Take Down

by James Swain

  “I do hear it! Oh my God! Fire!”

  The elderly woman had a voice like a longshoreman and it carried across the lobby. With all the force of a tidal wave, the patrons rushed the doors and pushed Grimes and the gaming agents aside. The doors popped open, and the patrons flooded outside.

  Billy became one with the surge and was soon in the valet area. He calculated the length of hotel sidewalk to the Strip at one hundred yards. If he could reach the Strip, he’d blend in with the crowds and be home free. A hand gripped his sleeve. A man wearing a rumpled tux with the collar undone had latched onto him. It took a moment for the face to register. It was dear old Papa, the head of the Gypsy clan. He had gotten separated from his clan, and looked lost.

  “Let’s go for a walk,” Billy said.

  “I’m with you,” Papa said.

  “Stay right next to me, and don’t slow down.”

  “You got it, kid.”

  With Papa glued to his side, Billy sifted his way through the swirling crowd toward the sidewalk that would take them to freedom.

  “Freeze, Cunningham!”

  He shot a glance over his shoulder but did not stop. Grimes was framed in the hotel entrance, his suit jacket ripped, aiming his sidearm. Couldn’t the dumb bastard have come up with an original line? Billy started to trot, as did his partner.

  “I said freeze, you little shit!”

  Grimes went into a marksman’s crouch. Only a damn fool would shoot into a crowd.

  “Who’s that dickhead?” Papa asked.

  “Gaming agent.”

  “Figures.”

  They kept moving. Suddenly, a shot rang out, scattering the crowd. A geyser of bright red blood gushed out of a bullet hole in Papa’s tuxedo pants, the bullet hitting an artery. Papa groaned and melted to the pavement. Billy’s instincts told him to run. It was the only chance he had. He gazed down at the older man, saw the helplessness in his eyes. He’d seen that same helplessness in his father’s eyes right before he’d checked out, but it had been too late to do anything about it. Now things were different. Now he could do something and give the reaper a kick in the shins. He went to his knees and pressed the palms of his hands onto the wound to halt the blood.

  The world turned quiet. The patrons had run away, and the fire alarm inside the hotel was no longer ringing. The noise from the Strip was muted, almost inconsequential. He could not remember it ever being this way—not even on a Sunday.

  He heard the sounds of a struggle by the entrance. Grimes was being wrestled to the ground by two gaming agents wearing NV Energy uniforms. They were trying to take away his gun, which appeared glued to his hand. And they were trying to reason with him.

  “Goddamn it, Frank, get a hold of yourself,” one agent said.

  Grimes was having none of it and continued to struggle. He wanted to take Billy out and erase the humiliation from their encounter at the Hard Rock, the wound having never healed. Having no choice, the gaming agents cuffed Grimes’s hands behind his back. Billy wondered how this was going to play out. There was no doubt in his mind that he was heading to prison for a long stretch, but with that thought came the knowledge that Grimes’s career was over.

  Papa groaned, his eyelids fluttering. Billy wanted to shake him so that he’d stay conscious, but was fearful of taking his hands away from the wound. Bending forward at the waist, he spoke quietly to the older man.

  “Don’t go to sleep on me.”

  Papa struggled to respond. His face had turned ashen and he started to slip away. Billy knew he had to jolt the old guy back to life. But how? Then he had an idea.

  “What did your daughter do with the earth magnet?” he asked.

  Papa’s eyes snapped open and stayed that way until the ambulance arrived.

  SIXTY-TWO

  THE HOT SEAT: SUNDAY, PAST MIDNIGHT

  It was late when Billy ended his tale. Except for the short lunch break, he’d talked for nearly fourteen hours straight and his voice had turned brittle. It had to be some kind of Guinness World Record, even for a bullshit artist like him. LaBadie, Zander, and Tricaricco sat across the table, their out-of-shape bodies having morphed with their chairs. Except for a few details better not shared, the tale he’d told them was 98 percent true. The 2 percent he’d omitted would hopefully spare him from going to prison, but that was just a guess on his part.

