The Emperor of Vegas

by Ryan Stygar

  “I’m gathering the others now. We won’t let you down, Sir.”

  “I know you won’t. You are responsible for this inconvenience, Jacob,” Jordan said. “Call me when you’ve fixed it.”

  11

  Red Star Tower, Downtown Las Vegas, 11:00am

  T wo late-model Chevrolet Suburban SUVs rolled into the parking lot of Red Star Plaza. Against the reflective blue windows of the twenty-story corporate building, the mirror images of the black and white vehicles looked like a pair of killer whales lurking in the ocean’s depths. From the air-conditioned comfort of the lead car, Sheriff James Earl Wyatt ordered his driver to pull alongside the entrance of the building.

  “I’ll wait here,” he said to the joyless officers in the front. “Put all the cash in the car behind us; I don’t want it in here with me.”

  After a year of work, the day had finally come to collect on Wyatt’s investment in the Petrov Crime Family.

  Payday.

  He popped open a diet cola while his men were greeted by a pair of Russian suits and then escorted inside. It was all so easy. In a matter of minutes his officers were going to return with four million dollars – the annual fee for his protection racket with the Russians.

  Minutes passed without a sign of his men. Not to worry, Wyatt thought, they’re just inspecting the cash, counting it, doing their due diligence as they should. He briefly considered how much of the spoils he would use to reward his loyal team of dirty police officers. He would need enough to satisfy their greed, but not so much that they would no longer need the extra money. Six grand apiece was the sum he arrived at. The fools would blow through it in a month. Then they would come crawling back for more opportunities to serve the corrupt Sheriff.

  The glass doors whisked open and the police officers emerged. Wyatt scowled at their empty hands. He stormed out of his SUV to confront them.

  “What is the meaning of this?” he barked.

  “There was a problem,” a police captain with short blonde hair said.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Wyatt spat.

  The captain held out his palms. “Something happened last night, they say they don’t have the money.”

  Wyatt seized him by the vest. “Goddammit Williams!”

  “Sheriff please!” one of the officers implored. “There’s nothing Captain Williams can do. Lukas Petrov requested that you join him at the top floor, he says it’s urgent.”

  “Yeah no shit it’s urgent! Where the hell is my money?”

  “Sheriff please calm down,” another officer insisted. “He’s waiting for you, he says he can still get your money.”

  Wyatt released his grip on Captain William’s vest. Williams quickly stepped away from the Sheriff and straightened out his clothes; outbursts like that were not uncommon when Wyatt was displeased.

  “A year… a full year of work went into setting this up…” Wyatt growled. When the officers shrugged in return, Wyatt shook his head. “Okay… okay here’s what we do now; I want Captain Williams to stay with the vehicles, the other six of you will wait for me on the nineteenth floor. No one comes in or out while I’m with the Petrovs, understand? No intruders and, most important, no escapees either.”

  “Yes Sir,” they replied at once.

  “If the Russians try to pull anything I want you all to storm upstairs and start shooting anything that moves. No survivors, you hear me? If it comes to that then we’ll make the whole thing look like an internal power struggle and cover it up.”

  His personal entourage of police officers grunted in agreement and readied their weapons.

  Wyatt shook his head angrily. This was supposed to be the big day; he’d even made dinner reservations at the Venetian to celebrate. Those Russian bastards had better have a damn good excuse.

  

  Lukas Petrov paced by the floor to ceiling windows in his boardroom. From the twentieth floor, the windows offered a wide view of downtown, the mountains, and the Strip. Despite the breathtaking vista, his attention was entirely concentrated at the base of his own tower. In a rare moment of distress for the Spetsnaz veteran, he was wringing his hands as he watched Sheriff Wyatt’s entourage enter his building.

  “He’ll be up shortly,” he said to Mikhail Petrov, who was at the wet bar preparing his third whiskey cocktail of the day.

  “Where the hell are they?” Lukas asked for the fifth time in as many minutes. “Sergei and Niko were supposed to arrive hours ago. I spoke with them just last night, where could they be?”

  “Clearly something has happened,” Mikhail shrugged, dropping a cherry into his glass.

