James Swain - Take Down

“That’s what I asked him,” Ike said.

“Shut the fuck up.” To Billy she said, “Explain yourself.”

“The timing is right. At four o’clock, a shift change will be taking place inside your casino. The day shift will be leaving, and the swing shift will be coming in. At the same time, these groups will be coming out of their conference rooms and flooding the casino floor. You can’t buy a better distraction than that. You’re going to get royally fucked.”

“We’ll post guards on the floor and catch them.”

“Good luck.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? We know when they’re coming.”

“Doesn’t matter. You still won’t see them.”

A dark cloud passed over her face. Ike and T-Bird had inched up behind Billy’s chair, hanging on every word. She took her anger out on Ike and dug her elbow into the big man’s gut, making him yelp.

“Out of here, both of you,” she snapped.

The punishers bolted. Shaz was throwing off some seriously bad vibes, and Billy felt himself getting nervous. Lying on the desk was a sterling-silver letter opener shaped like a dagger. If she made a move for it, he was going to knock her down.

“Explain what you just said to me,” she said.

“This isn’t a heist. The Gypsies are cleverer than that,” he said.

“If it’s not a heist, then what is it?”

“It’s a scam. Around four on Saturday afternoon, the Gypsies will enter your casino and rig one of your games right under your nose. Then they’ll split. Later, other members of their family will play that rigged game and win a ton of money. You’ll have to pay them because it will look legit. Only it won’t be. Not by a long shot.”

The cloud left, replaced by a look of subtle appreciation. She rested her hands on his shoulders and looked into his eyes as if trying to tear out his soul. She had to be the scariest woman he’d ever encountered.

“You ever pull a scam like that?” she asked.

“Me? Never.”

“Tell me what you did.”

“You get off on this stuff, don’t you?”

“More than you’ll ever know.”

“Super Bowl, couple years back, I was part of a gang that ripped off Caesars for a million bucks, same sort of deal, rigged the craps game as the first touchdown was scored.”

“Was that part of the plan?”

“Absolutely.”

“Why then?”

Her breath was tickling his skin, getting him aroused. A bad idea, not that his dick ever listened to anything his brain ever said. “More money is wagered on the Super Bowl than any other sporting event in the world. A lot of the bets are proposition bets. Who will fumble first, who’ll kick the first field goal, that sort of thing. The biggest prop bet is on which team will score the first touchdown. That’s when we struck.”

“Was that your idea?”

“Come to think of it, it was.”

“I should have known. Were you the ringleader?”

“I’d rather not say.”

She brought her mouth up close to his face. “Tell me, you sneaky little shit.”

“Yeah, I was in charge.”

She wrapped her arms around his waist, drawing closer.

“Tell me how the scam worked.”

He blew out his lungs. This wasn’t going to end well-he knew that going in-but boy, the ride was going to be something else. “Caesars had wheeled giant-screen TVs onto the floor of their casino for the game. The images were larger than life. Packers were playing the Steelers. Rodgers throws a twenty-one yarder to Jennings and he runs into the end zone. The casino erupts. That’s when we whacked them. One of the members of my crew was a woman with a shopping bag. We used the bag to switch a bowl of dice off the craps table for a duplicate bowl filled with shaved dice. No one saw a thing. A few minutes later, a whale staying in the casino strayed over to the craps table and started playing.”

“Was the whale part of your gang?” she asked, one step ahead of him now.

“Uh-huh.”

“How much did he win?”

“He didn’t win. He got cleaned out.”

She frowned. “I thought you said he was part of your gang.”

“He was.”

Red flared in both her cheeks, the demon resting just below the surface.

“We set him up. He was a Brazilian playboy who wore designer sports jackets with no shirt underneath. Real asshole. We convinced him to bet a million bucks of his own money and told him he’d double it. Wrong.”

“The dice were shaved for him to lose?”

“Yeah. Two other members of my crew bet against him.”

“So you really stole his money.”

“That’s right. Caesars never felt the loss.”

“That’s absolutely beautiful. You enjoy fucking people, don’t you?”

“Some people, yeah, I do.”

“Want to fuck me?”

“Here? You can’t be serious.”

Her hand rose to her throat and pulled down the zipper of her bomber jacket. She was naked underneath, and her breasts spilled out with an urgency that caught the breath in his throat. Her nipples were red and hard and called to him like forbidden fruit.

“Jesus,” he said under his breath.

“Impressed?”

“They’re beautiful.”

“Natural, too. No silicone.”

“God loves you.”

That got a rise out of her. Getting on her knees, she yanked down his fly and pulled his very hard cock out of his trousers. “Well, look at that. No wonder the girls adore you.” She stuck his erection between her breasts while gazing up at him, very matter-of-fact about the whole thing, ready to seize the moment. “So tell me, have you ever been titty-fucked?”

“This would be the first time.”

“Enjoy.”

She squeezed her breasts together and moved her chest rhythmically back and forth while humming a pretty song whose name he couldn’t remember. His prick got so hard and extended that it didn’t resemble his anymore. Hot white stars exploded in front of his eyes and he gasped for breath. At any moment, he envisioned Doucette barging into the office and catching them in the act. Not that he cared. Every nerve ending in his body was screaming, and he tilted his head back and felt the floor start to tremble. Fifty years from now, he’d remember this orgasm while forgetting all the shit that went with it, what psychologists called euphoric recall, that wonderful mechanism that let a person forget the bad and remember only the good.

He came back to earth. She gazed up at him with a satisfied look on her face. He helped her to her feet. She swiped a Kleenex off the desk and cleaned herself off before zippering her jacket. He tried to kiss her and she shook her head. They started to leave.

“That song you were singing. Whose is it?” he asked.

“It’s by Usher,” she said. “It’s called ‘Burn.’ ”

The GM was in the hall when they emerged. Seeing something in Billy’s face that tipped him off, the GM rolled his eyes.

“Thanks for the office,” Shaz said in passing.

“Hope you found what you were looking for,” the GM said.

“Watch your mouth,” she warned him.

Billy followed her down the aisle past the sales cubicles. The heady rush of their sex was starting to fade, and he found himself wondering if he’d just dug his own grave. Illicit sex was one of those things you couldn’t hide forever. If the GM had figured out the score, so would Ike and T-Bird. It was only a matter of time before the news filtered back to Doucette, and he would make Billy pay for cheating with his wife. They came to the door that led back to the hotel lobby.

“Why did you do that?” he asked.

“Because you turn me on,” she said.

“What I’m asking you is, why there? You had to know how dangerous it was. Why not an empty hotel room? It would have been safer.”