James Swain - Take Down

“Send that shot to everyone on the team,” he said.

“Anything else?”

“That’s it for now.”

Frank made for the door, then pretended to notice Mags. He knew all the ways to cut her down, and said, “Billy likes them pretty. I hear he gets more ass than a toilet seat.”

“I bet he does,” Mags said under her breath.

Misty and Pepper had been mistaken for call girls enough times to know how to fool hotel security. Dressed in casual clothes and wearing a smattering of makeup, they chattered about a dumb Channing Tatum flick as they strolled past the guards posted inside the front doors.

Soon they were riding an elevator to Billy’s suite. Misty carried the Nike bag with the fake chips, which she tried to avoid peeking into. In a few hours, she was going to be rich, and the thought made her giddy with excitement. She unlocked the door with the spare room key.

It was said that the best things in Vegas were free, only no one could afford them. Billy’s comped high-roller suite was a perfect example, the furniture and decorations to die for.

“I could live here,” Misty said.

“Me, too,” Pepper said.

“Anybody home?”

“I’m on the balcony,” came Billy’s voice through the open slider.

They dropped their things on a couch and stepped outside. Billy stood by the railing, watching the action down below with a pair of binoculars with the sales sticker still on them.

“We didn’t expect to find you here,” Misty said. “What are you doing?”

“I came upstairs to get a better look at those NV Energy trucks parked in front,” he said.

“What’s the matter with them?”

“They’ve been there for a few hours. When was the last time you called the power company on a weekend, and they came out?”

“You think it’s the heat?”

He lowered the binoculars. First the flash of light in the covered parking garage, now the trucks parked out front as if preparing to raid the joint. It could have been nothing more than his imagination taking a trip down paranoid lane, but he wasn’t ready to dismiss his feelings just yet. With his hand, he motioned for Pepper to close the slider.

“No, I don’t think it’s the heat, but I’ve been wrong before,” he said. “If you smell an undercover cop when you’re in the casino, dump the chips and run.”

“But what about our big payday?” Misty pouted.

“There will be more of those down the road. You with me on this?”

“I guess,” she said sadly.

An awkward silence followed. He had instilled the fear of doubt into them. It was the worst possible way to start a job. Putting his hands on their shoulders, he drew them close.

“It’s just a precaution. You never can be too careful in this game. Especially with the people you care about.”

“Awww,” they both said.

They shared a group hug, and things were good again.

Back inside, Billy rapped on the punishers’ bedroom door. Ike and T-Bird emerged a few moments later. T-Bird’s dreadlocks were history, his skull a shiny brown dome.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” Billy said.

“Shut up,” T-Bird said, clearly disgusted. “Took me two years to grow my dreads. They’re part of me, know what I mean?”

“You can grow them back while you’re enjoying your money.”

“We brought some clothes for you to try on.” Pepper unzipped a garment bag and pulled out a pair of billowing slacks, a black silk shirt with mother-of-pearl buttons, and an alligator belt with a gold-plated barbwire accent. “See how these look.”

T-Bird went into the bedroom with the clothes hanging over his arm and returned wearing them. The belt was a nice touch, the type of outlandish accessory that a drug peddler might wear.

“Pants too long,” the bird man grumbled.

“We’ll pin them up,” Pepper reassured him. “Otherwise, what do you think?”

“I guess they’re okay.”

“You look like a player,” Billy said. “Sit down so the girls can give you a makeover.”

T-Bird lowered his body into a chair. Pepper removed a makeup kit from the garment bag, and she and Misty went to work on transforming him into a menacing drug dealer. They trimmed his eyebrows, attached a diamond magnetic earring to his left earlobe, gave him a grill of fake gold teeth to stick into his mouth, and fitted a pair of rose-tinted Ray-Bans on his nose. Finished, they both took a step back and nodded approvingly.

“I’d say he’s done,” Pepper said.

“I’d buy an eight ball from him,” Misty said.

T-Bird went to the mirror hanging over the bar to appraise his new look. Ike came up from behind him, offering encouragement.

“You really think this is going to fly?” T-Bird asked.

“Yeah,” Ike said. “You having second thoughts?”

“I don’t know, man. I just don’t know.”

The girls still needed to put on their disguises. They went into one of the bedrooms with the garment bags and shut the door. Billy turned to Ike. “Call Shaz on your cell phone and tell her T-Bird’s sick. Make it convincing.”

Ike made the call. “Hey, it’s me. I’m up in the suite with T-Bird. He’s sick as a dog, can’t get out of bed. Cunningham’s here, too. Sure, I’ll put him on.”

Billy took the cell phone. “Hey.”

“You shouldn’t have run away from me like that,” Shaz said. “I didn’t like it.”

“I guess I’m just the bashful type.”

“What’s wrong with T-Bird?”

“I think he got food poisoning. It’s not pretty.”

“He’ll live. Meet me outside the wedding chapel wearing a sports jacket. We’re going to mike you up. Rock wants to be able to talk with you while you’re on the casino floor.”

Wearing a mike would be the same as having an electronic dog collar around his neck, and Billy told himself he’d just have to work around it.

“I’ll be right down,” he said.

The call ended. He entered the bedroom and shut the door behind him. Misty and Pepper stood at the dresser, turning themselves into Mexican hit women. Misty wore a leather mini, leggings, fake eyelashes, and was applying dark pancake to her face. Pepper had chosen a leather jumpsuit that hid her freckled arms and legs, a black wig that spiraled to her shoulders, and the same dark pancake, liberally applied to her pale skin. They could both pass as Hispanic, and he smiled to himself, seeing the pieces falling together.

“What do you think?” Misty asked.

“I think this is going to work.”

He grabbed the sports jacket he’d brought with him from the closet and slipped it on. “I’ve got to blow. Remember, the pigeon drop is still on.”

“What are we going to do with the extra two million we steal from these guys?”

“Split it up, same as always,” he said.

“Goody.”

He walked out of the bedroom to find Ike waiting for him.

“Let’s go downstairs and rob this joint,” Billy said.

The elevator dumped them in the lobby. Instead of going to the wedding chapel as Shaz had instructed, Billy visited the casino instead. The joint was jumping, the players yelling with each turn of a card or roll of the dice, the sound of a ringing slot machine cutting through the air.

“People acting crazy in there,” Ike said.

It was called a hot zone, and it occurred when a player got on a lucky streak. The euphoria quickly spread to other players and caused them to behave like drunken sailors on a navy payday. He could not have asked for a better distraction for making a run at the cage with the fake chips.

They headed to the wedding chapel. Shaz stood outside the chapel’s double doors, not happy at being made to wait. Billy said, “Sorry, but the elevators were slow.”