Take Down

FORTY-FIVE

Ike and T-Bird took turns smacking him around inside the car. A slap in the face, a poke in the back of the head, all the usual fun stuff. The beatings were getting old, and he raised his arms protectively to shield his face from a cheap shot.

Finally the beating ended. Being of diminutive stature, he’d taught himself to fight with whatever objects happened to be handy, and the car’s cigarette lighter was just itching to get shoved into Ike’s eye. But he didn’t do it. One day, he’d pay them back in spades, but not today. Today, he needed them to help him rip off Galaxy’s casino, and he repeated his offer to buy them dinner, thinking a few slabs of bleeding red meat might settle them down. He suggested a fancy Brazilian restaurant tucked away on East Flamingo called Fogo de Chão.

“What kinda food do they serve?” Ike asked.

“Bleeding red meat. It’s one of the best steakhouses in town,” he said.

“I can always eat a steak. What do you say, T?”

“If he’s buying, I’m flying,” the bird man said.

Fogo was one of the town’s better meateries, bolstered by a waitstaff willing to do backflips to get your order right. Billy bribed the host into seating them at a table away from the other parties, and a waiter dressed in a gaucho outfit went over the specials before taking their orders. Ike chose the beef ancho, T-Bird the costela de porco, which were fancy names for rib eye and pork ribs, while he ordered a traditional filet mignon. Soon their drinks came.

“You guys must really enjoy beating me up,” he said.

“We don’t appreciate being messed with,” Ike said.

There was real menace in Ike’s voice. Billy proceeded cautiously.

“Messing with you how?”

“What happened at the campsite, where you faked shooting that bitch. You’ve got some kind of side deal going with her, don’t you?”

“Her name’s Mags. She’s a grifter I met back in Providence when I was a kid. I ran into her the other night in the casino and told her to stay away. She came back anyway, and Crunchie busted her. You know the rest. To answer your question, no, I don’t have a side deal going with her. We’re just old acquaintances.”

Ike put his elbows on the table. He had an enormous wingspan, and it was easy to imagine him scooping up defenseless quarterbacks and throwing them savagely to the ground.

“Do I look like I was born last night? Me and T saw what happened. She jumped into the grave when you faked pumping a bullet in her head. It was staged. You guys are a team.”

“We’re not a team. It was spur of the moment,” he said emphatically. “Look, I’m not trying to double-cross you, if that’s what you guys are thinking.”

“Then how’d the bitch know to jump in the grave? Answer me that.”

“I cued her.”

“Say what?”

“I gave her a verbal cue. When you led Mags across the campsite, I turned her around and whispered in her ear. That’s when I told her to jump in the grave.”

“Your mouth touched her ear for a half a fucking second. You’re trying to tell me that’s when it happened? There was no prior conversation?”

“That’s right. I said, ‘Jump in the grave,’ and she played along.”

“That’s the biggest pile of bullshit I’ve ever heard.”

“Man’s messing with us,” T-Bird said under his breath.

The conversation had taken a brutal turn and Billy knew that he’d lost their trust. Without trust, there could be no partnership, and the scam would die before it ever got off the ground. He decided to start the conversation over, from the beginning, and bring them back into the fold.

“You guys want to hustle, right?” he asked.

“What kind of question is that? You know we do,” Ike said.

“All right, then hear me out. To hustle you have to be able to gain a person’s trust and get them to play along with you. It isn’t easy, yet hustlers do it all the time. It’s what separates the men from the boys. Want to know what the secret is?”

“Lay it on us.”

“You have to know what a person’s thinking. That’s not as hard as it sounds. I’ll give you an example. I’m standing under the clock tower outside the Providence railroad station hustling fake watches for fifty bucks a pop. The watches resemble expensive Swiss timepieces, only the inner workings are as sophisticated as a rubber band. Suddenly, a sucker comes toward me, holding the fake watch I just sold him. Stupid bastard dropped it on the ground and the back’s popped off and he’s seen it’s junk. So what’s he thinking?”

“He’s mad, and he’s going to call the cops,” Ike said.

“You’re half-right. He’s mad, but he isn’t calling the cops. If he were going to call the cops, he’d stay a safe distance away from me. Try again.”

“He wants his money back.”

“That’s right. He’s mad, and he wants his money back. You just figured out the two things that were on his mind. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“Easy as pie,” Ike said.

