The Dark Circle, page 10
“What if we were to create a big hitter and give him a worthy credit line? How much scrutiny would a casino give to a potential big-time loser?”
“Probably not a lot aside from confirming the guy’s liquidity and ready cash,” I said. “It would help if he’s already established bona fides at another casino. They share information on potential prospects.”
“Would you have to lose?”
“Everyone loses eventually. The odds are stacked in the casino’s favor, even the legitimate ones. But one can minimize the losses, and in the short term, you might have a run of luck and actually come out ahead. From the casino’s standpoint, it doesn’t matter. What they care about is how much money a gambler is willing to risk. In time, they’ll get a big chunk of it.”
“How would you like to spend a weekend in Vegas with me?”
“Are you kidding?”
“Okay. Let’s make it Atlantic City. But first, we need to create an identity for you and establish your so-called bona fides.”
“Johnny Joe Yengo,” I said.
“What?”
“One of the regulars at the Fall Creek Tavern. I’ve always admired his name.”
“Try to be serious here.”
“All right, you’re putting up the money. You come up with the name.”
“Westley Fezzick,” she said.
“Why?”
“Have you never seen the Princess Bride? Westley was the hero, and Fezzick was Andre the giant.”
“Which one of us is being serious?” I said, shaking my sore head. “Hopefully, the casino people aren’t fans of the movie.”
A week later, things were falling into place. Lauren’s family attorney had established a credit line of one million dollars in the name of Westley Fezzick. Identity cards, including social security, driver’s license, and medical insurance were created along with Visa and Master cards in that name.
I didn’t ask her lawyer how he did it, but Wes and I shared the same birth date, height, weight, and eye color. Our first test of the plan would be an overnight visit to the Ali Baba Resort in Atlantic City.
Lauren and her lawyer had already decided that the total cash available to me would be a hundred thousand dollars. Hopefully, I would come back with most of it. But win or lose, it was an amount that would get the casino’s attention.
Unfortunately, my date for the visit wouldn’t be Lauren. Bob Fabbricatore was a regular traveler to Atlantic City, and he’d agreed to come on my dime in return for advice on how to lose as little as possible of the Kenniston fortune while establishing Wes Fezzick’s gambling fever.
“All I want is ten percent of our winnings,” he said with bristling confidence on the drive down from Groton.
He had asked if we could bring Kelly along on the trip, and I’d politely suggested it could be a distraction. In truth, I thought it was a bad idea after he had confided that it heightened his sexual pleasure to know she and I had been recent lovers.
On the way down, he briefed me on what he had learned in the wake of the murders of Lannie and George Washington. It was still being investigated as an open case, and the police had no suspects after interviewing friends, family, and his supervisors at the casino.
Otherwise, Fab spent most of the trip offering betting advice that included, “stay hydrated … no booze,” and explaining the various odds at the slots and gaming tables. “The house edge on blackjack is only two percent, so you have much better odds at those tables than the eleven percent they take on the wheel … Let me choose the poker table … I want you up against tourists—preferably drunk ones—not the conniving housewives who spend every day there … The slots are for losers—you’re just pissing your money away … Stay away from the pretty hostesses—they’re there to distract you.”
The Ali Baba was pretty much as I imagined it would be, a massive, space age–looking building like the international airport in Kuwait, with acres of blue-tinted glass, polished steel girders, swimming pools, palm trees, waterfalls, steak houses, and Chinese restaurants, as well as vast banks of slot machines, gaming rooms, and shopping malls with high-end couturiers for the wives and girlfriends.
The principal difference between the Ali Baba and Kuwait was the expansive view of the Atlantic Ocean, instead of an expanse of desert, that we enjoyed through the blue-tinted windows of our free two-bedroom suite.
From the afternoon we arrived and checked in, until the following morning, I spent ten hours gambling in the casino. I never played a slot machine and stayed away from the roulette wheel. Fab escorted me around the gaming rooms like he was James Bond looking to take down Le Chiffre in Casino Royale.
I played blackjack for one-hour intervals with hundred-dollar chips and lost five thousand dollars. At several poker tables chosen by Fab, I held my own against the out-of-towners who made up the competition.
For serious betting, I spent the longest amount of time in the casino playing baccarat, a game I’d learned overseas in the army, and for which I already had a good amateur’s insight.
My cardinal rule was to place my bets, in each round, in favor of the banker rather than the challenger, because I knew the odds favoring the casino dropped to around one percent if I backed the banker. Those were the lowest odds for any game in the house.
Steeling my nerves with the knowledge that it wasn’t my money, I placed a five-hundred-dollar bet on every hand within a given round from the dealer’s shoe. As the hours passed, I had both winning and losing streaks. By the time I quit, I had placed more than a quarter million in total bets, and walked away with a gain of nearly forty thousand dollars.
I called Lauren from our suite to give her the news, feeling almost childishly happy that I was coming home a winner. I was a little disappointed when the news didn’t appear to give her any pleasure. Her only interest was to make sure I had done enough to qualify for the big-hitter treatment at Stoneberry. I assured her that I had.
