Chapter 181: Meanwhile, What Had Been Happening in Vegas

Tuesday, May 3 to Friday, May 6, 2005

I asked, "The Boys don't know what we did?"

Prof answered, "No. There was no need to tell them, and doubtless it's better that they don't know. Vanessa did sit them down to reinforce the message that their knowing would only increase the danger to them and to everyone else in the two families. They know we wouldn't exclude them without good reason, so they're not upset about it. To the contrary, after hearing about the effort 'The LA Money Men' - as we call them - put into finding you, they're happy not to know.

^-- "Even though they don't know what we've been up to, The Boys have been very helpful the last few days. We had pairs of security guards patrolling our and your houses 24/7, because we were extremely worried about Binion's people installing bugs. But we were also worried about the guards being bribed to look the other way, so Andrew and Robert took a few days off. Robert stayed at your home during the day; Andrew stayed here. Making sure the guards didn't let anyone in, and checking on them several times during the day. Guarding the guards, as it were. We also employed Sophia's brother and his girlfriend to stay awake in each house during the night. To patrol around inside while everyone else was sleeping. We were VERY determined that we didn't want any bugs inside our homes."

#3: <Yeah. Imagine some of the conversations they could overhear!>

#4: <What's worse, imagine if they had video camera bugs, what they could see in this room. We often fly things around. Even just flicking off the lights, their camera might catch the light switch moving all by itself. Not to mention light blobs! No more NP or light blobs from now on!>

#3: <I'll say!>

#1: <But we can't live the rest of our lives - until the mansion is ready anyway - minding every single word and action we do, even inside our own homes. That'd be a huge pain! On TV they wave around a little box that tells them whether a room is bugged or not, so can't we get that done?>

#3: <Better comment on Andrew's and Robert's help before we worry about our personal stuff.>

I said, "That was wonderful of The Boys. That must have disrupted their work badly."

"It probably helped them. They were able to work productively without all the interruptions they'd normally get. They've got laptops, so they were fine. I think they'll also consider themselves very well repaid when they get their payments."

"Not as well paid as YOU should be! What you had to do was amazing! I'm glad you won the extra $1.1 million, because you, Vanessa and your boys all need to be paid more than we agreed before. How come you bet $850,000, by the way? That's puzzling me."

"We won't take any more than we agreed to. You're greatly overestimating how much effort it was for each of us. As people get older they get better at facing pressure and overcoming challenges, so none of us found the last few days nearly as hard as you seem to think it was for us. The extra 1.1 will go into your share. You need it more than us. After paying tax, the Anderson emergency fund, and buying the mansion - with all that'll entail - there won't be all that much left over. I'm sure Julia won't have any trouble spending it for you."

Julia agreed, "I've already got several ideas, haha."

Prof said, "I'll start telling you what happened to me from when I arrived at Binion's, which will include the explanation for the $850,000 when I get that far."

"Okay. But while I remember, can't we get the houses 'swept for bugs' like they do on TV? That's what they call it, isn't it? I don't want to have to be careful of every single thing I say and do until we move into the mansion."

"No indeed," agreed Prof. "One of the first things I did in Vegas after learning that Binion's people were after you, was hire a good PI, and have him explain to me what the PIs who'd be chasing you would be doing, and how you should avoid them. I also asked him about getting rid of bugs. It's not nearly as simple as it appears on TV. The cheapest bugs are like you see on TV. They take only a few minutes to find, because they're transmitting all the time.

^-- "There are bugs that don't transmit at all, they just record until they run out of memory. The bug owner has to manually collect those bugs to find out what they contain. They wouldn't have used those bugs exclusively in our houses, because they'd want live feed, but they could have planted some transmitting bugs, and some recording bugs.

^-- "The next level of quality is a bug that stores what it hears until it receives a signal instructing it to transmit. It condenses hours of conversation into a burst of a few seconds of transmission, so there's almost no chance of detecting the transmission. Those can be set to transmit live too, if the owner wants.

^-- "Then there's another type of bug that's even better than the previous type because when it transmits it's extremely rapidly changing frequencies, making it even harder to detect. There are also bugs that are inactive until they get woken up, either by time or external signal; or that can be turned off by a simple transmission, when the owner thinks we might be looking for them.

