"Sorry about the wait," she said. "I had to dig up that glass in the storage room. All we got in back are those little ones."
I tipped her a five and thanked her profusely. "Hey, can I ask you a question?"
"Sure thing."
"I am a giant fan of Mickey Mayfield. Does he ever, you know, come out on the floor and talk to us little people?"
She sighed. "He's not my favorite person, actually. Real friendly onstage, though. You see, they give all the employees free tickets to new shows so we can talk them up to the customers if they ever ask. I liked the show even though it was pretty raunchy, even for a gal like me!"
"But offstage?"
"Different story. He doesn't tip! And it's not just me. The other girls are talking about it too."
"So he does gamble in here sometimes?"
"Only at the slots, and only once in a while. You see, right over there, behind that ATM?" She pointed to our left. "That's the high-roller slots. Five, ten, twenty-five bucks a throw. They even have a couple that are a hundred."
"So he's gambling thousands of bucks per minute and can't give you a buck for a drink?"
"You got it."
I shook my head in disgust as though Mayfield were some kind of modern-day Hitler. "Well, you can never tell, can you? Sometimes the guys who look like they're street people are the ones who slip you a twenty, right?"
She smiled. "And the rich guys in the suits can't be bothered."
I shrugged. "Thanks for the drink!"
"I'll be back!"
It wasn't much, but at least now I knew I stood a decent chance of catching Mayfield on the floor at some point if I had no other options. It might take a few weeks before he played the slots, and I didn't look forward to spending hour after hour sitting around near the high-roller slots. But it was something. I took a chug of my twenty-five-dollar gin and tonic and left the rest next to the slot machine.
Carlos was waiting for me in the lobby. As usual, he was doing his best to look bored.
"Any luck?" I asked.
"Kind of. You were right. Those guys will talk. Once they saw that wad of twenties, I think they'd have given me Mayfield's Social Security number and blood type if they knew it."
"Anything good?"
"Well, he likes to gamble. They said most nights he walks out the front door after his set, and they figure he's going across the street to MGM."
"He plays a little slots here, too."
Carlos nodded. "Mainly when he's really trashed. They said he's a mean drunk. His game of choice is craps, though, and the limits here are too low. He likes to throw money around at the hundred-dollar tables."
"Wow. That can get pricey. You put a few pass line bets out there with max odds backing them up, you're looking at a grand or two every time the dice get thrown."
Carlos shook his head disapprovingly. "Odds are still against you. Stupid game."
"Well, the casinos aren't going to offer a game where the house might actually lose money, are they?"
He shrugged, tired of the subject. I supposed it was tough to have an antigambling attitude in this town. "So what's next? We go to the MGM?"
"Not yet," I said. "Let's wait near the exit and see if he comes out."
We spent the better part of an hour trying to look like we were playing video poker. Eventually the boredom got to me, and I wound up shoving a few of Carlos's leftover twenties into a machine. To our immense surprise, I got a couple of straight flushes and found myself up $137.50. After I cashed out, I swung by the high-roller slots just to check to see if Mayfield was there, but the slots were deserted. At about one, Carlos's impatience got the better of him.
"Show ended forty-five minutes ago," he said. "He probably went home."
"Shut up," I hissed. I instinctively crouched down at the machine I was at and nodded my head in the direction of the exit. "There he is." It was Mayfield, all right. He was wearing a bright-orange Hawaiian shirt and gray cargo shorts that revealed his fat, pasty-white legs. He probably weighed around two-twenty, but he was only about five-eight, so he was thick around the middle and in the neck. He was about forty, and his thinning, brown hair was brushed back, giving him the air of an overfed weasel. All in all, though, he looked very satisfied with himself as he strode through the casino lobby and out the door. I grabbed Carlos's shirt and pulled him along with me.
