The Emperor of Vegas

by Ryan Stygar

  “You know,” Andrew said. “I can’t do anything unless Lukas and Mikhail Petrov are on board. They run the show, not me.”

  “Oh they’re already on board. It’s a small price to pay for complete legal immunity.”

  “I don’t understand… I work directly under Lukas Petrov. If he already took the deal then why would you need anything from me?”

  “Because he doesn’t know that I’ll be getting a copy of all his opium contacts,” Wyatt said with a wink. “Do you catch my drift? There are very wealthy men in this city who would pay a fortune for some of that information. We’ll start small, selling a few contacts here and there to the highest bidders. Long term we might turn the whole thing over for a massive buyout,” Wyatt rubbed his hands together greedily. “The possibilities are endless! Of course I’ll happily pay you a commission for the information.”

  Andrew shook his head. “If the Petrovs find out what I’m doing with their contacts…”

  “You’ll be fine,” Wyatt assured him. “The plan is airtight, I’ll make sure of that, but none of this works without your cooperation. That won’t be a problem, will it?”

  “It’s incredibly risky.”

  Wyatt squinted his eyes at him. “What’s risky,” he growled, “is what happens when I tell the prison guards to stick you in a cell with the biggest, craziest bastard they can find.”

  Andrew winced. Wyatt cooled his tone and leaned into Andrew’s ear.

  “So what’s it gonna be kiddo? Do we have a deal?”

  “It’s not like I have much of a choice,” Andrew said. “I’ll take the deal.”

  Wyatt grinned like the Big Bad Wolf.

  “Very good. Let’s get started.”

  3

  One Year Later, Sunset View Motel, Las Vegas, 7:00pm

  A dam Friend shifted his weight to ease the pain radiating from his tired knees. For the hundredth time since slipping into hiding he glanced at his digital wristwatch. Ghostly green numbers were the only source of light in the dark space, which measured no more than four square feet. Adam tried playing a game to keep from going insane during his hours-long stake-out; closing his eyes for as long as he could and then estimating how much time would have passed when he opened them again.

  Dishearteningly, he grossly overestimated the slow passage of time in every attempt. Seconds felt like minutes and minutes felt like hours.

  He’d never been stuck in such a small place for so long. The morning sun was barely rising when he first sneaked into the motel room and hid in its closet. It was high noon when he first felt the uncomfortable sensation of nature’s call.

  At first he tried to ignore the feeling. But with each passing hour the urge to relieve himself grew stronger and more desperate.

  “Piss-poor timing,” he sighed. Puns aside, if there was an absolute worst-possible moment for a bathroom break, surely this was it.

  His thoughts trailed to the room’s toilet. Relief was only seven yards away, but to make the attempt would risk being caught red-handed before he had a chance to do the job.

  It was a gamble he refused to make, so he suffered in silence.

  The clothing from his day job only exacerbated his discomfort. The work uniform for the Sumatra Hotel and Casino felt as if it was specifically designed to torment the valets who wore it. It consisted of a collared shirt, an inflexible pair of slacks, a vest so thick that it was known to cause heat exhaustion in the summer months, and a heavy metal nametag that weighed it all down from the front.

  Nametag!

  He yanked the metal tag from his vest and jammed it into his back pocket with a curse. Attempting a hit with his name and occupation pinned to his chest was an amateur mistake.

  But that’s what he was, an amateur. It was his first professional hit job. Tonight Adam Friend was going to wait for Andrew Kremenski to return to his room. Once he was asleep, Adam would sneak out of the closet, hoist that heavy tire iron over his head, and bring it crashing down through Andrew Kremenski’s skull.

  Adam sighed. He was broke, hungry, and desperate. But was he really desperate enough to do this?

  Well, he didn’t spend all day hiding in a closet just for the fun of it. His back was against the proverbial wall; killing Andrew Kremenski was his only way out.

  More time passed and the pressure in his bladder seemed to surge again. For an instant he thought the organ was about to burst and his thoughts trailed again to the toilet.

