“Most people would love the opportunity to go to Princeton.”
“I guess. I still want to go to college at some point, but on my terms.”
And for a second, my own lie distracts me. Is there some truth to it? Do I want to go to college? I’ve always said I wanted Sophie to go to college. So why wouldn’t I want to go? Maybe it’s because I chose a career as a con artist, or it chose me. My college education was my training with Max. And I’ve already graduated. I’m already out in the work force.
“Expand.”
His response sounds strange. Almost eerie. It wasn’t a question. Or a suggestion. It sounded like a command. Can that be chalked up to English being his second language or does he simply like ordering others around?
“My parents wanted me to go. My dad always saw his little girl dressed in Princeton orange, but I was never that into it.”
“And what are you into?”
“I don’t know yet. Guess I’m still figuring it out.” I give him an awkwardly flirtatious smile (I’m supposed to be new at this after all). He sits back and doesn’t say another word until we’re seated at dinner.
***
Vegas’s finest sushi restaurant. Well, according to the reviews. And in Vegas, where bribery is as prevalent as sunshine, who knows which reviews to trust.
For the first time, we’re out of sight from Ladislav’s bodyguards. I believe they’re outside in the car, but maybe they went to eat dinner somewhere else. I picture the two bodyguards dropping us off at a fancy New York-New York sushi restaurant and then hitting the drive-thru at In-N-Out Burger.
Dinner goes fairly well. If I ever worry I’m losing his attention or interest, I throw Ladislav a detail about my freshman dorm or last year’s senior prom.
I try to sound as smart as possible. If he’s going to buy me as a Princeton dropout, I have to sound intelligent (I had to get into the school, after all).
I let him control the conversation. When I do respond, I try to reference recent international news and add insightful philosophical tidbits.
The actual eating proves the most difficult part for me at dinner. My nerves make it difficult to swallow food at a normal pace.
Ladislav, on the other hand, has no issue eating. He gets a steak as an appetizer.
As I watch him eat the prime rib, my mind wanders to the days of living in The Excalibur, when at 1:30 in the afternoon there might be a steak or two like this in my pockets.
Back then, on any given day, if I hustled more than enough to cover our room, I would head to one of The Strip’s many lunch buffets. Always wearing clothes with lots of pockets. I’d eat as much as I could. Then I’d sneak off with lunch for Sophie and dinner for both of us. Sometimes even our breakfast for the next morning. Between four and six meals for the price of one.
After he demolishes his appetizer steak, Ladislav eats plate after plate of sushi. It’s all I can do to get down my miso soup.
He spends ten-second blocks gazing into my eyes. There’s something different about him. Something that creeps me out. I’ve sat across from hundreds of men in these scenarios, and they all creep me out to some degree.
But this feels different. Something strikes me as different about Ladislav and the way he looks at me.
After Ladislav pays the check and leaves a 35 percent tip, we head out of New York-New York to get picked up by his driver. Passing under the roller coaster, just for a moment I think about the ride that Jesse and I never took.
Because of the roller coaster that goes around the outside of the hotel and casino, I used to think there were elevated trains all over the actual New York City. I was 15 before I learned that New York City’s trains were subways. That they were underground.
“You would like to take a ride?”
I look up to see Ladislav’s overbearing smile.
“Not after sushi,” I respond.
***
Once we return to Caesars, Ladislav wants to gamble for a bit, just like Max said. He plays a little craps and then twenty minutes of roulette. At the roulette table, he shifts chips from black to red at whim.
My math-driven mind searches for patterns in his selections, but none emerge. He loses a lot, then wins most of it back, then loses some more.
So in that sense, some pattern exists.
When I was a kid, I told Max that roulette looked fun. I don’t remember what it was, maybe the excitement of the spinning wheel or maybe it was the chips dotted all over the table. Whatever the reason, the game seemed appealing. But Max forbade me from ever playing. He told me roulette was poison. He actually called it the devil’s game. To prove it, he showed me how all the numbers on a roulette table add up to 666.
I listened to him, and I’ve never once played. In fact, sitting here next to Ladislav is the closest I’ve ever come.
After roulette, Ladislav spends a full hour playing blackjack. He wants me by his side the whole time, but he rarely talks to me, and he definitely never asks my advice on whether to hit or stay.
Why is this always his routine? Dinner. Gambling. Then take the escort back to his room. Where does the gambling fit in? Is it sport? If it is, then why doesn’t he just do that earlier in the day? Why does he want to gamble with me there if he’s not even going to talk to me? Maybe he keeps me around for the same reason he keeps the two thousand dollar watch around his wrist. For appearances.
A half-hour into gambling, I catch eyes on me from about twenty feet away. At first I write it off as some man eyeing cleavage (as men do), but he’s really staring. And with the way his shoulders tuck towards his neck, I sense his expression isn’t lust, but anger.
That differentiation leads me to recognize him as one of the tourists I conned in the Stratosphere the other day. I didn’t make him right away because he’s not wearing his cowboy hat.
It was the very job I was pulling when they took Sophie from Treasure Island.
