Chapter 9 #2
I had encountered plenty of card counters in my time.
Some were way too obvious. They’d hold their fingers out under the table or mouth the numbers as they counted.
Some played in pairs—a spotter and a player.
And after a certain box-office hit, they’d come in teams. Those were the easiest to spot.
It was almost comical when they came in disguise.
Amelia was the most discreet card counter I had seen in a while, but she was predictable.
Contrary to ’90s family sitcom theme songs, predictability was everyone’s downfall.
Fortunately for Amelia, John wasn’t here tonight. Unfortunately for me, John being gone tonight meant I’d have something to clean up later.
I scrolled through the feed until I found Jeremiah watching the floor at the very moment he spotted Amelia heading to a table.
“Jude, you got an ID on the blonde heading for blackjack?”
An ID and so much more . . .
“Looking her up,” I said as I sat back in the chair and crossed my arms. I counted to fifteen, then sat forward. “Angela Crawford. Twenty-eight.” The lie was easy.
“Is she on the list?”
No. Because I hadn’t put her on the watch list.
I waited a beat, as if I was scanning the list of banned guests—most of whom won too much by chance, were known card counters, or were on John’s radar for more nefarious reasons. “No.”
“Keep an eye on her. She’s been here a lot. Always comes in with a grand and cleans up. And she’s got that librarian look.”
“Will do,” I said.
I kept an eye on Amelia as she played a rather blasé game of blackjack but still came out on top.
Way on top. She had turned her thousand dollars into eleven grand faster than most people could cash out.
She was betting higher than usual earlier in the night.
That wasn’t part of her MO. Usually, she’d play five or six rounds of mediocre bets, then play big for two rounds, then finish the night with a forgettable game and leave with her tail between her legs.
I watched as Amelia went big on the next hand and the next.
The moment Jeremiah stepped into the security room to take over for me, I headed out to the floor.
Amelia stood from her seat, collecting her chips to move to a different table, as I cut through the roulette tables. The cards must have gone cold.
I waited in a shadow, surveying the room until she passed by. “You’re winning too much,” I said, thankful that the din of the room kept my words just between us.
Amelia stumbled and the tray of chips fell from her hands, crashing on the floor.
We bent at the same time to scoop them up before any of them got away.
“Change tables, lose, and then go play craps.”
Like blackjack, craps was a little luck and a little skill. She wouldn’t lose too badly, but, for now, she had to stop winning.
“But I don’t know how to—”
I scooped her chips onto the tray. “Learn. Lose. Be forgettable.”
As we stood, I glanced over her head to see which dealers were at the blackjack tables tonight.
They were all fairly new, having come on staff at the start of the busy season when college kids on spring break flooded the area.
The Four Horsemen was known to be an establishment that would look the other way when it came to players under twenty-one.
Jerry, the bartender, was a grizzled old-timer who had been at the Four Horsemen long before I had come to the Shore. He could spot a card counter faster than the security team and the dealers combined. If he was in a good mood, he’d look the other way. But he never forgot a face.
“Don’t play by the bar,” I said quietly. I was far enough away from any of the microphones that allowed the security room to listen in, but I didn’t want to chance it.
I just wanted her to get out.
Amelia held the tray of chips close to her chest. “Thank you.”
From the outside looking in, she was simply appreciative that someone helped her pick up her winnings. Maybe for her, that was as far as it went. Maybe, to her, I was just a repentant bouncer who didn’t want to see her get kicked out. But to me, it was atonement.
“Boss is here,” Jeremiah said as he hurried into the security room.
Shit. I had been so caught up watching Amelia bounce from craps to roulette to the occasional game of blackjack that I had lost track of time.
She was on a winning streak—not that anyone but me and the cashier would notice.
She had done a damn good job of floating around the room, being forgettable, but winning big when it mattered.
I had lost an exact count of her winnings, but I had a hunch she would clear forty thousand before the night was up if she kept at it.
To the dealers, it looked like she was decent at blackjack and Texas Hold’em but sucked at everything else. In reality, she was losing pennies at roulette compared to the jackpot she was raking in with cards.
The cashiers were the only people I was worried would catch on, but they switched out, per John’s rules. No one stayed in one place long enough to figure out how to steal from him.
Instead of cashing out at the end of the night, she had gone to the cashier every time she switched games. It made it less obvious that she was getting one hell of a payday. She’d cash out little bits at a time so it looked like she was modestly winning.
