From the CHEATER:
Dogger was prompt. I pulled in next to him and he got in the Caprice. He told me the name of the hotel and gave me the Zircs, fronts, and twister box. I took the fronts from the envelope, put them inside the circular, domed box, and twisted the bottom. The diamonds disappeared under a half circle of pleated velvet that worked like a mousetrap. I put everything into an oversized black calfskin briefcase that had two brass combination locks.
"Beep me after you leave the scene,"
Dogger said. "I'll meet you here."
"You go in at ten," I said. "I'll
knock at five after. Dogger nodded assent and we set our watches.
At five after ten I was standing in front of
Whitey's hotel room door. I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and
projected Raúl and his persona into the room. I knocked. Whitey opened. I
entered.
"Raúl. How have you been?" Whitey asked, offering me his hand.
We shook
"Successful, Mr. Edberg," I said.
"I'd
like you to meet my associates, Chuck and Lou," he said, indicating Dogger
and the mark with a gesture.
I nodded
my head slightly as I grasped each hand. Whitey had already shown the mark the
burglary story in the phony edition of the International Herald.
"Tell us about your latest acquisition, Raúl," Whitey said.
"As
you know, I recently returned from the Italian Riviera. I brought back twenty
one perfectly matched three carat diamonds with me. The stones are from a
choker that belonged to the wife of a rich German. The necklace had a twenty
carat, emerald cut, blue sapphire at the clasp, but I moved it in New York, to
an old friend."
"Please give us a look," Whitey said. "I can't stand
suspense."
Going to
a round table with four chairs, I sat with my back to the window. As I opened
the briefcase, Whitey plugged in a high intensity lamp, to make the stones
sparkle, and closed the blackout drapes.
I removed
a two foot square piece of black velvet from the briefcase and spread it on the
table. Whitey sat to my left, Dogger facing me, and Lou, the mark, on my right.
Taking the pouch of Zircs out, I drew it across the piece of black velvet. The
sparkling gems tumbled out in an icy cascade of con.
Whitey
removed a pair of jewelers' tweezers from an inside jacket pocket. Using them
like chopsticks, he darted in among the stones. Stirring. Mixing. Preparing a
cold meal to feed a sucker's dream.
"Let's talk goods and money," he said.
"Twenty one, matched, three carat diamonds," I said.
"VVS1 grade, E color. Brilliant cut. Wholesale value of one hundred fifty
thousand per stone, for a total of three million one hundred fifty thousand.
I'll take a million and a quarter for the lot."
"Chuck," Whitey said, looking at Dogger. "I'll put up
seven hundred fifty thousand. You come with the other five hundred thousand and
they're ours."
"I'm
sorry, Mr. Edberg. I don't have it. During the last couple of weeks, I've been
going bad, and lost over four hundred thousand shooting crap."
"Mr.
Edberg," I said. "Your partner is short."
"Raúl," Whitey said. "I'll take twelve stones now, for
the seven hundred fifty thousand, and give you six hundred thousand, for the
nine remaining diamonds, in two months."
"I
came here to sell the twenty one diamonds as a set. I already have a firm offer
of a million one hundred thousand from a buyer in San Francisco. I'm going
there now," I said, starting to gather up the stones.
"I
don't know what to say, Mr. Edberg," Dogger said.
Whitey
shot him a look of disgust and Dogger left the suite.
I
finished putting the Zircs in the pouch, casually tossed it into the briefcase,
and began folding the piece of black velvet. Whitey opened the drapes and
unplugged the lamp.
"Mr.
Edberg," Lou said. "If you'll have me for a partner, I'll take up
Chuck's slack and put up the five hundred thousand."
"Fine with me," Whitey said. "Raúl?"
"I
only deal with experienced fences," I said. "If the merch isn't
handled right, it's a laser beam trail back to me."
"But
Lou is experienced," Whitey argued. "He and I have done this kind of
deal together."
Lou sat
down across from me, Whitey on my left. I grabbed the pouch and shot the Zircs
out of it like dice from a cup. Betting on the come.
"Raúl.
Lou and I want to take a couple of these diamonds and have them appraised. May
we?"
"Certainly, Mr. Edberg, that's what we do every time."
"You
pick them, Lou," Whitey said.
I handed
Whitey the twister box. He opened it and looked inside. Lou made his
selections, put the Zircs in the offered box, and Whitey closed it. I lifted
one corner of the black velvet and dropped it over the remaining nineteen
stones. When Lou glanced toward the center of the table, Whitey gave the bottom
of the box a half-turn and handed it to the mark.
"We'll be back as soon as possible, Raúl," Whitey said.