CHAPTER SEVEN
We followed about fifty yards behind Mayfield. There were plenty of people out, even at one fifteen in the morning, and it was fairly dark. We skipped through traffic crossing Tropicana Boulevard and watched as Mayfield made his way into the massive blue-green MGM Grand complex. I held Carlos back, and we waited a few seconds before going in. I wasn't too worried about being seen, but I didn't want to take any chances. If we lost track of him, it wouldn't be too hard to find him if he was there to play high-stakes craps. Even a giant outfit like MGM might only have four or five tables with high limits, and with his orange shirt Mayfield would be easy to spot.
We entered through the same doors Mayfield had used and were able to catch a glimpse of his shirt as he waddled through the casino. The MGM was hopping. The low-limit blackjack tables were crammed with people and onlookers, and even the twenty-five-dollar tables were full. I often wondered where all these people, many of whom were in their twenties, got the money to put so much at stake. The truth was, most of them didn't have it. They were blowing their student loans or next month's rent, trying to impress a girl or their buddies with their big bets. More often than not, they were trying to make up for yesterday's losses, and that never went well.
We trailed well behind Mayfield and held back as he prowled the craps tables. He would stop at each one and squint to read the table limits. If it suited him, he'd watch the action for a minute and check out the other players. No one wanted to throw dice at a table full of stiffs. A bunch of drunk, pretty girls made the game a lot more interesting. Mayfield nodded a greeting at the stickman working one of the tables, but he apparently was unsatisfied by the vibe from that table and moved on to another bank of craps tables situated deeper in the sprawling casino.
As soon as we caught up with him, I knew Mayfield would be parking himself at the far table nearest the wall, where a large black man wearing a blue silk shirt was accompanied by three models whom I immediately sized up as paid escorts. He apparently had ordered the sampler platter: one was a blonde, another a brunette, and the third was an Asian. Besides them, there was a lone white-haired man who kept to himself. It was a hundred-dollar table, meaning that the minimum bet to start out was a hundred-dollar chip placed on the pass line, and nobody ever stuck with a single pass line bet. With odds bets and come bets, the men easily had a thousand bucks on the table. Each. Both men seemed to be content to let the ladies roll the dice for them. When they hit their numbers, the group became pretty boisterous. It was clear they were beating the house out of a lot of money, and a small crowd of onlookers had formed to watch. Some of them were interested in all the money at the table, but I guessed more than a few were watching to check out cleavage display when the escorts leaned forward to roll the dice.
Mayfield sidled up to the table and flagged down the pit boss. Players at high-limit tables usually didn't plunk down wads of cash—they used house credit. The pit boss seemed to know Mayfield and behaved very deferentially to him. Mayfield signed a few forms and was given a marker that he plunked down on the table. He said something to the boxman, an elderly guy with slicked-back white hair, and the boxman leaned over and pushed two giant stacks of black hundred-dollar chips at Mayfield. Mayfield seemed to be waiting until the next come out roll began.
It was a costly move. Mayfield stood there a good five minutes while the blonde escort kept rolling fives, sixes, nines, and tens, making a small fortune for the other players while Mayfield stood on the sidelines.
Carlos leaned over to me. "He's getting pissed."
"No kidding. He's probably missed out on ten grand by just standing the
re."
The blonde finally rolled a seven, which drew groans from the small crowd. I wasn't sure if they felt bad that the players had stopped winning money or that the blonde wouldn't be giving them a free peep show every time she bent over to roll the dice. I scanned the small crowd. At this hour, most of them were in their twenties and thirties, and a lot of them had drinks or beers in their hands. More than a few wore thin sweatshirts with hoodies, which seemed to be the latest trend in casino fashion. At the back of the crowd stood a tall, thin man wearing sunglasses and a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball cap. I did a double take and immediately felt a burning sensation in my chest. I swallowed hard.
"Carlos, get back here," I whispered. We were standing next to a bank of slot machines with a view of Mayfield's back. From where we stood, I didn't think the guy in the baseball cap could see me very well, but I wasn't exactly dressed to fade into the background. I didn't want to take any chances.
"What is it?"
"I think…I think it's Ethan. That guy with the Dodgers hat standing near the wall."
Carlos checked him out. "Hard to tell. Looks kind of like the guy on the billboards, but you've seen him in person. Are you sure?"