  Lukas had no answers. “We are at peace with Dimitri Jordan, officially at least. As of last night we had no external enemies.”

  “Kremenski then,” Mikhail concluded. “Could it have been him?”

  “I wouldn’t doubt it. But he’s supposed to be dead, Niko and Sergei witnessed it.”

  “What about the assassin? Have you heard from him?”

  Lukas frowned and shook his head. Taking a seat at the long Mahogany conference table he looked out the windows toward the Las Vegas Strip. Sunlight sparkled from the towering glass of the hotels and caused him to squint from the brightness. He’s out there somewhere, Lukas thought, he has to be.

  “Son?” Mikhail prompted, bringing Lukas back to the present.

  “No… I’ve heard nothing. I’m a fool for choosing an outsider. I should have just killed that treacherous worm Kremenski myself.”

  “And risk being caught by Jordan’s men?” his father interrupted. “Peace or no peace, Jordan and the Sumatra gang are dangerous men. You would have been crucified.”

  “I don’t have any real evidence that Jordan was involved. All we know is our master binder is gone and that Andrew Kremenski was the last person to have it.”

  “Deduction then,” Mikhail said with a sip of his whiskey. “Andrew does not have the means to run the business on his own, so there was no logical reason to steal that information except to sell it. If he was looking for the highest bidder then that could be no one but–

  “Dimitri Jordan,” father and son concluded together.

  Lukas shook his head. “I am still a good soldier, father. If Jordan sent men to protect Andrew I could have fought them off,”

  “Perhaps, but then what? War with the most powerful man in the city? That is pure foolishness! Dispel these thoughts from your mind; they are not useful. Sending men to observe while a stranger did the bloody work was the best strategy.”

  An attendant wearing a leather gun holster over his white dress shirt knocked twice and entered the room. In Russian he said, “Apologies for my interruption, Mr. Petrov. He’s here.”

  Lukas acknowledged the news with a wave. “Show him the way to the conference room.”

  “Dah,” the attendant answered, giving a slight bow.

  “Ivan,” Lukas said, catching the attendant before he left. “Your pistols… ensure you and your men keep them out of sight. I don’t want to provoke the police unnecessarily…”

  “Of course, Sir.”

  “Wise words,” Mikhail said after Ivan disappeared to fetch the crooked Sheriff.

  “Hopefully more will follow,” Lukas said. “I’m afraid I don’t have a plan.”

  Mikhail reached into the bar and produced a dusty bottle of Pappy Van Winkle’s whiskey. “We’re good on our feet, surely an opportunity will present itself and then we can arrange a deal. Wyatt can’t afford to kill us, not yet. I think we have more leverage than you realize.”

  He cracked the seal and poured a snifter of the expensive liquor for himself. With a crooked grin he raised the glass. “But in case I am wrong, I’d like to taste this vintage whiskey before we are killed.”

  Footsteps rumbled in the hallway. Lukas pressed his fingers against his temples while his father took a seat. “We are missing a binder full of our most sensitive secrets, an assassin, and two of our best men,” He made a sigh. “How could this get any wors
e?”

  Both men jumped in their seats when the doors flew open. Two Russian guards tried and failed to hold the fuming Sheriff back as he barreled into the conference room like and angry hog.

  “You sons of bitches have some explaining to do!” he roared.

  The ferocity of Watt’s entrance caused both men to hold up their palms defensively. Lukas tried to calm him down but his words had no effect.

  “We are still allies, Sheriff, let us work together.”

  “Piss! Allies?” Wyatt spit on the floor “You’re my servants you Russian dogs! I spared you… and the price for your freedom is four million untraceable dollars – annually. I could have ruined you, destroyed you, locked you away for the rest of your godforsaken lives! Now I expect to be paid!”

  “Sheriff please, these angry words will not help,” Mikhail said smoothly. Wyatt whipped around and jabbed a pudgy finger into the old man’s chest. “I don’t want to hear another goddamned word from you unless it is the precise time and place where you will have my money.”