22
“My name is Arnold,” said the driver of the Mercedes Benz luxury sedan as he held the rear door open for me. “I’ll be serving you on the way to the Action Palace at Stoneberry.”
He had picked me up at the summer home owned by Lauren’s aunt on the east shore of Skaneateles Lake. Lauren had decided it was a more fitting venue for a high roller than my cabin in Groton. Her aunt’s place wasn’t quite as large as Teddy Roosevelt’s Sagamore Hill but probably gave it a run for its money. Lauren and I had enjoyed one more fabulous night there before the late morning pickup.
We were having breakfast when she asked me what I hoped to accomplish at the casino.
“We start with the knowledge that Deborah was a virgin and would never have willingly participated in the type of sex we saw in that photograph,” I said. “So we know she was gang-raped and probably drugged before it took place. Since Georgie was given the job of getting rid of her, it may well have taken place at the casino.”
“We also know that after it happened, she didn’t go to the police.”
“The answer to that was probably the note she hid under her drawer with the photograph that talked about sending it to her mother.”
“Blackmail,” said Lauren, and I nodded.
“You can’t just go around asking questions about Georgie or Deborah without putting yourself in danger,” she said.
“Before anything else, I need to get a sense of how the place is run as well as who’s running it, particularly the transportation end where Georgie worked. I’m also wondering if Deborah might have performed there in one of her weekend gigs. According to their website, Stoneberry brings in a lot of live performers. Maybe someone will remember her.”
“You’ve got a good cover to start with,” she said, “but remember that this cult—or whatever it is—just murdered two people to keep their secrets.
My cover included Lauren’s views on how a big hitter would dress for a casino binge in upstate New York. A trip to the mall a day earlier ended in an embarrassing ensemble that I initially refused to wear. It consisted of an open white silk shirt with a flared collar and skintight jeans studded with silver rivets.
“You’ve got a great ass. It’s time to flaunt it,” she said when I continued to resist.
“There’s a lot riding on this,” she complained, and I finally relented. The outfit was completed with two gold chain necklaces and a broken-in pair of snakeskin cowboy boots that had belonged to one of her mother’s brothers. I successfully fought off the cowboy hat.
“You look hot,” she said. “You really do.”
“What kind of a name is Fezzick?” asked Arnold the driver when we were on the road after he picked me up. “It sounds familiar.”
“Call me Wes,” I said jovially. “The last name is Turkish, but my father grew up in Greenland.”
“That’s interesting. Have you been to Stoneberry before?” he asked.
“No. First time,” I said as the lush foliage of the Finger Lakes was filtered through the dark tinted windows of the Mercedes.
“Judging by your beautiful home, I can see you’re used to the best,” said Arnold. “It’s a fun place, the Action Palace, and the staff are anxious to please, if you know what I mean.”
I could imagine what he meant. I could also see Arnold was anxious to please, probably because he relied on tips from the big hitters to supplement his salary. He was in his fifties, with a doughy face, walrus mustache, and a substantial spare tire around his waist. It had to be tough wearing the ridiculous uniform the casino apparently mandated for its drivers.
It resembled the getup of a Russian cavalry officer on amphetamines, with a golden tunic crowned by epaulets, leather cavalryman’s pants and knee-high leather boots. Arnold had probably gained twenty-five pounds since being fitted for it, and the golden tunic was unbuttoned at the waist.
“You know I think I met one of your fellow drivers when he drove me at the Travers Cup in Saratoga last year,” I said. “Funny … you couldn’t forget his name. George Washington.”
As I chuckled, I saw Arnold’s eyes reach out for mine in the rearview mirror. They didn’t look pleased to be reminded.
“Yeah … Georgie,” he finally came back. “He was a great guy.”
“Was?”
“He was recently killed in a fight over some woman. It made the papers.”
“I don’t read.”
“Yeah … me either, but he was a good guy.”
“You guys hung out together?”
His eyes found mine again.
“I’m married,” he said, and the car went quiet.
For the next fifty miles, he gave me no more cheerleading about the wonders of the Action Palace aside from, “Please enjoy the complimentary drinks and snacks in the console, Mr. Fezzick.”
An hour later, we rolled into the grounds of the Stoneberry complex between two multicolored totem poles that had to be a hundred feet high. Each was topped with golden angel’s wings that spanned another fifty feet. From a distance, the casino at the end of the macadam drive looked like it had been designed at a college tribute weekend to the Flintstones.
Before he got out of the car, Arnold was able to somehow secure the buttons on his military tunic. Standing there red-faced from lack of circulation, he looked like an overstuffed blood sausage.
“If you go to our app on your cell phone, you can punch up the Action Palace Events of the Day,” he said as he removed my single suitcase from the trunk. “There’s a lot of fun stuff going on, like I told you.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” I said, and slipped him two hundred dollars.
It put him back in his chipper mood as I entered the palace.
The welcoming foyer was as big as Grand Central Station and a lot glitzier. The ceilings were forty feet high, and the walls were covered with painted murals depicting a primeval forest with deep rivers and gorges cutting through it. All the forest animals were there, fawns with faces like Bambi, happy bears, wolves, rabbits, and the rest of the ark’s creatures from the Adirondacks.
