Double Whammy (A Davis Way Crime Caper) (4 page)

A counter rolled up credits. It would seem I had one hundred. The touchscreen offered lots of options, and the shelf below it contained buttons with the same offerings. I could Deal; I could Bet Max; I could Double; I could Whammy (what?); I could Hold; I could Cash Out; I could Jump Off a Bridge. The bridge sounded best to me, but I pushed Bet Max instead, because it was the one blinking.

Oversized video likenesses of playing cards turned over in five spots on the screen, each with a pleasant plinking noise. I stared at the screen a little more. An entirely new set of options were offered as the machine began singing an impatient song.

“You got a whole fleet!”

I turned to my right. One of the elderly women was speaking to me. She repeated the odd phrase.

“Excuse me?”

“You got sailboats, honey.”

“Fours,” the other lady, the one who’d half-smiled, explained. “Fours look like sailboats. You got four fours. That’s a whole fleet.”

Oh dear. I looked from them to the screen, then back to them. “What do I do now?” My new hair swung back and forth with my head. All the fours, or the sailboats as it were, had a word flashing across their hulls: HOLD.

“Take the money and run,” the first woman said.

“Shouldn’t I try to get
five
fours?” Clearly, the machine had malfunctioned, because it was also advising me to hold the red two, occupying the middle slip between all the boats. And it didn’t match.

The two women exchanged a look. The one closest to me leaned in, “Honey, there aren’t five fours in a deck of cards.”

And this isn’t a deck of cards!

“And besides, you
have
five fours,” the other said. “Your deuce is wild!”

Were these women speaking a different language?

“You could Whammy,” the first one said, “but I wouldn’t do—”

Too late. I pushed the big red blinking Whammy button before she had the warning out, if for no other reason than to shut up the edgy machine. And oh, Lord, if it didn’t put larger cards in front of me, but only two. Where’d my boats go?

“Pick,” one of the women said. “You have to pick a card.”

Easy enough. I tapped the one on the left. It flipped over and revealed a four of the suit that looks like a paw print. Clubs, I believe. And they said this machine didn’t have any more fours.

Both of the women sucked in a breath. Before I could ask if I’d done something wrong or try to scoot the new four in with the absent old fours, of its own free will, the machine turned over the other card: a three of hearts.

“Well, I’ll be dipped,” one of the ladies said.

“Holy Moses,” the other said.

“Double Whammy,” they said in unison, shaking their heads.

“Did I win?” I asked. The machine was screaming.

“Sixteen hundred dollars, honey. And on your first spin,” one said.

“I’ve never seen anyone whammy on a four,” from the other.

Damn. I could get used to this.

And I did.

*    *    *

On my second afternoon of gainful employment, I woke the same grouchy cab driver by slapping a different hundred-dollar bill against the window, one I’d earned. Sorta. I wasn’t really clear as to whose money the gambling winnings were, so I thought it best not to wire any of it to my bank in Alabama, but spending a little on necessities, cabs and such, seemed permissible. I had the surly driver—as happy to see me today as he’d been yesterday
—
take me to the closest electronics superstore, about forty minutes away with him at the wheel, because he stopped at all traffic lights and waited for them to turn red.

“You know,” I started, “it’s dangerous to stop at yellow lights. You’re going to get hit.”

He threw it in park. Right in the middle of the intersection. “Do you want to drive?”

This was my last clandestine mission; I’d had enough of this guy.

He parked as far away from the door as he could and pulled a black knit cap over his face.

I sat there a second. “Would you mind dropping me at the door?” It was cold!

He lifted the cap to reveal one bloodshot eye. “You got legs. Use ’em.”

I’d been in the casino since nine that morning, ending my gambling shift after eight straight hours, when four lovely ladies lined up in a row: queen, queen, queen, queen! I whammied, my ten beating the machine’s eight, and my new friends, the sisters Maxine and Mary who, it turned out, were locals, retired school teachers, and came to the casino every day except Sunday (the Lord’s Day), celebrated with me. They called four queens a hen party, which I thought was funny. The game was entertaining, the elderly women great company, the drinks kept coming. When I remembered, with a jolt, that I was supposed to be working, I calmed myself with the certainty that if someone here wanted me to stop, they’d let me know.

As jobs go, I may have hit the jackpot.

