Super Con

Eighteen

Billy slept in and awoke at ten. Crawling out of bed, he spied his Droid wiggling like a snake on the night table. Caller ID said “Unknown.” He answered it anyway.

“Hello.”

“Cunningham? This is Night Train. I got your sixty K. You still got my daddy’s watch?”

“Sorry, I lost it in a card game.”

“That’s not funny,” his caller said.

“Just kidding. I haven’t let it out of my sight.”

“You like messing with people, don’t you?”

“Sometimes. When do you want to meet up?”

“Tuesdays are off days for the players. I’m going to rehab and then to get a massage. How about two o’clock at my digs. That work for you?”

Night Train sounded anxious to get his father’s watch back. Or maybe he’d figured out Billy’s touch card scam and wanted to confront him. There was an urgency in his voice, and Billy realized he had Night Train right where he wanted him.

“That works for me. Do me a favor and tell the front desk I’m coming. It will speed things up when I come back to your villa.”

“I can do that. See you at two.”

“I’ll be there.”

Breakfast was burned toast and coffee. Billy scrolled through e-mails on his cell phone while he ate. Most were from hustlers in town wishing to get together to talk business. Every hustler had a scam that they were working on to beat the joints. Many of these scams were designed to slowly bleed the casino, while others were heists and involved a conspiracy that often included dealers and pit bosses. None of the e-mails actually said this, but they used carefully crafted language that cloaked their author’s true meaning. Back in the days of the Mississippi riverboat gamblers, hustlers had developed a secret language that allowed them to openly talk about fleecing people without exposing themselves, and the e-mails were peppered with expressions like “rabbit hunting,” “been around the block,” and “playing both sides of the table.”

He drained his mug. It was a great time to be a hustler, with new casinos opening up every month and his friends cooking up schemes that would net them huge paydays down the road. To each one of them, he sent back the same reply.

“I’m doing business right now. I’ll touch base when I come up for air.”

Time to get cleaned up. Standing beneath the shower’s hot spray, he thought about Travis. They’d talked on the phone every day, and he realized he was going to miss those conversations. Travis understood casino people, most of whom were bitter souls who harbored grudges against their employers and were easily distracted while a scam was taking place.

But those talks were a thing of the past. By betraying Billy, Travis had set himself on the path to ruin. Travis was going to pay for his sins.

Billy had thought long and hard on how to accomplish this and had decided the best way would be to bide his time and wait. Travis would blow the money he’d made from the Super Bowl scam just like he’d blown the money he’d made running with Billy, and then he’d look for another crew to run with. Once Travis was with another crew, Billy would contact the crew’s captain and explain what Travis had done to him and how Travis was a liability. This would put Travis in a bad light, and his days would be numbered. Travis might last another year or two, but in the end he’d get a bullet pumped into his head or antifreeze injected in his veins. That was how it worked in the grifter’s world. Rats got drowned.

He was getting dressed when Night Train called him again.

“Change in plans. Come by my suite at two thirty.”

He didn’t like it when people changed times for meetings. If you set a time, you had to stick to it. Otherwise, the other party might get suspicious.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

“Who said anything was wrong?” Night Train said.

“I did. You still want your old man’s watch back?”

“What kind of question is that? Of course I want it back. Look, I’ve got some people flying into town to meet me. We’ll be done by two thirty. Then we can hook up.”

“Like a date?”

“Don’t fuck with me, man.”

“Change the time again, and I’ll throw your precious watch out the window.”

“Do that, and I’ll hunt you down.”

“I bet you will.”

He ended the call and continued dressing. The words were slow to sink in. When they did, he sat on the edge of his bed and stared into space. People flying into town to meet me. Wasn’t Night Train’s stay at Caesars a secret? Night Train had made it sound that way when Billy had tried to snap a photo of him signing the IOU. It didn’t smell right.

It was time to play detective. Opening his dresser, he rummaged through his collection of binoculars that he’d used to scam suckers at poolside card games. He decided on a pair of Canon Image Stabilization binoculars. They were the latest in innovation and offered active image stabilization for superb clarity.

Calling downstairs, he told the valet to bring up his car.

A half hour later, he pulled into Caesars and went inside. The pool was one of the hotel’s star attractions and featured eight different swimming areas. He bribed a pool attendant into letting him rent a private cabana even though he didn’t possess a room key.

