Super Con

Fifty-Nine

He took a puddle jumper to Vegas and grabbed a cab to Caesars. The Rebels’ practices ended by midafternoon, and he was hoping that Night Train was back at his villa. Billy called his cell phone and got patched into voice mail.

“This is Billy. You and I need to talk. Call me.”

The minutes slipped by without a call back. The times he and Night Train had been together, the famous football player’s cell phone was always within arm’s reach. Night Train had gotten his message but was avoiding him. Billy called him again.

“There’s nothing wrong with your fucking knee. If you don’t call me, I’m going to call the sportswriter on the local paper and tell him I saw you doing cartwheels. Call me.”

Night Train called him back in a panic. “You in jail?”

“Hell no. I beat that rap,” he said. “What’s this crap on the news about you not playing in the Super Bowl?”

“My knee’s acting up. It’s an old injury.”

“What about our deal? I’ve got a lot riding on this.”

“I’m sorry, man, but I can’t risk my health. You know how it is.”

“No, I don’t. I want to talk to you face-to-face. We had a deal.”

“Sorry, man, but our deal’s off,” Night Train said.

“I don’t think so.”

“You can’t make me do something I don’t want to do.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. Choo-Choo told me the NFL was screwing you guys. It took me a while to figure out what he meant. This is your last game. How could the NFL possibly screw you at this point in your careers? But then it hit me what they wanted. I know what it is, and if you don’t meet with me, I’ll tell my friends at the gaming board what’s going on.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Try me.”

“I thought you were my friend.”

“I am your friend. I brought you two deals worth millions of dollars. You and your teammates blew the first deal, and now you’re going to sit out the game and blow the second deal. You’re the one who’s not being a friend.”

“You don’t understand the situation.”

“On the contrary, I understand everything, which is why we need to talk. This is about your legacy, man. You can’t take a dive for these fuckers.”

The line went quiet. He had Night Train dead to rights, and they both knew it.

“Give me an hour. I just got back from practice, and I need to take a shower,” Night Train said. “There’s a cigar bar in Caesars called the Montecristo. I’ll meet you there.”

“One hour it is.”

Caesars was jumping. The entrance resembled a parking lot, and he watched the cab’s meter run while waiting to be dropped off. Soon he was in the main lobby. While guests waited on line to register, there was a bust going down, courtesy of the gaming board. The busted cheat wore silver bracelets and stared dejectedly at the floor. The gaming agents were so focused on their suspect that they didn’t see Billy come in.

He circled around them. The busted cheat’s wardrobe screamed Russian. Run-down Nikes, a threadbare sports jacket, and a sheared haircut more befitting a war refugee. The casinos knew about the Russian gangs and had trained their surveillance teams to be on the lookout. Their scam was called whacking. A Russian cheat would stand next to a particular make of slot machine and record the machine’s play on a cell phone. The machine had a flawed random number generator chip that spit out predictable sequences every few hours. The Russian left and went to a motel, where the information was sent to a foreign server that calculated when the machine would pay a jackpot. Upon returning, the Russian would play the same machine and eventually win.

A great scam, unless you happened to get caught. Nevada had a law that forbade using an electronic device to beat its games, including cell phones. Cheats who got busted using devices went down hard.

“Coming through,” a voice said.

A uniformed bellman pushing a luggage cart bore down on him. His name tag said KENNETH/SAN DIEGO. As Billy moved to let him pass, the bellman stopped and drew a pocket-size Beretta from his pants. He jammed the barrel into Billy’s rib cage.

“Start walking toward the elevators,” the bellman said.

Billy’s eyes darted around the lobby. He counted five gaming agents, only they were too preoccupied with their bust to notice that something bad was going down.

“Let me guess. Your name isn’t Kenneth, and you’re not from San Diego,” he said.

“Hong Kong. Keep walking. I’ll shoot you right here if I have to,” the bellman said.

“With all this heat?”

“I’ll be gone before they know it.”

The elevators were at the far end of the lobby. He began walking, praying that an opportunity would present itself to alert the gaming agents. The bellman hung close to his side.

“You don’t look Chinese,” he said.

“Plastic surgery. It took three operations.”

“Your English is good, too. No accent.”

“Rosetta Stone.”

“I’ll double your fee if you let me go.”

The gun’s barrel was suddenly in his ass. It made him jump a little. They came to the bank of elevators, and the bellman summoned a car. Billy stole a glance at the mirrors that lined the wall. None of the gaming agents had followed them. Was this the end? It sure felt like it.

“How did you know I’d be here?” he asked.

“Broken Tooth said you’d come back to Caesars to talk to the football players, iron out the details. Broken Tooth is smart that way,” the bellman said.

“How long you been waiting?”

“Two days.”

“And the hotel didn’t notice?”

The bellman laughed under his breath. “I took a job. They’re shorthanded, so I agreed to work double shifts. It was only a matter of time before you came in, and I spotted you.”

“You got lucky, admit it.”

“Luck had nothing to do with it.”

An elevator car landed and its doors parted. The car was empty and they boarded. He spun around and watched the bellman slip the gun into his pocket, then draw a gilded knife with a pearl handle from a sheath hidden by his vest. The tip of the knife was dripping a substance the color of gold, and he guessed it was some kind of exotic poison. Elevators had surveillance cameras, only no one in the casino ever watched them. The doors began to close.

“Any final requests?” the bellman asked.

“Just don’t make me suffer,” he said.