scoffed.
“I looked all that up last night online. Gee, what a concept. So back off and let me play my cards.”
The thick-necked boss looked like he was going to come over the table at Milton, but Reuben stepped between them. “I think my friend will cash out now.”
“But Reuben,” Milton protested. “I’m on a roll.”
“He’ll cash out now,” Reuben said very firmly.
Later, Milton said to Reuben, “Why wouldn’t you let me keep playing?”
“How about that whole living thing, Milton, you still interested in that?”
“Oh come on, this is the twenty-first century. They don’t do that stuff anymore.”
“You think so? Forget the laws, a casino can pretty much kick you out for any reason they want. You’re lucky the pit boss was probably slow to get to the table. Dollars to donuts we gotta couple goons tailing us right now.”
Milton whipped his head around. “Where?”
“You can’t see them!” Reuben paused. “So how’d you win all that money?”
Milton said in a low voice, “I started out employing a multilevel Hi-Lo scheme with a side count add-on based on the Zen Count system. Of course I was utilizing an overall true count methodology to take into account the multiple decks being played. Later, I took it up a peg to the Uston Advanced Point Count method and paid particular attention to strategically optimizing my bets using the three-color chip scenario to disguise my wager.”
Reuben gaped. “Milton, how the hell do you know all this stuff?”
“I read twelve Internet articles on the subject last night. It was very interesting. And once I read something—”
“You never forget it, I know, I know.” Reuben sighed. There seemed no limit to his friend’s intellectual gifts. “So the pit boss was right, you were counting cards. Luckily you were doing it without a computer, that’s a big no-no.”
“I’ve got a computer, it’s called my brain.”
“Okay, Mr. Brain, just so you know, it’s a rule on recon missions that the team splits everything right down the middle.”
“Down the middle?”
“Yep. So I’m two grand ahead. Now fork it over.”
Milton handed over the cash. “Remember, you have to pay taxes on that.”
“I don’t pay taxes.”
“Reuben, you have to pay your taxes.”
“Uncle Sam can get his pound of flesh off somebody else. And while you were cleaning out the casino I was doing some real intelligence gathering.” He told Milton about Angie.
“That’s sounds really promising, Reuben, good work.”
“The way Angie was eyeballing me, the price might be pretty damn steep.”
“Well, that shouldn’t be a problem, you’ve got two thousand dollars.”
Reuben gazed at his friend and just shook his head.
CHAPTER 26
C ARTER G RAY WALKED SLOWLY down the long corridor that was for some reason painted a salmon color, perhaps to induce calmness, he thought. However, this was not a building that inspired calm, only crisis. At the end of the underground hall was a solitary room housed behind a bank-vault-class door. He entered his security codes and let the biometric readers sweep over him. The door noiselessly swung open. This James Bond style of security had set the taxpayers back millions. Yet what else were taxpayers good for, he thought. They consumed far too much, paid too much in taxes and their government spent far more than it should, usually on stupid things. If that wasn’t balance, he didn’t know what was.
Gray walked over to the wall of locked miniature vaults and slid his electronic key in one while he simultaneously rubbed his thumb across a fingerprint reader. The door slid open and he took the file out, sat down in a chair and began to read.
A half hour later Gray had finished perusing the file. Next, he took out the photo he’d received in the mail, comparing it with the one in the file. It was the same man, of course. He’d known him very well. In many ways he’d been Gray’s closest confidant. For decades he’d feared
“I looked all that up last night online. Gee, what a concept. So back off and let me play my cards.”
The thick-necked boss looked like he was going to come over the table at Milton, but Reuben stepped between them. “I think my friend will cash out now.”
“But Reuben,” Milton protested. “I’m on a roll.”
“He’ll cash out now,” Reuben said very firmly.
Later, Milton said to Reuben, “Why wouldn’t you let me keep playing?”
“How about that whole living thing, Milton, you still interested in that?”
“Oh come on, this is the twenty-first century. They don’t do that stuff anymore.”
“You think so? Forget the laws, a casino can pretty much kick you out for any reason they want. You’re lucky the pit boss was probably slow to get to the table. Dollars to donuts we gotta couple goons tailing us right now.”
Milton whipped his head around. “Where?”
“You can’t see them!” Reuben paused. “So how’d you win all that money?”
Milton said in a low voice, “I started out employing a multilevel Hi-Lo scheme with a side count add-on based on the Zen Count system. Of course I was utilizing an overall true count methodology to take into account the multiple decks being played. Later, I took it up a peg to the Uston Advanced Point Count method and paid particular attention to strategically optimizing my bets using the three-color chip scenario to disguise my wager.”
Reuben gaped. “Milton, how the hell do you know all this stuff?”
“I read twelve Internet articles on the subject last night. It was very interesting. And once I read something—”
“You never forget it, I know, I know.” Reuben sighed. There seemed no limit to his friend’s intellectual gifts. “So the pit boss was right, you were counting cards. Luckily you were doing it without a computer, that’s a big no-no.”
“I’ve got a computer, it’s called my brain.”
“Okay, Mr. Brain, just so you know, it’s a rule on recon missions that the team splits everything right down the middle.”
“Down the middle?”
“Yep. So I’m two grand ahead. Now fork it over.”
Milton handed over the cash. “Remember, you have to pay taxes on that.”
“I don’t pay taxes.”
“Reuben, you have to pay your taxes.”
“Uncle Sam can get his pound of flesh off somebody else. And while you were cleaning out the casino I was doing some real intelligence gathering.” He told Milton about Angie.
“That’s sounds really promising, Reuben, good work.”
“The way Angie was eyeballing me, the price might be pretty damn steep.”
“Well, that shouldn’t be a problem, you’ve got two thousand dollars.”
Reuben gazed at his friend and just shook his head.
CHAPTER 26
C ARTER G RAY WALKED SLOWLY down the long corridor that was for some reason painted a salmon color, perhaps to induce calmness, he thought. However, this was not a building that inspired calm, only crisis. At the end of the underground hall was a solitary room housed behind a bank-vault-class door. He entered his security codes and let the biometric readers sweep over him. The door noiselessly swung open. This James Bond style of security had set the taxpayers back millions. Yet what else were taxpayers good for, he thought. They consumed far too much, paid too much in taxes and their government spent far more than it should, usually on stupid things. If that wasn’t balance, he didn’t know what was.
Gray walked over to the wall of locked miniature vaults and slid his electronic key in one while he simultaneously rubbed his thumb across a fingerprint reader. The door slid open and he took the file out, sat down in a chair and began to read.
A half hour later Gray had finished perusing the file. Next, he took out the photo he’d received in the mail, comparing it with the one in the file. It was the same man, of course. He’d known him very well. In many ways he’d been Gray’s closest confidant. For decades he’d feared
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