James Swain - Super Con

“You mean about my busts?”

“Yeah. You were arrested in a casino in New Orleans for using a Taser while playing a slot machine. Your lawyer claimed a guy was stalking you, and the Taser was for protection, so the judge let you go. Were you cheating?”

“You bet. Every slot machine has a random-number-generator chip that is vulnerable to electric pulses. If you zap it in the right spot with a Taser, the machine will register a jackpot or let you play for free. I made a lot of money with it until the joints caught on.”

“That’s cool.”

“Stealing isn’t cool. Never has been, never will be. Don’t think otherwise.”

Amber’s cheeks turned crimson. “But you made your living—”

“Yes, I did. It paid the bills, and that’s the life I chose. But I knew it was wrong when I started doing it, and I don’t want you doing it. Understand, young lady?”

“I’ve never stolen anything in my life.”

“Ever shoplifted? Come on, be honest with me.”

“Not once. Grandma would have killed me.”

“Keep it that way.”

“I will. Thanks for being so honest. It means a lot to me.”

Her empty beer can did somersaults before landing in the wastebasket by the bar. Mags couldn’t have repeated the shot if her life depended upon it. Amber’s can followed, hit the wall, and miraculously landed in the wastebasket, the shot worthy of a highlight reel.

“It’s way late. What do you say we get some sleep?” Mags suggested. “I have to be on the set at eight a.m. or the director will throw a temper tantrum.”

“Is the director a jerk?”

“Everyone in the TV business is a jerk.”

Mags walked her daughter to the door and gave her a hug. The toughest conversation in the world hadn’t turned out to be so tough after all. All the bad things she’d done were in the past, and she hadn’t felt this good in a long time.

“Good night, honey. Sweet dreams.”

Wednesday, eleven days before the Super Bowl

A lot of cheats in Vegas also hustled on the links. It was a great way to stay in shape, work on your tan, and make a few bucks on the side.

Every golf hustle was different. Some cheats lied about their handicaps. Others resorted to having their caddies secretly move their opponent’s balls to unfavorable lies. And there were cheats who coated their clubs with Vaseline to make the ball fly straighter. There were many scams like this, designed to give the cheat a few extra strokes during the course of a match.

Billy’s scam used simple math to give him a mathematical edge over his opponents. There was no trickery involved, and as a result, he’d never had a sucker make a beef. The scam only worked at the Royal Links course, which was located ten miles east of the Strip. The course was designed to reflect the links-style play found on the British Isles. There was the Road Hole and Hell Bunker from St. Andrews and the infamous Postage Stamp from Royal Troon. Making par was a struggle for even the best golfer.

Billy was a member at Royal Links in good standing and friends with the golf pro. The pro had taught Billy how to hit his drives straight and true and how to sink a putt from ten feet out, every time. This was the key to Billy’s scam — the ability to hit certain shots at certain times, every time. The pro would set Billy up to play with a wealthy guest looking for a friendly game. Most of these guests were strong players with lower handicaps than Billy. But that didn’t mean Billy couldn’t steal their money.

The scam always started the same way. Billy would play a few holes while making small talk. Where you from, what do you do, how many kids you got? It was his standard spiel and made the sucker think that Billy was a stand-up guy and not a person who’d resort to robbing him blind.

After three holes, Billy would ask the sucker if he liked to gamble. Every person who visited Vegas liked to gamble, being that there was nothing else to do in town except get drunk, eat, and see the shows. The sucker always said yes.

Billy would suggest two simple wagers. The first wager was to see who could drive the ball the longest without the ball leaving the fairway. The wager was for $500 per hole. If the sucker was wearing a nice shiny Rolex, the wager was a $1,000. The second wager was to see who took fewer strokes on the green. This wager also ranged between $500 and $1,000. During an average match, Billy would pocket between five and ten thousand bucks of the sucker’s dough.

The secret to winning the drive was simple. The sucker drove the ball longer than Billy, but that wasn’t an advantage on a links course, where sand dunes and narrow fairways resulted in balls not staying inbounds. Since the bet required the sucker to keep the ball on the fairway, the sucker’s strength off the tee usually betrayed him.

Billy won this bet 70 percent of the time. To keep the sucker in the game, he’d sometimes deliberately blow a hole. Charity wasn’t his strong suit, and he won the money back on the greens, where his putting excelled. His average for these wagers was also 70 percent.

Today’s sucker worked in finance and was named Arnie. Every couple of minutes, Arnie’s cell phone chirped like a sick bird. He’d say, “Hold on, I gotta take this,” and play would stop so he could make another earth-shattering deal.

On the ninth hole, a golf cart pulled up with Morris driving and Cory in the passenger seat. Billy sometimes brought them to Royal Links to work on their games, and he guessed that they’d used Billy’s name to get past the guards posted at the front gate.

Billy looked up from his putt. “What’s up?”

“There was a problem last night,” Cory said.

“What kind of problem are we talking about?”

“Travis came over to our place.”

“It didn’t end well,” Morris added.

“What did you do, smack him in the head with a lead pipe?”

Morris dropped his voice. “Worse.”

Morris was white as a ghost. So was Cory. Billy got his bag and put it in the back of their cart. Then he walked over to Arnie, who’d just wrapped up his call.

“I need to run. Let’s do this again sometime,” he said.

“You leaving?” Arnie asked.

“Business calls. You know how it is.”

“But I’m way down. You need to let me win my money back.”

To take your opponent’s money before a match was over was considered bad action and would land Billy in hot water if the club found out. Suckers needed to believe they could win, even when they didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of coming out ahead. It was the hustle that kept Las Vegas going.

“We’re square,” Billy said.

Arnie’s mouth dropped open. “You mean I don’t have to pay you off?”

“That’s right. Have a nice day.”

The clubhouse looked like a sandblasted castle, the bar a stodgy British pub. It was quiet, and Billy chose a corner table away from the talkative bartender.

“The usual, Mr. Cunningham?” the bartender called.

“Yes, Nigel. The same for my guests.”

“Coming right up.”

Billy sat with Cory and Morris facing him. Neither had shaved, and they both wore yesterday’s wrinkled clothes. They knew the importance of appearances, and this was totally out of character for both of them. Billy didn’t need a crystal ball to figure out what had happened between them and Travis. It was written across both their faces.

Three pints of Newcastle brown ale were brought to the table. Billy clinked his glass against theirs in a toast. “Which one of you took Travis out of the picture?”

“How did you know?” Cory gasped.

“Educated guess. Was it you?”

“That distinction would go to me,” Morris said. “He threatened Cory, and I shot him dead. Bastard wanted to start his own crew, if you can believe that.”