Deadman's Bluff - James Swain [42]
“Grift Sense,” she answered cheerfully.
“Ms. Struck?” a man’s voice asked.
“That’s me.”
“This is Special Agent Romero with the FBI.”
“Good morning, Special Agent Romero. How are you today?”
“I’m fine. I wanted to thank you for your help the other day. The man we arrested was running crooked gambling parlors in twenty different locations. He’s going to jail for a long time.”
By looking at some photographs that Romero had sent, Mabel had determined that a craps game in the basement of a man’s house was crooked, the table positioned against a wall with a large magnet hidden inside, the dice loaded with mercury. The information had allowed Romero to catch an elusive suspect, and had made Mabel a new friend.
“That’s wonderful news,” Mabel said.
“Something urgent has come up, and I wanted to get ahold of you. I need to tell you something which is extremely confidential.”
Mabel leaned into the desk. Although she’d never met Romero, she’d formed a mental picture of him. Early fifties, with jet black hair, boyish features, and an engaging smile. “Is there something the matter?” she asked.
“Unfortunately, there is…I’m terribly sorry. Someone just walked into my office, and I need to speak with him. Will you excuse me for a moment?”
“Of course.”
Romero put her on hold. Mabel took the handbag off the desk, and peered inside. It contained a video camera with a high-powered lens. The bag had a small hole in the fabric, and she thought back to what Tony had told her about the case.
Once, every casino in the world had let people playing blackjack cut the cards, the practice considered a common courtesy. Then, for security reasons, the practice had been discarded. Except at the Gold Rush casino in Reno, where old habits died hard. It was here that the crossroaders had struck.
The gang’s members were a family, consisting of a husband, wife, and son. The scam happened during the cut. The husband would riffle up the center of the deck, and let four cards drop. He would then cut the cards. This placed the four cards he’d dropped on top of the deck. To anyone watching, his actions looked normal.
Using the camera inside the bag, his wife, who stood behind him, secretly filmed the four cards during the cut. The information was sent to her son, who sat outside the casino in a van and watched on a computer screen. The son then sent a text message to his father on a cell phone, and told him the cards’ values. Since the father was playing heads-up with the dealer, he knew his first hand and the dealer’s, and bet accordingly.
Romero returned to the line. “Sorry about that.”
“So, how can I help you this morning?” Mabel asked.
“Well, I’m about to help you. The other day when we spoke, I passed along some confidential information about a mob boss named George Scalzo, who is presently under FBI surveillance.”
“I remember,” Mabel said.
“The agent handling the Scalzo case called me a short while ago, and informed me that George Scalzo put out a contract on your boss’s life last night. The attempt failed. So, he’s gone and put another contract on your boss.”
“What a horrible man. Are you going to arrest him?”
“I wish we had the evidence to,” Romero said. “Scalzo owns a contracting business, and uses a special code when he wants to talk to his underlings. The code uses building materials as passwords for criminal activity he wants done. When he orders a specific material, it means he wants a certain job done. In this case it was concrete, which means he wants a person killed.”
“How clever.”
“I figured you would know the best way to contact your boss, and give him a heads-up.”
The receiver grew warm in Mabel’s hand. Tony was always saying that the deeper he got into a case, the more dangerous it became. It sounded like it was time for him to come home.
“I’ll call him once I hang up the phone,” she said.
“I’m afraid there