  No. His survival instincts refused to risk it. There was no sense jeopardizing the whole operation trying to sneak a quick leak before his target arrived. What if this guy comes back to his room right when I’m standing there mid-piss? No element of surprise, my wiener dangling out of my pants while I try to fight him off. I’ll be dead in seconds.

  The sting returned with such a vengeance that his eyes watered. There was no way he could hold off until Andrew Kremenski was dead. It had to happen and it had to happen now. Humiliated as much as he was relieved, he allowed his body to do what it had been begging to do for hours.

  This is the single lowest point of my life, he thought as the pressure melted away. Pissing my pants like a child, all so I can sneak up on a stranger to kill him in his sleep. After years of barely getting by, Adam Friend had finally hit rock bottom.

  He coughed at the stuffy stench of urine wafting up from the ground. Breathing through his mouth helped manage the worst of the humid, stinking air, but the tiny space only seemed to shrink as Adam looked around him.

  Outside the slatted faux wood door, the room’s single window overlooked the motel’s parking lot and faced the Strip. It was dusk. After the sun dipped below the purple mountains to the west, an eerie orange glow filled the empty motel room. It was the magic hour. A few blocks away, Vegas was stirring; shaking off her day-long slumber and preparing for another sleepless night.

  A sound outside of the room snatched Adam’s attention.

  Stairs groaned beneath the weight of a body moving up the stairwell and turning into the second floor hallway. Old floorboards creaked as the unseen person walked down the hall. There was a beat of silence after the steps reached their destination, then a pair of keys jingled.

  “Ohhhh shit! Shit!” Adam whispered, clutching his tire iron tighter than ever.

  The lock turned over with a click that sent a surge of adrenaline through Adam’s guts. Get it together! It’s too late to turn back now!

  A pair of voices grew clearer and louder when the door was opened. Two men entered the room one after the other. Adam’s heart stopped in his chest.

  Andrew Kremenski had arrived, but he wasn’t alone.

  4

  “H ey Ian,” Andrew said as he walked inside, “can you start splitting all this up? I have to take a leak.”

  “Sure thing pal,” the man named Ian answered. “Yikes. This place is kind of a dump.”

  “It’s the safest spot to do this, trust me. Cops never come out here.”

  “Whatever you say…”

  Adam had no idea what the hell was going on. The man who hired him, a mysterious stranger he knew only as “Joe”, never mentioned anything about a guy named Ian. Did Joe expect him to kill both these guys? That didn’t make any sense; Joe definitely would have said something if this was a double-hit, right?

  Ian’s voice was no more than six or seven feet from where Adam hid.

  “Hey, I’m cracking open a cold one. You want a beer?”

  “Yeah why not?” Andrew replied from the bathroom.

  A sinking feeling weighed against Adam’s chest. There was supposed to be one guy, just one! He never considered what would happen if an uninvited guest tried to crash his little murder-party.

  Adam shuffled closer to peer through the slatted door, noting with awe that the two duffel bags by Ian’s feet were bursting with cash.

  Andrew emerged from the bathroom. Although the view was tight, Adam could see he was an averaged sized man with Slavic facial features. Andrew wore a slightly undersized gr
ay suit and a black tie that hung loose around his neck.

  “It’s been a hell of a ride, buddy,” Andrew said, accepting a beer from his companion. His voice carried the slightest trace of a Russian accent, as if he’d been born in Russia but had spent most of his life in the States. Ian’s voice carried no such hints as to his origins, although Adam thought he sounded like a local.

  “You know, I really thought you were crazy when you said we could to steal all this. But now that it’s all here right in front of me…” Ian shook his head with a smile. “I have to admit you’ve got some serious cahones partner.”

  Andrew gave a little bow. “What can I say? I’m good at what I do,”

  “You’re not worried about Wyatt?”

  “Nah. Wyatt’s a scumbag, stealing from him is almost fun. And the Petrovs don’t have a clue what’s going on. Mikhail is an alcoholic with a gambling addiction and Lukas is more interested in chasing local tail than running his dad’s business. Seriously, I doubt they’ll notice anything is missing until it’s too late.”

