The sight of the entry gate to Foxwoods lifted Kevin's spirits immensely after nearly three hours of driving. Soon he would be sitting at a gaming table, laying down bets and collecting large stacks of chips for his efforts. He took the car around to the Great Cedar Garage parking structure, settling on one of the lower levels so the sun wouldn't turn the car's interior into a searing hot oven just in case his luck didn't go the way he'd hoped and he had to head home early. He was certain that such an eventuality was extremely low on the probability scale.
He got out of the car and locked it after checking his pockets to make sure he still had the five thousand dollars on him. There was an elevator lobby behind glass doors at the far end of the structure, and he went inside it. The sudden rush of air conditioning was a welcome precursor to what he expected to experience once the elevator brought him up to the casino level of the complex.
The elevator doors opened up on a walkway devoid of decoration save the occasional bench and soda vending machine. The PA system played some soft rock music that gradually began to get drowned out by the sound of people walking, people talking, and the jaunty melody of electronically generated E, C and G notes as Kevin walked towards the main concourse. Once he emerged among the various shops, restaurants, kiosks, and occasional snack bar, he looked around for a directory so he could get his bearings, as this was his first time to the first Indian casino authorized in the US. He found a stack of floor maps next to a stand filled with tourist attraction brochures, and after perusing it for a few moments decided he would try his luck at the table games in the portion called the Rainmaker Casino.
Kevin made his way down a stretch of the concourse called the Rainmaker Trail towards his destination. The sight of a large translucent statue of a Manshantucket Pequot Indian on one knee about to release an arrow from his longbow straight up into the sky told him he had arrived at his intended gaming destination. With a big smile on his face, Kevin again checked his sweatshirt pocket to feel the five thousand dollars before walking past the sign stating that nobody under the age of 21 was allowed further into the Rainmaker Casino.
Kevin still wasn't prepared for the sight of all the gaming tables even after watching the original CSI and the George Clooney version of Ocean's Eleven and any other Las Vegas-set TV shows and movies. He stood there for a few moments, taking in the options and trying to decide what would be his best option for taking the place for a good portion of its cash reserves. His gaze traveled from the pai gow tables to the money wheel to the roulette tables to the Spanish 21 tables to the craps tables to the blackjack tables to the baccarat tables, some of them surrounded by eager gamblers, others lying dormant with the dealers' chip trays locked under Plexiglass waiting for the customer load to get high enough for the pit bosses to decide to activate them. He remembered that movie about the kids from MIT who took the casinos for millions by playing blackjack, and decided to start there.
He picked a table advertising a minimum bet of twenty-five dollars and which had three other people already sitting at the first, fourth and fifth positions, and took a seat at the second position. He reached into his pocket, extracted one of the money packets, removed the rubber band from around it, and placed it on the table. The dealer, a middle-aged Asian woman, picked it up and counted it out, laying the bills on the table in a staggered stack so the eye-in-the-sky surveillance cameras in the ceiling could record the exact amount for potential legal purposes, then turned to the pit boss behind her and stated "Changing one thousand." The pit boss came over to visually verify the amount and repeat her statement, and after collecting the bills and slotting them into the collection box mounted inside the table, the dealer counted out eight black $100 chips and green $25 chips apiece and pushed them towards Kevin with a curt "Good luck."
YOU ARE READING
Broken Hero
Mystery / ThrillerMassachusetts State Police Trooper First Class Kevin Thornton joined the force for all the wrong reasons, and as such he's done so little that the only promotion he's received is the automatic one to trooper first class after five years on the job...
