by James Swain
Billy wanted to help but feared the drunk football player would slip up and alert the pit boss they were in cahoots. That left him no other choice but to bolt. Heading for the exit, he spotted the pit boss standing off to the side, nodding approvingly.
FIFTY-THREE
Billy texted Night Train as he hurried down the sidewalk toward the MGM Grand.
Sammy passed out at the Luxor. How could you let him get that drunk?
Wow. You leave him there? Night Train texted back.
Wow was not the right response. Was Night Train also three sheets to the wind? Night Train and his buddies were like a pack of stray dogs; if one of them got in trouble, they all got in trouble, and Billy couldn’t imagine Sammy getting soused without his pals doing the same. He started to cross when a bus’s horn sent him scurrying back to the sidewalk.
What the hell else could I do? he texted back.
He win much?
Half a million bucks
Sounds like your scam works
Had Night Train sent Sammy to test the waters? It was a low-rent move but not a total surprise. The light turned red. He texted his reply as he crossed. The play is off
That got Night Train’s attention.
No, man, we’re good. Choo-Choo heading for MGM Grand now, Night Train replied.
He better not be drunk, he wrote back.
Choo-Choo wasn’t drunk when he entered the MGM Grand with a pair of hookers draped on his arms, but he was flying high on coke, the evidence caked on his nostrils. Seeing Billy, Choo-Choo took a chair at the targeted blackjack table, while the hookers remained standing. The hookers had trouble written all over them. One blonde, one redhead, wearing leather miniskirts and stilettos. It occurred to Billy that these ladies hadn’t happened along. They’d been partying at Caesars with the football players and, like a pair of wolves, had attached themselves to Choo-Choo and planned to roll him once the right opportunity presented itself.
The dealer was a jovial guy with a handlebar mustache. “Place your bets.”
Choo-Choo lost the first hand and the ones that followed. Soon half his stake was gone. Billy gave the signal for Choo-Choo to ask the pit boss to raise the table limit.
“These little bets don’t interest me. Can you raise them?” Choo-Choo asked.
The pit boss wore designer threads and a silk tie. The average pit boss took down seventy-five K a year but dressed like a Fortune 500 CEO. It came with the territory.
The pit boss took the bait and raised the table limit. Choo-Choo placed a big bet and the hand was dealt. Choo-Choo’s hand was a seventeen. Billy read the luminous paint on the dealer’s hole card and knew that the dealer had nineteen. Conventional play said that Choo-Choo should stand on his hand. Only that would have resulted in Choo-Choo losing and further depleting his stack. Billy signaled Choo-Choo to take a card.
“Hit me,” Choo-Choo said.
“But you have seventeen. Basic strategy calls for you to stand on seventeen,” the dealer said helpfully.
“I always lose on seventeen. Gimme a card.”
The dealer dealt a three, giving Choo-Choo a total of twenty. The dealer turned over his hand and acted surprised. The other players at the table congratulated Choo-Choo.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Choo-Choo said.
Billy and Choo-Choo quickly stole a million bucks. Then a bad thing happened. Choo-Choo’s hands began to tremble, and he knocked over his towering stacks of chips.
“Sir, are you all right?” the dealer asked.
It was a legitimate question, seeing that the football player looked ready to pass out. Choo-Choo took a deep breath and tried to collect himself.
“Would you like me to call the house doctor?” the dealer asked.
“No need for that. Where’s the head?” he asked.
The dealer pointed to the restrooms, which were located a few steps from the blackjack pit. Choo-Choo rose and addressed the hookers. “Mia, Roxanne, you guard my chips. Don’t let nobody touch them.”
Asking a pair of hookers to guard your chips was an invitation for disaster. Choo-Choo left the table and disappeared into the men’s room. Mia, the blonde, sat on the corner of Choo-Choo’s chair, while Roxanne, the redhead, sat on the opposite corner.
The dealer glared at them, knowing trouble when he saw it.
