Gift sense

26

That low-life fucking Jersey bastard," Nick roared, feeling as forsaken as the day he'd buried his father and kissed his childhood good-bye. "How dare he run out on me!"

Nick paced the surveillance control room and swore some more. Wily stood by the master console, watching his boss with one eye while keeping the other on the monitors. "Boss! They're into us for four hundred grand."

Picking up a house phone, Nick called the people working the cage and instructed them not to pay Fontaine's gang if they tried to cash out. Then he went and stuck his head into Sammy Mann's corner office. Nola lay on the busted couch, facing the wall. He could not wait to get her out of his life, and he said, "You gonna live?"

"Yeah," she said.

"I'm sorry about ten years ago. Sorry I blew it."

"Sure you are."

"You want a drink or something?"

Nola shook her head stiffly. Nick thought he understood. She didn't want anything from him. Wily tapped him on the shoulder and Nick followed the pit boss out into the hall.

Hoss, Tiny, and four other security guards stood at the ready. They all power-lifted together and were behemoths. Nick walked the line, appraising each man. "Wily says you're ready. That true?"

The guards nodded their heads in unison.

"I didn't hear you," he said.

"Yes, sir!"

"This is the plan," Nick told them. "Hoss and Tiny get the Aussie at table six. John and Brett, the Texan at eleven; Karl and Leroy, the pizza king at fifteen. I'll back you up if you have to break bones. Got it?"

"Yes, sir!"

Wily made them synchronize their watches. It was 10:05. He said, "Go downstairs and get near your assigned table without being conspicuous. At 10:08, grab your man. Any questions?"

This was not a talkative group. Hoss, their leader, said, "That doesn't sound too hard."

The guards disappeared into the stairwell, their footsteps as loud as jackhammers. Nick and Wily returned to the surveillance control room and stood before the wall of monitors.

"Think we should call the cops?" Wily asked.

"Fuck the cops," Nick said.

The door to Sammy Mann's office opened. Nola emerged, her hair standing on end like Frankenstein's bride. Pointing a finger at Nick, she emptied her lungs out.

"What the hell is she doing here?"

Nick didn't understand. "Who?"

"Her, you idiot!"

Nick glanced over his shoulder. Sherry Solomon had found her way into the surveillance control room, and was still wearing the same sooty clothes she'd worn when she set fire to Nick's mansion.

"Beats me," he confessed.

Then it was Sherry's turn to start screaming.

"You told me you and Nola were finished!"

Nick shrugged like it was no big deal. "Hey, baby, I mean, stuff happens. You know?"

Sherry grabbed a wastepaper basket and threw it at him. A lamp followed, coming from Nola's side of the room.

"Don't tell me you fucked her," Nola screamed.

"Only in the biblical sense," Nick said.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It means it was a fling, no big deal," he said. "I didn't ask her to marry me or anything."

"You two-timing, good-for-nothing prick!"

"Get away from him!" Sherry screamed at Nola.

"Make me, bitch!"

The two women met in the middle of the room, scattering everyone working at the master console. Sherry was in better shape and threw punches like she'd had lessons, while Nola was more of a scratch-and-pull kind of fighter. Within seconds, they were rolling around on the floor, tangled in each other's arms. Nick grabbed a fire extinguisher and doused them both with white foam.

"Don't just stand there," he told Wily. "Do something!"

Wily did. He grabbed Nick by the shoulders and spun him around. There were a hundred eighty-four monitors on the wall and each showed absolute bedlam downstairs. The Texan and pizza king were whupping their security boys good, the hustlers as skilled in the martial arts as they were in cheating at cards.

"Are we recording this?" Nick bellowed.

"I think so," Wily said.

"You think so?" Nick stuck his head into the adjacent room, which housed the VCRs the monitors were hooked up to. Each machine had a red light on, indicating it was recording. Fontaine's gang was going to jail for a long time. He shut the door and locked it.

"Come on," Nick said.

"What about the girls?" Wily asked.

