Payoff on Double Zero

Although she was typing from her shorthand notes, the middle-aged secretary kept sneaking glances at Sam Miller across the outer office. he was waiting to see her boss, Mr. Collins, who was the owner and manager of the casino in the Starlight Hotel. This is a relatively old establishment, not far out of town on the Las Vegas Strip.

To women in general, and to middle-aged secretaries in particular, Sam was almost surrealistically handsome, too all-American to believe in one look. He was in his early 20s, well over six feet tall, broad in the shoulders and lithe below. His blond hair was cut short, his face was tanned, his nose perfectly straight, his teeth white, his smile a gift of pleasure. His eyes were true blue and his gaze was of such clear and steady honesty that it made even a secretary with a pure conscience and a fine Methodist background feel somewhat shifty and sinful when she met it. Seh knew that Mr. Collins would be eager to hire Sam--though he'd pretend he wasn't and he'd give the boy a little hard time first. The Starlight needed dealers and rarely did they find one who was such a poster picture of integrity. More than that, Sam's looks would drew most of the women gamblers in Vegas, the younger ones with an urge to bed him and the older ones with an impulse to mother him. Then the intercom buzzed and Mr. Collins said that he was ready to see Mr. Miller.

Sam went in and carefully shut the door behind him. Mr. Collins posed behind his massive desk, right hand extended, a smile of limited cordiality on his face. Sam had heard that Mr. Collins was Balkan by birth, with a name of many jagged syllables that had been carefully naturalized and neutralized. He was a man in his 60s, olive in coloring, wearing a light-gray silk suit exactly shaded to match his hair.

Sam shook his hand and smiled and said, "How do you do, sir?"

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Sam Miller. sit down. Tell me the story of your life." Mr. Collins had only a trace of a foreign accent.

Sam sat. "All of it?"

"Well, it can scarcely have been a very long life. How old are you?"

"Twenty-two, sir."

"Might I see your driver's license?"

"sure." Sam took it from his wallet and handed it over the desk and Mr. Collins gave it a quick glance and passed it back.

"Have you ever been arrested?"

"No, sir."

"Be certain, now. The rules of the Nevada Gaming Commission require me to check."

"No, sir. I've never been arrested for anything."

"Why do you wish to be a dealer?"

"To make some money and save it, so I can go to college full time."

"Where do you come from originally?"

"I was born in Los Angeles and I went to Hollywood High, and then I enlisted in the Marine corps, rather than be drefted."

"What did you do in the Marine Corps?"

"I got sent to Vietnam."

"Did anything happen to you?"

"Yes. I got shot three times."

"You have my profound sympathy. Were they serious wounds?"

"One was. It was in the stomach. the others were just flesh wounds. Anyway, I finally got discharged last summer."

"Do you happen to have your discharge papers on your person?"

Sam produced them and Mr. Collins looked then over and handed them back.

"And after your discharge?"

"My uncle had a liquor store in Hollywood and I went to work for him. But we were held up four times. Twice I got clobbered with revolver butts and once I was shot in the foot, and finally my uncle was pistol-whipped and he said the hell with it and sols the store and I was out of a job."

"You've crowded a good deal of action into your short life."

Sam smiled. "Not intentionally. And then somebody suggested I might get a job dealing up here in Las Vegas, and my math was always pretty good, and so I came up and took a course at Mr. Ferguson's Dealers' School and, as you've seen from the diploma your secretary brought in, I graduated yesterday."

Mr. Collins picked up the diploma and handed it to Sam. "Why did you come here--that is, instead of to some other casino?"

"Mr. Ferguson said he thought you might be hiring dealers and that you were a good man to work for. He also said that you were the smartest man in Vegas."

"Did he, now? It's the first I've heard of it. As it happens, however, I've just been talking to Ferguson on the phone about you. He says you were one of the best students he's had in a long time. How is your roulette?"

"Pretty fair, I think."

"We shall see. A little test. Thirty-two has come up," Mr. Collins began, and then rattled on with, "and a player has two chips straight up on it, one split, two chips on corners, four chips on three across and three chips on the first column. How many chips do you pay this player?"

It took Sam four seconds to answer, "A hundred and forty-seven."

"You forgot the column bet."

"No, sir, I didn't. You said the first column. Thirty-two is in the second column." Sam smiled a little. "Which you very well know."

Mr. collins did not smile. "These are quarter chips. How much has the player won?"

"Seven stacks plus seven. Thirty-six seventy-five."

Now Mr. Collins smiled. "Can you start work this afternoon at four? That's the middle shift--four till midnight."

"Yes, sir."

"You'll get forty dollars per shift, plus your share of the dealers' tips. Like most casinos, we pool them and whack them up evenly. You'll average around two-fifty, two-seventy-five for a forty-hour week. is that satisfactory?"

