by James Swain
The Strip was a mob scene, the traffic bumper-to-bumper. It was that way most of the time, yet Billy didn’t care. He drove the Strip whenever he had time to kill, the garish billboards and outrageous people lining the sidewalks making him feel more alive than any place he’d ever been. There was nothing pretty about it, nor did it hold any subtle charms. It was all about the action, and the Strip had more of it than the rest of the cities in the world combined. He got a call from Grimes, his partner in crime.
“Hey boss,” he said by way of greeting.
“You are the definition of a problem,” Grimes said.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Go home and pack yourself a suitcase. You’re taking a trip.”
“I am?”
“The FBI tipped us off that a hired killer from Hong Kong illegally entered the country last night through LAX and is heading to Vegas. There’s a contract out on your life.”
“Broken Tooth?”
“That would be a logical guess. He doesn’t want you testifying against him. I’ll pick you up in front of your place in forty-five minutes.”
“Exactly where am I going?”
“That’s up to you.”
“Should I be scared?”
“I would be.”
He wasn’t afraid of dying, just not today. He departed the Strip at the next intersection and took the back roads home with one eye on his mirror.
He was waiting by the curb in front of his building with a packed suitcase when Grimes pulled up in a Jeep Cherokee with tinted windows. The desert sun was brutal on paint jobs, and the hood was flaking away in large chips. Maybe when Grimes got his promotion he’d lose this piece of junk and get himself a sexy new ride.
Grimes refused to make eye contact as he drove. “You owe me.”
“No kidding,” he said.
“I mean that. We need to come to an understanding.”
“What’s that?”
“You told me the Rebels’ defense said no to fixing the Super Bowl. Then these same players try to rip off the casinos with you in charge. That tells me you’ve corrupted them. I don’t know what your arrangement with them is, and I don’t care. Just keep your nose clean until we bring the case against Broken Tooth and don’t scam any casinos. Because, so help me God, if you get busted, I’ll fuck you.”
There were poker rooms and casinos in every state in the union. If his trip took him to a place where one of these fine establishments existed, and he saw an opportunity to make some money, he wasn’t about to turn his back and walk away.
“Fuck me how?” he asked.
“I’ll put the screws to Maggie. You wouldn’t want that happening, would you?”
“Mags has nothing to do with this,” he said.
“Bullshit. I have more videos of her cheating than I do of my kids growing up. I compared them to the video of the bag lady marking the cards. Same technique. It’s her.”
Billy stared at the white lines in the highway. He liked to think he could weasel his way out of just about any jam. But Mags was not so lucky in that regard, and another encounter with the gaming board would do her in. A plane roared overhead as they neared the airport.
“I won’t scam any casinos until this is over,” he said.
“Glad to hear it. Pick a terminal, and I’ll drop you off,” Grimes said.
He chose Terminal A. Maybe he’d go somewhere warm where there were golf courses so he could hustle some old geezers for pocket change.
“Do you know what this hired assassin looks like?”
Grimes pulled up a photo on his cell phone that showed a thick-faced Chinese male with a unibrow and a snarl as mean as a junkyard dog. He texted it to Billy as he drove.
“Send it to your crew. Just in case,” the special agent said.
“I told you—”
“I know, I know, you don’t have a crew. Do it anyway. This hit man is a member of a secret society based in Hong Kong called the Chinese Assassins Corps. They’ve been murdering people for more than a hundred years and are real pros.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
The Jeep’s front tire kissed the curb. Billy had a thought and said, “Why did MGM decide not to press charges against the football players? They caught them red-handed.”
“MGM got a call that told them to let them go.”
“A call from whom?”
“You don’t know?”
“No, should I?”
Grimes gave him a smug look. “You’re not as smart as you think you are.”
Grimes was the second person to tell him that. Billy hated to be kept in the dark and decided to press the special agent for an answer. A TSA officer’s whistle cut him short.
“Get out before this asshole tickets me,” Grimes said.
He opened the passenger door and put a foot on the curb. Hoping to bring Grimes’s guard down, he waited a beat before turning around. “Night Train knew he wasn’t going to jail. He even bet me a hundred bucks. How could he know that?”
“You’ll figure it out someday,” Grimes said. “Have a nice trip.”
FIFTY-EIGHT
Saturday, eight days before the Super Bowl
Billy went to Scottsdale to work on his golf game and decided to stay at the Phoenician. The luxury property sat on two hundred and fifty manicured acres and had security guards roaming the grounds. Broken Tooth’s hired killer would have a hard time locating him here.
Saturday morning found him playing in a foursome on the resort’s championship course. His playing partners were ophthalmologists attending a convention who boasted how they were able to write off their stays if they attended a single one-hour-long seminar. Everybody had an angle they were working; for the eye doctors, it was ripping off Uncle Sam.
The golf over, he retired to his residence and ordered room service. Soon he was eating a club sandwich and watching ESPN’s SportsCenter. Next Sunday’s Super Bowl was the hot topic, and nearly every story was devoted to a player profile or an analysis of how the teams stacked up.
