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Category:
Action/Thriller
Publisher: Rio Norte Press
Type: Fiction
Pages: 189
Copyright: Nov 9, 2009
ISBN-13: 9780979949579
Price: $3.50 (eBook)
A Vegas casino floorman stumbles across a system to win at blackjack and ends up running for his life.
Jimmy Spencer, a floorman at a major Las Vegas casino, receives a phone call from an old friend about a sure-fire gambling system he's developed called "Free Money". After a quick visit and tutoring from his friend, Jimmy returns to Vegas and begins dabbling in the Free Money System. And he wins. Hundreds of dollars at first, then thousands, then tens of thousands. The potential for vast amounts of "Free Money" seems palpable.
But nothing is ever free. As he wins more and more money, Jimmy finds himself being stalked by various underworld thugs and terrorists. His old friend ends up dead. Surrounded by FBI agents and ultimately pressured to go into the Witness Protection Program, Jimmy realizes that he has to find a way out of the system...
Excerpt
At eight o'clock, just as the magic show was getting underway, two of my tables facing pit one went dead; I noticed Buddy hurrying over with a short, nattily dressed Asian gentleman.
Buddy looked stressed. Yeah, I know that's a surprise. He turned over the twenty-five dollar minimum sign on table twenty-five, let down the chain and walked into the pit. "Make this a closed game. Order a rack of bumblebees and a rack of browns. Credit off everything you don't need to make room," he ordered gruffly. Bumblebees were one-thousand-dollar checks, so-called because of their yellow and black color; browns were five-thousand each. A rack of browns equaled half a million dollars. Something big was going to happen and it was in my section.
The tension in the pit suddenly ratcheted up a hundred times. Pit clerks and flunkies were zipping past. Buddy looked as if he wanted to bite someone. Instinctively, I edged away.
I handed him the "Closed" sign and was immediately on the phone to the pit clerk and cage for the fills and credits. I then called Security to give them a quick heads-up and finally with Surveillance to inform them of the table's pending status.
Nervous, I got off the phone and stepped over to Buddy.
"This is Hideo Nakamura," he announced, gesturing to the slim, neat man now sitting at the table. We bowed slightly and then shook hands. I noticed two husky Japanese bodyguards on either side of the man. At the same time, three Omni security guards hustled up to the table, whispering tersely into their shoulder mounted walkie-talkies. They fanned out with their backs to the table, keeping other customers away from the Whale. In casino parlance, a whale is a high-roller with a ghastly line of credit. You don't see them too much these days, but they are still around. Mr. Nakamura was undoubtedly such a beast. And Buddy definitely wanted his money.
The money came with another two security guards, and I credited back all the greens, reds, and dollars, then unloaded the yellows and browns with the dealer into the rack. Mr. Nakamura had a credit line of four-hundred-thousand dollars at the Omni, and I did the paperwork for him to get an advance against this of one-hundred-thousand.
Just as we got everything squared away, Heng Lim sauntered into my section. He lost his smile quickly when he saw Buddy scowling at him, and then froze completely when he saw all the money on the game. It was time for my break.
I hurried over to him and started to give him the rundown.
"Jeez," he said.
I filled him in and gave him the cards to hold. He dropped one on the floor and bent quickly to pick it up.
"Jeez," he muttered again. "I hate shit like this. Buddy's gonna be all over me."
"No, he won't," I lied. "He likes you. Besides, he thinks you're a lucky looker." A lucky looker was a floorman, who, just by standing back and watching the action on a game can somehow make the table win. Obviously casino fiction, but with more truth to it than you might expect.
Heng rolled his eyes. I hurried out of the pit before Buddy could stop me.
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