by Steve Brewer
“Bill?” said Don. “That’s a damned shame.”
“It’s his wife,” Ross said. “She’s some kinda holy roller. She’s taking him to church.”
“Jeez,” Angie said. “How’s he gonna make a living?”
“When I saw him, he was talking about taking a straight job. Maybe selling insurance.”
“That’s no kind of life,” Don said.
“Bill was at the garage, bitching about it,” Ross said. “He said the armored car lot was such an easy play, if his wife would only let him do it.”
“And you’ve just been sitting on this?” Don said.
Ross shrugged. “Kinda put it to the back of my mind. Figured if we ever needed an armored car—”
“This could save us some steps,” Tony said. “We’ll go take a look at it tonight.”
“Okay,” Ross said. “Peerless trucks are silver, not brown, but we can take it to the garage, repaint it there. Get our pal Slappy to do the lettering.”
Eve said, “Slappy?”
“Sure,” Don said. “Then drive it over to Nevada at night when we’re less likely to get noticed.”
“Sounds good,” Tony said. “Eve and I talked about the uniforms. She thinks we can get them from that theater costumer we used before.”
“The gypsy woman?” Don said.
“She’s not a gypsy,” Eve said. “She’s a New Ager. Crystals, auras, all that.”
“She sure as hell looks like a gypsy.”
“Yeah, and you look like an honest mechanic,” she said. “But we all know better.”
The others howled. Don’s face flushed, but he laughed, too.
“How long do you think it’ll take her to get the uniforms?” Ross asked.
“She’ll probably have to make them from scratch, given our peculiar size requirements,” Eve said, pointing a thumb at Angie. “But she works fast. I’ll go see her tomorrow.”
“Sounds like we can put this thing together quicker than I’d hoped,” Tony said. “That’ll make our inside man happy.”
“He’s in a hurry, huh?” Ross asked.
“Of course. But we’ll keep him in the dark about the plan. We don’t want him to do anything that’ll tip our hand.”
“Then it’s a go?” Don asked.
Tony nodded.
Eve raised her glass in a toast, and the boys lifted their beer bottles. They smiled, anticipating what she was going to say.
“To crime.”
Chapter 12
Nick Papadopoulos lived a couple miles south of Fowler in Villa Mirage, a subdivision of fancy homes arranged around an irrigated golf course, the only green spot in the whole godforsaken valley. Nick didn’t play golf, but once in a while he liked to walk barefoot on the course, so his feet could remember the feel of grass.
Anybody who had any money – mostly casino people – lived in Villa Mirage, though the house prices were inflated and the neighbors were snobs. Not much choice in Fowler; Nick couldn’t see himself living in a double-wide trailer on a sandy lot.
His house was one of the smaller ones in the subdivision, but still way more house than one person needed. Feeling flush when he arrived, he’d had the place professionally decorated – low, modern furniture and stainless-steel appliances and abstract art that didn’t make any sense – and it had never felt like home.
The grandest house in Villa Mirage belonged to that blowhard Big Jim Kelton. It was a split-level monstrosity overlooking the ninth tee, just inside the entrance of the gated community. Nick couldn’t pass the mansion without muttering curses.
He waved at the familiar guard as he drove through the open gate where Villa Mirage’s looping road met Highway 95. Every time he reached the highway, he was tempted to turn left and flee south to the bright lights of Las Vegas. Instead, he turned right, toward Fowler and all its worries and memories and ghosts.
Just outside the city limits, the highway dipped through a shallow basin that hid a boarded-up service station that squatted in the sagebrush. A sign saying “Last Chance Gas” still stood on the roof, but the relentless wind was slowly scouring away the faded letters. The gas pumps had long ago been removed, and brittle weeds sprouted through the cracked concrete.
Every time he saw the old gas station, Nick thought how appropriate was the name “Last Chance,” especially for Dino Stormante. Dino was the low-level mobster who’d previously run the Starlite, the guy Nick had taken out on orders from Bobby Crabs, eight years ago now.
