“The desert, or your clothes. You decide how you want to feel, the next hundred miles to Vegas.”
“God, I hate you, you know that?”
Checking the rearview again, Ed was beginning to get that impression, yeah.
Brandi Willette, who’d looked forward so much to enjoying this trip to Vegas, now found she’d run out of tissues.
God, she thought, shaking herself dry as best she could before pulling up her panties. I can’t wait for this to be over.
Straightening from behind the bush, she looked over to the convertible. Dickhead was slouched in the driver’s seat, head back, eyes closed, still wearing that ugly sports jacket to “hide” his gun.
Well, girl, look on the bright side: He doesn’t suspect a thing, and that’ll make it all the sweeter, once it happens.
“No,” said Brandi, out loud but softly as she picked her way back to the car. “When it happens.”
Having slowed to fifty-five about twenty minutes before—just after he put the top down to enjoy the clear, crisp night air of the desert—Ed Krause kept one eye on the rearview and the other on the highway in front of him, figuring he didn’t have to worry about Brandi trying anything until they came to a stop.
She said, “Is it dark enough yet?”
Right on cue. “Dark enough for what?”
Brandi blew out a breath in the passenger seat next to him, like he noticed she did a lot of times—even during sex—to get the hair out of her face.
Why wouldn’t you just get a different ’do, the hair thing bothered you so much?
Brandi said, “Dark … enough … for whatever you’re planning?”
Another thing Ed didn’t like about the little bitch: the way she kept hitting her words hard—even just parts of words, like he was some kind of idiot who couldn’t get her points otherwise.
Shaking his head, Ed checked the odometer. Thirty miles from Vegas, give or take, its lights just blushing on the horizon. “Yeah, it’s dark enough for that.”
The Suburban had appeared and disappeared a couple times over the prior two hours, not taking advantage of at least three desolate spots where it could have roared up from behind, tried to force him off the road. Which made Ed pretty sure they were waiting for him to make the first move.
Or, like Brandi, the first “stop.”
“Okay,” Ed abruptly pulling off the road and onto the sandy shoulder. “Here.”
“Honey?”
Ed turned to her. Brandi was leveling a nickel-finish semiautomatic at him in her right hand, a Raven .25 caliber he’d seen only once before.
Brandi Willette had thought long and hard about how to phrase it to him—even rehearsed some, with the teddy bear as Ed—but decided in the end that less was more. And so she was kind of disappointed that Dickhead didn’t look shocked when she said just the one word, and he saw what Brandi had in her hand.
But that was okay. The asshole thought he was so smart, and so macho, and now Ed finds himself trapped and beaten by a girl, one whose luck had finally changed.
“Just what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he said.
Funny, Dickhead didn’t sound scared, either, like Brandi also expected. “I’m taking the money. Honey.”
Now it seemed like Ed almost laughed, even though she’d worked on that line, too. Make it kind of poignant, even.
“Brandi, Brandi, after all we’ve meant to each other?”
Okay, now she really didn’t get it. “You’re going to open the trunk and take out the case with all the money. Then you’re going to leave it with me and just drive off.”
Brandi saw Dickhead’s eyes go to the rearview mirror again, and she thought she caught just a flash of headlights behind them along with the sudden silence of an engine turning off, though Brandi didn’t dare look away from Ed, what with that big gun over his right hip.
No problem, though. Her luck was both changing and holding, just like it would in Vegas, when she hit the slots and the tables, or even the—
Dickhead said, “Your friends are here.”
That stopped Brandi. “My … friends?”
“When we got back to the room at the lodge, after our little talk about the Tahoe caretaker? While you were in the shower, I went through your totebag there and found that gun. I’d done the same thing at the Inn back in Healdsburg, and it wasn’t there then. So, I figure the only time you were out of my sight long enough to come up with a piece was when I was inside the chalet, and those Mayans were working in the yard next door.”
Mayans? “I thought they were Eskimos?”
Now Ed did laugh, hard. “No, you stupid fucking bitch. The fat broad in the chalet—Natalya—told me they were her neighbor’s crew, but I’m guessing they were hers instead, and one of them passed you that gun.”
