Super Con

by James Swain

  The receptionist made the call. “Ms. Flynn said to come right up. Room 2081.”

  “Thanks. You’ve been very helpful.”

  He rode alone to the twentieth floor and walked down a hallway littered with room-service trays. When he rapped on the door to Mags’s room, a voice from within said, “It’s open,” and he entered. The suite was on the low end of the Vegas experience and reminded him of an old Billy Joel song. “In hell there’s a big hotel where the bar just closed and the windows never opened, no phone, so you can’t call home, and the TV works but the clicker is broken.” An open script lay on the coffee table. Next to it, a bottle of Chivas and a vial of sleeping pills.

  “You could have put me up some place decent, you know,” Mags called from the next room. “There’s no hot water half the fucking time, and the carpet smells like bad weed.”

  He picked up the script and started reading. The plot of Night and Day revolved around a female gaming agent who solved crimes during the day and ripped off the casinos at night, hence the clever title. For a kicker, the money she stole went to charity.

  “For the love of Christ, how did you get in here?”

  Mags stood before him wrapped in a bath towel and wearing no makeup. Her eyes looked tired, and she’d lost weight since he’d last seen her.

  “I lied to the girl downstairs,” he said. “How you been?”

  “I should call security and have you tossed.”

  “I just wanted to say hi and congratulate you. You’ve got your own TV show.”

  “Thanks. It’s just a pilot.”

  She let her towel drop to the floor, revealing heavenly skin. There was nothing like Irish hot, and the sight of her took his breath away. From the closet, she grabbed a fluffy white bathrobe supplied by the hotel and slipped it on. “Fix me a scotch, will you?”

  “I thought you quit drinking.”

  “What are you, my sponsor? Straight up, two ice cubes. Make it strong.”

  He took the Chivas to the minibar and fixed the drinks. Through a picture window, he spied a Ferris wheel behind the hotel that did not have a single rider. Vegas was about action, and this place didn’t have any. It was beyond depressing.

  Mags parked herself on a couch. He served her drink and pulled up a chair.

  “You’re staying?” she asked.

  “Want to throw me out? Just for old time’s sake?”

  “No, Billy. You know I still care about you.”

  He sat down and they clinked glasses. “So what’s with the pills? And why are you so thin? You don’t look good.”

  “I take the pills because I can’t sleep. I’m on a diet because the cameras add ten pounds to my face and make me look fat. Any more questions?”

  “Are you happy?”

  “I’m having the time of my fucking life.”

  “Did your daughter make it out to see you?”

  Her face softened. She’d gotten knocked up as a teenager and hadn’t raised her kid. Now that her daughter was an adult, she was trying to make amends. “Amber’s flying out tomorrow so we can spend a few days together. I can’t wait.”

  “That’s great. She’s going to see you in a whole new light.”

  She stared at the floor and started to cry. It happened so fast that Billy didn’t know what to do. He pulled his chair closer and tried to console her.

  “You look really ugly when you cry,” he said.

  She laughed through her tears. They’d met on the mean streets of Providence another lifetime ago, and she’d introduced him to the rackets while also breaking his heart. The waterworks ended, and she emptied her glass and made him fix her another.

  “Thanks for asking about Amber. So, did you ever rip this place off?”

  “Once.”

  “You told me that you ripped off every casino in Vegas multiple times. Liar.”

  He brought the new drink and took his spot on the couch. “There was a reason.”

  “Hmmm . . . you mix these good and strong. I’m listening.”

  “We were past-posting at roulette and won thirty grand. When the guy in my crew went to cash out, the cashier didn’t have enough to pay him off. The cashier asked my guy to come back the next day to get our dough. Needless to say, we never came back.”

  “Why not?”

  “We ripped off the joint during the graveyard shift, so the burden fell on the manager of the day shift to pay us out,” he explained. “Believe me, that guy isn’t going to pay us without studying the surveillance tapes. If he sees anything wrong, the gaming board gets called.”