Inside the store, I purchased the world’s smallest laptop computer. I would have happily used the laptop delivered to my room while I was downstairs lining up snowmen (eights) and cowboys (kings), instead of taking it for granted I could spend the gambling winnings that were technically not mine, but I didn’t want Natalie, or anyone else, tracking my cyber steps. I needed my own juice for my bathroom office.

Not soon enough, we were back at the Bellissimo.

“Are you the only cab driver on this side of the building?”

“Who wants to know?”

“Never mind.”

Thankfully, he had no advice for me today.

The computer, only slightly larger than a hardback book, easy to hide, cost a little more than two hundred dollars and couldn’t do much, which was fine; I wasn’t trying to hack into government databases or write a dissertation in the bathroom. The scrambling software I downloaded onto it cost quite a bit more.

Back in my room, sans itchy wig, it took ten minutes at my bathroom desk to learn the game the sisters and I were playing reached a positive expectation point for the players when the jackpot climbed past seven thousand eight hundred dollars, which it was closing in on. It was simple math calculated after a quick computer search yielded a complicated website that called itself Winner Winner Chicken Dinner Video Poker Calculator. I plugged in the numbers it asked for, which took donning the wig again for a midnight trip downstairs to memorize the machine’s payout schedule. The chicken calculator came back at me with this advice: Play the game after the big number goes past seven thousand eight hundred. At which point, so said the chicken, the player’s chances of winning the big pot by being dealt a royal flush—a ten, jack, queen, king, and ace of the same suit—were optimal.

This would be the hot iron Mr. Sanders mentioned.

*    *    *

Feeling froggy on the third morning of my new lease on life, I took my time getting ready for work, which is to say I flipped the pillow to the cold side and slept until ten. When my toes finally found the thick carpet, I emptied a bottle of aromatherapy goo into the lap pool this place called a bathtub, and stayed in so long I had to take a shower to recover from taking a bath. Thirty minutes later, I was prancing in front of the mirror admiring my trés chic outfit, and anxious to join my new friends Maxine and Mary at the poker game.

Five hours into my workday, I was stuffing my winnings into Calvin Klein’s miraculous push-up bra because Marc Jacobs’ equally miraculous messenger bag was full.

Six hours after that, I was back in my room, standing at the same window-wall, this time counting the stars. I climbed into bed with a goofy grin on my face, which might have been from the three cocktails I had for dinner, but I didn’t think so. My warm glow was a result of having landed the World’s Greatest Job.

The next day, I quit.

FIVE

Morning Four of the World’s Greatest Job began peacefully enough.

“How do you
know
all this?” I asked the sisters. I’d just taken my seat, and before I could even prime the video poker machine with cold, hard cash, Mary and Maxine began telling me what I’d missed so far. Their shift started at eight o’clock sharp; my shift started after I talked myself into the wig.

“We taught school for forty years, Marci. We see everything,” Maxine said.

Marci? Oh.

“We can spot troublemakers from a mile away,” Mary added. “We know a prankster when we see one.”

From Maxine and Mary’s sixty-hour-a-week perches, they watched the comings and goings in the casino, and were very well-versed in all things Bellissimo.

“So this guy is having an affair with
two
women, and they’re both here today?” I asked.

“I think it’s going to be a cat fight before the day’s over,” Mary said.

“He’s the pit boss,” Maxine said of the two-timer. “And both the girlfriends are blackjack dealers.”

“And get this, Marci.” Mary leaned in. “He’s
married
.”

“Nooooo!” I threw my condemnation in there, too.

So the guy was a
three
-timer. That couldn’t be good for the pit he was boss of. I took a pause to watch the sisters, who expertly played the games in front of them, all the while keeping tabs on the dramas unfolding at the blackjack tables and beyond. It wasn’t necessarily the video poker that brought the sisters here every day; it was the soap opera of it. All My Addictions.

We played until noon with the sisters giving me the dirt on almost everyone who passed by: their fellow regulars, the barely-dressed girls handing out cocktails, and the purple-jacket people who made up the casino-floor security team.

“Those security people are just here for show,” Maxine said. “They’re about good for nothing unless your machine jams up. Not a one of ’em could catch a cold.”

Not necessarily welcome news.

“Now, that bartender?” Mary tipped her head. “He clocks in then sleeps till noon. He gets between those whiskey bottles and acts like he’s doing paperwork, but he’s sawing logs.”

