I threw my worldly possessions into my car and drove to the Hard Rock. Traffic on 595 was the usual madness, and I darted between lanes while trying to focus on the task at hand. My wife believed that everything happened for a reason, and I wondered what was the reason behind this sudden turn of events in my life.
Exiting on 441, I headed south into Hollywood, the massive casino looming in the distance. Back when I was a kid, the Seminoles had made money giving airboat rides to tourists and putting on rinky-dink rodeos with the headlights of their pickups used to light up the ring. Now they were on top of the world and worth billions.
Entering the casino grounds, I called Black Cloud on my cell. He was there to greet me when my car was taken by the valet. He was a big man, with jet-black hair that cascaded onto his shoulders and a chiseled face that looked like something you’d see on a statue in a park. He’d done two tours of duty in Vietnam and come home with shrapnel in one of his legs. He walked with a limp but refused to carry a cane.
“It’s been too long,” Black Cloud said, pumping my hand.
“You look good,” I said.
“You’re lying. I look old and tired. What’s with the dog?”
“He’s my partner. Can I bring him inside?”
“Sure. We don’t have a problem with dogs.”
I followed him into the bustling casino. Everywhere I looked, little old ladies with arms like Popeye were yanking on slot machines, while men chomping on cigars were risking hundreds of dollars on the turn of a card. I couldn’t look at it without remembering the cow pasture that had been here not that long ago.
Once inside an elevator, Black Cloud activated the control panel with a special key, and we were delivered to the fourth floor where the surveillance control room was located.
“Welcome to the inner sanctum,” he said.
We walked down a short hallway to an unmarked steel door with a surveillance camera perched above it. Black Cloud knocked loudly, then faced me.
“We have a small problem,” he said.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“There’s a sting going on inside the casino. Our security team is trying to nab a group of cheaters. You’re going to have to wait until they’re done.”
“Any idea how long?”
“Could be awhile. These people have stolen a lot of money from us. We need to catch them before they do it again.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. I’d already wasted most of the day, and every lost hour increased the chance that I’d never find Sara Long. Before I could reply, the steel door swung in and a short man wearing a black turtleneck greeted us.
“Hey, Chief,” the man in the turtleneck said.
“Hey, Harry,” Black Cloud replied. “Any luck catching those cheaters?”
“Not yet.”
Harry ushered us into the room and shut the door. Dark and chilly, the surveillance control room was crammed with sophisticated surveillance equipment that watched the action in the casino. A gang of technicians sat in front of a row of computers, staring intently at the flickering screens.
“Harry, I want you to meet Jack Carpenter and his dog,” Black Cloud said. “Jack is an ex-Broward detective and a friend of the casino. He’s also part Seminole, so watch what you say around him.”
The man in the turtleneck pumped my hand. Beads of sweat dotted his brow, and I could tell that something was bothering him.
“Nice to meet you,” Harry said.
“Same here,” I replied.
“I need to run,” Black Cloud said. “Good luck in your search.”
“What can I do for you?” Harry asked when Black Cloud had left.
“I’m looking for a missing college girl that was in your casino two nights ago,” I replied. “There was a man stalking her. I’m hoping one of your surveillance cameras took a photo of him.”
“We’re dealing with a situation inside the casino right now,” Harry said. “Once we’re done, I’ll do what I can to help you.”
I followed Harry to the back of the room. Five men were huddled around a high-resolution monitor showing a blackjack game. The game consisted of seven players, a dealer wearing a tuxedo, and some bystanders watching the action.
“This is Jack Carpenter and his dog,” Harry said to the group.
None of the men took their eyes from the monitor.
“You’ll go blind doing that,” I said.
One man turned his head, a thin smile on his face. He was in his early sixties and Italian, with salt and pepper hair and a nose that had been broken a few times but hadn’t lost its character. His face was best described as intense.
“You a cop?” the man asked.
“Ex-detective,” I replied. “I used to run the Missing Persons Unit of the Broward sheriff’s department.”
“My name’s Tony Valentine,” the man said. “I’m a consultant. I help casinos catch cheaters. Do you know what grift sense is?”
“Never heard of it.”
“It’s the ability to spot a con or someone who’s a crook. Think you can spot a crook in a crowd of people?”
“Sure,” I replied.
Valentine turned to the others. “Want to give him a shot, guys?”
“Why not?” one of the men replied.
Valentine turned back to me. “Here’s the deal, Jack. The guys on the monitor are a gang of professional cheaters. They’ve been swindling the Hard Rock for a month, and have stolen over three hundred thousand bucks.”
I whistled through my teeth. The seven guys at the table wore baseball caps and colorful T-shirts and were swigging bottles of beer. They looked like a bunch of regular Joes, and did not fit the image that I had of professional cheaters.
“What are they doing?” I asked.
“They’re using paper.”
“What’s that?”
“They marked the casino’s cards, and put them back into play.”
“Can I see them?”
Valentine removed a worn deck of playing cards from his pocket and gave it to me. The deck had a red diamond design along with the Hard Rock’s distinctive logo.
“The casino subjects its dealers to polygraph tests every month,” Valentine said. “One of the dealers got tripped up in a lie, and confessed to taking several dozen decks out of the casino, giving them to the gang to be marked, and slipping them back in.”
“Is this one of the decks?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I examined the cards but saw nothing out of the ordinary.