A minute passed. The dealer dealt cards to the other players while keeping an eye on Mia and Roxanne. Billy decided it was time to see if Choo-Choo was still among the living.
The MGM’s men’s room was known to cheats for its shoeshine stand. Miguel, the stand’s proprietor, sold information he overheard while shining shoes. Billy had done business with Miguel before and was on a first-name basis with the Cuban immigrant.
“Hey, Miguel, how’s life treating you?” he asked.
“Every day is better than the next. Do I know you?”
“Billy Cunningham.”
“Didn’t recognize you, Mr. C. How you been?”
“Can’t complain. Which stall is the football player in?”
“Third from the end. Your friend’s in rough shape.”
He banged on the stall door with his open palm. “You doing okay in there?”
The stall door cracked open. In Choo-Choo’s massive hand was a tiny spoon with a lump of white powder. “Just getting a little pick-me-up. I’m running on fumes.”
“How long have you been partying?”
“Since we got back from practice. I wouldn’t call it a party. The NFL stuck a knife in our backs, so we decided to tie one on.” Choo-Choo dug out a hit and sent it up his nostril.
“What do you mean, they stuck a knife in your backs? What did they do?”
“Night Train didn’t tell you what happened?”
“Afraid not.”
“Well shut my mouth. Let’s pretend this conversation never took place.”
Choo-Choo pocketed the drug paraphernalia and came out of the stall. He had a real spring in his step and his body language was back to being positive. Billy said, “You need to clean yourself up,” and Choo-Choo joined him at the sinks. “We’re up to one million in winnings. I’m going to end the play when it reaches two and a half million.”
“I thought we stopped at two million,” Choo-Choo said.
“Sammy came up short at Luxor. We need to make up the difference.”
“Got it.”
Choo-Choo left the restroom first. Billy spotted Miguel on his shoeshine chair, reading the sports section. He stuffed several bills in Miguel’s shirt pocket.
“Mum’s the word.”
“You got it, Mr. C,” Miguel said.
The average Strip casino had several million dollars in chips distributed among its table games, and it was management’s job to keep track of this inventory and protect the games where the chips resided. Chips were no different from cold, hard cash. A chip could be cashed in at any time, or it could be taken to another casino and cashed in. They were easy to carry and never lost their value. Money made the world go ’round, but in Las Vegas, chips talked the loudest.
Chaos described the situation Billy found upon returning to the rigged blackjack game. A small army of security guards ringed the table and was warning patrons to stay back. Chips lay scattered beneath the table, and the dealer was busily picking them up. Mia and Roxanne lay facedown on the floor, their blouses torn. Each had a burly security guard pinning them down. Billy came up behind Choo-Choo and gave him a nudge.
“What’s going on here?” Choo-Choo said under his breath.
“Looks like your friends tried to steal your chips, so the casino put the heavy on them,” Billy whispered back. “I’d suggest you disassociate yourself from them when the cops come.”
“I’ll tell the cops I met them at the bar. What about the money I won?”
“The dealer will hold your chips for you. Once the dust settles, cash out and leave.”
“I really messed up bringing them here, didn’t I?”
Billy
pulled him away from the table and the security cameras’ watchful eyes. The top of Billy’s head barely reached Choo-Choo’s chin, but he didn’t let that temper what he was about to say. “What’s wrong with you guys? I give you a chance to make a huge score, and you get messed up and call some sleazy hookers? I thought you were smart. I was wrong.”
“It’s not like that,” Choo-Choo said. “The NFL fucked us. We had to blow off steam.”
“You should have done it on somebody else’s dime.”
Choo-Choo acted ashamed, not that Billy cared. The damage was done, and all the apologies in the world were not going to fix things. He left the casino without saying good-bye.
FIFTY-FOUR
The MGM Grand had an elevated pedestrian walkway that connected it to New York New York on the other side of the Strip. Billy hiked across it and was soon sitting at a bar inside the casino, drinking a beer and trying to calm down.
