Stephen Cannell - King Con

"You guys have this down to a science."

"It's not a science," Beano grinned, "it's an art."

As they were talking, a brand-new red Corvette with the top down pulled through the arch at Shady Rest and parked next to the motor home. Behind the wheel was one of the most extraordinary creatures that Victoria Hart had ever seen. She had long, luxuriant jet-black hair and ivory-white skin. Her green eyes sparkled when she got out of the car. She was not saving anything. Her luscious frame was poured into skin-tight, ripped jeans. She was wearing a tank-top, her chest jutted, and when she moved it didn't look to Victoria like a silicone job. Beyond all of those breathtaking physical attributes there was something else, something intangible: a smoldering, musky sexuality that was palpable and sucked all the available oxygen from the spot where they were standing. Victoria was no wallflower, but she instantly knew she was no sexual competition for the Queen of Hearts.

"I understand you guys are looking for a capper to rope a mark," she said as she hugged John, but only looked over at Beano. They kept their distance. There was negative tension between them. "How you doing?" she said to him.

"I'm okay. I see you're having a good year," he said, eyeing the Vette. There was a coldness in the remark that startled Victoria.

"If you're still pissed, Beano, I'm sorry. I thought we were just screwing around."

"Yeah," he said, "I guess that's what we were doing."

"I wanna help. Don't freeze me out," she said, looking at him, holding his gaze until he spoke.

"You know we're talking about Tommy Rina?"

"So, I'll thumb some Vaseline up my nose to help with the smell. I can rope that little shit. I'll steer him for you, and if he comes off hot, I'll play the little monkey against the wall." Then, without warning, she turned to Victoria and threw out her hand. "Hi, I'm Dakota Bates."

Victoria shook hands and introduced herself. Victoria was five-nine but Dakota must have been close to six feet tall. She had showgirl dimensions.

"Come on inside," Beano finally said, and they moved into the motor home.

The cash was still on the table. Dakota looked at it. "John said you're running a moose pasture in Modesto with a Big Store in San Francisco." Beano nodded. "You think that's gonna be enough cash?" she asked.

"If we're careful. We need that to set up the field and rent offices. Victoria, John, and I are gonna fly to San Francisco tomorrow. We'll take around a hundred thousand, you take the other fifty and catch a flight to the Bahamas and meet Fit-Throwing Duffy there. Weil see you in two days. One of us will have to deliver the new McGuire Financial Listings to the casino credit department."

"How you gonna get Tommy to the Bahamas?" Dakota asked.

"I checked around. His latest roommate is a redheaded hooker named Calliope Love," Beano said. 'Boardwalk Radio is about to call her up and give her two free tickets to paradise."

"I thought you 'never pitch a bitch,'" Dakota said, turning to Victoria." Beano thinks girls tantalize but analyze, while guys just jump at the con feet first."

"Sometimes you gotta break the rules," he said.

Dakota nodded and put her overnight case on the table.

"By the way, you don't have to sleep with Tommy," Beano said awkwardly, "just steer him."

"Hey, sweetheart, let me handle my end of it. How I get this mooch to cooperate is my business."

"I'm just saying-"

"Don't," she interrupted firmly; then she saw Roger. "Hey, Rogie. Good to see you, honey." Roger-the-Dodger ran across the motor home and jumped up into her lap, putting his paws upon her magnificent chest.

"How you doing, Roge?" Dakota said to the terrier as she nuzzled him.

"A hell of a lot better than you," Victoria whispered to Beano softly.

Tommy Rina heard about the pearl at noon. When the rich Texan didn't show up to purchase the "matching" pearl, it took poor Donald Stine half a day to figure out what had happened to him. When he realized that he had just bought back the same pearl for a hundred and fifty thousand that he had sold the day before for fifty, he knew he was in big trouble. He couldn't figure out a way to hide the mistake, so he finally called Tommy, who was his boss, and told him what had happened.

Tommy was standing in the jewelry store in less than twenty minutes. "You fucking let this Texas goof sell you back the same fucking pearl?" he said, amazed. "Did you fucking check your brains at the Automat?"

"I didn't know it was the same pearl at first. The more I looked at it, the more I wondered. I had the guy from the Jewelry Mart who I originally bought it from come over. He told me…" Donald Stine was scared to death. He was sure that Tommy would take him out back and beat him to death with his trademark ballpeen hammer, but that wasn't what happened.

"Okay," Tommy said, a strange, deadly calm coming over him. His close-set, prehistoric eyes blinked lazily. "I'm gonna get these sorry fucks and put 'em in a new category."

"Yes, sir," Donald said, figuring the new category was deceased.

"Happens again, you're gonna be more than sorry, you're gonna get some flashlight therapy. Gonna be a fucking Jersey River whitefish. Smarten up, asshole; this is your only mistake, don't make another." And the little mobster turned and walked out of the jewelry store without another word.

Tommy moved across the purple and red carpet of Bally's past the faro tables, past the banks of dollar slots, then across the lobby where the chemin de fer tables were located in a plush pit. He moved up to Gus Taggert, the Floor Boss, who was sitting on a regal velvet chair next to a mahogany elevator door that led to the High-roller tables on the second floor.

"I wanna see S.B.," he said.

"Come on, Tommy, I can't let you up there. You know you're not carded; I got gaming commission rules to follow." Gus had been given this job because he was harder to get around than a free safety.

"Hey, fuck you, Gus, and fuck your fucking rules. You want me for a fucking enemy, I'll turn your fucking world shit-black." Tommy was smoking mad. His prehistoric eyes now shone with carnivorous intent. There was something about Tommy when he was mad that melted all resistance.

"Okay, okay. Calm the fuck down, will ya?" Gus said, backing up, losing all his field position.

"You calm fucking down!" Tommy shouted back. "Some cowboy hit my jewelry store for a hundred K. I wanta see S. Bartly's cameras. You fucking better get on my team, Gus… or you're gonna have a fucking scar down where your snake used to play."

"Take it easy… You can go up, just don't say it was me that let ya, okay?" he said, folding under Tommy's withering glare.

Gus pushed the button on the mahogany elevator, the door opened, and Tommy went inside the brass-railed, carpeted box. Gus leaned in and put the key in a lock on the elevator panel, turned it, and stepped back as the door closed and Tommy rode up past the lush High-roller area to the third floor, where he got off.

The floor was sterile. It was a painted concrete utility area where shift supervisors and casino muscle hung out on folding metal chairs. The central security room was up here. Tommy knocked on the door and S. Bartly Kneeland opened it and looked out at Tommy, staring at the simian thug through Coke bottle glasses. S.B. was a thin, crater-skinned, tubercular-looking geek. He had designed all of the security video in the hotel, including the Eye-in-the-Sky that monitored everything. All of the surveillance feeds were wired to this room.

"Tommy, you can't be up here. You're not rated," S.B. squeaked.

"Fuck that," Tommy said and pushed the little man with the palm of his hand. S.B. stumbled backwards and was now standing in the center of a twelve-foot-square room full of TV monitors, each equipped with a VCR machine. Tommy moved into the room and looked at the equipment. He had never been up here before because, as everybody kept reminding him, he'd been denied a license by the gaming board and this whole floor was off limits to anybody without a gaming commission card. He'd heard about it, though, and it lived up to his expectations. There were more than thirty TV monitors, each covering a different part of the hotel. They kept a lookout for known casino cheats and card counters, along with the growing legions of slot bandits using wire triggers. These were tools bent in the shape of a 7 that could be slipped up inside slots to trigger payoffs. These cheaters were known in the casino security business as "7UPs."