John Miller - Smoke and Mirrors

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.

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.”