by James Swain
Billy was having none of that. You could either have a long, boring life or a short, exciting one, and he’d opted for life in the fast lane. His penthouse in Turnberry Towers was a perfect example. It was twenty-six hundred square feet of pure opulence, filled with the finest furnishings money could buy. His wardrobe was nothing to sneeze at, either, with enough threads and tailored jackets to stock a haberdashery. Throw in all the expensive watches, cigarette lighters, and jewelry he’d accumulated over the years, and you had a real statement.
Most cheats would never flaunt their wealth, fearful that the gaming board would one day bust them and confiscate everything they owned. Billy saw things differently. The gaming board could nip at his heels all they wanted; it wasn’t going to change the way he lived.
He pulled into Turnberry, and a uniformed valet opened his door. He made it a point to tip the staff generously and give them gifts at the holidays. As a result, they watched his back.
“Good evening, Mr. Cunningham. Will you be going out later? I can park the car nearby, if you’d like,” the valet said.
“I’m staying in tonight,” he said.
“Certainly. By the way, two gentlemen are in the lobby to see you.”
Billy had experienced enough surprises in the past few days to last a lifetime.
“Describe them,” he said.
“They’re both young with curly hair,” the valet replied. “They said they needed to speak with you. I thought it was best you know.”
It was Cory and Morris. They aspired to run their own crew one day and often met with Billy to discuss scams they were cooking up. An unannounced visit meant something was up.
“Thanks for the heads-up. Do you follow football?”
“Of course, Mr. Cunningham. Doesn’t everybody?”
“Who are you betting on for the Super Bowl?”
“The Rebels.”
“What’s the point spread?”
“Last time I checked, the game was even money.”
Inside the lobby, he found Cory and Morris sitting on a couch beneath a piece of wall art that doubled as a waterfall. Both were buried in their cell phones and didn’t see him enter. He took their heads and gently knocked them together. “Wake up, knuckleheads,” he said.
“Hey, Billy!” they both said in surprise.
“It’s a beautiful day. Why aren’t you outside stealing?”
“We need to talk to you about Travis,” Cory said.
“What about him?”
“Travis called us earlier,” Cory said. “He’s putting together his own crew and wants us to join him.”
Billy’s jaw tightened. “You can’t be serious.”
“It gets worse. I asked Travis what our roles would be and how much he planned to pay us. He promised to give us a bigger share than you’re giving us. Then he dropped the bomb and told me that Broken Tooth is backing him, if you can believe that.”
“Travis is in business with Broken Tooth?” Billy said.
“That’s what he said.”
“How did you leave it?”
“I told him that we needed to think about it. Travis asked me not to tell you, and I promised him that I wouldn’t. Then we drove over here.”
Billy’s head was spinning. He’d spared Travis last night, and this was how the big man repaid him. He needed to put a lid on this right now.
“Let’s take this upstairs,” he said.
Despite what people thought, there was honor among thieves, along with a list of rules that people who made their living stealing were expected to live by. It was called the Vory v. Zakone, or Thieves’ Code, and had been established in Russia centuries ago. Billy had been taught the code from his mentor, Lou Profaci, and in turn had drummed it into the heads of every person who’d run with him.
They sat at the dining room table. Billy spent a moment sketching a cartoon on a pad of paper. Done, he turned the pad around and slid it across the table so Cory and Morris could see it.
“It looks like a bag of money,” Morris said.
“That’s exactly what it is,” he said. “In Russia, thieves wear tattoos to signify their loyalty to their profession. A tattoo with a bag of money means the thief is committed to stealing and wouldn’t resort to killing to make his living or put another thief in harm’s way. If a thief broke this rule, the other thieves would kill him, no questions asked. Make sense?”
Cory and Morris had been raised in a foster home and often reacted identically when a question was posed to them. It was unnerving until you got used to it. They both swallowed hard.
“Yeah, it makes sense,” Cory said.
“I get it,” Morris said.
“Travis broke that rule,” he said. “Broken Tooth approached Travis wanting to fix the Super Bowl. Problem is, Broken Tooth needs me to do the fixing. Broken Tooth knew I’d never partner up with him, so he went through a back door with Travis’s help.”
Cory’s face turned sour. “Why would Travis do that?”
“That’s a good question. Travis said he needed the money, but that’s bullshit. I would have given him the money. He knows that, and hopefully so do the rest of you.”
“You’d be the first person I’d come to if I got in a jam,” Cory said.
“Me, too,” Morris added.
“Now you’re telling me that Travis wants to run his own crew, and he’s got Broken Tooth’s backing. That doesn’t make sense, either. If Travis wanted to leave, I wouldn’t have stopped him. There’s something else at play here. All I can guess is, I said something out of line, and Travis has been walking around holding a grudge, waiting to pay me back.”
“That’s way fucked up,” Cory said.
“Travis is a traitor,” Morris said. “Why didn’t you shoot him when you had the chance? The stupid prick got Leon kidnapped.”
Billy didn’t like to be challenged. Not that long ago, he’d cut Cory and Morris loose, then changed his mind and brought them back into the fold. “I gave Travis a second chance just like I gave you guys a second chance. I’m not apologizing for it. Understood?”