  “I’m not clear about something,” LaBadie said. “You said that Doucette hired you and your crew to sniff out a family of Gypsy scammers. What exactly happened there?”

  “Come on, man. I already told you, I don’t have a crew,” he said.

  “My mistake. You and your friends were hired by Doucette. So what went down?”

  “We never found the Gypsies. It was a dead end.”

  LaBadie took out a pack of gum and offered him a stick. It was an old cop trick to offer a suspect gum or a cigarette before going for the kill, and he declined with a shake of the head. The gaming agent jammed a stick into his mouth and chewed vigorously.

  “What about this wedding party you mentioned? What was their names?”

  “Torch-Allaire.”

  “Right. Could they have been the ones?”

  “No.”

  “But you suspected them.”

  “I was wrong. Check the surveillance tapes if you don’t believe me.”

  “We did.”

  “And?”

  LaBadie did not reply. It was at that moment that Billy knew the Gypsies’ rigging of the Money Vault machine had gone undetected by the casino’s surveillance cameras. If the scam had been spotted, LaBadie would have puffed up his chest and said so and taken credit for the collar.

  “Excuse us for a minute,” LaBadie said.

  LaBadie left the room. Zander and Tricaricco unglued themselves from their chairs to join him. As the door closed, Underman kicked Billy under the table. In his attorney’s hand was an iPhone tuned into CNN’s flashy mobile site. The lead story was the killings in Galaxy’s casino and the negative impact on tourism the crimes were already starting to have on the city. Conventions, long the town’s lifeblood, were cancelling left and right. Would Vegas survive?

  Information was power, and his attorney had just given him a strong hand to play with. Moments later, the gaming agents returned to the room but did not sit down. In LaBadie’s hand was a large manila envelope from which he removed a stack of surveillance photos. The gaming agent placed the top photo on the table so it faced Billy. It showed Ike at the cage, cashing in the fake gold chips. T-Bird was also in the photo, accompanied by Misty and Pepper in disguise.

  “Recognize these two women?” LaBadie asked.

  “Never seen them before,” he replied.

  “You just told us that your guy counterfeited the gold chips to scam Galaxy’s casino. These two women were part of the scam, and they work for you.”

  “I never said that I had my guy counterfeit gold chips.”

  “No? Then what did you just tell us?”

  “I said that I asked a friend of mine to try. I gave him the rubber chip I bought at Galaxy’s gift shop, and my friend said he would see what he could do.”

  “What happened?”

  “He couldn’t duplicate it.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “I’m not. Counterfeiting is hard. My friend couldn’t hack it.”

  The fake gold chips sat on the table in a pile. LaBadie picked up a handful and held them in front of Billy’s face. “Then where the hell did these come from? The sky?”

  “Ask Ike and T-Bird. They cashed them in.”

  “Ike and T-Bird are dead. When we pulled them from their car, T-Bird had a briefcase filled with rocks. The women in your crew switched briefcases on them.”

  “I don’t have a crew.”

  “I’m getting sick of this routine, Billy.”


  “That makes two of us.”

  “You’re not going to confess?”

  “Only in church.”

  Three more surveillance photos were produced. The cameras had caught his crew doing the pigeon drop. The first photo showed Pepper standing behind Ike and T-Bird, holding the briefcase with the money orders. The second showed Pepper handing off the briefcase to Misty, while Gabe passed the rock-filled briefcase to Pepper. In the third, Misty fled into the casino with the loot.

  “Admit it, this fat guy works for you,” LaBadie said, pointing at Gabe.

  Gabe’s disguise hid most of his face. It could have been anyone.

  “Never seen him before,” Billy said.

  “He’s not the same fat guy we photographed in the employee garage earlier?”

  “Nope.”

  “Really? Then see if you can weasel your way out of this.”