If the pundits were to be believed, the Rebels were in trouble. A video of Sammy passed out at Luxor had surfaced along with a story about the defense’s wild partying. This news had created a negative spin, and the bookies had made the Rebels a ten-point underdog.
Finished, he pushed aside his plate. There were no stories about Night Train punching the drunks or cheating the Mirage. It was like it had never happened. Then the announcer said a story about Night Train was coming after the commercial break. Here we go, he thought.
The commercial ended and the story began. In a somber tone, the announcer stated that Night Train had suffered an injury and was doubtful for the Super Bowl. A video played of Night Train in practice wearing a bulky knee brace. It switched to a female sportscaster interviewing the famous football player on the sidelines.
“I’m here with Night Train McClain, captain of the Rebels’ defense,” the female sportscaster said. “Night Train, can you tell us what’s wrong with your knee?”
“I hyperextended it in the first round of the playoffs, and it flared up a few days ago,” Night Train said.
“How does it affect your play?”
“My lateral movement’s not a hundred percent.”
Billy was stunned. He’d been around Night Train plenty and hadn’t seen evidence of any physical problems. The guy was in incredible shape.
“Do you think you’ll be ready for the game?” the sportscaster asked.
“I’ll have to see how my knee feels,” Night Train replied.
“Do you want to play?”
“Of course I want to play. But I’m not going to play injured. That will only hurt my team’s chances, and I’m not going to do that.”
“That sounds like a no.”
Night Train shook his head, as if to say, It’s out of my hands.
“The game won’t be the same without you,” the sportscaster said.
“I have to do what’s best for my team,
” Night Train said.
The interview ended. He killed the picture and leaned back in his chair. Without Night Train in the game, the Rebels’ defense would likely sputter and give up a lot of points, and they’d probably lose. Worse, there would be no one making sure that the defense fixed the prop plays. All his hard work had gone up in flames, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
He sent a text to Cory, Morris, and Gabe, and shared the bad news.
The room’s minibar had vodka and Bloody Mary mix, and he fixed himself a drink. He normally didn’t drink this early but needed to kill the pain of losing such a huge score. It would be a long time before a scam like this came along again.
He drank the beer while staring at the blank TV. Night Train’s decision not to play didn’t make sense. Even if his knee was hurting, he could still start the game and set up the fixed plays before hobbling off the field. Night Train was a hustler, and hustlers didn’t walk away from scores that put money in their pockets.
So why was Night Train taking a powder this time? There had to be a real good reason, and he found himself thinking back to his conversation with a coked-up Choo-Choo in the john at the MGM Grand. Choo-Choo had said that the NFL had stuck a knife in their backs, and when Billy hadn’t understood, Choo-Choo had told Billy to forget the conversation had ever happened.
Stuck a knife in their backs how? This was Night Train’s and his teammates’ last game in the pros, and they were prepared to knock an injured Neil Godfrey out of the game and all but ensure a Rebels win. It was a storybook ending to five storied careers, so how could the NFL possibly screw them?
He spent a while thinking about it. The Bloody Mary was feeling like a bad idea, and he made himself a cup of coffee with the Keurig machine and let the caffeine do its thing. As the last drop touched his lips, the answer became as apparent as the nose on his face. Night Train and his pals had been breaking the rules for years, and the NFL had been letting them get away with it. Now the NFL was calling in their chits, and had told Night Train and his teammates that it was time to let the new kid on the block have the glory, and to go soft on Godfrey. To make this easier to digest, the NFL commissioner had flown to Vegas and offered Night Train and his pals lucrative jobs as sportscasters. When they’d balked, the NFL had turned ugly and blackmailed them.
That was the reason behind Night Train’s knee injury. Night Train didn’t want to end his career by besmirching himself, so he’d decided to sit on the bench and not participate.
It didn’t need to end like this. Night Train needed to be shown there was another way out, and Billy was willing to be the one to do it. But before he flew back to Vegas, there was the matter of the hired Chinese assassin looking to take him out. He called Grimes and left a message on the special agent’s voice mail. An hour later, Grimes rang him back.
“Your ears must be burning. We got him.”
“The Chinese assassin hired to kill me?”
“Yes, sir. Eight o’clock this morning. He was stopped at a traffic light at the corner of Sahara and the Strip. He tried to pull a piece and the police shot the bastard dead. You should have seen the arsenal stowed in the trunk. Two assault rifles, two handguns, and a sniper rifle. You wouldn’t have stood a chance if he’d found you.”
“You sure it was the right guy?”
“He had your photograph in his wallet. And a scorpion tattoo beneath his shirt collar. That’s his society’s secret symbol. We got the whole thing on cruiser cam. I’ll text it to you.”
“Is it safe for me to come back?”
“It’s safe. Remember, you’ve got to keep your nose clean.”
“You got it.”
Grimes sent him a text with an embedded video of the shootout. Billy watched as two Metro LVPD cops approached a car parked at the intersection with the Chinese assassin at the wheel. Like a scene out of the Wild West, everyone drew their guns, and the assassin lost.
He normally didn’t get his jollies watching people get shot to death, but the Chinese assassin had been gunning for him, so he watched it again. It was safe for him to go out in public, and he picked up the house phone and called guest services.
