James Swain - Take Down

The lobby was deserted. She went to the nearest set of doors and tugged at the handles. The doors opened, and a black maintenance man gave her a scornful look.

“It’s over, lady. You’re too late,” the maintenance man said.

She rushed past him onto the polished parquet floors. The gym was a sea of bleachers covered in discarded programs, while up on stage, two workers dismantled the podium.

She choked back her tears. She imagined Amber receiving her diploma to no applause. How many other grads had suffered that ignominy? She wanted to blame someone for being late, but in reality, she had no one to blame but herself.

“Wake up.”

Her head came off her pillow. Frank stood beside the bed, holding a steaming mug. He put it under her nose, the fumes snapping her awake.

“How… did you get in?” she stammered.

“When you didn’t answer your phone, I picked the lock,” Frank said.

“You said you were coming at twelve thirty.”

“It is twelve thirty. We need to get moving. I told my boss we’d be there at one.”

The coffee brought her around. She hadn’t contacted Billy to warn him, and she slipped out of bed and took her iPhone off the night table. Frank intercepted her at the bathroom door and yanked the cell phone out of her hand.

“Give me that,” she said.

“You don’t need your cell phone in there,” he said.

“I want to send my daughter a text. I haven’t been in touch with her in a while.”

“Do it later, on your own time.”

The Strip was a madhouse. Thousands of tourists oozed along the sidewalks clutching plastic cups of draft beer and yard-glass containers filled with potent rum concoctions. Every day was Mardi Gras in Las Vegas, every night a Super Bowl party.

“Where are you taking me?” Mags asked.

“See those NV Energy vehicles parked the next block over? There,” Frank said.

Parked in front of Galaxy was a convoy of Nevada Energy vehicles. This included a truck with a cherry picker, two white vans, and a camper-sized vehicle with a satellite dish on the roof. A crew of utility workers was fixing the spaghetti power lines running to the hotel. It looked legit, until Mags noticed that the man in charge was Frank’s piece-of-shit boss Trixie.

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” she said.

Frank’s hands clutched the wheel as if clinging to a life jacket.

“We have a deal,” she said. “If you’re changing the deal, I want to know.”

Frank took out his cell phone and punched in a command.

“The changes are about this,” Frank said.

She squinted at the screen. Eight people gathered inside a covered parking garage. Billy, two big black dudes, a fat guy holding a gym bag, two kids with curly mops of hair, a big man with his back to the camera, and two babes pretty enough for porno.

“That was taken inside Galaxy’s employee parking garage earlier,” Frank explained. “We think Cunningham’s planning to rip off Galaxy today, and that’s his crew.”

“You’re going to catch him in the act.”

“Damn straight. He’ll do serious time.”

“What do you mean serious time?”

“Twenty-five to life, no parole.”

“You think you can nail all of them?” she asked, swallowing hard.

“That’s the plan. We’ve doubled the number of agents for the bust.”

It wasn’t adding up. The gaming board was raiding Galaxy to bust a drug dealer and shut down a money-laundering operation. Billy was just icing on the cake, or so she’d been led to believe.

“Why all this attention on Billy?” she asked. “This other guy’s a drug dealer. He’s more important, isn’t he?”

“Rock’s goose is already cooked. The gaming board just wanted to arrest him inside the casino because it was good publicity. Busting Cunningham is a different story. That little motherfucker humiliated us. We’ve got a score to settle with him.”

“So this is personal.”

“You got it, baby.”

“You still haven’t told me how my deal’s changed.”

“You’re going to help us catch the whole crew.”

“But that wasn’t our agreement.”

“It is now.”

Harrah’s was across the street from Galaxy. Frank pulled in and gave the valet his keys. Then he came around to Mags’s side of the vehicle and told her to get out.

“I’m warning you, don’t try anything stupid,” he said.

They walked down the Strip to an elevated walkway, took the escalator up, and crossed over. The walkway was crowded and Frank pushed his way through. Another escalator took them down to the opposite side of the street, and they headed toward the convoy of NV trucks.

Mags decided it was time to end her relationship with the gaming board. She started to make a run for it, but Frank forced her up the stairs of the camper-sized vehicle. He opened the back door and brusquely shoved her inside.

The door shut behind her. Three gaming agents sat before a matrix of video monitors. Gaming agents were voyeurs; they eavesdropped on phone conversations, opened other people’s mail, and stuck their noses where they didn’t belong. A gruff female agent with steel-gray hair appeared in charge.

“You must be the snitch,” the female agent said. “What’s your name?”

“Maggie.”

“Okay, Maggie, I want you to sit over there in the corner. Don’t open your mouth unless I speak to you. Am I making myself clear?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Whatever chance she’d had to warn Billy had been lost. She sank down in the chair under the female agent’s wilting gaze.

“And don’t get any bright ideas,” the female agent added.

At two o’clock, Billy entered Doucette’s office. A makeshift home theater had been erected in the room’s center. Four seventy-inch flat-screen TVs on rolling flat-panel stands, each set turned on, showing a live surveillance feed from the casino floor. The cameras were in four-color and HD, and the images literally popped off the screens.

On the first screen was a feed from the wedding chapel. Next to it, a feed from the bustling hotel lobby. The third feed was the entrance to Galaxy’s casino, the fourth from the casino floor. Now dressed in pretty clothes, Rock sat on the couch, accompanied by his female bodyguards. Doucette and his bride stood behind the couch, sipping bottles of mineral water. His old pal Crunchie was not on the premises, and he guessed the old grifter had been relieved of his duties.

“Like it?” Rock asked.

“I’m impressed,” Billy said.

Rock picked up a walkie-talkie and spoke into it. “Show your faces.” On the second screen, hotel security came out of the woodwork and filled the lobby. They were big men wearing ill-fitting suits and ultra-mean faces, just spoiling for a fight.

“Go back to your stations,” Rock said to them.

The security goons faded away.

“I’d say you’re ready for the Gypsies,” Billy said.

“We’re more than ready, my little friend.” Rock exchanged the walkie-talkie for a remote. “I’m going to show you the meaning of Big Brother.”

Rock tapped the remote. On the first screen appeared a Hispanic couple at the chapel altar. The bride had a small tattoo on her forearm. Another tap, and the tattoo grew in size to show a brown-skinned Virgin Mary standing on a crescent-shaped moon held up by an angel.

“I want one of those,” the bodyguard to Rock’s left said.

“I’ll get you one when we get back,” Rock promised.

“You can operate the camera’s PTZ from your remote?” Billy asked.

“That’s right. Ain’t nothing down there I can’t see,” Rock said.

Pan-tilt-zoom cameras had ruined more than one cheater’s career. PTZs could read the date off a dime and, when enabled with auto tracking, would follow a cheater around the casino while recording his every movement. It was going to make his crew’s job this afternoon a lot harder, but not impossible. Nothing was impossible when eight million bucks were at stake.