  “That’s a cool story. Can I share it with my writers? It would make a good episode.”

  “Be my guest.”

  “What past-posting move did you use?”

  “The Savannah.”

  “I’ll call you if I need any pointers. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  Since their relationship had ended, Mags had taken pleasure in torturing him whenever they got together. It was messed up, yet he kept coming back for more.

  “I need to beat it. You take care of yourself.”

  She grabbed his wrist. “You didn’t come here for a social visit. There’s something on your mind. Spit it out, lover boy.”

  “I’m working a super con with a family of cheats called the Gypsies. The gaming board has fingered two of the kids, and the father’s getting nervous. We might have to bring in reinforcements. That’s where you come in. I’ll make it worth your while. What do you say?”

  “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not in the rackets anymore. I’m an actress.”

  “Hollywood’s a filthy business. Even when you win, you lose.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “I’m talking about one night’s work. If your pilot fails, you have a security net. Or you can give the money to your kid and make her dreams come true. It’s a sweet deal.”

  “I should have called security when I first laid eyes on you.”

  “But you didn’t. You knew I had something, and you were dying to hear what it was. You haven’t changed, Mags, and you never will. You’re a born thief.”

  “Get out.” A phone rang in the next room. “That’s probably Rand. He always calls before he shows up, unlike some people I know. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

  He started to leave. He’d planted the seed and needed to make it grow. Turning around, he said, “Sleep on it. I’ll call you tomorrow. Your number hasn’t changed, has it?”

  Her glass missed his head by inches.

  Downstairs in the lobby, he caught his first glimpse of the man who’d promised to make Mags a star. Rand Waters was an aging lounge lizard with fluffy orange hair and a cell phone glued to his ear. His jeans were the five-hundred-dollar variety, his black T-shirt Dolce & Gabbana. He breezed past Billy as if the young hustler didn’t exist.

  Billy felt the overwhelming urge to coldcock Waters and put him on the floor. Mags was being run ragged, and this prick would go right on doing it until another pretty face happened along.

  Waters got on an elevator, and Billy started to follow. His cell phone vibrated, and he pulled it out. He’d gotten a text embedded with a video, which began to play on its own. Leon sat bound to a chair, his face a bloody pulp. One of the little ones entered the picture and slit his driver’s throat, creating a bloody apron. Broken Tooth appeared, puffing a cigarette.

  “Call me when you get this,” the Chinese gangster said.

  The elevator door closed in his face. His hands trembled as he made the call.

  “Why did you do that?” he said, nearly shouting.

  “Because I felt like it,” Broken Tooth said.

  “That’s it? No other reason.”

  “I don’t need a reason to kill people.”

  “The deal’s off. I’m not working with you.”

  “I know where your pretty friends live. Want them to die, too? I don’t think so. Meet me in a half hour at Big Wong. I want to hear how your meeting with the football play
ers went.”

  The line went dead. It was all Billy could do not to throw the phone to the ground.

  FIFTEEN

  He drove to Spring Valley and crawled down the three-mile stretch of strip centers known as Chinatown until he found Big Wong. The lunch crowd was long gone and there was plenty of parking. Easing his vehicle into a space, he got on his cell phone and called Gabe.

  “Hey, Billy, how did it go with the football players?” Gabe answered.

  “I’ll tell you later. I need you to explain how the rigged coin toss works,” he said.

  “You don’t sound so hot. Is everything okay?”

  He was still seeing red over Leon’s senseless murder and had decided to delay telling his crew the bad news. “Everything’s fine. Now lay it on me.”

  “You want me to explain over the phone?”

  He’d taught his crew to avoid discussing jobs over the phone whenever possible. But there was the matter of keeping Pepper and Misty alive, so he decided to do it anyway.

  “Yes, over the phone.”

  “Okay, here it is. The coin used for the coin toss in the Super Bowl is a ceremonial coin and is extra thick. That allowed me to fit a mercury slug in its center without it being noticeable. The mercury can be moved with a transmitter hidden in a cell phone. If I want the coin to land heads, I move the slug to the tails side; if I want the coin to land tails, I move the slug to the heads side. It works like a charm.”

