Casino Capers Read online

  Casino Capers

  Daniel Kelly

  Copyright © 2010 by Daniel Kelly

  Smashwords Edition

  PUBLISHERS NOTE:

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Chapter 1

  The sun has just dropped below the horizon in Bettendorf, Iowa and Jacob “Red” Borman has just stepped out onto one of the balconies of the Palladian Palace casino for a breath of fresh air and some serious cogitation.

  It is a typical late May evening for the small town of some 32,500 people. The temperature is in the low 50s and the sky is as clear as mountain spring water. The stars are doing their best to out twinkle the moving multi-colored lights embedded in the figures of people engaged in the gambling activity found inside that are mounted all over the outside walls. The stars are holding their own for now, but as the evening progresses they will lose out to the enticements offered by the colorful displays.

  Red is the manager of the Palladian Palace and has been for the past five years. He is 38 years old and his six foot two inch athletic frame, dark green eyes, deep auburn wavy hair with a full beard to match cause him to stand out in any crowd. He has a Mensa IQ, a keen sense of humor, is slow to anger, but when someone repeatedly hits his “hot button”, look out!

  Red pictures himself as a 24/7 host of an extravaganza with parties going on all over the place. He loves his job and seldom leaves the casino when he’s on duty unless he has to do some serious thinking and doesn’t want to be distracted by anything or anybody. This is one of those times.

  Red knows what it takes for a casino to be a hit. He knows that the key ingredient, the cornerstone of every successful casino operation, is its overwhelmingly appealing uniqueness. Its aesthetics, its ambience, its entertainment, its employees’ ability to make a customer feel really special, when all of these things are temptingly different, when they are the catalyst for the creation of happy memories, when they foster dreams of becoming a big winner, that’s when a casino’s coffers are well on their way to overflowing. This is the current state of the Palladian Palace. It is really riding high, but trouble has reared its ugly head, the kind of trouble that could bring the casino to its knees.

  About an hour ago, the casino’s Chief of Security, Bill Kieffer, informed him that there could be a cheater or cheaters working the gaming tables. Bill’s people have noticed that over the last three days the winnings from the Black Jack, Crap and Roulettes tables have been significantly less than what the odds should be producing.

  Bill has alerted all of the dealers, pit bosses and box men on the floor and the best of his back office people are at the computers scanning the videos taken by the overhead casino cameras, looking for answers to the questions who, how and when.

  Although the technological advances in surveillance and security have dramatically reduced the instances of cheating and robbery, they are still a worrisome bane of the casinos because the cheaters and robbers who have not been dissuaded by these advances have also become more creative, more adept at what they do.

  The clear, pleasantly cool evening is quickly driven from Red’s mind as he begins to grope with the potential problems that might lie ahead if Bill’s suspicions are correct.

  “Damn! If Bill is right and word gets out that we have a cheater or cheaters in our midst, irreparable damage could be done to the casino’s reputation and the impact on our ‘bottom line’ could be disastrous. Even though our guests know that the odds are with the house, they’re not going to want to try their luck when cheaters are making those odds even worse. The best way to avoid calamity would be to catch who’s doing it before word gets out, but if this isn’t possible, we’ve got to nail the spoilsports before any serious harm is done.”

  As Red is mulling over possible courses of action, Bill comes rushing out onto the balcony. “Red, I’ve got some bad news. We’ve just discovered some counterfeit chips in the casino cage and some in the chip trays at the Black Jack tables.”

  “How can that be? The security features of our chips are supposed to make them impossible to duplicate. The micro radio frequency ID gizmos imbedded in our chips coupled with the custom color combinations of the edge spots, the ultra violet markings on the logo, the manufacturer’s marks, and the high resolution artwork, all of these things are supposed to protect us from counterfeiters. Ah, nuts! What denominations and what tipped you off?”

  “They are phenomenal reproductions of our $100 chips, but the black coloring is just slightly lighter. The difference isn’t noticeable under the bright table lights, but the gal in the casino cage noticed it when she was restacking her chips. These counterfeits are state-of-the-art, Red. We’re dealing with someone that has extensive knowledge of casino operations and the guts to try a stunt like this.”

  “Okay, Bill. Until we catch who is behind this, make sure that everyone on the floor and behind the scenes stays on the alert for anything that seems out of place, not quite right. If anyone is suspicious about anyone or anything, make sure everyone knows that it’s alright to buzz you or me and that we won’t be annoyed with them if their suspicions turn out to be groundless. Oh, and make sure that gal in the cage gets something extra in her paycheck.”

