Take Down

by James Swain

  “Let’s go,” Travis said. “The getaway car’s parked in back.”

  “I thought Billy said there’d be two of you,” Ike said.

  “No, just me,” Travis said.

  They moved in tandem toward the casino’s back entrance. Travis walked backward, never taking his eyes off Ike or T-Bird. Ike sensed motion behind him and looked over his shoulder. Misty had gone AWOL. Pepper was still there, holding the briefcase with the money orders. Ike drew a gun from his pocket and pointed it at her.

  “Eeek,” Pepper said.

  Ike relieved her of the money orders. “Don’t follow us, or I’ll clip you.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Pepper said.

  Ike and T-Bird bolted out of the casino. The baby-faced guys who were part of Billy’s crew had parked a red Chevy Malibu in a spot by the back entrance and were standing beside it, in anticipation of making their escape. Seeing Ike’s gun, they both turned pale.

  “Go stand in the grass,” Ike said.

  The baby-faced ones did as told. Ike got behind the wheel of the rental, while T-Bird rode shotgun. The keys were stuck in the ignition. Ike turned over the engine and hit the gas, making the engine roar. He circled the massive parking lot searching for the exit.

  “We did it, man. We’re rich,” Ike said.

  “Sunny Mexico, here we come,” T-Bird said.

  “Did you see their faces? Wish I had a camera.”

  Ike found the exit and took the turn on two wheels. He’d mapped out their escape plan that morning; they’d take the back roads to Spring Mountain Road, drive west to the freeway, and head due south to the California state line. From there it would be a leisurely drive to San Diego and across the border to the promised land, where they’d spend the rest of their days hanging out in their big hacienda, living in the lap of luxury.

  T-Bird held the briefcase with the loot in his lap. “Holy shit.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It changed color.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “The briefcase changed color. It was black inside the casino; now it’s dark brown.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “I ain’t kidding you, man. It changed.”

  It was at that moment that Ike knew they’d been double-crossed. Misty disappearing, only one guy inside the casino to help when there were supposed to be two. Billy had figured out they were going to rip him off, so the little guy had beaten them to the punch.

  “Open it,” Ike said.

  T-Bird popped the clasps and lifted the lid. “Fucking shit! It’s filled with rocks!”

  “Surprise, surprise.”

  “Turn around. Come on, do it!”

  Ike wasn’t paying attention, his eyes focused on the roadblock at the end of the street. A line of men wearing bulletproof vests were pointing high-powered rifles and shotguns at the rental’s windshield, ready to mow them down. Ike’s foot touched the brake but didn’t press down. What was the point? They’d just end up rotting to death in some crummy federal pen with a thousand other losers. That was not the way he wanted to check out. Better to do it in style.

  Seconds later, the first bullet penetrated the windshield. T-Bird jumped in his seat and then slumped forward with his chin resting on his chest, never knowing what hit him.

  “I’m right behind you,” Ike said.

  Rock stood at rigid attention in front of the flat-screen TVs, watching the mayhem unfold. Punches thrown, bodies flying, the lavish hotel lobby and its beautiful furnishings trashed by the army of determined gaming agents that had raided his casino. His security staff was putting up a decent fight but was outgunned and would ultimately lose to a superior foe. That was the law of the jungle, and it was only a matter of time before the gaming agents came upstairs to arrest him. Clutched in his hand was his walking stick, whose ornate handle he smacked viciously into his open palm. His bodyguards flanked him, unsure what to do.

  The landline on the desk rang.

  “Answer it,” the drug kingpin barked.

  Doucette and his wife had taken up positions behind the couch, afraid of Rock’s wrath. Doucette sprinted to the desk and hit a button on the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “This is Don Winter, the cage manager. We’ve been robbed. The money orders are gone,” came the man’s weakened voice out of the speaker.

  “What?”

  “It was Ike. He and his partner stole the money orders.”

  “Ask him where he is,” Rock said.

  “Where are you?” Doucette asked.

  “By the cage. I’m hurt,” the cage manager replied.

  “Give me the remote,” Rock said.

  One of the bodyguards found the remote. Rock punched in a command, and the images on the TVs changed to show Don standing outside the cage with a cell phone. Don was having trouble keeping his balance and listed from side to side.

  Rock crossed the office and brought his mouth next to the speaker.

  “How much did Ike steal from us?” Rock said to the speaker.

  “Who’s this?” the cage manager asked.

  “The person you were supposed to give the money orders to.”

  On the screen, Don started coughing. A reflexive action, born from fear.

  “Answer the question,” Rock barked.

  “He got all eight million,” the cage manager said.

  “How the fuck am I gonna pay my dealers back in LA!”

  “I don’t know,” the cage manager said.

  Rock brought his fist down on the speaker, disconnecting the call. Then Rock played back the events of the past twenty minutes and realized that while he’d been watching the Gypsies scam him, another scam had been taking place. There was no doubt in his mind that Cunningham had orchestrated this; Ike and T-Bird were too brain-dead to scam a casino and get away with it.

  Rock shifted his gaze to Doucette. “Your guy ripped me off.”