Dino drove a turquoise-blue 1959 Cadillac convertible with tall tailfins and rocket-shaped rear lights. Fucking car looked like it ought to be docking at a space station, not tooling down the strip in Fowler, Nevada. Dino considered the classic car a rolling advertisement, and he usually parked it outside the Starlite’s entrance. He was as crazy for that Cadillac as Big Jim Kelton was for his frigging palomino.
The flashy car made Dino an easy target. He pulled into Last Chance Gas one afternoon, and didn’t even notice the bland rental car that parked behind him. Dino was too busy looking at himself in the rear-view. He had a George Hamilton tan and black Ray-Bans and a dazzling smile as he turned to tell the gas station attendant to fill ‘er up. Except it wasn’t the attendant approaching his door. The attendant was crouched in the doorway of the gas station with his eyes wide and his hands over his mouth. Dino didn’t even have time to wipe the smile off his face as Nick put two .38-caliber bullets in his head, splashing blood and brains all over the white leather upholstery.
A few months later, when Nick showed up to take over management of the Starlite, he found that the gas station had gone out of business. If anyone in Fowler suspected that Nick was the man who shot Dino Stormante, they didn’t say it out loud. This was a company town, and people knew to keep their mouths shut.
When Nick reached the Starlite, he morosely checked the scattering of dusty vehicles in the parking lot. Maybe Dino got the better end of the deal. At least his suffering was over quickly.
Nick eased his shiny Lincoln Town Car into its reserved slot, just as his cell phone rang. He fished the phone out of his pocket and flipped it open, thinking: This better by God be some good news. For a change.
“Yeah?”
“Hi, Nick. You know who this is?”
Nick brightened. “Leo’s friend?”
“Right. I’m calling about that business arrangement we discussed.”
Nick killed the Lincoln’s engine and looked around the parking lot. No one was watching. Nothing to see. Just another businessman talking on the phone behind the rolled-up windows of his air-conditioned car.
“You’ll do it?”
“We think we see a way to pull it off. The armored trucks that pick up the money from your place?”
“Universal Security. We’re on a regular route—”
“Always the same time of day?”
“Sure, give or take a few minutes. Always a little before ten in the morning. Weekdays.”
“Mondays, they pick up for the whole weekend?”
“Right.”
“That’s good information to have.”
Nick hesitated. Was this guy proposing to knock over the armored car? That could get messy. Those guards were trained to shoot first and ask questions later. But what the hell, if the guy thought he could pull it off, who was Nick to—
“One thing,” Tony said. “Your cut. My people find thirty percent unacceptable.”
No surprise there. Nick had expected a negotiation.
“What do your people propose?”
“We were thinking ten.”
“So, what, we bat this back and forth, end up at twenty?”
Tony laughed. “You want to cut to the chase? Then it’s fifteen.”
“I can go fifteen percent,” Nick said. “Long as I get paid pretty quick.”
“We can manage that. This is an all-cash deal.”
“How soon will you be ready to go?”
“We’ve got some arrangements to make.”
&nb
sp; “Sooner would be better than later,” Nick said.
“We’ll be in touch.”
The phone clicked to dial tone, and he snapped it shut.
Son of a gun. The guy was taking the job. Nick had been prepared to write off the five grand he’d handed to Leo Berg, but maybe the damned thing would work out yet.
He got out of the car and walked into the casino. He heard whistling, and was surprised to find it was coming from his own lips.
Nick smiled at the uniformed guards in the lobby, but that seemed to worry them. He crossed the casino floor, not even pausing to check out the paltry crowd of hacking smokers and stringy old ladies at the slot machines.
The guard at the blank door next to the cashier windows was a black gent named William who’d worked at the Starlite for years. He nodded at Nick as he stepped aside. Nick went through the heavy door and waved at the cashiers before going upstairs. His secretary wasn’t at her desk in the reception area at the top of the stairs, and Nick went directly to his own office and unlocked the door.