^-- "In short, finding top quality bugs is a great deal more difficult than it appears on TV. You can tell I take it seriously though. We're going to mind what we do and say until early next week, then I'm going to hire a team of professionals to go through both houses and all our cars. Patrick has told Binion's that if we find a single bug anywhere then we're going public. They assure him that there are none, but they would say that regardless. If there are any, they're on notice to remove them. Does that answer your question well enough?"

"More than well enough, thanks. We mind our P's and Q's until the sweepers tell us we're clean."

"Yes. Your family knows that too. We don't think there are bugs in the houses, because we think we've prevented anyone gaining access, but we're assuming the worst until we learn otherwise. It would've been easy to bug our cars, so we're definitely assuming they aren't safe. You should assume yours isn't safe either, now that it's parked outside our house. Now I'll tell you what I've been doing for the last few days..."

Prof recounted his story. The first part of which, up until he contacted his lawyer, I've given already.

First thing Wednesday, Patrick (Prof's lawyer) requested Binion's pay his client's winnings and return his initial stake immediately. Failing that they were put on notice to preserve for evidence in a lawsuit their videotapes of the entirety of Prof's visit, including but not limited to his two games and his visit to the Interview Room.

Patrick also requested copies of same. Patrick had predicted that Binion's would relatively quickly provide the tapes of Prof's play, but would not provide the tapes from the Interview Room. That's what typically happened in such cases, and what did happen in this one. The tapes sent to Patrick were of a deliberately degraded quality, but were good enough to confirm every word Prof had said, and for Patrick to see that cheating by any known method appeared impossible.

Midday Wednesday, Prof learned from Vanessa that Binion's investigators were hot on Mark's heels. Previously Prof had not mentioned me to Patrick, not expecting that my presence would come to light (it took less than two hours in Corvallis for Binion's investigators to ID me!). So Prof told Patrick about me, "My daughter's boyfriend wanted to watch, but he was only fifteen, and that's why he pretended not to know me. He didn't want to disrupt my game in the likely event that he was detected and removed from the casino. He has nothing to do with this other than as a spectator. I believe he bought some chips, in order to justify his hanging around, but I don't think he gambled at all. Now Binion's have investigators running all around Corvallis looking for him, convinced that he's somehow responsible for my winning just because he watched both of my games."

My presence wasn't of any legal consequence, so it changed nothing as far as Patrick was concerned.

Patrick had 'invited' Binion's lawyers to a meeting on Thursday morning, which I'll paraphrase. Patrick started by giving Binion's lawyers copies of the lawsuit he was going to file at 10am the next day (Friday), and the press statement he was going to release at the same time. Both documents would deeply embarrass Binion's, and made Ted Binion out as being particularly stupid for claiming that cheating was possible under such circumstances.

The lawsuit was not just for the $11.2 million that Binion's were holding (what we'd won plus our original stake), but for every other cause of action imaginable. For example, it included sexual harassment because when Prof had been legless, one of the security guards had rubbed the sock Prof wore over his stump. Patrick's secretary had the amusing task of locating and printing out website postings from people who got their sexual kicks doing exactly that on amputees, the printouts were to be used as supporting evidence for a sexual harassment claim. That an old man had his trousers removed and was sexually harassed in a casino backroom in the presence of Ted Binion could be written up as a VERY entertaining article, one that would further damage Ted's existing reputation and give him an entirely new one.

The court documents requested an urgent hearing, one of the justifications for which was an insinuation that Binion's might have solvency problems which would only get worse once news of their big loss got out. The press release went even further, strongly implying Binion's refusal to pay had to be caused by their being insolvent because there was no other reason, cheating obviously being impossible under the very clearly and embarrassingly described circumstances.

Binion's lawyers' attempt at a verbal counterattack was that they knew Mark Anderson had been involved in the scam.

When pressed they had difficulty explaining how, but they did come up with, "If he's innocent, why is he avoiding us?"

"Because he thinks he's in terrible trouble for being under-age in your casino. You've got people hunting for him all over town, which has got to be truly frightening experience for a young boy with a guilty conscience. Is that the best proof of cheating you've got, that a young boy is scared of your small army? Do you honestly believe you'll be able to convince a judge that your client doesn't have to pay an $11 million loss purely because the two games were witnessed by a 15-year old boy?"