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

machine with cold, hard cash, Mary and Maxine began telling me what I’d missed so far. Their shift started at eight o’clock sharp; my shift started after I talked myself into the wig.
    “We taught school for forty years, Marci. We see everything,” Maxine said.
    Marci? Oh.
    “We can spot troublemakers from a mile away,” Mary added. “We know a prankster when we see one.”
    From Maxine and Mary’s sixty-hour-a-week perches, they watched the comings and goings in the casino, and were very well-versed in all things Bellissimo.
    “So this guy is having an affair with two women, and they’re both here today?” I asked.
    “I think it’s going to be a cat fight before the day’s over,” Mary said.
    “He’s the pit boss,” Maxine said of the two-timer. “And both the girlfriends are blackjack dealers.”
    “And get this, Marci.” Mary leaned in. “He’s married .”
    “Nooooo!” I threw my condemnation in there, too.
    So the guy was a three -timer. That couldn’t be good for the pit he was boss of. I took a pause to watch the sisters, who expertly played the games in front of them, all the while keeping tabs on the dramas unfolding at the blackjack tables and beyond. It wasn’t necessarily the video poker that brought the sisters here every day; it was the soap opera of it. All My Addictions.
    We played until noon with the sisters giving me the dirt on almost everyone who passed by: their fellow regulars, the barely-dressed girls handing out cocktails, and the purple-jacket people who made up the casino-floor security team.
    “Those security people are just here for show,” Maxine said. “They’re about good for nothing unless your machine jams up. Not a one of ’em could catch a cold.”
    Not necessarily welcome news.
    “Now, that bartender?” Mary tipped her head. “He clocks in then sleeps till noon. He gets between those whiskey bottles and acts like he’s doing paperwork, but he’s sawing logs.”
    I nodded along. “Why doesn’t the other bartender say something?”
    “Because when the one is sleeping, the other one isn’t ringing up drinks,” Maxine explained. “He’s getting out of the way of the cameras and stashing the cash.”
    “And that one there?” Maxine gave a nod to a passing waitress carrying a tray loaded with liquor at nine in the morning. “She’s pregnant again, but doesn’t want anyone to know just yet.”
    “She had a little girl last October,” Mary said. “Seven pounds, eleven ounces.”
    Maxine leaned in. “Named her Devon. Isn’t that cute? Devon?”
    I hit two straights in a row, whammying the second time. After several false starts, I finally got it out. “Ladies,” I cleared my throat, “how do you win that ?” I pointed to the dazzling marquee above our heads.
    “The jackpot?” Mary asked. “You don’t.”
    “We don’t, anyway,” Maxine added. “It will hit tonight about midnight.”
    “Really?” I asked. “How do you know?”
    “Because it’s time.”
    The three of us looked up. $7,883.60. $7,883.97. $7,884.22. The Chicken and the Sisters were in agreement.
    “And we’ve watched them do it,” Mary said.
    “Watched who do what?”
    The sisters communicated silently, debating. Maxine gave Mary the go-ahead nod, then Mary motioned me into the sister circle. We huddled. They wore the whispers of the beauties they’d been back in the day, and they wore bright red lipstick that tried to sneak away from their thin lips.
    “There’s a man who works here who has teeth so white they’ll blind you,” Mary said. “He’s a big ole guy, Dapper Dan type, and he has great big white teeth.”
    I believe I’ve met him.
    “He comes by late,” she said, “when there’s not a living soul in sight, and I don’t know what he does, but the game flashes.”
    “It what ?” I asked.
    “It just bleeps.” Maxine clapped her hands. “He waltzes by, doesn’t even really slow down, but when he’s ten feet gone,” she said, “the whole