At the northern-most end of The Strip with a purse full of fake Stratosphere chips, I approached various tourists over a two-hour period, but my exchange with the cowboy went something like:
“Excuse me,” I said as I arrived at his side. He was in the middle of playing an Elvis-themed slot machine.
“Howdy.” I remember half expecting him to tip his hat.
“I’m in a bit of a situation.”
“And what’s that?” the cowboy asked.
“Well, I’ve had a pretty good morning playing blackjack.” I flashed him a peek at a small bag that contained about forty fifty-dollar chips.
“Now that doesn’t sound like a bad situation to me.” His voice sounded like a bad actor trying to do a Texas accent.
“Well, I’m 17, and I snuck into the casino. And when I go to cash in the chips, they’re going to card me and confiscate my winnings.”
The cowboy nodded. He had already connected the dots on what I was going to ask him to do. “If you’re asking for a favor, it’s going to cost you.”
“How much?”
“Half.”
“Okay.” I started to hand him the chips but then I stopped. “How do I know you won’t just run off with the money once you cash them in.”
He thought this over for a few seconds before he came up with a solution. “I’ll give you your half now.”
I put on my “let me think this over” face for ten seconds and then agreed. He counted the chips. Just over two grand. He gave me $1,000 cash, and we parted ways. The cowboy went to cash in the money. The cashier confiscated the fake chips and left to go get security. Instead of waiting for security to arrive and arrest him, the cowboy had fled the casino. All part of the design.
The cashier was an old acquaintance of Max. He and the floor manager were on Max’s payroll, enabling me to run the con repeatedly during the three-hour window when their shifts overlapped.
The three-hour window when Sophie was kidnapped.
Rage rushes through my veins. And all of my muscles tighten.
I had initially resisted
the job. Because of the potential victims. While conning some guy paying an underage prostitute, I don’t tend to feel an ounce of pity. But with the underage chip swap, I can’t help feeling bad for the victims. I used to con gambling tourists with Max all the time, but when I started conning men in the sex industry, I found it less appealing conning gamblers.
Of course, I didn’t use that excuse when I told Max I wasn’t sure I wanted to do the job. Instead, I pointed out that it seemed like a risky con since the Stratosphere has so many aerial cameras in its casino. But Max resisted my resistance.
“The eyes in the sky are looking for people stealing from the casino or cheating the games,” he said. “If they were looking for those ripping off their customers, they wouldn’t have to look further than a mirror.”
If the whole breakup with Jesse hadn’t just happened, I might have fought Max more on it. But I was desperate to take my mind off Jesse.
If I hadn’t been doing that stupid con, maybe I would have been home to prevent Sophie’s abduction.
And now this con is coming to bite me in the ass again. One of the marks is staring me down. And if this hatless cowboy outs me in front of Ladislav, my cover will be blown.
Everything with Ladislav will fail if he finds out I’m a con artist.
My head pounds. Like my brain is trying to shake out a solution. But I don’t know. What. To. Do.
I hope and pray to a god I don’t even believe in that he’ll just walk away, but after a full minute of him staring me down, I doubt my chances.
I find myself angry at the odds. Odds that a mark would see me later.
But maybe the odds weren’t that bad. Some of the cons I pull would cause the mark to flee the city. Or at least be scared if they ever saw me again. But with this particular con, the odds of running into one of the marks aren’t that bad. After all, I conned 15 people only a few days ago. And unlike with some of the more perfectly designed confidence games, if any of these marks saw me, they’d surely approach me.
Sure as goddamn surely goes, the cowboy ambles towards me, inevitably planning to call me out.
In desperation, I whisper to Ladislav. “See that man? The one walking towards us in the green shirt? He’s really creeping me out. He’s been staring at my breasts for twenty minutes now.”
Ladislav doesn’t ask a single question. He motions to one his bodyguards who stands a few feet away from the table, then points to the tourist. Within two seconds, Ladislav’s bodyguards drag the man away from the table. My heart rate slows. Relief.
“Thank you.”
I can see the casino doors from where we’re sitting. Out of my peripheral vision, I see Ladislav’s guys force him outside. The scuffle, however, has drawn the attention of a couple of the casino’s security guards. They approach Ladislav’s bodyguards. I’m way too far away to hear their words, but after a minute I notice Ladislav’s bodyguard reach out his hand to the casino security guard. Probably a cash bribe.
Can bodyguards just throw someone out of a casino for looking at their boss’s date? For a certain price, I guess they can.
The casino will almost always support the high roller. If Ladislav hadn’t been blowing thousands and thousands of dollars, they might not let him throw tourists out at his impulse.
My breathing steadies.
Ladislav wears a proud smile. One that even three straight busts can’t defeat.
After another twenty minutes of 21, Ladislav turns to me. “We will go upstairs to my suite now.”
Thus far, the date has been cake. Now the challenge.
I’m nervous as hell, but I won’t let this Czech millionaire know it.
I reach under the table and rest my hand on his leg. Just above his knee. Then I nod a certain nod that Max taught me. One that he described as a nod that tells your client you’re ready to give yourself to him.