  Lukas shot up from his seat. “That is enough Mr. Wyatt! You will insult my father no more, not here in my office,”

  “Excuse me?” Wyatt stormed up to Lukas so that they were nose to nose. It had been almost a full year since they had seen each other in person and Lukas noted that the old sheriff was much uglier than he recalled. With a great bulbous nose, eyes that looked as though they’d been pinched together by a pair of tweezers, and field of pock marks across his face, Wyatt looked like an awful union between a boar and Mr. Potato Head.

  “You are angry, we understand,” Lukas said with a firm chin. “But I will not allow you to insult my father,”

  Wyatt poked Lukas in the chest.

  “Oh I will insult whomever I please. Where is my money? Where is it? I don’t have time for your fucking games,”

  Lukas held firm. “You will get your money. It will be untraceable as you requested. But I cannot help you if you refuse to act civilized,”

  “Civilized?” Wyatt snarled. He took a step back, regarding the two Russians suspiciously. “Very well. You have five minutes to explain yourselves.”

  He crossed his arms and sat in his seat. Mikhail, being a well-seasoned reader of men, poured a double serving of whiskey into a glass and slid it to the Sheriff, who thanklessly wrapped a paw around the glass and drank deeply.

  Lukas got straight to the point. “Last night someone stole a very important item from us. I’ve sent men to search the city but we haven’t heard back from them yet.”

  In an unusual moment of temperance, Wyatt realized that berating Lukas wouldn’t do him any good. Wyatt gulped down the liquor and asked what exactly had been stolen.

  “As you are aware, our operation depends on secrecy,” Lukas answered. “So all our plans for bringing opium into the United States is kept guarded in a single location, offline of course. The critical information – contacts, flight schedules, things like that – they are constantly changing. To keep up with the changes we have a select team of men charged with keeping the master binder safe while I make the adjustments. Last night, however, it went missing. I believe we were betrayed by Andrew Kremenski, do you remember him?”

  Wyatt shrugged casually. Andrew Kremenski had helped him skim tens of thousands of dollars from the Petrov Crime Family over the past few months. Wyatt had to restrain the smile that nearly formed on his lips when he realized he had actually gotten away with it. “One of your guys right? We arrested him at the Marquee with you and your father, what about him?”

  “A few weeks ago we realized that Andrew was spending more money than we were paying him. New Rolex watch, new house, new BMW, new girlfriends… suspicious things like that. We pay our men well, but not that well. My father and I suspected he was either stealing from us or, worse yet, selling information to our rivals. Our worst fears were confirmed when a search of his phone records revealed several calls to known members of the Sumatra criminal network. We sent someone to kill him right away.”

  Wyatt spat out his whiskey. “You killed him!? If he’s working with the Sumatra gang then Dimitri Jordan could trace anyone you send right back to you! Do you realize what you have done?!”

  “Not to worry,” Mikhail assured him. “My son hired an outsider using a false identity. Even if our agent is compromised, Dimitri Jordan will never know who hired him.”

  “Andrew Kremenski is really dead then?” Wyatt asked wiping liquor off his uniform.

  “My men say he is,” Lukas answered.

  “Then where the hell is my money?”

  “I’m getting to that,” Lukas said. “I sent two men to observe the assassination from afar. Once the kill was completed they were ordered to execute my hitman and bury him in the desert, to tie up the loose end of course. From there they were supposed to recover all the stolen assets.”

  “That’s where your little plan went to shit, eh?” Wyatt snorted. “What happened?”

  “We don’t know,” Mikhail answered. “These are all recent events. It will take some time for us figure out what happened to our men and then get your money. We are working tirelessly to make this right,”

  “It’s all very time sensitive,” Lukas added. “You get your money after we sell the opium. But without the updated binder we don’t know who our contact at Nellis Air Force Base will be or when the shipment is arriving. If the product arrives with no one to pick it up then it won’t be long before the drugs are discovered sitting at the tarmac.”

  “Shit,” Wyatt said. “You are in a real tight spot if that happens, Mr. Petrov.”

  Lukas ignored the threat. “Regardless,” he said, “we must track down our master binder. It is the key to everything.”

