James Swain - Take Down

“I do.”

“Like hell you do.”

“We live by the code. The rules when it comes to other thieves are clear. Don’t expose another thief’s identity. Never rat out another thief to the law. Help another thief whenever you can. Those are the rules, man.”

“Do you really believe that, Billy? With all your heart, and all your soul?”

“Damn straight I do.”

“Then why’d you agree to rat out the Gypsies? Wait, I’ll tell you why. Because you want to keep your crew from going to jail. They mean more to you than the fucking code, don’t they?”

The real answer was right there, but Crunchie was too blind to see it.

“You’re no different than me, kid. You just don’t want to admit it.”

Crunchie walked out of the room thinking he’d won the argument. Billy followed him into the hall knowing otherwise. The deal he’d struck with Doucette had been nothing more than a bold-faced lie, born out of necessity to save his friends. By lying, he’d bought himself time to work his way out of his jam. If he put his mind to it, he’d find a way to make sure no harm came to the Gypsies, while continuing to abide by a strict set of rules that he’d lived by for most of his life. He may have been a criminal, but he wasn’t an animal. There was a difference, despite what the old grifter believed.

Mags awoke with a start and spent a moment collecting her thoughts. She hated screwing in hotel rooms, but that was the price you paid for sleeping with a married man.

She slipped naked out of bed. From the closet she grabbed a fluffy white bathrobe several sizes too big, then fixed herself a stiff drink at the minibar.

“You want something?”

Special Agent Frank Grimes stood on the balcony in his striped boxers, gazing down at the Strip. After picking her up outside Galaxy, they’d come to Harrah’s for a good screw and a nice room-service meal. She hadn’t been in the mood, but there was no arguing when Frank wanted it. His wife had cut him off years ago, and he was hornier than a pack of Cub Scouts.

She’d known a few cops in her time. Most hated their jobs and longed for different careers. Gaming agents were a different breed. The state gave them unlimited power to police casinos, and they spent their days running down cheaters and collecting tax revenue. Crooks feared them, and casinos hated them. For Frank, that was just fine.

“How about a cold beer?”

No response. Normally, Frank jumped at the sound of her voice. Her purse lay on the dresser, the contents pulled out, including the metal tin containing the daub she used to mark cards. The breath caught in her throat.

When she’d become an informant for the gaming board, she’d promised Frank she’d stop cheating, and had gone right on doing it, thinking he was too infatuated with her to figure it out.

Stupid her.

The room had matching leather chairs. Drink in hand, she parked herself in one and let her bathrobe part. She wanted Frank to see her pussy when he came inside. It was crude, but what the hell else could she do? Her body was all she had left.

Her death spiral had started four years ago. She’d been in Atlantic City painting cards at one of Trump’s carpet joints when a square john at her table had alerted security, who’d looked at the surveillance tapes and arrested her. Instead of copping a plea and doing time in a country club prison, she’d skipped bail and moved to Sin City and set up shop.

It had worked for a while. She’d cheated the casinos and flown under the radar and life had been good. She’d gotten set up in a condo, had a closet filled with nice clothes, and took an occasional vacation to the warm beaches of Cancún.

Her undoing had come two years later. Her daughter was graduating high school and Mags had decided to call her. Her grandparents had raised Amber, and she hardly knew her own kid. She’d let the call drag on, never guessing Amber’s phone was tapped. An hour after hanging up, two Metro LVPD cruisers had invaded her drive, and her life on the lam had ended.

Right before trial, Frank had paid her a visit in the county lockup and offered her an undercover job with the gaming board in return for dropping the charges. Frank was comic-book ugly and had no class. She couldn’t see herself doing it, and said no.

If nothing else, Frank was persistent. He showed her a letter from a female inmate incarcerated in a notorious prison called Ely. In the letter, the woman stated that rotting in hell was better than her situation and that by the time her family read this, she’d be dead. Then Frank showed Mags a photograph of the woman hanging from a bedsheet. Mags caved, and a snitch was born.

Frank came inside. He glanced guiltily between her legs before sitting down.

“Ready to go another round, big boy?” she asked playfully.

“You’re in real trouble,” he said.

“How about a blow job?”

“Stop talking like that.”

“It never bothered you before. You want it-I can see it in your face.”

She crawled across the carpet on her knees, ready to go down on him. She looked into his eyes for compliance, and he pushed her away.

“You promised me you’d keep your nose clean,” he said.

She returned to her chair. “I must have forgotten.”

“I’m paying you five grand a month-isn’t that enough?”

“I can always use a little more.”

“I sent you into Galaxy’s casino to find a drug dealer named Reverend Rock. You weren’t supposed to scam the joint, you stupid bitch.”

His voice was turning harsh. If she wasn’t careful, he’d start slapping her around if the answers she gave him didn’t ring true. She closed her bathrobe. “You told me Rock’s game was blackjack, so I sat down at a game, thinking he might show his face. I started cheating without realizing it. I know it sounds stupid, but it’s just habit. Then a cocktail waitress asks me if I want a drink. I say no, and she gives me the brush.”

“A cocktail waitress made you?”

“Another hustler paid her to do it.”

“You ran into another hustler?”

“That’s right. Name’s Billy Cunningham. I knew him when he was a kid.”

“Billy Cunningham saved your ass?”

“You know him?”

“I nearly nailed that little fucker at the Hard Rock, and he turned the tables on me. If I ever catch him, I’ll put him away for the rest of his life.”

Mags grew quiet. She was joining Billy’s crew, to hell with her deal with Frank. Billy had offered her a fresh start, something she’d been trying to do since the quarterback of the high school football team had knocked her up in his car, and she’d quit school to have Amber, and her life had become one long slippery slope of failure and brushes with the law. She hadn’t thought there was a way to climb out of the hole she’d dug for herself, and then Billy had said, “You don’t remember me, do you?” and it had all changed.

“Okay, finish your story,” Frank said.

“The cocktail waitress gives me the brush, so I ditched my disguise in the restroom and ran. I’m outside waiting for you when Cunningham comes out. We went inside to a bar and had a drink. He told me the people running Galaxy were bad news, and that they’d kill me if they caught me. He told me never to come back.”

“Think he was protecting you?”

“I guess.”

“Does he have the hots for you?”

“Probably. I turned on his love light a long time ago.”

“Did you fuck him?”

“For Christ’s sake, he was fifteen years old.”

“What was he doing in Galaxy? Running a scam?”

“He didn’t say. I got the impression he was doing a job for them.”

“He wouldn’t be the first criminal on Doucette’s payroll.”