Lying beneath the console, Sherry had gotten Nola in a half nelson and was systematically pulling out clumps of her hair, while Nola retaliated by biting her nemesis savagely in the bosom. That Sherry didn't feel it did not come as a surprise. Standing in the room's open doorway, Nick shrugged his shoulders.

Then he ran out.

Nick had never seen anything like it. Guys fighting guys, women fighting women, his employees trying to break up one fight while others erupted all around them. Chips and glasses and chairs were flying through the air; people were ruining his joint just for the hell of it. Nick had never understood the impulse, but he recognized it in others: the appetite for destruction.

He quickly marshaled his troops. First he commandeered a dozen dishwashers and his front desk staff, then the dealers who were on break or hiding. Each was given something solid to hold-golf clubs from the pro shop for the ladies, brooms and pool cues for the gents-and then sent into battle with these simple instructions: "If they put up a fight, beat them into the ground."

Nick's employees streamed into the casino. The craps table had been turned on its side by two dealers attempting to protect a rack of chips from a mob's greedy hands. With a handful of dishwashers backing him up, Wily descended on the mob, their war whoops sending shock waves through the casino.

It was Nick's distinction to have nothing but ladies in his gang. There was Betty, the sixty-year-old chip girl, and Louise, who ran Housekeeping and who claimed to have changed more of Nick's dirty sheets than his own mother. Over the years, he'd pissed off every single one of these women, yet every single one had stayed. They were his people, and as he led them toward the blackjack pit, a chant went up.

Nick, Nick, Nick.

At table fifteen the pizza king was kicking Karl and Leroy senseless. Clutching a Big Bertha, Nick moved in, swinging the driver around his head like a bolo. He hated guys who fought with their feet. You want to kick, take up tap dancing. He slammed the driver into the pizza king's back and sent him sprawling.

Nick, Nick, Nick.

"I'm just getting warmed up," Nick told the crowd, charging to the other end of the pit. Several tables had been overturned, and the Texan was dancing around and karate-chopping his security men silly. He was Chuck Norris and Lethal Weapon rolled into one, and Nick wisely steered clear. Two tables away, he saw Wily pounding the daylights out of someone and he went to investigate.

It was Fontaine. Wily had pinned him to the table and was driving his right fist repeatedly into the hustler's face.

"Call the Texan off," Wily said, drawing his fist back. "Make him stop before he kills someone."

"Fuck you," Fontaine said.

"Get off him," Nick said.

Wily did, and Nick grabbed Fontaine's ear and twisted until the skin turned a violent purple. The hustler fell to his knees in agony.

"You want me to tear it off?" Nick asked, being polite about it. "I can do that. It's your call."

"I can't call him off," Fontaine cried, writhing beneath Nick's hand. "He's an ex-con. Swears he won't go back to the joint. You're going to have to kill him."

"That can be arranged," Nick said. He released Fontaine's ear, then kicked him in the nuts for good measure. To Wily, he said, "Sit on him!"

The pit boss complied. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to get Joe," Nick said.

His employees had gotten the mob under control, so Nick ran across his ravaged casino and ducked into One-Armed Billy's alcove. Just as he was paid to do, Joe Smith sat on his stool, looking bored out of his mind.

"How'd you like to get in on this action?" Nick asked.

Joe brightened. He was still young and in great shape, all seven feet and three hundred pounds of him, and he jumped off his stool like a sprinter coming out of the blocks.

"You mean that, Mr. Nicocropolis?" he said. "You gonna let me break the rules?"

"I sure am. Come on."

Joe was so conditioned to staying with Billy that Nick had to drag him out of the alcove. Once outside, he stiffened, his eyes traveling the length of the casino and coming to rest on the Texan, who was hopping around on one foot, like a crane.

"Who's that dude?" Joe snarled.

"The enemy. Think you can handle him?"

"Looks like a bird. Maybe I'd better pluck his feathers."

Nick smiled gleefully. This was going to be great. Too bad Valentine was going to miss it, that dumb Jersey greaseball.

