Ava Gray - Skin Game

“Keep me posted, will you?”

“Absolutely, sir.” Foster turned to leave.

“How long have you worked for me?” He knew the answer; he just wanted to measure the man’s precision.

“One year, ten months, and twenty-seven days.”

“When was the last time you had a raise?”

“Not quite a year ago.”

“Was it a good one?”

He damn well knew it had been. Serrano rewarded efficiency. Foster was a solid, reliable employee who never asked inconvenient questions and always offered the best solution to any problem. In his experience, that meant something would break soon. Men like Foster weren’t content nibbling at the edges of somebody else’s pie. They wanted the whole damn bakery for themselves.

At least, that had been his experience in the past. Serrano was starting to think maybe he’d never met anyone quite like Foster before.

“Twenty percent increase,” Foster answered, expressionless.

“Excellent. I’ll see what I can do for you this year, too.” With that, he turned, dismissing his chief of security with his back. Though he heard no movement, he knew the moment the man left by the nearly silent snick of the door.

He’d entrusted a great deal to a man nobody knew much about. Serrano had stolen him from a rival casino because he came so highly recommended and because Foster was dispassionate as a shark. The security chief didn’t invite confidences any more than he shared them. He did his job and he went home, which as far as Serrano knew was a simple one-bedroom out in Green Valley, even though Serrano paid him enough to afford something ten times as nice. Foster could live in a penthouse if wanted, but his security chief wasn’t motivated by money. Serrano wouldn’t feel entirely at ease about the man until he knew just what did motivate him. In nearly two years, he still hadn’t figured it out.

Still, he had no concrete basis for his suspicions. They were reflexive more than anything else. He hadn’t kept his position by letting people put things over on him. If he really thought the guy was up to something, he wouldn’t have put him in charge of cleaning up the Justice debacle.

Serrano shrugged into his suit jacket. He’d be damned if he was going to change his routine. Tonight his cronies would be showing off at an exclusive club, where the drinks were overpriced, the women wore very little, and the men came in one shape: powerful. Ordinarily, he’d be the first one there. Since his humiliation, he hadn’t shown his face, but he couldn’t hide forever.

On the way down, he called for his driver, Tonio, who met him at the front doors of the Silver Lady. The casino was a blowsy whore, but he loved every inch of her from the red carpet to the silver neon that ran the length of the electric bombshell that had made the place famous. There was a healthy crowd in there, he thought, as he climbed into the limo. Lots of blue-collar Joes like he’d once been, begging Lady Luck for a break. He could’ve told them all to go home and invest their money in a good IRA, but that would be bad for his own bottom line.

Serrano poured himself a drink. He didn’t have to tell Tonio where he was going. Most of the time, his life ran like a Swiss watch. The driver dropped him off outside the club, seventeen thousand feet of pure luxurious debauchery. At the door, the bouncer waved him in and he took the VIP elevator up to the private suite. He didn’t like mixing with all the drunks on the main level.

When he arrived, he found two guys waiting, Lou Pasternak and Joe Ricci. They had drinks in hand, watching the greater floor show. It wasn’t just the dancers, but the way the men reacted to them. From up here, you could get the big picture, which was one of his favorite things about stopping by the security room at the Silver Lady. Sometimes he liked keeping a finger on the pulse of the place.

“So you finally crawled out of your hole,” Joe said, raising his glass. “I think I’d just kill myself, if I was you. Nobody’s ever gonna forget this.”

Pasternak showed his teeth. “You know one of your guys put that thing on YouTube? When she held up the sign, I thought I’d piss myself laughing. Have you seen it?” The big man threw his head back and laughed.

Serrano froze. Son of a bitch. He’d known rumors would get out, repeated by those who were there that night. There was no avoiding that. He couldn’t have imagined this would end up on the Internet. Somebody at the Silver Lady, somebody who worked in security, had copied the footage, sneaked it out, and put it up to disgrace him further.

He’d find out who was working that night, identify the culprit, and make an example of him. He hadn’t dumped a body in years, but he still knew how to go about it. They had to see he wasn’t soft.

A sick feeling overwhelmed him. Killing her might not be enough. He needed to do something big to make people in this town remember why they’d feared him.

Something big . . .

Addison Foster returned to the security room precisely ten minutes after he left his boss. The guards came to attention when he slid inside. They always became more conscientious by virtue of his presence. If he hadn’t been distracted by other things, he would have found their nervousness amusing, not that it would have found any outlet in his expression. Foster prided himself on his inscrutable mien.

Where Gerard Serrano was concerned, it had saved his ass more than once.

“What’s the situation on the floor?” he asked.

Rodriguez gave the report. “Making money almost everywhere, but table eight is losing steadily to a guy in a porkpie hat. I haven’t been able to ID him yet.”

Amateurs.

“Did you figure out his system at least?”

“Not yet.”

He’d have to do it himself before their losses got big enough to piss Serrano off. “Show me the footage on the backup screen.” Obligingly, Rodriguez sent the images over where he could examine them frame by frame. Foster sat down, and within forty-five seconds, he said, “Bring me the blond at the slots behind the table . . . and the guy in the hat. She’s signaling him.”

“Right away,” the other guard said.

With a sigh, Foster let himself into the interview room. He could do without these idiots who were so sure they had a foolproof way to beat the house. There was no such thing as money for nothing. The guy in the porkpie hat didn’t come quietly. It took four security guards to get him up there, and his blond accomplice wouldn’t stop crying.

After conducting the required disclosure and confiscating their ill-gained goods, he turned the would-be Bonnie and Clyde over to the cops. It amused him how much play Serrano got out of the local authorities when he was probably the biggest criminal on or off the Strip. The only difference was, nobody ever caught him .

The rest of his shift passed quietly enough, but it was 4:00 A.M. by the time he clocked out and headed for his gold Nissan Altima. It was two years old and in excellent condition. Foster had learned to take care of his possessions as a child, and it didn’t matter their actual value. He safeguarded what belonged to him.

So very little did.

It was a fair drive to his apartment so late at night, but he wouldn’t live near the casinos. That brought back too many memories. Once he reached his apartment building, he checked the lot out of long-ingrained habit. Though it had been years since anyone had tracked him down, he never knew when the past would come calling again unexpectedly.

No shadows, no telltale signs of pursuit. Not even a car passing to another residence. That was good. At this hour, everything should be quiet—and it was—another reason he liked working this shift. It made it easier to spot things out of order.