Cold Deck

Bust.

Shit, I’ve only been at this table thirty minutes and am down more than half my stack. And to think, I was more concerned about getting backed off when I walked in than I was losing any real money.

“That’s it for me fellas, Millie will be taking over from here.”

Time for a dealer change, apparently. Just as well, “Daniel” hasn’t done me any favors.

“Ok guys, good luck” Millie gets situated in her seat and pats twice on the table before letting the next cards fly.

The count suggests a dearth of high cards coming so I’ve only risked the table minimum this hand; $100 hands are not going to make a dent in the $10k I now need. Of course, this is when Millie decides to give me a soft 18 while her up card is a 3. Perfect strategy (and common sense) dictates I must double here due to my massive advantage.

“Double.” I calmly announce while putting an extra chip next to my paltry original wager.

Millie sends me a 3; 21. Her hole card turns out to be a 5. As she’s forced to hit again and again, she finally busts.

“More of that please, Millie.” I smirk as I toss her a chip. Yes, in appreciation of the meager win, but more as an offering to the blackjack gods, entreating them to stop crushing me and get my actual hourly earnings at the table to match or exceed the nearly $500/hr EV (“Expected Value”) my advantage play should be earning me. 

Three hours have gone by. My offering has not had its intended effect. I’m no longer hemorrhaging money but I’m a far cry from adding $500/hr to my bankroll. It seemed like a reasonable enough plan when I hatched it but so far, my exit is not panning out.

After knocking over the Jackson Street Triad’s card room on their biggest night of the month, I figured I had about 24 hours until their tentacles into the local P.D. connected the dots between the stolen junker we took off in to the chop shop Fat Eddie told me to leave it at. Having paid him what I owed him (with painfully high interest) out of the take from the card room, Eddie would have no further reason to want me alive. Given my long and well known history of freelancing and our sloppy as hell exit, he’d have a perfectly believable story if he claimed I must have been working for someone else. He could say I must have used his shop to ditch the car only because I’d known of its existence from prior jobs. After all, the shop was nearby and I’d needed to get the car off the road fast. Hell, Eddie might even tip the Triads off if it takes them longer than a day to ask him what he knows about the puke green beater with two spare tires at his shop. All he’d have to do is say he heard about the card game getting hit and that one of his guys mentioned there was a car they didn’t recognize parked out back; the shop was only a few blocks from the Triads’ game and despite them competing over a couple territories, Eddie and the Triads did deals together frequently enough. He could offer the info up as a token of goodwill. His deniability however, was partially based on him still being in Canada until tomorrow morning, so offering me up too early was thankfully unlikely.

Our less-than-smooth exit meant we only nabbed $200k from the card game. After paying out the two other guys, Eddie and settling a couple more life and/or limb threatening debts with people who had the means to find me across an ocean, I had $10k in my pocket, approximately 15 hours until the walls started closing in and I needed about five grand more to pull off my exit and get a clean passport, complete with accompanying backstory and documents, and not be forced to live in total austerity when I got to Amsterdam. Five grand, divided by a $500/hr EV meant I should be free and clear with time to spare. All that had to happen was for my luck to range from slightly below average to great and I’d be crossing canals and patronizing coffee shops, free and clear from the troubles I’d just created.

My luck was not ranging from slightly below average to great; it was hardly ranging at all. In a little over three hours of play, I’d lost $2500. It wasn’t that I was playing poorly. I was executing my system perfectly. I’d gotten perfect strategy down as a child, nailed counting by fifteen and had perfected pairing my bets to the true count only a few years later. I was getting smacked by variance. There is no escaping variance. Sometimes variance smiles upon you and your AV (“Actual Value”) vastly outpaces your EV. Other times, variance seems to be punishing you for all the evils you’ve ever thought of committing. The past few hours seem to suggest I’ve found myself in the “being punished” part of the distribution.

I don’t have the luxury of playing through the trough here. 

I now need to double my money if I’m to pay my passport guy, buy the last-minute international ticket and have a few weeks worth of breathing room once I get to Amsterdam. And I’ve got to get that money, pick up my new passport, buy the ticket and get to the airport early enough to board the flight, all in less than nine hours. Winning $500/hr isn’t going to get me there, let alone the $500/hr rate I’m currently losing at.

If I ditch any expectation of dignified accommodations in the Venice of the North, I can probably still get my docs and my ticket for two grand less than my current stack. Still, that’s cutting it close. If this doesn’t turn around soon, I’m going to need a different plan.