Mike Turkowski, ex-hockey player and bartender at Brother's Lounge, had been standing beside the Acropolis's notorious fountain for twenty minutes, staring into the casino with a pair of infrared binoculars no bigger than a cigarette pack. Over the years, he'd been involved in a dozen casino rip-offs, all of them successful, and one thing had been true with each. The last people the casinos called were the cops. No one trusted them, especially when large sums of money were lying around. Which made his job that much easier.

Mike brought his wristwatch to his face, noting the time with one eye: 10:14. Fontaine told him to wait until 10:20, and if the ruse didn't work, run. His car was parked across the street, a one-way ticket to Seattle in the glove box, a suitcase in the trunk. Leaving town without telling his friends didn't thrill him, but that was part of the business.

At 10:16, he saw Nick duck into One-Armed Billy's alcove. Only one guy in the whole world could move Joe Smith off his stool, and that was Nick Nicocropolis. Fontaine had called it perfectly.

Mike tossed the binoculars into the fountain and started walking toward the front entrance. He saw Nick and Joe Smith leave the alcove and run across the casino, just like Fontaine said they would. Pushing open the front doors, Mike slipped into Billy's empty alcove.

Taking five silver dollars from his pocket, Mike quickly fed them into the machine. Then he pulled the giant arm.

The reels flashed by, stopping on two watermelons and four lemons. Which was where the expression "a lemon" came from. Taking a tennis ball from his pocket, Mike wedged it into the base of the arm so it could not spring back. From the sleeve of his jacket, he removed a pair of coat hangers and fitted them together in an L, then he bent a fishhook into one end. Kneeling, he inserted the hook into Billy's coin tray and shoved the hangers into the machine, his eyes fixed on Billy's twenty-six-million-dollar jackpot. Billy was insured by Lloyd's of London, and Fontaine had done his homework; he knew the policy was paid up. It was the little details that screwed you up, he'd once told Mike.

Billy had six reels, which made it harder to manipulate than hand-cranked slots, and Mike was probably the last guy in Vegas who knew how to manipulate an old-time machine, having learned on a pair of cast-iron Ballys in Brother's backroom. He had expected to put this talent to work on cruise ships, where old machines were still common. The payoffs weren't so hot, but it was easy work for the mentally challenged, a club of which Mike had considered himself a lifetime member until now.

From the alcove, he could hear the Texan hollering. Poor bastard. Fontaine had not given each member of the team a complete script. For the Texan and pizza king, this meant a beating and jail time; for everyone else, a life of wine and roses. Mike felt bad for the two ex-cons, but he wouldn't lose any sleep over them.

Twenty seconds later, he was done. Snapping the hangers back to their original shape, he slipped them up his sleeve. He found himself laughing. Instead of cherries, Nick's six ex-wives made up Billy's jackpot, their titties exaggerated to comic proportions.

"Beautiful," he said, kissing the glass they stood behind.

Then he ran out of the casino as fast as his legs would carry him.

Not everyone who worked at the Acropolis was taking part in the battle royale on the casino floor. People were getting hurt out there, and many of Nick's less courageous employees chose not to participate. These included the waitresses and bartender at Nick's Place, a group of Mexican dishwashers and chambermaids, and several bookkeepers. Together they cowered in the employee lounge, waiting for the bedlam to subside.

Roxanne sat among them, biting her nails. She'd stepped out of the elevator five minutes earlier and had nearly been hit by a flying chair. Running to the lounge, she'd bummed a cigarette off a slow-witted chambermaid named Dolores and waited it out with the rest of them.

"I thought you had a date?" Dolores said, always the snoop. "What happened?"

"It didn't work out," Roxanne said coolly.

Dolores cackled. Earlier, she'd caught Roxanne in the bathroom preening, her perfume heavy enough to choke a horse.

"Didn't work out," Dolores squawked like a parrot. "Honey, you were gone only forty-five minutes."

