Smoke & Mirrors (8 page)

24

DAYLIGHT WAS FADING WHEN BRAD PARKED IN THE
lot outside the Roundtable casino. The facade made the casino look more like a theme park for kids than a gambling hall for adults.

“You don’t know what this Styer looks like?” Brad said, shaking his head.

“Paulus Styer never looks the same way twice,” Winter said.

“You going to tell me any more about him than his name?”

“He’s the most dangerous son of a bitch I’ve ever encountered.”

“That much I sort of picked up on.”

“It pretty much sums him up and it’s the most important thing to never lose sight of.” Winter frowned and looked out at the casino.

Despite the medieval theme, instead of the court jester outfits Brad said the doormen wore under the previous ownership, they now sported tuxedo jackets and red cummerbunds with matching bow ties. The Roundtable’s owners had left only as much of the old place’s ambience as was financially practical. Winter read a sign in the foyer that said
CASH YOUR PAYCHECK HERE AND RECEIVE A
$20.00
CREDIT TOWARD ANY GAME
! He figured, with a rueful sigh, that it should have read
WHY PAY YOUR RENT OR BUY GROCERIES WHEN YOU CAN GIVE US THE MONEY
!

The absence of windows, clocks, or any other indicators of time in a casino was a clear sign that the owners didn’t want their clients to play according to nature’s schedules. Winter remembered that he had once read that the denial of passing time was just one of a hundred tricks casinos employed to keep gamblers seated until their pockets were empty. The use of magnetic cards not only tracked the customers’ game preferences, and their wins and losses, but also stored their cash by way of Visa cards, so they had no sense of losing actual money. The more a patron gambled, the more perks they were entitled to receive. The house rigged things so nobody left the place of dream fulfillment empty-handed. Lesser gamblers got cheap liquor, free soft drinks, key chains, and mugs, while the big-fish gamblers were rewarded with free flights in and out, meals, rounds of golf, lodging, companionship, and tickets for big-name performers, all compliments of the house.

A casino’s decor, chairs, music, and lighting were all carefully designed to make the customers feel safe and comfortable. Casinos were big supporters of the scientific community, and employed psychologists to increase their edge against the poor schmucks who wandered in through the doors—who were, in the end, hardly more than sheep lining up to be shorn.

Winter mulled all this over as Brad said, “Albert White is head of security, formerly deputy chief of police in West Memphis. His main job is to keep order and running interference for the casino. With the security cameras trained on the lot, and the internal security communication system, we won’t have to look for him. Either he or one of his men usually meets me on the way in.”

Brad and Winter strolled through the entrance, passing among the legions of comers and goers. Smiles on the faces of the exiting gamers were as scarce as talking monkeys. Just inside, a large man wearing a tentlike suit, carrying a walkie-talkie, and wearing a modified crew cut made his way across the crowded lobby to intercept the two men.

“Sheriff Barnett, can I help you with something?” he asked. His pale blue eyes sparkled. He looked like a bloated razorback that had been dressed up in a cheap suit and taught to walk on his hind legs.

“I hope so,” Brad said. “Deputy Massey, this is Albert White, head of casino security.”

The man nodded in Winter’s direction, the motion compressing his chins. “Chief casino investigator,” he corrected, smiling artificially.

“We’ve got a situation that concerns an employee of this casino.”

“Which employee?” His small eyes blinked rapidly.

“Jack Beals.”

“He’s off tonight,” White said, nervously, Winter noted. He tapped the radio against his leg. “I can get you his home address and phone number from personnel.”

“I already know where he is.”

“What sort of situation are we talking about?” White asked, his eyes darting around the entrance area.

“Dead-on-the-floor-in-a-motel-room situation,” Brad said.

Winter saw surprise reflected in White’s eyes. “How’d he die?”

“Suddenly.”

“Heart attack?”

“Loss of blood. Somebody cut his throat from ear to ear,” Brad said.

“Who?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Brad said.

White shook his head and frowned. “We need to take this to my office. I can get you next-of-kin information from personnel.”

“I’d appreciate it,” Brad said. “We probably have it in our files, but yours are going to be more current.”

By law a gambling enterprise had to float in a Federal waterway so the gaming wasn’t technically on Mississippi soil. So the water it floated on had to be Mississippi River water and the casino had to be floated into place from the river.