  “Explain the deal again with the head referee.”

  “The head referee’s name’s Gordon Barnett, and he’s in Phoenix preparing for the game with the other refs. Cory found out that Barnett has gambling debts, so Cory plans to bribe him fifty grand in return for Barnett using the gimmicked coin for the coin toss.”

  The whole thing sounded risky. Gimmicked coin, a crooked ref, and hoping the dirty players did their jobs right. He’d have to do a strong sell on Broken Tooth to make it fly.

  “I need to run. I’ll call you later,” he said.

  Broken Tooth sat at a corner table eating greasy spareribs. Seeing Billy approach, he chopped the air with his hand. His bodyguard put down his utensils and stood up.

  “I thought we had a deal,” Billy said. “I help you fix the game, and you spare my driver.”

  “Sit down,” Broken Tooth said.

  “I asked you a question. You come into my town and start whacking my people, and you think you’re going to get away with it? Fat fucking chance, pal.”

  “Your driver is still alive.”

  He rocked back on his heels. “Then who’s in the video?”

  “Some other guy. Go back through kitchen, say hi to your driver.”

  “You’d better not be screwing with me.”

  Broken Tooth licked the grease off his fingers and grinned. The little bastard was toying with him, and he walked to the back of the restaurant and entered the steamy kitchen. The kitchen’s back door was ajar, leading him outside to where Broken Tooth’s rental was parked. Leon sat in front with the other henchman, looking very much alive. An invisible weight lifted from his shoulders. “You okay?” he asked through the glass. The passenger window lowered. “Fuckers made me watch,” his driver said.

  He went back inside and took a seat at Broken Tooth’s table.

  “You hungry? Spareribs are real tasty,” Broken Tooth said.

  “No thanks. Who’s the guy in the video?”

  “Some dumb junkie. Your driver’s diabetic, so I sent my men to his apartment to get his insulin. Junkie tried to rob them in the parking lot. Bad idea. My men brought him back to our place and slit his throat.”

  “And you made my driver watch.”

  “Why not?”

  In kidnap situations, the kidnappers were less likely to snuff their victim the longer they were around him. This wasn’t the case with Broken Tooth, who would kill Leon as easily as stepping on a bug. “You like screwing with people, don’t you?” he said.

  “Just want to remind you who’s boss,” Broken Tooth said.

  “You’re the boss.”

  “That’s right.” Broken Tooth picked up a piece of romaine lettuce off his plate, which he kneaded between his fingertips until soft. The Batman lunch box was retrieved from the floor and a panel unsnapped. Broken Tooth fed the lettuce to the animal residing inside.

  “What’s in there, a pet rat?” he asked.

  “You think I carry a rat around with me? Fuck you.”

  “Sorry, man, I’m just curious.”

  “What I have is a fighting champion.” Broken Tooth removed a small wooden cage from the lunch box, which contained a giant green cricket. The insect made a loud hissing noise by vibrating its wings. “His name is the General. I purchased him at an auction in Shanghai for twenty thousand dollars. He is the best fighting cricket in the world.”

  “Where do they hold cricket fights?”

  “Everywhere people like to gamble. They are an obsession in Asia.”

  Vegas had a large Asian population, and Billy guessed cricket fights were held in private homes with plenty of betting. The General was Broken Tooth’s alibi in case the police decided to pick him up and question him. The guy was no dummy; that was for sure. Broken Tooth returned the cage to the lunch box and closed it. “Did you go see Night Train?”

  “We were introduced this afternoon. The concierge at Caesars got me invited to a poker game in Night Train’s villa. I won sixty grand of his money.”

  “You cheated him?”

  “Let’s just say we cheated each other and I came out on top. He didn’t have the money to pay me, so we’re going to hook up tomorrow so he can settle his debt. That’s when I plan to persuade him to fix the game next Sunday.”

  “Why did you wait? Why not now?”

