Take Down

SIXTY-ONE

Cory and Morris watched the rental peel out of the casino parking lot. Ike and T-Bird were going to be in for a rude surprise when they discovered the briefcase was filled with rocks.

Their job done, they began the long walk around the property to the Strip. The escape plan called for them to grab a cab and head back to Gabe’s. Vegas cabs were not allowed to pick up rides in the street, and they had already scoped out a taxi stand a block from Galaxy.

Cory was sick with worry. He’d forgotten to wear his disguise inside the casino, which was the worst mistake a cheater could make. He decided to confess to Billy before Gabe told Billy what he’d done. That way, he’d have a chance to apologize and beg for mercy. But before he did that, he needed to tell Morris. It was only fair that Morris knew first.

“Listen, man, I’ve got a confession to make,” Cory said.

“This sounds bad,” Morris said.

“It is.”

“Worse than the time we were sharing a bed and you had the runs?”

“Much worse.”

“Lay it on me.”

A sickening barrage of gunfire ripped a hole in the afternoon air, the sound coming from the street where the two ex-gridiron stars had just gone. Across the parking lot, a door to an NV Energy truck banged open, and gaming agents wearing NV uniforms piled out, brandishing guns.

“It’s a raid. Get inside,” Cory said.

Inside they found another bad scene. Cory grabbed a cocktail waitress and learned that a brawl in the lobby had spread and people were panicking.

They decided to try the front entrance and hustled across the casino floor. Mobs of players huddled around the felt-covered tables, while dealers and pit bosses stood statue-like at their posts, guarding the trays of precious chips in their possession.

The hotel lobby was no better. A crowd had gathered and was trying to leave. Blocking their way was a line of stern-faced gaming agents checking ID.

“Maybe there’s another exit we can use,” Cory said.

They retreated into the casino. The gaming agents disguised as NV workers were now blocking the rear exit, setting the trap, and Cory knew what that meant: arrest, bail, lawyers, and if the crew got lucky, a plea deal that would let them get out of the slammer before they were wrinkled and gray. Or maybe there was a solution right in front of his face that he wasn’t seeing. He walked over to a Wheel of Fortune slot machine and fed a crisp twenty into the bill feeder.

“Are you crazy? What are you doing?” Morris asked.

“Thinking,” Cory said.

“Hurry up, man.”

The slots in the Strip casinos were tight, and his money was gone in the blink of an eye. As he donated another twenty to the machine, Travis and Gabe took a pair of seats beside him.

“What happened to the assholes?” Travis asked.

“I think the cops took them out,” Cory said.

Pepper and Misty took the chairs next to Gabe and Travis, still wearing their Mexican hit-women disguises. Misty dropped the briefcase with the money orders to the floor.

“That sucker’s heavy. Anyone seen Billy?” Misty asked.

“Billy just texted me,” Travis said. “He wants to meet up in the men’s room.”

“Why there?” Misty asked.

“No surveillance cameras in the john,” Travis explained.

Billy sat on the elevated chair in the shoe-shine stand and studied his crew as they came in. No one was freaking out or crying. That was good, because they needed to stay calm if the plan he’d hatched to get them out of the casino was going to work.

A plastic bag lay at his feet. He picked it up and passed out the ball caps, T-shirts, and cheap pairs of sunglasses he’d lifted from one of the casino’s clothing stores.

“Put these on. We got made earlier in the parking lot,” he explained.

As his crew donned their new disguises, he continued to study them. “I think I can get you out of here without anyone getting busted. But you need to listen closely.”

That got their attention. They huddled up, and he explained how he wanted them to go to the lobby and split up. He was going to create a diversion that would allow them to get outside, and their chances of escaping increased dramatically if they ran away individually. It was an old trick dating back to the Wild West, when cheaters would escape from town by riding in opposite directions on their horses, making it harder for the sheriff to chase them down.

“What about you? How are you getting out?” Travis asked.

“Don’t worry about me,” Billy said.

His crew filed out of the john. He touched Misty’s sleeve and told her to stay.

“How do you like carrying eight million bucks around?” he asked.

“It’s scary. I keep thinking I’m going to get busted,” she said.

“I’ve got a plan for that, too.”

“You’ve got a plan for everything.”

He’d taught every member of his crew how to count cards at blackjack. He used the basic Hi-Low system, in which point values were assigned to each card dealt that allowed the player to keep a running count of the deck’s composition. He did this so his crew would have an alternate means of income, and also to test their memories. Misty had easily picked up the skill and proven to have a memory as good as his own. He explained what he wanted done with the money orders, then gave her the code to the service elevator that he’d seen Ike use the day before to reach the unfinished fourteenth floor of the hotel. She repeated the instructions and code back to him.

“Text me when you’re done,” he said.

“How are you getting out?” she asked, repeating Travis’s concern.

“I’ll think of something. One more thing.” He placed the suitcase on the sink and transferred the money orders into the plastic shopping bag the gifts had come in.

“You think of everything,” she said.

Misty left, and he doused his face with cold water in the sink. He’d forgotten to steal a disguise for himself, which was going to make it harder for him to get out of the casino, but not impossible.

The minutes slipped by. One by one, his crew texted they were ready. Misty’s text came last. He’d given her a tricky job, and he wondered how she was dealing with the responsibility of hiding the score. Would she rise to the challenge, or fall flat on her face?

