"She plays an hour on the same bill. She wins a little, she loses a little. At the end of the hour, she's down forty-three bucks, then she hits. Big! To the tune of $487,345. The floor goes nuts. She's scared, you can see her fear on the video. Hank Owens is like a caged lion. You can see that, too. The little miss takes her check and goes home.

"That same night up and down the Strip people are winning like crazy. Everyone is beating the house. I formed a special committee, and we went back to the night Miss Barnes won her first jackpot. That's when the Strip started losing money. From then until now, the casinos are out a billion bucks. That's a lot of serious money, and they aren't taking it lightly."

Elias washed down the last of his sandwich and reached for a cookie. "You must have a theory. I thought you guys had better protection than Homeland Security."

"We do, goddammit. The girl's legit. She's just damn lucky, and the casinos have to suck it up. By the way, the girl's winnings are not included in the billion. That's an inside job. Believe it or not, this town is tighter than a duck's ass, and nothing goes unnoticed. So the casinos banded together, put out the word in the industry, and there's a million bucks sitting on the table for information leading to the arrest of whoever is responsible for the loss of the billion. So far no takers and no information. Every hour this continues the casinos are losing money. To be honest, Elias, we don't know what to do. Understand, I'm not proud of the fact that I'm coming to you. We should be able to contain this ourselves. I'm going to brag here and tell you we have the best of the best as far as legal counsel goes. I'm sure even you've heard of Cosmo Cricket."

Elias frowned at the name but couldn't place him immediately. Finally, it dawned on him. "Ah, the big gentleman. The one with an addiction to cars. I did read something about him not too long ago. He bought some fancy car and paid almost $2 million for it. It made the papers in Washington. No one in his right mind pays that kind of money for a car. You're overpaying him, Peter."

Peter Udal laughed. "Let me tell you about that special car. Actually, I think it made the front page of the paper this morning. Seems some hotshot female attorney from back East rammed into it. Right in the police parking lot. Not once, but twice. According to Cricket, the car is totaled. I think it just needs a new door, but what do I know? I drive a Jeep. It takes me where I need to go. Fancy cars are not something I have time to deal with."

Elias felt his antenna go up. "Who was the attorney, do you know?"