James Swain - Take Down

“Tell me what you told the police,” he said.

“Police ask me if I know Funky Freddie. I say I never seen this crazy guy before. Police say pit boss tell them my table not doing so good, that I may be stealing.”

The pit boss had cast a shadow of doubt over Ly’s integrity. He felt himself growing worried. “Did Funky Freddie leave a paper trail inside the casino that could be traced?”

“What you mean?” she asked.

“Did he buy anything with a credit card? Or use the ATM?”

“I see him at ATM machine before he sit down.”

“Did the pit boss see him?”

“Pit boss see him, too.”

This was bad. If the pit boss alerted the police to Funky Freddie’s use of the ATM to make a withdrawal, the police would get Funky Freddie’s credit card info and hunt him down. That was a problem, because Funky Freddie lived in Ly’s trailer park. The police would make the connection and charge Ly and her neighbor for conspiracy to cheat a casino. There were over a hundred slick defense lawyers in town, and not a single one could beat a conspiracy rap.

Their meals came. Ly still didn’t understand the gravity of what she’d done. She speared the matzo ball and tore a piece out of its side with her teeth.

“We need to move you,” he said.

“What you mean?” she said.

“You’re not safe at the trailer park anymore. Let’s go.”

Ly lived in the Rolling Ranchette Trailer Park off Boulder Highway. The roads were quiet, and he did ninety most of the way, hoping to beat the gaming board.

During the drive, she talked about growing up in Vietnam. Billy didn’t know much about the country except that the United States had fought a protracted war there whose validity was still being argued by old guys with ponytails in bars.

At sixteen, she’d paid a human trafficker for passage to LA, where she’d worked folding clothes at a laundry. One day, a well-dressed Vietnamese customer named Vicky had made Ly an offer. Vicky was also a refugee, and owned a nail salon in Garden Grove in the heart of Southern California’s Vietnamese community. All of the salon’s manicurists were Vietnamese girls trying to make a life for themselves. Vicky had offered Ly a job painting nails, where Ly would make good money and even better tips.

There had been one hitch. The cost of entry was twenty grand.

Billy parked in front of Ly’s trailer. It was dark, and he saw no sign of the gaming board.

“Explain the deal to me,” he said.

“Deal simple,” she said. “Vicky send me to work at Slots A Fun, where I pretend to be a Vietnamese girl named Ly. I live in Ly trailer, drive her shitty car, pretend to be her. I send Vicky money every month so I one day work in salon.”

“You’re not the first one Vicky’s done this with, are you?”

“All girls in Vicky’s salon have been Ly. No one complain.”

“Does the owner of Slots A Fun know what’s going on?”

“Owner knows,” she explained.

“You bribed him?”

“I fuck him, same as other girls. We fuck him, and he take care of us. Back home in Vietnam, boyfriend fuck me, and when he done, tell me go make dinner. I say go make own dinner, lazy dog. Boyfriend knock me down, kick me. I tell my father, thinking he protect me. My father say, ‘Chồng chúa, vợ tôi.’ That mean ‘Man master, woman servant.’ So I run away. That’s what my country like. Women get nothing in return. At least when I fuck a man here, I get something back. You have problem with that?”

She had it all figured out. Why she was here, the things she’d done to get here, the risk, the reward-nothing had escaped her.

“No, I don’t have a problem with that,” he said.

A few trailers down a porch light came on, and a geezer in handcuffs came out the front door. He was followed by a pair of gaming agents with badges pinned to their lapels. The geezer’s wife stood in the doorway, bawling her eyes out. On the geezer’s feet was a pair of hideous multistriped socks. Funky Freddie was going down.

Billy started to back away while trying not to smash into anything. One of the gaming agents spotted them.

“Stop right there, and get out of the vehicle,” the gaming agent called out.

“Get your head down,” Billy said.

Ly dropped in her seat. Goosing the accelerator, he flew in reverse down the street.

“Get back here!” the gaming agent shouted.

He flashed his brights, just to get the gaming agent’s goat. The gaming board employed nine hundred field agents, the majority in Sin City. Rookies were relegated to the night shift; if they lasted a year, they got to work days. It was a lot harder than it sounded.

He reached the intersection, performed a backward turn, hit his brakes, and threw the car into drive. As they raced past Ly’s street, the gaming agent appeared with his gun drawn. It was strictly for show. If the gaming agent fired and missed, the bullet might hit a trailer and wound someone. No agent wanted that on their resume, unless they were Dirty Harry.

Billy exited the trailer park without any more problems. A minute later, he and Ly were flying down Boulder Highway with the windows down and their hair blowing in their faces.

“You my hero,” Ly cooed.

The Super 8 Motel on Koval was the best deal in town. On-site dining, a heated swimming pool, four HBO channels, all for forty bucks a night. He paid in advance and walked Ly to a room on the first floor that faced the street. Shoving money into her hands, he told her to lose the dealer’s uniform first thing tomorrow.

She leaned against the doorsill. Her posture said she wanted him to come inside and screw. She was nothing but trouble, and he backed away from the door.

“I thought you like me,” she said.

“I’m doing a job for some guys. I have to go or they’ll get pissed.”

“Make up excuse. You good at that.”

“They’re bad guys. They won’t understand.”

“Why you working for bad guys?”

“It’s a long story. I’ll be by in a couple of days. Stay out of trouble, okay?”

She tried to hug him. Billy knew better. Once their bodies touched, it would be all over. He gently pushed her away. Her eyes laughed at him.

“You going to take me back to LA?” she asked.

“I don’t know. You have someplace to stay?”

“Vicky put me up. I still owe her money for job at nail salon. You pay her for me?”

“How much do you owe her?”

“Two thousand five hundred.”

It was a small price to pay to get Ly out of his hair.

“I’ll pay her the rest,” he said. “Now let me go.”

“You really do that for me?”

“I said I would, didn’t I?”

“Remember that time we almost fuck? It was in crummy motel just like this. I never forget that night. I want you so bad inside of me. Just like now. Why don’t you come inside and let me make you happy?”

Her eyes danced with the memory, and it took all his willpower to turn away and trot to his car. Not until he was speeding down Koval did he glance in his mirror. Ly remained in the doorway wearing an all-knowing look. She was the kind of woman that could get you killed, and he sped away thinking there were probably worse ways to check out of this life.

The hotel lobby was deserted as Billy came through the front doors, and he stuck his head into the casino before heading upstairs. The crowds had thinned, the action less frenetic than earlier. Casino games were designed to grind a player down, one dollar at a time. Over the long run you couldn’t win, but that didn’t stop people from sticking their heads in the buzz saw.

His ears popped on the way up in the elevator. Through the glass windows he beheld the slow-motion riot of people, cars, and blinking neon of the Strip.