by Sean Patten
“Hey!” he said. “Who’s making that noise?”
“It’s her!” said the waitress, pointing the woman. “She won’t stop!”
“You!” said the man, pointing a black-gloved hand at the woman. “Shut the hell up!”
“Quit wasting time over there!” called out another robber from across the casino floor. “We need to hit the safe and get out of here!”
I glanced back at the woman, ready to say something, anything, to get her to quiet down before she got her, or us, shot.
And then I noticed something, something I hadn’t been able to make out in the dark. In her ear was a small, electronic device—a hearing aid.
“Lady!” shouted the man. “Shut the fuck up!”
His hand shot out further, grabbing hold of her arm.
“Wait!” I said.
“What?” the man shot right back.
I slowly raised my finger and pointed to the hearing aid. As soon as I did, the woman’s worried eyes flicked to mine. She grabbed my wrist and spoke again, this time saying something different.
“I…I can’t hear!”
She took the device out of her ear and held it towards me. I’d never seen a hearing aid up close, but even I could tell that the device had somehow been rendered into nothing more than a piece of worthless plastic. The small digital readout was fried, and the thing looked like I’d imagine it would if someone had dunked it into water.
“Her hearing aid broke!” I said.
The man’s eyes flicked from mine to hers, then back to mine.
“Get her to calm down,” he said. “Or I’ll shut her up myself.”
I nodded slowly.
“I will,” I said. “Just don’t hurt her.”
The man let out an annoyed grunt before standing back up and walking away. I turned towards the woman and took her hand into mine before raising the index finger of my free hand in front of my mouth.
She nodded, finally getting it. And then she was quiet.
I let out a sigh of relief before turning my attention back to the man with the gun, still posted nearby. He reached into one of the pockets of his tactical vest, taking out what looked to be a phone. After yanking off a glove, he swiped at the screen.
“What the hell?” he said.
“What’re you complaining about now?” asked another of the men.
“Piece of shit phone,” he said. “Up and died on me.”
“No speaking unless you need to!” called out a voice that I recognized as the first of the men who’d stormed the place.
“Yeah, yeah,” said the nearby man.
“We’re moving into the safe room!” called out the first man. “Take your positions and wait for your next orders. Now move!”
Next came the steady thumping of several pairs of boots. If there was any doubt that this was some kind highly trained team of professionals, it was gone now. They had first-rate gear, and a clear plan. And there wasn’t a chance a team of street lowlifes or gangbangers would be assaulting a casino like this.
The guard near us stayed put, the beam from his flashlight flicking here and there.
“Fucking lights,” he said under his breath, but loud enough for me to hear it. “What the hell?”
Now I was confused. The power had gone out the second the crew entered, and I’d assumed that they had something to do with it. But now, I wasn’t so sure.
I locked my gaze onto the guard, now a couple dozen feet away. Once his back was turned I slowly, slowly slipped my fingers into my pocket and took out my phone. I opened it up and glanced at the screen.
Dead.
“Mine too!” hissed the younger girl from behind me, apparently having had the same idea.
In her hand was a late-model smartphone, one of the really expensive ones. And just like mine, it was dead.
This was getting stranger by the second. Even if the heist crew had somehow hacked into the power supply of the casino, there was no way it’d affect individual phones like this. Despite it being clearly broken, I slipped my phone back into my pocket and turned my attention to the guard once again.
He stepped slowly towards us, and I took the time to give his gear a once-over. His rifle was the unusual but immediately recognizable Steyr AUG, a bullpup rifle, standard issue for the Austrian army. That didn’t necessarily mean these guys were Austrian—their American accents made that clear—but it meant they had access to heavy-duty gear that collectors like me couldn’t get our hands on.
At his hip was another gun, a pistol tucked into what looked like a Level II retention holster with a trigger guard lock that would have to be deactivated in order to draw the gun. The pistol appeared to be a Glock 17—the pistol for people who knew pistols.
I could use it easily if I could get my hands on it, but being tucked into a holster like that meant any attempt at yanking it out would be as futile as someone who wasn’t King Arthur trying to pull the sword out of the stone. Instead of a weapon in my hands I’d more likely get a surprised look from the robber before a rifle butt to the face, or more likely, a bullet.
Even beyond that, even if I were to somehow drop this nearby guard and take him out, I was totally outnumbered. They’d spray me down as soon as they knew what was going on, maybe along with a few bystanders for good measure.
Just like before, just like in Hawaii, there was nothing I could do but stay put and pray to get out alive. At least this time I didn’t have anyone besides me to worry about.
Then it hit me. Horror dawned on me as I realized that this wasn’t the case. Not at all.
Steve was here.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I said under my breath. Wherever he was, I hoped my brother was planning on doing the smart thing and staying put.
Right in the middle of considering the matter, I caught sight of someone under one of the nearby tables, a young guy no older than twenty-five. His eyes were fixed on the man with the gun, an expression of grim determination on his face.
