by James Swain
“Last name?” the valet asked, writing up his stub.
“Pico. Who called the five-oh?” Billy asked.
“Sorry, I’m not allowed to talk about it.”
Something unpleasant had happened, and Billy was not going to venture inside without knowing why the cops were there. He slipped a twenty into the pocket of the valet’s vest.
“You’re not a reporter, are you?” the valet asked.
“Do reporters drive Maseratis?”
“About an hour ago a guy wearing a motorcycle helmet robbed the cage. He ran out with a bag of money, jumped on his Harley, and took off.”
“How much did he get?”
“A hundred grand. Nice work if you can get it, huh?”
“You’re telling me.”
At the front desk, he presented the fake ID in Thomas Pico’s name and learned he was staying in a luxury suite on the concierge level on the twenty-eighth floor of the first tower.
Taking the elevator up, he thought about the desperado who’d ripped the joint off. He’d known several guys who’d pulled this stunt; to a man, they were two-bit losers who’d reached the end of the line and had resorted to sticking guns in innocent people’s faces to make a lousy score. He inserted the room key to his suite and entered. It was two thousand square feet of excess, the walls decorated with iconic movie stills from the days when the world was black and white. Crunchie sat on a leather couch in his cowboy attire, wearing an ugly scowl. The cage had gotten robbed on his watch, and Doucette had no doubt given him hell for it.
“Well, look who’s here,” the old grifter said. “Didn’t I say three, asshole?”
“Traffic was a bitch,” he said.
“Traffic’s always a bitch. I’ve got something for you.” Crunchie pulled Billy’s cell phone from his breast pocket and tossed it to him. “I copied down the names of everyone in your address book, just to be safe. Right when I was done, the phone went blank.”
“Imagine that.”
“Don’t pull any more shit. Now, where have you been?”
Billy wasn’t about to tell him the truth. “I was getting laid,” he said.
“You’re a horny little fucker, aren’t you?”
“It beats being sterile.”
“This is getting off to a bad start. I think you need a little attitude adjustment.” To the punishers he said, “Kick his ass.”
Ike and T-Bird sat on the other couch, watching a mindless game show. They were sitting so close, their shoulders were touching. They rose, their hands clenched into fists.
“You guys want to flip a coin?” Billy asked.
The beating wasn’t as bad this time around. They worked him mostly in the gut and around the rib cage, adding more bruises to the assortment he was already sporting. Tomorrow morning he’d piss some blood, and by tomorrow night the pain would be a memory.
A chair was produced and he sank into it. A cell phone rang. Crunchie pulled one from his pocket, said, “It’s Doucette,” and went onto the balcony to take the call.
The punishers stood next to the balcony’s glass slider, the magnificent Vegas skyline turning them into movie stars. Billy thanked them for not messing up his face.
“Were you really getting laid?” Ike asked.
“What else would I be doing?” he lied.
They dug that. He reminded himself that Ike was the smart one. If he got on Ike’s good side, T-Bird would tag along. The dumb ones always did.
“What’s with the cop cars outside?” he asked.
Ike took the floor, happy to talk. “Round one o’clock, this skinny dude wearing a motorcycle helmet walks up to the cage, sticks a popgun in the cashier’s face, and steals a hundred grand. Dude flies out the side door, jumps on his bike, and he’s gone.”
“That’s a lot of money. Did he steal it in cash or chips?” he asked.
“Cash.”
“Did he bring a bag with him?” he asked.
“Yeah. Flipped it to the cashier, had her fill it up. He came prepared.”
Casinos got robbed every day, mostly by their own staff. Dealers stole chips off the games and hid them in secret pockets on their uniforms called subs, while technicians filched handfuls of silver dollars while emptying out slot machines. Thefts committed by outsiders were different. Usually it came in the form of the thief stealing a woman’s purse, a bucket of coins, or a man’s wallet. What Ike had just described was neither of these things. Or perhaps, it was a combination of both.
The door to the suite banged open, and Shaz made her entrance, dressed in a glittering hostess costume and a fake casino smile.
“Where’s old smelly?” she asked.
“On the balcony talking to the boss,” Ike said.
“Has he figured out how we got robbed?” she asked.
“I don’t think so,” Ike said.
“That son of a bitch is out there, having a laugh at our expense,” she said. “If I ever get my hands on that skinny bastard, I’ll kill him. You’re a thief—tell me how we catch this guy.”
She was looking at Billy as she spoke these words. It occurred to him that the theft would be figured out eventually, either by a smart cop or a gaming agent. It was too obvious not to be. Better for him to do it, and get something in return, he decided.
“I can catch him, if you want,” he said.
“Aren’t we being cute.”
“I can.”
“Don’t fuck with me, you little shit.”
“I’ll figure it out in ten minutes.”
She drew closer, her nose sniffing the air. “You smell like perfume. What have you been doing, banging one of your babes?”
“You want me to help you or not?”
“So sensitive. Men are stupid when they’re getting pussy. Yes, I want you to help me.”
“Show me the surveillance tape, and I’ll tell you how to find your thief.”
