The New Deal

Rafferty was not the only one losing at the blackjack table, but he had been there the longest. He had been sitting there since 10 in the morning; now it was after three, and the waitresses of the Wanderlust, Las Vegas' fanciest and newest hotel, had offered him drinks on the house half-a-dozen times at least. The hotel could well afford buying him a drink to keep him where he was.

But he was not drinking; he was only losing. Losers are, by profession, doubters. This was Las Vegas and the Wanderlust was a brand-new hotel and the dealers' faces were not familiar.

The dealer gave Rafferty two fives. He himself had a six showing. Rafferty had bet $40. He put eight more five-dollar chips on the line to double his bet and took one card face down. He sneaked a look under the corner: a queen. Rafferty had 20 going for him.

The dealer turned up his down card: a seven. Now he had 13. Then, an ace. Fourteen. He hit himself again: a two. Sixteen. He hit himself for the last time. A five. Twenty-one. His practiced side-hand motion swept away all of Rafferty's chips.

"I want a new deck," Rafferty said.

"What's that?"

"I said I want a new deck."

"We just broke this one 10 minutes ago."

"And it's breaking me. I want a new deck." Rafferty moistened his lips. "And a new dealer."

The two other men who were playing at the table shifted uneasily. They were losing, too, and perhaps secretly they shared Rafferty's spoken sentiments, but they did not want to be drawn in on this.

They were drawn in on it. The dealer drew them in: "Either of you gentlemen want to complain?"

The two men looked down at the green of the table, studying the pattern and the arc inscription: Dealer Must Hit 16 & Stand on All 17s.

"Don't drag anybody else into it," Rafferty said coldly to the dealer. "It only takes one man to make a complaint. I'm making it."

Out of nowhere, the pit boss appeared. That is not a definitive statement; all pit bosses appear from nowhere. This one was small, cushion-footed, leathery-faced, black-haired. He said to the dealer: "And?"

The dealer nodded toward Rafferty.

"Yes, Mr. Rafferty?" the pit boss said. They knew his name. He had cashed three checks so far today.

"I don't like the cards."

The dealer said, "New deck 10 minutes ago."

"Spread 'em," the pit boss said to him.

The dealer spread the deck face up.

"No," Rafferty said. "You're wasting your time. If I knew what to look for I'd be on your side of the table."

"All right," the pit boss said. "New deck."

"Ah, what for?" Rafferty said. He sighed. "They all come out of the same box, don't they?"

"Well, then," the pit boss said, "what can we do?"

Rafferty sighed again. "You know," he said, "it'd be terrible for a new place like this to get into trouble. Take away your gambling license, you're dead. You know that, don't you?"

"He asked for a new deck," the dealer said defensively to the pit boss. "You offer him one and now he says 'no.' Maybe he's got a little case of loser's fatigue."

"Oh, I want a new deck," Rafferty said. "But not out of the box backstage. Suppose I told you I had a deck upstairs in my room. Would you play with my cards?"

The pit boss laughed. Then he looked at Rafferty's face and stopped laughing. He said, "You know better than that, Mr. Rafferty. The house supplies the cards."

"I bought them at the cigar counter over there," Rafferty said. "They're the same brand the house uses, aren't they?"

"We didn't see you buy them," the dealer said. "We don't know what you did upstairs."

"Shut up," the pit boss said to him.

"And I don't know what you do downstairs," Rafferty said to the dealer. "All I know is, there's a lot of fives in your deck."

"Nobody's making you play," the dealer said to him. "You don't like the game, nobody's making you sit there."

"I told you, shut up," the pit boss said to him. Four or five people had gathered behind Rafferty arid the other players to listen. "Mr. Rafferty, can I talk to you for a minute?"

"We can talk here." Rafferty said. But there was something in the way the pit boss looked at him. He shrugged and stood up. "All right." He moved away from the playing area and the pit boss ducked under the rope and joined him.

"How much are you out?" the pit boss said in a low voice.

"I don't know exactly," Rafferty said. "Couple of thousand, maybe. Does it make any difference?"

"Look," the pit boss said, "on the one hand, we run an honest game. On the other hand, we don't want any trouble. We'll do anything reasonable to prove we're on the level."

"You won't play with my cards, will you?"

"I said anything reasonable," the pit boss said.

"But they're the same cards you use. I bought them right over there."

The pit boss shook his head patiently. "Nobody would call that reasonable, Mr. Rafferty. The dealer had it right. Nobody knows you bought them here. And nobody knows how long ago it was. If you were to buy a deck right now and we played them fresh, that would be another thing.

