“Maybe she was getting her lipstick.”
“Admit it, you’re beaten.”
“The fact that she stuck her hand into her purse doesn’t mean she’s one of the Gypsies, or that she’s cheating. Crunchie will say anything to keep his job. If you bust this woman and she’s clean, she’s going to sue your ass off. You don’t want that, do you?”
“But she’s beating us silly.”
“How much are you into her for?”
“Ten grand.”
“That happens sometimes. Let me take a look and tell you if she’s cheating or not.”
“Why do I feel you’re playing me?”
“I’m not playing you. What table is she sitting at?”
“She’s at the second-to-last table in the blackjack pit, sitting at third base.”
“I’m going right now.”
“Call me after you’ve had a look. I don’t want to lose any more money to this bitch.”
He tossed Ike the phone. Lady Picassos were skilled female cheaters who secretly marked the backs of playing cards with special substances during blackjack, allowing them to know the dealer’s total before the dealer did. These substances ranged from daub to luminous paint that could be seen through special rose-tinted glasses to Vaseline jelly. Women were especially adept at this type of cheating and used their pocketbooks to hide the substance. He was acquainted with several female cheaters in Vegas who made their living this way, and he felt reasonably certain that one of them had had the misfortune of getting caught in Crunchie’s crosshairs.
Rising from the table, he threw down money for the drinks.
“Let’s go check this woman out,” he said.
The winning keno numbers were flashing across a digital screen, and the punishers paused to stare. Keno was a carnival game, the chance of winning so poor that it was rare that anyone ever did. But Ike and T-Bird didn’t know that. They didn’t know the odds, and in this town, that was usually the kiss of death.
They watched long enough to find out they were losers. Throwing their receipts to the floor, they followed Billy out of the cocktail lounge.
TWENTY-THREE
Blackjack had always been a popular game, more so after the movie 21 depicted a crew of fun-loving math whizzes taking down Vegas. The movie was typical Hollywood horseshit, but that hadn’t stopped scores of people from teaching themselves how to count cards and descending upon Sin City believing they could beat the house.
Billy spotted several counters in the blackjack pit. Their body language gave them away. Hunched over, never drinking anything stronger than a Coke, they stared at their cards with the intensity of accountants doing an audit. The casinos had developed measures to send them home broke, only they were usually too busy counting to notice all their chips were gone.
He came to the second-to-last table in the pit. The dealer was a woman with perfect posture who slid the cards out of the plastic dealing shoe at a rapid pace. The faster the game was dealt, the more money the house made.
He passed the table without slowing down. The woman at third base was a major speed bump. Mid-thirties, with a great face hidden behind librarian glasses and a blond wig, and a body that looked just right. He couldn’t remember seeing her around before. A newbie.
He parked himself twenty feet past the table to watch her play. To determine if she was cheating, he counted the number of hands the dealer dealt, divided by the number of times she won. She was winning more than 50 percent of the time, which was what marked cards gave you. Crunchie had called it right. She was a Lady Picasso.
He kept watching, hoping to catch her go into her purse and get the substance. Every painter had a little quirk that was unique. Some only marked aces, while others marked ten-value cards. The amount of substance they applied to the card was also unique. Some painters used small marks, while others preferred the larger variety.
Lady Picasso unclasped her purse. Out came a lipstick, which she applied generously to her lips. As she returned the lipstick, her hand stayed a little too long.
Busted.
When her hand came out, her fingers were spread wide and looked frozen. She’d put the substance on all four fingers so she could mark four cards in succession without going back to her purse. It was a nice touch, something he hadn’t seen before.
During the next two rounds, she marked four ten-valued cards that were dealt to her. To the eye-in-the-sky it had to look above suspicion, her fingertips lightly brushing the back of the cards she wished to mark. In reality, she was turning the deck into an open book.
“Guess who,” Ike said, handing Billy the cell phone.
“Is the bitch cheating or not?” Shaz asked.
“I’m not sure. Are you filming her?” he asked.
“Of course we’re filming her. The video’s inconclusive.”
Billy’s appreciation of Lady Picasso grew. She’d honed her cheating to the degree where the surveillance camera could not discern exactly what she was doing. That kind of skill was a rarity, and he found himself wanting to get to know this woman.
“Let me watch her some more,” he said.
“I’ve got a better idea,” Shaz said. “I’m going to tell Ike and T-Bird to pull her in the back and frisk her. If she’s got a substance in her purse, she’s going down.”
“You’re going to kill her?”
“That’s right. It’s how we deal with people that steal from us. Put Ike back on.”
He returned the phone to Ike. Lady Picasso was about to join Ricky Boswell in the closet unless he intervened. He wasn’t sure how to do that without getting himself killed as well, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try.
A slinky cocktail waitress balancing a tray walked past. Liking what she saw, she gave Billy a flirtatious wink. He stuffed a hundred-dollar bill into the tip glass on her tray, then whispered in her ear. She acted mildly disappointed, as if hoping he was in the mood for something else.
“Which seat?” the cocktail waitress asked.
“Third base, second-to-last table,” Billy said.
“Will you call me sometime?”
He said yes, and she gave him her number.
“I’ll take care of it,” the cocktail waitress said.
The cocktail waitress walked up to the table and stood behind Lady Picasso’s chair. She asked if anyone needed a drink. Several players said yes and gave her their orders. As she finished writing the orders down, she glanced Billy’s way. He mouthed the words do it.
The cocktail waitress was right-handed. She transferred her drink tray to her left hand, then deliberately ran her right thumb down Lady Picasso’s back, her thumb following the line of the spine. Gamblers called this the brush. Back in the old days, pit bosses would give players they suspected of cheating the brush as a courtesy. Move on, or else.
Lady Picasso sat up straight in her chair. Four-alarm sirens were sounding in her head, telling her to run. Standing abruptly, she left her winnings on the table and made a beeline for the lady’s restroom located behind the blackjack pit. Billy was impressed. Most cheaters would have stuffed their chips into their pockets before departing and wasted valuable time.
“Hey-where’d she go?” Ike said, just off the phone.
“I have no idea,” he lied.
Ike stood on his tiptoes, his height letting him look over the crowd. “I see her. Come on, T, let’s nail her ass.”
The punishers crossed the pit with the swagger of NFL bounty hunters preparing to cripple a quarterback. Billy followed, keeping his distance. Lady Picasso had run to the john for a reason other than her bladder being full. It was transformation time. She would lose the wig and the glasses, turn the top she was wearing inside out, and throw away her pumps for a pair of flats in her handbag, where she also kept a much smaller purse, the handbag getting stuffed in the trash. Everything about her would look different when she stepped on the casino floor again.