“Did you see a paper clip on the floor?”

“No, but there has to be one.”

Valentine searched the floor beneath the table. The carpet was sticking up after being vacuumed, and he walked over to the cleaning men and took out his wallet. They instantly silenced their machines.

“Which one of you cleaned that table?” he asked, pointing.

None of the men spoke English, but their eyes said they were eager to help. Rufus came over and asked them in Spanish, which he spoke without an accent. One of the cleaning men stepped forward and raised his hand.

“I clean,” the man said haltingly.

Rufus asked him to open the bag on his vacuum. The man obliged, and Valentine handed him a twenty-dollar bill. The man’s face lit up.

Rufus glanced into the bag, then stuck his hand in up to the elbow, and twirled his long fingers around. Moments later he pulled out an object, and held it up to the light. It was a paper clip painted black. Mucking cards during play was the hardest cheating known to man. No matter how good a mucker was, he never drew attention to himself, and played under the radar. This wasn’t Skip DeMarco’s scam; it was somebody else’s.

“Looks like we’ve got another cheater working the tournament,” Valentine said.

8

Hanging out with Eddie Davis was a step back in time. Outside of being an undercover detective, Davis was like a lot of guys Gerry had grown up with. He was single, liked to frequent clubs and singles bars, and drove a souped-up car. He was an eighteen-year-old kid in a forty-year-old body, and enjoying every minute of it.

Davis was also a night owl, and they did a loop of the island, eventually returning to the Atlantic City Expressway entrance. Gerry found himself remembering the housing development that once stood there, and the park with a statue of Christopher Columbus. The park had been one of his father’s favorite places; his mother’s, too.

Davis’s cell phone began to play the theme song from the TV show Cops. Bad boys, bad boys, what’cha gonna do, what’cha gonna do when they come for you?He ripped the phone from the Velcro pad on the dash.

“Davis here.”

“Eddie, it’s Joey,” his caller said. “I need help. I’m at Bally’s with our friends.”

Davis’s brow knotted. “You got them pinned down?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll be right over.” Davis closed the phone. His tires ripped the macadam as they took off.

“Trouble?” Gerry asked.

“There’s a gang of blackjack cheaters we’ve been trying to nail for a month. Two men, one woman. My partner spotted them at Bally’s.”

“Is the woman nicking cards?”

Davis’s head jerked in his direction. “How did you know that?”

Nail-nicking cards in blackjack was a speciality among female cheaters. The woman would put in the work with her fingernails while no one was looking, then her partner would read the cards before they were dealt from the shoe, and signal them to the gang’s third member, who did the heavy betting—organized cheating at its best.

“Lucky guess,” Gerry said.

Davis got onto Atlantic Avenue, put his foot to the floor, and sped south.

“Not that it’s any of my business,” Gerry said, “but why haven’t you arrested them before now? It sounds like you know them pretty well.”

“We’ve tried to arrest them,” Davis said. “They always seem to know when we’re coming, and which door we’re coming through.”

“Psychic cheaters?”

“It’s starting to feel that way,” Davis said.

Gerry’s mind raced. The hardest part about cheating a casino was avoiding the police, who were always present on the casino floor. It occurred to him that Davis’s blackjack cheaters weren’t psychic, they were just smart.

Bally’s neon sign blinked gloomily in the pale night sky. The front entrance was jammed with stretch limousines, and Davis pulled down a side street and parked his car. He grabbed his cell phone off the dash, then turned to Gerry. “Sorry, but I need to leave you here.”

Gerry pointed at the cell phone in Davis’s hand. “You going to call your partner and tell him you’re coming?”

“Sure am,” Davis said, his hand on the door.

“That’s how the cheaters know you’re coming,” Gerry said.

Davis took his hand off the door. “Say what?”

“The cheaters are picking up your calls. That’s why you can’t catch them.”

The look on Davis’s face was pained, but he didn’t let it slow him down. “How are they doing that?”

“They’re using a police scanner.”

“Keep going.”

“A member of the gang sits outside in a car with the scanner, and monitors the casino’s in-house security frequency,” Gerry said. “Whenever the police want to make a bust inside a casino, they have to alert the casino’s security department. The security department calls the guards on the floor to avoid any confusion or problems. The guy in the car intercepts the call and alerts the gang. It gives them enough time to run.”

Davis held up his cell phone. “By law, I have to call Bally’s security department before I make a bust. What do you suggest I do?”

“Find the guy with the scanner,” Gerry said. “They’re good for about a hundred yards. Either the car is on a side street, or near the entrance.”

“You sound like you know all about this,” Davis said.

Gerry reddened. There were a lot of things he knew about the rackets. He hadn’t planned on spilling the beans to Davis, but sometimes these things just happened.

“I’ve been to the carnival a couple of times,” Gerry admitted.

Davis took Gerry’s advice, and checked the side streets on the north and south side of Bally’s casino. To the south was Michigan Avenue. The detective parked his Mustang at the end of the street, then strolled down the sidewalk while shining a flashlight into each parked vehicle. He returned with a smile on his face.

“What’s so funny?” Gerry asked.

“I just saw a couple of kids tearing each other’s clothes off,” he said.

The northside street was Park Place, and Davis turned down it while staring at his cell phone. Gerry could tell that he wanted to call his partner inside the casino.

“I sure hope you’re right about this,” Davis said.

Park Place dead-ended at the beach. As Davis drove to the end of the block, Gerry glanced into the vehicles parked on either side of the street.

“I think I saw him,” Gerry said.

“Which car?” Davis asked.

“The black Audi. There was a guy smoking a cigarette and talking on a cell phone.”

“Telling his buddies inside the coast is clear.”

“Probably,” Gerry said. “Gangs that use scanners keep a constant dialogue with the man outside, just to make sure the scanner hasn’t malfunctioned and stopped picking up the frequency.”

“Never can be too careful, huh?” Davis said.

“It’s part of the business,” Gerry said.

Davis turned the car around, and parked so he was facing Bally’s instead of the ocean. It allowed him to watch the guy in the Audi several cars away.

Gerry didn’t particularly like the view, but didn’t say anything. Bally’s was located where the magnificent Marlborough-Blenheim hotel had once stood, considered by many to be the island’s single greatest contribution to architecture. It was hard to look at the ugly building that had replaced it and not get depressed.

Davis took binoculars from the glove compartment, brought them to his face. The street was well lit, and Gerry realized the detective was reading the Audi’s license plate.

“How good’s your memory?” Davis asked.

“Photographic.”

“Okay. Remember this license. RFG 4M6.”

Gerry repeated the license number three times to himself.

“Is that a local plate?”

“That’s a good question,” Davis said, adjusting the binoculars. “Let’s see. It’s from Newark.”

Davis put the binoculars away, then called the station house and got transferred to a desk sergeant. He asked to have a vehicle checked out, then cupped his hand over the mouthpiece. “The license, Mr. Memory.”