Reading her text, he knew he’d made the right decision. The money orders were safe.

He returned to the casino and sat down with a group of slot queens who didn’t seem fazed that the joint was being raided. Slot queens came from all walks of life and all social strata. What joined them at the hip was the fact that they’d all won a jackpot the very first time they’d played a slot machine, and believed that Lady Luck smiled down upon them.

He tapped one of the ladies on the shoulder. She had dyed-red hair and wore a crushed-velvet jumpsuit, and refused to make eye contact, her eyes glued to her machine.

“Do you smell that?” he asked.

“Smell what?” the slot queen replied.

“Smoke. I think it’s coming out of the air vents.”

The slot queen faced him. “Do you think there’s a fire in the hotel?”

“Could be. I just wanted to warn you.”

“Oh my God, I do smell it. Girls, the hotel is burning down!”

The slot queens abandoned their machines and made a mass exodus to the lobby. Decades before, a flash fire at the MGM had taken so many lives that the city’s leaders had been shamed into changing the town’s fire code. Now there were fire alarms inside every casino. One such alarm was in the hallway leading to the lobby. One of the slot queens beat him to the punch and pulled away the steel mesh and jerked the handle. A piercing alarm went off.

The lobby was a zoo, with patrons being screened by gaming agents before being allowed to leave. Grimes was running the show and checked faces against a piece of paper clutched in his hand. Mags was nowhere to be seen, and Billy guessed she’d been carted off to jail.

There was a lot of noise, and it drowned out the alarm. The MacGregor family reunion took up the end of the line, recognizable by their matching lime-green polo shirts and Irish mugs. He got the attention of an elderly woman that appeared to be the family matriarch.

“Did you hear that?” he shouted.

“Excuse me? Are you talking to me?” the elderly woman shouted back.

“That sound. I think it’s a fire alarm.”

“I do hear it! Oh my God! Fire!”

The elderly woman had a voice like a longshoreman and it carried across the lobby. With all the force of a tidal wave, the patrons rushed the doors and pushed Grimes and the gaming agents aside. The doors popped open, and the patrons flooded outside.

Billy became one with the surge and was soon in the valet area. He calculated the length of hotel sidewalk to the Strip at one hundred yards. If he could reach the Strip, he’d blend in with the crowds and be home free. A hand gripped his sleeve. A man wearing a rumpled tux with the collar undone had latched onto him. It took a moment for the face to register. It was dear old Papa, the head of the Gypsy clan. He had gotten separated from his clan, and looked lost.

“Let’s go for a walk,” Billy said.

“I’m with you,” Papa said.

“Stay right next to me, and don’t slow down.”

“You got it, kid.”

With Papa glued to his side, Billy sifted his way through the swirling crowd toward the sidewalk that would take them to freedom.

“Freeze, Cunningham!”

He shot a glance over his shoulder but did not stop. Grimes was framed in the hotel entrance, his suit jacket ripped, aiming his sidearm. Couldn’t the dumb bastard have come up with an original line? Billy started to trot, as did his partner.

“I said freeze, you little shit!”

Grimes went into a marksman’s crouch. Only a damn fool would shoot into a crowd.

“Who’s that dickhead?” Papa asked.

“Gaming agent.”

“Figures.”

They kept moving. Suddenly, a shot rang out, scattering the crowd. A geyser of bright red blood gushed out of a bullet hole in Papa’s tuxedo pants, the bullet hitting an artery. Papa groaned and melted to the pavement. Billy’s instincts told him to run. It was the only chance he had. He gazed down at the older man, saw the helplessness in his eyes. He’d seen that same helplessness in his father’s eyes right before he’d checked out, but it had been too late to do anything about it. Now things were different. Now he could do something and give the reaper a kick in the shins. He went to his knees and pressed the palms of his hands onto the wound to halt the blood.

The world turned quiet. The patrons had run away, and the fire alarm inside the hotel was no longer ringing. The noise from the Strip was muted, almost inconsequential. He could not remember it ever being this way-not even on a Sunday.

He heard the sounds of a struggle by the entrance. Grimes was being wrestled to the ground by two gaming agents wearing NV Energy uniforms. They were trying to take away his gun, which appeared glued to his hand. And they were trying to reason with him.

“Goddamn it, Frank, get a hold of yourself,” one agent said.

Grimes was having none of it and continued to struggle. He wanted to take Billy out and erase the humiliation from their encounter at the Hard Rock, the wound having never healed. Having no choice, the gaming agents cuffed Grimes’s hands behind his back. Billy wondered how this was going to play out. There was no doubt in his mind that he was heading to prison for a long stretch, but with that thought came the knowledge that Grimes’s career was over.

Papa groaned, his eyelids fluttering. Billy wanted to shake him so that he’d stay conscious, but was fearful of taking his hands away from the wound. Bending forward at the waist, he spoke quietly to the older man.

“Don’t go to sleep on me.”

Papa struggled to respond. His face had turned ashen and he started to slip away. Billy knew he had to jolt the old guy back to life. But how? Then he had an idea.

“What did your daughter do with the earth magnet?” he asked.

Papa’s eyes snapped open and stayed that way until the ambulance arrived.