“There’s something worse than getting caught?” Cory said.
“You bet. Any idea what it is?”
Cory and Morris didn’t know. They were still relatively new to the cheating game, and Billy had to remind himself there were plenty of things they were clueless about.
“Having a casino suspect you’re a thief,” Billy said.
“That’s worse than getting caught?” Morris asked.
“Much worse. If a casino suspects you’re a thief, they’ll start spying on you until they figure out what you’re doing. Everyone in the casino will watch you, from the bellboys to the cocktail waitresses to the blackjack dealers. Everything you do will be recorded and later scrutinized by the techs in surveillance. Hustlers call this a posse up. Trust me, you’re better off getting caught cheating because all the casino has is one video, and those don’t always stand up in court. But if the casino thinks you’re dirty, they’ll build a case until they have more than enough evidence to send you to prison.”
Cory and Morris were starting to get the picture. If Gabe talked stupid inside the hotel and security caught it, they’d all go down, and they’d go down hard. Travis came outside holding the rental bill.
“How much did you get her down?” Billy asked.
“Twenty bucks. She agreed not to charge for the last hour.”
“Nice going.”
The worst jobs in Vegas took place between midnight and 8:00 a.m. They called it the graveyard shift because the people who worked it resembled the walking dead and were often bitter souls. It did not take a lot of work to get them to shave a few dollars off a bill.
“Go find Gabe. I think he’s inside taking a leak. I’m getting worried about him.”
Travis stiffened. “Something going on with him?”
“I’ll tell you later. If he’s on his cell phone, take it from him.”
“You serious?”
“Yeah. I don’t want him talking to anybody right now.”
Travis didn’t look thrilled with the assignment but kept his mouth shut and entered the car rental building. Travis made more than the others because the sleight-of-hand he performed inside the casinos had taken years to perfect and deserved greater compensation. As a result, he lived in a four-bedroom house in a brand new development in nearby Henderson and had two nice cars parked in the garage. Travis was living the good life and so was his family, and the big man wasn’t about to screw it up.
The courtesy bus pulled up to the curb and the door opened with a mechanical hiss. A gruff driver told them to get in.
“Hold on a minute, my friend’s still inside,” Billy told the driver.
“Your friend can grab the next bus,” the driver said.
“When will that be?”
“Half an hour.”
“Can’t you wait?”
“Nope.”
Billy stepped up to the open door. “What if I say please?”
“Your charms are lost on me, brother,” the driver said.
Everyone in Vegas had a price. The question was, how much money was it going to take to make this driver stay a few extra minutes? Billy glanced at the driver’s run-down Nikes. You could tell a lot about a person’s financial situation by their shoes. Billy had learned that on the mean streets of Providence. Just look at a guy’s shoes, and you’ll know if he’s a player. Plucking a fifty from his wallet, he stepped up into the bus and tucked it into the driver’s breast pocket.
“Be a friend. My buddy needs to catch a plane,” he said.
“I could lose my job,” the driver said.
Billy pulled out a twenty and added it to the fifty in the driver’s shirt.
“That’s not enough,” the driver said.
Billy removed a ten from his wallet. Another trick from his Providence days. Pay a bribe in decreasing amounts. It sent out a psychological message that you were reaching the end of the road. He stuffed the ten into the driver’s pocket.
“Are we good?”
“We’re good,” the driver said.
“Thanks, man, I really appreciate it.”
Billy went inside the building. Cory and Morris were standing with Travis, who was banging on the restroom door. Billy told Travis to step aside, then put his mouth to the door. In a low voice he said, “Open the door or you’re fired.”
The door swung in. Gabe glared at him, cell phone in hand.
“Damn it, I’m talking to my kid,” Gabe said.
Billy took the cell phone from Gabe’s hand and stared at its face. Gabe’s daughter’s name and phone number were displayed in the upper corner on the screen. He raised the phone to his face, said, “Your father will call you later,” and killed the connection.
“Why did you do that?” Gabe said angrily.
“I told you, no phone calls.”
“She called me. We haven’t spoken in days. Goddamn it, Billy...”
“No calls on a job. That’s the rule, and you broke it. If you mouth off to me one more time, you’re history. Understand? One more fucking time, and you can go back to engraving teenagers’ initials into charm bracelets in a kiosk at the mall.”
Tears formed at the corners of Gabe’s eyes. Gabe was losing it, his emotions unraveling before Billy and the rest of the crew. He was becoming a liability and could drag them all down if they let him. There were ways to deal with this, and none of them were pretty. Billy entered the stall and yanked a piece of toilet paper off the roll, which he handed to him.
“Thanks,” Gabe said, blowing his nose.
Twenty-One
The rental bus idled at the curb as Billy and his crew came outside. It was a good thing the driver hadn’t left, because if he had, Billy would have tracked him down and put a hurt on him, the mood he was in right now. They got in and the bus departed.
The driver drove them to ground level of the main terminal. They crossed at the pedestrian walkway and got in line for a cab to take them back to Carnivale. It was past one o’clock in the morning, but you would never have known it by the eager tourists standing in line, the money they’d brought to gamble burning a hole in their pockets.
Billy kept his eyes on Gabe. He’d always been afraid of a situation like this; if a member of his crew had a nervous breakdown while they were inside a casino doing a job, their cover would be blown, and they might end up going to jail. Cheaters got treated harshly by Nevada’s penal system and were purposely exposed to hardships that other prisoners rarely saw. At the front of the line, Billy addressed the dispatcher.
“We’re together. Can we get a van to take us to Carnivale?”
The dispatcher called for a van on his walkie-talkie. Ending the call, he said, “Van will be here in a minute. Where’s your luggage?”
It was an honest question, and Billy knew that if he didn’t give the dispatcher a feasible answer, the dispatcher would remember Billy and his crew. The key to cheating was not to be remembered by anyone you came in contact with. This included dispatchers on taxi lines.
“Airline lost our luggage,” Billy said.
“Which one?”
“United.”
“Figures. They lose a lot of luggage. Stand over here. Your van will be up shortly.”
“Much appreciated.”
Soon they were driving down the Strip in a van better suited for a bunch of preschool kids, with stiff seats and no interior lights. Billy sat in the back beside Gabe. Bursts of harsh neon from the casinos penetrated the tinted glass and did a grotesque number on Gabe’s weary features. They came to a red traffic light and the van braked hard.
“Driver’s taking us the long way,” Gabe said under his breath.
“I know,” Billy said.
“Are you going to call him on it?”
“No. Let him think we’re tourists. I don’t want him remembering us.”