  “You’re not blaming me, are you?” Doucette said.

  “Yes. I trusted you, and you failed me.”

  “Wait a minute—I’ve got an idea,” Doucette said.

  Doucette removed an abstract painting from the wall and spun the dial of a combination safe. It sprang open, and he pulled out stacks of crisp hundred-dollar bills, which he tried to give to Rock’s bodyguards. The bodyguards refused to take the money, and Doucette tentatively approached Rock. The drug kingpin shook his head and scowled.

  “Give the money to your dealers, tell them the rest is coming,” Doucette said.

  “Coming from where?” Rock said.

  “I don’t know. I’ll think of something.”

  “You’ve never had a smart idea in your life.”

  “Come on, Rock, I’ve always been loyal.”

  In Rock’s experience, those who proclaimed their loyalty were usually the first to roll on him. He clutched his walking stick with both hands and took a practice swing. The stacks of bills spilled from Doucette’s hands to the floor, and the casino boss started backing up.

  “No, please,” Doucette begged.

  “I’ll make it painless, if that makes you feel better,” Rock said.

  Doucette tripped over his own feet and fell backward onto the couch. His arms shot out and he begged for mercy. Rock didn’t know the meaning of the word and came forward.

  A shot rang out. One of the TV screens imploded, the image of Don the cage manager cascading to the floor in a thousand pieces. The bullet had sailed by Rock’s head, yet the drug kingpin hadn’t flinched. It wasn’t the first time he’d been shot at.

  Shaz stood behind her husband’s desk, holding a silver-plated handgun she’d pulled from the center drawer, her arms trembling in fear.

  “Leave him alone,” she declared.

  “And if I do
n’t?” Rock said.

  “I’ll shoot you, and those dumb Mexican bitches as well.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “I’m not kidding, Rock.”

  “Why you doing this? I thought Marcus was just a meal ticket.”

  “Maybe so, but he’s the only one I’ve got. Stay away from him.”

  Rock had already decided how he was going to handle the situation. He dipped his chin, and his bodyguards drew knives from their sleeves, the polished blades sparkling in the bright daylight. Before joining his organization, they’d murdered scores of rival members of the drug cartel they’d worked for. Killing was in their blood, and their faces took on feral expressions.

  “Take her out.”

  With feline quickness they crossed the office and attacked from opposite sides. Shaz fired at them amateurishly, the bullets spraying the walls. One of the bodyguards caught a ricochet and brought her hand up to her chest in surprise.

  The second bodyguard let out a cry for her wounded comrade. She knocked the gun away and began poking Shaz in the abdomen with the point of her knife, determined to make her suffer. Shaz was a dead woman; she just didn’t know it yet.

  Rock shifted his attention to Doucette, who was crawling on his knees toward the door in a sorry attempt to escape. Rock despised weakness and realized what a terrible mistake he’d made trusting Doucette to run his casino. He got on top of the casino boss and raised his walking stick.

  “Say your prayers.”

  SIXTY-ONE

  Cory and Morris watched the rental peel out of the casino parking lot. Ike and T-Bird were going to be in for a rude surprise when they discovered the briefcase was filled with rocks.

  Their job done, they began the long walk around the property to the Strip. The escape plan called for them to grab a cab and head back to Gabe’s. Vegas cabs were not allowed to pick up rides in the street, and they had already scoped out a taxi stand a block from Galaxy.

  Cory was sick with worry. He’d forgotten to wear his disguise inside the casino, which was the worst mistake a cheater could make. He decided to confess to Billy before Gabe told Billy what he’d done. That way, he’d have a chance to apologize and beg for mercy. But before he did that, he needed to tell Morris. It was only fair that Morris knew first.

  “Listen, man, I’ve got a confession to make,” Cory said.

  “This sounds bad,” Morris said.

  “It is.”

  “Worse than the time we were sharing a bed and you had the runs?”

  “Much worse.”

  “Lay it on me.”

  A sickening barrage of gunfire ripped a hole in the afternoon air, the sound coming from the street where the two ex-gridiron stars had just gone. Across the parking lot, a door to an NV Energy truck banged open, and gaming agents wearing NV uniforms piled out, brandishing guns.

  “It’s a raid. Get inside,” Cory said.

  Inside they found another bad scene. Cory grabbed a cocktail waitress and learned that a brawl in the lobby had spread and people were panicking.

  They decided to try the front entrance and hustled across the casino floor. Mobs of players huddled around the felt-covered tables, while dealers and pit bosses stood statue-like at their posts, guarding the trays of precious chips in their possession.

  The hotel lobby was no better. A crowd had gathered and was trying to leave. Blocking their way was a line of stern-faced gaming agents checking ID.

  “Maybe there’s another exit we can use,” Cory said.

  They retreated into the casino. The gaming agents disguised as NV workers were now blocking the rear exit, setting the trap, and Cory knew what that meant: arrest, bail, lawyers, and if the crew got lucky, a plea deal that would let them get out of the slammer before they were wrinkled and gray. Or maybe there was a solution right in front of his face that he wasn’t seeing. He walked over to a Wheel of Fortune slot machine and fed a crisp twenty into the bill feeder.