  Wyatt raised one of his bushy white eyebrows. “First Andrew Kremenski betrays you, then your men disappear with the key to your whole enterprise? Is that what I’m hearing?”

  Lukas shook his head. “My men did not steal it, if that is your meaning.”

  “How can you be sure? It seems to me that your organization has a loyalty problem,” Wyatt said. He looked over at Mikhail. “How can I trust you when your own men are betraying you left and right?”

  “We are not being betrayed ‘left and right’,” Mikhail replied sourly.

  “If it were my men,” Wyatt suggested, “I’d pick one at random and have him tortured to death. Guilty or not, it doesn’t matter. The fear of reprisal is enough to keep any would-be conspirators in line.”

  “Las Vegas is lucky to have such a sheriff,” Mikhail quipped.

  Wyatt deflected his sarcasm. “Thank you, on this we are agreed.”

  Lukas opened his mouth to say something but Wyatt held up a finger when his cellphone rang.

  “Wyatt here,” he answered. His eyes narrowed after a few seconds spent listening to voice on the other end. “I see… and did they find anything? Uh huh… No, no that won’t be necessary. Have Sergeant Ramirez take command of the incident and wait for my arrival. I want to review his findings personally,”

  He hung up.

  There was a long period of silence. Lukas and Mikhail looked to each other but said nothing.

  “That was one of my officers,” Wyatt said after some time. “They found your men.”

  Mikhail was confused that the Sheriff didn’t appear more relieved. “Well, this is good news is it not? Our problem is solved,”

  Wyatt snickered. “No it most certainly is not solved, Mr. Petrov. They don’t have your binder. But they did have a couple million dollars in their car.”

  Lukas winced a bit. “I don’t understand how that is possible –

  Wyatt slapped the table so hard that it rattled the whiskey glasses. “Get your house in order, Mr. Petrov, or I swear to God I will put it in order for you!”

  He shoved himself away from the table and stood to leave.

  “Greedy, incompetent Russkies,” he grumbled under his breath.

  On his way out he looked over his shoulder and added. “I’ll h
ave your men returned to you so you can interrogate them as you wish. Consider the confiscated money as my fee for the inconvenience you’ve caused me today. I’m giving you three days to get your opium business back on track before I arrest you again. I caught you once and by God I can do it again if you try and run from me. Have a pleasant fucking day gentlemen.”

  After the door slammed behind Wyatt, Lukas threw a glass against the wood paneled walls, shattering it on impact.

  “That arrogant piece of hog-shit!”

  “Calm yourself,” Mikhail said.

  “It makes no sense! Sergei and Niko would never steal from us, never!”

  “There will be an explanation, I’m sure.”

  Lukas thought a minute and then scowled. “Adam Friend.”

  “Your assassin?”

  “It must be him, I don’t know how, but nothing else makes sense,” Lukas stood from his seat and hurried to the bar. “Adam Friend did this to us.”

  Lukas pulled a Czech-made CZ-75 pistol from a locker concealed behind the wooden bar, he checked that the weapon was loaded and retrieved two additional magazines. From the locker he also retrieved a leather shoulder-holster for his weapon, which he quickly donned. The gun was too large to conceal completely, but a lightweight, navy blue blazer provided at least some discretion. Once he was armed and dressed, Lukas made for the door.

  “Where are you going?” Mikhail called after him.

  “Hunting,” Lukas answered without looking back. “I’ll be back tonight with Adam Friend’s head.”

  12

  N iko sat on the curb with his wrists cuffed behind his back. The paramedics had come and gone but the bandages around his head were a bit too tight and the pain medication they’d given him was a bit too weak. Throbbing pain emanated from his ruined eye-sockets and made him whimper like a wounded animal.

  Beside him, Sergei tried to offer some comfort while the police searched their vehicle. The ascendant morning sun was quickly warming the long stretch of road. Traffic was sparse in the old industrial district, which had been mostly deserted since the financial crisis of the mid 2000’s. As a result there was no one around to ogle at the destruction caused by their SUV when it barreled into the old telephone pole and ended their run from the police.