Oh, yeah? “Well, smart guy, that wasn’t all he passed me.”
“Some kind of instructions, too, right? Like, wait till the courier stops, at night, near Vegas?”
Brandi was beginning to think she hadn’t torn up the note in the envelope, though she clearly remembered doing it. Then Brandi let her luck speak for her. “You’re the one who’s stupid, Honey, you know that? The Eskimo or whatever told me you’d never think to look for the little thingy he put under your bumper.”
No laughing now. Just a squint, the eyes going left-right-left.
Good. Finally, Brandi gets her man. The way it hurts him.
Your luck has changed for sure, girl.
Dickhead said, “A homing device, probably based on GPS.”
Brandi got the first part, at least. “So they could keep track of us, they lost sight of the car.”
“Christ, you dense little shit. Don’t you understand the deal yet?”
“The deal is that I get ten percent of all the money in the trunk. Because I’m making it easier for them to take it from you.”
“No, Brandi.” A tired breath. “The deal is that as soon as they see me get out of this vehicle, they’re going to charge up here, kill both of us, and take a hundred percent of the money.”
“No, that’s not what the note said.” Brandi kind of used the gun for emphasis. “What it said was, if you don’t get out of this car now, I’m supposed to shoot you.”
Ed’s chin dipped toward his chest. “Good trick, seeing as how I unloaded your little purse piece there.”
As Brandi Willette couldn’t help looking down at her gun, she felt Dickhead’s hand strike like a rattlesnake at her throat, clamping on so tight and yanking her toward him so hard, she barely could register the silver thing—like a Pez dispenser?—in the fingers of his other—
“Christ!” Ed Krause yelled, as Brandi’s head exploded next to his, the round carrying enough punch to spiderweb the windshield after it came out her right temple, leaving an exit wound like a rotten peach, blood and brains spattered over the dashboard and that fucking teddy bear. Ed ducked as a second round shattered the driver’s portion of the windshield, a sound like somebody whistling through water trailing after the impact.
Ed shoved Brandi’s rag-doll corpse against the passenger door, then yanked the floorshift back to DRIVE and took off. A second later, he thought the Mustang might be in the clear based on acceleration alone when he first heard and then felt the blowout of his right rear tire, the convertible wanting to pivot on that wheel rim, send him off the pavement.
Ed wrestled with the steering, finally getting it under some control, and whipped right, over to the shoulder and beyond it. He pictured the three Mayans from the yard next-door to Natalya’s chalet, and he hoped he’d put the Mustang’s engine block between him and any likely fields of fire from their vehicle. Ed also hoped they didn’t have much weaponry beyond the sniper rifle but knew he was probably wrong on that score, the way they’d handled everything else.
And, after their killing Brandi, there was no bargaining with them, no chance of “Take the money and let me live, or I’ll nail at least one of you right here.”
Nobod
y leaves a body and a witness behind.
Ed grabbed the little Raven .25 from the floor mat, slapped the magazine back into the butt of its handle, and slid the semiautomatic into the left-side pocket of his sports jacket. Then he slipped out the driver’s door, waiting for the Mayans to make their move. They took long enough before starting the Suburban’s engine, he was pretty sure one of them did the same thing he’d done: dropped out of their vehicle and into the desert, to flank him while the others rolled slowly toward him.
Just like Ed learned in Small Unit Tactics, back in the airborne. And just like the big land yacht was doing now.
Down on his hands and knees, Ed scuttled like a crab across the desert floor, away from the Mustang. And the money, but it was his only chance: Outflank the flanker, and come around behind all of them.
Ed went into the desert fifty or sixty meters at a diagonal to the road, angling slightly toward the direction he’d driven from. Figuring that was far enough, given the superiority of numbers and firepower the Mayans would think they had over him, Ed assumed the prone position to wait.
Listening to the desert sounds. Trying to pick up anything that didn’t move like a snake. Or a lizard, even a tarantula.
Or whatever the fuck else there’d be in this kind of desert.
