James Swain - Super Con

“No, it’s not,” Nico said. Nico was the heir apparent, and he knew how important this job was to his father. “I have a false identity I use for jobs, a guy named Andrew Allen. That’s the name on my credit cards and my cell phone. Kat and Tommy also have false identities.”

“Are these dead people?” Billy asked.

“Yup. We search the papers for obituaries of people who have died without any immediate family or survivors, and we steal their names and addresses and set up credit card accounts and cell phones in their names.”

“How often do you rotate the names?”

“Every six months. If the gaming board does a trace, they’ll turn up a dead end.”

“No, they won’t,” Billy said. “The gaming board recently started using a software program called NORA. It stands for Non-Obvious Relationship Awareness, and it was developed by a data mining company that the government uses to track down terrorists. Let’s say that the gaming board enters Andrew Allen into NORA. Even though it’s a false identity, NORA can spit out every single person that Andrew Allen has made a phone call to or shared an address with. NORA connects the dots and will figure out who your family is.”

Nico swallowed hard. “They can really do that?”

“Afraid so.”

“Sounds like we’re royally fucked.”

“That’s one way to put it.”

“How soon should we leave?”

“Right now,” Billy said.

There were only so many ways to leave Vegas, and all of them were risky if the gaming board was hunting you.

The quickest escape was McCarran International Airport. But using the airport meant dealing with TSA, plus a small army of full-time cops and six dedicated FBI agents, all of whom communicated regularly with the gaming board.

The Greyhound bus terminal on South Main was another alternative, but there were plenty of cops there as well, looking for wanted thieves and criminals jumping bail.

The last route was by car. Most fleeing criminals took I-15 south into LA. Problem was, the cops had planted high-resolution surveillance cameras on light poles every few miles on I-15, and they used software programs to compare faces in the cars to those on wanted posters. Billy had also heard there were surveillance cameras hidden in cactus trees and billboards, although he’d never seen proof of this.

Three ways to escape, and none of them was foolproof.

At the end of the day, it was Victor’s job to spirit his family safely out of Vegas. Victor chose the car escape, believing Kat, Nico, and Tommy would be safer at night on the highway. The Boswells had driven to Vegas in three separate vehicles, and Victor assigned three of his children to be drivers of the escape vehicles.

“I want you to leave five minutes apart,” Victor said. “Kat, Nico, and Tommy, you need to stay hidden during the drive. Is that clear?”

“Should we lie on the floor of the backseat under a blanket?” Kat asked.

“That should do the trick,” Victor said.

“No, it won’t,” Billy said. All heads turned to stare at him. “The surveillance cameras on I-15 have infrared lenses and can see into the back of cars. If the police spot something suspicious-looking in the car, that’s cause to pull you over.”

“Jesus. Then where should we hide?” Kat asked.

“I’d suggest drilling air holes in the trunk and hiding there. It’s the safest way to go. Make sure your cars are filled with gas when you leave, so you can drive nonstop. Every gas station has hidden surveillance cameras, and the cops scrutinize every driver.”

“You sound like you’ve done this before,” Victor said.

Billy had helped cheats flee town many times. It was harder than people imagined, but with the right planning and attention to detail, it could be done. “It used to be easy to get out of town. Then the Crips gang out of East LA entered a casino with machine guns and robbed the cage. They escaped on the I-15 with their loot and were never caught. That’s when the cops decided to install surveillance cameras on the highway.”

“That settles it,” Victor said. “Nico, Kat, and Tommy will hide in the trunks. We’ll drill air holes and put pillows down to make everyone comfortable. Sound good?”

Victor’s family agreed to the plan and went to make preparations. Victor stayed behind and spoke to Billy when it was just the two of them in the room.

“I owe you,” Victor said.

“You don’t owe me a thing,” Billy said.

“Yes, I do. Any other cheat would have taken off once the gaming board showed their faces. You did the opposite. I owe you.”

Billy decided not to argue with Victor over this. The cheat’s code required Billy to help a fellow cheat in need with the understanding that one day, that cheat might help him out of a jam. What goes around comes around, as the old saying went.

“Let me ask you something,” Victor said. “This asshole Grimes — why does he have it out for my family? What the hell did we do to him to deserve this?”

“Nothing that I know of,” Billy said.

“Then why’s he targeting us?”

“Because your family is his ticket to getting a promotion. Most gaming agents are drones. They punch a time clock and count the days to retirement. Grimes is a different breed of cat. He’s a smart son of a bitch and can’t understand why he doesn’t get promoted.”

“Why doesn’t he?”

“I don’t think he plays politics very well. In Vegas, it’s all about juice. It’s not what you know but who you know. Grimes is trying to get ahead on merit instead of kissing ass.”

“Is that why he’s after us?”

“You bet. If he can bust your family, he’ll parade you in front of the newspapers and show everyone what a great job the gaming board does in policing the casinos. His superiors won’t have any choice but to kick him upstairs.”

“So this isn’t about us.”

“That’s right. It’s all about him.”

Air holes were drilled in the trunks of the Boswells’ three vehicles. Nico, Kat, and Tommy climbed into the trunks holding pillows to rest their heads upon. The cars departed at five-minute intervals, leaving Billy and Victor standing in the driveway beneath a waning moon.

“You going to fly out?” Billy asked.

“Have to. I can’t sit for more than a couple of hours with my bum leg.”

“I’ll give you a lift to the airport.”

“Much appreciated.” Victor used his cell phone to book a ticket on a Southwest flight to Sacramento that left in a few hours, then went inside to pack. When he was done, Billy carried the suitcase outside and tossed it into the trunk of his car.

“Before we go, I need you to help me get rid of the blackjack table in the rec room,” Victor said.

The lines at airport security were unpredictable. Billy didn’t want Victor to miss his flight and said, “Plenty of people have blackjack tables. Can’t you just leave it?”

“Afraid not. I told the owner that we were hardly going to use the place. It doesn’t jibe with the story I told him. There’s a fire ax hanging on the wall in the garage. Use that.”

“It seems like a waste of a perfectly good table. I can hire someone to move it.”

“Destroy it. No loose ends. You know the score.”

“Whatever you say, Victor.”

Billy chopped up the blackjack table while Victor sat in a chair in the rec room watching him. Victor wanted the table reduced to little pieces so that not even the garbage men would recognize what it had once been. It was harder work than Billy would have imagined.

“Is this small enough?” he asked, holding up the last piece of the table.

“A little smaller, if you don’t mind. It still looks like a leg.”