"Yes, sir." Sam rose as if to leave.

"Sit down. I have something to tell you. I and I alone own the gaming license here. I am not answerable to anyone. I have no connection with the Mafia nor any other bunch of criminals. We do not cheat our players, we do not cheat the Nevada Gaming Commission and we do not cheat the Internal Revenue Service. Furthermore, if any dealer tries to cheat the house in favor of himself or a player, he gets no mercy from me." (continued on page 118)Payoff on Double Zero(continued from page 110) "Mr. Ferguson told me you ran an honest game."

"It is more than an honest game. A little test. Number seven has come up. Having made sure that the number is not covered, you clear the board of chips. But then a player says, 'Just a minute, here! I had a chip on seven, but you took it away!' You know for certain that this player is lying through his teeth. What do you do?"

"Well ... I'd send for my pit boss."

"No. You apologize to the player and you pay him. Only if the player does this more than once do you call for your pit boss--who will have been at your side by that time, anyway. The point I am making is that as far as you are concerned, every player is honest and he is always right. You are not a policeman and you are not a detective. That is the job of your pit boss and it is also my job. It is not yours."

"Yes, sir."

Mr. Collins rose and extended his hand. "Nice to have you with us. Keep your hands off our cocktail waitresses. There are plenty of other pretty girls in this town."

At 3:45 that afternoon, Sam walked again into the Starlight Hotel. Being one of the older Strip hotels, it was not a large one. The casino itself was a separate wing. People came to play there because it was neither noisy nor garish, like the newer and much larger Strip casinos. The slots were in a separate room, so their clatter did not disturb the serious gamblers. On the depressed oval that was the casino floor, there were two crap tables, three 21 tables and three roulette tables. There was no wheel of fortune and no bingo and no race-track betting. This was a casino for players who appreciated quiet. Even the stickmen at the crap tables kept their continuous chatter down.

Sam didn't know where to report for work, but he found a small bar through an archway on the upper level of the room and went in and inquired of the barman, whose named turned out to be Chuck. He told Sam how to find the dealers' room.

Sam followed a corridor to the rear of the building, where he found a room with some wall lockers and a few easy chairs and tables. Other dealers were there, hanging up their jackets and putting on their green aprons. A scrawny little man in a dark suit came up to Sam. He looked 50 and had a sour, sallow face.

"Sam Miller?"

"Yes, sir."

"I'm Pete and I'm your pit boss on this shift." He turned to the other dealers. "Boys, this is Sam Miller." They grunted friendly greetings. "You'll get to know 'em all," Pete told Sam. "But this is Harry." He took Sam over to meet a tall man of 70 with weary eyes. "You'll be working together. You can begin by stacking for Harry tonight."

"Pleased to meet you, sonny boy," Harry said and shook Sam's hand and looked at him and reacted. "My God--you look fifteen years old."

In the casino, Sam found that his roulette-table setup was almost identical with the one in Ferguson's school. There were six stools along the players' side of the table. By the wheel on the dealer's right were stacks of chips in different colors--white, red, green, blue, brown and yellow. They were all marked Starlight but had no stated value. Since the minimum bet was a quarter, their value was so presumed.

Past the colors were stacks of dollar tokens. These were of base metal, minted for the casino. To the right of the tokens were stacks of house checks, with marked denominations of five dollars ranging upward to $50. The casino also had house checks worth $100 and $500 and $1000, but these were seldom seen in any quantity at a roulette table.

In front of the dealer was a slot in which rested a plastic shingle, and when players bought chips with currency, the bills were shoved down through the slot and into the locked cashbox under the table.

Since this was now the end of a shift, Mr. Collins came up with his keys and an empty cashbox. He exchanged one box for the other and walked off with the full one toward the cashier's office, followed by an armed and uniformed security guard.

For the first hour, Sam merely stacked the chips and the occasional checks that Harry shoved over to him. It was a quiet game, without plungers or cheaters or arguments. Then Harry went off for a break and Sam took over the dealing.

Not long after, a woman came up to Sam's table. She was in her 50s, tall and scrawny, and her mouth held more than her share of the world's teeth. She was wearing a gold-lamé blouse over orange slacks. She sounded rather drunk as she said, "Gimme a coupla stacksa quarters." She handed Sam a ten-dollar bill. He slotted the money and passed her two stacks of red chips. "I don' like red," she said. "It doesn't go with my slacks. You got another color?"

"How about green?" Sam asked her, smiling.

"Green is jus' fine," she said and soon picked up the two stacks Sam put in front of her.

Sam started the ball whirring.

"I been playin' this roulette for years and years," the woman announced to the table at large, "an' there's no such thing as a system. No such thing as a system! You just gotta let the chips fall where they may, as the fella said!"

