Читать книгу Hide Me - Ava McCarthy - Страница 5

Chapter 1

Twelve days earlier

Cheating the casinos was a dangerous game. A game that could get you killed, if the stakes were high enough.

Harry eyed the roulette wheel, and edged alongside the other punters. Spying on the cheaters out in the open was risky, but she had to get close. She had to know how Franco Chavez was doing it.

‘Coloque sus apuestas.’ Place your bets.

The ivory ball swirled. The fat guy in front of Harry clacked his chips, like a set of castanets, and she stepped around his bulk to get a better view. A tangle of arms reached across the table, and she scanned the faces, wishing she knew what to look for.

She flexed her shoulders and felt them crunch. She’d been in the Gran Casino de San Sebastián for hours, patrolling the high-limit rooms till her feet ached. At this point, she wasn’t sure which bothered her more: the nagging sense that she was wasting her client’s money, or her growing unease that Chavez knew she was watching.

Harry frowned, and drifted away from the table. It didn’t help that no one knew what bloody Chavez looked like.

She slipped into the poker parlour. Roped off from the main floor, it was quieter here. No roulette-rattles, no social chit-chat. Just the tense snick-snick of cards against the baize. She wandered between the tables.

‘Watch their hands,’ her father had said. ‘That’s where the cheating begins.’

Harry started with the dealers. Given enough practice, a crooked dealer could stack the deck, cull cards, fake a riffle, deal seconds, peek at the top, and all with a deftness that was near-impossible to spot. Harry knew because she could do it herself.

‘A good false shuffle is like a monkey tapping away at a typewriter,’ her father used to say. ‘There’s a whole lot of activity, but no end result.’

Harry scoured the dealers’ hands for telltale signs, but saw nothing out of place.

She paused to watch the players at one of the busier tables. Four men and a blonde, none of them speaking. The only sound was the chinkle and clatter of chips. Harry sifted through the players’ moves, filtering their gestures, looking for patterns, the way her father had taught her. It didn’t take long. Her eyes came to rest on the single chip that was placed a shade too carefully on one of the players’ cards.

Harry shot him a look. Mid-sixties, thin and morose-looking. She glanced at his hole cards, lying face down on the table, one on top of the other. And at the single red chip that tagged their bottom corner.

The back of Harry’s neck tingled. A lot of players protected their hole cards with chips, but to a cheater the exact placement was key. It signalled the value of his hand to an accomplice at the table.

Collusion-cheating. Effective, and tough to prove.

Harry guessed the guy was using the simplest set of signals: top-left corner for a pair of aces; top-middle for kings; top-right corner for queens, and so on. His cohort was probably the blonde seated two places to his left. Between them, they could raise and re-raise the stakes if one of them had a good hand, forcing bigger bets out of the other players.

Harry stared at the man with the gloomy mortician’s face and felt her insides droop. Force-out teams could bleed you dry, but this guy wasn’t Chavez.

She wheeled away. What the hell was she thinking? Casinos didn’t care about poker cheats. Why should they? The money they hustled belonged to the other players, not the casino. This wasn’t the scale of cheating her client had in mind, and she knew it.

Harry headed back out towards the main floor, not caring to admit that the poker room had been some kind of refuge. She reminded herself that Chavez couldn’t know she was watching, then strode back to the roulette table she’d left a few minutes before. The fat guy was still there, clacking his chips.

‘No pongan más apuestas, por favor.’ No more bets.

The ball curled into the spin. The punters around the table grew quiet, though most gave in to the urge to fiddle with something. The fat guy picked at a scab on his chin. Beside him, a woman twirled a lock of hair so tight it had to hurt.

The ball tick-ticked into a slot.

‘Treinta y cinco, negro, impar.’

The dealer plonked his marker on the winning thirty-five and the table seemed to exhale. People shifted and resumed murmured conversations. The hair-twirler pouted. The fat guy shrugged, rubbed his eyes and went back to playing percussion with his chips.

‘Well, shit, would you look at that?’

Harry jerked her head up. A heavyset man had approached the table, jabbing a finger at the layout.

‘Number thirty-five! Yessir!’ He punched the air with his fist. ‘Five hundred euros straight-up on thirty-five! I believe that makes me a winner!’

His cheeks were flushed and hamster-plump. He whooped and swiped at the air some more, spilling his drink in the process. The crowd fussed over him, mostly speaking Spanish, which he didn’t seem to understand. Even the hair-twirler smiled and stroked his sleeve, probably hoping some of his luck would wipe off from it. Rubbing the holy relic, Harry’s father used to call it.

Harry’s eyes strayed to the dealer. He’d summoned the floorman, who seemed to be giving him a hard time. The lucky winner beamed at them and raised his glass.

‘Looks like I hit the jackpot this time!’

