they have your mug shot. They let you permanently un-publish a mug shot for a fee. It’s blackmail, but I did it anyway.”
“You made my arrests go away?”
“You bet. It was the least I could do.”
“You’re not mad at me for not being in your life?”
“I missed you, sure, but Grandma and Grandpa took great care of me. My other friends didn’t have it so good. Their parents went through ugly divorces and they got hurt. Compared to them, my life was pretty stable. But I do have a question. Is that okay?”
“You mean about my busts?”
“Yeah. You were arrested in a casino in New Orleans for using a Taser while playing a slot machine. Your lawyer claimed a guy was stalking you, and the Taser was for protection, so the judge let you go. Were you cheating?”
“You bet. Every slot machine has a random-number-generator chip that is vulnerable to electric pulses. If you zap it in the right spot with a Taser, the machine will register a jackpot or let you play for free. I made a lot of money with it until the joints caught on.”
“That’s cool.”
“Stealing isn’t cool. Never has been, never will be. Don’t think otherwise.”
Amber’s cheeks turned crimson. “But you made your living—”
“Yes, I did. It paid the bills, and that’s the life I chose. But I knew it was wrong when I started doing it, and I don’t want you doing it. Understand, young lady?”
“I’ve never stolen anything in my life.”
“Ever shoplifted? Come on, be honest with me.”
“Not once. Grandma would have killed me.”
“Keep it that way.”
“I will. Thanks for being so honest. It means a lot to me.”
Her empty beer can did somersaults before landing in the wastebasket by the bar. Mags couldn’t have repeated the shot if her life depended upon it. Amber’s can followed, hit the wall, and miraculously landed in the wastebasket, the shot worthy of a highlight reel.
“It’s way late. What do you say we get some sleep?” Mags suggested. “I have to be on the set at eight a.m. or the director will throw a temper tantrum.”
“Is the director a jerk?”
“Everyone in the TV business is a jerk.”
Mags walked her daughter to the door and gave her a hug. The toughest conversation in the world hadn’t turned out to be so tough after all. All the bad things she’d done were in the past, and she hadn’t felt this good in a long time.
“Good night, honey. Sweet dreams.”
Twenty-Eight
Wednesday, eleven days before the Super Bowl
A lot of cheats in Vegas also hustled on the links. It was a great way to stay in shape, work on your tan, and make a few bucks on the side.
Every golf hustle was different. Some cheats lied about their handicaps. Others resorted to having their caddies secretly move their opponent’s balls to unfavorable lies. And there were cheats who coated their clubs with Vaseline to make the ball fly straighter. There were many scams like this, designed to give the cheat a few extra strokes during the course of a match.
Billy’s scam used simple math to give him a mathematical edge over his opponents. There was no trickery involved, and as a result, he’d never had a sucker make a beef. The scam only worked at the Royal Links course, which was located ten miles east of the Strip. The course was designed to reflect the links-style play found on the British Isles. There was the Road Hole and Hell Bunker from St. Andrews and the infamous Postage Stamp from Royal Troon. Making par was a struggle for even the best golfer.
Billy was a member at Royal Links in good standing and friends with the golf pro. The pro had taught Billy how to hit his drives straight and true and how to sink a putt from ten feet out, every time. This was the key to Billy’s scam — the ability to hit certain shots at certain times, every time. The pro would set Billy up to play with a wealthy guest looking for a friendly game. Most of these guests were strong players with lower handicaps than Billy. But that didn’t mean Billy couldn’t steal their money.
The scam always started the same way. Billy would play a few holes while making small talk. Where you from, what do you do, how many kids you got? It was his standard spiel and made the sucker think that Billy was a stand-up guy and not a person who’d resort to robbing him blind.
After three holes, Billy would ask the sucker if he liked to gamble. Every person who visited Vegas liked to gamble, being that there was nothing else to do in town except get drunk, eat, and see the shows. The sucker always said yes.
Billy would suggest two simple wagers. The first wager was to see who could drive the ball the longest without the ball leaving the fairway. The wager was for $500 per hole. If the sucker was wearing a nice shiny Rolex, the wager was a $1,000. The second wager was to see who took fewer strokes on the green. This wager also ranged between $500 and $1,000. During an average match, Billy would pocket between five and ten thousand bucks of the sucker’s dough.