She then turned her back to the table, with 20 chips in each hand, and tossed them all over her shoulders onto the board. They clattered down every which way and knocked other bets out of position, and a great many of the chips rolled off the table and onto the floor. The other players cried out in annoyance. Sam removed the ball from the wheel. Pete started over, pausing to push one of several buttons on a small table in the center of the enclosure.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," Sam told the woman, "but we can't bet that way."

She giggled. "I'm jus' lettin' the chips fall where they may!"

"Even so," Sam said with an engaging smile, "if your bets aren't in correct positions, I won't know how to pay you when you win."

The other players had been patiently bending over and retrieving green chips from the floor. Sam gathered them and stacked them for her and made sure they were all there.

"I'm real sorry to make all this trouble," the woman said, smiling at Sam. "Let's see, now. Most of 'em fell around twenny, so that's where I'll kinda put 'em. Around twenny." With drunken carefulness, she began to slather her chips around number 20.

In the distance, Sam saw Mr. Collins approaching from his office--where he had just heard the warning buzz from Pete. He walked up and stood at the head of the table, but said nothing.

Sam put the ball in motion. The woman watched it spin. "It's just got to be twenny," she said. "Or else I am bankrupt!"

The ball fell into number 20. "Ooooooh!" She jumped up and down and clapped her hands. "I won! I won!"

Sam counted the green chips on the board. "Six straight up on twenty, nine splits, ten on corners. That's four hundred and forty-three chips, plus these twenty-five left on the board."

"How much is that in money?" the woman asked.

"One hundred and seventeen dollars," Sam said.

Mr. Collins had come up behind her. "My congratulations, Mrs. Burke," he said.

She turned. "Oh, dear Mr. Collins. How are you?"

"It's always such a pleasure to see you here," Mr. Collins said. "As a matter of fact, I've been meaning to call you. Before you break the bank, why don't you cash in and come and have a drink with me? I need your advice about a piece of real estate."

In moments, Mrs. Burke had been paid her winnings and was walking off (continued on page 234)Payoff on Double Zero(continued from page 118) happily on Mr. Collins' arm. Under the chatter of the players, Pete murmured to Sam, "Very nicely handled, son. What Howard Hughes and Kerkorian don't own in Vegas, Mrs. Burke does."

On Sam's second night of dealing, nothing whatever happened. But on his third night, there was trouble.

A fat-faced young man with a sullen mouth and pimples had been betting regularly on 14 and losing. He was playing with ten-dollar house checks, but he didn't look as if he could afford them, and he kept increasing his bets until he was up to $50 a spin, straight up on 14. Despair came into his eyes.

This time, 15 came up. There was no bet on it. Sam cleared the board.

"Hold on. there!" the young man said. "What about my fifty on fifteen?"

Sam smiled politely. "I think it was on fourteen, sir."

Pete had already pushed a button and was at Sam's side.

"Not this time it wasn't!" the young man said. "I finally got tired of fourteen and bet on fifteen. You were just so used to seeing me bet on fourteen that you made a mistake, that's all."

Eighteen hundred dollars was involved. Sam glanced over at Pete, but before the pit boss could speak, a distinguished-looking white-haired man at the very end of the table called to Sam, "I'm afraid the young man up there is right." His manner was reluctant and apologetic. "I'm sorry to be difficult, but I did see him bet on fifteen. I wondered at the time if he'd made a mistake or was changing his number after all this time."

The smartest man in Vegas had by now come up behind the bettor. "Pay the bet, Sam," he said. "I want no arguments here."

"Yes, sir," Sam said and reached for some checks.

Pete stopped him with a hand and said, "We don't have that much here at the table, Mr. Collins."

This was not true.

"Oh?" said Mr. Collins "Well, let's go to my office, then. If you and your friend would come with me, I'll see that----"

"My friend?" the young man asked. "I've never----"

The older man said from the foot of the table, "I've never seen that young fellow before in my life!"

"Oh?" Mr. Collins looked surprised. "I'm sorry. I'd presumed you two were friends."

"I never laid eyes on that gentleman before in my life!" the young man said.

"I understand," said Mr. Collins. "However, sir," he said to the older man, "I'll need a brief statement from you affirming that you saw the bet being placed. It's required by the Nevada Gaming Commission in these instances."

This was rubbish.

The older man sighed and picked up his chips and came round the table and offered his hand and a smile to the young man and said, "My name is John Wood."

"I'm George Wilkins and I'm real sorry to put you to all this trouble, but thank you for sticking up for me. What I mean"--He nodded toward Sam--"young fellows like this are obviously so new they make normal mistakes."

