Take Down

THIRTEEN

Billy came clean. He didn’t know how the Gypsies were planning to rip off Galaxy’s casino Saturday afternoon. The scam might be at blackjack, or a slot machine with a monster jackpot, or maybe they were going to take a direct run at the cage. It didn’t matter; he knew enough about the operation to stop it from happening.

Crunchie didn’t say very much, but his face said a lot. He knew the difference between the truth and flat-out bullshit, and he knew that Billy was leveling with him. When Billy was finished talking, he walked around the desk and spent a minute whispering in Doucette’s ear.

“You sure about this?” the casino boss asked.

The old grifter grunted that he was entirely sure.

“I still don’t trust him,” Doucette said.

Billy’s heart was pounding. He couldn’t read Doucette and didn’t know what the casino boss was thinking. Shaz stood behind her husband’s chair and patted his shoulder while gazing at Billy with a twisted smile on her face. He hadn’t figured out her deal, either.

Doucette came around the desk and stood in front of Billy’s chair. For a long moment he simply glared. His hand came out of nowhere and slapped Billy’s face.

“Do you know why I did that?” Doucette asked.

“No,” Billy said.

“Neither do I. Now, here’s the deal. I want you to stop the Gypsies from ripping off my casino. Do that, and I won’t have Crunchie turn your friends over to the law. You in?”

Billy tasted his own blood. It seemed a perfect prelude for selling his soul and ratting out another group of cheaters to save himself and his crew. “Yeah, I’m in.”

“Good. If you try and double-cross me, I’ll kill you.”

“I get that.”

“I bet you do. Now, here’s the ground rules. Thomas Pico’s identity is established in the casino’s computer system. I want you to continue to impersonate him. That means wearing those funny-looking glasses you had on earlier and dressing like a nerd. Is that understood?”

“Your boys knocked off my glasses.”

“So get another pair. You stay in disguise.”

Billy nodded compliance. He was beginning to get the picture. Gaming agents regularly visited the casinos to check up on things. By having Billy wear a disguise, Doucette was making it harder for a gaming agent to recognize him. And if an agent did by chance make him, Doucette could claim that he hadn’t known who Billy was. The casino boss was covering all his bases.

“Tomorrow afternoon, you’ll check into the hotel using Pico’s ID, and will be comped into a high-roller suite in the main tower,” Doucette said. “Your suite has got hidden cameras and is wired for audio as well, so don’t even think about screwing with me.”

“How about the john? Are you going to film me taking a crap?”

“We just might.”

He wasn’t surprised to hear the high-roller suite was wired. Many casinos wired their high-roller suites to make sure their wealthy customers didn’t go play at a competitor’s tables.

“You’ll also be comped your food and drinks, and will be given twenty grand in chips to play with,” the casino boss said. “If you decide to cheat us, don’t even think about cashing in your chips, because you’ll be killed. Got it?”

“You think I’d cheat you now?” Billy asked incredulously.

“Damn straight I do. Cheating’s in your blood.” Doucette paused, then said, “You’re also going to have an entourage. Ike and T-Bird will act as your bodyguards, and will accompany you wherever you go. They’ll also be staying in your suite. If you stray, they’ll take you down. You’re going to be in our crosshairs every moment you’re here. You with me?”

“Yeah, I’m with you.”

“Good. If you’ve got any questions, ask them now.”

He had questions, but he’d decided it was more important to get the hell out of here before Doucette or his crazy bride had a change of mind. They impressed him as the kind of people that could flip on a dime and turn into animals, and he didn’t want to be around when that happened.

“I’m good,” he said. Then he added, “You can count on me.”

“Why is it every time you talk, I think you’re lying to me?” Doucette said.

“Beats me.”

“Get him out of here,” the casino boss said, and went onto the balcony with his bride.

“Let’s go, pardner,” Crunchie said.

