The stone-faced pit boss hovered in the back taking this all in too. He was the court of last resort in case there were any problems, and it was his job to see to the casino’s well-being at all times while putting on a front of being fair to players. The casino world was not a touchy-feely one; there was only one god here and his name was money. And at the end of the day the casino had to keep more of it than it paid out. Yet this pit boss was worried, because he’d been doing this long enough to know a truly hot shooter when he saw one. The Pompeii was going to take one on the chin; he just had a bad feeling.

The table had a $50 minimum bet and a ten grand maximum, and Milton was laying his bets with surgical precision. He’d long since figured out all the statistical probabilities and was putting that knowledge to good use. He’d rolled a seven on his very first throw, the only time that number could be a winner. He’d won $500 on that fling of the dice with an aggressive initial bet and never looked back. He was leveraging his behind-the-pass-line bets, maxing out the fives, sixes and eights up top, then the nines and fives and the most lucrative, but least likely odds-wise, tens and fours, with the finesse of a decades-long craps impresario. He’d nailed a hard four twice and hit a hard eight and ten once each. He’d rolled his points six times now and the heat just kept building.

Finally, the nervous pit boss ordered a change in the table crew. The croupiers and the stickman were more than a little upset about this and their sour expressions showed it. Tips were laid on the house at the end of a shooter’s run, so these folks wouldn’t be seeing a dime of Milton’s winnings. Yet the pit boss’s command was law. He’d done it to cool down Milton and the table. But such a move, while allowable under the gaming rules, was always unpopular, and howls of protest erupted from around the rail.

Two security gents drifted over to the table after receiving a call from the pit boss over his headset. After seeing the hulking figures approach, the crowd quickly calmed down.

The pit boss’ ploy didn’t work because Milton hit his points three more times over an array of intricate bets. He was now up over twenty-five grand. Unless he rolled the dice off the table, the croupier couldn’t change them on him, so the nervous pit boss really had few tricks left to pull. He just stood and watched as Milton continued to mow down the Pompeii Casino.

A stunned quiet hit the table when Milton laid $500 down on a one-time horn bet that he would roll a three. When the one-two combo flashed up the bet paid off with fifteen-to-one odds, turning his $500 into $7,500. He was now up $35,000.

The sweating pit boss was forced to play his final card, subtly nodding his head at a ringer stationed at the table. The man immediately laid down a bet on number seven. This, in effect, was betting against Milton, for if he rolled a seven now, or craps, he was done as shooter and all bets on the table lost. In the gambling world it was generally believed that betting against the shooter generated bad karma, siphoning the energy off the table and causing the shooter to lose his steam. The crowd immediately started growling at the ringer betting craps. One man at the rail even bumped him, but the security stepped in and quelled this mini-riot.

Milton was unfazed by the casino’s obvious move to derail him. With the stunned crowd looking on, he calmly laid a thousand dollars’ worth of chips on boxcars, or the combination of six and six. This, along with betting snake eyes, was the most aggressive move one could make on a craps table, for it paid off thirty-to-one. However, because it was a one-time bet only, if he didn’t roll double sixes on the next throw, Milton lost the cash. Thus, betting a thousand bucks on boxcars was considered insane.

Absolute silence prevailed at the table. There wasn’t one square inch of free space at the rail and the onlookers were packed six deep behind the players, straining to see the action. Nothing spread faster through a casino than word of a craps shooter on absolute fire.

Milton glanced over at the pit boss and said, “Do you feel lucky? Because I do.”

Before the stunned man could reply Milton let the dice fly. The two cubes rolled down the felt, neatly missing all stacked chips on the table and bouncing off the far rail.

There was a moment of intense calm and then a collective scream audible around the casino erupted as the double sixes came to rest face up. Milton Farb had just won thirty grand and nearly doubled his take to $65,000. The guy beside him was whooping and pounding him on the back. The next words out of Milton’s mouth caused the cheers to be replaced with groans of disbelief.

“I’m cashing out,” he said to his croupier.

The sea of faces around the rail would have looked far more appropriate at a funeral or plane crash site.

“Let it ride,” one man screamed. “You are smoking hot. Let it ride.”

“This is paying off my kids’ college tuition,” yelled another.

Milton said, “I’m smarter than I am lucky. I know when to stop.”

This bit of truth never goes over well in a casino.

“Screw you,” a big man exclaimed as he strode up to Milton and put a meaty paw on his shoulder. “You keep rolling that dice, you hear me, you little prick? I’ve been losing all night until you came along. Keep rolling, you hear me!”

“He heard you,” a voice said as a far bigger hand was placed on the man’s shoulder, jerking him backward.

“What the hell,” the man spat out, whirling around with fists balled. He stared up into the face of the towering Reuben Rhodes, who snatched the stick off the table and held it up.

Reuben said, “The man’s done playing, so I suggest you let him collect his chips and go on his way, before I take this stick and ram it right up your fat ass.”

CHAPTER 32

LATER, OVER A DRINK in a bar, Reuben scolded Milton. “Dammit, first blackjack and now craps. I told you to blend in, Milton, not stick out. You’re making our job a lot harder by turning into a casino shark.”

Milton looked chastened. “I’m sorry, Reuben, you’re right, of course. I guess I got carried away. It won’t happen again.”

“And exactly how are you going to get your cash without revealing who you are? When you win big in a casino you have to fill out tax paperwork with your name, address and Social Security number. You want Bagger to have that info?”

“I read about that requirement, Reuben. I’m going to use a fake ID. They won’t know the difference.”

“What if they run the ID from here on some database?”

“My ID shows me to be a citizen of Great Britain; the U.S. has no taxing authority over me. And I highly doubt the casino is linked to any database in England.”

Sufficiently mollified, Reuben explained to Milton what he had learned from Angie.

“So if we can pin those crimes on Bagger, Susan will be home free,” Milton said.

“Easier said than done. A guy like Bagger knows how to cover his tracks.”

“Well, maybe I can start uncovering them.”

“How?”

“Oliver told us about this Anthony Wallace. Bagger found out about him and nearly killed him. Well, how did he find out about him?”

“I don’t know.”

“I know it’s late but call Oliver and Susan. Ask her for any information about Wallace that she can think of. Where he was staying, doing, that sort of thing.”

Reuben made the call and then turned back to his friend.

“Oliver woke her up and asked her. Wallace was staying in the hotel right across the street from the Pompeii. He was using an alias, Robby Thomas, from Michigan. Five-eight, slender, dark hair, a real cute-boy type. He was staying in a room with a direct sight line onto Bagger’s office.”

“That’s what I needed to know.” Milton rose.