I was honest. "No. Not at all. But it really looks like him. And he's obviously trying to hide his identity with those sunglasses. The thing is, there aren't that many guys who are that thin. Every guy's got some kind of gut."
"Not me," Carlos protested. I looked him over. His T-shirt clung to his big pecs, stretching the shirt so that it hung loosely over his stomach. I couldn't tell if he had a six-pack under there or not.
"I'll take your word for it," I said. "But that guy has the right body, his face is a good match, and he's trying to hide. He doesn't seem to be doing anything besides standing in the background watching. And he's not with anybody, either."
"So Ethan's doing your work for you?"
"I have no idea why he's here. You want to go take a closer look? Maybe you can tell for sure. He has no idea who you are."
Carlos nodded and circled around so that he was standing about ten feet to the left of the guy with the Dodgers hat. I backed off and sat myself down at a slot machine in the middle of the bank. As I sat waiting for Carlos to return, I tried to figure out what all this meant. It was one thirty in the morning, and the guy who had hired me to watch Mickey Mayfield was now watching Mayfield himself. Was he trying to surveil him, like I was? What did he expect to accomplish? If it weren't for the twenty grand, I would probably have ditched this client by now.
Carlos returned a few minutes later.
"He's swaying."
"What?"
"If that's your guy, then he's drunk out of his mind. He's propping himself up against that wall for support. You can smell the liquor on him from five feet away."
I shook my head. "What the fuck? How did he know Mayfield was here?"
"Probably the same way we did," Carlos said. "But he's an insider. He works there, so he wouldn't have to bribe anybody. He could just ask a few people he works with."
"But why is he here? He hired me to do this."
"Got me."
"Could you tell if it was actually Ethan?"
"I think you're right. It's him. He's got…" Carlos paused.
I raised my eyebrows in suspense. "He's got what?"
He sighed. "He's got nice cheekbones."
I laughed. "You got that right. So what do you think we should do now?"
"Well, it depends on whether you want him to know you're here or not."
"I don't think I do. It would show him that I'm earning my money, but at this point I'm more interested in why he's here. I won't figure that out if he knows I'm watching."
"Well, neither of them knows who I am," Carlos said.
"Let's give it a few minutes while I figure out what to do."
I backed off some more to ensure that Ethan wouldn't be able to see me. Carlos stayed near the table to keep an eye on things. I figured that Mayfield could be there for hours, and I didn't feel like hanging out doing nothing. And Ethan's presence—if it was Ethan—complicated things tremendously and meant I didn't have free rein to watch Mayfield in the manner I pleased. For now, I thought it best to not let Ethan know I was here.
Carlos came to find me after a few minutes had passed. "I think he's going to leave soon. He's getting killed. The table went stone cold, and he's down like twenty grand. He looks seriously pissed."
"Okay. Keep watching. I'll be here."
Next time I was going to bring a book. There was only so long a person could sit at a slot machine without playing it, and I had just about reached my limit. The same little electronic tunes kept repeating themselves, begging me to shut them up by shoving money through the slot. I wasn't going to bite. Luckily, Carlos was back right away.
"He's moving, and Ethan's not too far behind him."
"Let's go."
We trailed a hundred feet or so behind Ethan, who was following Mayfield pretty closely. They were both moving with purpose. I let Carlos take the lead to provide me a little cover in case Ethan happened to look back in our direction.
Carlos turned around. "He's walking pretty well. Not stumbling or anything."
I was getting winded chasing after them. Why did Mayfield have to gamble in the biggest casino in town? We weaved our way through clusters of people as Mayfield and Ethan made for the exit. We lost Ethan for a second as he skipped through a gaggle of girls whose IDs obviously had not yet been checked, but we caught up with him as he headed up the escalator near the south exit. We couldn't quite see Mayfield from where we were, but I figured he had to have made it up to the footbridge going over Tropicana Avenue in the direction of the Copa. I had no idea where his car was parked, but I assumed he was headed to some kind of covered employee parking at his casino. Or maybe he was going back inside to play those high-limit slots Lurlene had told me about. I had no idea what I would do if I'd just lost twenty grand in under an hour.