“How are they marked?”
“They’ve been stained with drops of water,” Valentine said. “The gang only stained the high value cards, which are the most important cards in blackjack. The stains let the cheaters know the value of the cards the dealer is holding. That knowledge gives the cheaters a fifteen percent edge over the house.”
I removed the ace of spades from the deck, and held it up to the dim overhead light. When viewed from the right angle, the stain on the card was plainly visible.
“Why don’t you arrest them?” I asked.
The men fell silent, as did Valentine.
“Did I say something wrong?”
“The dealer who snitched was found in the trunk of his car with his throat slit,” Valentine said. “Without his testimony, we don’t have a case.”
“So you’re letting the cheaters play in the hopes of catching them,” I said.
“Exactly.”
“How can I help?”
“One member of the gang is reading the marks, and signaling the information to the others,” Valentine said. “That’s how marked card scams work. We need to figure out who the reader is, arrest him, and make him talk. That’s our best chance of nailing the gang.”
It was common when the police were stymied in a case to bring in a fresh pair of eyes to examine the evidence. I didn’t know anything about gambling or cheating, but I was good at picking slime-bags out of a crowd.
“I’d be happy to give it a try,” I said.
Standing in front of the wall-sized monitor, I tried to pick out the reader.
Cheating at blackjack wasn’t hard. Each player at the table received two cards, as did the dealer. The object was to get close to twenty-one, without going over. The dealer went last, and had the advantage of receiving one card facedown, the other face up. If the cheaters could learn the value of the dealer’s facedown card, they would know if the dealer was weak or strong, and play accordingly.
At first, I saw nothing out of the ordinary. The gang was drinking and smoking and having a swell time. So was the crowd standing around them. It was like one big party, and had Valentine not tipped me to the scam, I would have been clueless.
After twenty minutes of watching, something strange happened.
The dealer flipped over his facedown card, revealing an eight. His other card was a three, making his total eleven. The dealer dealt himself another card. It was a ten, giving him twenty-one, a winning hand. As the dealer raked in the losing bets, the seven men at the table frowned disapprovingly.
“Somebody screwed up,” I said.
Valentine put down the can of diet soda he was drinking. He shouldered up next to me, and stared at the monitor.
“You think so?” he asked.
“Yeah. I want to see this again.”
Valentine crossed the room, and two-finger typed a command into the keyboard that was wired to the monitor. The film was rewound. Again I watched the dealer pull twenty-one, and the cheaters’ reaction.
“See their faces?” I said. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“You’re right,” Valentine said. “So who’s the reader?”
“I’m not sure. Can we watch it in slow motion?”
“Sure.”
Valentine typed another command into the keyboard. This time, the clip ran in slow motion. Behind the cheaters I noticed a tall, menacing-looking Hispanic wearing a glittering array of gold jewelry. As the dealer raked in the losing bets, the Hispanic brought his hands up to his eye as if to replace a fallen contact lens.
“The tall Hispanic standing behind the players is your reader,” I said. “His contact lens fell out, which caused him to screw up.”
Valentine picked up a house telephone and called downstairs to the floor. “Put an RF tracking device on Table Sixteen.”
Hanging up, he smiled at me and resumed drinking his soda.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“The Hispanic is standing too far behind the table to be using signals,” Valentine explained. “I’m guessing he’s got an electronic transmitter in his pocket that he’s using to signal the others. Cheaters call these transmitters thumpers. A radio frequency tracking device should pick up the signal, and we’ll have our proof.”
“Are thumpers illegal inside a casino?”
“They sure are.”
A few minutes later the house phone rang and Valentine took the call.
“So they are using a thumper,” he said. “Go ahead and arrest them, but be careful. One of these guys slit our dealer’s throat.”
Valentine dropped the phone into the receiver. He looked tired but satisfied. All his hard work had paid off, and now he was going to get his reward. He called the other men over, and explained that the bust was about to go down.
I continued to watch the lanky Hispanic on the monitor. He had a menacing quality that the other members of the gang didn’t have. Then I spotted something that I hadn’t seen before. Beneath the Hispanic’s right eye was a small tattoo. I edged up to the monitor for a better look. It was a tear drop. Criminals often had tear drops tattooed beneath their eyes after they murdered someone. In a loud voice I said, “The Hispanic is your killer. Tell your guys on the floor to be careful when they arrest him. He’s probably carrying a weapon.”
Valentine grabbed the house phone and relayed the information to the men downstairs. “Put the heavy on these guys,” he said.
“That’s a new one,” I said.
“Just watch,” he said.
Sixty seconds later, an army of security guards appeared on the monitor, and swooped down on the table where the cheaters were sitting. Working in tandem, the guards upended the table, and wrestled the gang and the Hispanic to the floor. It was lightning fast, with the cheaters never knowing what hit them.
The Hispanic was handcuffed and frisked. From his pockets the guards removed the thumper, along with a thick wad of cash. Strapped to his leg was a stiletto, which was held up to the camera for us to see.
“You were right,” Valentine said. “Sure you’ve never done this before?”
“Beginners luck,” I said.
A bottle of champagne was broken out, opened, and poured. I had not had champagne since my wedding, and forced a glass down.
“So what can I do for you?” Valentine asked.
“Help me find a missing girl,” I said.