Kicking off his shoes, he parked himself on a chaise longue. In his lap was a copy of USA Today he’d bought at the gift shop; beneath it was the binoculars. When he felt certain none of the other guests were watching, he lifted the binoculars and searched for Night Train’s villa on the other side of the pool. He spotted the crooked football player sitting on the balcony with Sammy and Choo-Choo. The three men were engaged in a heated discussion, with Night Train doing most of the talking. It wasn’t going well, and Choo-Choo disgustedly tossed a bowl of pretzels in the air.

“Cocktails?” a female voice called out.

He returned the binoculars to their hiding place. Caesars’s waitresses wore skimpy outfits and ponytail hairpieces like go-go dancers. Her name tag said GINGER/SAN FRANCISCO.

“Can I interest you in a signature cocktail or an appetizer?” Ginger asked.

“I could use a drink,” he said.

She recited the house specialty cocktails. He picked a drink called the Rattlesnake because he liked the name, and a bowl of salted peanuts.

“You a reporter?” she asked.

His face reddened and he mumbled, “No.”

“What’s with the binoculars if you’re not a reporter?”

“I’m a private detective,” he lied.

“My boss said if we see anything suspicious by the pool area to report it immediately.”

“You going to report me?”

“That all depends on you.”

Money talked in the desert, and he stuffed a crisp C-note into the tip glass on her tray.

“Keep going,” she said.

“You strike a hard bargain,” he said.

“You ain’t seen nothing, buster.”

He stuffed another hundred into the glass, and she nodded approvingly.

“I’ll be right back with your drink,” she said.

The pool billed itself as being European, which meant that women went topless. While he waited for his drink, a buxom lady wearing nothing but bikini bottoms rose and strolled the pool’s perimeter, the sight spectacular enough to snap every male head and a few female heads as well. An elephant with a screaming monkey on its back could have rushed past, and no one would have cared. He whipped out the binoculars and resumed spying on Night Train’s villa.

Night Train had company. A distinguished-looking male wearing a navy suit and a red necktie sat at the table with the football players. He had corporate written all over him and was doing the talking. If Night Train’s expression was any indication, the guest was laying some heavy news on them. The guest kept fingering his tie clasp while he spoke, and Billy focused on it with his binoculars. It was made of gold and displayed the NFL logo.

He shifted the binoculars to Choo-Choo and Sammy. Their lips were tightly shut. Like Night Train, they didn’t like what the suit was saying, but instead of talking back, they were being good soldiers and keeping their mouths shut.

He had seen enough and put the binoculars away. The suit was from the NFL, no doubt about that, and probably had been sent to talk with Night Train and his pals about their wayward behavior. The last thing the NFL wanted was news to leak out that a group of star players was partying at Caesars right before the Super Bowl.

Ginger appeared with his order. “That will be thirty dollars, please.”

He paid her and added more money to her tip glass. “Thanks for not reporting me. Does Caesars always toss suspicious-acting people they find hanging around?”

“Heck no. We get people snooping around the property all the time,” she said. “Just last Saturday I caught a reporter from TMZ secretly videotaping a famous actress kissing a guy inside the casino. I alerted management, and they didn’t do a thing.”

“So why this week? What’s going on that warrants tossing people?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“But you know.”

“Of course. There are no secrets in this place. You’re not really a detective, are you?”

“You’re right, I’m not. What tipped you off?”

“You’re way too cute.”

“There’s a suit from the NFL visiting the hotel right now. Who is he?”

“Sorry, but that’s going to cost you.”

Another hundred found its way into her tip glass.

“His last name is Butz, first name Chester.”

“Chester Butz, the NFL commissioner?”

“That’s what I’m told.”

Chester Butz ran the NFL with an iron fist and did not take crap from the players. Billy was having a hard time believing the suit in Night Train’s suite was the same person. Using his cell phone, he typed Butz’s name into Google and did an image search. A montage of head shots appeared. Each matched the face of the guy talking to Night Train and his teammates.

“Believe me now?” Ginger asked.

“What’s Butz doing here?”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

In Vegas, it was about being in the know, and it irritated Billy that Ginger knew the score while he was in the dark. She gave him a flirtatious wink.

“See you around,” she said.