Gabe shot him a puzzled look.
“We just buried your friend,” Billy whispered. “If somebody saw us and called the cops, they’re going to come looking for us. That means we have to fly under the radar until we get back to Carnivale. Then we can go back to our job.”
“Gotcha.” Gabe paused to watch a long-legged hooker sashay past. Prostitution was illegal in Clark County, but you would never have known it by the amount of talent trolling the sidewalks. There had to be a big convention in town to draw this many working girls.
“Can I have my cell phone back?” Gabe asked.
Billy shook his head. Gabe dropped his chin and stared dejectedly at the floor.
“I’ll give it to you later,” Billy said.
“Sure you will,” the jeweler said.
“You don’t believe me?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“You’re going to kill me. I’m a fucking liability, so you’re going to get rid of me.”
“Stop saying that.”
“Then stop thinking it, because you are.”
“We’ll finish this conversation later.”
The van dropped them off at Carnivale’s main entrance a short time later. They made it upstairs to their penthouse digs without encountering their pesky VIP host or any fawning hotel staff willing to accommodate their every need. They were back in fantasy land, where nothing was real and everything was being paid for, provided Billy dropped a few million at the tables.
The bar in their suite was stocked with aged bourbons and whiskey and had a wine cooler filled with labels from the south of France. Billy popped the tops of three Stellas and fixed two stiff drinks. He left the beers on the bar for Travis, Cory, and Morris, who hadn’t uttered a word since leaving the car rental return, and headed outside to the pool with the drinks in hand. Gabe stood at the railing with the wind blowing back his thinning hair.
“Here, it will make you feel better,” Billy said.
Gabe sipped the drink and winced. “That’s strong.”
“Stronger the better.” He knocked back his drink and Gabe did the same. Down below, the Strip pulsed and shook with a life all its own. “I’m not going to kill you. I’m not saying it didn’t cross my mind, but I wouldn’t do that to you. We’ll get through this. Okay?”
“You’re giving me a second chance?”
“Yeah. Just do what I tell you, and this will work out.”
“You ever kill anybody you worked with? Be straight with me.”
“No. But some guys in Providence I knew did.”
“Why?”
“They were running a peek store in the rec room of a guy’s house. The wall had neon beer signs as decorations, which work like one-way mirrors. There’s a guy on the other side of the wall, looking through a Budweiser sign and reading the cards in the suckers’ hands during poker games, which he texted to his partners at the table. The guy doing the reading tells his partners he wants a bigger cut. They balk, so this dope starts broadcasting what’s going on. The dope wouldn’t stop, so one night the others got him drunk and rolled him down Neutaconkanut Hill. The guy hit his head on a rock and died.”
Gabe leaned against the railing, his face cast in stone. “What about those animals who killed Nate? Do we just forget about them?”
“We’re going to pay those guys back. I’m going to run them down. Then I’m going to fuck them every which way but Sunday.”
“You know who those bastards are?”
“Let’s just say I know how to find them. The rest will be up to you.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you.”
“What are you talking about, Billy?”
Billy slapped Gabe’s shoulder. He’d given the situation serious thought during the taxi ride and had decided that he needed to get Gabe out of Carnivale. The fact that Gabe was distraught didn’t mean Gabe wasn’t valuable to him. Gabe had been born to hustle; he had larceny in his heart and knew how to manipulate the truth. Those were valuable commodities in the grifter’s world, and Billy was not about to roll Gabe down a hill anytime soon.
“You’re going to play Sherlock Holmes for me,” Billy said.
“I am?”
“Yeah. Think you’re up for it?”
Gabe was probably the smartest member of Billy’s crew. He knew that Billy was going the extra mile for him, and a liquid smile spread across his face.
“I’ll do whatever you want, Billy.”
“Get some sleep, and I’ll connect with you later.”
“Done,” the jeweler said.
Twenty-Two
Most contract killing in Vegas was handled by outsiders. The casinos had started this practice in the 1950s when the mob ran the town, and it continued to this day.
When someone needed to get whacked, a killer was hired from East LA or Mexico to do the dirty work. The killer usually used a gun and shot his victim in his driveway or a parking lot at night, then hit the highways in his car, never to be seen again.
Nate’s killers were different. They were local and had lived in Vegas for a while. Three things had led Billy to this belief. The first was their American-made car. It was a junker, and it didn’t appear capable of making the trek from LA or south of the border.
The second was the killers’ willingness to visit Gabe’s neighborhood after dark, with its unlit street signs and maze-like layout. Even with a GPS system, Gabe’s place was hard to find. Billy knew this for a fact, as he’d gotten lost visiting Gabe several times.
The third reason was the perfectly round impression one of the killers had left on Nate’s chin, no doubt the aftermath of a punch. Billy had seen that perfectly round impression before, and it was going to lead him to tracking down Nate’s killers.
It was 2:00 a.m. when the cab pulled into the Casino Grand Bay. Billy entered and went straight to the house phones. The casino was packed with drunk conventioneers and dolled-up hookers who made their living servicing them. He picked up a phone and an operator came on.
“I need to speak to Harlan Ritz.”
“May I tell him who’s calling?” the operator asked.
“Billy Cunningham. I’m an old friend.”
The operator put him on hold. Billy had scammed every casino in Vegas multiple times, except for the Grand Bay, which he’d scammed only once. The one time he’d taken the joint down, a strange thing had occurred. He’d had an attack of conscience.
Thieves weren’t supposed to have attacks of conscience. When a bad thing happened on a job, a thief was expected to look the other way and go about his business.
Billy was different. Every so often, a sharp splinter in the chest made him help a stranger. It was a by-product of having attended a strict Catholic school, where the nuns had beaten into him the importance of helping others, even if it meant sticking his own neck out.
Like a few years ago at the Grand Bay. They’d been ripping off the craps game by Travis controlling one of the dice so it fell a certain way, every time. By betting the right combinations, Cory and Morris won 80 percent of the time. The play was blatantly obvious, but with Misty and Pepper using their ample charms to distract the dealers, it never failed to get the money.
As Travis got set to roll the dice, a guy wearing a two-thousand-dollar suit flew past the table holding a garbage bag. The door to the cashier’s cage opened, and the guy went inside.
“Hold on,” Billy whispered.
“Something wrong?” Travis asked.
“Not sure.”
Inside the cage, the guy in the suit was tossing stacks of money into the bag. Casinos didn’t let employees handle money this way, which meant the guy owned the joint. Billy wondered if there would be enough money left in the cage to pay them off. If not, the cage manager would issue an IOU, but no cheater in his right mind had ever accepted one of those.