The Big Hit

by James Neal Harvey

  Miami also had beautiful women and good dope, and you could bet on anything from the ponies and the dogs to cockfights. The Spanish was a little different from what he was used to hearing from the Mexicans in LA, although expressions like Chinga tu were the same in both places.

  Chicago was okay, too. Except for the winters, when the wind coming off Lake Michigan would freeze your balls to solid ice. On one job there, the guy he wanted had panicked when he saw Mongo moving in on him, and he’d tried to escape by running up onto the roof of his apartment house. Made no sense, but it was all right with Mongo. He threw the guy off the roof and got a big kick out of watching him spin like a leaf in the wind until he burst apart on the sidewalk. The coroner concluded it was suicide.

  Branson was mixed. Some good action, although the town government was filled with assholes who jumped all over any enterprise you might find more entertaining than watching a bunch of clowns beat on guitars and wail country songs.

  The mark there was an unfaithful wife, which struck Mongo as ridiculous. Any guy dumb enough to get married got what he deserved.

  But some people had weird ideas, and there was a heavy fee. He carried out the hit by following the wife to a supermarket parking lot in a rented pickup truck. When she got out of her Mercedes roadster, he ran over her with the truck. And just to make sure, he went back over her several times, which felt like driving over a speed bump. He celebrated with a hooker who had tits as big as Dolly Parton’s, and then it was hasta la vista, Branson.

  But the town he liked most next to Vegas was probably New Orleans. The Big Easy was wide open, and you could buy whatever turned you on. Even the cops were selling. And the food was sensational, especially the crab gumbo.

  He’d gone there on a contract to hit a Cajun hustler who spoke with a French accent. Mongo took him out with a .22 during Mardi Gras. With all the noise from the revelers and the bands and the fireworks, the small pistol’s report was just one more pop. Mongo wore a goofy mask and played drunk, shot the guy in the back of the head right on Bourbon Street and slipped away in the crowd. Nothing to it.

  But Las Vegas was still the best, in his opinion. The city ran a campaign that said whatever happened in Vegas stayed in Vegas, and for once there was truth in advertising. When Mongo got in touch with Silas Bechel, the owner of several pawnshops, he was confident he could dispose of the Delure jewels with no fuss, no muss.

  And he was right: Bechel made the deal without comment, assessing the entire lot piece by piece. Naturally, the amount Mongo was paid for each item was a fraction of what it was worth. But that was simply the cost of doing business. With his round eyeglasses and his thin lips, Bechel looked more like an accountant than the most reliable fence in the city. Nevertheless, he was fair and would guard secrets as if his life depended on it. Which, of course, it did.

  So here Mongo was, with a pile of money from both the jewels and the fee paid by the weasel, and an ID that made him born again—although sure as hell no Christian—enjoying himself as a man without a rap sheet anywhere, not even a record of a speeding ticket. The ID said he was Don Quinn, and that he’d been born in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

  The Crystal Palace Hotel was still his favorite, despite being a little old-fashioned compared with some of the newer places. The Venetian, for instance, or the Mandarin Oriental.

  On the plus side, the Crystal charged him nothing for his two-room suite. Choice digs, too, with a huge bed and mirrors on the walls and ceiling so you could watch yourself doing it from every angle, and a bath with a heart-shaped tub, and a balcony with a great view of the city.

  And why wouldn’t he be comped, after the load of money he’d dropped in the casino last time he was here?

  One thing he’d noticed, though: Las Vegas had changed. In the old days, the wiseguys ran it, and there was no pretending about what they offered and what you were there for.

  But now the hotels were mostly corporate owned, and the management stood on their heads to convince tourists the town had turned into a church with babysitters and was all about families having good clean fun.

  The truth was that you still could enjoy yourself. Coke was as easy to come by as a pack of cigarettes, and you could also score horse or blow, if you wanted. There was plenty of ecstasy available too, but that was for kids. Like meth, it was bad for your health.

  As for the gambling, it was as good as ever, even though today some of the casinos catered more to bluehairs who dumped their chips into the machines like robots, hour after hour, than they did to high rollers.

  And Mongo was a high roller. He loved betting big, especially on craps and blackjack, and wouldn’t be caught dead playing the slots. Hell, the one-armed bandits didn’t even have arms anymore. Instead you pushed buttons, for Christ’s sake.

  But the tables were a whole different scene. When you tried to beat dealers at twenty-one, you were up against other human beings. You were taking from them, and that’s what it was all about. Not just winning, but beating somebody.

  Of course, they often beat him too, and it pissed him off when they did. It wouldn’t take long for him to go through most of his money. But there was plenty more where that came from. When he ran out, he’d just go back to work.

  In the meantime, life was a ball. Another great thing about Vegas was how the casinos had no windows, so there was no difference between night and day. You played as long as you wanted and slept occasionally and ate now and then and snorted a few lines and had a few drinks and kept going until you fell down.

  He usually started at the Crystal, and from there drifted over to Caesar’s and then to the Sahara or the Tropicana, and at each place if his luck was good he stayed till it changed.

