by James Swain
Next stop was a depressing chamber called Pre Trial Services, where a hand-printed sign announced a new forty-dollar filing fee for bond payment. Dealing with the system was no different than getting your pocket picked. He dropped a Visa card on the counter and proceeded to bail Ly out of jail.
Ly emerged from the jail still wearing her purple dealer’s vest and ruffled tuxedo shirt, her hair released from its bun. Seeing Billy standing in the sidewalk, she scowled.
“What take you so long?” she asked.
“I got here as fast as I could,” he said.
“How much they make you pay?”
“Ten big ones.”
“Hah. That nothing to rich guy like you.”
Thank you was not in her lexicon. They got into his car. Ly picked up the blouse on the passenger seat and tore away the tissue paper. She tossed the gift into the backseat.
“Not your color, huh?” he said.
“I’m hungry. Take me some place nice,” she said.
He decided on the El Cortez in old downtown. It would be quiet at this time of night, and they’d be able to sit and talk things out. Ly had gotten busted for cheating a casino, and he didn’t think she understood how miserable her life was about to become.
The El Cortez was a faded throwback to the days when the mob ran the casinos. Its two restaurants served terrific food in generous portions and were open all night long.
A hostess seated them in a corner booth. They read the menu, which was the length of a short novel. Ly decided on the matzo ball soup and Chicago corned beef sandwich, while Billy went for the shrimp cocktail and the signature New York pastrami sandwich served high on rye.
He studied her face while waiting for their food. The false bravado was gone, and she looked scared out of her wits. Their drinks came. Coffee for him, a sweaty Heineken for her.
“Tell me what went down,” he said.
“This afternoon, my neighbor come over,” she said. “He tell me he been practicing chip scam all day, that he ready to go tonight. I tell him, ‘You not ready yet,’ and he leave.”
“You were practicing the chip scam with your neighbor.”
“Yeah. His name Funky Freddie because he wear funny socks.”
“Let me guess. Your neighbor came into your casino anyway.”
“Yeah. Funky Freddy come in tonight, start talking to pit boss. I freak out, you know? He sit at my table, and I see the double-chip in his hand. Under my breath I say, ‘Go away, you dumb shit,’ but he don’t hear. Very first bet, he put down double-chip. Then he realizes wrong side showing, so he flips chip over. Everyone see it not real.”
“Jesus Christ. What’d you do?”
“I back away from the table. I don’t want no part of this crap. Funky Freddie realize what he done and runs out of casino. Pit boss comes over, picks up the double-chip, look at me real suspicious. He says, ‘This guy’s a friend of yours, huh?’ I say I never see him before, but pit boss busts me anyway.”
If it went to trial, Ly’s attorney could tell a jury that she’d refused to take Funky Freddie’s bet. Every BJ game in Vegas was videotaped, and the tape would show Ly backing away from the table and not touching the gaffed chip. A good defense attorney would hang his case on that, and Ly would walk. She’d probably lose her work card and never deal blackjack again, but that was a small price to pay to beat a cheating rap.
“Tell me what you told the police,” he said.
“Police ask me if I know Funky Freddie. I say I never seen this crazy guy before. Police say pit boss tell them my table not doing so good, that I may be stealing.”
The pit boss had cast a shadow of doubt over Ly’s integrity. He felt himself growing worried. “Did Funky Freddie leave a paper trail inside the casino that could be traced?”
“What you mean?” she asked.
“Did he buy anything with a credit card? Or use the ATM?”
“I see him at ATM machine before he sit down.”
“Did the pit boss see him?”
“Pit boss see him, too.”
This was bad. If the pit boss alerted the police to Funky Freddie’s use of the ATM to make a withdrawal, the police would get Funky Freddie’s credit card info and hunt him down. That was a problem, because Funky Freddie lived in Ly’s trailer park. The police would make the connection and charge Ly and her neighbor for conspiracy to cheat a casino. There were over a hundred slick defense lawyers in town, and not a single one could beat a conspiracy rap.
Their meals came. Ly still didn’t understand the gravity of what she’d done. She speared the matzo ball and tore a piece out of its side with her teeth.
“We need to move you,” he said.
“What you mean?” she said.
“You’re not safe at the trailer park anymore. Let’s go.”
Ly lived in the Rolling Ranchette Trailer Park off Boulder Highway. The roads were quiet, and he did ninety most of the way, hoping to beat the gaming board.
During the drive, she talked about growing up in Vietnam. Billy didn’t know much about the country except that the United States had fought a protracted war there whose validity was still being argued by old guys with ponytails in bars.
At sixteen, she’d paid a human trafficker for passage to LA, where she’d worked folding clothes at a laundry. One day, a well-dressed Vietnamese customer named Vicky had made Ly an offer. Vicky was also a refugee, and owned a nail salon in Garden Grove in the heart of Southern California’s Vietnamese community. All of the salon’s manicurists were Vietnamese girls trying to make a life for themselves. Vicky had offered Ly a job painting nails, where Ly would make good money and even better tips.
There had been one hitch. The cost of entry was twenty grand.
Billy parked in front of Ly’s trailer. It was dark, and he saw no sign of the gaming board.
