“The next day, Skinner put the mouse back in the same box. The mouse tapped the lever, but no pellet appeared. After a while the mouse lost interest, and stopped tapping the lever.

“The third day, Skinner put the mouse in the box again. This time when the mouse tapped the lever, the pellets came out at infrequent intervals. Guess what happened?”

Gerry shook his head. He didn’t have a clue.

“The mouse tapped on that lever all day long. It didn’t matter that the mouse didn’t know when the food would come out. The mouse just knew that it eventually would. Skinner called this intermittent reinforcement.”

“And that’s how slot machines hook suckers into playing,” Gerry said.

“Yeah, but there’s a catch.”

“What’s that?”

“Slot players believe the more money they put in, the more likely the machine is to pay a jackpot. They think they’re priming the pump.”

“And they’re not?”

“No. Modern slot machines use silicon chips to control the game. The chip doesn’t have a memory, and can never be primed. Problem is, nobody who plays the slots believes that.”

“Why not?”

“They just don’t. Winning a jackpot is a dream to these people. If they read in the paper that jackpots are being stolen, they’ll think That guy stole my jackpot!and they’ll stop playing. Overnight, seven billion dollars in profits will go up in smoke.”

“Oh, wow,” Gerry said.

Another storm had rolled in from the gulf, and they walked back to Gerry’s house in rumbling darkness, stopping beneath a large cypress tree on the corner.

“How will this affect our business?” Gerry asked.

“This could hurt every casino in the country,” his father said. “If it does, the casinos will pare back, and stop using us.”

“What then?”

“Shuffle board for me, a real job for you.”

Gerry grimaced. “There’s got to be a solution.”

His father pulled a piece of nicotine gum out of his pocket and popped it into his mouth. Gerry knew it was nicotine because his father didn’t offer him any. His father said, “The governor of Las Vegas asked me to take the job. You know my feelings about Las Vegas, but I’m going to help him out. If I can catch this agent and the governor can keep it out of the papers, our business won’t suffer.”

Gerry nodded in the dark. His father had thought the whole thing out.

“Beautiful,” he said.

His father stepped out of the shadows. “There’s one catch. The police got this information from an informant. Bronco Marchese.”

The storm had caught up with them, the sky awash with brilliant flashes of lightning, the booms of thunder drawing closer. Gerry came out of the shadows as well. “The bastard who murdered Uncle Sal?”

“That’s right.”

“I’ve been wanting to get my hands on him for a long time.”

His father frowned. “This is a job, Gerry, not a vendetta. If you go, it’s as my partner. Otherwise, stay home.”

Gerry felt the indignation rise in his chest. Uncle Sal had been like a second father to him, and he forced himself to calm down.

“What do you want me to do?

“I’m going to question Bronco, see if I can get the agent’s name out of him,” his father replied. “I’m sure he’s not going to be cooperative. I want you to read him.”

“Read him how?”

“Get his vibes.”

“I don’t understand what you mean, Pop.”

His father put his hand on Gerry’s shoulder. “Look, Gerry. I realized something at the track today. You know how criminals and low lifes think. You were one of them, for Christ’s sake. That’s an asset in our business.”

“It is?”

“Yes. So start using it. I’ll interview Bronco, and you tell me what you think is going on inside his head. Sound like a plan?”

Gerry dipped his head. It was a habit he’d picked up as a teenager and never outgrown. It meant ‘Yes,” only was deeper than that. His father had asked for help, and Gerry wasn’t going to let him down.

“Good.”

They walked up the path to Gerry’s house between scattered raindrops. Reaching the front door, Gerry pulled out his house key and stuck it into the lock.

“One more thing,” his father said.

“What’s that?”

“I overheard your conversation with Yolanda.”

Gerry froze. Busted again.Without another word, his father turned and walked away. He thought about all the bills that needed to be paid, then erased the thought from his mind.

“I’ll take the money back tomorrow,” he heard himself say.

His father waved in the darkness and then was gone.

Chapter 7

Bronco Marchese lay on his cot in his jailhouse jammies, staring at the concrete ceiling. His lawyer, bad-breathed Kyle Garrow, was running late. Garrow had never been late to an appointment before, but Bronco had never been in jail before. Bronco sensed a shift in their relationship that he didn’t like. The moment he got out of jail, he planned to set Garrow straight.

He shut his eyes. It was the strangest damn thing. His first time behind bars, and he wasn’t missing the taste of good food, or the rush of an ice-cold beer. What he was missing were the slots.

He’d started playing in New York forty years ago. Slots were illegal, only most bars in New York had them. He’d been fifteen, and had never experienced the kind of joy that coursed through his body after winning a jackpot. He’d fed his winnings back into the machine, expecting it to happen again. When it hadn’t, he’d gone and gotten a screwdriver, opened the machine, and stolen every last coin.

For the next two years, he’d stolen jackpots all over the city. His parents were dead and he had no friends, and it had kept him alive. One day while sitting at a bar, he’d overheard a conversation that had changed his life.

It was between two hoodlums, and they were discussing a gang of cheaters in Las Vegas who were rigging jackpots. The hoodlums had made it sound like the greatest scam ever invented.

“They’re stealing millions,” one of the hoodlums said.

“You’re garbageting me,” the other hoodlum said.

“No, I’m not.”

“Man, I’d like to get my hands on some of that money.”

Bronco had thought about the conversation for days. He guessed the Las Vegas cheaters were doing the same thing he was, but the jackpots were bigger. Suddenly, his life’s path had been laid out before him: He would go west, and make his fortune. The next day, he’d gone to the Port Authority Bus terminal on west 42 ^ndStreet, and bought a one-way ticket to Las Vegas.

The trip had taken a week. When Bronco arrived, he’d been awed by what he’d seen. Las Vegas was a mega-watt shrine to greed that burned twenty-four hours a day. It made the gambling back east seem like kindergarten, and had only further confirmed his decision to come. He had no money, and slept under bridges and ate out of dumpsters, his nights spent in the casinos.

One night at the Riviera, he spotted five people bunched around a slot machine. Their movements looked suspicious, and he quickly made their leader, a red-haired man with a scarred face. When he approached, Red told him to get lost.

“I’m on your side,” Bronco said.

“Prove it,” Red said.

Bronco pointed across the casino floor. “See that guy by the change machine? He’s the house dick. Wait until he leaves before making your play.”

Red had liked that. The house dick wandered off, and the gang went to work. While Red opened the machine with a skeleton key and set the reels, his accomplices stood in front of the machine, blocking it from the surveillance cameras, while a fourth acted as a lookout. Once the reels were set, the gang dispersed, leaving a blonde woman to claim the prize. Bronco stood off to the side, awe-struck.