So, although the casino’s gaming areas floated on massive pontoons to keep the structure suspended in a concrete pond, the room had no more sense of movement than you’d get standing in a chamber in the Great Pyramid. As Winter and Brad followed White through the middle of the casino, Winter scanned the crowd of busy gamblers for a man with any trace of familiarity. Styer would certainly have altered his appearance, but Winter might see something in the way he moved, or recognize his voice if he heard it. The only patron he saw with a toothpick in their mouth was a solidly built woman with fried blonde hair and garish makeup, seated at a slot machine, who would have looked perfectly at home elbowing her way around a roller derby track.

25

ALBERT WHITE LED BRAD AND WINTER TO THE FAR
end of the gaming floor and down a long hallway into a small and windowless office.

The only items of furniture in the office were an industrial steel desk, a legal pad, pen, and telephone on its surface, and three matching chairs. This was clearly a generic office, used only when necessary.

“When Beals was killed,” Brad said, “he was in the process of committing an armed assault on a patron of this casino. A man who won a great deal of money earlier this evening.”

“Armed assault?” White asked.

“He was in a motel room with a silenced handgun, in the process of drowning the young man in a bathtub.”

“So this
alleged
patron killed Beals?”

“I’m not alleging anything, Albert. He was here all right. The assault was interrupted by a third party, who cut Jack Beals’s throat. Beals used his old departmental badge to gain entry and informed the victim he was acting on behalf of the casino. Beals told him that the casino wanted their money back. By the casino, I assume he meant someone in management, and not the blackjack dealers’ union.”

“And you know this how?”

“It’s what the victim told me.”

“How do you know he was telling the truth about anything? If he’s committed a homicide, murderers don’t always tell the truth.” White smiled uneasily.

“Because the victim was semiconscious in the tub when Beals got killed.”

White leaned in and told Brad huffily, “We’re a legitimate business operation. We do not beat up our customers, and the idea that our management would condone any illegal activity, or order it done, is preposterous. This casino is not owned by the mafia, for Christ’s sake. If we discover a customer is not playing fairly, we take their picture, have them sign a statement admitting their guilt—and they view the tapes themselves as a matter of procedure—take down their names and addresses, and tell them never to return. We blacklist them. We have our reputation and our gaming license to think of. I was a law enforcement officer for thirty years. If Beals was dirty, it is a total surprise to me.”

“I haven’t accused you of anything, Albert,” Brad said.

“Was he on duty today?” Winter asked.

“He went off the clock at noon, I believe. I could check that, of course.”

“If he hung around after he got off,” Brad asked, “would you have him on videotape?”

“Our system is digital, but yes, we would have a record of it. But our employees are not allowed to hang around here after they clock out. They don’t gamble here, or in any other casinos, or we fire them.”

“If he was here after his shift, how would you know that for sure?”

“We have cameras everywhere and our people would have spotted him if he was in the building.”

“So if Beals was eating in one of your restaurants, you would have it on tape?”

“We monitor the entire operation constantly. If I know what time you are interested in, I could locate the corresponding images—although it would be a time-consuming enterprise for our people. But we would be happy to cooperate in any way we can.”

“If he targeted the victim during his shift and had robbery in mind, I’d like to know if he had a partner working with him. A partner may have killed Beals, or might tell us who did kill him.”

White digested this for several long seconds. “I’ll put in a request for my people to go over the captures and see if Beals turns up while the patron was here. This sort of thing is something we obviously have to discourage.”

“You should be able to look at the blackjack player who was assaulted and see who was around him, maybe watching him. Can you do that?”

“I’ll see that it’s done and you can review the images yourself. If that’s all?”

“That’ll do,” Brad said. “And if you can give me your contact numbers?”

“This has my office and cell,” White said as he pulled out a card and handed it to Brad. “I’ll show you out,” he said, standing. “Can I fax you Jack Beals’s next-of-kin information? The personnel office is run by a skeleton crew until eight
A.M
.”

“That would be fine,” Brad said.

After they left the casino, Brad said, “You pick up on that?”

“That he looked like he was going to pass a watermelon the entire time we were there? Or the fact that he offered to collect the images of our man at the blackjack table without us mentioning his name or describing what he looked like? I did.”

“If he furnishes the images of Scotoni without calling to ask the particulars, we can ask him how he knew who we were talking about, since he shouldn’t have been able to read our minds.”

“If he asked Beals to talk to Scotoni, it doesn’t mean he told him to do what he did to him,” Winter said, yawning. “But it could mean that White was working with Beals to rob winners.”