Lou put
the box in his outside, right sport coat pocket as they left.
Whitey
would have Lou pick a diamond appraiser from the yellow pages, check the
stones, and get Lou's money. When they returned to the hotel room, Lou was
carrying a new briefcase. I had never moved from my chair.
They sat
at the table. Whitey twisted the bottom of the box, opened it, and dumped out
the two Zircons.
"Everything's in order, Raúl,"
Whitey said.
"In
that case," I said, "a million two hundred fifty thousand is all I
need to conclude our business."
Whitey
pulled out an aluminum suitcase from beneath the bed, opened it, and took out a
nylon day pack. He sat down and lined up seven stacks of boodled up bills with
a half stack on top. Twenty packets of five thousand in a stack. Each five
thousand dollar boodle had hundreds on the outside, ones on the inside, and
thick rubber bands on the ends.
I picked up one boodle at a time, riffling
lightly through the bills, starting just as I lowered the money to my
briefcase. When I finished, I turned to Lou. He opened his new briefcase
without prompting and piled up fifty ten thousand dollar packets of cash, each
wrapped with a rubber band. Five thousand is the rubber band number. Lou was
almost sharp. Better dead ignorant than half smart.
Unconcerned, I thumbed Lou's money, giving a cursory glance at the cash,
showing the mark my confidence in him. Lou was proud of his honesty and
trustworthiness. He beamed.
I closed
the large briefcase and got up. "Gentlemen," I said. "Thank you
both. Mr. Edberg. I'll call you in six or seven months with another batch of
goods."
We shook
hands all around and I left. Two blocks from the hotel, I paged Dogger, using
seven threes, and went to the deli. I parked next to the pickup. He lowered his
window.
"Cool," I said.
"I'll follow you to my house," Dogger said. "Drive right
into the garage, I'll open it with the remote."
This time
Dogger drove the crash car. Different action. We stashed our end, two hundred
and fifty thousand. On the way back to the deli, Dogger rented a motel room
just off the Strip for our meet with Whitey. When we entered the deli parking
lot, Whitey started walking toward Dogger's truck. He got in and I followed
them to the motel. We gave Whitey all the tools, his end of the score,
including the boodles, and Dogger took him to another hotel on the Strip, where
he would call a limousine to take him to Los Angeles. No baggage checks when
you go limo.
After
Dogger dropped Whitey off, he followed me to the warehouse.
"A
smooth one twenty five apiece," Dogger said. "Whitey's the best I've
ever seen."
"And
Lou is in mark heaven, until he tries to move one of those Zircs," I said.
"Meanwhile, he's on a high few people can reach. It's the best day of his
life."
"I'm
ready with the info on the jackpots. Let's meet here in the morning and go over
the list, because I want to check out your BJ moves. See if you've lost
it."
I summed
up the day. Big money, but the downside of prison is factored into every scam.
Plus or minus is for accountants. It was exciting. A sweet score.
I was
practicing blackjack moves when Dogger knocked. I checked through the peephole
in the front door before letting him in. He followed me to the twenty-one table
and sat at third base. I took my seat next to first.
We didn't
speak.
Putting
two playing cards face down in front of me, I started handmucking an extra card
in and out, using my right hand only. A natural look. Afterward, I got out a
clear plastic, second dealing shoe and loaded it with four decks.
The
gaffed dealing shoe was designed and built by a half- deaf whack out guy who
had turned his collar around, and worked all over the Strip fingering cheaters
from the eye in the sky. He was of a hybrid species that proliferated in Las
Vegas: Half snake. Half rat. No belly.
In the
early seventies, Dogger and I kicked in the snake/ rat's house, beating him for
over two hundred thousand in cash and jewels, and the black plastic shoe. We
gave the shoe to Nuke "The Inventor" Allerby, who had designed and
built the current, clear plastic shoe I was dealing with. It had a plastic
prism, and was locked by a magnet concealed in the dealer's ring. During the
past ten years, the two dealing shoe, and its technology, had become well
known. I kept my hand in because we steered the occasional sucker against it.
Dogger
watched me deal several rounds from the gaffed box. "You still get the
championship buckle, Stone."
"Dogger. I practiced handmucking two hours a day, every day, in the
joint," I said. "I'm burned out on practice. What I need is live
action."
"I'm
game."
"Did
you find any jackpots?"
Dogger
moved from third base to the middle of the table and opened a small notebook.
"Here's a list of ten jackpots. The largest is eight point three million,
the smallest is one point two. Four Downtown joints, six on the Strip. You look
them over, then we'll talk about it. Find anything in Reno?"