The floorman managed a stiff smile, then nodded and stepped away. The dealer turned to make the payout: €17,500.

Harry studied the winner as he stacked his chips. He was probably in his mid-fifties, his hair dusted with grey and thick as an old badger’s pelt. The suit looked expensive, and from his accent she’d pegged him as a native of some southern US state.

She stared at his chips. The payout was high, but it happened now and then. Usually, the punter would lose it back to the casino in a matter of days. She watched the American place another €500 bet, this time on number thirty. Half a dozen players followed his lead, the simpering hair-twirler among them. The ball swished around, then rattled into number fifteen.

A groan eddied along the table. The American beamed at his new friends.

‘Hey, you win some, you lose some.’

Harry noticed that no one was meeting his eye. He shrugged and gathered up his chips, pushing a generous tip towards the dealer. Then he strolled off in the direction of the other roulette tables.

Harry followed him across the Colosseum-sized room, and watched him lose another €500 on a table at the back. She shook her head. At this rate, the casino would get its money back inside the hour. She sighed, massaging the nape of her neck. Stupid to think he might have been Chavez. He was just another chip-happy tourist.

Her back suddenly prickled, like an onset of rash; a tip-off from her skin cells that somebody out there was watching her. She did a quick 360-degree scan of the room. The place was busy, the punters working hard to look as rich as their surroundings. Sequinned evening gowns skimmed the marble floors; dinner jackets looked classy against the claret-toned furnishings. But none of them were paying any attention to Harry.

Her gaze drifted upwards, past the crystal chandeliers to the private mezzanine floor. Her client, Riva Mills, was watching her from the balcony.

Harry tensed. The last thing she needed was someone checking up on her. She turned her gaze back to the table, aware that her raised hackles were due to a lack of progress on the job. Maybe tomorrow she’d terminate the arrangement. Riva seemed to think she needed her services, but Harry wasn’t so sure.

They’d met by appointment the previous day and talked while Riva patrolled the mezzanine floor.

‘Someone’s cheating my casinos, Ms Martinez,’ the woman had said. ‘And I want to know who it is.’

Harry had kept pace with her, studying her profile. She looked to be in her forties, maybe ten or twelve years older than Harry. Her features were fox-like, small and pointed, and her blonde hair was threaded with grey.

‘His name is Chavez,’ Riva continued. Chips snapped and clattered on the tables below the balcony. ‘Franco Chavez.’

‘Then you’ve already identified him?’

The woman threw her a stony glance. ‘I know his name. That doesn’t mean I know who he is.’

Riva swept ahead and Harry followed in silence, resisting a childish urge to pull a face behind her back. She’d done some digging before the meeting and had to admit, the woman’s history was a little intimidating. Raised by her mother in a trailer in Ohio, Riva had left school on her fourteenth birthday and hitch-hiked her way to Wisconsin. She’d lied about her age and got a job as a bunny girl, then lied again to become a casino dealer in Nevada. She’d bought her first casino at the age of twenty-one. Over the next twenty years, she’d built a powerful casino empire, expanding it across the States and into parts of Europe.

Harry eyed the uncompromising set of Riva’s back. She guessed you didn’t succeed in the corporate gaming world by being all soft and nurturing.

Riva came to a halt at the short side of the mezzanine and leaned her elbows on the railing.

‘This Franco Chavez clown is cheating his way across Europe, and my casinos are next.’ She glared at the floor below. ‘Maybe he’s already here.’

Harry moved beside her. Up close, she could see how age had loosened Riva’s skin, blurring a jawline that had probably once been heart-shaped. She tried to picture the underage bunny girl, but her brain shut the image down.

She cleared her throat. ‘Can I ask where you got your information?’

‘My Chief of Security, Victor Toledo. He’s got sources out in the field, and one of them tipped him off. It’s my guess this Chavez is using a computer. Some kind of gadget.’

‘Is that what your informant said?’

‘No, but that’s what all the new cheaters try these days. That’s why I want you.’ She turned a pair of flinty-grey eyes on Harry. ‘It’s what you do, isn’t it? Technology investigations?’

‘That’s putting it broadly, but yes, in a way.’

‘Like I said on the phone, you come highly recommended.’ Riva drilled her with an assessing look. ‘You’ve got the technology, plus you’re half-Spanish, so I guess you speak the lingo.’

‘A quarter Spanish, actually.’

Harry’s father had been born here in San Sebastián. She blamed him for her sooty eyes and dark tangle of curls. The rest of her was mostly Irish. Riva went on as though Harry hadn’t spoken.

‘And if what I’ve heard is true, you’re no stranger to casinos, either.’

