Take Down

by James Swain

  “I resemble that remark,” he said.

  She kicked him again. He saw it coming and shifted, letting the couch absorb most of the blow. She was on tilt, and in no mood for jokes.

  “Hey—what did I do?”

  Her hand made a sweeping gesture of the plates from last night’s feast. “Marcus doesn’t appreciate people running up bills in his name, and neither do I. Do it again, and I’ll cut your balls off. Now, get up. We have a lead on the Gypsies to check out.”

  The words gave him pause. His plan to rip off Galaxy was contingent upon the Gypsies not getting caught before Saturday afternoon.

  “Who got the lead on them?” he asked.

  “I did.”

  Crunchie stood at the bar wearing black cowboy attire. He’d scraped a razor over his face and cleaned himself up, yet still looked like death warmed over. The hustler’s life got bumpier the longer you stayed in the game; if you didn’t quit the business, the business quit you.

  Their eyes met. Billy mouthed the words up yours.

  “Same to you,” the old grifter said. “I set a trap for the Gypsies and just caught one of them. Appears I won our little contest.”

  “You couldn’t catch the clap in a whorehouse.”

  “Watch it, you little punk.”

  “Just remember: you wouldn’t have had to blackmail me if you hadn’t screwed up.”

  Angry spittle formed at the corners of Crunchie’s mouth, and the old grifter took off his cowboy hat and punched the crease. “I’ve had enough of your crap, Billy. I want to be treated with respect. Stop talking to me that way, or I’ll take you out myself.”

  Billy laughed derisively. The old grifter charged across the suite. Shaz clapped her hands, stopping him in his tracks.

  “Enough of your macho bullshit,” she said. “Go out in the hallway, and cool your jets. And don’t dare do that again.”

  “He’s trying to divide us—can’t you see that?” Crunchie said.

  “He’s just playing with you. Now get lost.”

  Crunchie shot a parting dagger before retreating to the hallway. Divide and conquer was the only way to fight when you were outnumbered. Billy went to the bar, pulled a carton of OJ out of the fridge, filled two glasses, and brought one to her.

  “You enjoy riding his ass, don’t you?” she said.

  “Whatever gave you that idea? So tell me about this trap.”

  “Ricky Boswell is registered in the hotel. Crunchie thought one of Ricky’s family might try to contact him before Saturday, so we kept his room open. Our operators have been monitoring phone calls to the room, hoping one of his family would call him.”

  “Did they?”

  “No. But this morning someone visited the room, and the door clicker went off. A security guard was sent. By the time the guard got there, the visitor was gone. Crunchie wants to search the room, see if this person left anything.”

  Security in Vegas was more elaborate than most guests realized, not just in the casinos but in the hotel rooms as well, the fear being that guests might stage private card games, which were illegal. To prevent this from happening, electronic door clickers counted the number of times guests visited their rooms each day. If the number of visits exceeded a certain level, the hotel would send security guards to the room to make sure nothing improper was going on. Since Ricky Boswell was dead, anyone visiting his room would set off an alarm.

  “What time did this happen?” he asked.

  “Around eight thirty this morning.”

  “That was hours ago. Why wait so long before doing anything?”

  “Crunchie thought the person might come back, so we had a pair of security guards camp out in the hallway inside the emergency exit and wait for him.”

  “But the person didn’t come back.”

  “No. How’d you know that?”

  “Because Ricky was a scout. His job was to check out your casino before his family took it down. From what you told me last night, Ricky had already given his family the green light before you killed him. That meant Ricky’s job was done. He wouldn’t have any contact with his family until Saturday afternoon. No phones calls, no e-mails, no texting, and certainly not any visits.”

  “So who visited his room this morning, Santa Claus?”

  “Probably a cleaning lady. Crunchie’s wrong to think a family member would make contact with Ricky prematurely. They’re too smart for that. If you want my advice, you need to stop listening to what old smelly says. He’s poison.”

