Free Jackpot (Nameless Dectective) by Bill Pronzini Page A

let you see in the dark. With this cameralike baby, you could read license plates in unlighted garages, peer into shadowy corners; and if you happened to have a voyeuristic bent, why, you could even look through your neighbor’s bedroom window when you suspected he might be humping his wife or girlfriend. It came with an optional hand-held image intensifier, and an infrared spot for greater clarity, and a tripod, and a pistol grip. The Night Penetrator cost a paltry four thousand dollars, and you could get all the accessories for another twelve hundred. And the best part about it was that it was government-approved and perfectly legal to own.
    I threw the catalogue into the wastebasket. Alienation, fear, paranoia, distrust, deceit—that was what life was all about nowadays. Every man for himself and to hell with anybody else and his right to privacy. I couldn’t live that way, wouldn’t live that way. Caring too much could be a curse, but it was far better than caring too little. Far better, too, that the meek should inherit the earth than the paranoids and hard-core paramilitary “patriots” with hideout guns in their clothing and Night Penetrators tucked into the trunks of their cars....
    The telephone bell put an end to my brooding. Joe DeFalco.
    I said, “Joe, I’ve got some questions about gambling. Can I pick your brain?”
    “Go ahead, shoot.”
    “Is there an illegal gambling and booking operation in the city, one with Mob ties, that’s set up to handle six-figure bets?”
    He took some time to think it over before he said, “Officially, the answer is no.”
    “How about unofficially?”
    “I wouldn’t want to be quoted.”
    “That’s a laugh, coming from a newshound. Don’t worry, I don’t reveal my sources.”
    “Then the answer is yes. But the ties are loose.”
    “Man named Manny wouldn’t happen to run it, would he?”
    “No. Manny who?”
    “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
    “Nobody named Manny connected with it that I know of.”
    “How about Frank Garza? Or Arthur Welker?”
    “Nope.”
    “Either of those names mean anything to you?”
    “Garza, no. Welker’s a Nevada underboss—Reno and Tahoe.”
    “Know much about him?”
    “Not much. He keeps a low profile.”
    “Okay,” I said. “Do me a favor?”
    “Depends.”
    “You’ve got sources. Find out if one David Burnett made any big bets with the local combine—upwards of a hundred grand— within the last month. If so, see if you can set up a meet with somebody who knows the details.”
    “Why?” DeFalco asked. “Who’s Burnett?”
    “Nobody you’d know.”
    “If what you’re working on has news value, I want first crack at it. Guaranteed.”
    “You’ll get it. Guaranteed.”
    “Give me a day or two,” he said. “Anything else?”
    “Yeah. What can you tell me about the Megabucks progressive slots in Nevada?”
    “Multicasino computer network, operated by an outfit called International Game Technology. More than fifty casinos in fifteen cities hooked into it.”
    “Legitimate, I suppose?”
    “Oh, yeah. Strictly.”
    “Big payoffs?”
    “Potentially huge. Depends on how many silver dollars or tokens you feed in before you hit the jackpot. Some guy lined up four sevens at the Cal-Neva in Reno a couple of years ago and took down six point nine million. Biggest jackpot in gaming history.”
    “I don’t suppose there’s any way for an individual to rig one of those slots?”
    “Christ, no. Some hacker might be able to devise a jackpot program, but he’d have to go through too many safeguards to get it into the system. In the old days, when you had the reel slots, there were plenty of ways to gaffe a machine. Hell, some manufacturers did it themselves, on order from their customers to keep payoffs down. That’s where the term ‘one-arm bandit’ comes from.”
    “Uh-huh.” So much for off-the-wall theory no. 2.
    “First slot machine was invented right here in San Francisco,” DeFalco