  Bill nods and hurries back into the casino, leaving Red to wrestle with his conscience over whether or not he should notify the other casino managers about the counterfeit chips.

  “If I do, I increase the risk of word getting out on the street. If I don’t and the other casinos are hit by the counterfeiter, I’ve only magnified the problem. If that kind of word gets out on the street, the whole town will suffer. Instead of the casino goers being leery of trying their luck at one casino, they’ll avoid them all like the plague and go elsewhere with their money.

  “Ah, nuts! Like it or not, I’ve got to let them know what’s going on. If things don’t work out, I can always go back to Chicago and drive a cab. You get to travel, see the sights and there are lots of tips, cash, stock and otherwise. Hell, it got me through college. Yeah, that and humongous school loans.”

  Chapter 2

  Over the next few days, more counterfeit chips are found as well as three phony roulette balls. Someone has been switching the casino balls which are made of solid ivory with balls made with a small core of iron covered with an ivory outer layer. The substitutes weigh almost the same as the casino balls and they look identical. It would be easy for someone to conceal a small electronic device on his or her person that is capable of producing a magnetic field strong enough to control what space the ball winds up in.

  Bill also suspects that altered dice have been used at the crap tables, but hasn’t found anything yet to support his suspicions. In fact, Bill and his people haven’t been able to come up with anything that will put them on the trail of who’s behind these shenanigans.

  After a very busy Memorial Day weekend, Red is in his
office going over the gaming table cash flow for the holiday. It’s a beautiful, sunny Tuesday morning and everything looks copasetic regarding the cash flow reports. Red’s thinking, “Maybe these people have decided to move on, thinking that they’ve stayed in one place long enough and are pushing the odds on getting caught. Yeah! Dream on! I should be so lucky!

  “I’m surprised though that these crooks didn’t take advantage of the cover the large holiday crowds would provide and really do a number on us. What’s really bothering me is I can’t figure out why none of our people have been able to zero in on these cretins when they are doing their thing on the floor.”

  Red’s pondering is interrupted by the ringing of his office phone. “Good morning. You’ve reached the Palladian Palace. This is Jacob Borman. How may I help you?”

  “Hi, Red. Joe here.” Joe is Joe Amato the casino manager at the Go For It and a good friend of Red’s. I’m calling not only for myself, but also on behalf of all the other casino managers in town. We want to thank you for giving us the heads up on the cheaters working your floor. You could have kept quiet, hoping to nab those responsible before word got out, but you didn’t. You put the town ahead of your casino’s reputation and took a chance on us to keep our mouths shut. We appreciate that very much and want you to know that if you need anything, extra security measures, anything, you can count on us to help you out. So far, none of us are aware of any cheating going on in our casinos, but we know that could change in the blink of an eye.”

  “Thanks, Joe. I can’t tell you how much this call means to me. I have to be honest with you though. I had a hell of a fight with my conscience before I decided to put out the alert.”

  “I understand perfectly the dilemma you were in, Red. It would have been a tough decision for me too. It might be a good idea for all of us to get together to see if we can come up with a plan to catch these creeps in the act.”

  “I think that’s a great idea. The sooner, the better as far as I’m concerned. Do you think you could get everybody to meet over here in our boardroom tomorrow, say at two in the afternoon?

  “I’ll get right on it and send you an e-mail to confirm or offer an alternate date and time.”

  “Okay, Joe, and thanks again for the call and offer to help.”

  “Glad to do it. Later.”

  Red hangs up the phone and lets out sigh. “I don’t know if we’ll be able to come up with anything that’ll work, but I feel a little better knowing that some help is on the way.”

  As Red pulls up the Palladian Palace’s entertainment schedule for the next six months to make sure everything is alright on that front, the quiet in his office is shattered by what sounds like gunshots. BAM! BAM! BAM! Three shots in quick succession. “Ah, nuts, first cheaters and now some screwball with a gun! Somebody, somewhere definitely doesn’t like me.”

  Red races to his office door, but before he can open it a screaming Bill Kieffer flings it open, almost knocking Red on his rump. “The cashier cage has been hit. The robber has gotten away and that’s all I know right now.”

  “Okay. Let’s get down there.”

  When they arrive, the police are already on the scene, herding the employees who were working the cashier cage along with the customers who were in the vicinity of the cashier cage when the robbery took place into the large accounting office behind the enclosure.

