"Sure."
"We have a secret little room with a better view."
Ray followed them up another flight of stairs to a small enclosed balcony with views of the gaming floor and the surveillance room. A waitress materialized from thin air and took their drink orders. Ray asked for cappuccino. Waters for his hosts.
"What's your biggest security concern?" Ray asked. He was looking at a list of questions he'd pulled from his coat pocket.
"Card counters and sticky-fingered dealers," Piccolo answered. "Those little chips are very easy to drop into cuffs and pockets. Fifty bucks a day is a thousand dollars a month, tax free, of course."
"How many card counters do you see in here?"
"More and more. There are casinos in forty states now, so more people are gambling. We keep extensive files on suspected counters, and when we think we have one here, then we simply ask them to leave. We have that right, you know."
"What's your biggest one-day winner?" Ray asked.
Piccolo looked at Barker, who said, "Excluding slots?"
"Yes."
"We had a guy win a buck eighty in craps one night."
"A hundred and eighty thousand?"
"Right."
"And your biggest loser?"
Barker took his water from the waitress and scratched his face for a second. "Same guy dropped two hundred grand three nights later."
"Do you have consistent winners?" Ray asked, looking at his notes as if serious academic research was under way.
"I'm not sure what you mean," Piccolo said.
"Let's say a guy comes in two or three times every week, plays cards or dice, wins more than he loses, and over time racks up some nice gains. How often do you see that?"
"It's very rare," said Piccolo. "Otherwise, we wouldn't be in business."
"Extremely rare," Barker said. 'A guy might get hot for a week or two. We'll zero in on him, watch him real close, nothing suspicious, but he is taking our money. Sooner or later he's gonna take one chance too many, do something stupid, and we'll get our money back."
"Eighty percent lose over time," Piccolo added.
Ray stirred his cappuccino and glanced at his notes. "A guy walks in, complete stranger, lays down a thousand bucks on a blackjack table and wants hundred-dollar chips. What happens up here?"
Barker smiled and cracked his thick knuckles. "We perk up. We'll watch him for a few minutes, see if he knows what he's doing. The pit boss'll ask him if he wants to be rated, or tracked, and if so then we'll get his name. If he says no, then we'll offer him a dinner. The cocktail waitress will keep the drinks coming, but if he doesn't drink then that's another sign that he might be serious."
"The pros never drink when they gamble," Piccolo added. "They might order a drink for cover, but they'll just play with it."
"What is rating?" ;
"Most gamblers want some extras," explained Piccolo. "Dinner, tickets to a show, room discounts, all kinds of goodies we can throw in. They have membership cards that we monitor to see how much they're gambling. The guy in your hypothetical has no card, so we'll ask him if he wants to be rated
"And he says no."
"Then it's no big deal. Strangers come and go all the time."
"But we sure try to keep up with them," Barker admitted.
Ray scribbled something meaningless on his folded sheet of paper. "Do the casinos pool their surveillance?" he asked, and for the first time Piccolo and Barker squirmed in unison.
"What do you mean by pool?" Piccolo asked with a smile, which Ray returned, Barker quickly joining in.
While all three were smiling, Ray said, "Okay, another hypothetical about our consistent winner. Let's say the guy plays one night at the Monte Carlo, the next night at Treasure Cove, the next night at Alladin, and so on down the strip here. He works all the casinos, and he wins a lot more than he loses. And this goes on for a year. How much will you know about this guy?"
Piccolo nodded at Barker, who was pinching his lips between a thumb and an index finger. "We'll know a lot," he admitted.
"How much?" Ray pressed.
"Go on," Piccolo said to Barker, who reluctantly began talking.
"We'll know his name, his address, his occupation, phone number, automobile, bank. We'll know where he is each night, when he arrives, when he leaves, how much he wins or loses, how much he drinks, did -he have dinner, did he tip the waitress, and if so then how much, how much did he tip the dealer."
"And you keep records on these people?"
Barker looked at Piccolo, who nodded yes, very slowly, but said nothing. They were clamming up because he was getting too close. On second thought, a tour was just what he needed. They walked down to the floor where, instead of looking at the tables, Ray was looking up at the cameras. Piccolo pointed out the security people. They stood close to a blackjack table where a kid who seemed like a young teenager was playing with stacks of hundred-dollar chips.
"He's from Reno," Piccolo whispered. "Hit Tunica last week, took us for thirty grand. Very very good."
"And he doesn't count cards," Barker whispered, joining the conspiracy.
"Some people just have the talent for it, like golf or heart surgery," Piccolo said.
"Is he working all the casinos?" Ray asked.
"Not yet, but they're all waiting for him." The kid from Reno made both Barker and Piccolo very nervous.
The visit was finished in a lounge where they drank sodas and wrapped things up. Ray had completed his list of questions, all of which had been leading up to the grand finale.
"I have a favor," he asked the two of them. Sure, anything.
"My father died a few weeks ago, and we have reason to believe he was sneaking over here, shooting dice, perhaps winning a lot more than he was losing. Can this be confirmed?"
"What was his name?" asked Barker.
"Reuben Atlee, from Clanton."
Barker shook his head no while pulling a phone from his pocket.
"How much?" asked Piccolo.
"Don't know, maybe a million over a period of years."
Barker was still shaking his head. "No way. Anybody who wins or loses that kinda money, we'll know him well." And then, into the phone, Barker asked the person on the other end if he could check on a Reuben Atlee.
"You think he won a million dollars?" Piccolo asked.
"Won and lost," Ray replied. "Again, we're just guessing."
Barker slammed his phone shut. "No record of any Reuben Atlee anywhere. There's no way he gambled that much around here." '
"What if he never came to this casino?" Ray asked, certain of the answer.
"We would know," they said together.
Chapter 24
He was the only morning jogger in Clanton, and for this he got curious stares from the ladies in their flower beds and the maids sweeping the porches and the summer help cutting grass at the cemetery when he ran past the Atlee family plot. The soil was settling around the Judge, but Ray did not stop or even slow down to inspect it. The men who'd dug the grave were digging another. There was a death and a birth every day in Clanton. Things changed little.
It was not yet eight o'clock and the sun was hot and the air heavy. The humidity didn't bother him because he'd grown up with it, but he certainly didn't miss it either.
He found the shaded streets and worked his way back to Maple Run. Forrest's Jeep was there, and his brother was slouched in the swing on the porch. "Kinda early for you, isn't it?" Ray said.