Stephen Cannell - King Con

"Yeah," Beano said, getting it on the second ring.

"He's out of the play. You're up."

Beano looked at his watch; it was almost three A.M. "Tommy's on ice. You ready?" he said to Duffy, who had the loaded dice all finished and lined up on the table. Duffy picked up the last one and checked to see if the white paint was dry. "Ready," Duffy said.

"Okay," Beano said to Victoria, who was sitting on the bed, "the plane should be at the private air strip at dawn. We gotta be there when it arrives."

They turned the wheelchair upside down and snapped the dice by pairs into the cartridge under the wheelchair arms, so that Duffy could pull out the loaded number he wanted. Then they put the wheelchair right side up, and Duffy got in the seat, back on top of the Porta-Toilet.

"Take Roger, get the van, and wait for us in the parking lot. If anything happens that's not part of the plan, I want you nearby. If the whole deal blows, get on the plane and leave without us," he instructed.

"What about Dakota?" she asked.

"Dakota stays with Tommy either way. She's gotta steer him once we're gone. If the deal jackknifes on us, she's damage control."

Victoria opened the door for them, and then Beano paused for a moment. His blue, sensitive eyes found hers. "Thanks," he said, "for everything."

She nodded, then stepped aside as Beano pushed Duffy out into the hall, over to the elevator, and they took a long, quiet ride down to the casino on the main floor.

LUKE ZIGMAN WAS SURPRISED TO SEE THE OLD DEAD-wood player being rolled back into the casino by his nephew at three in the morning. The old duck's head was lolling and he looked half dead. He now knew the man in the wheelchair was named Harry Price. They'd taken hidden-camera pictures of him and his nephew and put the pictures on the big "losers board" in the employee lounge, so that all the casino workers would know them and treat them special. The casino didn't want them getting out of Sabre Bay before all of their money was gone. Harry's chair was parked opposite the Stick-man by his whining nephew, who Luke Zigman now knew was named Douglas Price.

"Jeezus, Uncle Harry, can't we go to bed? It's the middle of the fucking night."

"Got the credit, yessiree, grooved and approved," he rasped. "Yessiree, two hundred big ones, the whole stack. Get the chip girl, Harry wants t'roll the bones, roll the bones."

The Night Shift Manager, Arnold Buzini, was in his office, so Luke picked up the phone and notified him that Mr. Price wanted his whole two hundred thousand in credit delivered in chips to table three.

"Go ahead and give him the ride. He's approved," Buzini said, glad the old leaker was back at the shooter's rail.

Within minutes the tray arrived with two hundred thousand in pre-counted plastic chips aboard. They were piled high on the racks in hundred-dollar blues, five-hundred-dollar reds, and thousand-dollar golds. Beano took them down and stacked them on the table while Duffy watched, wheezing badly.

"What's the limit?" Duffy croaked.

"For you, sir, it's five thousand," Luke said.

"Jesus H. Keee-rist on a bright blue bicycle," Duffy wheezed. "Can't you boys do better than that?"

Luke picked up the phone and redialed Buzini, who gave him permission to "no limit" the table. The main casino room was almost empty at three. In Las Vegas casinos, people played all night, but Caribbean hotels had more daytime than nighttime bettors, so Buzini didn't mind removing the limit.

"Ten thousand on the come line," Duffy said, and he pushed his bet out, reaching over the rail, pressing his skinny, hollow chest against the table and coughing badly.

"Aren't you gonna buy some insurance, like this afternoon?" Luke prodded.

"Nope, nope. Not now, not now. Let's go, gotta roll, gotta roll." And he got the table dice and tossed them down to the end of the table. They bounced off the rail and onto the green felt. His point was ten.

Luke smiled because ten was a hard point for the shooter. There were only three ways to make ten… the six-four, the four-six, and the double five. There were six ways to make seven, which made the odds two-to-one against the shooter on the point, but if he won, the bet only paid off at even money. That was the edge for the house. Luke didn't see Duffy's hand go to his wheelchair arm, extract the doctored dice, then palm the house dice in his other hand. He held the two fives in his palm for twenty seconds, shaking them by his ear, stalling so he could warm the cellophane gas, turning it solid.

"Want the hard five," Duffy shouted. "Gimme five thousand on the hard five."

Beano threw the chips out and Duffy threw the loaded dice. They hit and rolled and came up ten, the hard way.

"Eeeeaaahhh," Duffy shouted and then began to gag and choke.

"Pay the line. Pay the hard ten," the Stick-man droned.

Luke watched as thirty thousand dollars was pushed up against the rail where Duffy was sitting. Duffy quickly retrieved his doctored dice and palmed the casino's original dice back into the game. He bet another twenty thousand on the come line and rolled the casino dice again.

"Point is four. Four is the point," the Stick-man droned. Four is also a two-to-one bet against the shooter.

"Double odds on the four," Duffy wheezed, making his first really shrewd bet. In craps it is possible, after rolling a point, to bet twice your original bet as an odds bet. That meant if he made the four he would get paid on the original bet at even money, but the odds bet, which was twice as large as his original bet, would pay off at two to one, or at the correct odds. Luke Zigman didn't like the fact that this deadwood player had stopped making sucker bets and was now playing smart.

"Be good to Daddy, be good, be good," Harry said as he pulled the casino dice out of the game and switched them for a loaded pair of hard fours he secretly snapped out of the wheelchair arm. He rolled the loadies.

"Hard four, a winner. Pay the line, pay the odds bet," the Stick-man said, and looked over at Luke. The old duck had won back all of the money he'd lost that afternoon in two rolls.

Luke picked up the phone, turned his back to the table, and dialed the office again. "Mr. Buzini, this guy just hit us twice for over fifty grand. You wanna leave this no-limit on?"

"Is he still betting stupid?"

"No. All of a sudden he's turned into a player."

"Float the dice. If they're okay, leave it on, but keep me posted."

Luke hung up and turned around as the Stick-man was about to push Duffy's dice back to him with the curved stick. Luke scooped them up off the table, looked for the imperfect S, then dropped them into a glass. They all watched as the dice floated but didn't roll. The cellophane had already returned to its natural, gaseous state.

"Want my lucky dice," Duffy wheezed angrily.

"Okay, let's play," Luke said and the doctored dice were dried with a napkin and pushed back to Duffy, who palmed them immediately off the table and replaced them with the casino's original dice.

Now Duffy pushed out the whole fifty thousand dollars he'd just won. "Let 'er go," he said. And then he began to wheeze and cough and cause a huge distraction to take everybody's mind off his bet. His body started to convulse. The few people who were in the casino had found their way to the crap table.

The Stick-man counted the fifty-thousand-dollar bet and became nervous about letting it stand.

"We'll allow twenty," he said, finally making his decision. "That's the new table limit."

Duffy was shaking his withered body. He was beginning to convulse slightly.

"Uncle Harry, you've got to take your medicine. You'll have one of your seizures if you don't take it now."