  His best run was when he was shooting craps at the Flamingo and threw four naturals in a row on top of what he’d already won. But then he bet the whole pile on the next roll and lost it all. Nevertheless, the thrill was tremendous. Later on at Circus Circus, he’d had another streak that was almost as good, so it worked out fine.

  Of course, it would have been a lot better if he’d been able to cheat. Especially at blackjack. But the casinos had long since put a lock on that with their eye in the sky, and they were highly skilled at spotting card counters. Still, the gambling gave you a rush that was like nothing else.

  And then there were the girls. Jesus, what girls. Most of the high-priced ones were knockouts, and they came in all colors and all flavors, like in a candy store. You could find them in any bar, or you just picked up the phone and ordered one. Or two or three, depending on your mood. Talk about room service.

  Almost as much as humping them, Mongo liked listening to their stories. Every hooker had one, but some were more original than others. One told him she was from a rich ranching family in Texas. The men in the family were all bible thumpers who wouldn’t say shit if they had a mouthful, but they loved going to Dallas and Houston on business, and while there they could patronize the whorehouses. So why shouldn’t she slip away to Vegas now and then, and do this just for kicks? Not bad, although he’d heard variations on it before.

  Another said she was working to pay for tuition at UNLV, where she was studying to become a doctor. That story had become a cliché too. The redhead in New York had also claimed she was a student.

  A much better tale was told to him by a cute blonde who said she was the illegitimate daughter of a former governor of Nevada. And that tragically, her daddy refused to recognize her.

  Mongo liked that one enough to play along. “He sounds like a mean bastard.”

  “Oh, he is,” the blonde replied. “He lives in Tahoe now, in this huge mansion on the waterfront. Him and his wife have got a daughter of their own, send her to all the best schools. He treats her like a princess, but far as he’s concerned, I don’t even exist. I went to see him there once, and he sicced his dog on me.”

  “No shit?”

  “God’
s truth. It was the biggest fucking dog I ever saw in my life. A bloodhound, or something. I had to run like hell.”

  “So how about your mother? Where’s she?”

  The blonde blinked back a tear. “She died when I was little. But before she did, she told me who my father was.”

  “Was she beautiful, like you?” Making her feel good.

  “Yeah, she was a ballerina. Very famous.”

  “Damn, that’s the saddest story I ever heard,” Mongo said. Actually he’d rate it a B-plus.

  One tale he found fascinating was told to him by a girl who said the cops had caught her in a sting. The reason they set it up was because prostitution was legal in most counties in Nevada but not in Vegas, if you could imagine anything so stupid.

  She told him the cops had dressed up one of their own to look like an Arab and put him in a suite that was rigged with a hidden TV camera. Then they watched a monitor in the next room while he phoned for two hookers.

  “So we went to his suite,” the girl said, “and you should have seen this guy. He had dark skin and a goatee and one of those things they wear on their head?”

  “A turban?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. He talked broken English and had on sunglasses. You’d think he was the fucking Sheik of Araby.”

  “And what happened?”

  “We told him we wanted fifteen hundred apiece. He gave us the money and we both stripped, and then boom! In came a bunch of cops and busted us. Was that lousy, or what?”

  Mongo shook his head. “Stinks. But that’s cops for you.”

  Two nights after that, he tied into some interesting action of his own. He’d gambled around the clock, visiting all his usual haunts, and eventually wound up back at the casino in the Crystal. He was ahead a few grand and was about to pack it in. The buzz had worn off long ago, and he was so tired he couldn’t see straight.

  But first he’d put a few chips on roulette. That was a game he rarely played, because it was nothing but dumb luck, and on top of that the odds gave the house a three percent edge. He placed stacks on a red straddle and hit, but he was almost too exhausted to care.

  As he swept up his winnings he noticed a pretty girl who was standing alone on the other side of the table. She had dark, wavy hair and a good body in a low-cut dress. She also wore very little makeup, and when he caught her eye she looked away, so he knew she wasn’t a hooker. He moved around beside her.

  “You brought me luck,” he said.

  She glanced at him, not smiling. “I doubt it.” She turned and walked off.

  As a rule Mongo didn’t bother with amateurs; they weren’t worth the effort. And this one wasn’t responding to his approach. But that made it challenging.

  He followed her and tried again. “Speaking of luck, maybe I could change yours.”

  She kept going. “I doubt that, too.”

  “Hey, is it that bad? What happened?”

  “I had a fight with my boyfriend.”

  “Why don’t we have a drink, and you can tell me about it.”

  She stopped and this time looked him straight in the eye, and he felt a spark.

  “I’ve already told you all there is to tell,” she said. “But I guess I could use a drink.”

  They went to the bar, and Mongo ordered Chivas for both of them. After a swallow or two, she seemed to loosen up.

  “Better?” he asked.

  “Yes, but I’ve had enough of Las Vegas. I’m ready to go home.”

  “Where is that?”

  “Kansas City.”

  “And your boyfriend?”

  “I’ve had enough of him, too. I should never have let him drag me out here. This is a really crazy town.”

  “Isn’t it, though.”

