James Swain - Super Con

“Do you really think the garbage man’s going to care?”

“You don’t know who the garbage man is. Remember the mob boss Joe Bananas? The feds nailed him by going through his garbage and reading his mail. Stupid guinea didn’t have enough common sense to shred his letters before he tossed them away.”

Billy cut the remaining piece in half and showed it to Victor. “How about now?”

“Good enough.”

In the garage were two wheeled plastic garbage cans. Billy brought them into the house and filled them with the remains of the table, then wheeled them outside and deposited them at the curb for the next pickup. He went to his car to find Victor sitting in the passenger seat.

“Did you figure out my super con?” Victor asked during the drive to the airport.

Billy said no. He’d examined the table while chopping it apart. It was ordinary, without any hidden crevices to hold a tiny camera that could pick off the dealer’s hole card and relay the information to the cheat. The secret of Victor’s ingenious scam was still safe.

“It’s built into the equipment,” Victor said.

Billy went over the double line. He righted the car before speaking. “You’re kidding me. I looked at every square inch of that table.”

“I noticed that. I discovered a flaw in the equipment that lets me rip the house off blind. It’s happening at the factory, and the casinos don’t know about it. Yet.”

“You think they’re going to spot it?”

“Eventually they will. Or another cheat will figure it out and rip them off. It has a limited shelf life. If it’s not used soon, it will go away.”

“You’re saying the casino will replace the flawed piece of equipment, and your super con won’t work anymore.”

“Correct. Which leads me to my next question. We need a large crew to pull this off. My family is out of the picture. Do you have another team you can partner up with? I’d hate to see this fall by the wayside.”

They had reached the airport with its confusing array of signs. Billy headed for the departure drop-off area while giving it some thought. He was on a first-name basis with the captains of several crews that made their living scamming the joints. There were cooler mobs that specialized in switching decks on unsuspecting dealers, past-posting crews that placed late bets at roulette, card-counting teams with hidden computers that bled the blackjack tables, and crews that manipulated the dice during craps for huge scores. Each crew was excellent at what it did and capable of pulling this off.

“I’d be happy to make some phone calls. What’s our split?”

“You’ll have to pay the other team half to get them to agree. You and I will split the other half. I know it’s not what we agreed to, but it’s still a huge score.”

It was a huge score. And it was also better than nothing.

“I’m in,” the young hustler said.

“Good. You can bring us our share, and I’ll take you out to the best steakhouse in Sacramento.”

Victor was paying him a compliment. He trusted Billy to deliver the money and not shortchange him and his family. That meant a lot to Billy. They shook hands, sealing the deal.

Cory and Morris went to Machine Guns Vegas to blow off some steam. There were many gun ranges in town, but only MGV offered military guns for rent. Just by plunking down a credit card, a customer could shoot a Barrett sniper rifle, a SPAS-12 dual-mode combat shotgun, or an M4 lightweight submachine gun used by SEAL Team Six.

They opted for the Three Gun Experience. For a hundred and ninety bucks, they got to shoot three weapons for forty-five minutes straight. Cory chose the AK-47, the M4, and the KRISS Super Vector, which looked right out of a sci-fi flick. Morris had his own preferences and chose the combat assault FN SCAR, the MP5 with a banana clip, and a fully automatic Uzi.

Together they shredded paper targets in the range. Cory preferred targets of flesh-eating zombies, while Morris liked killing terrorists. They were both steaming mad at Travis and made the targets pay for the big man’s betrayal. It was bad enough that Leon was being held against his will because of Travis. Now Travis had attempted to get Pepper, Misty, and Gabe to jump ship. Travis was trying to destroy Billy’s crew, the rat bastard.

Joining Billy’s crew was the best thing that had ever happened to them. Not that long ago, they’d been selling worthless coupon booklets on the Strip. Billy had plucked them off the street and offered to teach them the art of the grift. They’d signed up, and the money had started to flow. They’d bought a new car, rented a house, and filled the fridge with all the delicious food they’d missed growing up. Their lives were heaven, and they were not about to let Travis jeopardize their good fortune.

Finished, they went to the Sand Dollar Lounge and downed shots of Cuervo with beer chasers while listening to the Moanin’ Blacksnakes on the makeshift stage. Soon they were swimming in their chairs and feeling no pain.

“Want to get another round? My treat,” Morris said.

Normally, Morris’s paying for drinks was enough incentive for Cory to say yes.

“I’m toast,” Cory said.

“You drunk?”

“As a skunk. How about you?”

“I’m on my way. How about shrimp tacos from the truck? I hear they’re decent.”

Cory grunted no. Shooting machine guns and quaffing beer usually lifted his spirits. Tonight was different, and his head was filled with bad thoughts. The band took a break, and the purple spotlights on stage went dark. Cory said, “What do you say we drive over to Henderson where Travis lives, hop the wall, and kill that son of a bitch.”

“Are you serious?” Morris asked.

“Dead serious. Travis needs to be taken out of the picture.”

“Don’t you think Billy’s already thought about this? Let him handle it.”

“Billy’s got enough on his plate. It’s time we start pulling our own weight.”

“I don’t think that’s a smart idea.”

“You’re a chicken. Bock, bock, bock. ”

Cory became impulsive when he drank, and his threat to kill Travis was not an idle one.

Morris snatched the car keys off the table and rose from his chair.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said.

When Billy recruited people into his crew, he made them create identities for themselves in case they had the misfortune of getting arrested during a job and had to answer questions about their background and livelihoods to the police. These identities were natural extensions of who they were, making the details easy to recall.

Cory’s and Morris’s identities were of perpetual college students enrolled at UNLV. To make this look real, they paid tuition and took online courses and lived in a rented house two miles from the university’s main campus, the neighborhood filled with students who never slept.

Morris drove down their block. Six bare-chested guys with long hair were playing a makeshift game of soccer in the middle of the street. A keg of beer was providing libations while flaming burgers cooked on an open grill.

“I want to kill that asshole Travis,” Cory said.

“Stop talking like that, man. It’s not healthy,” Morris said.

“Some people need killing.”

“He’s twice your size. You wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“Muscle doesn’t stop bullets.”

Hearing Cory talk like this upset Morris. They had bounced around together in foster homes and watched each other’s backs. Morris liked to think it was the reason why they weren’t too damaged as adults. He pulled into their driveway and killed the headlights. They’d bought the house out of foreclosure and were still fixing it up. Cory crawled out and threw up in the bushes.