Billy rose from his chair and followed the old grifter out of the office. He had no idea how this was going to turn out, but as they rode the elevator down to the main level, he promised himself that he was going to pay Crunchie back for setting him up.

The valet stand was jamming, and they waited in line for his car. The cool desert air was bringing him around, and he could not purge the idea of revenge from his mind. Perhaps he’d throw the old grifter under the wheels of the next vehicle that came up.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Crunchie said.

“Who said I was looking at you?” Billy said.

“You think I don’t know? You want to kill me.”

“Doesn’t everybody?”

Ike and T-Bird laughed contemptuously. Billy edged closer to the old grifter. Feeling threatened by the proximity, the old grifter’s watery eyes narrowed with distrust.

“You lied to me when you said you were talking to your daughter tonight,” Billy said. “You were talking to that crazy bitch, weren’t you?”

“How’d you know that?” Crunchie asked.

“You showed me three calls on your cell phone with a 310 area code, which is Southern California. Shaz told me she recently relocated from LA. Two plus two equals four.”

“You don’t miss a trick, do you?”

“Is she running things?”

“Fuck no. Doucette’s running the show. She’s just window dressing.”

A car came up that wasn’t his. There was something eating at Billy, and he decided to get it off his chest. “Why did you let her torture Ricky Boswell, and bash his head in with a baseball bat? Why couldn’t you have just shot him? The poor kid didn’t need to suffer.”

“Who told you she tortured him?”

“She made me watch a video of it. You were in it. Why didn’t you stop her?”

“I couldn’t.”

“I thought you said she wasn’t running things.”

“It’s complicated. Do yourself a favor, and steer clear of her. If you don’t, she’ll end up snuffing you like that little bastard Ricky.”

“Ricky was one of us. You don’t do that to your own. You broke the code.”

“Let it go,” the old grifter said.

The Maserati appeared with a distinctive roar, the valet a budding NASCAR driver. Billy instinctively reached for his wallet, and came away empty.

“Give me my wallet back,” he said.

“Ike’s got your wallet,” the old grifter said. “Come by tomorrow afternoon at three, and we’ll go over things. Remember, if you mess with us, we’ll destroy you and your friends.”

Crunchie limped back inside. At least the story about his arthritis acting up had been true. Ike tossed Billy his wallet. Billy flipped it open to give the valet a tip, and found the billfold empty. Ike had cleaned him out. Laughing, the punishers went inside as well.

Billy burned rubber out of the valet stand. Traffic was light, the late hour thinning out the herd, and he punched the accelerator as he headed north on the neon-infused Strip, desperate to put as much distance between himself and Galaxy’s casino as possible.

He felt ready to explode. He hadn’t screwed up this badly since college. At the intersection of Sahara Avenue he pulled a wild-ass stunt, and with tires screaming, cut across four lanes and hung a sharp left. There wasn’t a traffic cop in sight, and as he sped down Sahara, he realized it was the first lucky break he’d caught all night.

He was doing eighty when he hit the entrance ramp. With the wind blowing in his face, his fear ebbed away, and he told himself that he could beat these bastards. He didn’t know how, but he could do it. They’d tipped their mitts and revealed their hands and given him enough information to mess with them real good.

Doucette was a coked-out fool, and so was his psycho bride, and neither one of them knew a damn thing about running a casino. If they had, they’d never have asked a known hustler to help them catch a gang of cheats. Only in the dumb movies did casino people do that.

Ike and T-Bird were a pair of washed-up jocks and dumber than a box of rocks. Stupid people were easily played. He was going to have fun with those two mutts.

Last was Crunchie, who’d screwed with him in so many ways that Billy had lost count. But there was a reason for it. Age had caught up to the old grifter, and Crunchie no longer had the confidence in himself to do the job that he was asking Billy to do.

Each of them had an Achilles’ heel that he could stick a dagger into and twist around real good. They’d picked the wrong guy to fuck with, and he couldn’t wait to pay them back.