  “How much did Wyatt offer to pay you for the book?”

  Andrew scoffed. “Nothing. He just threatened to lock me up if I didn’t get it to him by tomorrow.”

  Ian grinned. “Well, it looks like Dimitri Jordan is the highest bidder, wouldn’t you say?”

  Andrew slapped his hand against his knee like an auctioneer’s gavel. “Sold! For five million dollars!”

  They both laughed.

  Ian fanned out a strap of cash to make sure it was all there before setting it into one of the piles. He and Andrew repeated the process as they spoke, creating two large piles of equal amounts. “So what’s next for you?” Ian asked. “I mean, Wyatt’s gonna go berserk when he realizes you went behind his back to sell this stuff. And once Dimitri Jordan gets it he’ll start cutting out the Russians right away. Unless I’m missing something, I think I’m the only friend you have left. You’d better have an exit strategy.”

  Andrew pulled a metal binder from one of the bags and tapped against it with a grin. “And miss all those opportunities to auction off the Petrov family secrets?”

  “Don’t be cute,” Ian said. “Seriously. I want to know you have a real plan to get away from this alive. What’s your next move?”

  Andrew shrugged. “I spent a year getting close enough to the Petrovs to gain access to their opium contacts. Now that I have them do you really think I’ll leave just because the heat’s getting turned up a few notches? Believe me, I never would have gone through with this if I didn’t have a plan.”

  Ian pressed his point. “Unless it’s a plan to leave town I don’t think it will be good enough. Things have changed out here… did you see what happened to those dealers down in Paradise?”

  Andrew’s lightheadedness faded. “Who didn’t? Those poor bastards… Jordan had them tortured one at a time so they had to watch each other die. Horrifying, absolutely horrifying,” With a shudder he sipped the cool beer as if to wash away the memory of the pixelated video he had seen a few nights earlier. It was common practice for Dimitri Jordan’s thugs to broadcast videos of executions on the dark web; evidence that the notorious gangster never made an empty threat.

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” Ian said with a low voice. “You know one of them was still begging for mercy even after his insides were all ripped out? He looked like an upturned bowl of spaghetti with his guts on the floor like that –

  “There’s no need for details!” Andrew cut in with a wince. “I saw the video,” With a breath he shook away his disgust and tried to rationalize what he had seen. “They owed Jordan’s gang a lot of money; the Sumatras never let debts go unsettled. What else did they think was gonna happen?”

  “Two thousand bucks, that’s all it was. They missed one drop. One. At the stroke of midnight that was it; no warnings, no negotiations, nothing. The White Fleet came for them while they slept,”

  “White Fleet?” Andrew asked.

  “Jordan has twelve Lieutenants that help him run the Sumatra gang,” Ian explained. “He rewards each of them with a penthouse in his hotel, a seven figure salary, and a brand new Range Rover SUV. Jordan likes the way pearl white paint looks so every car in his fleet is the same color. That’s why it’s called the White Fleet.”

  “Now that you mention it, I think I’ve seen those buzzing around town.”

  “The White Fleet conducts Jordan’s business on the ground. That’s what you saw. Andrew, I can’t tell you how important it is that you leave Vegas.”

  Andrew rapped against the metal binder again. “You’re acting like this isn’t worth anything!” he said. “This book is the key to a multi-million dollar opium business. I’ve made arrangements, Ian, I’ll be fine.”

  “Arrangements?”

  “That’s as specific as I should probably be, but trust me when I say I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You’re a loose end,” Ian muttered sadly. “If you’re in Vegas when Jordan starts killing Russians, you’ll be one of the first to go, arrangements won’t matter.”

  There was a pause. Adam felt all the blood drain from his face. What had he stepped into here? Hearing all that talk about the Russian mafia or whatever, it all caused an uneasy feeling inside him.

  Andrew put a hand on Ian’s shoulder. “Listen buddy, you’re freaking me out talking like that. I think all this sneaking around has finally got to your head.”