Ladislav changes in his chips for cash, and we head towards the elevator. I interlock my arm with his just as we arrive to the elevators. Ladislav motions for his bodyguards to stay. They stop. And stay put. Like dogs. Once again, it will be Ladislav and me. Alone.
He hits floor 22.
As the elevator ascends, Ladislav turns and brings me close to him. His hands around me, just above my butt. I dangle my arms over his shoulders. He kisses me on the mouth.
In any other circumstance, I would play coy or somehow avoid the kiss. I’d pull back and give some flirtatious excuse for avoiding locking lips. I’d elude the kiss for just long enough to give me ample time to pull whatever grift I was pulling. But it’s Sophie’s life at stake.
So I kiss Ladislav. The two vodka martinis he drank in the last hour mostly disguise the sushi he ate for dinner. His tongue hits mine playfully.
All I can think about is how a week ago I was kissing Jesse. Now my sister is gone, and I’m kissing some asshole from Prague.
Ladislav pulls away from the kiss as the elevator reaches his floor. We walk out arm in arm.
Once we enter room 2214, Ladislav locks the door. I walk to the center of the room and wait for him to make the next move. He goes to the entertainment center.
My eyes are drawn to the giant mirror mounted on the ceiling above the bed. Most of the VIP suites in Caesars have mirrors above the beds.
He puts on some classical music. Then he walks back towards me. “Take off your dress.” That commanding voice again. He’s not wasting any time. I need to buy a little.
“While I do that, how about some champagne?”
“Of course.”
As he goes to the phone, I pull my dress over my head and put it on the end of the bed. Now standing in only my lingerie. I picked my most elegant pair, which I’ve worn only three other times. A black burlesque-style molded demi-cup bra with matching black half-silk lace bikini-cut panties.
With the air conditioner blowing from the other side of the room, I’d be sure to get goose bumps all over my body were my adrenaline not three stories higher than Ladislav’s 22nd story hotel room.
He hangs up the phone. “You are quite beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
He walks back over to me. He runs his hands along my shoulders and stomach.
Come on, Jesse! Come on!
Ladislav’s hands continue to graze the skin on my arms, neck, and stomach when there’s a knock on the door.
Jesse.
Ladislav walks over towards the door. My standing here in lingerie should help the situation. Ladislav’s not going to open the door all the way and expose my near-nudity to a bellhop, making it easier for me to attach the camera without him seeing.
As soon as Ladislav opens the door, I spring for my purse. I can hear Jesse’s voice on the other side of the door as I take the tiny camera out of my purse and tippy-toe-sprint to the closet.
Jesse offers three different options of champagne, which he explains have been comped to Ladislav for his loyalty to Caesars.
As quietly as possible, I pull open the closet doors.
I start to plant the camera on the inside of the closet doors. The way Max showed me. The way I practiced it.
I can’t make out Ladislav’s exact words, but the inflection in his voice sounds like he’s getting out of the conversation.
He’s going to come back inside and catch me attaching this camera to the inside of the closet.
We won’t get the jewels.
We won’t get the money.
We won’t get Sophie back. I won’t get Sophie back.
I take a step back from the closet, my mind skimming through different excuses I could give for opening the closet.
But Jesse comes up huge. I hear his voice go into salesman mode. It must be a good pitch because it keeps Ladislav at the doorway for 20 more seconds.
Plenty of time for me to attach the camera to the closet and then close the doors.
By the time Ladislav returns with the champagne, the closet is closed, my purse is where it was sitting, and I’m standing in the exact spot where he left me.
He opens the champagne and pours some in a glass.
Jesse’s part isn’t quite over. He still has to intercept the actual bellboy bringing up the champagne and convince him the guest cancelled the order. And if the bellboy doesn’t buy it? Then Jesse buys him with the $200 payoff money in his pocket.
Ladislav pours a glass of champagne and offers it to me.
I take the glass.
I’m waiting for the phone to ring.
Ladislav pours himself a glass. Then holds his up to mine.
Clink.
And following the millennium old sound of clinking glasses comes the relatively new sound of a 21st century electronic device.
Ring. Ring.
My cell phone.
Right on time.
“Sorry,” I say. “Guess, you can tell this is my first…”
I pull out my cell.
“My dad…”
If Ladislav was annoyed by my phone, hearing that it’s my dad on the other end softens the irritation. It brings his mind back to his interest in me.
“Do you need to answer it?” Ladislav asks, a smile forming on his lips.
“No. Of course not.”
I put the phone back in my purse.
Ladislav moves towards me. He puts his hands on my shoulders. The phone dings. A text message.
“Let me put it on silent.”
I reach back into my purse and pull out the phone.
This next step will test my acting.
Shock and horror. I do my best to display shock and horror.
Ladislav senses something is off. “What is it?”
“It’s a text message from my father. It’s my sister. Kathleen. She… She’s been in a car accident.”
I need to cry. Crying on command is difficult. Normally. But all I have to do is think of my beloved (real) sister. Kidnapped by the Las Vegas mob. Tied up in a closet somewhere.
And the tears flow.
An Oscar worthy performance. Well at least a Golden Globe nomination.
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