  The manila envelope was filled with surprises, and another surveillance photo hit the table. In it, Cory and Morris stood by the rented Chevy Malibu they’d parked by the casino’s rear entrance. Cory had forgotten to put on his disguise, his boyish face clearly visible to the lenses.

  “This kid was also in the employee garage, and is part of your crew,” LaBadie said.

  A second photo of Cory was produced, worse than the first. In it, Cory was entering the casino holding a shopping bag containing the rock-filled briefcase whose outline could be clearly seen on the side of the bag.

  “Cat got your tongue?” LaBadie asked.

  The trap had been sprung, and he couldn’t get out.

  Smiling, LaBadie stuck his hand into the envelope, ready to produce a third photo showing Cory passing the shopping bag to Gabe. A smart prosecutor would use this photo to convince a jury that Billy’s crew had set up Ike and T-Bird. The money shot.

  “Confess now, and we’ll cut you a deal,” LaBadie said.

  “We’ll go easy on you,” Zander said.

  “And your crew,” Tricaricco added.

  It didn’t smell right. They had all the evidence they needed. Why cut a deal with him now? Several seconds passed, the room having grown as quiet as a tomb.

  “Let me guess. The kid walked into a choke point, and you lost him,” Billy said.

  LaBadie’s face turned red. So did Zander’s and Tricaricco’s. Ninety-eight percent of a casino floor was policed by surveillance cameras; 2 percent was not. The areas that fell within the 2 percent were called choke points and were black holes inside every casino. Cory had passed the shopping bag to Gabe in a choke point and had not been filmed.

  “We have a photograph of you with this kid in the employee garage,” LaBadie said.

  “So what?” Billy said.

  “This kid parked a rental car behind the casino that Ike and T-Bird used for their getaway. That ties him to the heist, and we can tie you to him.”

  “Did this kid drive the rental away?” Billy asked, knowing damn well Cory hadn’t. “Because if not, you can’t tie him to the heist.”

  LaBadie was losing his cool and shredded the envelope. He looked defeated, as did Zander. Tricaricco’s eyes grew panicked as he realized their suspect might walk.

  “We have witnesses who will swear you coerced them into pulling a fire alarm, which caused a stampede,” Trixie said. “Or do you have an explanation for that as well?”

  Of all the charges against him, pulling a fire alarm inside the casino was the least serious. They were grasping at straws, trying desperately to make something stick. It was time to play the hand that his attorney had given him just a few minutes before.

  “Come to think of it, I do,” he said. “Want to hear it?”

  “Spit it out,” Trixie said.

  “As I’m sure you’re aware, Reverend Rock had three assassins working for him. Two Mexican hit women and a black guy named Lamont Paris. Lamont had a zipper scar running down the side of his face, liked to wear his pants down by his ankles.”

  “There’s no one fitting that description on the surveillance tapes,” Trixie said.

  “Lamont’s a little guy. Probably got lost in the crowd.”

  “What does this have to do with the fire alarm being pulled?”

  “I was getting to that. While your agents were raiding the joint, I spotted Lamont in the casino. Lamont told me he’d had a dispute with Rock and that it had gotten ugly and he’d killed some people. Lamont was afraid your men were going to arrest him, so he’d decided to shoot his way out. I panicked and asked those women to pull a fire alarm. I mean, can you imagine how many innocent people would have died if Lamont had started shooting?”

  The gaming agents knew bullshit when they heard it. He didn’t care and kept talking.

  “The fire alarm goes off, and people start booking out of the casino. I ran into the lobby and found Special Agent Grimes by the front doors. I told Grimes what Lamont was up to. Right then, Lamont came into view. Lamont had a gun in his hand and a crazed look in his eyes. Grimes stepped right in front of him. I mean, it was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen. Lamont knocked Grimes down and took off. Grimes jumped up and pulled his gun and tried to stop Lamont but wounded a bystander instead.” He paused. “That’s why I pulled the fire alarm.”