It had been a good night for her.
I hoped it was enough, because her luck had just run out.
I jumped into action the moment the call came through. “Clear the floor. Everyone cashes out. Essential staff only. Once everyone’s out, lock the front. The high roller room is the only room that’s open tonight,” I snapped.
“Yeah, yeah. I know the drill,” he grumbled.
I slipped out of the security room, hoping to see Amelia out myself, but ran smack-dab into the devil himself.
“Jude,” Valentine said with that happy-go-lucky chuckle that was annoying as fuck. For someone with the Feds breathing down his neck like a nagging wife, he sure acted like he didn’t have a care in the world.
Over his shoulder, Amelia was ushered away from the blackjack table she had just sat down at and corralled toward the growing line in front of the cashier.
Nervous energy and unrest began to grow as confused patrons—both inebriated and sober—tried to make sense of what was happening.
Most of them would remember the night the way fishermen’s “big catch” stories always got more and more fantastical.
I hoped it would scare Amelia, not because I wanted her to be scared, but because I wanted her safe.
And God help me, I didn’t know why.
Valentine clapped his hand on my shoulder. “Before we get things started, I’d appreciate your help reminding one of my associates of how we do business around here.”
Great.
“Yes, sir,” I said without even the slightest bit of expression one way or the other.
John reared back. “Cheer up. I’d appreciate a little enthusiasm from my best employee.”
Ha. Best employee. As if that gave me a parking spot out front and my picture on the fucking wall.
All it got me was bruised knuckles and the inability to sleep for more than twenty minutes at a time.
But I didn’t care about that right now. I needed to keep Valentine talking until Amelia was gone.
She’d finished cashing out but was caught up in the mass of bodies that were trying to shuffle out the door.
“Sorry, sir. Just dealing with car trouble,” I said, playing off my sour mood. That was my excuse for everything. No one questioned car trouble. “Gotta get someone to look at it again.”
He chuckled. “That’s what you get for driving one of those newfangled electric cars. The old ones might not be pretty, but they don’t have all the computers and shit. And you can work on ’em yourself.”
As if he had ever gotten grease on his hands.
I cracked a smile as Amelia slipped out the door. “Yeah. I’m tired of dealing with it. I need to find something different.”
“I know a guy. When you’re ready to buy, he’ll treat you right.” Valentine knew a guy for everything. And when he needed something dealt with, I was that guy.
“Yes, sir,” I said, slipping out without another word.
I had worked for John Valentine for years. In that time, I had done my best to avoid casual conversations. I did my job and nothing more.
I was completely replaceable, and I was fine with that.
I slipped out the back and found the “associate” he wanted me to give a “reminder” to.
The guy had duct tape over his mouth. His hands and feet were bound behind his back, and he had been dumped by the five-gallon buckets the cooks sat on during their smoke breaks.
I wrinkled my nose as the lingering odor of stale beer wafted from the dumpsters.
“Let’s get this over with,” I said with a huff as I landed a swift kick to his ribs. From the sound he made, I probably cracked a few. Maybe broke one. But his vital organs would be fine and his blood would stay inside his body. Most of it, at least.
I would’ve felt bad for him, but if he was involved in one of Valentine’s backroom deals, he was a piece of shit.
Then again, I was a piece of shit too.
I landed a few more kicks, but I was growing bored.
John Valentine constantly proselytized the old saying that you don’t have to speak to be heard.
He preferred his soldiers to be silent while he was wheeling and dealing in money laundering, gun running, drugs, and prostitution. Being silent didn’t bother me.
I grabbed the ropes that bound the unnamed man’s hands and dragged him toward the back door like I was carrying in groceries and didn’t want to make a second trip.
I glanced over my shoulder as I yanked the door open and spotted Amelia slipping through the alley.
Rather, she had spotted me.
Her wide eyes would have been comical—like a cartoon rabbit who had just realized a falling anvil was careening down from a cliff—had the look on her face not been so fucking devastating.
Her sharp gasp drifted over the wind like shattering glass.
It’s for the best, I told myself as I stared her down while a grown man dangled from my grip. She should see me like this. She should know who she’s dealing with.
Amelia turned and ran as I slipped inside.
I had told her to be forgettable. Maybe she finally learned her lesson.
Unfortunately, she was the least forgettable person to me.