Stephen Cannell - King Con

"Like to deposit some cash an' shoot some craps," Duffy said, his voice shaking now, his palsied hand waving uncertainly in the air as he raised it to get the cage clerk's attention. She looked down and saw him in the wheelchair, then smiled at Beano, who now seemed both bored and angry. Dakota had already split off, heading to the bar.

"Come on, Uncle Harry, you're just gonna lose it like yesterday at the Freeport Princess Casino."

"Don't you start in on me again, Douglas. All you been doin' is carpin' an' complainin'. What'm I supposed t'do, put on one a'them jock strap bathing suits a'yours an' jump in the pool?" He looked up at the clerk, whose name tag said she was CINDY. "Gonna buy fifty thousand in chips, then maybe we could arrange some credit if that runs out." He pushed an envelope full of cash through the cage and watched with red-rimmed eyes while Cindy's nimble fingers counted the bills.

"That's fifty thousand dollars U.S.," she said. "Do you want that all in chips?"

"Yes siree," Duffy trumpeted. "You can deliver it to the nearest table over there and then stand back and watch a master at work."

"Jesus Christ," Beano groaned. "Some master. You been losing worse than the New York Jets."

Cindy shot Beano a look hoping to shut him up, then said, "I could get that credit-ap started if you want. It'll only take a minute."

"Let 'er rip," Duffy honked loudly, which triggered a coughing spasm that doubled him over in the chair.

Cindy got a credit application out of a drawer under the counter. "Could I have your full name?" she politely asked the now-sputtering old man.

"Harry Stanton Price," he said, getting the coughing spasm under control and regaining his composure.

"Place of business?"

"Price Is Right Automotive Center, Fresno, California. I own the sucker," he smiled, but his voice was shaking slightly, his head nodding forward as if it were a constant struggle to keep it up on his wobbly pencil neck.

"Banking affiliation?" she said.

"The Central California Cattlemen's Bank, Fresno," he wheezed at her.

She carefully wrote that down. "Do you have any objections if we contact your bank, Mr. Price?"

"Hell, no! You gotta find out how much I got in there, don'cha? Just tell 'em I'm down here, my luck's finally changed, and I'm about ta kick some serious ass," he said, grinning and letting his head loll slightly over to one side.

'"This should only take a short while, sir… if you want to check back in half an hour. In the meantime, I'll send your rack of chips to table three." She smiled at him and pointed to the nearest crap table.

He waved his hand at her, letting it make small, palsied circles in the air.

"Jesus," Beano moaned, "can't we at least get something to eat, Uncle Harry? You need to take your medicine."

"Y' just don't know how t'have fun," Duffy said weakly, stifling another war with his own lungs. Then he straightened slightly and in a high, reedy voice barked at Beano, "Let's go. Take me, take me… gotta go," he wheezed.

Beano turned and wheeled the chair across the carpet to crap table three.

Cindy watched them go, then picked up the phone in her cash cage and called the Box-man in the pit. "Zig, I'm sending two deadwood players to table three. They bought fifty thousand in chips. They sound like they already dropped a bundle at the Princess in Freeport. I'll send a tray over and get them photographed by Security. You might wanna comp 'em."

The casino Box-man was the individual who was in charge of the crap tables. Luke Zigman was sitting on a metal-backed folding chair with the phone up to his ear. He looked over and saw Beano pushing Duffy up to table three. "The old duck in the rolling seat and the good-looking, red-haired guy?" he asked Cindy.

"That's them. Couple of laydowns if you ask me; keep 'em happy."

"On it." He hung up and watched as a casino employee in a uniform brought over a large tray of colorful chips on a rolling cart and parked it near Duffy's wheelchair.

"Okay, okay, time t'roll, time t'roll," Duffy said, smacking his lips and grabbing some hundred-dollar chips off the tray beside him and throwing them over the rail onto the table, where they bounced on the green felt. "What's the table limit?" he bellowed.

"Two thousand dollars, sir," Zigman said.

"Gimme the big six-eight for two thousand and insurance. Cover the six and ten for five hundred each, the hard way."

Zigman smiled slightly. The big six-eight, hard way, and insurance bets were all sucker plays. He stepped up and watched as the dice were passed to an elderly woman in pink pastel shorts and beach thongs.

"New shooter coming out," the Stick-man said, beginning his unending line of patter known as table barking.

The woman threw the dice and they came up three and five.

"Eighter from Decatur," Duffy shouted. "A winner."

The Stick-man, who was dressed in white shirt, red vest, and tie, corralled the dice with the curved stick and pushed them back to the lady. Then he paid Duffy's big six-eight, which was a winner. Duffy was determined to lose, so he left his winnings on the table, pushing it all on the line. The lady grabbed the dice and immediately rolled a seven.

"Seven, a loser," the Stick-man droned. "The line loses. Pay the don't come." And he scraped Duffy's lost bet off the table. When the dice were passed to Duffy, he looked at them with a practiced eye.

"Be good t'Harry Price, good t'Harry Price," he mumbled at the red translucent cubes. "These are the dice t'pay the price," he chanted maniacally. While Beano looked at the other players apologetically, nobody noticed as Duffy palmed the dice, expertly dropping them between his legs into the Porta-Toilet, at the same time switching them with a set of his brother's Miami-made counterfeits. Then he put the switched dice down on the table. From his wheelchair seat, his head just barely appeared above the rim of the table. He reached over the rail and arranged the dice in a five-two combination of seven. He was giving the Stick-man a good look at his ringer dice to see if they would pass muster at that distance. Nothing happened so, with his "splash move" completed, he picked up the dice and shook them next to his ear.

"Okay, okay. Talk to me. Be nice to Harry Price," he said to the dice in his fist. Then he turned and snapped at Beano, "Get me down on the come line, Douglas. Wanna raise the limit… five thousand."

"I'll approve the bet," Zigman said to the Stick-man, raising the table limit.

There was a gasp from the table and, once his bet was down, Duffy rolled the bones. They came up six and four.

"Point is ten," the Stick-man said.

"Get me down for two thousand, the hard way," Duffy said. And Beano handed the Stick-man two thousand in chips to buy the longshot sucker bet that the ten would eventually get made as double fives, before he sevened out.

Zigman smiled from his place behind the Stick-man. If the old crippled guy kept betting like that, they'd take his whole poke in half an hour.

For the next thirty minutes Duffy threw his money away like a street sucker betting Three-Card Monty. The Box-man grinned as Duffy's chips were repeatedly scraped off the table. Luke Zigman had quickly figured out that the old man was using a Martingale System, which was a complicated betting scheme often employed by losers. It basically consisted of doubling and quadrupling bets after every other loss. Twice Duffy had to ask that the table limit be waived so he could quadruple his bet. Both times this happened he lost, and the Stick-man would rake over ten thousand of the old man's dollars off the table. Duffy ended up being the only player shooting at table three because he was so cold he had become a plague on everybody's luck.

"Jeezus, Uncle Harry… whatta you doing? Don't bet all the hard-ways; it's a jerk-off bet," Beano whined with no effect, as Duffy hissed at him to shut up and did it over and over again. What nobody noticed was that, with each loss, while the Stick-man and Box-man were trying to contain their grins, another pair of casino dice rained down into the Porta-Toilet catch basin under Duffy's bony ass. After he lost a big roll he would yell, "New dice! New dice!" in his wheezy rasp and the casino would only too gladly oblige this loser, pulling his counterfeit dice off the table and supplying him with a new set of casino perfects, which would hit the plastic catch basin under him a few moments later.