And he did hear some slithering sounds, then a scratching sound, like maybe a mouse’s foot would make on wood, then a little squeak that Ed figured was curtains for that particular rodent.
But now, footfalls. Halfway between him and the road, mov-ng parallel to it. Jogging, the guy moving with confidence toward the Mustang.
Ed rose to a sprinter’s start, waiting for the Suburban to draw even with him. Then he used the noise of the receding vehicle to cover his own.
The running Mayan stayed on a line with the big vehicle’s rear doors. Smart: That way, its headlights wouldn’t silhouette him for a shooter still at the Mustang.
Bad luck, though, too: That relative positioning did pinpoint the guy—a pistol of some kind held muzzle up—just right for the angle Ed had from behind.
Closing fast on an interception course, Ed was all over the Mayan—Christ, no more than five-four, max?—before the little guy could have heard him. Ed used the extra-heavy barrel of the Combat Masterpiece to pistol-whip the Mayan across the back of his head, pitching him forward onto the sand with a “whump” sound from his body but nothing from his mouth.
Then Ed planted his left foot on the Mayan’s spine, and—with his free hand—hooked under the little guy’s chin and snapped his neck.
Scooping up the Mayan’s pistol—another semiautomatic, maybe a nine-millimeter but not enough light on it to be sure—Ed put it in his jacket’s right side-pocket, kind of balancing off Brandi’s Raven .25 in the other. Then he started to run, trying to match the pace of the Mayan he’d just killed.
Thinking: one down, two to go.
The Suburban was now enough ahead of him, he could see it clearly approaching his Mustang. When the driver nailed the gas and kicked in his high-beams, the third Mayan began shooting two-handed from the rear seat, Ed closing his eyes against the blaze from the muzzles, so as not to ruin his night vision. He heard both magazines empty into and around the convertible as they passed—some richochets, some thumps, depending on what the rounds hit. Then, hanging a U-ey, the Suburban came back hard. Ed was already prone again, eyes turned away from the headlights, but his ears picked up the sound of the third Mayan emptying another two magazines into the Mustang from the opposite direction.
Christ, a good thing you left the car. And picked off their flanker, who’d otherwise be standing over you right now, capping three rounds through your skull.
Ed turned again toward the Suburban. It hung another U-ey, this time moving back toward the Mustang real slow and weaving a little, let its high beams maybe pick up a dead or wounded courier against the convertible or somewhere near it.
Fuck this.
Ed got into another crouch, then sprang forward, letting Brandi’s .25 fill his left hand, since he couldn’t waste time fiddling with the maybe-on, maybe-off safety from the first Mayan’s semi. He matched that dead guy’s pace again as best he could, let the two Mayans exiting the Suburban—one at the driver’s side, of course, the other at the passenger rear door—think their pal was joining up. Until they were clear of the vehicle and fixated on the Mustang, each just forward of the Suburban’s front grille, using its high beams to blind anybody left alive to shoot back at them.
After drawing a deep breath and releasing it slowly, Ed emptied both of his weapons into those two Mayans, being careful not to hit their vehicle.
His new transportation, after all.
Ed’s targets spazzed out like puppets as his slugs hit them, Ed himself now pulling from his jacket pocket the first guy’s semi, to close and finish the fuckers. Then he caught the flash of another muzzle from the rear-passenger’s window of the Suburban and simultaneously the impact of two, three rounds spinning him around and down, hard.
Shit: A fourth fucking Mayan?
Hoping the semi did have its safety off, Ed squeezed the trigger, putting five shots into the rear door. Hearing a scream, he decided to save the remaining slugs, in case the guy was playing possum. But Ed started feeling dizzy, too, knew he was losing too much blood to wait any longer. Levering up on his elbows—Christ, like somebody’s hit you in the chest with a battering ram, tough even to breathe shallow—Ed staggered toward the Suburban, keeping the semi as level as he could. Getting there seemed to take an hour, but when he inhaled as much air as his lungs would hold, he yanked open that rear door, and saw the top half of fat Natalya ooze more than flop onto the pavement, another semiautomatic clattering on the asphalt like it was the tile floor in her chalet.