  “Night Train is still a little dazed. When he wakes up tomorrow morning, he’s going to realize what happened. It will make him look at me differently and realize that he’s not dealing with some schmuck off the street.”

  “He’ll figure this out in his sleep?”

  Billy nodded. An important part of poker cheating was cooling out the sucker. After the sucker lost, the cheat needed to convince the sucker that he’d played smart and was simply the victim of bad luck. If this wasn’t done, the sucker would go to bed thinking about it and arise the next day realizing he’d been fleeced. He deliberately hadn’t cooled out Night Train and felt certain the famous football player would figure out a swindle had taken place.

  “You’re a smart guy. Always thinking ahead,” Broken Tooth said. “So how are you going to fix coin toss at Super Bowl?”

  Billy put his elbows on the table. He had no idea if the scam that Gabe had devised would really work, for the simple reason that he’d never tried it before. But he couldn’t let his doubt become apparent. He needed to sell Broken Tooth on his plan and he needed to do it in a big way. “One of my crew used to be a jeweler. He can gaff any piece of equipment you give him and make it look real. He created a special coin that matches the ceremonial coin used for the Super Bowl, only his coin is electronic and can be made to land either heads or tails using a transmitter hidden in a cell phone.”

  “What about the ref? Have you got him in your back pocket?”

  “The head ref for the Super Bowl has gambling debts. My guys are going to bribe him tomorrow over breakfast. All the ref has to do is use our coin for the coin toss, and we’re set. The rest will be up to Night Train and his boys.”

  Broken Tooth nodded approvingly. “How much will the ref set you back?”

  “Fifty grand. It’s steep, but I don’t see that we have any other choice.”

  “Maybe you can kill ref later and get your money back.”

  “You know, I never thought of that.”

  Broken Tooth seemed to be sold on the play and picked at his spareribs. If Billy had been talking to a local hoodlum, an offer of a drink or food would have been made as a sign of respect. Broken Tooth had made no such offer to his guest. The significance wasn’t lo
st on Billy. This man was not his friend and never would be.

  “What should Night Train’s take be? That’s the first thing he’s going to ask me tomorrow when I go to see him,” Billy said.

  “Offer him a payout of half a million dollars for each prop bet,” Broken Tooth said. “He will try to negotiate you up. Settle at one million for each bet.”

  “Including the coin toss?”

  “Yes.”

  The scam was now complete. Night Train and his teammates would get a four-million-dollar payday for throwing a handful of inconsequential plays in the Super Bowl. Night Train had larceny in his heart and so did his buddies. They would say yes in a heartbeat.

  “How’s the payoff work?” Billy asked.

  “I will wire the money to Night Train’s bank account a day before the game,” Broken Tooth said. “Night Train has taken bribes before, so it’s safe to assume he has an offshore account. You will need to get his banking information from him.”

  “Got it. Last question. When will you let Leon go?”

  “After the big game is over.”

  “Is that a promise?”

  “You bet.”

  It was as good an arrangement as Billy could hope for. Rising from his chair, he started to walk out of the restaurant. Moments later, he was back at the table.

  “I just had a thought. What if Night Train takes the money and screws us?”

  “Night Train is not going to do that. Super Bowl is his last game. He’s going to retire. Same for his teammates. They’re all getting old and don’t care anymore.”

  “Is that why he’s hanging out at Caesars after practice?”

  “You got it.”

  Smart cheats did their homework before doing a job. Broken Tooth got an A-plus for this one, and he found his opinion of the Chinese gangster changing. Broken Tooth knew the angles and understood the risks. So long as he didn’t hurt Leon, Billy could work with him, and he left the restaurant believing that he was about to be a part of the first cheating team to successfully fix the biggest sporting event in the world.

  SIXTEEN

  Most cheats in Vegas lived in sleepy neighborhoods with neatly trimmed front lawns. Their children attended public schools and their wives belonged to the PTA and were den mothers with the Cub Scouts. They tried to blend in, and for the most part they succeeded.