I realized right away what he was thinking.
Don’t do it, don’t do it, I thought. Don’t you dare.
I waved, trying desperately to get his attention, to change his mind. But I was too late. His mind was made up.
And then he did it.
The kid shot out like a missile, his hand going right for the guard’s pistol. He wrapped his fingers around it and gave it a yank, the determined expression on his face turning to one of shock as he realized it wasn’t coming free.
“Huh?” the guard shouted in surprise. He turned on his boots, realized what was happening, and raised his rifle to the kid’s face.
“Hey!” shouted another robber. “What’s going on over there?”
“Stupid kid tried to take my gun!” the guard replied, the end of his rifle only inches away from the kid’s face.
The kid was frozen like a statue, his hands up.
“Please!” he said. “Don’t…don’t…”
“You heard what the boss said,” another man called out. “No dropping civvies unless we need to. Let’s give ’em one warning.”
This wasn’t what the main man had said when he stormed the place. It was another sign that these were pros and not violent psychopaths—taking out civilians would be the easiest way to bring major, major heat down on them.
“Fine,” said the man with the rifle, a disappointed tone to his voice.
Then, with a swift motion, he turned his rifle around and drove the butt hard into the kid’s gut, a deep “oof” sounding out as he knocked every molecule of air out of his lungs. The kid dropped to his knees, struggling for breath.
The man with the rifle unholstered his pistol and held it in front of the kid’s face.
“This what you wanted?” he asked. “Here, have it!”
He raised the Glock up into the air and brought it down in a hard arc, a sickening crack cutting through the air as the handle slammed into the side of the kid’s face. He dropped like a sack, blood spraying from his mouth. Shouts and screa
ms followed from the men and women around me.
Fuck.
Before anything else could happen, I heard the group of crooks who’d left return. Among the footsteps was the sound of soft sobbing. I moved over to the partition separating the restaurant floor from the rest of the place to see what was happening.
The crew was back. A man in a suit was being led to the center of the casino floor at gunpoint.
“Okay!” called out the first man. “We got a little situation here! Big boss man on top doesn’t want to give up the safe code!”
Shit. Dumb, dumb, asshole.
I never understood this, never understood why people would put the lives of themselves and others at risk for money that wasn’t even theirs. It happened back in Hawaii, and now here it was happening again.
The lead man kicked the back of the manager’s leg, dropping him down to his knees.
“Now,” he said to the crooks behind him. “Grab me five civvies. We’ll get this prick talking before too long.”
Two of the men broke off from the group and began to collect a handful of men and women from the crowds.
“And I want you to explain to us why you thought it’d be a good idea to cut the power on us like this.”
Wait. What?
So the crooks hadn’t been the ones to cut the power.
I realized right then what this likely meant. But before my mind could finish making the connections, my blood went cold at what I saw.
One of the civilians they’d gathered was Steve.
Chapter 12
My brother was still as a statue. My eyes had adjusted to the dark by this point, and I could make out the hard, flat expression on his face.
“On your knees!” called out the first man. “All of you!”
One of the men swept his rifle over the five of them, each of them dropping to his or her knees as commanded.
My heart steadily thumped.
“Now,” said the first man. “Here’s how this is going to play out. I’m going to be generous here and give you five chances to tell me how to get the power back on and the safe opened. Then, once you’ve done that, we’re going to take what we came here for and leave.”
He paced back and forth in front of the weeping manager as he spoke.
“I’m telling you,” the manager cried. “I didn’t cut the power! I have no idea how to turn it back on!”
The first man went on as if he hadn’t said a word.
“You so much as stutter, and we take out one of your paying customers here. And we do it again, and again, each time you jerk us around.”
The man stepped over to the neat line of civilians, all on their knees. A couple of them looked to be in total shock, another pair was weeping just like the manager.
But not Steve. He was still and stoic and calm.
With a soft click, the lead man took his pistol out of his holster and raised it, pointing it right at Steve’s face.
It took all the restraint I had not to burst from my hiding place and rush over to him.
Don’t give them an excuse.
“Maybe we start with you, huh?” the robber said. “Blast that handsome face of yours into bits right in front of him.” He snorted. “Bet you didn’t think this was how you were going to spend your Vegas vacation, huh?”
Steve said nothing, his eyes still fixed forward, his expression hard.
Seconds ticked by, those same sick, helpless feelings that I’d experienced back in Hawaii returning hot and fresh.
“Wait!” the manager called out. “I…I didn’t cut the power. But I might be able to open the lock manually. It’s on a separate power supply.”
The first man lowered his gun, relief washing over me like a cool wave.
“That right?” he asked.
“Yeah,” the manager said. “It’s not connected to the main grid of the casino, in the event something like this happened. But I can’t do it from the office upstairs. You have to take me into the back. I can lead you there.”
The first man squatted down in front of the manager.