They both nodded simultaneously.
“That doesn’t mean that Travis isn’t going to get what’s coming to him,” he went on. “It just won’t happen right away. This Super Bowl fix is huge, and I want to see it through.”
“But you are going to pay him back,” Cory said.
“Damn straight I am. But not right away. Revenge is a plate best served cold.”
They both nodded and smiled.
“I need to ask you a question,” he said. “Broken Tooth is going to give us the Vegas sports books to fleece, while he takes everything else. Travis said we could make ten million bucks on the four proposition bets. Does that number sound right to you?”
“Travis is lowballing you,” Cory said. “He’s probably planning to make more and share the money with Broken Tooth, the dirty prick.”
“Give me a real number.”
“Fifteen million, easy,” Cory said.
“And not draw heat?”
“There’s so much money bet on the Super Bowl that no one will know.”
The Super Bowl fix was sounding better all the time. He fetched three bottles of beer from the fridge, and they went onto the balcony to toast their new venture. The sunlight was starting to fade, soon to be replaced by five million watts of neon burning up the desert night.
“Look, Billy, this all sounds fine and dandy, but what about Leon?” Cory asked, never one to mince words. “Is he going to come out of this with his skin?”
“We dig Leon,” Morris added. “He’s part of the family.”
“Broken Tooth promised to release Leon after the Super Bowl,” he said.
“Do you believe him?” Cory asked.
He hesitated. He wanted to think the Chinese gangster’s word was worth something, but he now knew that wasn’t the case. If Broken Tooth were backing Travis, the Chinese gangster would probably have his henchmen murder Leon just to tie up loose ends.
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“No, I don’t,” he said truthfully.
“Can we save him?” Morris asked.
Vegas was a town that rarely gave you a second chance. If Leon’s number was up, it was up. But that didn’t mean that Billy wasn’t going to try.
“First, we have to find him,” he said. “I met Broken Tooth at a restaurant called Big Wong in Chinatown. Big Wong serves authentic Chinese cuisine, and so do a number of other restaurants in town. That’s probably what Broken Tooth and his men are eating while they’re staying here. The more authentic, the better.”
“You want us to check these places out?” Cory said.
“Correct. I’m guessing Broken Tooth is ordering a lot of takeout. Go around lunchtime and see if they come into one of these joints. If you spot them, get in your car and follow them. Hopefully they’ll take you to where Leon is being held.”
“What then?” Morris asked.
He hadn’t gotten that far. He might get a gun and take Broken Tooth out himself and free his driver. Or he’d hire some guys to do it. It didn’t really matter. Once he knew where Leon was being held captive, he’d take the necessary steps to save his driver’s life.
“I’ll think of something,” he said.
SEVENTEEN
Tuesday, early morning, twelve days before the Super Bowl
There was nothing glamorous about shooting a TV show. Early mornings, late nights, endless takes. Mags was working on the day’s scene when there was a knock on her trailer door.
“Can it wait? I’m memorizing my lines,” she said.
“We need to chat for a minute. It’s important,” Rand said.
“Well, then come on in.”
Rand made his entrance. As was befitting a Hollywood producer, he wore designer jeans and a gold T-shirt that appeared glued to his body, along with a pair of sunglasses perched on the tip of his nose. Mags took the shooting script off her lap and tossed it to the floor.
“Whoever wrote this doesn’t know jack,” she said.
“It’s a she, and she’s one of the best scriptwriters in the biz,” Rand said.
“Well, she doesn’t know shit about casinos, and you can tell her I said so.”
Today’s scene had Mags walking through a casino and catching a player slipping a metal slug into a slot machine. The scene was intended to display Mags’s innate ability to spot cons and grifts and was integral to her character as a gaming agent. The problem was, any dummy could spot a slug from a mile away. The scene sucked.
“We have guests,” Rand said. “The gaming board decided to pay us a visit. They caught wind that our show features a gaming agent and aren’t happy about it.”
Her stomach did a flip-flop. She had a history with the gaming board, and it wasn’t a pretty one. For eighteen months, she’d acted as a snitch while being under the thumb of an agent named Frank Grimes. To keep Grimes under control, she’d had an affair with him, a decision she’d come to regret. “I thought you cleared the show with the gaming board,” she said.
“I thought I had. It seems they just got around to reading the script. Be your usual charming self, and everything will go fine.”
“When did you send it to them? Yesterday?”
Rand flashed a phony smile. Mags guessed Rand had delayed showing the gaming board the script because her character moonlighted as a cheat. TV shows were a boon to the local economy, and her producer was banking on the gaming board giving them a pass.
“Have you ever dealt with the gaming board before?” she asked.
“No. What are they like?”
“You’re in for a real treat.”
“They’re waiting for us inside one of the hotel’s restaurants,” Rand said as they entered LINQ. “Please be on your best behavior with these folks. I don’t want them shutting us down.”
“How much of the script have they read?” Mags asked.
“All of it. They even e-mailed me some suggestions. I told them their ideas were great and that I wanted to use them and give them writing credits.”
“Aren’t we clever.”
