Double Whammy (A Davis Way Crime Caper) Read Online Free PDF Page A

legs. Use ’em.”
    I’d been in the casino since nine that morning, ending my gambling shift after eight straight hours, when four lovely ladies lined up in a row: queen, queen, queen, queen! I whammied, my ten beating the machine’s eight, and my new friends, the sisters Maxine and Mary who, it turned out, were locals, retired school teachers, and came to the casino every day except Sunday (the Lord’s Day), celebrated with me. They called four queens a hen party, which I thought was funny. The game was entertaining, the elderly women great company, the drinks kept coming. When I remembered, with a jolt, that I was supposed to be working, I calmed myself with the certainty that if someone here wanted me to stop, they’d let me know.
    As jobs go, I may have hit the jackpot.
    Inside the store, I purchased the world’s smallest laptop computer. I would have happily used the laptop delivered to my room while I was downstairs lining up snowmen (eights) and cowboys (kings), instead of taking it for granted I could spend the gambling winnings that were technically not mine, but I didn’t want Natalie, or anyone else, tracking my cyber steps. I needed my own juice for my bathroom office.
    Not soon enough, we were back at the Bellissimo.
    “Are you the only cab driver on this side of the building?”
    “Who wants to know?”
    “Never mind.”
    Thankfully, he had no advice for me today.
    The computer, only slightly larger than a hardback book, easy to hide, cost a little more than two hundred dollars and couldn’t do much, which was fine; I wasn’t trying to hack into government databases or write a dissertation in the bathroom. The scrambling software I downloaded onto it cost quite a bit more.
    Back in my room, sans itchy wig, it took ten minutes at my bathroom desk to learn the game the sisters and I were playing reached a positive expectation point for the players when the jackpot climbed past seven thousand eight hundred dollars, which it was closing in on. It was simple math calculated after a quick computer search yielded a complicated website that called itself Winner Winner Chicken Dinner Video Poker Calculator. I plugged in the numbers it asked for, which took donning the wig again for a midnight trip downstairs to memorize the machine’s payout schedule. The chicken calculator came back at me with this advice: Play the game after the big number goes past seven thousand eight hundred. At which point, so said the chicken, the player’s chances of winning the big pot by being dealt a royal flush—a ten, jack, queen, king, and ace of the same suit—were optimal.
    This would be the hot iron Mr. Sanders mentioned.
      
    *    *    *
      
    Feeling froggy on the third morning of my new lease on life, I took my time getting ready for work, which is to say I flipped the pillow to the cold side and slept until ten. When my toes finally found the thick carpet, I emptied a bottle of aromatherapy goo into the lap pool this place called a bathtub, and stayed in so long I had to take a shower to recover from taking a bath. Thirty minutes later, I was prancing in front of the mirror admiring my trés chic outfit, and anxious to join my new friends Maxine and Mary at the poker game.
    Five hours into my workday, I was stuffing my winnings into Calvin Klein’s miraculous push-up bra because Marc Jacobs’ equally miraculous messenger bag was full.
    Six hours after that, I was back in my room, standing at the same window-wall, this time counting the stars. I climbed into bed with a goofy grin on my face, which might have been from the three cocktails I had for dinner, but I didn’t think so. My warm glow was a result of having landed the World’s Greatest Job.
    The next day, I quit.
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
    FIVE
     
     
      
    Morning Four of the World’s Greatest Job began peacefully enough.
    “How do you know all this?” I asked the sisters. I’d just taken my seat, and before I could even prime the video poker