The Scam Read Online Free PDF Page B

a hand. They’re up one and a half million at the moment and they don’t show any signs of slowing down.”
    “What do we know about them?”
    “They came into town from L.A. on a private jet, walked in the door with five million dollars in cash, and booked the presidential suite for the night,” Goodwell said. “That’s it.”
    “I want to meet them.”
    “I thought you would,” Goodwell said.
    “Invite them to my private dining room for a drink when either they’ve tapped out or we have.”
    Trace hung up the phone. He wasn’t concerned about the couple winning, even if it added up to tens of millions of dollars. He was a firm believer that his profits came from the winners, not the losers. The winners always came back for more, giving up what they’d won and then some. He knew that from personal experience, which brought him back to the task at hand.
    He turned to the center of the windowless room. The only furniture was a stainless steel workbench and the chair behind it. They were placed under the room’s single light fixture, a naked bulb that hung on a wire from the ceiling. A sandy-haired man in his late twenties sat in the chair. He was good-looking enough to be a model, or at least he had been before the beating. His eyes were swollen nearly shut, his lips were split, and his nose was bleeding.
    Trace stepped up to the table and looked down at the terrified man. “You made a mistake, Stan.”
    “I know that,” Stan said, his voice wavering, and glanced fearfully to his right, where another man stood in the shadows. “Mr. Garver can stop hitting me now.”
    Garver was also in his shirtsleeves and was wiping Stan’s blood off his huge, meaty hands with a towel. His face looked like a head of cauliflower, the result of the beatings he’d taken prizefighting in his youth. He also had thick calluses on his walnut-sized knuckles, the result of the beatings he’d inflicted in the forty-odd years he’d spent in customer relations.
    “I run an honest casino,” Trace said. “Sure, we give the players free booze to make them careless, but we never cheat them. We expect the players to treat us with that same respect. You didn’t do that, Stan. You cheated.”
    “I’ve had a run of bad luck and I’m deep in debt,” Stan said. “I couldn’t wait for my luck to turn. So I nudged it along. It won’t happen again.”
    Garver spoke up. His voice sounded like each word was serrated and scratched his throat on the way out. “Show Mr. Trace your hands.”
    Stan placed his shaky hands on the table. He had long, slender fingers and manicured nails. Trace examined them and nodded with appreciation. Garver slipped back into the shadows.
    “They’re very nice. You take very good care of them, Stan, and that’s smart. Your fingers are the tools of your trade.”
    Garver returned to the table. He’d picked up a wooden mallet somewhere. It was chipped from age and heavy use.
    “No, no, no.” Stan started to lift his hands from the table but Garver shook his head, warning him against it, so he stopped. He left his hands where they were but looked imploringly at Trace. “Please don’t.”
    “I’m doing you a favor. Twenty years ago, I was the guy in that chair. Garver broke my hands with that mallet. It changed my whole outlook on life,” Trace said. “Now I own a casino and he works for me. I owe it all to that night.”
    Trace held his hand out to Garver, who gave him the mallet, and then pinned Stan’s wrists to the table with his massive hands.
    “You don’t have to do this,” Stan said, pleading. “I promise you that I will never cheat again.”
    “I know you won’t,” Trace said, raising the mallet over his head. “Think positive. Maybe I’ll end up working for you someday.”
    —
    Nick and Kate played blackjack for three more hours. At one point, they were up by $3 million. But by the time it was over, they’d lost all of their winnings and were out of pocket another