Sam wished he could knock this young man down and kick his teeth out. The two walked away with Mr. Collins. They did not return to the casino floor. When midnight came and Sam went off duty, he passed Mr. Collins on the upper level and asked him, "What happened to those two cheaters?"

Mr. Collins smiled. "Why do you so presume, Sam?"

"Because there was no bet on fifteen and anybody who said otherwise is a liar."

Laughing, Mr. Collins said, "Sam, you wouldn't believe how stupid some people can be. I asked to see their driver's licenses, as a matter of form. Without thinking, they showed them to me. What do you think I learned?"

"Don't tell me they have the same name?!"

"No, no. But their addresses showed that they live two houses apart. In Van Nuys, California."

"My God! What did you do to them?"

"Nothing. I left them alone in my office for a minute and when I came back, they were gone. I presume they're well back in California by now." The smartest man in Vegas patted Sam on the shoulder and said, "Good night, Sam," and walked off.

It was around 11 on Sam's fourth night that things really began to happen. Sam was dealing and Harry was stacking for him. The table was crowded and all the colors were in use. Behind the seated players, others stood, betting with coins and house checks. As the ball began to slow, Sam said "No more bets, please."

A man started shouting, "Let me through! Here, now--let me through! Get out of the way. damn it!"

He was a tall man in his 70s and he wore a white Stetson. He had a white mustache under a long red nose. He shouldered his way through the standers. He held two packages of bank-strapped currency above his head and when he reached the table, he threw them both in the general area of number 23 and announced, "That's two thousand dollars right smack on twenty-three! Straight up!"

Sam quickly picked up the packs and tossed them off the betting area. "I'm sorry, sir." The ball fell into number 11.

The old man's reedy voice rose above the murmur at the table. "What's the matter, young fella? Something the matter with my money?" He was wearing a white-silk Western shirt and an apache tie with a gold tie slide in the shape of a nugget, and over all he had on a spotless white-buckskin suit with along fringes and with stitched patch pockets high and low. Sam had seen a similar suit in a Las Vegas store window for $295.

"This is perfectly good money!" the old man said, showing off the two packs. They contained $100 bills, which, as Sam knew, usually come from a bank strapped in units of ten. These looked to be fresh from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

Sam smiled at the old man. "Of course it is, sir. But, for one thing, you were too late for this roll; and for another, there's a two-hundred-dollar maximum bet on the numbers; and for still another, we don't use paper money on this table."

"Well, sell me some chips, damn it!"

"I will, sir, but we're out of colors and----"

Pete had come to the table and he now asked, "What denomination would you like to play with, sir?"

"Hundreds! Hundred-dollar chips, if you've got 'em." Everyone at the table was now listening and the old man turned and smiled and said, "My name's Premberton! Bert Premberton! From up Elko way! Pleased to make your acquaintance!" He shook hands with those whom he could reach.

"I'll have to get some hundred-dollar checks from the cashier, Mr. Premberton," Pete said. "How many would you like?"

"Well, now ...." The old man pondered and brought out package after package of strapped $100s from his various pockets and stacked them on the table in front of him. Twenty thousand dollars was visible. There was a stunned silence around the table. "Sold a ranch today," Premberton told everyone simply. "Or it finally got through escrow, I should say," To Pete, he said, "Oh, hell. Let's jest start with two thousand. But get plenty, while you're at it." He handed Sam two packages of $100s and stuffed the others back into his pockets.

Sam handed them to Pete, who broke the paper straps and fanned the bills and nodded and said, "Two thousand. I'll be right back."

"Here, now!" the old man bellowed. "What if twenty-three comes up while you're gone, hey? I want two hundred on it, every time. Twenty-three is gonna be a hot one tonight, I can tell you for true!"

"You'll be covered on every roll, Mr. Premberton," Pete said, starting off.

"Take over for me," Sam told Harry and walked after Pete, catching up with him outside the roulette enclosure. "Pete?" The pit boss stopped and turned. "I don't like this old man," Sam said. "I've got a kind of feeling about him."

"Why?"

"Well, for one thing, he's been drinking, and I didn't like the way he butted his way to the table, and--well, I just don't trust him is all."

"It is not your job to trust people. As long as his money's good, I don't care if----"

"But maybe it isn't. Maybe it's----"

Mr. Collins had walked up to them. "Troubles?"

"Maybe it's counterfeit," Sam finished. Pete smiled. "You have got to be kidding."

Mr. Collins took the bills from Pete and ruffled through them and handed them back and motioned the pit boss toward the cashier's window. Then he sighed.