“It’s late. Let’s get some rest and go after this at first light,” Brad said, holding up White’s card. “By the way, the last number Beals called…”

“Is the cell number on that business card,” Winter said.

“We could go back in and ask him about that,” Brad said.

“He’d just say he didn’t talk to him or that Beals asked his boss a business-related question. He knows Beals called him, and he’ll begin to wonder why you didn’t ask him. Let him do some worrying. Sometimes it’s better just to let things percolate.”

26

LOCAL CURRENT EVENTS, MUCH LIKE THE TIME OF
day, rarely invaded the Roundtable’s upper offices. Gamblers didn’t bring the outside world in with them, and the staff was too busy collecting their money to care. Pierce had learned from his secretary when she’d come in that morning that a young woman had been killed at the Gardner cotton plantation. The news had opened the door to troubling questions.

After Pierce had asked Albert White to find out the particulars, White had called his contact in the sheriff’s office, a deputy with a gambling problem that had gotten her indebted to the casino for approximately her yearly salary. She told White that a babysitter on the Gardner place named Sherry Adams had been killed by an errant rifle shot. Whatever had happened, it was a very troubling complication in an already complex and delicate maneuver. But he had been told that his involvement was not required. How the death of the young girl fit in, or didn’t, was chewing on his guts.

When Tug knocked and opened the door to his office, Pierce Mulvane frowned. He knew by Tug’s demeanor that whatever he was about to tell him wasn’t going to lift his spirits. After Tug closed the door, Pierce locked his hands behind his neck and leaned back in his chair.

“The sheriff was just here,” Tug said. “He met with Albert.”

“Yes?” Pierce felt a pang of anticipation in his chest. “What was it about?”

“It was about Jack Beals.”

“Yes,” Pierce said, closing his eyes. “What about Beals?”

“He got clipped.”

“Clipped.” A white-hot poker in the eye would have hurt less than those words.

“The sheriff told Albert that Beals was drowning that blackjack-cheating kid out at the Gold Key and somebody killed him while he was doing it. Cut his throat. They’re thinking our security tapes might show Beals scoping him out or somebody watching the kid who was working with Beals.”

“You know what this means?” Pierce asked, without waiting for an answer. “Police involvement at the worst possible time.”

“What do you want to do?”

“This requires more careful consideration than I can give it at the moment.” He shifted uneasily in his chair, tapping a pencil on the desk.

“Barnett thinks the guy who killed him was probably working some strong-arm robbery angle with Beals. Albert told the sheriff he’d check but Beals wasn’t here after his shift, which he said was till noon today. He’ll rig Beals’s time sheets.”

“No. Sheriff Barnett is out of his element, but he isn’t stupid or lazy. What happens when he interviews the staff? Who knows how many people saw Beals here after noon? Tell Albert to leave the time sheets as they are and say he only thought Beals was on till noon. Albert’s got too many people to know who’s where and when. I need to know who the cheater’s backup was and we need to get to them before the sheriff does. Tell Albert to get on it and brief me before he tells the sheriff anything. Maybe I should put the attorneys between Albert and the sheriff. No big deal. We have plenty of friends who can smooth ruffled feathers.”

“I’ll handle it.”

“Tug, the time for mistakes is over. From here out let’s take the word ‘fail’ out of our collective vocabularies.”

Pierce sat back and closed his eyes again. The situation with the Gardners had to be resolved before Kurt Klein arrived. Unless it was handled, Pierce Mulvane would lose everything he had worked so hard for.

He had assumed the professional hired to handle things would do so. Pierce told himself that if he had made a mistake, it had been in trusting Kurt Klein’s guy, this mysterious Pablo. Klein had no right to blame Pierce if that Pablo creep had gone crazy and shot some kid. But he knew Klein would never accept the blame for anything that went wrong, even if it was completely his fault. No telling what exorbitant rate this Pablo was getting, and from what Pierce could tell, he was making it up as he went along. Killing babysitters and people on the wrong side, for Christ’s sake.

He hadn’t expected Pablo would bring the authorities charging into the casino. What he’d expected was a tragic and senseless accident, and a trio of freshly dug graves in the Gardner family plot. Maybe that was still Klein’s plan. Maybe the rest was just misdirection.

Pierce made it to the bathroom, knelt at the toilet, and tried to talk himself out of throwing up, like a sick child would. But his reasoning failed.