“Explain the deal to me,” he said.
“Deal simple,” she said. “Vicky send me to work at Slots A Fun, where I pretend to be a Vietnamese girl named Ly. I live in Ly trailer, drive her shitty car, pretend to be her. I send Vicky money every month so I one day work in salon.”
“You’re not the first one Vicky’s done this with, are you?”
“All girls in Vicky’s salon have been Ly. No one complain.”
“Does the owner of Slots A Fun know what’s going on?”
“Owner knows,” she explained.
“You bribed him?”
“I fuck him, same as other girls. We fuck him, and he take care of us. Back home in Vietnam, boyfriend fuck me, and when he done, tell me go make dinner. I say go make own dinner, lazy dog. Boyfriend knock me down, kick me. I tell my father, thinking he protect me. My father say, ‘Chồng chúa, vợ tôi.’ That mean ‘Man master, woman servant.’ So I run away. That’s what my country like. Women get nothing in return. At least when I fuck a man here, I get something back. You have problem with that?”
She had it all figured out. Why she was here, the things she’d done to get here, the risk, the reward—nothing had escaped her.
“No, I don’t have a problem with that,” he said.
A few trailers down a porch light came on, and a geezer in handcuffs came out the front door. He was followed by a pair of gaming agents with badges pinned to their lapels. The geezer’s wife stood in the doorway, bawling her eyes out. On the geezer’s feet was a pair of hideous multistriped socks. Funky Freddie was going down.
Billy started to back away while trying not to smash into anything. One of the gaming agents spotted them.
“Stop right there, and get out of the vehicle,” the gaming agent called out.
“Get your head down,” Billy said.
Ly dropped in her seat. Goosing the accelerator, he flew in reverse down the street.
“Get back here!” the gaming agent shouted.
He flashed his
brights, just to get the gaming agent’s goat. The gaming board employed nine hundred field agents, the majority in Sin City. Rookies were relegated to the night shift; if they lasted a year, they got to work days. It was a lot harder than it sounded.
He reached the intersection, performed a backward turn, hit his brakes, and threw the car into drive. As they raced past Ly’s street, the gaming agent appeared with his gun drawn. It was strictly for show. If the gaming agent fired and missed, the bullet might hit a trailer and wound someone. No agent wanted that on their resume, unless they were Dirty Harry.
Billy exited the trailer park without any more problems. A minute later, he and Ly were flying down Boulder Highway with the windows down and their hair blowing in their faces.
“You my hero,” Ly cooed.
The Super 8 Motel on Koval was the best deal in town. On-site dining, a heated swimming pool, four HBO channels, all for forty bucks a night. He paid in advance and walked Ly to a room on the first floor that faced the street. Shoving money into her hands, he told her to lose the dealer’s uniform first thing tomorrow.
She leaned against the doorsill. Her posture said she wanted him to come inside and screw. She was nothing but trouble, and he backed away from the door.
“I thought you like me,” she said.
“I’m doing a job for some guys. I have to go or they’ll get pissed.”
“Make up excuse. You good at that.”
“They’re bad guys. They won’t understand.”
“Why you working for bad guys?”
“It’s a long story. I’ll be by in a couple of days. Stay out of trouble, okay?”
She tried to hug him. Billy knew better. Once their bodies touched, it would be all over. He gently pushed her away. Her eyes laughed at him.
“You going to take me back to LA?” she asked.
“I don’t know. You have someplace to stay?”
“Vicky put me up. I still owe her money for job at nail salon. You pay her for me?”
“How much do you owe her?”
“Two thousand five hundred.”
It was a small price to pay to get Ly out of his hair.
“I’ll pay her the rest,” he said. “Now let me go.”
“You really do that for me?”
“I said I would, didn’t I?”
“Remember that time we almost fuck? It was in crummy motel just like this. I never forget that night. I want you so bad inside of me. Just like now. Why don’t you come inside and let me make you happy?”
Her eyes danced with the memory, and it took all his willpower to turn away and trot to his car. Not until he was speeding down Koval did he glance in his mirror. Ly remained in the doorway wearing an all-knowing look. She was the kind of woman that could get you killed, and he sped away thinking there were probably worse ways to check out of this life.
TWENTY-NINE
The hotel lobby was deserted as Billy came through the front doors, and he stuck his head into the casino before heading upstairs. The crowds had thinned, the action less frenetic than earlier. Casino games were designed to grind a player down, one dollar at a time. Over the long run you couldn’t win, but that didn’t stop people from sticking their heads in the buzz saw.
His ears popped on the way up in the elevator. Through the glass windows he beheld the slow-motion riot of people, cars, and blinking neon of the Strip.
His footsteps made scratching sounds on the hall’s carpet. He keyed the door to his suite and entered, expecting to find Ike and T-Bird counting the money they’d taken from his condo. To his surprise, they weren’t there, and he called the front desk at Turnberry.
“Good evening. Can I help you?” answered Jo-Jo, the lethargic night manager.
“This is Billy Cunningham in 28D. I’m looking for a couple friends of mine. Have you seen them around?”
