Running Scared by Elizabeth Lowell

morning, even on the mornings when he had been up most of the night.
    “Then you know we had six big jackpots yesterday on the wall of Solid Gold Slots.”
    “Yes.” That was improbable, but not impossible. Gambling was a game of odds. Odds were quirky in the short run and utterly reliable in the long run.
    “I went over the tapes,” she said, referring to the digital record that was made of everything that went on at the casino. “I suspect we’re getting hosed by a techno-team.”
    Shane made a note to look at the recordings himself. “Electronic? Magnetic? Mechanical?”
    “I’d bet on a magnetic reset of the payoff.”
    He grunted. No matter how carefully they shielded the “brain” of a slot machine, some techno-geek could always find a way in—especially one who had worked on the casino’s slot programs in the past.
    He would have to check his personnel files.
    “Did the team come back today?” he asked.
    “I haven’t seen them.”
    “Excerpt their photos and circulate them on the hot line.”
    She nodded. Technically the casinos in Las Vegas were competitors; in reality they cooperated on security matters.
    “No more thefts on the fourth floor?” Shane asked, but his eyes were searching the excited crowd around the craps table. The pit boss was right where he should have been, able to see the craps crew and the crowd. The stickman—who happened to be a woman on this shift—was doing what she was paid for: watching the action in the center of the craps table, making sure the dice weren’t crooked, and rounding up and returning dice to the shooter. Opposite the stickman was the boxman, who told the dealer—two dealers in this case, because the action was hot—who and how much to pay. An excited woman in mussed makeup and a white satin evening dress with drink stains on it was blowing on the dice, whispering to them, praying over them, and finally flinging them down the length of the green felt.
    Les jeux sont faits.
    “Another snake eyes!” called out the stickman. “The lady is hot!”
    The woman shrieked, jumped up and down, and watched while the dealers doled out chips. The size of the stack of chips in front of her doubled. She let it ride and grabbed the dice as soon as they were swept back to her by the long curved stick.
    The crowd leaned closer in vicarious greed and excitement.
    Shane and Susan kept walking.
    “No, sir,” she said. “You were right. One of the day clerks was copying electronic keys and slipping them to her buddies. Stupid. Whatever they get from a fence won’t begin to pay for the time they’ll spend in jail.”
    “That’s the thing with crooks,” he said. “They always assume they’re too smart to get caught.”
    “Yeah, well this wizard found the cops waiting for her in the employee parking lot.”
    Shane didn’t ask if it had been handled discreetly. He paid his security people very well to make sure that the never-never land aura of the Golden Fleece wasn’t disturbed by something as distasteful as reality. It wasn’t an accident that there were no clocks, no radios, no television screens except in the sports betting lounge, no telephones to remind gamblers to phone home, not even so much as a weather channel on the TVs in the guest rooms to hint at an outside world. The silent message was overwhelming: Everything you need is right here.
    “Anything else?” he asked as they walked down the center of a double row of blackjack tables. Depending on the demand for the tables, the ante varied from five bucks a hand to five thousand dollars. When the demand was high, the price of playing went up. Two of the tables had discreet reserved signs on them. They were for two brothers from Argentina who liked to gamble side by side for three thousand dollars a hand, preferred those two tables and two blond dealers manning them, and lost enough money that Shane was happy to accommodate their whims.
    “Nothing else yet,” she said.
    “I don’t like the sound