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  casino. He told me he was under strict instructions to do everything he could to delay a routine Control Commission inspection of the casino’s books.”

  “This Bagger guy in money trouble?”

  She shook her head. “Don’t see how. The Pompeii Casino is like the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. It’s a gold mine, and Mr. Bagger is the smartest operator in town. Tough with a nickel, and he knows how to make a buck.”

  “Something must have happened, then,” Reuben said. “Maybe the guys who got hurt and the one who disappeared screwed up somehow with some of the casino’s cash. Maybe they were ripping him off, and Bagger found out and brought the hammer down.”

  “Mr. Bagger ain’t dumb. You don’t break knees anymore; you just sic the cops or lawyers on cheaters. So this must’ve been something really big, and he took it personally.”

  “Cops looking into it?”

  She looked incredulous. “Mr. Bagger knows what palms to grease. And do you know how much tax revenue the Pompeii generates for New Jersey?”

  Reuben nodded thoughtfully. “He probably paid off the pair in the hospital. And the other guy’s not gonna be squealing to the police.”

  “Dead men don’t talk, you’re right.” Angie had scooted closer to Reuben in the booth they were sharing. She patted his thigh with her hand and then kept it there. “So enough shop talk, tell me about yourself. Did you use to play pro football? You look big enough.” She squeezed his leg and leaned into him.

  “Played some in college. Did a couple tours in Nam. Won some medals, collected some shrapnel.”

  “Really? Where? Here?” She playfully poked a finger into his chest.

  “Let’s just say I won’t be having any more children.” Reuben couldn’t believe he was telling this lie to a woman who obviously wanted to go to bed with him, but he had other things on his mind.

  Angie’s jaw fell so far, it was in jeopardy of smacking the table.

  “Check, please,” Reuben called out to the waiter as he passed by.

  CHAPTER 31

  WHILE REUBEN WAS DISAPPOINTING Angie, Milton was trying out a system he’d read about for the craps table. So far he wasn’t doing as well as he’d hoped. Granted, he had gone up eight thousand dollars fairly early on in his run; however, he had higher standards than most people. Still, fellow gamblers were lined up around the rail, telling him he was hot, he was on fire. Over two dozen players were riding bets on his coattails desperately hoping he would lead them all to riches, or at least allow them to recoup some of the cash they’d lost thus far to Jerry Bagger.

  Women with their boobs falling out of their halter tops and sipping cocktails crowded around him, pushing their bosoms into his shoulders and splashing liquor on his shirt. They also pestered him with silly questions as to his technique. Milton didn’t know they were casino ringers whose job it was to break the concentration and hopefully the streak of any hot roller. Yet it didn’t matter. It would take far more than multiple pairs of inflatable breasts and inane queries to interfere with Milton Farb’s focus.

  The two croupiers and the stickman running the table scrutinized the action, accounting for bets and keeping an eye on all that was going on, including those hovering around the rails and players looking to get in on the action. At this point there was little room at the rail, but if someone caught the eye of one of the croupiers and flashed enough chips, he might get in. And this was a table everyone wanted to join.

  The stone-faced pit boss hovered in the back taking this all in too. He was the court of last resort in case there were any problems, and it was his job to see to the casino’s well-being at all times while putting on a front of being fair to players. The casino world was not a touchy-feely one; there was only one god here and his name was money. And at the end of the day the casino had to keep more of it than it paid out. Yet this pit boss was worried, because he’d been doing this long enough to know a truly hot shooter when he saw one. The Pompeii was going to take one on the chin; he just had a bad feeling.

  The table had a $50 minimum bet and a ten grand maximum, and Milton was laying his bets with surgical precision. He’d long since figured out all the statistical probabilities and was putting that knowledge to good use. He’d rolled a seven on his very first throw, the only time that number could be a winner. He’d won $500 on that fling of the dice with an aggressive initial bet and never looked back. He was leveraging his behind-the-pass-line bets, maxing out the fives, sixes and eights up top, then the nines and fives and the most lucrative, but least likely odds-wise, tens and fours, with the finesse of a decades-long craps impresario. He’d nailed a hard four twice and hit a hard eight and ten once each. He’d rolled his points six times now and the heat just kept building.

  Finally, the nervous pit boss ordered a change in the table crew. The croupiers and the stickman were more than a little upset about this and their sour expressions showed it. Tips were laid on the house at the end of a shooter’s run, so these folks wouldn’t be seeing a dime of Milton’s winnings. Yet the pit boss’s command was law. He’d done it to cool down Milton and the table. But such a move, while allowable under the gaming rules, was always unpopular, and howls of protest erupted from around the rail.