“I think we’re going to be okay. If not, I’ll offer to send the show’s carpenters over to their houses to do some repairs. That should do the trick.”
“Won’t the studio object?”
“It’s built into the budget. When you shoot on location, you have to bribe the cops or local politicians to cut through red tape and get things done. The best bribe is free repairs. They’re impossible to trace.”
Guy Fieri’s Vegas Kitchen & Bar had more words in its title than entrees on the menu. It was a brightly lit room with as much charm as an army mess hall. Rand escorted her to a corner table where a pair of gaming agents awaited them. One had a shiny butter stain adorning his necktie. It was her old pal Frank.
Introductions were made. The second agent was a stocky Latina named Valles who ran the gaming board’s PR department. Clutched in her hand was a copy of the shooting script with no less than fifty yellow Post-it tabs on pages where the desired changes were to be made. A waitress took drink orders. Coffee all around.
Rand picked up the script from the table and casually thumbed through it. “Is this it? I thought there’d be more,” he said sarcastically.
“We tried to keep things within reason,” Valles replied. “The gaming board plays a prominent role in your series. We’d prefer our agents be showcased in a positive light.”
“The main character in the series cheats the casinos. Is that a problem?”
“We think it is.”
Valles and Rand locked stares the way bulls lock horns. This was not going to be fun. To Mags’s surprise, it was Grimes who seized the moment. “Why don’t Miss Flynn and I move to another table so you two can talk this through? It might make things easier.”
“That’s a terrific idea, Frank,” Valles said. “Nice meeting you, Miss Flynn.”
“Same here,” Mags said.
Grimes and Mags took a table away from the brewing battle. The waitress was on the ball and brought their coffees. Grimes lifted his steaming mug in a toast.
“Congratulations. Here’s to making it,” he said.
“Are you trying to be funny?” Mags asked.
“Not at all. Remember the first time we slept together? I took you to a suite at the Wynn and we ordered room service and screwed like rabbits. When we were done, you told me you were going to make it big one day, and now you have. Not many people do that, Maggie.”
Mags vividly remembered their first sexual encounter but not for the same reasons. It was the first time she’d seen Frank naked. His body was covered in curly black hair and looked like something that had washed up dead on the beach after a low tide. She’d made him turn off the lights and had shut her eyes and imagined she was screwing a young Harrison Ford.
“Thanks,” she said. “So how are things with you? Still pounding the pavement?”
“My boss put in his papers for retirement. I’ve applied for his job. Unfortunately, a lot of other agents in the department are vying for his desk. All I can do is hope.”
“That asshole Tricaricco is finally leaving? It’s about time.”
“Bill isn’t that bad, once you get to know him.”
“He wasn’t very nice to me. Look, I hope you get the job. You’ve earned it.”
“Do you really mean that?”
“Yeah, Frank, I do. Good luck.”
They clinked mugs. Mags believed in keeping your friends close and your enemies closer. Frank was her enemy and always would be, even if she was no longer scamming the casinos. Frank put down his mug and cleared his throat. “I’ve been meaning to call you. I need your help on a case I’m working. If I can break it, I should get the promotion.”
“Help you how?”
“I’m trying to nail some cheaters. You don’t have to give me names or anything. Just point me in the right direction.”
Mags suppressed the urge to laugh in his face. If anything, she would send Frankie boy in the wrong direc
tion, to hell with his new job.
“What’s the case?” she asked.
“Six months ago, a Money Vault progressive slot machine at Galaxy Casino paid off a huge jackpot. The winner was a retired school principal from Sacramento named Linda Olson. The Money Vault slots pays off once every five years, and the gaming board always does a background check of the winners. This lady didn’t pass the smell test.”
“How so?”
“We studied the surveillance tapes that showed Olson playing the Money Vault. She kept dropping the coins while inserting them in the machine. She also kept looking over her shoulder, as if she was afraid of being watched.”
“Maybe she drank too much coffee,” Mags said.
“There was more. Her criminal record was clean, but the report from the Driver and Vehicle Identification Database wasn’t. Olson had a dozen tickets for speeding. The most recent ticket had come the morning she won the jackpot. She’d gotten pulled over for doing ninety driving to the casino. It made us think that the Money Vault machine was rigged, and she was just dying to get there so she could win it.”
“A claimer,” Mags said. Claimers were individuals with squeaky-clean backgrounds who worked with cheats to claim jackpots of rigged slot machines. Their take was 5 percent.
“Correct. While Olson waited to be paid off, she went to a restaurant inside Galaxy and had lunch with three people who we think rigged the machine. We pulled photos of them off a surveillance camera inside the restaurant.”
Grimes showed her the photos. Three of the people had swarthy complexions and looked related. The fourth was an attractive woman with snow-white hair.
“Is Snow Cone the claimer?” Mags asked.
“That’s Olson. I was wondering if you’d ever seen the other three.”
The faces weren’t the least bit familiar, and Mags shook her head.
“Never seen them before. Why do you think they’re dirty?”
“Their faces have shown up at several Native American reservation casinos when large sums of money were lost. My boss met with the head of tribal gaming last year, and they decided it was time to start sharing information. The Indians have gotten taken for some major scores.”