We spotted Mayfield from the footbridge and continued following Ethan down the escalator in front of the Copa. It got a little dicey once we were all the way across the street. Ethan was heading into the small parking lot, and there were no longer dozens of people around to give us cover. We slowed our pace to give ourselves a little more space.
I nudged Carlos. "Where's your car parked?"
"Right in the corner, there." He pointed to the north corner of the lot about a hundred feet away.
"Perfect."
Ethan had gone into a covered garage marked Employees Only. It seemed like he had slowed his pace, too, probably so that Mayfield wouldn't notice him. Ethan wasn't a bad tail, I decided.
"Let's go get in your car. It's obvious Mayfield must be leaving, so there's no sense following him into the garage on foot."
Carlos nodded. He beeped his Mustang to unlock it, and I climbed in. He started up his car, and we craned our necks to watch the exit.
It only took a few seconds before my neck began killing me. "This isn't going to work," I said. "Pull out and hang back here."
Carlos maneuvered his car so that we had a clear view of the exit but weren't so close that we'd be noticeable.
CHAPTER EIGHT
"Gonna be hard to tell which car is his," Carlos said.
"We're probably not going to be able to ID him from here, but how many other people are leaving the employee parking garage at one fifty-eight? Swing shift doesn't end 'til two or three, probably."
"How do you know?"
I shrugged. "I used to play a lot of poker. You get kind of attached to a friendly dealer, and then he leaves just when you're starting to have fun. You notice these things."
"You're out there playing at three in the morning?"
"I have to keep a schedule. If I'm not dancing, then I'm up doing other things. Otherwise all of my sleep patterns get thrown off. And there are not a lot of other things to do in the middle of the night."
"I just have a hard time picturing—" He cut himself off as
a yellow Porsche zipped in front of us. It was gone before we remembered to look in the driver's seat.
"Crap," I said. "That was fast. Think it's him?"
"Gotta be. That was a brand new nine-eleven. Probably runs one-twenty. Who else has that kind of money in the employee parking lot?"
"Let's wait a second and see if Ethan's tailing him."
It didn't take a second to spot Ethan, or at least the guy we assumed was Ethan. His cherry-red BMW flew past us and blew the stop sign at the exit, turning right onto Tropicana. Carlos popped his car into first and stepped on it.
"Shit," Carlos said, veering his car sharply to the left. Ethan had moved into the far left lane and was doing a white-knuckled U-turn to head west. We had no choice but to follow. It might make us look a little obvious, but I hoped Ethan was more focused on the guy he was following than on a random black Mustang he'd never seen before.
The light turned green, and the red BMW floored it into the left-turn lane and headed south on Las Vegas Boulevard. We followed along at a healthy distance and found ourselves breezing past Mandalay Bay and away from the Strip.
"You do this often?" Carlos asked.
"Do what?"
"Tail your own clients."
I laughed. "It's not like I was planning it this way. I'm almost more intrigued by what Ethan is doing than Mayfield."
"You gonna bill him for this?"
"Hell yeah. He paid up front."
We followed the BMW as it veered off onto Highway 160 and headed west. I glanced over at the speedometer and saw that we were doing a healthy eighty-five. We could still see the BMW's lights about a quarter mile in front of us, but it was pulling away.
"Is this the fastest you can go?" I asked.
Carlos popped the clutch down into fourth gear and floored it, snapping my neck backward. He eased off as we hit a hundred and ten and shifted back into overdrive.
"Don't insult my baby like that," he said softly. "This is a GT!"
When the BMW was only a few hundred yards in front of us, it began easing off the gas. Carlos followed suit. The taillights of a car well in front of the BMW were barely visible up ahead. I assumed it was the Porsche because Ethan had eased off and was following at a comfortable distance. We followed along at a more reasonable pace and settled in for the ride.
Vegas Stripped (Raven McShane Mysteries Book 2) Page 4
