Gerry resumed staring at the road. Still no sign of another car. If he’d learned anything from the rackets, it was that there was always an angle to exploit. This angle had run its course, and he said, “That’s right. My father said it was the nicest one he’d ever seen. He asked the cops in Las Vegas if he could take it, and add it to his collection of cheating equipment. You had so many of them, the cops said sure.”

“So you made up that stuff about being a scammer to save your neck,” Bronco said.

Gerry glanced at his captor. “That part was true.”

“Bullgarbage.”

“I was a bookie in New York for ten years. I’ve only been clean for a little while.”

“Tell me who the last person was you scammed.”

Gerry told Bronco about scamming the Daily Double at Tampa Bay Downs, while helping his father expose the horse that had been silked. He glanced at Bronco while he spoke, and saw the same surprised look in his captor’s eyes as he’d seen in his father’s two days ago. He guessed Bronco had never heard of silking, either. By the time he’d finished, they’d reached the main highway. Bronco made him hang a left, and a short distance later, another left.

“Where we going?”

“Back to Reno,” Bronco said.

Gerry remembered the route they’d taken from the jail, and this wasn’t it. He watched Bronco reach across the seat, and remove the pack of Marlboros tucked in Gerry’s shirt pocket. Bronco banged one out, then offered Gerry one.

“Sure.”

Bronco lit two cigarettes from the same match, and shoved one into Gerry’s mouth. Bronco smoked his cigarette while studying him. “Let me get this straight. You and your old man were hired by the track to catch some cheaters. While you were there, you saw another scam going on, and you bet money on it, and took the track for six grand.”

“That’s right,” Gerry said.

“Why didn’t you bet more, and make a killing?”

“It’s a small track.”

“And you were afraid it would get noticed.”

“Yeah.”

Bronco blew smoke at him. “How do I know you ain’t bullgarbageting me again?”

“The winning stub’s in my wallet.”

Bronco pulled Gerry’s stolen wallet from his pocket, and extracted the winning stub. Gerry had kept the stub as a memento. In his bar in Brooklyn, he’d framed the first hundred dollars he’d ever made as a bookie, and he’d planned to frame this stub to signify that his days in the rackets had come to an end.

Bronco took his time studying it. Then he removed the money from the wallet, and counted it on the seat. Forty dollars in wilted bills.

“Where’s the rest of it?” Bronco asked.

“What do you mean?

“You won six grand. Where’s the rest of the money?”

Gerry didn’t think Bronco would believe he’d given the money back. He pointed at the photo section of the wallet. “In there.”

“You keep it hidden, huh?”

Bronco opened the photo section and saw a smiling picture of Yolanda taken when she was a third-year medical student at New York University’s School of Medicine. He stared long and hard at the photo.

“She got it,” Gerry said.

Something resembling a smile crossed Bronco’s face, but it didn’t last very long. Still holding the wallet, he said, “You won the money at the track two days ago, but you told me you quit the rackets.”

“I quit the day I ripped off the track. That night, actually,” Gerry said.

“Why?”

That was a hell of a good question. Why had Gerry quit? He could say his old man shamed him into it, but that wasn’t the truth. He’d done it because his life had gone down a different road, and he neededto change, or risk turning his life into a train wreck. The truth was, he’d finally been forced to grow up. That was why he’d quit the rackets.

“Turn the page,” Gerry said.

Bronco shot him a blank stare.

“Look at the next picture in my wallet.”

Bronco flipped to the next picture. It was of Lois, taken a few days ago, his baby daughter lying on the rug in his father’s house, the same rug Gerry had lain on as a baby.

“I quit because of her,” Gerry said.

Bronco stared long and hard at the photo.

“Didn’t want her growing up thinking her old man was a crook, huh?”

Gerry nodded, surprised Bronco would understand. Then he remembered the woman’s clothes hanging in his closet in the house in Henderson. Maybe in his past there had been a family.

Bronco tossed the wallet into Gerry’s lap. He pointed up the road. They were on a deserted stretch except for a convenience store sitting off to the side. Even from the distance Gerry could read the neon Budweiser sign shimmering in the window.

“Here’s the deal,” Bronco said. “You’re going to take your forty bucks, and make it grow.”

“I am?”

“That’s right. Otherwise, I’m going to kill you.”

Bronco quickly explained the scam. The convenience store, like many in Nevada, had a row of slot machines in the back. Bronco had checked the store not long ago, and discovered an old Bally among the machines. The Bally had a unique feature: A player could stick his fingers up the payout chute, and hold the door open. This turned a small payout into a large one. Since the machine paid out a jackpot roughly every thirty pulls, Bronco believed Gerry’s money could be turned into a quick profit.

“I’m going to stand outside, and watch you,” Bronco said. “Do anything stupid, and I’ll come in and shoot you, then rob the place.”

They were sitting in the car, parked outside the store. The midday sun beat down unmercifully on the rental’s windshield. Behind the counter, a teenage girl with braces on her teeth, probably still in highschool.

Gerry said, “What about her?”

“I’ll kill her, too.”

Gerry stuck his hand out. “Give me the money.”

Bronco took the wilted bills off the seat and laid it onto his palm. “The machine probably has a sensor for overpays. If you leave the payout door open too long, the candle will come on, and an alarm inside the machine will go off.”

“The candle?”

“The white light on top of the machine,” Bronco said. “That’s the candle. They start blinking when something’s wrong.”

“How long will it take for the sensor to come on?”

“Ten seconds, more or less.”

“More or less? What if it’s less? What if the alarm goes off?”

“Then I’ll have to kill you,” Bronco said.

Gerry got out of the rental and so did Bronco. Bronco went to the corner of the convenience store, and stood there and smoked his cigarette, one eye on the road, the other looking inside the store. The shotgun hung at his side, hidden from the street and from the girl working the counter. The guy knew all the angles.

Gerry entered the store. As he came in, the girl behind the counter smiled and said hello. Her face had the wonderful freshness of someone on their first job. He handed her his money and asked for change.

“You okay, mister?” she asked.

He looked at himself in the mirror that was directly behind her. He saw his face, which was white, then saw Bronco staring at him while blowing smoke rings. He looked back at the girl. Real young, sixteen if she was a day.

“Fine,” he said. “Quarters please.”

She handed him a plastic bucket filled with quarters. “Play the machine on the very end. It’s been paying off lately.”

Gerry walked to the back of the store. The slot machines hugged the wall, and took up about a fourth of the available floor space. There were probably as many slot machines in convenience stores and bars in Nevada as there were in the casinos. Gerry found the old Bally, and started to feed in a coin.

“No, not that one,” the girl said, hanging over the counter. “The machine on the end.”

Gerry felt sweat march down his back. He tried to ignore her, and the girl came out from behind the counter, and walked over to where he sat. Grabbing him by the arm, she led him to the machine on the end.