  Two security gents drifted over to the table after receiving a call from the pit boss over his headset. After seeing the hulking figures approach, the crowd quickly calmed down.

  The pit boss’ ploy didn’t work because Milton hit his points three more times over an array of intricate bets. He was now up over twenty-five grand. Unless he rolled the dice off the table, the croupier couldn’t change them on him, so the nervous pit boss really had few tricks left to pull. He just stood and watched as Milton continued to mow down the Pompeii Casino.

  A stunned quiet hit the table when Milton laid $500 down on a one-time horn bet that he would roll a three. When the one-two combo flashed up the bet paid off with fifteen-to-one odds, turning his $500 into $7,500. He was now up $35,000.

  The sweating pit boss was forced to play his final card, subtly nodding his head at a ringer stationed at the table. The man immediately laid down a bet on number seven. This, in effect, was betting against Milton, for if he rolled a seven now, or craps, he was done as shooter and all bets on the table lost. In the gambling world it was generally believed that betting against the shooter generated bad karma, siphoning the energy off the table and causing the shooter to lose his steam. The crowd immediately started growling at the ringer betting craps. One man at the rail even bumped him, but the security stepped in and quelled this mini-riot.

  Milton was unfazed by the casino’s obvious move to derail him. With the stunned crowd looking on, he calmly laid a thousand dollars’ worth of chips on boxcars, or the combination of six and six. This, along with betting snake eyes, was the most aggressive move one could make on a craps table, for it paid off thirty-to-one. However, because it was a one-time bet only, if he didn’t roll double sixes on the next throw, Milton lost the cash. Thus, betting a thousand bucks on boxcars was considered insane.

  Absolute silence prevailed at the table. There wasn’t one square inch of free space at the rail and the onlookers were packed six deep behind the players, straining to see the action. Nothing spread faster through a casino than word of a craps shooter on absolute fire.

  Milton glanced over at the pit boss and said, “Do you feel lucky? Because I do.”

  Before the stunned man could reply Milton let the dice fly. The two cubes rolled down the felt, neatly missing all stacked chips on the table and bouncing off the far rail.

  There was a moment of intense calm and then a collective scream audible around the casino erupted as the double sixes came to rest face up. Milton Farb had just won thirty grand and nearly doubled his take to $65,000. The guy beside him was whooping and pounding him on the back. The next words out of Milton’s mouth caused the cheers to be replaced with groans of disbelief.

  “I’m cashing out,” he said to his croupier.

  Th
e sea of faces around the rail would have looked far more appropriate at a funeral or plane crash site.

  “Let it ride,” one man screamed. “You are smoking hot. Let it ride.”

  “This is paying off my kids’ college tuition,” yelled another.

  Milton said, “I’m smarter than I am lucky. I know when to stop.”

  This bit of truth never goes over well in a casino.

  “Screw you,” a big man exclaimed as he strode up to Milton and put a meaty paw on his shoulder. “You keep rolling that dice, you hear me, you little prick? I’ve been losing all night until you came along. Keep rolling, you hear me!”

  “He heard you,” a voice said as a far bigger hand was placed on the man’s shoulder, jerking him backward.

  “What the hell,” the man spat out, whirling around with fists balled. He stared up into the face of the towering Reuben Rhodes, who snatched the stick off the table and held it up.

  Reuben said, “The man’s done playing, so I suggest you let him collect his chips and go on his way, before I take this stick and ram it right up your fat ass.”

  CHAPTER 32

  LATER, OVER A DRINK in a bar, Reuben scolded Milton. “Dammit, first blackjack and now craps. I told you to blend in, Milton, not stick out. You’re making our job a lot harder by turning into a casino shark.”

  Milton looked chastened. “I’m sorry, Reuben, you’re right, of course. I guess I got carried away. It won’t happen again.”

  “And exactly how are you going to get your cash without revealing who you are? When you win big in a casino you have to fill out tax paperwork with your name, address and Social Security number. You want Bagger to have that info?”

  “I read about that requirement, Reuben. I’m going to use a fake ID. They won’t know the difference.”

  “What if they run the ID from here on some database?”

  “My ID shows me to be a citizen of Great Britain; the U.S. has no taxing authority over me. And I highly doubt the casino is linked to any database in England.”

  Sufficiently mollified, Reuben explained to Milton what he had learned from Angie.

  “So if we can pin those crimes on Bagger, Susan will be home free,” Milton said.

  “Easier said than done. A guy like Bagger knows how to cover his tracks.”

  “Well, maybe I can start uncovering them.”

  “How?”

  “Oliver told us about this Anthony Wallace. Bagger found out about him and nearly killed him. Well, how did he find out about him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I know it’s late but call Oliver and Susan. Ask her for any information about Wallace that she can think of. Where he was staying, doing, that sort of thing.”