I nodded along. “Why doesn’t the other bartender say something?”

“Because when the one is sleeping, the other one isn’t ringing up drinks,” Maxine explained. “He’s getting out of the way of the cameras and stashing the cash.”

“And that one there?” Maxine gave a nod to a passing waitress carrying a tray loaded with liquor at nine in the morning. “She’s pregnant again, but doesn’t want anyone to know just yet.”

“She had a little girl last October,” Mary said. “Seven pounds, eleven ounces.”

Maxine leaned in. “Named her Devon. Isn’t that cute? Devon?”

I hit two straights in a row, whammying the second time. After several false starts, I finally got it out. “Ladies,” I cleared my throat, “how do you win
that
?” I pointed to the dazzling marquee above our heads.

“The jackpot?” Mary asked. “You don’t.”

“We don’t, anyway,” Maxine added. “It will hit tonight about midnight.”

“Really?” I asked. “How do you know?”

“Because it’s time.”

The three of us looked up. $7,883.60. $7,883.97. $7,884.22. The Chicken and the Sisters were in agreement.

“And we’ve watched them do it,” Mary said.

“Watched who do what?”

The sisters communicated silently, debating. Maxine gave Mary the go-ahead nod, then Mary motioned me into the sister circle. We huddled. They wore the whispers of the beauties they’d been back in the day, and they wore bright red lipstick that tried to sneak away from their thin lips.

“There’s a man who works here who has teeth so white they’ll blind you,” Mary said. “He’s a big ole guy, Dapper Dan type, and he has great big white teeth.”

I believe I’ve met him.

“He comes by late,” she said, “when there’s not a living soul in sight, and I don’t know what he does, but the game flashes.”

“It
what
?” I asked.

“It just bleeps.” Maxine clapped her hands. “He waltzes by, doesn’t even really slow down, but when he’s ten feet gone,” she said, “the whole game goes black for a second, then it pulls right back up. It’s real quick.”

“And you’ve seen this?” I asked.

“Four times,” Maxine said.

Mary held up four crooked fingers.

I nodded. Go on.

“The big guy leaves, then about twenty minutes later,” Mary said, “a really good looking young man comes and wins it.”

“Every time?” I asked. “Same two guys every single time?”

“About every three weeks,” Mary said, “like clockwork. We leave in the evening and the total is seven-thousand eight-hundred and some change. We come back the next morning and its reset back down to five thousand.”

“We just can’t stay up that late,” Maxine said.

“Does the good-looking young man work here, too?” I asked.

“No,” Maxine said. “He’s from Alabama.”

They said it on the same beat: “His name is Eddie.”  

*    *    *

Natalie Middleton was nowhere to be found, so I quit my new job in writing on a sheet of paper I tore off her monogrammed notepad. I told her I’d wait in my room until I heard from her. I left it taped to her coffee machine.

She asked me to play the game (check), learn it (check, check), and figure out who was winning it (check, check, check). That’s where I quit. I couldn’t turn Eddie Crawford in. If I pointed one finger at Eddie Crawford, he’d point all ten of his at me. (Or would that be eight?) It wouldn’t
get
ugly; it would come out of the gate ugly. They wouldn’t hold Eddie ten minutes after he started spilling my secrets; they’d be slapping the cuffs on
me
. And my father had no jurisdiction in Mississippi. At the very least, I’d be out on the street. Finding a new job after I’d been fired from my last one had taken more than a year. Finding a new job after being fired from
two
would take, what? Ten? Thirty?

This couldn’t be happening.

It’s not that I didn’t want my sister to be right (which I didn’t) about this town not being big enough to hold both me and rotten, rotten, snake-in-the-grass Eddie Crawford. And it wasn’t that I was so thoroughly exhausted with Eddie Crawford tripping me up at every single turn. (For two decades.) (Which I was.) It wasn’t even the combination of the two. The problem was, and the reason I was out of there: this smelled like a trap. I only knew one thing about my new job: these people wanted me to figure out the whammy-whammy game, and that could only mean something fishy was going on with it. If the fishy odor was coming from my ex-ex-husband Eddie, I had a way bigger problem on my hands. Taking him down won’t be the end of
him
. It’ll be the end of
me
.