Most of the administrative offices strung along the hall were small and windowless, but Nick’s was a long room with floor-to-ceiling glass overlooking the casino floor. A conference table took up half the office, and Nick’s mahogany desk was at one end, parked at an angle by the tinted windows so he could see both the door and the casino floor without getting up from his rolling chair.
The office was pretty much the way Dino Stormante left it, though Lola recently had insisted on dressing it up a little. She’d bought (with Nick’s money) a couple of watercolors of desert scenes for the walls and a few silk plants that looked almost real. She even put a potted cactus on one corner of Nick’s desk, then got pissed when she saw him dump cigarette ashes in it. What the hell, it was a cactus. They’re hardy, right?
Nick looked out over the casino floor, trying not to count noses. One of the star-shaped sconces winked on the wall to his right, annoying the hell out of him. He was reaching for his desk phone to call Maintenance when someone knocked on his door.
“Come in.”
The door swung open, and Cindy Duquesne entered, her smile flickering like the faulty light fixture. As usual, she wore flats and a plain blouse tucked into pressed slacks. No makeup, a short haircut and horn-rimmed eyeglasses purchased at Accountants “R” Us. For a long time, Nick had assumed she was a lesbian, until he learned that her desires revolved around gambling, not sex.
“I’ve got the monthly financials for you, Mr. P. We look a little better than last month.”
No time like the present.
“Shut that door, will you, Cindy?”
A worried look crossed her face, but she did as she was told.
“Have a seat.”
Cindy took quick little steps across the room and plunked down in one of the two leather chairs facing Nick.
“I was planning to talk to you this morning anyway,” he said. “I’ve got something cooking, and I need your help.”
“What is it?”
“I need you to adjust our numbers again, make the Starlite look more profitable.”
“Oh.” She shifted in her seat. “Are you thinking of selling the place? Because a buyer would examine those numbers and find—”
“No, no, nothing like that. I’m expecting a loss, and it needs to look worse than it is. I want bigger numbers to show the insurance investigators.”
“Um. That’s fraud.”
“I know that,” he snapped. “But an insurance payoff may be the only way to keep this place afloat. Lot of people count on us for their jobs, Cindy.”
“Yes, sir, but I don’t know if—”
“Look, I don’t need a lot of ifs and buts. All I’m asking is that you keep doing what you’ve been doing, but juice it up a little. Create a copy of the books that make it look like we’ve raked in double what we really made over the last few days. Keep it up to date in the computer so you can boot it up, or whatever the hell you do, so you can make it magically appear in all our computers when I give you the word. You can do that, right?”
Cindy blinked behind her glasses. Nick could see she needed prompting.
“Remember when I caught you embezzling from me, Cindy? Remember how I told you that, as long as it didn’t happen again, you could keep working here and I wouldn’t call the cops? You remember all that?”
She nodded.
“I told you at the time I needed two things from you: I needed you to stay away from those fucking slot machines, and I needed you to remember my generosity.”
“I’ve been holding up my end,” she said. “I’ve covered up the money you pulled out of the corporation for your personal—”
Nick held up a finger, silencing her.
“I’ve warned you before. We never talk about that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“This time, it’s not a personal thing. We do this right, and the Starlite gets a new lease on life. We all get to keep our jobs. Maybe you even get a raise.”
Cindy looked down at the papers in her hands. They were shaking.
“You know the numbers, Cindy. You know this place is barely staying afloat. I’m asking you for a little help here. That’s all.”
Nick leaned back in his chair and steepled his thick fingers, waiting for her to make up her mind.
“Okay,” she said finally. “How much time do I have?”
“A few days, at least. Update that second set of books, then stand by until I tell you.”
She nodded.
“That’s my girl. Now go get busy.”
Cindy looked back at him when she got to the door. “This ‘loss’ you’re expecting, can you tell me the nature of it?”
“It’s better that you not know anything about that. Just have the numbers ready.”
“Yes, sir.” Her voice wasn’t much above a whisper.
Then she slipped out the door and was gone, taking the financial reports with her.
Nick tapped a little drumbeat on the arms of his chair. He realized he was smiling again. Why the hell not? This thing was under way.