As a rule, he avoided alcohol during a heist, but this was an exception. The football players were behaving like a bunch of crazy college kids, and it was a miracle that security at the Luxor and the MGM Grand hadn’t discovered they were being scammed and busted them.
While he drank, he surfed the Internet on his cell phone. Choo-Choo’s comment about the NFL double-crossing them had come out of left field. The Rebels’ defense was famous, and he didn’t understand what the NFL could do that would be seen as a betrayal.
On a hunch, he went to ESPN’s site and scrolled through the headlines. Stories about the upcoming Super Bowl were in abundance, with both teams getting plenty of ink. The Vegas bookmakers had the Rebels as underdogs but only by a field goal. That would change before the game when money betting on the Rebels rolled in.
A story posted the day before caught his eye. “Is this the final curtain call for the Rebels’ vaunted defense?” Was this the story that had gotten Choo-Choo so ticked off? He clicked on it and had a look. It had been written by a staff writer for ESPN who quoted anonymous sources claiming that Night Train and his pals were planning to announce their retirements after the Super Bowl. The writer made it sound like it was a done deal, and went on to talk about their long and storied careers and how they were shoo-ins to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame when they became eligible.
He exited the article and thought about what it said. So what if Night Train and his pals were planning to retire? If the NFL had leaked the story, what was the harm? It didn’t hurt anyone. Maybe the problem was the article’s timing. Maybe the football players didn’t like the NFL stealing their thunder to get a nice story. It was their careers, after all.
At the end of the day, he didn’t think it really mattered. Night Train and his teammates’ careers were coming to a close, and they needed to get used to no longer being in the limelight.
His cell phone vibrated in his hand. Caller unknown. He answered it.
“It’s me,” Night Train said.
“I told you no phone calls,” he exploded.
“I’m calling from the lobby of the hotel, so there’s no worry.”
“No worry? Did Sammy tell you about his little stunt at the Luxor? He was so drunk he passed out at the table. If that didn’t take the prize, Choo-Choo showed up at the MGM Grand high on coke with two hookers who tried to roll him. Your friends are insane.”
“Look on the bright side. Sammy and Choo-Choo won a million and a half bucks, and there are still three casinos left to be ripped off. You can’t quit now, man.”
Every commotion inside a casino drew scrutiny, especially when large sums of money were lost. There was no doubt that security at Luxor and the MGM Grand were reviewing the surveillance tapes of Sammy’s and Choo-Choo’s huge wins to see if cheating was involved. Billy wanted to believe the scam was disguised well enough to pass muster. But there was always a chance that a sharp security person would smell a con, and things would quickly go south.
“Yes, I can,” he said.
“We won’t let you down again, and that’s a promise,” Night Train said.
Billy wanted to believe that Night Train’s word meant something. But he didn’t feel that way about Night Train’s teammates. If Billy were going to scam another casino today, it would be with the man he was talking to on the phone, and no one else.
“I’ll keep going, but there’s going to be a change in plans,” he said. “We’re going to hit one more casino, just you and me. Your friends are no longer part of the equation.”
“Don’t trust them, huh?”
“About as far as I can kick them.”
“I can live with that. Which casino do you want to hit?”
“The Mirage. It has more high rollers than any joint in town. The casino won’t be as nervous if you beat them out of a huge score, because they’ll win it back from another player.”
“How huge?”
“Ten million bucks.”
“You want me to steal ten million? That’s a big number.”
“We need to make up lost ground. Are you in or out?”
“I’m in. What time does this party start?”
He glanced at his watch and saw it was almost eight. He needed time to retrieve his car from Luxor’s parking garage and drive to the Mirage. The trip was only a few miles, but on Friday night, that might take an hour or more.
“Nine thirty, and don’t be late.”
“I’ll be there with bells on my feet,” Night Train said.
He ended the call, hoping he wasn’t making a mistake. The bartender asked if he wanted another beer. It was time to switch drugs, and he ordered coffee instead.
FIFTY-FIVE
When the Mirage opened its doors in 1989, everyone had laughed. It had cost more than six hundred million bucks to build and had huge overhead. In a city built upon unlimited buffets and nickel slot machines, a joint with real gold dust in its windows would surely fail.