"Sam, you still have a good deal to learn. For all practical purposes--as far as we are concerned--there is no such thing as a hundred-dollar bill that is counterfeit. Oh, they do exist, but they're extremely rare, for the reason that printers don't bother with them because they're so difficult to pass. We get fives and tens and twenties and now and then a fifty. But I don't think I've seen a funny hundred in twenty years. In any case, there are two places in which no one but an idiot would deliberately pass even one phony hundred-dollar bill, and one is a bank and the other is a casino. Both places have smart cashiers and men with guns."

"I'm sorry," Sam said. "I didn't know that. I was only trying to protect the house."

"It is not your job to protect the house. I thought I'd made that perfectly clear when we first met. Would you get back to your table now, please?"

"Yes, sir."

Pete came up to them, carrying a plastic rack nearly full of $100 house checks. "I got quite a few, just in case," he said. "And to make our boy detective here happy, I asked both Ruth and Hazel to check out those bills; they're both experts in the currency department, and they assure me that the twenty hundreds are the genuine article, with the serial numbers in sequence, just as they left the Bureau of Engraving and Printing."

"I'm sorry to be so stupid," Sam said and followed Pete back to the table, where he and the pit boss piled the checks neatly in stacks of 20. Harry reached for one stack, knocked off four checks and handed the remaining 16 to Premberton, saying, "Two thousand, sir, less four hundred for the last two rolls."

The old man grunted his understanding and placed two checks on 23. He then began looking around the casino as if for someone, finally saw her, put two fingers into his mouth and produced a shrill whistle. He waved a hand and shouted, "Over here, honey!"

A girl came toward the table and tried to get through the crowd. "Let her through, there!" the old man cried. "That's my little bride, there! Let her through, damn it!"

People gave way and the girl soon joined Premberton, who hugged and kissed her. The girl blushed and said, "Oh, Bert! Not here!"

The girl was spectacularly lovely. She was in her early 20s and had golden hair and large young breasts. Her mouth was full and sensuous, but her wide blue eyes gave her an expression of innocence.

"Folks! I want you to meet my sweet little honey bunch, Vikki!" He kissed her again and hugged her and then ran his hand up and around her buttocks. "We got hitched this very mornin'!" There was a silence around the table, partly of incredulity and partly of disapproval. "And the reason twenty-three is goin' to be a hot number tonight is that today is February the twenty-third and it's also my own little hot number here's birthday, and she's twenty-three this very day! What do you think of that?" Premberton turned to Harry and asked, "You're sure, now, that two hundred is all I can bet at a time?"

"Yes, sir," Harry said as the ball slowed. "That's our limit." The ball dropped once and bounced about and finally fell into 23 and remained there. "Twenty-three," Harry announced and smiled at Vikki. "Happy birthday, young lady."

"Hey, now!" the old man shouted and clapped everyone he could reach on the back. "What'd I tell you? Twenty-three's goin' to be a hot number tonight!"

Harry pushed three and a half stacks over to the old man. "Seventy checks, sir. Seven thousand dollars."

The other players started exclaiming in excitement and people who heard the commotion began to crowd around the table to watch. Premberton told Vikki to open her shoulder bag and he dumped the 70 checks into it. "You'll get that Rolls-Royce automobile for a weddin' present yet, honey bunch! Then, to Harry, "Say, now! My little bride here can play, too, can't she?"

"Surely, sir," Harry said.

"Well, you jest do that, Vikki honey! You put two hundred on twenty-three along with me, you hear?"

After the old man had bet his two checks, Vikki added two more from her purse. Harry turned to Sam. "Take over for a couple of minutes, would you?" Harry walked off and Sam stepped into his place and Pete came up to stack for Sam. Other players began piling chips onto 23. Sam sent the ball spinning. It eventually fell into number five.

"You got to do better 'n that, young fella!" the old man shouted.

Sam smiled at him. "I'm trying, sir. I really am."

"I sure wish we could bet more than four hundred," the old man said. "Twenty-three is sure goin' to be a hot one tonight!"

A man standing next to Premberton volunteered: "You can also play splits if you want to, sir, and corners and three across."

"How's that?"

Using his finger as a pointer, the man showed him what he meant.

"Well, I'm jest goin' to bet that way, then!" He started to cover the board all around 23 and then said, "I'm goin' to need some more chips, young fella." He brought out three more packs of $100s and handed them to Sam, who broke the straps and counted the bills.

"Three thousand," Sam announced and slotted the money. Then he reached for the stack and a half Pete had ready for him and passed the checks to the old man, who finished covering 23 and its surrounding numbers. As the ball whirred, Sam figured that if 23 came up, the Prembertons would win $20,200. The number turned out to be 22, but the old man had $5000 coming to him because of his bets on splits and corners and three across. When Sam passed his winnings to him, the old man dumped them into Vikki's purse and bet again as before. The next three numbers were losers for Premberton, who was then almost out of visible checks.

