Smoke and Mirrors

19

Twenty-nine-year-old Jack Beals, a security officer for the Roundtable, had tailed the kid in the yellow V-neck sweater straight to the Gold Key Motel, a few miles from the casino. The gambler’s name was David Scotoni, a single twenty-three-year-old resident of Reno, Nevada, whose ID checked out as legit. Turned out that the reason a man who lived in a town filled with casinos would fly across the country to gamble was predictable-he was known in Reno as a card counter.

Counting cards wasn’t illegal, but it gave the player an unfair advantage and was grounds for a casino to invite you to leave and put your mug in the black book system shared by casinos across the country. Scotoni had cashed out his chips to the tune of thirty-five thousand. That was about to be collected and returned to the casino.

Beals waited to call Albert White until Scotoni had gone into his room on the second level.

“Target is in a motel room on the second floor of the Gold Key,” Beals told him. “Easy access. I’ll come by tonight and deliver it.”

White said, “He cashed out for over thirty-five, and he’s won in other places. The thirty-five comes back here. The other we cut up as usual.”

“Your wish is my command,” Beals said, before hanging up. Whatever he’s taken from the others. Not bad money for a day’s work.

He screwed the silencer on the.380. The professional from the outside who Jack had been helping to get the lay of the land, the guy whose name was or wasn’t Pablo, had given it to him. Nice fellow, some kind of top-dollar hit man always measuring the world and the people around him like a film director looking for the perfect shot. After putting on a pair of tight leather gloves, Beals climbed from his 1999 Trail Blazer and made sure nobody was watching as he moved up the stairs to Scotoni’s room. Stopping outside the door, he took out his badge case and knocked hard on the door three times. A TV set went off and a voice asked tentatively, “Who’s there?”

When the young cheater looked out through the peephole, Beals held up a gold five-star badge for the kid to see. “Sheriff’s department, Mr. Scotoni,” he said. “Open the door, please.”

“What’s the problem, Officer?” the kid asked without opening the door. Beals felt anger rise from within, his heart beating like a bass drum.

“I’d prefer not to discuss it from out here, sir. We’ve had a complaint.” Beals looked both ways and down at the parking lot. The lot was graveyard still.

When the kid cracked open the door, Beals shouldered it, propelling Scotoni deep into the room. From the floor, a naked Scotoni looked up at the silenced weapon. The towel he’d been wrapped in was beneath him, and when Scotoni reached to gather it back up, Beals put a boot on it. He heard the sound of water running in the bathtub and he had an idea. He’d been thinking the kid would commit suicide by cutting his wrists, but this was even better. Motioning to the bathroom with the gun’s barrel, he said, “Dave. You need to take that bath.”