  “What about you? And what’s your name, by the way?”

  “Don Quinn. Yours?”

  “Marcia Slade.”

  “Nice name. Goes with you.” One thing about women, you could never flatter them too much.

  “Thanks.”

  “What do you do in Kansas City? You have a career?”

  “I guess you could call it that. I’m a fashion consultant for a ladies’ clothing store.”

  “You consult with customers?”

  “Yes. When they need advice on what to buy, or how to plan their wardrobe, I help them.”

  “So I was right. I could tell you had good taste soon as I saw you.”

  She smiled. “I try. But you should see what I have to work with. You know the expression, lipstick on a pig? I put dresses on them.”

  Mongo laughed uproariously. As if it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. When he caught his breath, he said, “And you have a beautiful smile, too.”

  The smile widened. “What do you do, Don? For a living, I mean.”

  “I’m a headhunter.”

  “That means you search out people?”

  “Exactly.”

  “So you must travel a lot.”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “Is the work interesting?”

  “Let’s say it’s never boring.”

  “You always get the one you want?”

  “Never miss. I nail him, or her sometimes, get paid, and move on to the next one.”

  “That sounds great.”

  “Has its moments.”

  “But that’s not why you’re here now, is it?”

  “No, I just came to have a good time.”

  She drained her glass.

  “Another drink?”

  “Well . . . okay.”

  “Good. We’ll have it in my suite.”

  Her eyebrows arched. “Hey, that’s moving pretty fast, don’t you think?”

  “Sure it is.” He took her arm and guided her toward the elevators. “But maybe that’s what makes it good. For both of us.”

  She continued to have that look of disbelief on her face, but he sensed she was getting into it. He led her to an elevator and up they went.

  Once in the living room he poured them each another scotch. After a quick swallow, he put his glass down and pulled her close and mashed his mouth on hers.

  Her response was immediate, and the heat was equal to his. In no time, he had her in the bedroom with her clothes off, and in the next instant his were off too and they were in bed.

  It was, he thought, terrific. She was tautly muscled and enthusiastic, a dynamite combination. And she made great noises, gasping and squealing and telling him to give it to her. Harder, she kept saying.

  He lasted quite a while, considering. But afterward he was so wiped out he couldn’t move a muscle. He was determined that this wouldn’t be the end of it, though; he’d rest awhile and have another go. And then despite his good intentions, he drifted off.

  He had no idea how long he was out. When he regained consciousness, he found himself alone in the bed. With an effort he opened his eyes and was startled by what he saw.

  His new friend was fully dressed and standing near the door to the bathroom. The light was on in there, and she’d apparently opened the door just a crack, so she could see what she was doing. It took a few more seconds for Mongo’s weary brain to grasp what was going on, but when he got it, he felt a surge of anger.

  The damn woman had his pants in her hands, and she was slipping his wallet out of a pocket. Her handbag was sitting on the dresser and as he watched, she put his pants aside and went through the wallet. When she finished, she dropped the wallet into her bag. He’d had some cash and chips in his jacket, and the jacket was draped over a chair, so she’d probably already rifled it. Next, she opened the top drawer of the dresser and began rummaging around.

  Jesus God—how could he have been such a fool?

  Moving as quietly as possible, he slipped out of bed. But he wasn’t quiet enough. She turned and looked at hi
m, and then she made a dive for the door.

  Mongo got there just as she did. He grabbed her by the hair and slammed a fist into her belly. The blow knocked the wind out of her, and a second punch caught her on the point of the jaw. She went down as if she’d been shot, her eyes rolling back in her head.

  Still furious, he picked up her handbag and retrieved his wallet, tossing it into the dresser drawer. He also found a fat pack of bills in the bag, along with a bunch of chips. He took out all of the cash and the chips and put them in the drawer as well.

  The handbag contained her own wallet. He removed everything from it, and as he added her cash to the pile in the drawer, he saw that she’d come around and was rubbing her jaw.

  For a few seconds he thought seriously about throwing her off the balcony. But then he decided that was not a good idea. A woman splattered all over the driveway in front of the entrance would bring a gang of cops to the hotel, and they’d go through all the rooms.

  “Get up,” he said.

  She did, slowly and unsteadily. Her face was red and swollen, and her eyes were showing fear.

  “Take your clothes off,” he ordered.

  Her expression turned to one of puzzlement. “You want more?”

  “I want you to do what I’m telling you. Now do it. Or else I’ll beat the living shit out of you.”

  “All right, all right.” She pulled her dress up over her head and laid it on top of his jacket on the chair. “Listen,” she said, “I know what you thought, but it wasn’t what it looked like. Actually I was—”

  “Shut the fuck up. And take off the rest of it. Now!”

  She unhooked her bra and dropped it onto her dress, then kicked off her pumps. Last, she removed her panties and added them to the other things.

  She stood there, showing the same baffled expression. “What are you—”

  He cocked a fist menacingly, and she shut her mouth again.

  Next he picked up his pants and pulled them on, making sure the passcard to the suite was still in one of the pockets. He slipped into his shoes and put on his shirt, leaving it unbuttoned.