“You can do that?”
He nodded. He was 99 percent certain of how the theft had gone down; seeing the surveillance tape would only confirm it. Shaz produced a smartphone and punched an app. A surveillance tape of Galaxy’s cage played on the small screen. A skinny motorcycle dude wearing a helmet with a black visor came up to the bars and stuck a .45 in the face of an older female cashier with a beehive hairdo. A cloth bag was pushed through the bars, and the cashier stuffed it with money and passed the bag back through. The motorcycle dude disappeared, and the cashier sounded the alarm.
He looked up into Shaz’s cold blue eyes. “Cashier’s involved.”
“Give me a break. You can tell that by watching one time?”
“It’s obvious, if you know what to look for.”
“Show me.”
Watching the tape again, he said, “There are three bill drawers inside the cage. The drawer directly beneath the bars contains singles, fives, tens. The next drawer contains twenties and fifties, and the last drawer contains hundreds. Watch the cashier when she’s given the bag. She goes directly to the hundreds drawer. Another cashier would have dumped stacks of twenties into the bag, and only taken the hundreds if your thief had told her to. Your cashier’s part of it.”
Shaz lowered the phone and looked at him, still not quite there.
“The tip-off was the score. You can’t steal a hundred grand without inside help,” he said.
“So you knew it before I showed you the tape.”
“I had a good idea. The tape confirmed what I knew.”
“Why didn’t that asshole Crunchie see this?”
“Maybe he needs a new pair of glasses.”
She let out a mean little laugh, leaned in as if to kiss him; instead she sank her teeth into his earlobe and tugged it hard, sending him to the floor. A different kind of mating ritual, he supposed. Going to the slider, she banged on it with her fist. Crunchie
came inside, red-faced from the tongue-lashing he’d just received.
“Pretty boy figured it out,” she said. “We need to tell Marcus.”
The look on Crunchie’s face said he wanted to kill Billy. Shaz went to the door and the old grifter followed her liked a whipped pup. She turned before going out.
“Stay here,” she told the punishers, “and don’t take your eyes off this little bastard.”
EIGHTEEN
Billy and the punishers watched The Price Is Right in the suite. Soon, they’d get a call telling them the guilty cashier and her partner had been arrested and the stolen loot recovered. A couple of hours at most, he guessed.
Billy felt certain about this, because he knew how the town worked. In Vegas, the only thing that mattered was the money generated by the casinos. Vegas had no industry, no port to ship out of, no mini-Silicon Valley to attract venture capital. Without the casinos’ uninterrupted cash flow, the beautiful golf courses would turn brown, the hotels would go ominously dark, and ninety thousand workers would end up singing the blues in the unemployment lines.
The guilty cashier was in a world of trouble. It would start with the cops going to her house, arresting her, and tearing her place apart. If the stolen money wasn’t found, they’d sit the cashier down and threaten her. If she refused to talk, handcuffs would be slapped on her wrists so tightly that the circulation would be cut off, and she’d be taken outside and shoved into the back of a cruiser, windows up, with no AC, where she’d be left to bake for a while.
The cashier would eventually break down—they always did—and roll on her accomplice. The cops would drive straight to the accomplice’s house and repeat the ritual until the stolen money was recovered. Only then would the suspects be taken to jail and booked and be given an opportunity to call their lawyers.
That was how the system worked. Anyone who robbed a casino in Vegas was treated worse than a rabid dog. There were no exceptions to these rules.
The landline in the suite rang. Ike answered it, then hung up.
“Doucette wants to talk to you. You were right about the cashier,” Ike said.
“Did he tell you who the accomplice was?” he asked.
“Sure did,” Ike said.
“Are you going to tell me?”
“Figure it out yourself.”
Ike was being a prick and not sharing information, a typical trait of lowlifes.
“It was the cashier’s son,” Billy said.
“How the hell did you know that?” Ike asked.
“Her age. She’s in her late fifties; the dude wearing the motorcycle helmet had the body of a guy in his twenties. Not her boyfriend or her husband, must be her son.”
Ike rocked back on his heels. “That’s fucked,” he said.
To reach the penthouse, Ike had to punch a five-digit code into the elevator’s keypad, a feat that took several tries before he got the combination right.
“You took too many hits to the head,” T-Bird told him.
“That’s ’cause I played more than you,” Ike said.
The delay gave Billy a chance to take a closer look at the two men. Both wore tailored clothes, black limited-edition Rolexes, and enough jewelry to make a pawnbroker hard. They dressed like players, and he wondered how much Doucette was paying them. Fifty grand a year? Sixty? A decent salary, but not enough to pay for the threads and the bling. The real money was coming from ripping people off, the way they’d done to him last night.
Doucette was on a call as they entered, his wife hovering behind him. The casino boss motioned toward the chair in front of his desk, which Billy took. Crunchie had been banished to the other side of the office and stood glum-faced, Stetson in hand.
