“Right. The manufacturer didn’t think anyone would notice. Well, the only people who could notice would be the people who check slot machines for the ESD. They look at this stuff everyday. Somebody over there discovered the flaw, but instead of exposing it, he decided to use it to steal jackpots.”

“It’s a good theory.”

“It’s not a theory. It’s a fact. I can prove it.”

This was scary. His son was starting to sound like him.

“How?”

“It stands to reason that if I’m right, all the machines which have been ripped off where manufactured by the same company. Well, we know of two machines which were ripped off. The first was by Karl Klinghoffer at the Gold Rush. The second by his wife at the Peppermill. So I called the casinos, and asked them to tell me the make of the machines the Klinghoffers played on. Guess what? Both were made by a company called Universal. I Googled them on my cell phone. Universal makes twenty percent of the slots sold around the world. I’ll bet my house they all have the same fingerprint.”

“That’s brilliant Gerry.”

His son grinned. “I want a potato with my steak, and a Caesar Salad.”

“Coming right up.”

A uniformed cop entered the room. He pulled a spiral notebook out of his pocket along with a pen. “Which one of you was the last to speak to the deceased?”

Valentine glanced into the adjacent room. Garrow was lying motionless beneath a white sheet. He’d been so busy talking to his son, he hadn’t heard Garrow croak.

“I was.”

“What did he tell you?” the cop asked.

Valentine hesitated. Did he really want to tell the cop what Garrow had said, or Gerry’s theory? It was the kind of information that could destroy the casino business over night, which was exactly what he’d been hired to prevent.

“Nothing.”

The expression on the cop’s face said he didn’t believe Valentine.

“You sure about that?” the cop asked.

“Positive,” Valentine said. “He didn’t say a thing.”

The cop flipped his notebook shut. “Whatever you say.”

Chapter 43

Bronco drove around the Reno hills on Karl Junior’s dirt bike, the full moon illuminating the paths and keeping him from breaking his neck. Right around midnight, he drove back to the storage facility on the north end of town where he’d left Gerry Valentine that morning, and unlocked the second storage unit he kept there. Keeping two units in Reno had cost him a lot of money over the years, but he’d figured that one day, he’d be glad he had. Like every cheater he’d ever known, he understood the odds of the games, including the one he played with the police.

The car in the second unit was a Lexus coupe. Because the car’s anti-theft device was always on, the car’s battery died when not in use. He’d left a trickle charge attached to the battery which he now unhooked, then closed the hood and got behind the wheel. The engine started up on the first turn of the key.

From the trunk he removed a box of disguises and an envelope containing fake ID. The Lexus was registered to Thomas Pico, one of the many aliases he’d adopted over the years. Thomas Pico was fifty-five, the CEO of a film studio in L.A., and a known “player,” with a fifty-thousand line of credit at every casino in Las Vegas. Pico was the casinos’ best customer — a sucker — and welcome wherever he went. Of all his aliases, Pico was the safest.

Bronco slipped into black designer slacks and a black silk shirt — Pico’s trademark colors — then took a pair of electric hair trimmers from the box, and shaved his head. Pico’s bald head was known to every pit boss in Las Vegas, and when he was finished with the trimmers, he covered his head with shaving cream, and ran a razor over his skull. Then, he applied skin toner to his face, and made the wrinkles disappear.

He appraised himself in the Lexus’s mirror. The transformation was complete, and he wondered if maybe this time, he’d leave Bronco for good. He’d make a last big score, and head down to sunny Mexico and buy a place on the beach. He’d meet a decent woman, and start his life over. As dreams went, it was a good one, and he backed the Lexus out of the storage unit feeling good about things. It had been a long time since he’d felt that way.

Glenn, his old teacher, had a theory about ripping off casinos. Glenn believed that a cheater should only target casinos in places with lots of people, like Las Vegas, Atlantic City and Reno. These were tourist towns, and the rules were different in tourist towns. Take the police roadblock just ahead. The cops were glancing into cars, and pulling an occasional driver over, but their hearts weren’t into it. Perhaps they’d heard that he’d gotten a dirt bike, and believed he was long gone. More than likely, they’d been told by their superiors to keep the traffic moving. Catching him was important, but it wasn’t important enough to stop the flow of tourists. Nothing was more important in a tourist town.

He crawled through the roadblock while listening to a news station on the radio. His jail break was no longer the lead story. In a few days, it wouldn’t be a story at all. The perfect swan song if he’d ever heard one. ‘And he escaped from the Reno jail, never to be seen again…’

A highway patrolman shone a flashlight in his face and waved him through. Soon he was on open highway. He called Garrow’s cell phone, which was now in the possession of the Asian. If the Asian was smart, he would have left Garrow’s phone on, in anticipation of his call.

His call was answered by a man with a heavy Asian accent.

“Who is this?” the man asked.

“This is Bronco.”

“Hello, Bronco.”

“I didn’t catch your name.”

“My name is Xing. Are you still in jail?”

Xing was no longer in Reno. If he had been, he’d have heard about Bronco’s escape over the news wires.

“I broke out,” Bronco said. “The police are looking for me. Do we still have a deal?”

“No.”

“No? What do you mean?”

“I have the chip. It was in your lawyer’s wallet.”

“You don’t know how the chip works. No one does but me. Stop fucking around. Do we have a deal?”

There was a pause on the line. Xing was playing it cute, just to see where it got him. Bronco would make him pay for that.

“All right,” Xing said. “But you’ll have to come to me.”

“Are you in Vegas?”

“Who told you that?” Xing asked suspiciously.

Bronco smiled into the phone. Reno and Las Vegas were the only real cities in Nevada. There was no place else for Xing to have gone.

“I guessed. I’ll call you when I reach the outskirts of town, and we can meet up.”

“I’ll be waiting. Don’t bring the lawyer.”

“Don’t worry. I got rid of him.”

“It was about time.”

The line went dead. Xing had gotten in the last word. He was in control of things, which was how most criminals liked to do business.

The highway opened up, and Bronco floored the Lexus’s accelerator. The ragged neon skyline grew smaller in his mirror, and disappeared from view.

Chapter 44

Every casino in Nevada had a steakhouse. The Peppermill’s was called The Bimini Steakhouse, and featured hardwood grilled steaks and prices that would make you swoon. Gerry cut into a sixteen ounce porterhouse as Bill approached the table.

“Sorry I’m late,” Bill said, taking a seat. “What’s the occasion?”

“Gerry solved your crooked agent’s slot scam.”

“You’re kidding me.”

Gerry stopped eating long enough to explain the Universal slot scam to Bill. In conclusion, he said, “Someone in your Electronic Systems Division has programmed your field agents’ notebooks to identify the Universal fingerprint, and add a code that will pay a jackpot. It’s not very difficult. Hackers do it to computers all the time.”