Leaving the Bellagio, Grimes drove to a bar called the Stateside Lounge where he knocked back a shot of whiskey and a beer chaser. It was exactly the jolt to the system that he needed. The bartender sold him a miniature bottle of mouthwash and he left.
Next stop was his boss’s office on the second floor of the gaming board’s headquarters. Bill Tricaricco, director of field agents, was a fifteen-year veteran whose job Grimes someday wished to have. Grimes blew into his hand to make sure the smell of whiskey was gone before rapping on Tricaricco’s door.
“It’s open. Come on in.”
Grimes entered to find Tricaricco at his desk multitasking. Eyes on his laptop, his thumb tapping a text message on his smartphone while chatting with a field agent on his Bluetooth. Tricaricco’s primary job was to catch cheats. It was thankless work; for every cheat they caught, five more slipped away. Tricaricco twirled his finger. He was Italian and talked a lot with his hands. Grimes pulled up a chair and positioned it so he faced his superior.
“Good morning,” Grimes said.
Tricaricco spoke to his Bluetooth. “Let the guy walk. But make sure you distribute his photo to the other casinos. He sounds like the kind who will show up again.” Tricaricco pulled the Bluetooth from his ear and tossed it on the desk. “How did it go at the Bellagio?”
“We’ve got the cage manager dead to rights.”
“You said Cunningham was behind the heist. Will the cage manager roll on him?”
“Not necessary.”
“Come again?”
“Cunningham’s dead.”
Tricaricco sat up straight in his chair. He was wired in to the police and was the first to hear when cheats and other miscreants met unhappy endings. “Who told you that?”
“No one,” Grimes said.
“Then how do you know Cunningham’s dead?”
Grimes produced his cell phone and retrieved the photo of Cunningham lying on the ground in a pool of blood that Junior Haney had sent him. He passed it across the desk and showed the photo to his superior.
“Son of a bitch,” Tricaricco swore. “You didn’t do this yourself, did you?”
“I used the Haneys.”
“You hired them to kill that little bastard? What made you do that?”
“Remember what you told me that time we got drunk together? You said there’s the law of the land and there’s the law of the jungle. Well, the law of the jungle just caught up with Billy Cunningham. He won’t be bothering us anymore.”
Tricaricco stared at the grisly photo and could not help but smile. “I’d like to blow this up and frame it. Guess that’s not such a smart idea.”
“Want me to send it to you?”
“Hell, no. I’ll just keep it in my memory.” Tricaricco passed the cell phone back to Grimes. His face became serious again. “Did you cover your tracks on this?”
“Yes, sir. I didn’t give the Haneys my real name, and I paid them in cash.”
“But they have your cell phone number, and that’s traceable,” Tricaricco said.
“This isn’t my cell phone,” Grimes said. “I lifted it off a slot cheat we busted at the Mandalay Bay. I plan to wipe my fingerprints off it and toss it in the trash.”
“You feel confident the killing can’t be traced to you or to the gaming board.”
“Yes, sir,” he said.
“Does Cunningham have family? Or a girlfriend?”
“I ran a background check. His father’s dead and his mother’s in prison — what a surprise. He’s slept with half the women in town but doesn’t have a steady girlfriend. No one’s going to go to the police and demand an investigation. He’ll just be forgotten.”
“What about his crew? Can they cause us problems?”
“Cunningham’s the brains behind the operation. With him out of the picture, the rest of his team will just fade into the sunset.”
Behind the desk was a bookcase. Books had become a thing of the past, and its shelves were bare, save for a small wooden box. The box was shrink-wrapped in plastic and needed a penknife to be opened. Tricaricco passed it to his guest.
“Good job, Frank. Help yourself.”
It was a box of Arturo Fuente Opus X Belicoso XXX cigars, possibly the best line of smokes in the world. The only casino in town that carried them was Caesars and the prices were insane. Grimes removed one and sniffed it. The smell was sublime. Tricaricco produced a fancy lighter in the shape of a gun.
“Can we smoke here?” Grimes asked.
“We can do whatever the hell we want,” Tricaricco said.
Soon the office was engulfed in a haze of purple-blue smoke. The world was filled with winners and losers. This was what it felt like to be a winner, Grimes realized.
“What did the Haneys charge you?” Tricaricco asked.
Grimes told his boss the figure without revealing that he’d paid it twice.
“That’s pretty steep. You’ve got a kid in private school.”
“Actually, two of my kids are in private school,” Grimes said.
“Private school’s expensive. I should know — all three of my kids went to one. Here’s what I want you to do. Expense the cost of the hit. Spread it over a few months of reports. Come up with something creative, and I’ll sign off on it.”
The words were slow to sink in. Grimes had been a special agent with the gaming board for more than a decade. He liked the work and the power it afforded him, yet he’d always felt like he was missing out. Now, finally, he understood how the department worked. He’d sworn to uphold the law but was also expected to stop thieves and cheats from ripping off the town’s casinos. And if it became necessary to break the law to do his job, so be it.
“Thanks, Bill, I really appreciate it,” Grimes said. “There’s something I wanted to ask you. What’s the deal with Old Man Haney? Why doesn’t he ever talk?”
“His name’s Wilmer, and he doesn’t have a tongue. He cut it out himself.”
“That’s disgusting. Why did he do that?”
“Wilmer was a hit man for a crime syndicate in Dallas. The syndicate wanted a rival killed, so Wilmer planted a bomb in a car outside a restaurant. Unfortunately, it was the wrong car, and Wilmer ended up killing his own parents. Not long after that, he moved to Vegas and married a pretty dealer and had a kid. One night, Wilmer got drunk and confessed to his wife what he’d done. Instead of forgiving him, his wife ODed on sleeping pills and checked out. Wilmer got so upset that he cut out his tongue. Used a pair of scissors is the story I heard.”
“He murdered his own parents? How does he live with himself?”
“By not talking, I guess.”
Grimes’s mouth tasted like ash. He placed the cigar into a promotional ashtray from one of the casinos on the desk. Everyone had a history, but there were some better left not spoken about, and he found himself wishing he’d hired someone else to whack Billy Cunningham.
Thirty-Five
Jimmy Slyde had decided to take Mags home after the bad scene at the Riviera. Mags needed to lay low for a while and get reacquainted with Netflix. In a few days the dust would settle, and he’d take her out again to scam another rich sucker.
Slyde was sitting at the intersection of Tropicana and the Strip when he got a phone call from the concierge at the Palazzo. There was a high-stakes card game taking place in one of the hotel’s Lago suites and an empty chair at the table had Mags’s name on it.
Slyde mulled it over. Their arrangement had nearly run its course, and he didn’t see himself fronting her much longer. Better to get the money while he could and end things on a high note. He told the concierge at the Palazzo okay and ended the call.
The next intersection was Hacienda. Slyde spun the wheel, performed an illegal U-turn, and headed back into town. Mags came out of her slumber with a start.