  Reuben made the call and then turned back to his friend.

  “Oliver woke her up and asked her. Wallace was staying in the hotel right across the street from the Pompeii. He was using an alias, Robby Thomas, from Michigan. Five-eight, slender, dark hair, a real cute-boy type. He was staying in a room with a direct sight line onto Bagger’s office.”

  “That’s what I needed to know.” Milton rose.

  “Where are you going?” Reuben asked.

  “Across the street. Because the probabilities are that Bagger figured out Wallace was spying on him. If so, he’d want to check it out. So that’s what I’m going to do.”

  “How?”

  “I haven’t been hanging around Susan for nothing. Sit tight.”

  Milton’s nimble mind worked out the details on the way across the street.

  At the front desk of the hotel he said, “I’m looking for a Mr. Robert Thomas. He goes by Robby. He’s supposed to be staying at this hotel. Could you ring his room for me?”

  After a quick check on the computer the clerk shook his head. “We don’t have a guest by that name.”

  Milton displayed a confused look. “That’s very odd. He and my son went to Michigan together. We were supposed to have dinner together.”

  “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “Could I have gotten the date wrong? My secretary made the arrangements and she’s been known to mess up in the past. I’d feel just terrible if I stood him up.”

  The clerk clicked a few keys. “We did have a Robert Thomas from Michigan staying with us, but that was some time back.”

  “Oh my God, I am going to fire my secretary the minute I get back home. I wonder why Robby didn’t call me.”

  “Who gave him your contact information?”

  Milton let out a gasp. “My secretary! That idiot! Wrong date, probably wrong phone number if she bothered to give him one at all.”

  The clerk gave him a sympathetic look.

  “Well, I hope Robby had a good time while he was here.”

  The clerk glanced at the screen. “Records show he had a massage. So if you missed dinner with him, at least he was relaxed.”

  Milton laughed. “God, a massage, I haven’t had one of those in years.”

  “We have a great staff.”

  “Do you have to be a guest here?”

  “Oh no, I can make an appointment for you right now if you’d like.”

  “I tell you what, let me have the same masseuse Robby did. She and I can swap Robby stories. He’s quite a character and I’m sure the masseuse will remember him.”

  The clerk smiled. “Right you are, sir. Let me make the call.”

  The clerk dialed the spa, spoke for a couple minutes and then his face clouded. “Oh, right, I didn’t realize it was her. Okay, I’ll get back to you.” He hung up and turned to Milton.

  “I’m afraid you can’t have the same masseuse, sir.”

  “Oh, she no longer works here?”

  “It’s not that.” The clerk dropped his voice. “She, well, she died.”

  “Oh my God. Accident?”

  “I really can’t say, sir.”

  “I completely understand. So sad. Was she young?”

  “Yes. And Cindy was a really nice person.”

  “Well, that’s just awful.”

  “Would you still like a massage with someone else? We actually have an opening for you now.”

  “Yes, yes, I believe I will. Cindy, you said her name was?”

  “That’s right. Cindy Johnson.”

  “I’ll have to let Robby know.”

  An hour later Milton had received a vigorous massage by a very enthusiastic woman named Helen. However, when he casually raised the issue of Cindy’s death, Helen became somber.

  “It was awful. Here today, gone tomorrow sort of thing.”

  “Accident I heard,” Milton said as he sat in the lounge wrapped in a robe and sipping a cup of spring water.

  Helen snorted. “Accident?”

  “You don’t think it was?”

  “I’m not saying one way or another. None of my business really. But her poor mom’s busted up over it, I can tell you that.”

  “Her mother? Poor woman? Did she have to come to town to ID the body?”

  “What? No, Dolores lives right here. Works a craps table at the Pompeii.”

  “Well, goodness gracious, I was just there.”

  “Small world,” Helen said.

  “Poor Mrs. Johnson,” Milton said. “To lose one’s daughter like that.”

  “I know. And it’s Mrs. Radnor now, she remarried. Cin liked her stepdad all right, so she said.”

  Milton finished his water. “Well, thank you for a great massage. I feel like a new man.”

  “Anytime, sir, anytime.”

  CHAPTER 33

  ONCE BACK AT THE POMPEII, Milton filled Reuben in on what he’d discovered.

  His friend looked impressed. “Damn, Milton, Susan has rubbed off on you.”

  A few well-placed twenties later, the two men were directed to Dolores Radnor’s craps table. Milton bet on a hot shooter while he sized up the woman. She was thin and wrinkle-faced with a perpetually sad air about her. An hour later she took a break and Milton followed her to a