Aside from a dramatic rendering of Mattaway warriors standing on the crest of a cliff, wearing war paint and looking fierce, it was obviously supposed to be kiddie cute for the wives and girlfriends.
At the front desk I was welcomed by a young man with a ponytail and aviator sunglasses, wearing a gold, double-breasted suit. The other staff members were all wearing shades of gold too. Apparently gold was the important color to the Mattaways, or at least to their bank accounts.
As part of the check-in process, I was given a small, enameled brass nameplate engraved with the words “Wes Fezzick” and told that I should wear it while enjoying all the delights of the palace.
As soon as I checked in, a young man with a gold baseball cap grabbed my suitcase before I could pick it up, and led me to the bank of elevators. In my suite, he proudly showed me the Jacuzzi in the bathroom and the array of free snacks and alcoholic beverages in the mini refrigerator. He offered to pour me a cocktail, but I could hear the echo of Fab’s voice. “Stay hydrated … no booze.”
I tipped him fifty. He beamed and said, “Thanks Mr. Fezziwig.”
I decided there wouldn’t be a problem with the name as I got back into the elevator and headed down to the main floor. I had already been cleared by the casino to bet up to a hundred thousand dollars. All I had to do was sign for chips at any of the cashier’s windows.
The formfitting, space age plastic chairs at the first bank of slot machines were almost completely filled, ninety percent by women and most of them over fifty. There didn’t seem to be much fun involved for any of them. They sat next to their stacks of silver, waiting with their fingers poised to ram another coin into the slot the moment the pull came up empty.
As I watched, one woman got up from her molded plastic seat to get a drink from an approaching waitress. Seriously obese, she was wearing a triple extra-large METS sweatshirt over loose-fitting sweatpants. A white bath towel was wrapped around her neck and she was breathing hard, as if she had just run a four-minute mile.
Her drink of choice was a stein of beer that easily held twenty-four ounces of foamy lager. She drank it down in one set of deep swallows, put it back on the waitresses’ tray, and waddled back to her slot machine.
I headed first to the poker tables. One set of ten tables was located in a gargantuan smoking room behind glass walls. The industrial-strength air filters inside were working overtime to draw up the clouds of cigar and cigarette smoke rising from the tables. It didn’t look inviting.
I chose one of the nonsmoking rooms and joined a table that already had six people playing Texas hold ’em. They looked pretty much like the regulars at the Fall Creek Tavern, a mix of townies and gownies, Black, White, and Asian.
The stakes were small compared to Atlantic City, and I was waiting for the baccarat tables to open later in the afternoon to establish myself as a heavy hitter. I decided to play aggressively and paid for it with a number of second-best hands that cost me nearly two thousand dollars.
After an hour, I took a break and walked over to one of the bars on the main casino floor. It was called The Leather Stocking and was decorated with life-size wooden statues of forest animals that had been carved with chain saws. A sign on a metal stand advertised a nightly performance by a country singer named Clu Huskey.
All the stools at the bar were empty. I sat down and checked my cell phone for messages. There was only one, and it was from Lauren, asking me to call as soon as I had an update.
“What a magnificent animal,” came a voice from across the bar.
It was the bartender, and I assumed she was referring to one of the big carvings. I put down the phone and grinned at her.
“Which one?” I asked.
“I meant you,” she said. “What can I get you?”
I decided to break Fab’s cardinal rule about staying hydrated with no booze.
“George Dickel sour mash, straight up,” I said, “if you have it.”
“I have it,” she said. “And my name is Mindy.”
“I’m Wes.”
“I know,” she said, pointing at my nameplate.
Although her platinum-dyed hair was showing two inches of dark roots, she had a superb figure of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit variety, and it was emphasized in the skimpy gold top and brief shorts that barely covered her butt. She was probably no more than eighteen.
Mindy brought my drink and set it on a cocktail napkin.
“You’re tall and you look strong,” she said, smiling with crooked teeth. “That’s two out of four in my book.”
“I can also leap tall buildings,” I said, savoring the George Dickel fragrance that came all the way to me from the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee.
“And you’re funny too,” said Mindy with a come-hither look. “That’s four out of four in my book.”
“What happened to number three?” I asked.
It only confused her, and I didn’t take the time to explain.
“So you have Clu Huskey performing here tonight,” I said.
“Yeah, he’s a hunk.”
“Didn’t you have Deborah Chapman here for a singing gig recently?”
She looked confused again and said, “I don’t remember her.”
“Well, it’s back to the salt mine,” I said, swallowing the rest of the drink and leaving her a twenty-dollar tip.
23
I joined the first baccarat table to open up that afternoon. It drew a different crowd than the poker tables, more international, better dressed, intense, no laughter. They were there to gamble. Like me.
I followed the same strategy that I had used in Atlantic City. I stuck with the banker and made the highest limit bets in each hand until the dealer’s shoe was empty. When the round ended, I was down twenty-six thousand dollars. It didn’t help the Kenniston family trust, but it definitely got the attention of the croupiers.
After six hours in the building, I knew one thing about the staff working there. In addition to the fact that they all wore variants of gold, the women had been hired for their looks, their youth, and their availability.