  “That’s the biggest bunch of crap I’ve ever heard,” Trixie exploded. “There was no hit man named Lamont Paris. You’re making this whole thing up.”

  Billy folded his hands on the table. There were times when the truth didn’t matter. What mattered right now was that his story painted the victims into bad guys, the gaming agents into good guys, and Grimes into a hero for saving innocent lives. It was a story with a happy ending that if properly fed to the media might erase the sewer-like stench that had engulfed the city.

  “Let me make sure I’ve got this straight,” LaBadie said. “You’re saying Grimes wasn’t shooting at you but was trying to take down a hit man. Is that what you want us to believe?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And that this hit man killed several people in Doucette’s office.”

  “That’s what Lamont told me.”

  “And that this character was a threat to the well-being of every person inside the casino.”

  “A serious threat.”

  “Would you swear to this?”

  “On a stack of Bibles.”

  LaBadie worked his gum, thinking hard. Either they ran with his bullshit story and used it to fix the mess they’d created for themselves, or they didn’t.

  “Excuse us,” LaBadie said.

  The gaming agents left to talk things over.

  “This should be interesting,” the attorney said.

  SIXTY-THREE

  Billy and his attorney talked meaningless crap while waiting for the gaming agents to return. First they discussed the weather, which was a joke, since Vegas was sunny nearly every day of the year. Then they discussed the rumor that the NBA might let a team come to town, another joke, since the league was afraid the town’s gamblers would fix every game. They didn’t talk about anything of significance, knowing a hidden camera in the ceiling fire alarm was recording them. The tape recorder was just a ploy, put there to lull them into complacency.

  The gaming agents returned wearing their poker faces. They stood in front of Billy and his lawyer with LaBadie in the center. With the gaming board, it was never a good cop / bad cop scenario. They were nobody’s friend and never would be.

  “We want to strike a deal with you,” LaBadie said.

  “A very good deal,” Zander added.

  “One that you should take,” Tricaricco said.

  “I’m all ears,” Billy said.

  “We’ll write up the story you just told us, word for word, and have you sign your name to it,” LaBadie said. “Your story will become the official version of what happened at Galaxy’s casino yesterday afternoon. You will st
ick to that story come hell or high water, and will not waver from it, especially if you speak to the media. Does that sound good to you?”

  “I can do that,” he said.

  “We also want you to tell us where the eight million dollars in money orders went,” LaBadie said. “Do that, and we’ll let you walk out of here.”

  “The woman in the photo with the briefcase has your money orders,” Billy said.

  “We know that. We want to know her name.”

  “I don’t know her name.”

  “Come on, Billy. That woman works for you.”

  “No, she doesn’t.”

  “You and I both know that woman’s face got captured in a surveillance photo,” LaBadie said, talking straight with him. “We’re going to scan every surveillance tape we can find using OCR, and we’ll figure out who she is, and run her down. You’ve heard of OCR, haven’t you?”

  “Optical character recognition. Yeah, I’ve heard of it.”

  “Then you know it’s not just for text anymore. Its facial-recognition capability is infallible. So do us both a favor and give us her name. We’ll go light on her. You have my word.”

  Though originally used for scanning print, OCR was now the latest tool in law enforcement. A computer created an algorithm based upon a suspect’s physical characteristics and scanned it against a surveillance tape. Each time a match came up, the computer would flag the frame. By using OCR, the gaming board would be able to find Misty on other casino surveillance tapes without her disguise and run her down.

  But those things took time. Days, even weeks before a match was made. Enough time for him to save Misty’s ass. Leaning forward, he said, “That woman has never worked for me, and I don’t know who she is. Now, do you want me to sign your piece of paper, or what?”

  “You’re being a fool,” LaBadie said.

  “You’re the one with his balls in a vise.”

  The lawyer’s gold pen lay on the table. Billy picked it up.

  “Ready when you are,” he said.

  Billy walked out of the detention center a free man. Underman offered to give him a lift, and they walked down Lewis Avenue to the county parking facility where he’d parked.