Gris is so buoyed by his effortless "victory" that he takes a moment to walk around his yard, noticing that his new thugs are looking better fed, the staff is looking browbeaten, and Utanc and those two kids who are going to need counseling are gone ("How nice and quiet!"). When he gets back to his room he finds a note from Raht stating that he's shifting the transmitter for those high-tech alien bugging devices to cover Atlantic City. Gris spends a whole two paragraphs thinking about this, and concludes that his henchmen must have bugged either Heller's office, clothing, or both. Note that Gris didn't even remember to give the order to allow him to continue spying on Krak and Heller, making Raht the more intelligent and much harder-working agent. Take a moment to boggle at whatever Apparatus decision-making process allowed Gris to outrank Raht.
For lack of anything better to do, Gris turns on the HellerVision (co-starring the Countess Krak) "as one looks at cripples who are sure to lose any race." Said metaphorical cripples are riding a helicopter to Atlantic City.
Now, let's say that your significant other, someone you talk about settling down and having kids with once you both finish this job, suddenly suggests that the two of you hit Vegas for a little vacation. Like, immediately. You go along with this, hurriedly pack your bags, and head out. Then on the plane ride your love interest reveals that not only are the two of you completely broke, but the whole point of this trip is to try and scam the Mafia to fix your finances. How would you react?
Because the Countess Krak is pretty cool with it. Heller doesn't even tell the truth on his own initiative, she smells "chicanery" when he starts insisting that she not call him Wister and act like a "dizzy dame," and that's when he mentions their financial emergency. All she asks is if they're going to do anything "criminal" before going on to test their nifty button-sized radios (wow, alien technology that lets them act like FBI agents!), and that is it. No feelings of betrayal for being left out of the loop, nor a joking threat that she'll get him back for this. She doesn't do much this chapter except follow Heller around and do as he orders.
Love is a synonym for "slavish, unthinking devotion," right?
Paragraph for Krak's outfit, paragraph of Gris giving the history of Atlantic City, walk into a casino, Krak goes to find Mamie Boomp while Heller takes a seat on a balcony and inspects the gun he smuggled through the heliport hidden in "an adding machine." And then he whips out what Gris recognizes as "THE TIME-SIGHT!"
Let's rewind to the beginning of Book Two.
A "time-sight" is a camera-like device needed when traveling by the physics-raping "Will-Be Was" engines, which as you surely recall throw Mass at Time to create a top speed approaching infinity and make Einstein weep blood. When you're going this fast, you need a camera that can look twenty-four hours into the future (convenient that alien equipment has the same timeframe as an Earth day, isn't it?). You look into a Time-Sight, and you can see that fate has arranged for a planet or star to be in your path. Then you deny that fate by changing course to avoid it. If this all sounds nonsensical, simply slam your head against a desk or wall until you come to accept the existence of these devices, or find a much bigger problem to worry about.
Heller has one of these Time-Sights with him, and since they conveniently look like an old Earth 8mm camera, he's slapped a Nikon sticker on one. Now he can look down at the casino floor, examine the roulette wheels and the clock, and jot down the winning numbers for all the afternoon and evening's games.
If you're wondering why a Time-Sight's user can cheat fate by avoiding an oncoming obstacle in a spaceship, but the dozens of other people in a casino have no effect on the outcome of a game of roulette you foresaw that afternoon, please repeat the head-smashing until the question leaves your mind.
Miss Boomp and Krak come by so she can show off Heller to her new friend. Some toughs come by and get Heller to put his non-functional camera, honest, away. Mamie complains about her and her girls not getting paid before leaving. Then after a brief compliment, Heller sets about giving his "dizzy dame" her orders - the two of them are to go around placing bets on the numbers given at the times listed, but only in $285 amounts because the IRS will investigate winnings that amount to more than $10,000 - for the same reason, they'll each have to cash in their chips after each win before going to a different table.
I guess he looked all this stuff up... before reading the paper and abruptly coming up with this plan?
Heller notes that "for some reason, all play stops at 10:21" that night, which we might want to be suspicious about, then gives Krak a bunch of garbage bags to haul away all the cash they're going to win. And then they go about winning games of roulette for two pages or so. Krak makes a bet, wins, cashes, hits a different table. Heller makes a bet, wins, cashes, new table.
And it takes an hour before anyone in the casino gets suspicious.
It's not that the staff manning the tables and wheels start talking to each other. It's not that anyone notices that these two are consulting a list before they place their winning bets. "Three men and a woman" eventually start following Heller around and place bets after him, but not the huge crowd you'd imagine.
No, instead two toughs come by and ask Heller how old he is. He shows them the doctored ID of the late Johnny Cattivo, 22, then "with a great demonstration" loses a thousand dollar bet on his next game. And they stop following him immediately, and he goes right back to his winning streak. Eventually someone realizes that he's paid Krak multiple times and uses a hidden magnet to no avail, but when security guards show up as she cashes her chips it's to escort a new load of cash for her to stuff in her trash bags.
"Back and forth, back and forth. Win, win, win, win, win!" Near six o'clock, Krak and Heller's bags are full, Krak starts complaining about all that walking, and they decide to break for dinner. Their only concern is whether the casino will run out of money before they make the two million dollars that will fix the worst of their debt.
I guess the upside of introducing something like the time-sights is that if the reader buys that, they'll probably accept Heller and Krak pulling off a scam like this. Telescopes that see through time? A casino that just watches as two patrons rake in a million dollars in a few hours by winning every game they bet on, save one? Sounds legit.
Back to Chapter Four
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