James Swain - Take Down

“The gown will be used to bring gaffed equipment into the casino. The bride wears a leather harness around her waist with a strap that hangs down the front, another strap down the back. The gaffed equipment hangs between her legs. She might walk stiffly, but that’s not uncommon with women in gowns. My guess is, she’ll be carrying a gaffed shoe to rip you off.”

“You think there’s a dealer involved,” the old grifter said.

“Yeah, and a pit boss. I noticed a number of high-stakes blackjack tables in the pit. They’ll target one of those.”

“How’s the shoe going to be gaffed?”

“Stacked and marked. Bleed the joint all night long.”

The old grifter flashed a crooked smile. “Like we did at the Mirage, only we used a floppy lady’s handbag to switch the shoe in. How much did we steal that night?”

“Two hundred large.”

“What the hell are you two talking about?” Doucette said, wiping his runny nose with a cocktail napkin. “Back this conversation up, and give it to me in plain English.”

Billy had never heard a casino owner admit he didn’t understand. Doucette’s days were numbered if he kept broadcasting how stupid he was.

“The bride will be carrying a dealing shoe beneath her gown,” he explained. “The shoe contains eight decks removed from your casino by a pit boss. These decks are stacked and also marked. The Gypsy wedding party will enter your casino and stand in front of a particular table. This table will be locked up: the dealer, pit boss, and players will be involved. The wedding party will create a distraction, and the shoe will be switched with the one on the table. The normal shoe will be stashed in the gown, and the wedding party will leave.

“The players at the table will win every hand because the cards are stacked. When the shoe is exhausted, the dealer will shuffle up, and a new round will be dealt. The players will read the backs of the cards and keep ripping you off. You’ll lose a fortune.”

“But the shoes are chained down,” Doucette said. “They can’t be switched, can they?”

Every time Doucette opened his mouth, he weakened the nation. Billy glanced at Crunchie, giving the old grifter the floor.

“The chain will be cut with a battery-powered saw hidden in the pit boss’s jacket,” Crunchie explained, “and the gaffed shoe will be secured to the table with a duplicate chain.”

“You’ve done this before,” Doucette said.

“In my previous life, yeah,” the old grifter said.

“So this is how we’re going to get ripped off? Pretty boy isn’t lying to me?”

“Billy’s telling the truth. This is the real work.”

The body on the bed begged for mercy. It was pitiful to hear, and the room’s occupants pretended not to. The last gasp of a dying man, Billy thought.

His education complete, Doucette crossed the bedroom and jabbed Billy in the chest. “You still rub me the wrong way. That’s a problem, because I’m depending on you to catch these fuckers. If this breaks bad, Rock will go off the reservation. You understand what I’m saying? The man takes no prisoners.”

“You can trust me. I won’t let you down,” Billy said.

“That’s the point, kid-I don’t trust you, and never will. In my world, trust has to be earned. So I’m going to make you earn my trust.”

Billy almost said “How?” but bit his tongue. He knew what was coming; it was as clear as the nose on his face. Doucette moved to the side of the bed and grabbed the black hood covering the prisoner’s head.

“I want you to put a bullet in our friend here,” Doucette said. “Do that, and you’ll earn my trust. Think you’re up to it?”

Billy weighed his options. The poor son of a bitch on the bed was a goner, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. But he could save himself. Viewed in that light, he really didn’t have any other choice.

“Sure,” he said, swallowing the lump in his throat.

“Say it, you slimy little snake,” Doucette said.

“I’ll shoot him.”

“Very good.”

The body torqued beneath the covers. Maybe the poor bastard will suffocate and save me the trouble, he thought.

Doucette jerked away the hood. A large piece of duct tape covered the prisoner’s mouth. Recognition was like a splinter in the chest, and Billy thought he might get sick.

It was Mags, crying her heart out.

“Crunchie tells me this little lady is a friend of yours,” Doucette said.

The words hung in the air. The old grifter had been waiting for a chance to get back at him, and Billy hoped there was more than one bullet in the gun they gave him to shoot Mags.

“She’s no friend,” he lied.

“But you know her,” the casino boss said.

“I caught her painting cards at blackjack in your casino and had a cocktail waitress give her the brush. She left her chips on the table and ran. End of story.”

“Why help her out? What was in it for you?”

“I felt bad for her. I knew what you were going to do to her.”

“That’s it? You felt bad for her? Give me a fucking break.”

“She also has a great ass.”

“That’s more like it. Were you going to hook up with her, and get it on?”

“That was the plan. Wouldn’t you?”

Doucette’s eyes did a little dance. Every guy in Vegas was a pussy hound; Doucette had checked Mags out while she was being tied up, and liked the merchandise. Talking about her ass was crude-especially after having agreed to kill her-but sometimes crude worked, and Billy wasn’t surprised when the casino boss slapped him on the shoulder.

“I could learn to like you,” Doucette said.

They waited another hour before moving her. Now tied to a wheelchair with the duct tape still in place, Mags was taken by service elevator to the basement garage, where Ike and T-Bird placed her struggling body into the cramped trunk of a limited-edition Mercedes-Benz AMG Black Series, a racecar capable of devouring any track in the world. She wasn’t the first cheater to take her last ride in the trunk of a car, and probably wouldn’t be the last.

“Be careful,” Doucette said. “The last time, you scratched the paint.”

“Can she breathe?” Billy asked.

The casino owner shrugged indifference and slammed the trunk. To Ike he said, “Meet us in the usual place. Thirty minutes. Don’t be late.”

“Got it, boss,” Ike said.

With Doucette at the wheel, Shaz riding shotgun, Crunchie in back, the Mercedes hurtled up the exit ramp, the roar of its engine echoing in the garage long after it was gone. Ike and T-Bird trotted toward a stairwell with Billy on their heels. He had agreed to kill someone to save his own skin. There was no doubt in his mind that he was capable of pulling the trigger. What he didn’t know was if he was capable of living with himself in the days and weeks that followed. His conscience would eat at him, and he was afraid it might eat him alive.

They took the stairwell to ground level. Went outside to the employee garage, climbed three levels, and got into the Camaro’s front bench seat, sitting three across. It was tight, but Billy wanted to talk to Ike and T-Bird during the drive and gauge their facial expressions. Ike made his tires scream going down the spiral exit ramp, and hit the street doing sixty.

“Think you can make it to Lake Mead in thirty minutes?” Billy asked.

“Who said we were going to Lake Mead?” Ike said.

“That’s where all the cheaters get buried.”

“Is there anything you don’t know, man?”

The deserts of Las Vegas were pockmarked with shallow graves that had no tombstones or markers. The nameless dead surrounded the city and often became unearthed during new home construction and road projects. In the past two decades, 150 had been discovered; it was believed there were many more. The police told the media that these deaths were the work of hit men and roaming serial killers, but Billy knew otherwise. The dead, in fact, were cheaters who’d gotten caught one too many times plying their trade. Not all cheaters met this gruesome fate, just those damn fools who didn’t know when to quit. The casinos got tired of busting them, so they whacked them instead.