"It sure seemed longer," Roxanne said, trying to make light of it.

"What happened?"

"You heard what I said-it didn't work out," Roxanne snapped. "It happens, okay?"

"Was he that bad?"

Roxanne stomped her foot and the kitchen help looked up in alarm. Not a one had a green card, and they were all scared as hell.

"Stop it," she told Dolores.

Dolores cackled again. "My, my. Aren't we sensitive tonight."

"Must I tell you the gory details?" Roxanne said.

"Yeah!" Dolores said.

Roxanne lowered her voice to a whisper. "I went to his room, had room service bring up two surf and turfs, then set the table, and put on some music. Then I got a call. His son's missing and presumed dead. I call around the casino and find him and he comes upstairs. It was so sad; I figured the least I could do was console him."

Dolores, who couldn't buy a social life, looked ready to pee in her pants. "Yeah," she said breathlessly. "What happened then?"

"Nothing," Roxanne said sadly.

Dolores's face caved in. "What do you mean, nothing?"

"I mean, nothing happened."

"But…"

"He fell asleep," Roxanne said, stifling a little sob and rubbing her eye with the sleeve of her silk blouse. "He went into his room to make a call. When he didn't come out, I went in and found him lying on the bed. God, I just can't win."

"Oh, baby," Dolores said, putting her arm around Roxanne's shoulder. "I'm so sorry."

"Me, too," Roxanne said, crying silently.

At 10:20, Roxanne stuck her head out of the lounge. Nick and his troops were in the pit applauding Joe Smith, who stood on a blackjack table with his shirt off, doing tricks with his muscles. A man in cowboy clothes lay on the floor, sleeping soundly.

Stubbing out her cigarette, Roxanne said her good-byes. Then, just as she had a thousand times before, she walked across the casino floor to the front entrance, opting to take the long way to her car, which was parked in the employee lot in back. Everyone who worked in the casino had seen her do it, and everyone knew why.

Because Roxanne had a dream, no different from the rest of them. A dream of a better life, one without alarm clocks and mailboxes filled with bills and time clocks to punch. It was the dream of wealth, and it had made her leave her husband and come to Las Vegas. As she walked, she removed five silver dollars from her purse, kissing Eisenhower's profile on each. Then she shook them in her hand like a pair of dice. Every day for a thousand days, she'd gone through this ritual. The long walk, the coins, the kiss, the shake, and finally the moment of truth, when she'd feed her money into One-Armed Billy and blow a kiss at Joe Smith, who'd always wished her luck.

Every day the same ritual. She'd become part of the fabric. Some of the employees found it funny, others a little sad. Look, there goes Roxanne and her silver dollars. She kisses them for luck, you know. If anyone deserves to win the jackpot, it's her.

She slipped into the alcove and stared at Joe Smith's vacant stool. How careless of Nick to pull him out. When the casino's surveillance cameras had been updated, Nick had installed dummy cameras over One-Armed Billy, too cheap to rewire the ceiling at this end of the casino. Nick was his own man, and now he was going to pay for it.

Roxanne stepped up to Billy and held onto the giant arm while she removed the tennis ball and dropped it into her purse. For a split second, she caught her reflection in the polished brass. Words could not describe the look of exultation on her face.

She hesitated, savoring the moment before she released the giant arm and set the bells off that would bring Nick and the rest of the gang running. They'd see her jumping up and down, and once the initial shock wore off, they'd be happy for her good fortune. Everyone loved a winner, and everyone was going to love her.

Roxanne was sure of it.

But when she tried to release Billy's arm, her fingers became stuck. A man's hand had clasped itself over hers and was holding Billy's arm in place.

"Let go," she begged.

"No," the man said.

"Please."

But the man would not let go. She did not have the courage to look him in the eye, and instead looked into Billy's polished brass. It was Valentine, his face a bloody mess. Behind him, Wily stood in the alcove's entrance, filming her every move with a camcorder.

"I was hoping like hell it wasn't going to be you," she heard Valentine say.