Fucking bitch didn’t trust her Mayans after all.
Then Ed walked around to the front of the Suburban, let its high-beams spotlight his shirt under the sports jacket. He said, “Shit,” and, a moment later, the same once more. After that, he didn’t see much else to say.
So Ed inched out of the jacket as best he could, found a soft, level spot on the desert floor, and rolled the jacket into sort of a pillow, rest a little easier.
Ed Krause opened his eyes, realized he didn’t know how long he’d been out, still just lying there on the desert floor. He was starting to feel cold, which he didn’t remember from before. And while some of the stars above him seemed to have changed position, there was no sign yet of dawn to the east.
Just the glorious, heavenly effect from the lights of Vegas.
Ed shifted his head on the sports-jacket pillow as best he could, to be able to stare at those lights, the promise of real money and seeing a place he’d always wanted to visit. Last two times he’d coughed, though, blood came up, so right now he wouldn’t bet on even seeing morning.
You’re gonna bleed out in this fucking desert, you might as well stay focused on the prize, huh? Shows … lions … show-girls … magic acts … tigers … casinos.
The Vegas lights started to go funny against Ed’s eyes, so he closed them.
Help the imagination, you know?
Slick cars like Maseratis, Ferraris, Rolls-fucking-Royces. Cruising the Strip, just like they did in the movies he’d seen. All the filet mignon and trimmings you could eat, all the Jim and Coke you could drink. Call-girls that’d make Brandi with an “I” look like fucking Spam.
Action of all kinds, nonstop. The genuine “City That Never Sleeps.”
Only you’re never gonna see it now.
Vegas, Las Vegas. Grieving …
“The house doesn’t beat the player.
It just gives him the opportunity to beat himself.”
—Nicholas (Nick the Greek) Dandalos
“A Smith & Wesson beats four aces.”
—American proverb
COPYRIGHT ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
“Introduction,” copyright © 2005 by Michael Connelly
“The Sunshine Tax,” copyright © 2005 by J
ames Swain
“Passline,” copyright © 2005 by S. J. Rozan
“Dust Up,” copyright © 2005 by Wendy Hornsby
“The Kidnapping of Xiang Fei,” copyright © 2005 by Dennis Lynds
“Killer Heels Kill Twice as Dead,” copyright © 2005 by T. P. Keating
“Iggy’s Stuff,” copyright © 2005 by J. Madison Davis
“A Temporary Crown,” copyright © 2005 by Sue Pike
“The Gambling Master of Shanghai,” copyright © 2005 by Joan Richter
“House Rules,” copyright © 2005 by Libby Fischer Hellmann
“Rolling the Bones,” copyright © 2005 by Tom Savage
“Oddsmaker,” copyright © 2005 by Edward Wellen
“The Dope Show,” copyright © 2005 by K.j.a. Wishnia
“Death of a Whale in the Church of Elvis,” copyright © 2005 by Linda Kerslake
“Neighbors,” copyright © 2005 by John Wessel
“The End of the World (As We Know It),” copyright © 2005 by Lise McClendon
“Nickels and Dimes,” copyright © 2005 by Ronnie Klaskin
“Even Gamblers Have to Eat,” copyright © 2005 by Ruth Cavin
“The Magic Touch,” copyright © 2005 by A. B. Robbins
“Catnapping,” copyright © 2005 by Gay Toltl Kinman
“Miscast,” copyright © 2005 by Noreen Ayres
“Lightning Rider,” copyright © 2005 by Rick Mofina
“Grieving Las Vegas,” copyright © 2005 by Jeremiah Healy
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
JAMES SWAIN is a native of New York, and went to college at New York University, where he studied with Ralph Ellison and Anatole Broyard. His first job out of college was as a magazine editor. Swain moved to Florida in 1982. For the next twenty years, he ran a successful advertising business. During that time, he continued to write, and published three books of nonfiction about magic, as well as a novel. In 2001, Swain began publishing a series of books about retired policeman Tony Valentine, who captures people who cheat casinos. Swain is considered one of the world’s foremost authorities on casino scams and swindles.
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