  “Really. And what does that make you?”

  “I know what I’m talking about, and he doesn’t. It’s as simple as that.”

  His shirt was halfway unbuttoned, and she placed her finger on his hairless chest and drew an imaginary line down the center as if preparing to do open-heart surgery.

  “But what if you’re wrong? What if one of their family screwed up and went to Ricky’s room? Can you deal with that, Billy?”

  “I’m not wrong.”

  She pulled his shirt open and touched his nipple, making circles around the dimpled flesh with her white-painted fingernail. “You’re a cocky little son of a bitch. Let’s bet on it.”

  “What do you want to bet?”

  “Let’s bet to see who gets to be on top. Sound good to you?”

  She pinched his nipple and gave it a twist. It was easy to imagine having sex with her—no foreplay or soft romantic music to get them in the mood, just hitting the box springs with the force of two overheated Greco-Roman wrestlers. He supposed he’d have a better chance of surviving if he started on top.

  “I’m game,” he said.

  “Let’s check out Ricky’s room and see who’s right. Where are those two clowns that are guarding you?” She went to the punishers’ bedroom and banged on the door. “Hey, you dumb slobs, get moving.” No answer, so she opened the door. “Oh, my. Isn’t that cute.”

  Billy glanced over her shoulder into the room. A naked Ike and T-Bird were spooning on the bed. No wonder they argued so much. They were married.

  “Get up,” she said.

  T-Bird appeared in the doorway holding a sheet around his waist. In celebration of their deal, they’d polished off the bottle of Hennessy, and T-Bird looked wildly hungover.

  “Wass up?” the bird man asked.

  “Brush your teeth and throw some clothes on, and tell your lazy partner to do the same.”

  “Which lazy partner is that?” he said, screwing with her.

  “Don’t get smart with me, or I’ll have Marcus fire you.”

  “I thought we were buds.”

  She poked him in the gut. “Get moving, before I get mad.”

  “Don’t do that. Nobody likes you mad.”

  “Stop talking back to me, asshole.”

  T-Bird laughed to himself. He was going to be a rich man soon, and it had filled his head with grand plans. He went back into the bedroom without another word.

  To reach Ricky Boswell’s room, they rode an elevator downstairs, crossed the hotel lobby, and boarded a second elevator, which ascended to the nineteenth floor of Tower B, home to the hotel’s lesser-priced accommodations, its rooms facing a hideous unpainted garage. Billy stood in the corner so that he faced Crunchie. In the fashion of old-time gunslingers, they’d put each other on notice; now it was simply a matter of time before one called the other out.

  He was not looking forward to their showdown. Fighting was for people not clever enough to anticipate the future. That was how he saw it, anyway. Still, there were times when the person standing before you was going to destroy your life, and you had no choice but to act out of self-preservation. The doors opened and they marched down a hallway littered with room service trays. Shaz was reading door numbers. She stopped and held out her hand.

  “Give me the key.”

  Crunchie produc
ed a plastic room key. She shoved the key into the lock and waited for the green light to come on. Billy glanced at the hallway’s end where the emergency exit was located. The door was ajar, and he counted to himself. One potato, two potato, three potato. A pair of security guards emerged with guns drawn and came hustling toward them.

  “Put your guns away,” Shaz said.

  The guards obeyed and holstered their weapons.

  “Sorry, Miss Shazam. No one said you were coming up,” one of the guards said.

  “Don’t let it happen again,” she said.

  The guards returned to their post, and Shaz led the others into Ricky’s room. Billy came in last, his eyes doing a sweep. The room had as much personality as a pod, which was what a hundred and fifty bucks a night scored you on the Strip. Square-shaped, with a double bed, a desk that would never be used attached to the wall, a cheap dresser, and the prerequisite wall TV showing the house station, the modern equivalent of Chinese water torture.

  “All right, so what are we looking for?” she asked.

  “I’ll know it when I find it,” Crunchie replied.

  “So find it.”

