Cold Deck: A Novel

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||| 163 ||| duplicate of a portion of the high-roller pit at the Le Grande, including brass rail and carpet. The layouts were identical, down to the chips that matched in both denomination and total amount in a table bank in the high-roller pit. “Impressed?” Ben said. The detailing was impeccable. Gathering my wits, I said, “It’s not how I’d remodel.” “What would you do?” Angel asked. “Orange shag carpet and strobe lights?” Audie came up behind Wade. “Tell him, Ben,” she said. It sounded like an order coming from her, and I realized that it was an order. “Training day, Jude. You learn a whole new trick.” “Yeah?” I felt relieved. At least my children were safe and I was alive. I took a stack of black checks from the rack, cut it in two, and shuffled them back into one. They felt the right weight. The inserts weren’t authentic. The layouts, however, were. “Look above you, Jude,” Ben said as he sidled up next to me. I looked up at the vaulted ceiling. The lens of a video camera mounted there was aimed at the center table. “What new trick?” I asked, though I’d figured it out. “You’re going to take a cooler,” Audie said. She leaned a hip into the rail, arms crossed under her breasts, and gazed at me as she might a slice of moldy cheese. Then she turned away. “How much did the brass birds cost?” “Plastic. Made from molds,” Ben said. “Besides the chips, the only thing not genuine.” I ignored him and addressed Audie. “A cooler. I take it that’s not a drink.” “Cooler, cold deck, call it what you will. It’s worth fifty thousand to you. You’ll be the catcher. Angel will be the thrower.” “And Wade?” I asked. Wade spoke for the first time. “That’s none of your concern.” 37 I placed a two of spades crossways on Linus Berman’s double down. He shook his head and moved to the next hand, a sixteen. He hit it and lost. Two slot rows away a buzzer went off, signaling a big jackpot. Berman looked over his shoulder. “Someone’s got some luck.” ||| 164 ||| Berman was stuck sixty grand in two hours. Even while losing, he’d put up bets for me. Why, I wondered, as did every dealer, can’t a George seem to win? Then I remembered Berman’s big score at the Monaco. “Mr. B, no one deserves to win more than you.” “But I don’t play slots.” Berman moved to the last hand and took another bust. I turned over my hole card, a six. “You had a stiff,” he said. “Let’s cruise ’til the deck’s over.” The shuffler lifted the next deck into place. I waited for his bet. This time he spread two hands, a thousand on each. I dealt him a nineteen on the first and a sixteen on the second. I had a five showing. He signaled me off on both hands. I turned a thirteen, hit it with a two, then the cut card showed, signaling the end of the deck. I busted my hand on the next hit, a nine. “Well, we finished on a winner,” Berman said. “Glad to see that deck go.” I cleared the cards out of the shoe and placed them in the discard rack, then transferred the used deck to the rear compartment of the shuffler. I lifted the plastic door to the machine, pulled the fresh deck out, and offered up the cut card, the step-by-step procedure Ben had to overcome with his cold deck. How remained a mystery. “Good luck, Mr. B.” He closed his eyes and plunged the plastic card into the deck. The shuffler whizzed into action, recycling the used deck, its metal arms riffling up the center of two even halves. Soon I was on autopilot, my thoughts regressing to three nights ago. The math was fuzzy, but I couldn’t stop calculating potential outcomes. With a ten-thousand-dollar per-hand limit, how much could be made off a five-deck shoe that was set up? One deck had to be cut off the back, which left four, at an average of twenty to twenty-one hands per deck. Provided a player bet one hand at a time against the house. Those figures changed if the player went to five or six hands. Few players had...