Aces and Knaves

was superior to this in three respects: It didn't have the cigarette smoke, it didn't have the grating din of slot machines and the patrons were much better dressed.
    I took a minute to orient myself and then moved over to the blackjack tables. The dealers were sliding the cards to the players along the green felt surfaces from shoes containing multiple decks. The players were betting their five-dollar chips and idly glancing at their cards, standing, taking hits, sometimes busting. Everybody looked supremely bored.
    I quickly determined that there were no big-stakes games in progress. It was all small potatoes. I passed by some video-poker machines. I had been known to play video poker in my time, rationalizing that there was at least a modicum of skill to the game.
    I stopped in front of a machine. The payoff for four-of-a-kind was 40-to-one. Once in Las Vegas I had taken a calculator and figured out that the best machines to play were the ones where the payoff was 80-to-one for four-of-a-kind, even though some of the other payoffs were lower. The strategy was to expend all one's effort on getting four-of-a-kind and hope to break even the rest of the time.
    I had a few quarters in my pocket and was tempted to try my luck, anyway. What could happen? I knew what could happen. I could end up spending the day, hypnotized, shoving quarters into the slot. After an agonizing minute I walk away from the machines. Proud of myself, I found a casher's cage and waited while an old man in a wrinkled short-sleeved shirt exchanged a hundred-dollar bill for chips.
    When the cashier was free I asked her if I could speak to the casino manager. She gave me a skeptical look and called to a man behind her, who was talking to another employee. When he came over she said, "This guy says he wants to speak to the manager."
    The young man had black hair and was dressed in a black suit. He said through the bars, "I'll be right with you." He disappeared around a corner. A minute later he came through a doorway a few feet away. We approached each other and met in the middle.
    He said, "What can I do for you?"
    "Are you the casino manager?" I asked.
    "I'm one of the floor managers."
    That wasn't high enough. I only wanted to tell my story once. "What's the name of the casino manager?" I asked.
    He looked at me without expression and I wondered whether he was going to have me thrown out. Then he said, "That's Charlie White. What's your business with him?"
    I had to say something. I gave him my name and then said, "Tell him I'm a friend of Ned Mackay."
    Ned's name meant zilch to him, judging by his continuing lack of expression. He said, "Wait here," and disappeared through the mysterious doorway.
    After five minutes I figured I was on a hopeless quest. I would go back empty-handed. I least I had had the fun of the drive. Or maybe I would play some blackjack. I took out my wallet to count my money and didn't see the young man return.
    I jumped when he said, "Follow me."
    We went back through the doorway. The noise and the cigarette smoke disappeared as the door closed behind us. Here was plush. Plush carpets and plush offices. He led me to the door of the biggest office, stuck his head in and said, "This is Mr. Patterson." Then he left.
    "Come in," the man behind the large desk said.
    He was middle-aged, with short black hair and a wrinkled face that could have modeled for Geronimo or Crazy Horse, but he wore a dark suit and smiled as he shook hands with me and introduced himself as Charlie White.
    I gave him my full name and sat down across the desk from him, at his invitation. I was wondering how to begin when he said, "So you're a friend of Ned Mackay. I was very sad to read about his death."
    That was as good a place to start as any. I told Mr. White that I had been with Ned that evening and filled in other details, including my suspicions that the cocaine had been planted.
    Mr. White nodded at that. He said, "I have known Ned for a long time. He was a good friend. He helped my people make the dream of this casino a reality. I owe him a lot. What can I do for you?" From the grim look on his face, it was probably just as well for the San Francisco criminal element that Indians no longer mounted raiding parties.
    I explained my association with Dionysus and then said, "One thing puzzles us about Ned's behavior before he died. A co-worker saw him in this casino one day betting large sums of money at the blackjack table—and losing. And yet,