Take Down

FIFTEEN

Billy awoke the next morning sprawled across the leather couch in his living room. His body was a feverish mass of hurt from the beating Ike and T-Bird had inflicted upon him, his skin covered in bruises of every shade, from mauve to lilac to violet to plum.

In the bathroom he downed eight hundred milligrams of ibuprofen while examining his face in the mirror. He had the beginnings of a world-class shiner. How did Doucette expect him to impersonate a whale looking like this? His job had just gotten that much tougher.

He kept a collection of designer shades in his bedroom, well over a hundred pairs. He rummaged through them and settled on a pair of mirrored Ray-Bans that could have belonged to Steve McQueen. When he’d first come to Vegas, you couldn’t wear shades inside a casino without drawing heat. Then the poker craze had started, and wearing shades became cool.

In the kitchen he brewed a pot of coffee and drank a cup. It had been years since he’d risen this early. Normally, he slept until noon, exercised in the building’s health club or worked on his golf game, ate an early dinner at a good restaurant, and started swindling the casinos at six, his work lasting until the small hours of the morning. The next three days were going to be different. He was going to have to keep a schedule and follow other people’s rules, no different than a regular job.

The coffee brought him around, and he stared at the coffee grinds swirling in the bottom. Kismet, the religion of all gamblers, was calling to him.

Three days.

There was a significance to that number, an event which occurred every three days inside a casino that had once been very important to him. Now, not as much.

Three days.

A minute slipped away. Nothing clicked.

Casinos were models of efficiency and worked on systems that were predictable and exploitable. Smart cheaters knew these systems inside out, and he was going to kick himself until he remembered what it was that happened every three days inside a casino.

The landline rang. Caller ID said it was Travis. The big man called once a day to talk shop; outside of that, they rarely communicated. Travis had recently gotten hitched and his new wife had two young sons. Karen knew about the thieving but the boys were in the dark, and Travis wanted to keep it that way.

The call went to voice mail. The enormity of Billy’s fuckup suddenly hit him, and he pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and sat down. If he returned the call, Travis would want to know if the heist of Galaxy’s salon was still on, and that would lead to a conversation that Billy wasn’t ready to have. But if he didn’t call back, Travis would get worried, wondering what had happened to him.

The phone rang again. If not now, when? Billy asked himself. He took the receiver out of the cradle and in a calm voice said, “Hey, tough guy.”

“Jesus, Billy, I was starting to think you were in jail or something,” Travis said. “You okay? I called your cell phone, and some asshole answered it, so I hung up.”

Billy shuddered. Crunchie had answered his fucking cell phone. The damage was done, and he was going to have to tell Travis what had gone down last night.

“I had a little problem last night. What are you doing up so early?”

Travis also slept in, and rarely awoke before midafternoon.

“Karen called. Stevie got hit in the face with a soccer ball at school, and she’s taking him to the hospital so they can X-ray his nose. I’m going there once I get off with you.”

“Is he okay?”

“Yeah, he’s a tough little fucker. Oh, shit, there’s Karen calling me. Let’s talk later. I want to hear how things went.”

Breathing room. Billy needed some of that. It would give him time to construct the story he’d tell Travis and the rest of his crew. He started to say good-bye, then remembered that he had a question for the big man. “I need to ask you something. What procedure takes place every three days inside a casino? I know there’s one, but I can’t remember what it is.”

Travis was the only member of the crew that had worked in a casino, and was what people in the industry called a gamer. If anyone knew the significance of three days, it was him. Travis took the call from his wife, then came back on the line.

“Is this a big casino or a little casino we’re talking about?” Travis asked.

“Does it matter?” Billy said.

“In a big casino, nothing happens after three days. The smaller joints are different. Every three days they erase the surveillance tapes, and use them over. It saves a ton of money.”

“How about the Four Queens? Would they erase their tapes after three days?”

“Sure. All the joints on Fremont Street do.”

Billy walked into the living room with the cordless phone pressed to his ear. His crew had ripped off the Four Queens on a Wednesday. By Saturday night, the surveillance tapes of their misdeeds would be erased, and the evidence would disappear. The same was true of the gaffed-chip scam he’d pulled at Slots A Fun. By Saturday night, the tape would be blank. All he needed to do was last until Saturday night, and he and his crew would be home free.

“Did we slip up last night?” Travis asked, sounding worried.

“Last night ran perfectly,” he said.

“Come on, Billy, I wasn’t born yesterday. First some asshole answers your phone. Now you ask me if I thought the tapes from last night will be erased. What the hell’s going on?”

Billy cursed himself. He hadn’t phrased his questions right, and now Travis was suspicious, as he should have been.

“I don’t want to discuss this right now. We’ll talk about it later, okay?”

“Are we going down?” Travis asked, not hearing him.

“Who said anything about going down?”

“Are we?”

“No.”

“Are we at risk of going down?”

“I don’t want to talk about this right now.”

“Fuck it, Billy, give me a straight answer, will you, man?”

There was a click on the line. Travis said, “There’s Karen again,” and stuck him on hold. Billy sat on the couch, feeling his world starting to implode. He hadn’t come clean with Travis, and the big man knew it. If Travis didn’t trust him, he’d go work for someone else. The rest of the crew would find out, and they’d leave as well. Hustling was all about trust, and right now, his was wearing thin. Travis came back on.

“Karen’s fit to be tied. I’ve got to go. I’ll call you later.”

“Okay. Good luck.”

“Tell me everything’s cool, man. My heart’s racing a hundred miles an hour.”

“Everything’s under control.”

“You’re not lying to me, are you? Because it sure sounds that way.”

An invisible knife stabbed Billy in the chest. He’d discovered Travis switching dice at a sawdust joint called Palace Station, using moves he’d learned from an amateur’s book on hustling he’d picked up at the Gambler’s Book Club, yet still robbing the place blind. Travis was a natural, and Billy had recruited the big man on the spot. Now it was all going into the toilet because he hadn’t played straight with Travis. Without truth, there was nothing.

“I screwed up,” Billy said.

“Jesus Christ. You?”

“Yeah, me. Big time. I’m sorry I didn’t come clean with you.”

“Fucking A, what happened?”

“The scam at Galaxy I told you about was a trap, and I walked right into it. Another hustler set me up. He’s working for the casino, and wants me to stop a family of cheaters from robbing them. He’s got my cell phone, and knows about the Four Queens scam. He threatened to turn us over to the police if I don’t play ball with him.”

“Is that why you asked me about the tapes being erased in three days?”

“Yeah. If I can hold him off until Saturday night, the crew’s safe.”

“Jesus Christ-you’re going to help him?”

“I don’t have a choice.”

“Do I need to lawyer up? Just in case?”

“You’re not going to get arrested, and neither is anyone else in the crew. Your world is safe. Now go take care of your son.”

“What about you? Are you safe?”

That was a good question. And Billy was pretty sure he knew the answer. If he didn’t stop the Gypsies, his sorry ass would get dragged to an unfinished floor of Galaxy’s hotel, and he’d get snuffed for his failure. All he could hope for was that they’d get it over quickly and wouldn’t make him suffer.

“I’ll be fine,” he said.

“There’s Karen. I’ll call you later.”

A dial tone filled his ear. He went into the kitchen and hung up the phone. He had let Travis down, and realized that he was dreading having to break the bad news to the other members of his crew. It was going to be painful, but it had to be done.