But Mags wasn’t going to tell him that she didn’t trust him anymore.
“All right, you win,” she said. “When this is over, you get to whisk me off my feet and treat me like a princess. Now, what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to call Grimes and tell him you heard a rumor that he put a contract out on my life. Tell Grimes everyone in town knows about it. That should make him call off the Haneys.”
“When do you want this done?”
“As soon as you can. I don’t want the Haneys ruining things.”
“I’ll call him when we’re done.”
“You’re the best.”
“I bet you say that to all the girls.”
“Just you.” He took her hand and brought it up to his face so he could kiss it. “Call me after you talk to Grimes, okay?”
“You bet.”
“And promise me you’ll be careful with Jimmy Slyde.”
“Don’t worry about Slyde. I’ve got him covered.”
Billy slipped out of the booth and came up beside her chair. Gave her a smooch on the lips that made her go flush before he walked out of the restaurant. In the parking lot, he summoned a cab on his cell phone that soon appeared and whisked him away.
She gazed out the window long after he was gone. The things he’d said sounded genuine, and she had to remind herself that Billy was a cheat, and that the only people he was true to were his crew. No one else counted. And since she wasn’t a member of his crew, the promises and apologies and hand-holding and expressions of concern were nothing but air.
She took out her cell phone and hit the photo gallery icon. A graduation photo of Amber appeared and Mags found herself getting choked up. She’d never hidden that she had a daughter from the hustlers she worked with, yet Billy was the only one who’d asked after her. Billy cared about Amber, and he still cared about Amber’s mother.
She pulled up Frank Grimes’s number and started to call him. But her finger wouldn’t push the icon to make the call go through. Grimes had abused her and she still had nightmares about it. Just thinking about him turned Mags’s stomach upside down.
She drank more coffee and tried to clear away the cobwebs. She wanted to do right by Billy but could not bring herself to reconnect with Grimes.
She had an idea. She’d send Billy a text message, telling him that she’d connected with Grimes, but that Grimes had refused to call off his dogs.
She typed up the message. Her eyes fell on the very last words she’d written. I love you. She was setting herself up again to be hurt, and she quickly erased them.
Be careful, she wrote instead.
Twenty-Six
A line of tour buses painted in blinding Day-Glo choked the entrance to Carnivale’s casino. These were not ordinary tourists, but blue-haired geezers whose idea of a swell afternoon was to piss away their Social Security checks playing the nickel slots.
Billy sat in the back of the cab trying to pull himself together. Seeing Mags had been rough, and he’d yet to calm down. Mags was a walking time bomb and would eventually blow herself up, yet his feelings still ran deep for her, and he guessed they always would.
He didn’t like that Mags was running with Jimmy Slyde. Slyde had hurt a lot of people, including many women. Slyde’s reputation was of someone who couldn’t be trusted. When the scam at Carnivale was finished, he planned to look Slyde up and have a chat with him. If Slyde knew that Billy had a thing for Mags, he would be less inclined to screw with her.
The old folks tottered into the casino on canes and walkers. Casinos didn’t care who they ripped off, and that included the elderly. Every day, thousands of geezers played the slots while eating box lunches supplied by the casinos. That would have been okay if the games were fair, only they weren’t fair. Slot machines were legalized stealing, the odds of hitting a jackpot worse than being struck by lightning. The old folks didn’t have a prayer, and by midafternoon they’d be back on the buses without a dime to show for their efforts.
This was going nowhere. Billy tossed the driver some bills and hopped out.
He hiked up the entrance breathing the buses’ dirty exhaust. Near the front doors, his cell phone vibrated. Mags had texted him.
Grimes won’t call off the Haneys. I tried. Be careful.
He put the phone away. He’d doubted whether things would ever be right between them again, and he decided there was still hope. Maybe he’d surprise her and take her to Hawaii instead of Acapulco.
He went inside and stuck his head into the casino. A sea of blue hair sat at banks of slot machines, grinding away. Elderly day care, courtesy of your friendly neighborhood casino.
An elevator took him to the sky palace where he found Pepper and Misty in the living room, preparing for their breakfast with Tommy Wang. Both wore sundresses that accentuated their tan bodies, their makeup so expertly applied it turned them into movie stars. He reminded himself that the sky palace was bugged, and that he needed to watch his tongue.
“Morning, ladies.”
“Morning, Billy,” they both said.
Misty was giving the miniature TV camera and battery pack concealed inside her purse a final check. The battery pack was flashing green, indicating it was fully charged.
“All set?”
“We sure are,” Pepper said.
At the minibar, he poured three glasses of mineral water, two of which he presented to them. They clinked glasses in a toast.
“Here’s to pleasure themes and get-rich schemes,” he said.
“I’ll drink to that. How’s Gabe doing?” Misty asked.
“Gabe’s fine. I sent him home last night.”
“You didn’t fire him, did you?”
“Whatever gave you that idea?”
Pepper and Misty traded looks. One of the others had said something. It was a bad way to start a job, and he said, “Whatever happened with Gabe is behind us. Understood?”
“We were just worried, that’s all,” Misty said.
“Gabe is like family,” Pepper chimed in.
“Stop worrying. Gabe is gold,” Billy said.
They looked relieved. Although Billy ran the crew, Gabe was still the old man, and the others looked up to him. When their glasses were empty, Billy walked them to the door. Through the fabric of Pepper’s sundress, he spied a skin-colored patch taped to the small of her back. It looked like a bandage, but in fact was a receiver antenna that would transmit the signals sent out by the camera hidden in Misty’s purse. The camera was able to transmit signals for up to a mile, but that was in an open field. The casino’s walls were thick and would severely limit the camera’s range. The antenna taped to Pepper’s back guaranteed a clear picture.
“Wish us luck,” Pepper said.
“Good luck.” He dropped his voice. “Remember, I’ll be watching.”
Billy went to his bedroom and retrieved his laptop. Then he escaped to the balcony deck and sat on a lounge chair by the pool. Las Vegas had perfect weather most of the year, the achingly blue sky so sharp it was hard to look at without shades.
He powered up the laptop and typed in a command. He looked no different than anyone else hanging by a pool, the only difference being, he was about to mastermind the biggest rip-off the town had seen in decades.
The feed from Misty’s camera filled the laptop’s screen. Misty and Pepper were inside Tommy Wang’s sky palace, chatting with their host. Misty had put her purse on a coffee table, allowing Billy to watch everything that took place. The camera was a precaution that Billy felt was necessary. If Wang sensed he was being conned, he might call security. Or, he might get angry and physically hurt Pepper and Misty. If either of those things happened, Billy would have a chance to react and save them.