The Collectors

She had looked directly at Tony when she added, “This is the real deal, Tony. No screwups.”

“I’m covered. I swear,” he’d declared.

• • •

Leo and A

A

Leo kept his eye on a blackjack table and a gent who’d been playing and wi

“You ready to do this?” he asked.

“Looks like my past–posters are just about ready to hit it, so let’s go.”

A

“There’s a third–section–straight–up drag going down at table number six. The two women seated on the right side are the check–bettors. The mechanic’s in the chair near the bottom of the table. The claimer’s the ski

Roulette tables were so large they were routinely covered by two ceiling cameras, one aimed on the wheel, the other on the table. The problem was the surveillance tech could only look at one camera at a time. The pit boss stared at her for a second, but A

Meanwhile, Leo sidled up to the pit boss in his section and whispered, “At blackjack table number five you got a bad dealer doing the zero–shuffle. The player in seat number three has a card counter analyzer strapped to his right thigh. If you get close enough, you can see the impression through his pant leg. He’s also got an intracranial in his right ear where he receives the call from the computer. The eye–in–the–sky won’t pick up the deck cut because the dealer’s movements obscure the slice, but if you get a handheld down here, you can record it easy enough from floor level.”

As with A

Five minutes later the stu

Ten minutes after that, A

Jerry Bagger rose from behind the huge desk in his lavish office, his hands in his pockets and several nice pieces of bling around his wrists and his muscular, ta

“Excuse me for not thanking you for saving me a few lousy grand,” he said in a bark of a voice that revealed his Brooklyn background. “Fact is I’m not used to people doing me favors. It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I don’t like the hair on my neck standing up. The only thing I like erect on my body is what’s behind my zipper.”

The six other men in the room, all in high–dollar suits with big shoulders that were not the result of padding, stared at Leo and A

A

Bagger spread his hands. “So you’re here. You’ve seen me. Now what?”

“A proposition.”

Bagger rolled his eyes. “Oh, here we go.” He sat down on a leather couch, picked out a walnut from a bowl on the table there and cracked it open using only his right hand. “Is this the part where you say you’re going to make me a ton of money, even though I already got a ton of money?” He ate the bits of nut.

“Yes. And you can serve your country at the same time.”

Bagger snarled, “My country? Is that the same country that keeps looking to lock my ass up for doing something that’s perfectly legal?”

“We can help with that,” A

“Oh, so now you’re feds?” He looked at his men. “Hey, guys, we got feds in the casino. Call the fucking Orkin man.”

The muscle all laughed on cue.

A

Leo said in a gruff tone, “You run what in a day, thirty, forty mil? You have to keep a certain level of reserves to comply with state gaming regs, but that leaves a lot of cash to float. So what do you do with the excess? Come on, tell us.”

The casino owner looked at him in amazement. “I wallpaper my fucking house with it, asshole.” He looked at his muscle. “Get this jerk–off outta my face.”

His men moved forward, and two of them actually lifted Leo off the floor before A

“I’d say that sucks.” Bagger rose and went toward his desk.

“I meant ten percent every two days.” He stopped, turned and looked at her. “What do you think of that?” she said.

“Too good to be true, so it is.” He took a steel–gray $5,000 casino chip from a desk drawer and tossed it to her. “Go have some fun. No need to thank me. Consider it a gift from God. Don’t let the door hit that nice ass on the way out.” He signaled his men to let Leo go.

She said, “Just think about it, Mr. Bagger. We’ll be back tomorrow to ask again. In accordance with my orders, we’re required to ask twice. If you don’t want in then, Uncle Sam will just go down the Boardwalk and give the deal to one of your competitors.”

“Good luck on that.”

She said confidently, “It worked in Vegas, it’ll work here.”

“Yeah, right. I wish I was smoking whatever it is you are.”

“Gambling revenue topped out five years ago, Mr. Bagger. So how can the Vegas crowd keep putting up billion–dollar properties? It’s like they’re printing money.” She paused. “And they are. And helping their country at the same time.”

He sat down behind his desk and stared at her with, for the first time, just a hint of interest. That was all A