The Mirror Thief(110)

Curtis thinks back to Veronica’s story, trying to remember where the gaps were. Stanley and Damon put the cardcounters together, he says.

Stanley put the team together, Argos says. I knew from Damon to expect his call. But Stanley didn’t know what Damon had planned for the Point. That was between me and Damon and the dealer. Though I’m sure Stanley’s figured it out by now.

What happened at the Point?

Look, Argos says. Do I really—

Tell it, goddamn it. What happened at the Point?

Argos makes an irritated little puff. The team moved into the tables, he says, just like it did at all the other joints. We got into position, and the dealers started burning us, just like Damon had planned. When my team scattered, I ducked into the restroom, I changed, and I headed for the high-limit area.

His eyebrows arch over the rims of the sunglasses. As if this should be enough. Spell it out, Curtis says. What did you do?

I sat down, Argos sneers. I began to play blackjack. I began to bet the table maximum, which was ten thousand dollars a hand. I broke even for a while, and then I asked them to double the limit. They doubled the limit. Then I started winning.

How did that work?

This is ridiculous, Curtis.

How did it work?

It’s fun, though, you know? I’m really enjoying it. I feel sort of like a kinky hooker right now. Can we do some more roleplay when we’re done? Scoutmaster and his young Cub, maybe? How does that grab you?

Tell me how it worked, Argos.

Argos stares at Curtis for a second, slackjawed. What did you call me? he says.

The question catches Curtis off-balance, but he keeps the doubt from his voice. That’s what you go by, right? he says. Graham Argos?

Argos smirks, shifts his weight in the rickety chair. Sure, he says. If you write a check to Graham Argos, I will have no trouble cashing it. Is that the name Damon gave you for me?

Curtis leans forward, puts his elbows on his knees, and fixes Argos with a steady glare. I want you to tell me, he says, right now, how it worked.

The ensuing silence is broken by a strong warm gust that sweeps ashy powder from the old lakebed. It hisses against Argos’s cooler and Curtis’s shoes, and forms a brief dancing spiral in the spreadfoot foundation of a nearby ruin. A few grains ping off Curtis’s safety glasses.

The dealer was crooked, Argos says. That’s how it worked. It was pretty amazing, if you want to know the truth. He was as good a mechanic as I am a blackjack player, and I do not say that lightly. I knew exactly what he’d be doing—what to look for—and I still couldn’t see it. That is not a skill you hear praised a lot, but it ought to be. It is a shame and a sin that that guy is no longer in the world.

How come they didn’t catch you?

Like I said, the guy was good.

Bullshit, Curtis says. Doesn’t matter how good he was. The casino was on high alert. They knew they had counters on the floor; they had already burned some. Who authorized increasing the limit? Why didn’t anybody see the money moving your way?

They were looking in the wrong places, Argos says. Sure they knew they had counters on the floor. That was the beauty of it. I told you, I was in the high-limit pit. Cardcounting teams don’t work high-limit tables; they’d get caught there in a f*cking snap. Too much attention, not enough traffic. Damon had pulled his hotshot pit bosses and his best eye-in-the-sky guys out of high-limit, to the regular tables. That’s where the perceived threat was. He was offering cash bounties for burning our team. Meanwhile, I’ve got a crooked dealer, a green pit boss scared of pissing off a whale, and a bunch of security freaking out because they’re missing the real action across the room. Plus—this is key—Damon had worked up a phony credit history for me, so on paper I looked like a whale. I could’ve gone into the drop with a f*cking shovel and gotten away with it.

What was your take?

Argos grins nastily. Did Damon give you permission to ask me that?

That’s between me and Damon.

Yeah, Argos says. I guess it is. Okay, Curtis. At twenty K a hand, I cleared a million and a quarter in a little under ten minutes. That’s the number I took to the cage, and that’s what I walked out with.

They just let you leave with over a million dollars in cash?

They didn’t like it much. They tried to hold me up with bullshit excuses about filing a Form 8300, so by then they must’ve figured something was off. But at that point, what could they do? Again, I wasn’t just some guy in a suit. I was a rated player.

Curtis looks over Argos’s shoulder to the long grasses along the water, watching patterns form and vanish as the wind shakes them. Damon had you working at the Point before, he says. As a position player. After he burned you. Before any of this happened.

Did he tell you that?

Is it true?

Sure, Argos says. So what?

So you’re telling me that you used to play poker at the Point on a daily basis—and then you came in with your team, ripped off a high-limit table for over a million bucks, and cashed out at the cage—and nobody recognized you?

Argos shrugs. I am good at what I do, he says.

Curtis sits back and looks him over. He could be twenty-five, thirty-five, forty-five years old. Beneath the sunglasses his skin is smooth and uniform, like plastic, or clay. Something about him is creepy, not fully human. He resembles a regular person the same way a coyote resembles a dog. Curtis isn’t afraid of him at all anymore.