  “Are you crazy? What are you doing?” Morris asked.

  “Thinking,” Cory said.

  “Hurry up, man.”

  The slots in the Strip casinos were tight, and his money was gone in the blink of an eye. As he donated another twenty to the machine, Travis and Gabe took a pair of seats beside him.

  “What happened to the assholes?” Travis asked.

  “I think the cops took them out,” Cory said.

  Pepper and Misty took the chairs next to Gabe and Travis, still wearing their Mexican hit-women disguises. Misty dropped the briefcase with the money orders to the floor.

  “That sucker’s heavy. Anyone seen Billy?” Misty asked.

  “Billy just texted me,” Travis said. “He wants to meet up in the men’s room.”

  “Why there?” Misty asked.

  “No surveillance cameras in the john,” Travis explained.

  Billy sat on the elevated chair in the shoe-shine stand and studied his crew as they came in. No one was freaking out or crying. That was good, because they needed to stay calm if the plan he’d hatched to get them out of the casino was going to work.

  A plastic bag lay at his feet. He picked it up and passed out the ball caps, T-shirts, and cheap pairs of sunglasses he’d lifted from one of the casino’s clothing stores.

  “Put these on. We got made earlier in the parking lot,” he explained.

  As his crew donned their new disguises, he continued to study them. “I think I can get you out of here without anyone getting busted. But you need to listen closely.”

  That got their attention. They huddled up, and he explained how he wanted them to go to the lobby and split up. He was going to create a diversion that would allow them to get outside, and their chances of escaping increased dramatically if they ran away individually. It was an old trick dating back to the Wild West, when cheaters would escape from town by riding in opposite directions on their horses, making it harder for the sheriff to chase them down.

  “What about you? How are you getting out?” Travis asked.

  “Don’t worry about me,” Billy said.

  His crew filed out of the john. He touched Misty’s sleeve and told her to stay.

  “How do you like carrying eight million bucks around?” he asked.

  “It’s scary. I keep thinking I’m going to get busted,” she said.

  “I’ve got a plan for that, too.”

  “You’ve got a plan for everything.”

  He’d taught every member of his crew how to count cards at blackjack. He used the basic Hi-Low system, in which point values were assigned to each card dealt that allowed the player to keep a running count of the deck’s composition. He did this so his crew would have an alternate means of income, and also to test their memories. Misty had easily picked up the skill and proven to have a memory as good as his own. He explained what he wanted done with the money orders, then gave her the code to the service elevator that he’d seen Ike use the day before to reach the unfinished fourteenth floor of the hotel. She repeated the instructions and code back to him.

  “Text me when you’re done,” he said.

  “How are you getting out?” she asked, repeating Travis’s concern.

  “I’ll think of something. One more thing.” He placed the suitcase on the sink and transferred the money orders into the plastic shopping bag the gifts had come in.

  “You think of everything,” she said.

  Misty left, and he doused his face with cold water in the sink. He’d forgotten to steal a disguise for himself, which was going to make it harder for him to get out of the casino, but not impossible.

  The minutes slipped by. One by one, his crew texted they were ready. Misty’s text came last. He’d given her a tricky job, and he wondered how she was dealing with the responsibility of hiding the score. Would she rise to the challenge, or fall flat on her face?

 
Reading her text, he knew he’d made the right decision. The money orders were safe.

  He returned to the casino and sat down with a group of slot queens who didn’t seem fazed that the joint was being raided. Slot queens came from all walks of life and all social strata. What joined them at the hip was the fact that they’d all won a jackpot the very first time they’d played a slot machine, and believed that Lady Luck smiled down upon them.

  He tapped one of the ladies on the shoulder. She had dyed-red hair and wore a crushed-velvet jumpsuit, and refused to make eye contact, her eyes glued to her machine.

  “Do you smell that?” he asked.

  “Smell what?” the slot queen replied.

  “Smoke. I think it’s coming out of the air vents.”

  The slot queen faced him. “Do you think there’s a fire in the hotel?”

  “Could be. I just wanted to warn you.”

  “Oh my God, I do smell it. Girls, the hotel is burning down!”

  The slot queens abandoned their machines and made a mass exodus to the lobby. Decades before, a flash fire at the MGM had taken so many lives that the city’s leaders had been shamed into changing the town’s fire code. Now there were fire alarms inside every casino. One such alarm was in the hallway leading to the lobby. One of the slot queens beat him to the punch and pulled away the steel mesh and jerked the handle. A piercing alarm went off.

  The lobby was a zoo, with patrons being screened by gaming agents before being allowed to leave. Grimes was running the show and checked faces against a piece of paper clutched in his hand. Mags was nowhere to be seen, and Billy guessed she’d been carted off to jail.

  There was a lot of noise, and it drowned out the alarm. The MacGregor family reunion took up the end of the line, recognizable by their matching lime-green polo shirts and Irish mugs. He got the attention of an elderly woman that appeared to be the family matriarch.

  “Did you hear that?” he shouted.

  “Excuse me? Are you talking to me?” the elderly woman shouted back.

  “That sound. I think it’s a fire alarm.”