James Swain - Super Con

The line went quiet. He had Night Train dead to rights, and they both knew it.

“Give me an hour. I just got back from practice, and I need to take a shower,” Night Train said. “There’s a cigar bar in Caesars called the Montecristo. I’ll meet you there.”

“One hour it is.”

Caesars was jumping. The entrance resembled a parking lot, and he watched the cab’s meter run while waiting to be dropped off. Soon he was in the main lobby. While guests waited on line to register, there was a bust going down, courtesy of the gaming board. The busted cheat wore silver bracelets and stared dejectedly at the floor. The gaming agents were so focused on their suspect that they didn’t see Billy come in.

He circled around them. The busted cheat’s wardrobe screamed Russian. Run-down Nikes, a threadbare sports jacket, and a sheared haircut more befitting a war refugee. The casinos knew about the Russian gangs and had trained their surveillance teams to be on the lookout. Their scam was called whacking. A Russian cheat would stand next to a particular make of slot machine and record the machine’s play on a cell phone. The machine had a flawed random number generator chip that spit out predictable sequences every few hours. The Russian left and went to a motel, where the information was sent to a foreign server that calculated when the machine would pay a jackpot. Upon returning, the Russian would play the same machine and eventually win.

A great scam, unless you happened to get caught. Nevada had a law that forbade using an electronic device to beat its games, including cell phones. Cheats who got busted using devices went down hard.

“Coming through,” a voice said.

A uniformed bellman pushing a luggage cart bore down on him. His name tag said KENNETH/SAN DIEGO. As Billy moved to let him pass, the bellman stopped and drew a pocket-size Beretta from his pants. He jammed the barrel into Billy’s rib cage.

“Start walking toward the elevators,” the bellman said.

Billy’s eyes darted around the lobby. He counted five gaming agents, only they were too preoccupied with their bust to notice that something bad was going down.

“Let me guess. Your name isn’t Kenneth, and you’re not from San Diego,” he said.

“Hong Kong. Keep walking. I’ll shoot you right here if I have to,” the bellman said.

“With all this heat?”

“I’ll be gone before they know it.”

The elevators were at the far end of the lobby. He began walking, praying that an opportunity would present itself to alert the gaming agents. The bellman hung close to his side.

“You don’t look Chinese,” he said.

“Plastic surgery. It took three operations.”

“Your English is good, too. No accent.”

“Rosetta Stone.”

“I’ll double your fee if you let me go.”

The gun’s barrel was suddenly in his ass. It made him jump a little. They came to the bank of elevators, and the bellman summoned a car. Billy stole a glance at the mirrors that lined the wall. None of the gaming agents had followed them. Was this the end? It sure felt like it.

“How did you know I’d be here?” he asked.

“Broken Tooth said you’d come back to Caesars to talk to the football players, iron out the details. Broken Tooth is smart that way,” the bellman said.

“How long you been waiting?”

“Two days.”

“And the hotel didn’t notice?”

The bellman laughed under his breath. “I took a job. They’re shorthanded, so I agreed to work double shifts. It was only a matter of time before you came in, and I spotted you.”

“You got lucky, admit it.”

“Luck had nothing to do with it.”

An elevator car landed and its doors parted. The car was empty and they boarded. He spun around and watched the bellman slip the gun into his pocket, then draw a gilded knife with a pearl handle from a sheath hidden by his vest. The tip of the knife was dripping a substance the color of gold, and he guessed it was some kind of exotic poison. Elevators had surveillance cameras, only no one in the casino ever watched them. The doors began to close.

“Any final requests?” the bellman asked.

“Just don’t make me suffer,” he said.

A man’s foot stopped the elevator doors from closing all the way.

“Drop the knife and put your arms in the air,” a voice said.

The doors opened, and Grimes entered the car aiming his gun. The bellman was no fool and let the knife slip from his fingers before lifting his arms over his head. Billy spied a colorful scorpion tattoo beneath his starched shirt collar.

“You know this guy?” Grimes asked.

“Believe it or not, he’s Chinese and an assassin,” Billy said. “I guess the first one was a decoy. Be careful, he’s got a gun in his pants pocket and the knife is filled with poison.”

“Thanks for the warning. Okay, friend, step out of the car, real slow.”

The bellman stepped out of the car, and Grimes stuck his hand in the bellman’s pocket and relieved him of his weapon. He had the bellman put his hands behind his back so he could cuff him. Then he read the bellman his rights, which he recited from memory. It was all Billy could do not to give the special agent a hug, but he didn’t think the gesture would be appreciated.

“How did you spot us?” he asked.

“I’ve developed a sixth sense whenever you’re in a casino,” Grimes said. “The hairs on the back of my neck go straight up. Lucky for you, huh?”

“I’ll say. I could have been ripping off the joint.”

“Get the hell out of here,” Grimes said.

The Montecristo Cigar Bar was designed for private conversation. A hostess escorted Billy to a private room called the Vault, where Night Train sat on a leather couch puffing on a cigar and watching a wall of TVs. The room was otherwise empty, and Billy pulled up a chair.

“Cigars are bad for your health,” he said.

“Haven’t you heard? This is my last game. Might as well start enjoying myself.” Night Train picked up a box from the table and offered his guest one. Billy accepted and lit up.

“Tasty. What are they?”

“They’re called PGs. They’re from the Dominican Republic.”

He blew a smoke ring and watched it rise to the ceiling. “It took me a while to put the pieces together. Sometime after the playoffs, the NFL asked you to take it easy on Neil Godfrey, who’s playing injured. That would let your opponent win, because Godfrey can pick you apart if he has the time. You didn’t like it and started hanging out at Caesars to blow off steam.”

Night Train puffed on his cigar and said nothing.

“The NFL commissioner flew in to Vegas and had a meeting at your villa. The commish offered you sports-casting jobs if you agreed to throw the game, only you said no dice.”

“Who told you about the sports-casting jobs?”

“I found the contracts in the garbage in your villa. You thought the whole thing was settled, but then the NFL did something to you and your teammates that wasn’t right. It made you so angry that you threw a party at Caesars with hookers and blow and plenty of booze. Normally, you’d never do something that reckless before the Super Bowl, but this situation was different. The NFL fucked you, and you were mad as hell about it.”

“You don’t miss much,” Night Train said.

“Like I said, it took me a while to piece it together. But I’m still missing the important part. I don’t know what the NFL did that made you guys blow up. What do they have, photographs of you robbing a bank?”

“Worse. They kept files on us dating back to our rookie years, stuff so old that we’d forgotten about it. If we don’t do as they want, the stuff gets leaked to the press.”