"Better give me five thousand this time, young fella," he said, bringing five packages of money from his pocket. It was slotted and Sam gave him two and a half stacks. Harry returned and took over the stacking from Pete. The ball fell into 24. Sam paid the old man another 50 checks and these, too, went into Vikki's purse.

"Start thinkin' what color you want that Rolls-Royce automobile painted, honey bunch."

The next two numbers were zero and 36 and Premberton was down again in checks. "Five thousand more, young fella." The money came out and was counted and sent down into the cashbox and the old man got his two and a half stacks.

"Take over for me?" Sam asked Harry. To Pete as he passed, Sam said, "Got to take a leak." He crossed the casino floor and went up to the upper level, where Mr. Collins was standing, his eyes in constant motion as he surveyed and studied the activity below.

"How is it going, Sam?"

"Mr. Collins, I don't like what's going on at my table."

"Oh? Troubles?"

"Well, whenever that old man wins, he dumps his checks into his wife's bag, but when he loses, he cashes some more of his hundred-dollar bills."

"So?"

"She has close to seventeen thousand in there right now."

"So?" Mr. Collins shrugged. "Sam, some players feel luckier when they're playing with house money and others prefer to pocket our money and play with their own. It's their business. It is not yours."

"I know. But I keep getting the feeling there's something phony about the old man. I mean, as if he were Walter Brennan, playing a rich old rancher. Except that Walter Brennan would convince me and this Mr. Premberton doesn't. It's like he's overacting his part. And the way he fondles that pretty little girl who's young enough to be his granddaughter--well, it makes you kind of sick."

Mr. Collins smiled. "I see. It's not just a roulette dealer I've hired. I have in addition a drama critic and an arbiter of morals." His smile faded. "Has this old gentleman tried any funny business with his bets?"

"Well, no. Not yet, anyway."

"Nor will he. Sam, I'll tell you how to spot a potential cheater on sight. When an ordinary player comes into this casino, he will glance around casually and then decide where he wants to go and go there. But when a cheater comes in--and by this I mean someone who has cheated before elsewhere and may well do so here--he will stop and look carefully at the face of every dealer and pit boss on the floor, for fear he'll be recognized from the past. When I see this, I make sure that this player is watched every minute he's here."

"That's very interesting," Sam said. "I'd never thought of that."

"I saw this old man walk down from the bar. He looked around for the nearest roulette table and hurried to it. In addition, it happens that Chuck the bartender knows him. He's from up near Elko and he recently sold one of his ranches, which is why he has all this bank cash on him. Also, he got married this morning and he's celebrating."

"He told us, at the table."

"All right. Sam, I will tell you one more time and only one more time: The over-all problems involved in running this casino are mine. They are not yours. Please don't make me lose my patience with you."

"No, sir. I'm sorry." Sam walked off and into the men's room and in a couple of minutes came out. As he passed the archway leading to the bar, he paused and then went in. There were few customers and Chuck was drying glasses.

"Hi, Sammy boy."

Sam said, "Chuck--this old man--this Mr. Premberton. Mr. Collins says you know him."

Chuck nodded. "He's a rancher from up near Elko. He got married this----"

Sam cut in with, "But do you know him? From before, I mean?"

"Well, no, but----"

"So how do you know so much about him?"

"He was in here earlier, talking to people, buying everybody drinks, showing off his new little wife--you know."

"Thanks, Chuck." Sam walked out of the bar and down to his table. Pete moved away, so that Sam could take over the stacking. From the stacks of $100 checks, it was apparent that Premberton had lost a few thousand while Sam had been away. Now the old man handed Harry another five packages of $100s, which went down the slot.

Sam passed two and a half stacks to Harry, who said, "You mind rolling? I'm really beat."

"Sure." As Sam took Harry's place, he glanced at his watch and saw that it was 11:45. In 15 minutes, the shift would end.

Number 34 came up, and then six. One of the players had given up his seat to Vikki, who now sat directly across from Sam." Whatever happened to number twenty-three?" she asked with a smile. It began as a casual smile, but then she glanced up and saw that the old man was engrossed in betting and she looked at Sam and smiled, but directly now. With this smile, all innocence left her eyes.

Sam indicated 23. "I'm afraid it's hidden under all those chips."

"Well, see if you can find it for us."

Sam sent the ball spinning. "I'll do my very best, Mrs. Premberton." The number turned out to be 26. Sam gave the old man 33 checks, which Vikki dumped into her bag. There had to be over $20,000 in that bag by now, but then, almost as much had come out of Premberton's pockets.

The next two numbers were two and 12. The old man was out of checks again. "Gimme some of them chips, Vikki, honey."

"Oh, Bert. Don't you think we should stop? It's been a long day and it's almost midnight, and----"

"Jest one more roll. I got a hunch it'll be twenty-three."

