Bullshit, Curtis says. Doesn’t matter how good he was. The casino was on high alert. They knew they had counters on the floor; they had already burned some. Who authorized increasing the limit? Why didn’t anybody see the money moving your way?
They were looking in the wrong places, Argos says. Sure they knew they had counters on the floor. That was the beauty of it. I told you, I was in the high-limit pit. Cardcounting teams don’t work high-limit tables; they’d get caught there in a fucking snap. Too much attention, not enough traffic. Damon had pulled his hotshot pit bosses and his best eye-in-the-sky guys out of high-limit, to the regular tables. That’s where the perceived threat was. He was offering cash bounties for burning our team. Meanwhile, I’ve got a crooked dealer, a green pit boss scared of pissing off a whale, and a bunch of security freaking out because they’re missing the real action across the room. Plus—this is key—Damon had worked up a phony credit history for me, so on paper I looked like a whale. I could’ve gone into the drop with a fucking shovel and gotten away with it.
What was your take?
Argos grins nastily. Did Damon give you permission to ask me that?
That’s between me and Damon.
Yeah, Argos says. I guess it is. Okay, Curtis. At twenty K a hand, I cleared a million and a quarter in a little under ten minutes. That’s the number I took to the cage, and that’s what I walked out with.
They just let you leave with over a million dollars in cash?
They didn’t like it much. They tried to hold me up with bullshit excuses about filing a Form 8300, so by then they must’ve figured something was off. But at that point, what could they do? Again, I wasn’t just some guy in a suit. I was a rated player.
Curtis looks over Argos’s shoulder to the long grasses along the water, watching patterns form and vanish as the wind shakes them. Damon had you working at the Point before, he says. As a position player. After he burned you. Before any of this happened.
Did he tell you that?
Is it true?
Sure, Argos says. So what?
So you’re telling me that you used to play poker at the Point on a daily basis—and then you came in with your team, ripped off a high-limit table for over a million bucks, and cashed out at the cage—and nobody recognized you?
Argos shrugs. I am good at what I do, he says.
Curtis sits back and looks him over. He could be twenty-five, thirty-five, forty-five years old. Beneath the sunglasses his skin is smooth and uniform, like plastic, or clay. Something about him is creepy, not fully human. He resembles a regular person the same way a coyote resembles a dog. Curtis isn’t afraid of him at all anymore.
What happened to the dealer? he asks.
Curtis expects Argos to hesitate here, but he doesn’t. This is the part he’s been wanting to tell.
After I cashed out, he says, I hid my take in a deposit box and met my team up at Resorts. There was a lot of hand-wringing and confusion and cussing the Spectacular, but nobody was heartbroken, because everybody made very nice money everyplace else. Stanley, I think, knew by then that he’d been fucked at the Point, and I think he knew that I’d been in on it. But he wasn’t feeling good, and he kept pretty quiet. It took us a while to work the split, then we went our separate ways. I went back to my deposit box to get the money, and then I went back to the Point.
Wait a minute. You went where?
Yeah. I wasn’t too happy about it either. But that’s where Damon wanted to meet to settle shares, because he and the dealer couldn’t get away from work for very long. Or at least that’s what he said. So I made some adjustments to my appearance, and I headed back. Very confused vibe on the gaming floor. Lots of people showing up from other casinos with congratulations, wanting to find out how the Point had burned us, while at about the same time, Spectacular management was realizing just how badly they’d been hosed. It felt like walking into a convenience store a few minutes after it’s been held up. Or coming through a little town after a tornado’s hit. Only nobody could see the tornado. Everybody was excited, keyed-up. I didn’t hang around very long. I hustled up to the room.
What room?
Just a regular room in the tower. I knocked, some guy answered.
What guy?
I’d never seen him before. I knew right then it was a setup. The thing was done, we had the money. Why bring in somebody else?
What did he look like?
Tall. Six-four, I’d guess. One-eighty, one-ninety. Greasy. Country-boy accent. Obvious muscle: a guy who’d done time. He let me in—the dealer was already there—and then he left. He said he’d be back in a minute with Damon.
What did you do?
I got the fuck out of there. What do you think I did?
Why?
Because I’m fucking smart, is why. Look: I show up, Damon’s not there, some hardcase thug I don’t know answers the door, checks to make sure I have the money, tells us to stay put, and splits. I mean, holy shit, Curtis. He might as well have spread out some plastic sheets and told us to lie down on them till he got back.