  The old grifter began pulling open the dresser drawers. Finding nothing, he searched the closet, which contained two dress shirts and two pairs of slacks hanging on the bar, along with a dark suit in a plastic dry-cleaning bag.

  “There’s nothing here,” she said.

  “Somebody came into this room. The door clicker wouldn’t lie. Let me look around some more. I’m sure I can figure it out.”

  “Spend all fucking day. It’s not like I have anything to do.”

  Crunchie was desperate now. Entering the bathroom, he tore apart Ricky’s toilet kit, as if within the razors and lotions was hidden the secret to the Gypsy’s scam. He emerged with his eyes downcast, mumbling to himself like a dispirited old geezer at the mall.

  “Are you done?” she asked.

  “There’s a reason someone came into this room this morning. I just can’t find it.”

  “Marcus is going to love it when I tell him what a fuckup you are,” she said. “You had him convinced the Gypsies were about to get caught. Nice going.”

  She left in a huff, brushing Billy’s sleeve the way strippers in clubs did to get your attention.

  “You win, lover boy,” she said under her breath.

  Crunchie followed, his shoulders sagging. Billy waited until he heard the door click shut before addressing the punishers.

  “Who came into the room this morning?” he asked.

  The dull look of their hangovers had blunted their faces.

  “Wasn’t me,” Ike said.

  “Me, neither,” T-Bird chorused.

  “It was a hotel employee. The evidence was right in front of Crunchie’s face, and he missed it. Did either of you see it?”

  Both men shook their heads.

  From the closet he removed the dry-cleaned suit in the plastic bag that the hotel concierge had delivered to the room, and shoved it in their faces. “It was the concierge. You want to run with me, you need to be on your toes. Got it?”

  “Yeah, boss,” Ike said.

  “No more getting smashed or trash-talking.”

  “Got it,” Ike said.

  “Right,” T-Bird chorused.

  “Your life is going to become one big party after Saturday. Until then, you need to act like soldiers and walk the straight and narrow line. You with me?”

  “Right,” they both said.

  Billy was glad to have that out of the way. He hung the suit back up in the closet and realized the garment was bothering him. It was the only piece of formal clothing that Ricky had brought with him. For Ricky to have it cleaned by the hotel meant he planned to wear it while he was in Vegas; otherwise, he would have had it dry-cleaned when he returned home.

  Billy tore away the plastic for a closer look. Single breasted with a notch lapel, dual vents, and handpick stitch on the borders. The label said “Extrema by Zanetti,” a decent line. The suit was too stiff looking for the casino, and not something you’d wear to a club. Outside of the casinos and clubs, there weren’t any other things to do that required getting dressed up.

  Three pairs of shoes lay on the closet floor: Nike running shoes, casual loafers, and black patent-leather shoes that looked new. He picked up the patent-leather pair and held them next to the suit. They went together.

  He took another look at the shirts hanging in the closet and found a light blue dress shirt with herringbone stripes and French cuffs tucked away in the back. He pulled it out and placed it next to the suit. They also went together.

  He laid the suit and shirt on the bed, placed the shoes beside them, and rifled the dresser drawers that Crunchie had searched. He discovered a pair of gold cuff links in a box, and a silk navy necktie. Innocent items, unless you knew what they were for. The cuff link box also contained a ticket to a mixed-martial-arts contest taking place at the Mandalay Bay on Saturday afternoon, the first contest starting at 1:00 p.m.

  It all added up. He knew how Ricky had planned to spend Saturday afternoon, and he also knew the Gypsies’ cover for scamming Galaxy’s casino, all because he’d spotted a dry-cleaning bag in the closet. He turned around holding the objects in his hands.

  “What you got?” Ike asked.

  Billy handed him the cuff links and tie, while keeping the ticket. Ike examined the items, then studied the clothes lying on the bed.

  “Looks like somebody’s going to a wedding,” Ike said.

  “You’re a star,” Billy said.

