James Swain - Take Down

“How did the mother react?”

“That was the strange part. Momma got real quiet. In a whisper she tells me to mind my own business, then turns around and walks away.”

“You don’t think she’ll go to the shop when she gets home?”

Lucille shook her head. The story had riled her up, and she lit a fresh cigarette and filled her lungs before responding. “I’ll tell you what I think. I think Momma knows her baby’s gown is a fake. It was written all over her face. Maybe she bought it through the mail to save money, or maybe there’s some other reason. But she knew.”

He had to think about that. He motioned with his hand, and Lucille passed him the cigarette. He took a taste, the smoke tickling his tongue, then gave it back.

“Have you ever had that happen before?”

“Never, and I’ve been in the business a while. Families skimp on things, sure, but never on the gown. The gown represents the family as much as it does the bride.”

She had nailed the discrepancy on the head. A family marrying off their daughter could be excused for buying a supermarket wedding cake, serving cheap New York State champagne, or having a drunk uncle sing “Just the Way You Are” for the first dance, but they couldn’t get away with buying a fake gown. There was something else in play here.

“How can I find this woman?”

“She and her daughter are here right now. Shall I make an introduction?”

“If you don’t mind.”

From a desk drawer Lucille found a name tag that said “Director of Special Memories” and clipped it to Billy’s shirt. Her hands lingered on his chest. She was sexy and smart and knew the angles. It was too bad she was a square.

She backed away, expecting him to say something, embarrassed when he didn’t. She’d helped him, and he didn’t want to bruise her feelings. He took a business card from a box on the desk and slipped it into his breast pocket. Her eyes danced with possibilities.

“Can I call you sometime?”

“I don’t see why not,” she said. “Walk with me.”

Lucille led him to a dressing room. He’d been hearing tales about the Gypsies for as long as he could remember, and he was excited at the prospect of finally meeting a member of the clan, even if under strained circumstances. Lucille stopped at a door marked with a gold star and tapped lyrically, the sound like raindrops dancing on a roof.

“Hi, it’s Lucille, just checking to see if everything’s going okay.”

The mother of the bride opened the door. Late forties with dyed-blond hair and circles under her eyes, she gave Billy the once-over before focusing her gaze on Lucille. She didn’t look any different than the other mothers he’d seen, and was either doing an Oscar-caliber acting job or wasn’t part of the Boswell clan.

Behind her, the bride-to-be stood before a three-way mirror as a tailor applied the final touches to her strapless gown. She bore a striking resemblance to her mother: same face, same figure, only no dye job. The gown was a disaster and made her look thick around the middle.

“Hello, Mrs. Torch,” Lucille said. “This is my associate, Mr. Cunningham. I just wanted to check in and make sure you and Candace were doing all right.”

“My daughter’s driving me nuts,” the mother of the bride said, dropping her voice. “Otherwise, I guess everything’s fine.”

Billy did a double take. It was the same woman that Ike and T-Bird had roughed up coming out of the restrooms. Cecilia Torch, the one who’d played it cool as the casino had tried to bribe her with gifts so she wouldn’t sue. He’d pegged her for a distraught mother, desperate to save her daughter’s wedding from disaster. Had she pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes and actually been hiding the fact that she was part of a family of cheaters?

The two women discussed tomorrow’s wedding. Listening to them talk, he couldn’t tell if Cecilia was faking it. He had an idea. You could learn a lot by listening to a person talk with your eyes closed. The mouth spoke the lie, but the face sold it. But without the face, the lie was just a lie and could be picked up.

He pretended to take a call. What he actually did was shut his eyes and listen to Cecilia talk. He quickly picked up the hint of three-card monte below the surface, the bullshit smooth and expertly delivered. Whatever rancor Cecilia had shown to Lucille when confronted with the accusation of her daughter’s fake gown was history; now Cecilia was respectful and polite, and he knew it was all an act.

He said good-bye into his cell phone and put it away. Then he took a closer look at the daughter’s wedding gown. It made the girl look pregnant. Somehow, the gown played into this.

The conversation between Cecilia and Lucille ended. Lucille said the usual pleasantries and shut the fitting room door. She walked Billy out to the reception area, where his journey had started, her face a question mark.

“Are they the ones?” she asked.

“Afraid not,” he said.

“Damn, I would have sworn it was them.”

Clasping her hands, he gave her a gentlemanly kiss on the cheek.

“You’ve been a huge help,” he said.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more.” As he headed for the door, she called out to him. “Don’t forget to check out Tryst. The place gets really hot after midnight.”

“I’ll do that,” he said.

Ike and T-Bird stood outside the bridal shop with their cell phones, surfing websites with splashy layouts of Italian sports cars soon to be in their futures. Bye-bye, Camaro, hello, Lamborghini Roadster and Ferrari Spider. His cautionary talk about lying low after the heist had gone in one ear and out the other. Living large was all they cared about.

Their gazes lifted in unison.

“Any luck?” Ike asked.

“Home run,” he said.

Billy talked to Cory from the balcony of his high-roller suite. Standing by the rail, he sipped on a bottled mineral water while letting the desert sun bake his face.

“Did Gabe have any problems getting the paint?” he asked.

“Nope,” Cory said. “Gabe’s in the garage now, starting to make the fake chips. He gave me and Morris a lecture on negativity. You should have heard it.”

“You be nice to Gabe. Agree with whatever he says, and don’t you dare piss him off. That goes for Morris, too. Gabe’s our ticket to paradise.”

“I know, I know. He’s a downer sometimes.”

“Deal with it. How’s the horse-race scam looking?”

“We’re all set. You’re playing with Tony G at the Bali Hai at three thirty. Morris and I will be playing in front of you. The scam is for the twelfth race at Santa Anita. Once we know which horse is the ringer, we’ll pass the information to you, and you’ll place a bet with Tony G and fleece him. The ringers are always long shots. Once we had one at fifty-to-one odds, if you can believe it.”

Vegas bookies were tough to fleece. Billy couldn’t see Tony G accepting a large bet on a long shot from a stranger, couldn’t see it at all. Cory was leaving something out.

“You’re telling me you’ve been fleecing bookies with this scam, and none of them wised up? What are you doing, hitting them over the head with a lead pipe?”

“We’re not fleecing bookies, we’re hitting sports books,” Cory explained. “Sal, the guy who’s fixing the races, has a web. Morris and I are part of the web. I probably should have told you sooner how this worked. Sorry.”

Billy’s blood began to boil, and he sipped his water to calm down. Webs were used by fixers to place bets on rigged sporting events. Most webs were spread across the country and employed a dozen or more bettors in different cities whose job was to place medium-sized wagers on rigged events with different bookies. The beauty of a web was that it spread the pain around, and no one bookie got beaten for too much money. The drawback was that it required a large group of people to pull off, as well as a large pool of victims. For Cory to think that the horse race scam at Santa Anita could be used against a single bookie-i.e., Tony G-was insane.