Something else Harry could blame her father for. She’d been apprenticed to his gambling career since she was six years old, and there wasn’t much she didn’t know about casinos. She shrugged in acknowledgement, a sense of misgiving chafing at her insides.

‘What about your own surveillance team?’ she said. ‘Surely the cameras can catch Chavez?’

Riva clicked her tongue and whirled away, heels snip-snapping against the floor. If shoes could be bad-tempered, then hers were in quite a snit. Harry trotted to keep up.

Riva spoke over her shoulder. ‘Cameras only record the action. Someone on the floor needs to spot the move first before knowing what tape to re-wind. Those bozos in the eye don’t turn up much on their own.’

‘I thought they were supposed to be experts.’

Riva snorted. ‘In the old days, maybe. Vegas used to hire ex-cheaters to do their spying. They knew stuff, those old guys. But nowadays, it’s greenhorns fresh out of school with a six-week training course under their belt. They couldn’t spot a slick move if the cheater was sitting in their lap.’

‘But their equipment’s pretty sophisticated, isn’t it?’

‘Yep. That’s half the problem. Shuffle machines, smart card shoes, self-activating cameras. Technology has dulled their edge. I don’t need goddamn automated robots, I need proactive surveillance.’ Riva wheeled around to face Harry. ‘What’s the matter, are you afraid?’

Harry stopped in her tracks. ‘Afraid of what?’

‘The cheaters. You should be. They can be dangerous.’

Harry blinked, and Riva waved a dismissive hand.

‘Oh, not the small-time hustlers, they’re usually harmless. I’m talking about organized crews. Colluding professionals. You think you’re watching them, but half the time they’re watching you.’ She must have read the unease in Harry’s face, for she went on: ‘Just stay in the casino. Nothing can happen in front of the cameras.’

A small shiver scampered down Harry’s spine. Riva glanced at her watch and frowned.

‘Look, do you want the damn job or don’t you?’

Harry hesitated. Good question. She pondered it for a moment, then came to a decision.

‘Yes, I want the damn job.’

After that, they’d retired to Riva’s office to agree terms, and Harry had started billing hours to her new client the following day.

‘No más apuestas.’ No more bets.

Harry whipped her gaze back to the table. The American had gone, his place taken by a blond guy with an easy smile. She watched him flirt with a redhead beside him, then noticed that the fat punter had joined them from the other game. He was standing next to her, still playing castanets with his chips. Harry glanced up at the balcony. Riva had disappeared.

Harry puffed out a breath. She shouldn’t have taken the job, but she’d had her reasons, none of which she cared to examine now. She glanced at the players. Privately, she wasn’t convinced Chavez would use an electronic device. Sure, people tried them: laser scanners predicting where the ball would land; radio transmitters designed to control the spins. But that didn’t mean any of them worked. And what the hell did Riva expect her to do? Scan the room for electronic equipment? Triangulate in on radio emissions? With everyone carrying mobile phones, there wasn’t a lot of point.

‘Treinta y cuatro, rojo, par.’

The dealer placed his marker on number thirty-four. The fat guy rubbed his eyes, then went back to clacking his chips.

Harry’s brain lurched.

The fat guy rubbed his eyes.

Her mind groped with the fuzzy déjà vu, but couldn’t slot it into place.

‘Well, hey! Looky-here!’

Harry stared. The American was back.

‘A lucky five hundred on number thirty-four.’ He laughed and toasted the other players with his drink, setting his ice tinkling. ‘I just keep on reeling ’em in!’

Harry gaped for a moment, then snapped her gaze back to the fat guy. He’d rubbed his eyes before the last win, too, but so what? Maybe he had an allergy. She studied his pasty profile and suddenly, his hands grew still. He turned his head a fraction towards her. If he’d been a dog, he would’ve pricked his ears.

He knew she was watching him.

A shiver twitched between her shoulder blades. She slid a glance at the dealer. He’d called in the floorman who supervised his section of the room. They consulted together, but not for long. Harry watched the American collect his winnings. He’d made €35,000 in less than half an hour.

Movement snagged her gaze at the edges. The fat guy was smoothing a hand over his hair, as though a sudden wind had tossed it. Then he pocketed his chips and lumbered away from the table. Almost in the same instant, the American strolled off and headed for the cage to cash out. To anyone else, their behaviour was random. But because she’d been watching, to Harry it was an orchestrated move.

Collusion.

Her heart rate picked up. The American had joined a long queue at the cage. He wasn’t going anywhere, not for a while. The fat guy, on the other hand, was heading out of the room.

Harry threaded through the crowd, tailing him into the foyer. She dropped back behind an oversized pillar, watching him blunder through knots of cocktail drinkers as he made his way out the door.

She chewed her lip, debating the wisdom of her next move. Then she eased out from behind the safety of her pillar and followed him into the dark streets of San Sebastián.