Vikki passed a handful of checks to Premberton, who leaned over the table to bet and then silently collapsed and fell onto the table and lay still. When it was plain that he wasn't going to move, Vikki cried out and reached over and touched him.

Others at the table were saying, "Is he dead?" "He's had a heart attack!" "Get a doctor, somebody!"

Pete had already pushed buttons. Two security guards hurried up, herded people aside and got to the old man, who now groaned and opened his eyes and managed to push himself erect. The guards held him up.

"What happened?" Premberton asked.

Mr. Collins hurried up. "Help him to my office," he told the guards. "The hotel doctor is on his way."

"I'm all right." Premberton said. "Jest had a little dizzy spell."

"I insist," said Mr. Collins.

The guards started off with the old man. Vikki followed, but Sam called, "Don't forget your husband's checks, Mrs. Premberton." Sam hadn't started the ball rolling. He picked up the old man's bets and handed them to her.

"Thank you. You're very kind." She hurried off toward Mr. Collins' office.

The table quieted down as Sam started the ball rolling. "How did they do, all told?" Sam asked Harry.

He studied the stacks of checks by the wheel and said, "They're up a hundred. It's getting close to midnight, thank the saints. I'm really beat."

In a few minutes, after the graveyard shift had come onto the floor, Sam and Harry walked up to the higher level, where they met Mr. Collins coming out of his office.

"How's the old man?" Harry asked.

"All right, the doctor says. It was just a faint. His wife tells me he had no dinner and a lot of drinks, and I gathered that they'd spent the afternoon in bed."

"It kind of turns your stomach," Sam said. "That old man and that little girl."

"It may turn yours, sonny boy," Harry said sourly. "But I ain't quite dead yet and it don't turn mine." He walked off.

"They ended a hundred to the good," Sam told Mr. Collins.

"I'm just relieved it was nothing more serious than a faint."

"Do you suppose he can get back to their motel all right?" Sam asked.

"That's for me to worry about, Sam," Mr. Collins said in a warning tone.

"Sorry," Sam said and walked away.

In the dealers' room, Sam hung up his apron and chatted with some of the dealers and combed his hair and put on his jacket and then went into the bar and ordered a beer. He enjoyed it, and ordered another, and was starting on that when Mr. Collins came into the bar and up to him.

"Sam, the old man wants to see you."

"Me? Why? How is he?"

"All right. They're about to leave."

Sam followed Mr. Collins into his office, where Premberton was striding around, a highball in hand. Vikki was sitting, also with a drink.

"Hello there, young fella!" the old man said.

"How do you feel, sir?" Sam asked.

"Fit as a fiddle. I'm terrible sorry about causin' all that commotion at your table. And I meant to leave you a little tip. Gimme a hundred, Vikki." She did and the old man handed a check to Sam.

"Thanks very much, sir. And I hope that you and Mrs. Premberton will have a very happy marriage."

Mr. Collins said, "You'll have to excuse me. It's the end of a shift and I have to go and collect the cash from the tables."

"We're jest leavin' ourselves, sir," Premberton said. "Let's go cash in, Vikki honey, and see if we've won anything."

The four left the office together and Sam said good night to the Prembertons, who went off toward the cashier. Mr. Collins said to Sam, "The tip goes in the box."

Sam nodded and smiled and walked down to the floor and dropped the check into the dealers' tip box. Mr. Collins watched this and nodded approval and walked into the cashier's office.

Sam went back up to the bar to finish his beer. Through the archway he saw the Prembertons cashing in. Mr. Collins came out with some empty cashboxes and gave the couple a smile and started off for the tables. Soon Sam saw the old man and the girl walk out of the casino, arm in arm. In a few minutes, Sam finished his beer, left the casino and drove off up the Strip.

After about two miles, he came to the Slumbertime Motel and parked. He got out and walked along a ground-level porch to room 17. A light was on inside. Sam knocked. A man opened the door.

"Yes?" he asked.

Sam frowned. "I'm looking for Mr. Haskins."

"He must be in another room."

"No. He lives here, in seventeen. Or did."

"Well, I checked in here at ten tonight and he wasn't here then."

"I'm sorry to have bothered you." Sam said and hurried down the porch to the office, where he pinged the desk bell. In a moment, a man in a bathrobe came from a rear room. "I'm looking for Mr. Haskins and his granddaughter," Sam said. "They were in seventeen and sixteen."

"They checked out."

"They did?"

"About nine tonight."

"Oh. Did--did they leave anything for me? For Sam Miller?"

