Cold Deck: A Novel

33

||| 147 ||| instructive, as you can see. I find it fascinating. Nothing hurts our business, your business now, more than the electronic eye. In the old days we could go around the eye in the sky or buy an employee in surveillance. They make less than most dealers they watch. Isn’t that right, Angel?” “That’s right.” “Angel started out as a dealer. Did business and got caught. No conviction . The camera wasn’t on him. Only straight work he could get after that was in surveillance, because casinos don’t hire thieves and put them on games, at least no longer. They did in your dad’s day. I never told you I knew your dad. It was a small town then. Hell, the whole state was a small town in a sense. We learned our trade in flat stores, beating the squares.” Ben grinned as if remembering something pleasant from the past. “I knew him from the New Frontier and the Sahara. He was a boss at the Sahara when he died, right?” I nodded. “When your father died, you were how old?” “Twelve. I asked, why the video?” “The real question you should ask is how.” I looked at Angel, who shrugged. “Okay, how?” “Video cameras, so compact now, it’s no problem to conceal one. Unzip a purse enough to expose the lens, aim it at the subject, press a button on a remote, the camera does the work.” Audie. That explained everything, but what Ben now had in mind. He ejected the disc and handed to me. “The original’s elsewhere. You know, only two or three casinos have gone to technology this clear.” “Why should I know that, or care?” “You’re working for one. Come.” Ben walked me to the door. “Don’t get any bad ideas unless you want a copy to end up in the Gaming Control Board’s hands. And don’t come around unless I call.” As he shut the door, he added, “Remember, people disappear.” 33 The video had changed matters. I watched it four times. Each viewing further fueled my anger. At first I looked at everything else other than myself to blame—Audie, Ben, Dad’s dying so young, and the mgm fire. I laid the disc on the coffee table and stared at it for nearly an hour, my feelings shifting between fear and rage. I knew now why I’d been sent to the high-roller pit. Whatever Ben had in ||| 148 ||| mind, it involved my dealing high-limit blackjack. And I had a suspicion about what had happened to Blitzstein. The Mojave is a big desert, and the town had a history of people disappearing. Anyone who’d lived here since the ’60s knew the story of Russian Louie’s ride of no return. Blitzstein was just one more who vanished. I could easily be the next if I lost my value to Ben. What recourse did I have now but to submit to his bidding? I saw only one. I could keep the gun close. When I’d finally thought matters through, I faced up to the fact that ultimately I alone was to blame. Audie hadn’t betrayed me. She’d simply been loyal to Ben or herself. Or perhaps it was just true, as she’d claimed, that he owned her. After all, he now owned me, didn’t he? I removed the disc and heaved it at the fireplace, smashed the case underfoot, and discarded the mess in a plastic garbage bag. In looking at the trash, I saw something I should have seen at first—the remainders of my choices. I realized I’d lost sight of something long ago in the flames of the mgm. Myself. i sat under an annoyingly loud television and fumbled in a stack of pamphlets and magazine for something worth reading beside car brochures. I needed something, anything, to stop my mind from whittling away at the huge log of confusion that had become my life since Audie came into it. A woman with three daughters all under six years old sat opposite me. The youngest crawled in and out of the mother’s lap as the others stared at the television screen. The man beside me reeked of cigarette smoke. The smell was getting to me. I stood to go out for some fresh air. Following the fire at the mgm I hadn’t thought it possible to control much of...