  THIRTY-THREE

  “Ricky Boswell’s family is staying in the hotel as part of a wedding party,” Billy said. “That’s their cover.”

  “Was Ricky supposed to be part of the wedding?” Ike asked. “If he was, they’re gonna notice he’s not here, being that he’s dead and all.”

  “No, they won’t. Ricky’s job was to scope out the casino. Right before you grabbed him, Ricky sent a message to his family, telling them everything was George. After that, he wouldn’t connect with his family until the scam was finished. That’s how crews operate. Each member only shows up when necessary, and contact is limited.”

  Ike nodded, getting most of it. “Sorta like that movie Reservoir Dogs, the gang members having aliases and all, not talking to each other before the heist.”

  “You got it.”

  “Who’s George?” T-Bird asked.

  “George is an expression that means everything’s cool. If I say everything’s George, it means the scam’s good to go. If I tell you everything’s Tom, it means the scam is off.”

  “Who’s Tom?” T-Bird said, now really confused.

  “There ain’t no Tom,” Ike said. “It’s a made-up expression that means the shit is gonna hit the fan. Even I know that.”

  T-Bird was getting pissed. Rather than face off with Ike, he took his frustration out on Billy. “Just speak English, okay? I’m in no mood to learn a second language.”

  “Sure. So where was I? Oh yeah, Saturday afternoon. So here’s how it’s going to happen. The Boswells are part of a wedding party. They go to the wedding in the afternoon, and then at four o’clock as the shift change is taking place, they hit the casino. They use the commotion inside the casino as their shade, and pull their scam.”

  “But why won’t they miss Ricky?” Ike said. “If he don’t show, they’re gonna know.”

  “No, they won’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Ricky was planning to see mixed martial arts at the Mandalay Bay Saturday afternoon. When the fights were over, he was going to come back here, throw on his duds, and go downstairs to meet up with his family as they hit the casino.”

  “Why would he wait?” Ike interrupted. “Why wouldn’t Ricky go to the wedding in the afternoon along with the rest of his family?”

&
nbsp; “A casino employee might remember seeing Ricky snooping around the casino earlier in the week and get suspicious. That would bring heat. Better for Ricky to appear as the family hits the casino. He’ll blend in easier.”

  “You still haven’t answered my question,” Ike said. “Ricky ain’t showing up Saturday afternoon. His family’s gonna notice.”

  “Of course they’ll notice, but that won’t stop them. Ripping off casinos is the family business. There are bills to pay and mouths to feed. They won’t shut the operation down because Ricky pulls a no-show at the last minute. Trust me, I know.”

  “Man, that’s cold,” Ike said.

  A cheater’s first job was not to get caught. Ricky had slipped up and had paid for his mistake with his young life. The family would eventually realize what had happened to him, and they would mourn his passing, but that wouldn’t stop them from scamming casinos. If anything, losing a member would only strengthen their resolve.

  “How you going to know which wedding these people are a part of?” Ike asked. “Aren’t there a bunch in the hotel?”

  “According to the welcome board in the lobby, there are nine weddings in the hotel on Saturday. It shouldn’t be hard to figure out which one they’re a part of.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “The Boswells are Gypsies, and Gypsies have strange habits. They’re nuts about cleanliness, always washing their hands, clothes are always spotless. They’re obsessive-compulsive—it’s in their genes. I’ll figure out who they are, no problem.”

  Billy was sick of talking. He’d only allowed Ike and T-Bird to question him because he didn’t want them getting cold feet Saturday. So he put up with their bullshit. But it was tiring.

  Ike said, “So how do we fit into all this?”

  Billy had told Ike last night what their role was, and he guessed the booze had erased the memory. “While the Boswells are pulling their scam, I’ll blow the whistle, and security will bust them. While security is hauling them away, you guys will rip off the cage with the counterfeit chips. By the time Doucette realizes he’s been robbed, you’ll be wasting away in Margaritaville.”