Billy enjoyed a good magic show, and one evening had taken a date to see Copperfield. His date had heard about a new illusion where a female volunteer was made to float over the crowd. His date had told Billy she hoped Copperfield picked her to levitate.
To their disappointment, Copperfield did not perform the trick that night. After the show, Billy and his date had a drink at one of the casino’s bars, and his date had expressed her disappointment to the bartender. The bartender had explained that the illusion had caused the magic show to run over its allotted time limit, which cost the casino money at the tables.
A light bulb had gone off over Billy’s head. Each show inside the MGM had a set time limit that the performers were expected to follow each night. By adding a new illusion to his show, Copperfield had taken away time when customers were expected to be inside the casino losing their hard-earned dough. It wouldn’t have mattered if the trick were the greatest illusion ever created. It was costing the MGM, so it had to go.
Billy had done his homework, and he learned that the concerts staged inside the Garden Arena followed the same formula. Each concert was expected to be one hour and thirty minutes in length, and not a minute longer. Musicians weren’t allowed to add encores even if the fans pitched a fit. It was written into their contracts.
For Billy, the information was worth its weight in gold. Each time a concert let out, a sea of people swarmed down the hallway into the casino, causing momentary confusion. You couldn’t have asked for a better distraction to take down a casino.
The night of Travis’s baptism, Billy’s crew had switched six decks off a blackjack table for six decks in a prearranged stack. Hustlers called this ringing in a cooler. Travis’s role was to take the decks off the table right as the concertgoers flooded the casino and the dealer turned her head to watch them rush past. At the same time, Billy had removed the stacked decks from an arm sling he was wearing and put them on the table. The scam had gone off without a hitch, allowing them to then rip off the game for a hundred grand.
“I’m hungry,” Misty said. “Why don’t you buy me some yogurt.”
“Your wish is my command,” Billy said. “Hey guys, I’m buying.”
A Blizz frozen yogurt store was located next to the arena entrance. The yogurt was self-serve and came in a variety of flavors. Misty chose cookies and cream, Cory and Morris pistachio and pomegranate. Both wore sloppy grins, and Billy wanted to give them hell for being high on the job, but he had too many other problems right now. They left the store.
“I just got a text from Pepper. She’ll be here with Tommy soon,” Misty said.
“How soon is soon?” Billy asked.
“Pepper said they were a few blocks away.”
Pepper had been gone since noon. In a town that moved as fast as Vegas, that was enough time to get married, have a couple of kids, and break up. DeSantis appeared.
“There you are,” their host said. “We need to get to our seats.”
“Two from our party are running late,” Billy said. “I hope that isn’t a problem.”
“Just let me know when they get here, and I’ll come out for them.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Billy said.
Whales did not wait in line. DeSantis had bribed the ushers working the concert, and their host led them up to the entrance, where they were whisked inside and led by the ushers down an aisle to their third-row-center seats. Other concertgoers craned their necks as their party passed, assuming Billy and his crew were somebody special. We are somebody special, Billy thought. We’re the best fucking hustlers in all of Las Vegas.
At one minute before eight, the house lights dimmed. The sold-out house let out a cheer. Misty squinted at her cell phone and said, “Pepper and Tommy are here.”
DeSantis was roaming the arena in his never-ending hunt for whales. Billy sent him a text and asked him to get Pepper and Tommy. DeSantis replied with a thumbs-up emoji.
At exactly eight o’clock, the curtains parted, and Bruno Mars and his band took to the stage. Their first number was the award winning “Locked Out of Heaven,” and the crowd stood on its feet and roared. Pepper and Tommy Wang slipped into their seats, their faces flush from lots of alcohol and plenty of sex. Pepper wore a leather miniskirt and a red silk blouse. The clothes looked new, and Billy guessed Tommy had paid for them.
When the song was over and the crowd had returned to their seats, Billy touched Pepper on the wrist. She glanced nervously his way.
“Glad you could make it,” Billy said.
Bruno Mars put on a great show, and Billy let himself get lost in the music and dancing. The performance lasted exactly one hour and thirty minutes, and when the crowd was hoarse from yelling for an encore that would not come, they began to file out of the arena.
DeSantis stood in the aisle awaiting his party. Their host had not sat down during the show, preferring to roam the front rows of the arena. Now that Bruno Mars was done, it was back to business, and DeSantis flashed Tommy Wang a big smile.
“I didn’t forget about you,” DeSantis said to Wang. “Are you ready to have your wildest fantasy fulfilled, courtesy of the Carnivale?”
Wang was still riding the high of having spent the afternoon in Pepper’s company and clapped his hands together excitedly. “I am booked at the Joint?”
“Yes, you are,” DeSantis said. “Tommy Wang and the High Rollers are going to set the town on fire. The limo’s waiting out front.”
“We leave now?”
“Correct. We could walk to the Hard Rock, but superstars should arrive in style.”
“When do I go on?”
“At eleven.”
“That doesn’t give us much time. Can’t it be later?”
DeSantis gave his client a friendly pat on the arm. “Don’t get cold feet on me. It wasn’t easy selling this to Hard Rock’s management. They don’t let just anybody appear at the Joint.”
“Then I’ll be ready. Can my friends come?” Wang asked.
“Sure. The more the merrier,” DeSantis said.
Wang turned to face Pepper. “It would be my honor to invite you and your friends to hear me sing at the Hard Rock tonight. Please say yes.”
Pepper reacted like she was sixteen and being asked to her first prom. To Billy she said, “This sounds like a blast. Come on, Billy, what do you say?”
All eyes fell upon the boss. Billy did not want to go to the Hard Rock. He’d ripped the place off so many times that security had taken the precaution of not only hanging an unflattering photograph of him on the wall of the surveillance room, but of also running a continuous loop of surveillance video of Billy scamming the casino on a flat-screen TV. He was on the Hard Rock’s Most Wanted List, and if security caught him on the premises, there would be hell to pay.
But if Billy didn’t go, he would hurt Tommy Wang’s feelings. And that might affect their ability to use Wang to take down the Carnivale tomorrow.
Damned if he did, damned if he didn’t.
“Sounds like fun. I’m game,” Billy said.
Forty-Two
The distance between the MGM Grand and the Hard Rock was exactly 1.3 miles. Billy knew this for a fact, since he’d once run it while being pursued by the Hard Rock’s security staff.
“Do we really want to be stepping into the Hard Rock?” Travis whispered.
Billy and his crew were in the limo. In the opposite seat sat the two lovebirds. Dance music was playing over the limo’s sound system and Tommy Wang was feeling no pain.
“Don’t have much choice,” Billy said under his breath.
Tommy Wang pulled the opened bottle of Dom Pérignon from an ice bucket and refilled Billy’s flute. “Here’s to our new friendship.”