Something vibrates in an article of clothing I’m wearing. Being winter in the Northeastern United States, I’m wearing multiple layers, each with enough pockets to lose your keys or wallet or phone. I check my phone. Nothing.

More vibrations. 

What the hell could that be?

My heart drops into my stomach.

No. I couldn’t have been that stupid. After the card room I would have tossed that burner, right? I did toss that burner, didn’t I?

My left hand traces its way into the inner pocket of my jacket, already knowing what it’s going to find, hoping somehow it wouldn’t.

As I stare at the burner I used just a few hours ago to coordinate the most dangerous activity I’d undertaken in the past decade, I recognize the number on its screen. It’s Eddie.

That motherfucker!

There’s only one reason Eddie would be calling me on this phone.  I’m getting sold out. Right now, Eddie is sitting next to one of his nerds, getting a ping on this SIM from the nearest cell tower. And because I’m at a reservation casino, there won’t be a hell of a lot of mystery as to which building the phone is in once the tower pinging it is identified. Honestly, it’s a smart move. Knowing how the Triads handle transgressors, it’s extremely unlikely that they’d spend time asking me questions. It’s much more likely they’ll flip my lightswitch off the second the chance presents itself. If he facilitates their doing that, the chances of it coming out that he was not only the source of the intel on the game but a beneficiary of our knocking it over falls to near zero.

“No phones at the table!” Joel, the current dealer, reminds me somewhat more angrily than is called for.

“Right, sorry.” I put the phone back in my pocket to let the table finish the hand.

Hey, at least I just got some money back on a 19 against Joel’s 18.

I stand up, hastily stuff my chips into my jacket’s zipper pockets and head for the restroom where I promptly drown the burner in the sink, crush it with a few stomps and dump it in the trash.

My timetable has just moved up considerably. Assuming Eddie still wants his cover of “being in Canada'' intact, he’s going to need to verify where I am and then pass that to the Triads through an intermediary. Hopefully he’s not as smooth as I have been stupid. Otherwise I’m likely to be in multiple pieces very soon.

I have to move fast. I either leave right now, pick up the passport, head to the airport and somehow find a way to get a few grand off of some dumb tourists once I get to Amsterdam or I put a few hundred on a roulette table and hope for the best. I hate tourists. I really don’t want to spend my time in Europe’s party capital scamming idiots. Whether I lose a few hundred over 5 minutes or leave right now, I’ll be stuck with the tourists unless I hit. I scan the floor for a wheel. Finding a suitable example, I distribute $150 across 6 bets. No luck.

Well, this is it. I’ve got enough time for one more spin. I put another $150 down, this time I’m putting it on only one number. What’s $150 going to change for me across the Atlantic? Paying out 35:1 as a single bet would, $5250 would definitely get me away from the tourists for a few weeks. 31 is my go-to in these situations. No one ever has a truly good reason for their "roulette number". It’s always claimed to be lucky because of some obscure story from their childhood or because of a birthday or an anniversary. 31 is the highest prime number on the table and that’s always sounded as good a reason as any to me. 

 The croupier spins the pill as the two other players at the table lean and reach to distribute their bets. I glance around to ensure no one is paying undue attention to our game or seems to be obviously searching for the person that stole $200,000 from their boss a few hours ago as the pill begins to bounce through slots on the wheel. It’s in the right section… 31! 

Let’s hope this is a sign my luck is improving.

After a genuine fist pump and yawp, I dutifully nod and gesture thanks at the congratulations from the croupier and one of the other players. Once my chips are slid over to me, I quickly tip and head for the cages; it’s time to get off this continent. As I wait in line, I pull out my phone, the right phone, and use Threema to offer my passport fixer an extra 10% to switch the handoff to a dead drop at a truck stop on the way to the airport. We have a deal.

Cash gathered, I make my way towards the casino entrance. As I open the first set of double doors out into the passenger drop off area, I notice two black SUVs pull into the driveway quickly. Three of the four doors open and an equal number of young to middle-aged men disembark. I recognize one of them: Eddie’s nephew, the head of the family’s security goons.

“Shit” I say to myself quietly. I need another way out and I need it quickly.

I head back inside, back across the casino floor towards the more crowded sports betting area. Apparently there's a big game on tonight. As I approach, I notice a door marked “employees only”.

Worth a shot.

