“I smell a rat.”

“You think the stewardesses are involved?” Higgins asked.

“Yes. I can count on the fingers of one hand how many women I’ve seen play multiple hands at blackjack. It’s strictly a guy thing.”

The two players had increased their bets to a thousand dollars a hand, and drawn the pit boss’s attention. At the same time, the dealer at the stewardess’s table began to shuffle, and Valentine saw the dealer’s muscles grow taut beneath his ruffled tuxedo shirt.

“You see that?” he asked.

Higgins stared blankly at the monitor. “See what?”

“The tell. The dealer at the stewardess’s table is doing sleight-of-hand. That shuffle isn’t real.”

“I’m not seeing it.”

“There’s nothing to see. He’s a mechanic. But look how tensed up his shoulders are. His adrenalin is racing. He’s working.”

“You sure?”

Valentine nodded. Izzie Hirsch had taught him this trick. Mechanics often gave away their moves through awkward body language. They watched the dealer finish his false shuffle, then offer the cards to be cut. One of the stewardesses picked up the laminated plastic cut card. She stuck it into the deck.

“I saw that,” Higgins said.

So did Valentine. The stewardess had stuck the cut card in a brief in the deck caused by a piece of rubber band placed there by the dealer. Hustlers called it a “lug.” The dealer finished the cut, and fitted the cards into the plastic shoe used for dealing. Then the stewardesses began to stall. One threw a wad of small bills on the table, and requested more chips. The dealer slowly counted the money, then killed more time converting the money into chips.

“What are they doing?” Higgins said.

Valentine wasn’t sure. But he couldn’t stop staring at the woman with the Coke bottle standing behind the table. He crossed the room to a raised platform where Doyle sat at the master console into which all the casino’s surveillance cameras sent their pictures. “I need you to rewind this tape we’re watching,” he said.

“How far back?” Doyle asked.

“Five minutes.”

Doyle sent the film back in time, then hit play. Valentine went to the wall and brought his face up close enough to kiss the image of the woman with the Coke bottle. Her lips were moving, and he found himself smiling.

“She’s talking into the bottle,” Valentine said.

“Must have a mini-transmitter,” Higgins said.

The wall had dozens of different feeds. Valentine found the monitor which watched the parking lot. Parked in a handicap spot next to the building was a white van with large, moose ear antenna on the roof. The woman with the Coke bottle was talking to someone inside the van.

“Put us back to real time,” he told Doyle.

The monitors returned to real time. The four stewardesses were still stalling. Then, one of the women looked at her watch, and made a Can you believe the time?face, and left the table. Two of her friends quickly followed. The one remaining stewardess looked lonely. Seeing her dilemma, the two players at the adjacent table got out of their seats, and joined her at the lower limit table.

“Here it comes,” Valentine said.

“Here what comes?” Higgins asked.

“They’re going to ask the pit boss to raise the table limit.”

The two players did just that. The pit boss agreed, and the limit was raised to five thousand dollars a hand. A cocktail waitress appeared with a tray of drinks. As she served the gamblers, Valentine saw her hand one his drink, then his napkin, instead of handing the two together.

“Waitress is involved,” he said.

“She is?” Higgins said.

“She didn’t want the napkin to get wet.”

“Why not?”

“Something’s written on it.”

They watched the players place five thousand dollar bets in each of the seven betting circles. Valentine went to the console, picked up the house phone and called the floor. The head of security picked up. “Get ready to arrest these two jokers.”

“My pleasure,” the head of security said.

Valentine hung up. “It’s a cooler, Bill.”

“It is?”

“Yeah. The woman with the Coke bottle reads the cards coming out of the shoe to a guy sitting in a van who inputs them into a computer. The computer crunches the numbers, and spits out how to play the cards in the same order so the dealer always loses. Meanwhile, the dealer false-shuffles the cards, insuring they’ll come out in that order. The guy in the van writes down the computer’s instructions on a napkin, and hands the napkin to a runner. The runner brings the napkin into the casino, hands it to the cocktail waitress, who passes it off to the players. The gamblers draw cards based upon what the instructions on the napkin says.”

“You figured all that out just now?”

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while,” he admitted.

The head of security called back. “Ready when you are.”

The two players were already up seventy grand. The napkin was positioned between them. Valentine didn’t want a drink poured on it. He told the head of security what he wanted done.

“They won’t know what hit them,” the head of security said.

A half-hour later, Valentine, Doyle and Higgins were in Valentine’s office, toasting their good fortune. Not a single member of the gang had managed to get off the property. Handcuffed, they now sat in a holding room in the basement, waiting for a police van to take them to the station. The cocktail waitress was already showing signs of cracking.

“You boys learned the business fast,” Higgins said.

“Couldn’t have done it without you,” Valentine replied.

There was a return flight to Las Vegas that afternoon that Higgins wanted to catch, and when their drinks were gone, Higgins said he needed to run, and shook Valentine and Doyle’s hands, then departed. Doyle followed him out, and Valentine shut the door behind them, then sat at his desk and removed an Incident Activity Report from the drawer. Fitting the report into his typewriter, he started to write up what had happened, when his phone rang. It was Higgins, calling from the lobby.

“I need to discuss something with you in private,” Higgins said.

Valentine sensed something was up. “I’ll be right down.”

He met up with Higgins by the front entrance, and they went outside. Resorts’ valet was notoriously slow, and while they waited for Higgins’ rental to come out, his friend from Las Vegas explained what was on his mind.

“You’ve got grift sense, Tony. I saw it the first time I met you. You see things that nobody else sees. We could use you out in Las Vegas. I’ve got an opening in my department for a senior agent that I’d like you to consider. We’ll pay for you to relocate.”

Valentine was dumbstruck. It hadn’t been that long ago that Higgins had been teaching him the ropes, and it didn’t seem real that he’d now be offering him a job.

“What kind of money are you talking about?”

Higgins told him. The salary was twice what he was making, plus benefits. It was enough for he and Lois to stop skimping, and start saving for retirement. He’d been poor his entire life, which was why the words that came out of his mouth shocked even him.

“No thanks.”

“You sure?”

“Positive. It’s a generous offer, but I’m going to stay put.”

“Mind my asking why?”

Some answers were hard to put into words. Valentine guessed it had to do with his upbringing. He could still remember when Atlantic City had been the greatest place in the world to live, and he secretly longed for the day when the magic would return. Maybe it was a pipe dream, but sometimes those were the things that kept people going.

“This is home,” he explained.

Higgins smiled like he understood. His rental came up, and they shook hands. A few moments later he was gone, and Valentine went back to work.