The Longest Con: A Family of Grifters Tale by Bill Patterson

Author:Bill Patterson [Patterson, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PMOArgus Press
Published: 2017-02-28T00:00:00+00:00

***

“What is this place?” asked Pia. “It's certainly a lot cheerier than the other one.” Gone was the dim and dark, this room was brighter, with buff carpeting, overstuffed easy chairs and couches, and pleasant lighting.

“They didn't tell you?” asked Eskil. “This is the VIP area. You have to be betting fifty thousand and up to be allowed in here. Welcome!”

Pia looked around at the sumptuous furnishings. “This must have cost a mint to lift from Earth,” she said.

Eskil laughed from behind the bars of the cashier's cage. “Actually, it was slung from the Moon. They've figured out how to make plastic there. Found some kind of special asteroid or something. It's all synthetic,” he said.

“No machines,” said Khan. “Where are the betting machines?”

“The Contrioles only print scrip up to the hundred-dollar denomination; it would take you quite a while to feed five hundred of them into the machines to make the minimum bet. That's why I am here. Oh, if it gets busy, there will be others, but we take bets in either scrip or certified diamonds.”

Khan looked up. “What? In the Casino, they take credit.”

Eskil shrugged his shoulders. “We're not the casino. I think the cash-or-equivalent is the policy of our angel investor. Makes it easier to hide the profits from the taxman, eh?”

Hannon was looking at his phone. He smiled suddenly, and approached Eskil. “Are you open for bets?”

“Sure! What would you like, Mister, ah, Vult?”

“Right the first time. Dobson's Nose in the fifth, Yonkers, to win.” Hannon started taking handfuls of wadded scrip out of his pockets. “Should be fifty thousand here.”

“Let me check,” said Eskil. Together, they flattened out the bills, then Eskil fed them into a counter/verifier machine. They watched as the machine sucked the scrip inside, the counter spinning upward.

“Fast,” Hannon said.

“Has to be. Imagine a million-dollar bet in scrip. We can count that in about thirty seconds, given nice bundles. Five minutes if you hand them to me by the fistful, like Hannon here.” The counter continued to climb and clicked off at fifty-nine thousand, three hundred.

“Want an even fifty thousand, or do you have seven hundred to make it sixty?” asked Eskil.

Pia fished in her purse. “Here is the seven hundred, Hannon. Sounds like you have a sure thing.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” said Hannon, trying to hide a smile behind his hand.

Khan looked closely at the young man. “You do, but this is hardly the place. Let's see how this works out.”

The race came up ten minutes later. Dobson's Nose was not the favorite, but it was not the worst one, either. Three-to-one odds would blink, then four-to-one. The horses were paraded out in front of the sparsely populated grandstands. The whole spectacle made a mockery of the sport's unofficial title, “The Sport of Kings.”

Finally, the horses were loaded into the starting gates and the bell sounded. The race was on!

Dobson's Nose took off in the middle of the pack, heading around the first turn.

“Come on, Dobson!” shouted Pia, surprising Khan. How ridiculous, he thought, cheering a horse who was already back in the paddock, on Earth.

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