Of course, a hundred things could go wrong. The heist guys could screw it up. The cops or the insurance companies or the gaming board could stumble over the truth and nail his ass. Bobby Calabrese could send a herd of no-necks with guns to get rid of him. But it was worth the risk.
One way or the other, he’d soon get the hell out of Lost Vegas.
Chapter 13
Shamu thought, not for the first time, that his boss was queer for horses.
Bad enough that Big Jim Kelton insisted on keeping Lucky the stuffed palomino in the lobby of his casino. Now he’d spent a fortune on a golden sculpture of Lucky, so he could have a version of his beloved steed at home as well.
Four workmen struggled to move the seven-foot-tall crate into position in the foyer of Big Jim’s palatial home. Shamu could’ve helped – he was as powerful as three men himself – but he wouldn’t lift a finger toward this latest folly.
He shouldn’t care. It was Big Jim’s money, he could waste it however he wanted. But it seemed so damned dumb.
Shamu often had such thoughts when it came to his boss, but he kept them to himself. Big Jim paid him a royal sum to stand around and look fierce. In a way, Shamu was as much Big Jim’s trophy as Lucky or this fucking statue. Trophies kept their mouths shut.
He crossed his thick arms over his chest and watched the sweating deliverymen maneuver the crate into position. Big Jim’s chief of security, Rex Mangrum, mirrored his stance across the room. Shamu often caught Rex unconsciously mimicking his every move, trying to be a tough guy. Rex was good at bossing around the underlings at Rancho Palomino, tending the herd, but he couldn’t even look Shamu in the eye. As Big Jim’s right-hand man, Shamu stood outside the chain of command. When he spoke, everybody, Rex included, jumped. If they knew what the fuck was good for them.
Always the striver, Rex did everything he could to insinuate himself into Big Jim’s life. Even dressed lik
e him: Yoked suits and bolo ties, pointy boots and wide-brimmed hats. Near as Shamu could tell, Rex had never been a real cowboy. The skinny cracker was from Florida, for shit’s sake. But he’d embraced the whole Western aesthetic now that he lived here in Nowhere, Nevada.
Shamu didn’t bother trying to fit in. A man his size – six-foot-four, close to four hundred pounds – would stand out no matter what he wore. He went for loose clothes he could move in, and bare feet. He’d never found any shoes that were comfortable on thick feet that were size 17 EEEE. His soles were so callused, he could walk across hot coals and not feel a thing.
The bare feet were part of his Polynesian mystique, along with the tribal tattoos on his arms and torso. Shamu wasn’t sure what the tattoos represented – he grew up in Long Beach, not the South Pacific – but the prison artists had assured him these were the tats of his primitive ancestors.
He’d spent his three long years in Lompoc getting tats and lifting barbells. He entered prison as Sammy Folanu, just another junior member of the Tiki Mau street gang, but he emerged as a scary fucker named Shamu. And he’d parlayed that image into a high-paying position with Big Jim Kelton.
Big Jim stood with his hands in his pockets, jingling his change, while the workmen used crowbars to pry the wooden crate apart, exposing an upright bundle wrapped in blue plastic and white Styrofoam. The leader of the delivery crew stepped back and mopped his bald head with a handkerchief.
“Ready?” he asked Big Jim.
“You think I’m standing around here to look at you? Get on with it.”
The man frowned, then sneaked a glance at Shamu and decided it was better not to say anything more. He nodded at his men, who peeled packing tape off the bundle’s seams, then carefully pulled the plastic and foam away from the sculpture.
First thing they exposed were the horse’s forelegs, pawing at the sky. The gleam of gold was enough to make a man’s eyes water.
Then they peeled the wrapping from the palomino’s head to reveal flaring nostrils and wild eyes. Its mane came to windswept points that made Shamu think of flames.
Within a minute, the rest of the statue was unwrapped. The sculptor had done a good job on the horse’s musculature and overall dimensions. Rearing up from its black granite base, the sculpture was as tall as Shamu and probably weighed twice as much.