"All right," Rafferty said.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I said all right. They're your terms. I accept."

"I don't understand."

"I will walk with you this minute to the cigar counter," Rafferty said, "and I will buy a deck of cards, and then we will walk back to the table and play blackjack with those cards."

"Ah, Mr. Rafferty," the pit boss said. "Don't be ridiculous."

"Ridiculous?" Rafferty's voice went up and the other man looked uncertainly around. "All I've just done is agree to something you yourself proposed."

"But it isn't worked that way," the pit boss said. "Suppose everybody came in wanting to play with his own cards or his own dice. We'd have to make a career out of checking up on people."

"I'm not everybody," Rafferty said.

"You proposed something and the minute I agree, you change your mind. You say the cards over here are the same as the cards over there. So I'm not playing with my cards. I'm playing with your cards."

"Then what difference does it make?"

"The difference is that you said they were the same cards; I didn't. I'd like (concluded on page 134)New Deal(continued from page 61) to see if the cards you sell over the counter to the public are the same as the ones you play with. Call it an experiment."

Rafferty grinned coldly, then suddenly turned and walked the few steps to the cigar counter. The pit boss followed him. He said, "What are you going to do?"

"Just buy a deck of cards," Rafferty said. He nodded at the girl behind the counter. "Cards?"

"A dollar, sir," the girl said and slid a deck across the glass top of the counter.

Rafferty set a silver dollar on the counter. He turned and held out the deck to the pit boss. "Here," he said. "You hold them. Just to make sure I'm not cheating."

The pit boss took the deck and stared at him. "You figure we're sensitive, so you're trying to make trouble, aren't you?"

"No," Rafferty said. "You're the one who's looking for trouble. All I'm looking for is an even shake. To repeat, all I'm doing is taking up your offer."

The pit boss swallowed. "Suppose you have a run of luck."

"Then I have a run of luck."

"Then you can go around saying this proves we're crooked."

"If you're not, you don't have anything to worry about."

"And if you keep on losing? What then? Do you hang it on the dealer?"

"There'll be people watching," Rafferty said. "I'm not worried about card tricks. Not this time around."

"You could still sit there and complain and cause trouble."

"Not really," Rafferty said. "A deck lasts about an hour in play, doesn't it? And if I went back to the counter for another deck, that would be unreasonable, wouldn't it? No, I've made my play. I'm truly interested in whether you think it's asking too much."

The pit boss looked down at his shoes.

"This doesn't prove a thing, you know. If we were dishonest, the easiest thing in the world now would be to rig it so you win."

"I'd be delighted," Rafferty said. "Except that doing that would make you look really bad."

"Then what do you want?"

"A fresh start with a new deck of cards."

"Mr. Rafferty," the pit boss said, "I . . ." He paused. "All right. You've got an hour."

"Thank you," Rafferty said, and they went back to the table. A new dealer was called over. The pit boss himself broke the seal and spread the cards.

Rafferty played for an hour, while the pit boss and an ever-growing crowd of onlookers watched.

At the end of the hour, Rafferty stood up. He had won $18,000.

"Are you satisfied?" the pit boss said to him.

"Not quite." Rafferty said smoothly. "I'm out a dollar."

"You're out a ...?"

"For the cards."

"I see," the pit boss said. His voice struggled for control. "But that's not a dollar, Mr. Rafferty, because the cards at this point aren't worth a dollar anymore. They're used. So here are the cards. Mr. Rafferty, and you sell them for what you can get for them. And I'm not supposed to say this, but I'm going to say it anyway -- don't come back here, Mr. Rafferty. It costs us too much to prove to you we're honest, and I'm not talking just about money. We like people who take our word for it, because we are honest, and we have their good will and the only way we can stay in business is to stay honest and settle for the house edge. You understand, Mr. Rafferty?"

"Perfectly," Rafferty said. "You don't have to worry about me coming back. It's unlikely I'd ever have another run like this one."

He nodded, fended his way through the group of onlookers and went to the elevators and up to his room. When he got there, he found there was a young woman seated at the writing table. She had an extremely thin artist's pen in her hand and she was marking the backs of a new deck of cards. The package the cards came in had been opened so that the seal was left unbroken.

"Hi," she said to Rafferty. "How'd you do?" She was the girl who had been behind the cigar counter downstairs.

"Fifteen net," Rafferty said, "and I told you not to be seen up here. And lay off the cards for now. Wait till we get to Reno." leaving me gaping after him, all of a twitter.