  After they have everyone in, a big burly guy with sergeant’s stripes on his sleeves claps his hands a couple of times to get everyone’s attention and then says, “Folks, listen up. We’ve brought you in here so we can speak with each of you to find out what you saw and heard when the robber showed up. Please don’t talk with each other about what happened because your perceptions could get twisted by the influence of others. We will get to you as quickly as possible. The sooner we do the less chance there is of you forgetting something that could be crucial to our investigation. In fact, to reduce the risk of this happening, one of the officers is handing out some paper and pens for you to write down your description of the robber, what you saw him do and what you heard him say.

  “For example, estimate the height and weight of the robber, was the robber male or female, what kind of clothes was the robber wearing, did you see any distinguishing marks on the robber’s body such as scars or tattoos, did he have an accent or a speech impediment. This kind of information will greatly increase our chances of capturing this individual. Thank you for your patience and understanding.”

  When the sergeant is finished speaking, he walks over to where Red and Bill are standing in the doorway and says, “Hi, Bill. We got here as soon as we could, but it was all over in less than three minutes and the robber had fled the scene. More like vanished.”

  “Hi, Chuck. This is Jacob Borman the casino manager. Red, this is Chuck Corrigan.” Smiling, Bill adds, “A better cop you’ll find everywhere, but I put up with him because he’s the mayor’s brother and my brother in-law.”

  “Funny man, but don’t give up your day job. You’re going to need the money to pay all those misdemeanor fines I’m going to arrange for you for being such a smart aleck.”

  Red and Chuck shake hands with Red saying, “Hi, Chuck. It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one who puts up with this guy’s nonsense. What have you managed to find out so far? To pull something like this, in broad daylight no less, takes someone with a very strong backbone.”

  “Well, Red, I agree with you. You have armed security personnel all over the place, but that didn’t phase this individual one bit. But make no mistake; this was a well planned hit. This person knew what he was doing.

  “The robber appeared to come out of nowhere, fired three shots, ordered everyone in the cage and all the customers near the cage to lie down on the floor on their stomachs and not look up. The perp had some kind of a special tool that quickly and silently sawed through the bars of one of the windows, allowing a large canvass bag to be thrown through the window and onto one of the cashiers on the floor. That cashier was then ordered to get up and empty all of the cash drawers into the sack. The cashier was then told to resume her position on the floor, everyone was told to keep looking at the floor for the next five minutes and then the robber split. After about ten seconds, one of your patrons snuck a peek and spotted the robber running up the stairs to the second floor high stakes poker rooms. He alerted a uniformed security guard who was lying on the floor behind him and the guard took off after the robber, but when he got to the top of the stairs the robber was gone.

  “The person who did this is totally familiar with the casino’s layout and operations. He has to know who your non-uniformed security people are, the area each one covers and the time it takes to canvas each assigned area. The same is true of the areas and timing of the routes traveled by your uniformed security people. He knew when security would be the lightest and the amount of money the greatest and he had the timing down to the second. For now, that’s all I can tell you. Hopefully, I’ll have more after we’ve talked with all of these people.”

  “Thanks, Chuck. If there’s anything we can do to help, just let us know. We’ll be pouring over the videos taken by the casino cameras and Bill will get copies over to you ASAP. If anything useful comes out of your interviews with the witnesses, we sure would appreciate you passing it on. We’ve got some of the finest security people you can find anywhere. Their ranks include former police detectives, FBI agents and even some former Homeland Security personnel They know what to look for, how to analyze data and have an impressive track record when it comes to drawing sound conclusions from their analyses.

  “Oh, one more thing. About a week ago, we picked up on a very clever cheater or possibly cheaters working our gaming floor. So far, we haven’t been able to zero in on anything that could lead us to the culprit or culprits. The robbery and the cheating might be connected. I’d appreciate it if you could keep this information to yourself and only those with an absolute need to know. If word of what’s going on here gets out, the nega
tive publicity could really hurt us.”

  “Thanks for your input, Red. I’ll do my best to keep a lid on what you told me.”

  As Chuck turns to leave, he remembers something and turns back and says, “Bill, your sister will kill me if I don’t tell you to call her. She thinks you’re mad at her because the blind date she fixed you up with didn’t work out the way she wanted it to. Be careful. Once she knows you’re not mad at her, she’s going to hit you up for some loot to help her buy a 24 footer for the river she saw advertised by a woman who won it in a divorce settlement. That kind of history makes that boat bad news for me and I told her so, but as usual, she ignored me. I told her I’d tell you to call her the next time I saw you. Please call her. She’s driving me crazy with her questions. ‘Did you see him? Did you tell him to call me?’ She’s so sure she can convince you to buy-in that she’s got a sharing schedule all worked out and everything.”