"Yes, they did." The manager found an envelope and looked at it. " 'For Sam Miller.' " Sam took the envelope, thanked him and hurried out to his car. Getting in, he tore open the envelope and found a sheet of paper with writing on it. In order to read it, he flicked on his overhead light. The note read:

Dear Sammy darling honey. By the time you get this. Grandpa and I will be on our way to somewhere else. I mean, if everything goes OK at your casino tonight. I'm crossing my legs for good luck! Grandpa has decided not to leave you your share, for two reasons. For one thing, he needs the $6000 more than you, because he's an old man and isn't young anymore, like you. Also, he thinks you're a wonderful person and should be straight, and he says he's afraid that if you get your first taste of what he calls ill-gotten gains, it will turn you into a crook like himself for the rest of your life and this he wouldn't like to see. Goodbye. I'll really miss you. You sure are good in bed, Sammy honey.

Love, Vikki.

Sam turned off the light and sat in the darkness for a moment. Then fury overcame him and he slammed both hands against his steering wheel again and again, and tears of frustration blurred his eyes.

And then the passenger door opened and the interior light went on and Sam turned to see Mr. Collins standing there.

"Troubles, Sam?" He slid onto the seat and shut the door.

Sam's eyes widened and his mouth fell open. "How? ... How? ..."

"I followed you here. I've been sitting in my car over there, and I saw you get turned away from that room, and I saw you get that letter from the manager, and I saw the look on your face when you read it." He brought out a cigarette. "So your friends ran out on you, did they--without giving you your cut?"

"I ... I ... don't know what you mean."

"Oh, knock it off, Sam." He lit his cigarette. "You're in serious trouble. Your only hope is to level with me. Where in the name of God did you three manage to get a hundred and eighty phony hundred-dollar bills? And what are the old man and his wife to you?"

Sam considered for a moment and then shrugged. "She's his granddaughter. Their name is Haskins." He turned on his overhead light. "Oh, hell." He handed Mr. Collins Vikki's note. "You might as well read this."

Mr. Collins did. "The old man may be selfish, but he's right, you know. That six thousand would have meant the end of you as an honest person." Sam turned off the light. "Where did you meet these two?"

"They were customers of my uncle's liquor store. I got to know Vikki and pretty soon we had a real thing going. Then, when my uncle sold the store, I was out of a job, and one day old Bert asked me how honest I was and I said that depended, and he told me about all these hundreds he had."

"Where did he get them?"

"He'd bought them a long time ago, very cheaply. But he'd never passed any. He had an idea about how they could all be changed in one place at one time --in a casino. He didn't care if he won, you see--he just wanted to change his counterfeits for good money. So he offered me a third if I'd help him and he paid my way through Mr. Ferguson's school. I had to get a job as a dealer up here, so I could find out exactly how things worked in a particular casino."

"Sam, you are a crook. You are a criminal."

"All I did tonight was to keep warning you about the old man and his money."

"You were just setting me up."

"I guess so." Sam sighed. "For all the good it did me."

"Was the old man's faint staged?"

"Yes. He knew he had to stop before midnight, when you'd open the cashboxes and spot his bills. But he figured that if he just stopped right then, you might be suspicious, so he faked a faint."

"And whose idea was it that you should try to make me suspicious of them?"

Sam smiled modestly. "Well, it was mostly mine--after I'd met you. I figured that if I questioned the first two thousand and you made sure they were genuine--then you wouldn't have any doubts about the next eighteen thousand. And also, I wanted to be sure you wouldn't connect me with it when it was all over."

Mr. Collins smiled a little. "It was a slick operation, Sam. And it almost worked. But your gamble paid off on the house number--which is double zero for you."

"Where did I go wrong?"

"Well, for one thing, you objected too much and I began to wonder why. And at the end, you wondered if the old man could get back to his motel. But meanwhile, the girl had told me they were staying at the Flamingo Hotel. I figured something was wrong somewhere. And when I opened your cashbox and found the funny money, it all fell into place."

"What ... are you going to ... do about me?"

Mr. Collins shrugged. "Nothing. I expect you back at work tomorrow." Sam looked at him in disbelief. "Sam, unless you're crazy, you'll never try anything funny on me again. And it's my solemn duty to the Nevada gaming industry to make sure you never work for anybody else."

"But ... but what about the eighteen thousand in phony hundreds you're stuck with?"

"What makes you think so. Sam?"

"Because I saw Vikki cash in before you'd opened the cashboxes. That was good money she walked out with!"

"What makes you think so?"

"I ... don't understand you."

"Because you'd finally made me suspicious. I'd opened your cashbox ten minutes earlier. It was while you were in the dealers' room and the bar. I saw to it that among the twenty thousand your friends walked out with were the same identical one hundred and eighty counterfeit hundreds they'd walked in with." Mr. Collins opened the car door and slid out. "Good night, Sam. See you tomorrow."

So saying, the smartest man in Vegas shut the car door and walked off into the darkness.