“Please give my thanks to the sheriff for handling this in such a professional and timely manner,” Doucette gushed into the phone, sounding like a used-car salesman. “You guys are the best, and I sincerely mean that. If there’s anything I can do for the department, don’t hesitate to give me a call. My door is always open for you. Thanks again. Have a great day.”
Doucette ended the call. Justice had been served, and the casino boss was happy with the outcome. Billy hated to burst his bubble but did so anyway. The more information he could feed Doucette, the more level the playing field became between them.
“You’re not going to get all of it back,” he informed him.
Doucette’s smile evaporated. “I’m not?”
“No. You might as well know now.”
“The cops are going to take a cut, is that the deal?”
“Afraid so.”
“Is there anything I can do about it?”
“Not really.”
“Is that true?” Doucette asked Crunchie.
“Billy’s telling you the truth,” the old grifter said from across the room.
“How much will they take?”
“Fifteen, maybe twenty grand,” Billy said.
“That’s highway robbery.”
“Think of it as a handling fee.”
“You trying to be funny?”
“I’m just telling you how things work, that’s all. You’re new to town.”
“What do they do, split it up among themselves?” Doucette asked, curious now.
How the Metro LVPD chopped up their ill-gotten gains was their business, and Billy said, “I have no idea. Look on the bright side. In the old days, they’d have taken half.”
“You’re shitting me. Did they do that to the mob?”
“Sure. Despite what people think, the mob never ran this town. The sheriff’s department did, and still does.”
Doucette was getting a deal; he just didn’t know it. From his desk drawer he removed the gaffed Slots A Fun chip and the gaffed cigarette pack and tossed them on the desk. “I want to go over our deal again so we’re clear. In return for you stopping the Gypsies from scamming me, I’ll give you your toys back, and I’ll have my people erase the surveillance tapes of you using your mirror at our blackjack tables. That sound right to you?”
“What about my crew?” Billy asked.
“Crunchie has their names on a slip of paper,” Doucette said. “He’ll tear it up, and your friends will be home free. Now, are we in agreement?”
“Sounds good to me,” he said.
“You’re going to be given free rein to walk around my casino,” the casino boss went on. “You’ll get twenty grand in chips to play with, which you’ll turn in each night. We’ll be watching you every minute so make sure you behave. If you try to swindle me, my wife and I are going to flip a coin to see who beats you to death with a baseball bat. I’m not kidding. I know you just saved me a lot of money, but that doesn’t give you a license to rip me off. Keep your nose clean, and I won’t hurt you.”
Billy knew they’d do it, too, and wondered if they’d film it and watch it on the big flat screen in their bedroom while they snorted cocaine and screwed.
“I won’t rip you off, and that’s a promise,” he said.
Doucette motioned for his guest to rise. Billy stood up.
“Lose the shades,” the casino boss said.
Billy did as told. Doucette shook his head disapprovingly. “Can’t have you walking around my casino looking like that. Honey, can you make him look pretty again?”
Shaz’s eyes were glistening, and she seemed to be getting off on the miserable state of Billy’s appearance.
“I can try,” she said.
“Did you ever hustle?” he asked.
They were back in his suite, Shaz next to him in a chair, applying pancake to his bruises and his black eye, her tits in his face, her breath hot and, no doubt, filled with plans. Either she would get him in the sack or she’d bash his brains in with a baseball bat; it didn’t seem to matter, just as long as she got him in the end.
“For Christ’s sake, sit sti
ll,” she said.
“Did you?” he asked again.
“You think I was a hooker?” she said, not sounding the least bit offended.
“I meant as a grifter.”
“What do you think?”
“I think you did. You fooled me last night at the hostess stand. I never saw it coming.”
She gave a sweet little laugh that didn’t resemble the monster he knew. “I used to strip at a men’s club called Jumbo’s Clown Room in LA. I took home more money than any other girl at the club. Does that make me a hustler?”
“You got suckers to part with their money. What else did you do?”
“You talk too much. Shut up before I poke your eye out.”
She dabbed his face with a small sponge and kept breathing on him. On the other side of the suite, Ike and T-Bird shared the couch, talking in a conspiratorial tone. Plotting their next rip-off, he guessed. Crunchie was outside on the balcony on his cell phone. His story about his long-lost daughter was half true. He had a drug-addicted twenty-six-year-old son in Seattle he’d recently become acquainted with, and his son had called his father to beg for money, putting the old grifter in a foul mood.
“You know how I figured it out?” he said. “It was the way you handled me. You never missed a beat, didn’t give me a reason to be suspicious. You did more than just strip, didn’t you?”
“How’d you like me to bite your tongue out?” she asked.
“Before or after we fuck?”
“Aren’t we clever? Now shut up and let me finish.”
She went back to repairing his face. Her breathing had become accelerated and her nostrils were flared. She was wound way too tight, and Billy waited for her to calm down before he spoke again.
“If you don’t tell me, I’ll get Ike and T-Bird liquored up tonight, and they’ll tell me. I’d rather hear it from you.”
She put the pancake down and rested her elbows on the arm of his chair, so close that he could have kissed her. “Why do you fucking care? What’s in it for you?”