Robert Randisi - Hey There (You with the Gun in Your Hand)

“Is this the game you used to play when you first started goin’ to Vegas?” Jerry asked.

“Yes.”

“And how did you do?”

“I used to be a CPA. My math is good, so I did okay. But there are times when you have to toss out accepted strategies.”

“Like when?”

“Like when you start losing with twenty to the dealer’s twenty-one again and again,” Sammy said. “That’s when the game gets too frustrating to play. I’ve seen it make grown men cry.”

“I watched them play at the Sands,” Jerry said. “I never saw nobody cry. I seen ’em curse, and get mad, but I never seen ’em cry.”

“You start playin’ this game in the casinos,” I said, “and I guarantee you’ll see a lot of stuff you’ve never seen before.”

“I ain’t gonna play it in the casino,” he said. “I only risk my money on the horses.”

“Then why’d you want to learn how to play?” Sammy asked.

Jerry looked at Sammy and said, “Just a way to pass the time.”

“Well,” Sammy said, looking at his watch, “there’s still time to kill.”

Jerry smiled then and asked, “Room service, anybody?”

Jerry and I flew into Vegas about 8 P.M. the next night. We killed the day in Tahoe watching Sammy rehearse, checking out the Harrah’s operation, playing some more blackjack in our rooms. Finally I called the pilot and he flew us in.

We were in the Sands parking lot at nine, with an hour to go before the meet. We decided to sit in my car and wait.

“Nothing should go wrong this time,” I said. “Nobody should know about this meet, even if somebody was listening to our phone conversation.”

“Unless the dame and her boyfriend blab to somebody,” Jerry pointed out. “Ya know, if they got, like, one more partner they could still fuck it up and get us all killed.”

When he said that I touched the.38. It felt heavy in my jacket pocket. Jerry had cleaned his.45 yet again the night before.

I was nervous, sweating as if it was ten degrees hotter than it was, but Jerry was cool and calm.

“Mr. G., you really gonna give this broad all that money?”

“I’m gonna give her some of it, Jerry,” I said, “and use the rest as bait.”

“Bait?”

“Joe Kennedy wants to know who’s got that photo of JFK,” I said.

“You wanna go after those guys?” Jerry asked. “They’re not gonna be like yer girl and her boyfriend, ya know.”

“I know,” I said. “I don’t want to go after them, but Joe Kennedy might. We may not know how many prints of these photos have been made, but like you said, there’s only one way to make sure they don’t get released to the public.”

“So even though Kennedy ain’t sent any of his own hitters out yet-or so he says-you think he will once you get him the names?”

“That’s all he wants.”

“You comfortable with that, Mr. G.?”

“I’ve given it some thought and, yeah, I am,” I said. “I think they killed the guy in the warehouse and I think they’d kill Caitlin and her boyfriend if they had the chance.”

“So you think she’ll give them up to you?”

“If I can convince her that they’ll kill her if she doesn’t, yeah,” I said. “Also, I’m holdin’ back fifty thousand.”

“What if she doesn’t know who they are.”

“There can’t be two different factions holding those photos,” I said. “Too much coincidence. It’s more likely somebody in the original group decided to go out on their own.”

“Caitlin and her guy?”

I nodded.

“You got any suggestions about where I should stand?” he asked, craning his neck to look around.

“I think you should stay here, keep your eye on me,” I said. “About ten to nine I’m gonna start walkin’ around. I figure she’s gonna pick out one of these dark corners out here and draw me in.”

“Naw,” he said, “I gotta get outta the car, in case her boyfriend’s around. I can’t leave ya out there with your ass swingin’ in the wind, Mr. G.”

“I appreciate that, Jerry,” I said, “but you’re gonna have to stay low.”

“I may be a big guy, Mr. G.,” he said, “but I can stay low.”

“Okay,” I said. “Okay.”

When the time came Jerry said, “Let me get out first.”

“Go ahead.”

He opened his car door, closed it as quietly as he could, then drew his.45 before he slunk away between the cars. He was right, he was able to keep low enough not to be seen.

I waited a minute or two then opened the door and stepped out. I didn’t close it as lightly as Jerry had.

I walked out in the center of the brightest light in the lot. I had to be as easy to spot as Jerry was difficult.

Time went by-seconds, then minutes. I checked my watch several times. Finally, it was ten-seventeen when I heard someone hiss at me from the darkness.

“Caitlin?”

“Over here,” she whispered, and stepped out of the shadows.

I touched the gun in my pocket, but left it there. Likewise the envelope of money in my pocket. I had split the money into one third, and two thirds.

I walked over to the lamppost and she stepped out into the light.

“Give me the money,” she said. She looked bedraggled: limp hair, pale complexion. Her eyes were wide with fear. “Quickly.”

“Where are the photos?”

“You’ll get the damn photos,” she said. “I want the money first. Now!”

“Not until I see the photos,” I said. “And the negatives. Or the roll.”

“There’s no roll,” she said, impatiently. “The photos were developed.”

“Where are the negatives?”

“We only have one,” she said. “The one photo you’re lookin’ for.”

She took a small white envelope from her pocket.

“Seventy-five thousand,” she said, her tone filled with awe. “For one picture.”

I took the envelope from my pocket. We approached each other and exchanged envelopes. Hastily, she tore hers open and counted.

“You’re way short!” she said, angrily. We had split the money into two envelopes. Jerry was carrying one of them.

I took the photo from the envelope she had given me and reluctantly looked at it, then checked for the negative, holding it up to the light above us to make sure it was the right one. It was. I could see how Sammy would be embarrassed by it.

“You cheater!” she snapped. “Tony, Tony!” she shouted and looked about wildly.

Suddenly, a man came into view, but he wasn’t moving on his own, he was being pushed from behind.

“He cheated us-” she started, but then she saw Jerry behind her boyfriend. “What-”

“He jumped me,” Tony said. “I didn’t have a chance.”

No, he didn’t. He was barely out of his teens. Jerry towered above him and was more than twice his weight.

“You have a gun!” she shouted at him.

“He had a gun,” Jerry said, and held it up for her to see. It looked old and rusted. “If he’d tried to pull the trigger this thing would have exploded in his hand.”

“I didn’t do nothin’,” the boy said. “It was all her idea-”

“Shut up!” Jerry said, slapping the back of his head.

I reached out and snatched the money from Caitlin’s hand.

“Hey!”

“Plans have changed, Caitlin,” I said. “This is your partner? This kid?”

She dummied up.

“I can make her talk, Mr. G.,” Jerry said.

She looked at Jerry and her eyes got wide.

“She’ll talk, Jerry,” I said. “Let’s go inside, where we can be more comfortable.”

We took them into the Sands to the security office, where Larry Bigbee, the second in command, gave us a room so we could talk in private-rooms where they usually took cheaters for questioning. There were no two-way mirrors, though. This wasn’t the police department.