“Hey, Mr. C. If your friends are a couple of mean-looking black dudes, then yeah, I saw them. They came in earlier and introduced themselves. I saw those big Super Bowl rings, and we got to talking. I remember those guys when they played for the Steelers.”
“Were they any good?”
“Naw, they sucked. The tall one nearly cost them the title.”
“Any idea where they are now?”
“They’re still upstairs in your condo.”
“They haven’t left yet?”
“Nope. I would have seen them, and I’ve been at my desk all night.”
An alarm went off in Billy’s head. Emptying his safe shouldn’t have taken Ike and T-Bird very long. What had they done, called some high-priced call girls and thrown a party? He had to assume that they were up to no good. That was a mistake, because he had the capability to screw them in a bad way, right from where he was.
“What’s the name of the security company that installed the hidden camera system in the building last year?” he asked.
“A1 Security and Alarm,” Jo-Jo said.
“Do you have their website?”
“Yeah, it’s taped to my computer: a1security.com, all lowercase. Is something wrong? Are those guys ripping you off?”
“That’s between me and them. Later, Jo-Jo.”
“Have a good night, Mr. C.”
He got on the Internet with his Droid and soon was on the A1 site. A year back, a cleaning woman had gotten caught trying to pawn valuable jewelry she’d stolen from a resident at Turnberry. To prevent further theft, the building’s management had hired A1 to install hidden CCTV cameras in each unit’s ceiling smoke detectors. These cameras were wired to the firm’s main location and could be accessed with a few simple commands.
He’d been happy to have cameras installed in his unit. He wasn’t worried about theft as much as what the gaming board would take if they ever raided his place. Chances were, they’d rip him off, and wouldn’t it be fun to have a tape of it? He went to the log-in page and typed in his password: cheater.
The interior of his condo appeared on the Droid’s screen. The CCTV cameras filmed in four-color, and his condo looked as sharp as the set for a late-night infomercial. He flipped between rooms and stopped at the master bedroom. As he’d expected, the wall safe was open and had been cleaned out, the stacks of money piled on the floor.
But there was more. His clothes had been removed from the closet and laid out across the bedroom. Dozens of silk shirts, designer slacks, cashmere sports jackets, and Italian shoes. Some articles had never been worn and still had price tags. His collection of men’s watches was also on display, along with the fancy cigarette lighters that he used to light beautiful ladies’ cigarettes when he went clubbing. They had decided to take inventory of his stuff.
Ike stood in the center of the bedroom lecturing T-Bird, who sat on the bed, staring at the floor. T-Bird’s posture was peculiar: sagging shoulders, head down, like a boxer collapsed on his stool between rounds of a fight, getting ready to call it quits.
Ike kept talking to his partner, and T-Bird kept staring at the floor. Not a lecture, Billy decided, but a pep talk. Ike was trying to cheer up T-Bird, who was clearly depressed.
He tried to put himself in T’s shoes. The bird man was past his prime, maybe nursing a bad knee or suffering memory loss from too many hits to the head, all the while holding on to some thin dream of wealth. Then he’d seen Billy’s mind-blowing collection of threads and jewelry, and the crushing weight of his own crummy reality had hit him, and all he wanted to do was go to a bar and get loaded, because that’s what dumb guys did when they got depressed.
And Ike was saying no, we got a job to do, come on, man.
He had caught them at a vulnerable moment, and a Roman candle went off in his head with the most glorious of colors. They were his for the taking. He just had to handle them right.
He picked up the room’s phone and dialed 9 for an outside line and called his condo. On the Droid, he s
aw the punishers’ heads snap as the phone in the condo rang. He repeated this three more times. On the fourth try, Ike snatched the phone off the bedside table.
“Who’s this?” Ike said.
“It’s me, Cunningham. I’m watching you and your partner.”
“You’re watching us? How the fuck can you be doing that?”
“Through my cell phone.”
“Don’t fuck with me, asshole.”
On the Droid, Billy saw T-Bird get off the bed and stand next to his partner with a pensive look on his face. T-Bird wasn’t sure what was going on, and he started to gather the stacks of money they’d pulled out of Billy’s safe and cradle them in his arms the way a nervous parent might hold a newborn baby. T-Bird was going to bolt—Billy was sure of it—and he said, “I’m not fucking with you. T-Bird just got off the bed and is now grabbing the money you took from my safe. Tell him he needs to hear what I have to say.”
“How can you be spying on us?” Ike said. “There ain’t no surveillance camera in here.”
“The smoke detector on the ceiling has a closed-circuit TV camera with a fish-eye lens hidden in it. There’s one in every room.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“I shit you not. Take the cover off one if you don’t believe me.”
Ike found the smoke detector on the ceiling and yanked off the cover. His arm was so long that he didn’t need a chair to stand on.
“Fuck, look at this,” Ike said.
T-Bird stared into the tiny camera, his face so close that Billy saw forests of nose hair.
“It’s Cunningham,” Ike explained. “He’s watching us.”
“That’s fucked up,” T-Bird said.
“So what do you want to talk about,” Ike said to the camera.
“I have a job for you. I’ll pay you life-altering money.”
“What kind of money?”
“Life altering. As in lots.”
“How much?”
