James Swain - Take Down

His footsteps made scratching sounds on the hall’s carpet. He keyed the door to his suite and entered, expecting to find Ike and T-Bird counting the money they’d taken from his condo. To his surprise, they weren’t there, and he called the front desk at Turnberry.

“Good evening. Can I help you?” answered Jo-Jo, the lethargic night manager.

“This is Billy Cunningham in 28D. I’m looking for a couple friends of mine. Have you seen them around?”

“Hey, Mr. C. If your friends are a couple of mean-looking black dudes, then yeah, I saw them. They came in earlier and introduced themselves. I saw those big Super Bowl rings, and we got to talking. I remember those guys when they played for the Steelers.”

“Were they any good?”

“Naw, they sucked. The tall one nearly cost them the title.”

“Any idea where they are now?”

“They’re still upstairs in your condo.”

“They haven’t left yet?”

“Nope. I would have seen them, and I’ve been at my desk all night.”

An alarm went off in Billy’s head. Emptying his safe shouldn’t have taken Ike and T-Bird very long. What had they done, called some high-priced call girls and thrown a party? He had to assume that they were up to no good. That was a mistake, because he had the capability to screw them in a bad way, right from where he was.

“What’s the name of the security company that installed the hidden camera system in the building last year?” he asked.

“A1 Security and Alarm,” Jo-Jo said.

“Do you have their website?”

“Yeah, it’s taped to my computer: a1security.com, all lowercase. Is something wrong? Are those guys ripping you off?”

“That’s between me and them. Later, Jo-Jo.”

“Have a good night, Mr. C.”

He got on the Internet with his Droid and soon was on the A1 site. A year back, a cleaning woman had gotten caught trying to pawn valuable jewelry she’d stolen from a resident at Turnberry. To prevent further theft, the building’s management had hired A1 to install hidden CCTV cameras in each unit’s ceiling smoke detectors. These cameras were wired to the firm’s main location and could be accessed with a few simple commands.

He’d been happy to have cameras installed in his unit. He wasn’t worried about theft as much as what the gaming board would take if they ever raided his place. Chances were, they’d rip him off, and wouldn’t it be fun to have a tape of it? He went to the log-in page and typed in his password: cheater .

The interior of his condo appeared on the Droid’s screen. The CCTV cameras filmed in four-color, and his condo looked as sharp as the set for a late-night infomercial. He flipped between rooms and stopped at the master bedroom. As he’d expected, the wall safe was open and had been cleaned out, the stacks of money piled on the floor.

But there was more. His clothes had been removed from the closet and laid out across the bedroom. Dozens of silk shirts, designer slacks, cashmere sports jackets, and Italian shoes. Some articles had never been worn and still had price tags. His collection of men’s watches was also on display, along with the fancy cigarette lighters that he used to light beautiful ladies’ cigarettes when he went clubbing. They had decided to take inventory of his stuff.

Ike stood in the center of the bedroom lecturing T-Bird, who sat on the bed, staring at the floor. T-Bird’s posture was peculiar: sagging shoulders, head down, like a boxer collapsed on his stool between rounds of a fight, getting ready to call it quits.

Ike kept talking to his partner, and T-Bird kept staring at the floor. Not a lecture, Billy decided, but a pep talk. Ike was trying to cheer up T-Bird, who was clearly depressed.

He tried to put himself in T’s shoes. The bird man was past his prime, maybe nursing a bad knee or suffering memory loss from too many hits to the head, all the while holding on to some thin dream of wealth. Then he’d seen Billy’s mind-blowing collection of threads and jewelry, and the crushing weight of his own crummy reality had hit him, and all he wanted to do was go to a bar and get loaded, because that’s what dumb guys did when they got depressed.

And Ike was saying no, we got a job to do, come on, man.

He had caught them at a vulnerable moment, and a Roman candle went off in his head with the most glorious of colors. They were his for the taking. He just had to handle them right.

He picked up the room’s phone and dialed 9 for an outside line and called his condo. On the Droid, he saw the punishers’ heads snap as the phone in the condo rang. He repeated this three more times. On the fourth try, Ike snatched the phone off the bedside table.

“Who’s this?” Ike said.

“It’s me, Cunningham. I’m watching you and your partner.”

“You’re watching us? How the fuck can you be doing that?”

“Through my cell phone.”

“Don’t fuck with me, asshole.”

On the Droid, Billy saw T-Bird get off the bed and stand next to his partner with a pensive look on his face. T-Bird wasn’t sure what was going on, and he started to gather the stacks of money they’d pulled out of Billy’s safe and cradle them in his arms the way a nervous parent might hold a newborn baby. T-Bird was going to bolt-Billy was sure of it-and he said, “I’m not fucking with you. T-Bird just got off the bed and is now grabbing the money you took from my safe. Tell him he needs to hear what I have to say.”

“How can you be spying on us?” Ike said. “There ain’t no surveillance camera in here.”

“The smoke detector on the ceiling has a closed-circuit TV camera with a fish-eye lens hidden in it. There’s one in every room.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“I shit you not. Take the cover off one if you don’t believe me.”

Ike found the smoke detector on the ceiling and yanked off the cover. His arm was so long that he didn’t need a chair to stand on.

“Fuck, look at this,” Ike said.

T-Bird stared into the tiny camera, his face so close that Billy saw forests of nose hair.

“It’s Cunningham,” Ike explained. “He’s watching us.”

“That’s fucked up,” T-Bird said.

“So what do you want to talk about,” Ike said to the camera.

“I have a job for you. I’ll pay you life-altering money.”

“What kind of money?”

“Life altering. As in lots.”

“How much?”

“Enough to retire on. You interested?”

Ike turned to stone, thinking hard.

“Ain’t no harm in talking to him,” T-Bird said into his partner’s ear.

“When?” Ike said into the phone.

“Right now,” he replied.

“Where?”

“In my suite at the hotel. I’ll order room service. You guys hungry?”

“We’re always hungry. Get me a filet, well done, french fries, hollandaise sauce on the side. Same for T, only make his medium rare with a baked potato and sour cream.”

“Got it. See you soon.”

“Listen, Cunningham, you’d better not be fucking with us.”

“I’m not fucking with you.”

Ike ended the call. He slapped his partner on the shoulder at their sudden good fortune, then remembered the CCTV camera in the ceiling. He flipped Billy the bird before ripping it out.

Billy ordered the punishers’ steaks from room service along with a large shrimp cocktail for himself. The room service attendant explained that the kitchen was backed up and that it would take forty-five minutes for the meals to be delivered. Billy wanted the food on the table when Ike and T-Bird arrived, and he said, “Make it twenty, and I’ll be happy.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but that’s impossible,” the attendant replied.

Nothing was impossible inside a Vegas casino. “What’s your name?”