The opposite had happened. High rollers had fallen in love with the ambiance and five-star amenities, and the casino quickly became one of the most profitable in the world.
Nearly thirty years later, serious gamblers were still in love with the Mirage and regularly gambled away millions of dollars in its Polynesian-themed casino. It was high-roller heaven, and Night Train’s high-stakes play was going to fit right in.
At nine thirty, Night Train appeared in the casino wearing a white silk shirt and black linen pants, his platinum Rolex shining as if radioactive. He cleaned up well and looked like a player.
Night Train stopped to have his picture taken with an adoring fan. His smile lit up the room, and it was easy to see why he’d done so well pitching products on TV.
Next stop was the blackjack table, where Billy stood with his beer bottle. Night Train took a chair and said hello to the three middle-aged drunks at the table. The drunks had sunburns, and Billy guessed they’d spent the afternoon at Bare, the hotel’s topless pool bar.
“My name’s Mel,” the closest drunk said. Mel was a poster boy for the evils of alcohol abuse, his nose a bouquet of broken blood vessels. “I think you’re the greatest goddamn football player who’s ever lived. I followed you during your college days all the way up through the pros. You’re the best defensive player ever. Isn’t he, guys?”
Mel’s buddies chorused agreement. Mel pulled out his cell phone and a group photo was taken. “Who’s gonna win the Super Bowl?” Mel asked.
Part of being a celebrity was dealing with blowhards who pretended to be your friend but who wanted nothing more than to get a selfie taken so they could share it with their friends.
“The best team will win,” Night Train replied.
Night Train threw his wad on the table, which the dealer turned into chips. Night Train lost his first hand. Mel and his buddies lost their hands as well.
“It’s none of my business, but shouldn’t you be home resting?” Mel asked.
Night Train gave Mel a simmering look. Mel looked pleased with himself, believing that because he was in a public place with his buddi
es, no harm could possibly come to him.
“This is how I like to relax,” Night Train said.
It was a great answer, and Mel nodded appreciatively. Night Train kept losing and eventually asked the pit boss to raise the table limit. The pit boss agreed, and Night Train pushed twenty grand in chips into the betting circle. The cards were dealt. Night Train’s cards totaled seventeen. Seventeen was a weak hand, and the dealer was showing a nine. Billy had read the luminous mark on the dealer’s down card during the deal. It was a ten, giving the dealer a total of nineteen. If Night Train didn’t take another card, he would lose the hand and be way down.
Billy signaled with his beer bottle for Night Train to take a card. Night Train had been around the block and knew that he needed to take the card without making it look suspicious.
“What do you think?” Night Train asked the drunks.
Mel had lapsed into silence, nursing his buzz. To be asked advice by a celebrity was a moment to be savored, and he sat up straight in his chair.
“The way your luck’s been running, I think you should take a card,” Mel said.
“Dealer’s been beating me pretty bad, hasn’t she?” Night Train said.
“Your luck’s about to change,” Mel said.
“You think so?”
“Yeah, man, you’re due. Isn’t he, guys?”
Mel’s buddies agreed that Night Train’s luck was indeed about to change.
“Hit me,” Night Train said.
The dealer dealt Night Train a four, giving him a total of twenty-one. Mel threw both his arms into the air the way a ref did to indicate a touchdown had been scored.
“You da man!” Mel exclaimed.
Night Train won the hand and began to beat the house silly. Soon he was betting fifty thousand a hand and raking in the chips. Asking Mel for advice was a smart ploy and took the heat off the play, and Night Train kept right on doing it. The few times that Mel didn’t give him the proper answer, Night Train said, “I don’t think so,” and won the hand on his own.
Soon Night Train’s winnings exceeded a million dollars. The pit boss hadn’t started to sweat, convinced it was nothing more than a lucky streak. Night Train started to play two hands at a time and, within another twenty minutes, reached the two-million mark.