“How may I help you, Mr. Cunningham?” a cheery receptionist answered.
“I need a cab to the airport,” he said.
FIFTY-NINE
He took a puddle jumper to Vegas and grabbed a cab to Caesars. The Rebels’ practices ended by midafternoon, and he was hoping that Night Train was back at his villa. Billy called his cell phone and got patched into voice mail.
“This is Billy. You and I need to talk. Call me.”
The minutes slipped by without a call back. The times he and Night Train had been together, the famous football player’s cell phone was always within arm’s reach. Night Train had gotten his message but was avoiding him. Billy called him again.
“There’s nothing wrong with your fucking knee. If you don’t call me, I’m going to call the sportswriter on the local paper and tell him I saw you doing cartwheels. Call me.”
Night Train called him back in a panic. “You in jail?”
“Hell no. I beat that rap,” he said. “What’s this crap on the news about you not playing in the Super Bowl?”
“My knee’s acting up. It’s an old injury.”
“What about our deal? I’ve got a lot riding on this.”
“I’m sorry, man, but I can’t risk my health. You know how it is.”
“No, I don’t. I want to talk to you face-to-face. We had a deal.”
“Sorry, man, but our deal’s off,” Night Train said.
“I don’t think so.”
“You can’t make me do something I don’t want to do.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Choo-Choo told me the NFL was screwing you guys. It took me a while to figure out what he meant. This is your last game. How could the NFL possibly screw you at this point in your careers? But then it hit me what they wanted. I know what it is, and if you don’t meet with me, I’ll tell my friends at the gaming board what’s going on.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Try me.”
“I thought you were my friend.”
“I am your friend. I brought you two deals worth millions of dollars. You and your teammates blew the first deal, and now you’re going to sit out the game and blow the second deal. You’re the one who’s not being a friend.”
“You don’t understand the situation.”
“On the contrary, I understand everything, which is why we need to talk. This is about your legacy, man. You can’t take a dive for these fuckers.”
The line went quiet. He had Night Train dead to rights, and they both knew it.
“Give me an hour. I just got back from practice, and I need to take a shower,” Night Train said. “There’s a cigar bar in Caesars called the Montecristo. I’ll meet you there.”
“One hour it is.”
Caesars was jumping. The entrance resembled a parking lot, and he watched the cab’s meter run while waiting to be dropped off. Soon he was in the main lobby. While guests waited on line to register, there was a bust going down, courtesy of the gaming board. The busted cheat wore silver bracelets and stared dejectedly at the floor. The gaming agents were so focused on their suspect that they didn’t see Billy come in.
He circled around them. The busted cheat’s wardrobe screamed Russian. Run-down Nikes, a threadbare sports jacket, and a sheared haircut more befitting a war refugee. The casinos knew about the Russian gangs and had trained their surveillance teams to be on the lookout. Their scam was called whacking. A Russian cheat would stand next to a particular make of slot machine and record the machine’s play on a cell phone. The machine had a flawed random number generator chip that spit out predictable sequences every few hours. The Russian left and went to a motel, where the information was sent to a foreign server that calculated when the machine would pay a jackpot. Upon returning, the Russian would play the same machine and eventually win.
A great scam, unless you happened to get caught. Nevada had a law that forbade using an electronic device to beat its games, including cell phones. Cheats who got busted using devices went down hard.
“Coming through,” a voice said.
A uniformed bellman pushing a luggage cart bore down on him. His name tag said KENNETH/SAN DIEGO. As Billy moved to let him pass, the bellman stopped and drew a pocket-size Beretta from his pants. He jammed the barrel into Billy’s rib cage.
“Start walking toward the elevators,” the bellman said.
Billy’s eyes darted around the lobby. He counted five gaming agents, only they were too preoccupied with their bust to notice that something bad was going down.
“Let me guess. Your name isn’t Kenneth, and you’re not from San Diego,” he said.
“Hong Kong. Keep walking. I’ll shoot you right here if I have to,” the bellman said.
“With all this heat?”
“I’ll be gone before they know it.”
The elevators were at the far end of the lobby. He began walking, praying that an opportunity would present itself to alert the gaming agents. The bellman hung close to his side.
“You don’t look Chinese,” he said.
“Plastic surgery. It took three operations.”
“Your English is good, too. No accent.”
“Rosetta Stone.”
“I’ll double your fee if you let me go.”
The gun’s barrel was suddenly in his ass. It made him jump a little. They came to the bank of elevators, and the bellman summoned a car. Billy stole a glance at the mirrors that lined the wall. None of the gaming agents had followed them. Was this the end? It sure felt like it.
“How did you know I’d be here?” he asked.
“Broken Tooth said you’d come back to Caesars to talk to the football players, iron out the details. Broken Tooth is smart that way,” the bellman said.
“How long you been waiting?”
“Two days.”
“And the hotel didn’t notice?”
The bellman laughed under his breath. “I took a job. They’re shorthanded, so I agreed to work double shifts. It was only a matter of time before you came in, and I spotted you.”