I give the handle a tug and am relieved to not only feel the door swing open but to find no one else in the long corridor on the other side. I slip through the threshold and pull the door shut against the hydraulic closer behind me. 

“Kitchen → ”

“Laundry←” the signs opposite the door read.

I head for the laundry room assuming that if they had a team coming in the front, there would likely be a team at least keeping an eye on the kitchen exit, if not entering through that door.

I arrive to find the laundry room humming along but nearly unoccupied. Just a single staff member with her torso about half way inside one of the machines on the other side of the room seemingly trying to get something unstuck from inside the cylinder. To my right I spot a set of shelves, each with their own set of staff uniforms folded neatly on them.

What are the odds they’ll have my size in a dealer’s uniform?

“Jackpot” I mumble to myself as I pick up a set of the same shirt, vest and trousers I’ve seen so frequently this evening.

“What are you doing?” the accusatory voice of a young woman inquires.

Finding a disguise to change into in order to avoid being spotted by a gaggle of thugs that are no doubt prowling the floor right outside those doors in order to deliver me to another gaggle of thugs that will most certainly make my gruesome murder an example for those in my profession.

“I’m such an idiot. It’s my first day and I forgot my uniform at home. Daniel said I could probably come down here and buy another one.”

“Oh, yeah I guess. Just make sure that one doesn’t have a tag attached to it. That means it belongs to someone. If it doesn’t, just drop a note and $50 with the manager and you should be good to go. Do you have shoes?”

“No.” I say, surprised this is working.

“Well you might be screwed then. Last time we had shoes was a few years ago. Yours are black so Cathleen might let you get away with it. Good luck.”

“Thanks. Anywhere to get changed around here?”

“Not really, but if you want to use this room I’m headed back to the floor in a second anyway. I’m sure you’ll have it to yourself for a few minutes.”

Four minutes later, holding the clothes I’ve stuffed in the clear plastic wrap the uniform had been in and otherwise looking rather convincingly like a professional dealer, I head for the kitchen.

Time to make some noise.

Just outside the kitchen door I find my query: the red square box and white handle of a fire alarm pull station. 

Let’s hope this works.

I pull down on the white handle with far more force than necessary. They always make it look so dramatic in the movies, it really just kind of flops down easily.

As I’d hoped, and probably due to my proximity to the kitchen, an absolute deluge from the sprinkler system erupts from the ceiling, complete with strobing lights and obnoxious alarm. 

Throngs of kitchen staff angrily hurry through the corridor, back towards the door I came in through. I burrow my way into the group of them just as the front of the mass bursts through the door.

Oh this is even better than I’d expected.

There’s a huge mass of gamblers in the sports betting area, the sprinklers hadn’t yet let loose on the casino floor. It must have been a close game, because the group of gamblers are so attached to the images on the screens, all the while in a near-militant shouting match with casino staff.

“I don’t see any smoke and there’s a door right there! We’re fine! I have a ton riding on this drive!”

“You MUST exit the building NOW!”

I do my best to conceal the smile creeping in from the corners of my mouth at the absolute mayhem I have managed to create.

The smile vanishes quickly as I lock eyes with one of the men I’d seen getting out of the SUVs earlier. For a second it seems like time stops and I swear my heart doesn’t beat.

Is that a look of recognition or did we just coincidentally look at each other? If I break this gaze, will he find that suspicious or will he not give it a second thought? 

It would be weirder for you to keep staring at a total stranger if you didn’t think you recognized them, wouldn’t it? 

I turn away and keep moving in the direction of the group of employees I’m nestled within. A few seconds later I turn back to see not only the original goon but one of his compatriots both looking at me.

It was as if my second look fired a starting pistol. The instant I made eye contact the second time, both of them instinctually gave chase.

You had to look back…

I push up through the crowd and burst out the double doors into the small parking lot near the front of the building. 

There’s my ride outta here.

I sprint over to the cab at the far end of the lot and jump into the back seat.

“Hey buddy, I gotta get to the airport fast or I’m gonna miss my flight, can we get there in a hurry please?” I pant.

“No problem.” came the gruff reply before uttering something in cabbie into his radio.

Patting my pockets and my makeshift clear plastic clothes bag to check for completeness, I’m relieved to find everything I came in with.

Holy shit. We’re good.

“Hey man, not to be an asshole or anything but we really gotta move. Can we get going?”

“Sure thing buddy. Oh, one thing though. You don’t know anything about a card game over on Jackson Street getting knocked over, do ya?” he sneers as he locks the doors.