"Didn't look. Wanted to get back here," I said. "Let's go
see Nuke."
Nuke
Allerby lived in a ranch style house with an air‑conditioned aluminum building
in the back yard that he used as a lab and workshop to develop his inventions.
He was a nuclear physicist and engineer who had worked at the Nevada Nuclear
Test Site until fired in a dispute with the federal government over safety
conditions at the site and at nuclear research, production, and storage
facilities nationwide. Nuke claimed that he and many workers in the nuclear
energy field glowed in the dark. Dogger and I had met him at a Las Vegas gun
club where we shot trap and skeet. I won that particular shoot, breaking one
hundred straight from the twenty two yard line. Nuke, Dogger, and I have the
same views concerning government, freedom, rights, and oppression. Nuke says
all governments oppress, but to different degrees. That governments lie is
understood. Government is a pimp.
Nuke is a
widower. His wife committed suicide after gambling away an inheritance she
received from her maternal grandmother. He blamed the casinos for his wife's
self-destruction, and waged a personal jihad against them by designing gaffs to
beat their games. I paid him cash, and 10 percent of what we stole using his
tools. He donated 25 percent of his income from gaff designs to anti-gambling
groups and Gamblers Anonymous. Nuke is a genius. A nonlinear, creative thinker
who taught me to see in a different way. To bring belief in myself to cheating.
To live in the world of the possible: If it can be thought, it can be done.
He's a radical environmentalist. Nutty as a road lizard. Real people.
We parked
in the driveway. The front yard grass was a foot high and brown. Nuke was in
the workshop. When he saw me, he threw his arms up, ran to me, and lifted me
off the floor in a bear hug.
"I'm
back," I said. "Ready to beat the enemy."
"Wonderful," Nuke said." I'm working on several high-tech
toys that you can use in our fight against casinos."
Nuke was
at war.
"Show me some magic," I said.
We
followed Nuke to a large workbench with several stools in front of it. There
was a parabolic antenna hooked to a VCR size black metal box with a computer
monitor on it emitting a grayish glow.
Nuke said, AThis is a computer that counts cards in
twenty-one. It=s linked with a sophisticated communication system that
transmits the information between player and computer.
"Maximum distance between computer and player?" I asked.
"Five miles on flat land."
"Unless you want to be the player, Nuke, it's not for Dogger and
me. But the Nadelman brothers might be interested. How much?"
"One
hundred thousand," Nuke said. "No percentage."
"I
know the Nadelman brothers," Dogger said. "They're tighter than
Dick's hatband. You couldn't pull a pin out of their ass with a D-8
Caterpillar."
"I
won't play," Nuke said. "Too tedious. But I'll train a buyer and
guarantee the functioning of the system for three years."
"We'll look around," I said. "Dogger's right about the
Nadelman brothers. Millionaires, but they still heel food checks. Sharpest dice
hustlers on earth. New York hard and culturally deprived. The younger brother
didn't even know white guys shot crap till he was thirty."
"What about that Japanese Yakuza boss from Gardena?" Dogger
asked. "He has a million dollar line of credit with the casinos and loves
scam."
"I'll offer him the deal for a hundred and fifty large," I
said. "Dogger and I split the fifty."
"Fine," Nuke said. "Sounds like your Yakuza friend could
do some real damage to the enemy bankroll."
"Nuke," I said. "When I was in the joint, I heard about a
hustler called Flipper. He flips coins and has something on it, laying down the
story with other scufflers that he has an eye syndrome which lets him see the
coin in slow motion, but it's a gaff. This guy has a lot of con and the Chicago
mob protects him. He beats car dealers and porn shop owners. The drawback to
his gaff is he has to get close to the coin to read the signal, so he has the
suckers put the coins under a newspaper or magazine, or puts his hands over the
mark's, then calls it. Flipper wears a
joint under his arm that I think might be a kind of Geiger counter. I want you
to try to design a quarter that will send a signal to a small receiver over a
distance of twenty feet. If you can do that, we'll score big."
"I
can do it if I can design a switch that can withstand the G forces of a tossed
coin and find a small enough battery.
"We're
looking at some slot machines with big jackpots," Dogger said. "But
don't know what we might run into on security countermeasures."
"We'll let you know about the Yakuza deal," I said.
"I'm
waiting for a special glass filter on the infrared light project," Nuke
said. "When I get it, I'll be close to something spectacular."
"We're going to Rollie's machine shop," I said. "I'll
show him how to make two square quarters into a single hollowed out coin."
"I'll be here if you need me," Nuke said.
Dogger
and I stopped at a bank and bought a couple of rolls of quarters to match up
two coins of the same year and condition.