“You’d better not be bullshitting me, buddy,” he said. “Because let me promise you this: you will not like what happens if you’re lying.”
“Not lying,” he sputtered out. “Just need to see it in person.”
The first man stood back up.
“Okay,” he said. “You, you, and you, come with me. The rest of you watch the civvies. Move!”
The man grabbed the manager’s arm and yanked him to his feet.
“Come on, tubby,” he said.
And then, like before, the first man and a few of his men marched out of the main casino floor, disappearing behind a large set of doors. Steve and the rest of the civilians were kept in position, a pair of guard surrounding them.
I was more than a little impressed at how calm and collected Steve was. I could tell by the hard look in his eyes that he wasn’t frozen in fear. No, his expression was one of a mind at work, deciding the smart thing to do, figuring out all the angles.
Maybe the military training hadn’t faded as much as I’d thought.
I turned around, resting against the partition. Up ahead of me, the kid who’d taken the pistol-whip to the face was still in a heap on the floor, a small pool of blood by his face.
But he wasn’t still, not anymore. Slowly, he recovered from his curled-up position and began to sit upright.
With frantic eyes, I glanced up at our guard. He was standing around twenty feet away from the kid, his back to him.
The young man continued up, eventually getting to his feet.
Oh, no, I thought. Don’t do it, kid.
Young and dumb, and about to get himself killed.
The kid slowly dragged his hand across his face to wipe off the blood. His steps became faster and faster as he approached the guard, preparing to strike.
But just as before, the guard whipped around on his feet, letting out an “Oh!” as he did. He raised the rifle to the kid’s face, a sneer on his lips visible through the slit in his ski mask.
“Dumb fuck,” he sneered. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
The click of the safety cut through the frightened murmurs around us. The guard’s finger when from the front of the trigger onto it, and he began to pull.
Pop.
The sound was soft, sounding more like a hard puff of air than anything else.
The two men stood facing one another, and for a moment I wasn’t sure that what I’d heard was a gunshot.
Then I saw it. On the large mirror behind the bar was a fresh spray of blood, the appearance of a wild toss of paint. It trickled down the glass in thin streaks.
It didn’t make sense. Why would blood spray on the mirror to the left of the kid if the bullet had hit him dead-on?
What happened next answered my question. The kid glanced down at himself, as if checking for bullet holes. And as he did, the robber dropped to his knees, then into a heap on the ground.
Dead.
The men and women around me shared frantic, confused glances as they tried to figure out what happened.
Then a booming voice cut through it all.
“LVMPD! All of you drop your weapons!”
You have to be kidding me.
I crawled out from under the table to get a better look. Sure enough, an older guy, around mid-fifties, stood about ten paces from the corpse of the downed crook. In one hand was a gold badge, in the other was what appeared to be a Sig Sauer P238—a pistol commonly used by cops.
I realized right away what had happened. The cop had done the smart thing and stayed under the crew’s radar, knowing like I did that he was outnumbered. But when he spotted the kid doing the stupid thing he was about to do, he realized that he didn’t have a choice. It was either act, or watch this kid get killed.
He made the only sensible choice for a cop to make.
“What the—?” one of the other men called out.
There was a strange mixture of intensity
and fear on the cop’s face. He seemed to know that he’d likely signed his death warrant by acting.
“Get down!” he hissed to the kid. “Right now!”
I glanced around the partition, watching as the rest of the men sized up the situation and moved in, rifles raised.
The cop was about to meet his end, no doubt about that. But at least he’d go out like a hero.
Then I spotted something a little further beyond. The guards, the casino guards, were no longer being watched. They seemed to realize this too, as they slowed began to get to their feet and make their way towards the moving crooks.
Through the darkness I watched as they all began to draw their pistols, some from their ankles, others from secret holsters on their backs. I realized that in the confusion of the lights going out, the robbers had neglected to pat them down for hidden weapons.
Shit was about to go down.
There were, at my best count, eight guards. With the one crook dropped, that left about a half dozen, with three or four more with the casino boss.
Steve watched the scene, taking his hands down from behind his head. I scanned the ground, trying to plot out the best way to get back to him when the bullets started flying.
Then, they did.
“Now!”
The guard’s voice boomed as he and his men opened fire on the crooks. Pistol shots popped in the air, a pair of the crooks dropping before they realized what was happening.
Here we go, I thought.
I moved. Screams erupted from all around me as the casino patrons panicked, running from under their tables to God-knows-where else.
“Stay put!” I shouted, turning to the few people who had been hiding under the table with me. “This is the safest place to be!”
They nodded in compliance and stayed still. But I wasn’t about to. Staying in the safest place available wasn’t a luxury I could afford.
Automatic rifle fire sounded out, punctuated with the quick popping of pistol fire. Up ahead, the kid was still standing, now frozen in place. My plan had been to get out of cover and get to Steve, but I decided I had time for a detour. I crawled on my elbows, bullets thwacking into the walls and sending glass down in shrill shatters.