James Swain - Take Down

“If I didn’t care about you, I’d throw your ass on the street,” Billy said. “Morris, too.”

“I’m sorry, Billy. I didn’t think it through,” Cory said.

“We’ll talk about this later. In the meantime, I want you and Morris to stop smoking weed. It’s killing your brain cells.”

“Will do. You want me to ice the round of golf?”

“Fuck no. I need to get Tony G off Gabe’s back. Meet me in the Bali Hai parking lot at three fifteen sharp. I’ll think of something between now and then.”

“I’m really sorry, Billy. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

“Yes, you will.”

The sound of scratching glass snapped Billy’s head. Inside the suite, Ike stood with his back to the slider, using the diamonds on his Super Bowl ring to let Billy know that they had company. Marcus Doucette, his crazy bride, and Crunchie had appeared in the living room wearing angry faces. Making his cell phone disappear, he went inside to face the music.

“Hit the little bastard,” Doucette said.

“What did I do-at least tell me that,” Billy said.

“Fuck you, you little rat shit. Ike, do as I say.”

Ike was unusually fast for a big man. He grabbed Billy by the front of the shirt, lifted the young hustler clean off the carpeted floor, and smacked him in the mouth with a loose fist. It was a pussy punch, real loud, but without mean intentions. Their eyes met. Ike winked.

Billy knew that he had to sell the idea that Ike was beating him up. Otherwise, he and Ike were both in a world of trouble. He flopped his head to one side as if his neck were broken. Ike threw another pussy punch and he flopped his head to the other side. To sell the notion that he was being hurt, he bit down hard on his lower lip, causing it to bleed. Opening his mouth, he pushed the blood out with his tongue.

“Want me to smack him again?” Ike asked.

“No, that’s enough. Sit him down,” Doucette said.

Ike grabbed a chair and threw Billy into it.

“You know why I had Ike do that?” Doucette asked.

Billy continued to play hurt and shook his head.

“Because you’re waltzing around my casino grilling my employees, and not bothering to tell me what you’ve found. From now on, you’re going to communicate with me. No more bullshit games. Are we clear on this?”

“Yes, sir,” Billy said softly.

Doucette turned to his bride. “Tell him we’re ready.”

Shaz’s eyes were glistening, the sight of blood turning her on. Going to the hallway door, she unchained it and stuck her head out.

“We’re ready for you,” she called into the hallway.

Rock and his two leathered-up bodyguards entered the suite and stood directly in front of Billy’s chair. Rock wore pretty, fat-man clothes-black pants with billowing legs, a tent-sized purple shirt hanging out of his pants, and a snappy fur hat-and clutched his walking stick as if he planned to use it very soon. His bodyguards flanked him like a pair of backup singers.

“I want you to tell me what’s going on in the casino Saturday afternoon,” Rock said. “If you leave anything out-anything at all-I’ll crack your skull open. Now, start talking.”

Billy didn’t understand what was going on. Why should he be telling Rock about the scam? His eyes found Doucette’s face. The casino owner dipped his chin. Tell him.

He looked back at Rock. The man acted as if he owned the joint. And the other people in the suite acted as if Rock owned the joint as well. Which could only mean one thing: Rock did own the joint; Doucette was fronting for him and was on Rock’s payroll.

It made sense, when he thought about it. Bugsy Siegel had built the Flamingo Hotel with mob money, the Cleveland Outfit had built the Stardust, Fremont, Marina, and Hacienda Hotels with mob money, and Rock had built the Galaxy Hotel and Casino with drug money. The more things changed, the more they remained the same.

The realization made him look at Rock differently. Beneath the clownish clothes and swagger was a man of superior intellect and street smarts who’d built an empire in a business where a single mistake or slipup meant loss of life or a lengthy stretch in the pen. To Billy’s way of thinking, it made Rock smarter than Donald Trump or Warren Buffett, because those men had all fucked up at one time or another in their illustrious careers, while Rock had never fucked up. Not once. Because if Rock had fucked up, he wouldn’t have been standing there.

It also made him look at Rock’s bodyguards differently. The women were not physically imposing, nor did they appear to be carrying weapons of mass destruction strapped to their bodies. But they were lethal. They had to be, because their boss was a constant target.

Knowing these things made him choose his words carefully. If he tried to bullshit Rock the way he’d bullshitted Doucette and his bride, it would end quickly, in bloodshed.

“On Saturday afternoon around four, a wedding party staying in the hotel is going to rip the casino off for a major score,” he said. “The party is named Torch-Allaire, although they’re really part of a Gypsy clan that specializes in taking casinos down for huge scores.”

“Define huge ,” Rock said.

“Millions.”

“How long have you known it was these people?”

“Since I spoke with the mother of the bride in the hotel’s bridal shop. Her name’s Cecilia Torch, and she’s as phony as a three-dollar bill.”

“You didn’t answer my fucking question. How long have you known?”

“Not long. Maybe a half hour.”

“Why didn’t you call Doucette and tell him?”

Rock’s fingers tensed on the grip of his stick. If Billy’s answer didn’t ring true, he was going to split Billy’s head open, causing Billy’s lovely brains to ooze out of his nostrils. He took a deep breath, hoping it wasn’t his last.

“I didn’t call Doucette because I didn’t have any proof,” he explained. “Shit, I don’t even know what their scam is. Without knowing that, the information’s worthless.”

“Why’s it worthless?” Rock demanded.

“Say I tell Doucette I think the Torch-Allaire party is the Gypsies. If he tosses them out of the hotel, they’ll just come back under different names and rip the place off. If Doucette has security rough them up, they’re going to fight back, and that could get messy. The best way to deal with them is to figure out their scam and catch them in the act, with videotape evidence as backup. By doing that, you own them.”

The suite fell silent as Rock considered what Billy was telling him.

“That might be true, but it doesn’t explain why you didn’t tell nobody,” Rock said. “You were holding out. I get mad when people hold out on me.”

Billy sat up straight in his chair. “I did tell someone. I told Ike and T-Bird. Ask them if you don’t believe me.”

Rock directed his attention to the punishers. “Is this candy-ass nigga telling the truth?”

T-Bird knew better than to open his yap and get caught in a lie. Instead of responding, he simply nodded, his dreadlocks bouncing on his broad shoulders. Ike took up the slack.

“Yeah, he’s telling the truth,” Ike said. “Cunningham came out of the bridal shop, and I asked him how it went. Cunningham said he’d made the cheaters, now he just needed to figure out what their scam was so he could tell Marcus. Those were his exact words.”

“You think he was trying to pull a fast one?” Rock asked.

“No, suh.”

“Could he have been stalling or plotting something?”

“Cunningham knows what we’ll do to him if he double-crosses us. Marcus told us to keep him in line, and we’re keeping him in line.”