“So what do I do?”

“Give him a refund.”

“In front of the other suckers and risk exposing myself? No way. I stick my hand into my pocket where I keep my wad, peel two fifties off the roll, and palm them in my hand. I bring my hand out of my pocket and stick the money into the sucker’s palm as I shake his hand. The other suckers think we’re friends. I whisper in his ear. I say, ‘Play along.’”

“Did he keep his mouth shut?”

“Damn straight he did. He paid fifty for the watch, got a hundred back. He just made a one hundred percent return on investment. He goes home happy. End of story.”

A trio of waiters brought their meals to the table with the precision of a military exercise. The meats were cooked to perfection, the smells mouthwatering. Ike and T-Bird picked up their cutlery and dug in. He had hooked them with a story from his youth. Now came the hard part, which would be to reel them in. He ignored his meal and watched them eat.

Ike finished his rib eye in record time and wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin. The look on his face was skeptical. “You ever try this in a casino? You know, during a scam.”

“I use it all the time,” he said.

“How’s that work?”

He glanced furtively over his shoulder. None of the waitstaff were near the table, but he did it anyway, just for the effect. “It’s Friday night, and I’m scamming Planet Hollywood at roulette. The ball falls, and one of the ladies in my crew deliberately places a late bet. The croupier sees her and says, ‘Lady, you can’t do that!’ The croupier slides her late bet back to her. He does this real deliberately, so everyone can see he’s got things under control.

“At the same time, the other lady in my crew makes a second late bet. She’s sitting next to the red-black boxes on the layout, and she drops five hundred on the red, which happens to be the color that just won. No one sees a thing because they’re preoccupied watching the croupier. His movements block out her movements. The scam’s totally invisible.

“Suddenly, a little old lady standing next to me says ‘Holy crap’ under her breath. She’s seen the whole thing. So what’s she thinking?”

Ike rubbed his chin in thought. “She’s thinking, shit, I wish that was me.”

“You nailed it. What tipped you off?”

“’Cause she didn’t broadcast it.”

“There you go. If she’d wanted to expose us, she’d have said it out loud. So I slipped a few hundred in chips into her hands, and I whispered, ‘Be nice.’ When you whisper to a stranger, you’re making them an accomplice. She walked away with a big smile on her puss.”

“Very cool,” Ike said.

“Think about what happened at the campsite. I knew what Mags was thinking as you brought her toward me. She’s praying I wouldn’t shoot her. When I whispered ‘Jump in the grave,’ her prayers came true, and she played along.”

“But what if she hadn’t played along?” T-Bird said. “What then?”

“They always do. You just need to play it cool, and they’ll come around.”

He was done talking and ate his now cold filet while watching the punishers converse with their eyes. Eyebrows arched up, eyebrows down, a few short snorts, each man speaking his mind. Ike was sold, the jury still out for the bird man. They both needed to be on board if he was going to rob Galaxy’s casino, and he raised his arm and clicked his fingers.

Their waiter hustled over. “Is everything to your satisfaction?”

He waved the waiter closer and whispered to him. The waiter nodded and left. To T-Bird he said, “I just told our waiter it’s your birthday. Just watch. He’s going to bring out a piece of cake with a candle and get the entire staff to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to you.”

“Did you ask him to do that?” the bird man asked.

“I didn’t have to.”

“Then how you know he’s going to?”

“Because our waiter thinks we’re high rollers. I could tell by the way he served us and how overly polite he’s been. Our waiter thinks that if he takes extra special care of us, we’re going to take care of him, so he’s going to pull out all the stops.”

“A cake with a candle and everybody in the fucking kitchen singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to little ole me, and you didn’t tell him to,” T-Bird said skeptically.

“That’s right.”

“You’re messing with us again.”

“Bet you I’m right. Loser picks up the tab.”

“You’re on.”

Sixty seconds later, their waiter returned to their table holding a dessert plate containing a slice of molten chocolate cake with a lit white sparkler on top, which he placed in front of a slack-jawed T-Bird. The rest of the waitstaff appeared and gathered round the table, along with the female bartender, both the cooks, and a gang of grinning busboys. On the count of three, they broke into a rousing rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ sung in Portuguese while enthusiastically clapping their hands. By the time they were done, every diner in the restaurant was applauding, and Ike was laughing his fool head off.