  “Andrew… you won’t survive out here. You have to know that it’s getting too dangerous. Take your money and leave –

  “Oh what are you my girlfriend now?” Andrew blurted. “I’m telling you I have a plan. I have people protecting me that are way more powerful than Sheriff Wyatt or the Petrovs or even Dimitri Jordan! When this is all over I’ll be rich and untouchable. You’ll see,”

  Ian gave up. He sincerely hoped Andrew was right, even if he didn’t believe it.

  Holy shit. Adam thought. The tire iron in his hand, which felt so sturdy when he first picked it up, suddenly felt flimsy and useless. He felt alone, outmatched. What the two gangsters were talking about… it was all so much bigger than him. So much bigger than his little murder-for-hire plot. He wasn’t going through with it; he couldn’t.

  5

  A dam remained hidden for another hour as the two men counted out the straps of cash one at a time until they reached a staggering total of five million dollars – the price that Dimitri Jordan was willing to pay for the key to the Russian opium business. They then split the cash into two equal shares and finished with a firm handshake.

  “Alright that does it,” Andrew said, grinning like a shark when he did. “That just leaves this.”

  He placed the metal binder on one of the beds.

  “It’s all here… everything you need to run a multi-million dollar opium business. If you guys really want to cut the Russians out of the operation then you’ll have to work quickly. All the information will be obsolete in a few weeks.”

  Ian pinched his thumb and forefinger together to make the “ok” sign. “Piece of cake,” he said. “I’m supposed to meet with one of Dimitri Jordan’s Lieutenants tomorrow morning.”

  There he went with all that gangster talk again. It scared the hell out of Adam. He wanted nothing more than to disappear from that awful room. He would just have to tell Joe that he was sorry and that he should find someone else for the job. Check that, Adam decided it was safer to just run away and hope that Joe never found him.

  “Tell you what,” Ian said. “How about we go out for a steak tonight? We’re five million dollars richer and I want to eat like it.”

  “Count me in. Let’s lock up the binder to be safe and go get a bite. I know a solid guy that can deposit our cash along the way.”

  “Sounds good to me. Where’s the safe?” Ian asked.

  “It’s in the closet. Combination is eight-three-four-two-seven.”

  Oh no…

  “Eight-three-four-two-seven,” Ian repeated.

  Ad
am listened helplessly as steps padded toward him.

  Ian’s shadow moved across the yellow lines of light in the slatted door. Dark shapes passed left, then right as Ian moved about the room. Adam squeezed the tire iron hard and tensed every muscle in his body. He wished he could be somewhere else, anywhere but there, but fate had other plans. He was on a collision course and he was powerless to stop it.

  Ian scrunched his nose. “Geez-us. Does this place smell like piss or what?”

  “It’s these cheap motels man, they all smell like piss,” Andrew responded.

  The doorknob clicked over.

  In an instant light poured into the little hiding place and Adam was completely exposed. Ian jumped at the sight of the piss-soaked stranger less than an arm’s length away from him.

  “WHOOAAA!!”

  “EEEEAAAHHH!!!”

  Adam exploded outward like a spring from a box. The iron’s chrome handle flashed against the light as Adam swung it up and brought it crashing down against Ian’s head. After the first blow stunned his target he smacked him again with the heavy socket – this time right across the face.

  Whap! Crack! Whap!

  Most of the blows landed on Ian’s body, but anything and everything within six feet of him was smashed to pieces. When Ian buckled to the floor Adam quickly spun around to engage his next target. Something flying toward his face triggered his instinct to duck, but he was a fraction of a second too slow.

  The beer bottle bounced off the top of Adam’s head and shattered against the wall behind him. It was a glancing blow, but it was more than enough to send overwhelming pain shooting from the top of his skull and down his spine. In an instant he lost his grip on the iron and stumbled.

  Andrew bared his teeth like an animal when he jumped across the room to attack. A fist slammed into Adam’s ribcage and sent him tumbling to the floor. A brutal kick to the belly followed, knocking the air right out of his lungs.