Junior went into the living room where he switched on the TV. They didn’t subscribe to cable, and the few stations they got were crap. He settled on America’s Funniest Home Videos with the sound muted. His father pulled up a chair and Junior gave him half the sandwich.
As Junior ate, he thought about the job. He wasn’t thrilled about the idea of going to Cunningham’s home. Better to do the job inside a dark bar or a parking lot; that was where most contract killings took place. But the client was demanding it, and there was the matter of their reputation. You were only as good as your last job in their line of work.
The Haneys made their living killing undesirables for the town’s casinos. They’d been doing this for so long that Junior had lost track of the number of victims. Then the local CBS affiliate had done an exposé about all the unmarked graves being found during new home construction around Clark County. More than eighty graves so far, and Junior was pretty sure that he and his father were responsible for most of the stiffs lying in them. It sounded like a lot, and maybe it was. But as Junior was fond of saying, they rarely killed anyone who didn’t deserve it.
Five
— THURSDAY, TWO DAYS EARLIER —
Gulfstream Aerospace’s sleek corporate jets were the airplanes of choice for the world’s über rich. Billy had decided to rent the company’s top-of-the-line G550 for the journey from Lake Tahoe to Las Vegas. It was expensive, but first impressions were important when landing at McCarran, where dozens of private aircraft landed every day.
Billy stood on the tarmac beneath a bleached blue sky and soaked up the scenery. It had been a good two weeks, the mix of beautiful outdoors and gambling to his liking, and he made a promise to himself to return to Tahoe soon.
He boarded the G550 with his crew. Soon they were bouncing high in the clouds. The G550 had Wi-Fi and multiple TVs, and everyone stared at a different screen, except Travis. The big man knelt on the carpeted floor in the center of the aisle, polishing his dice switch. Travis’s right thumb waved when he switched, and the big man had become obsessed with losing this tell.
“Billy, how do I look?” Travis asked.
Billy sat in the last row, examining his appearance in a handheld mirror. While in Tahoe he’d grown a goatee, moved the part in his hair, and started wearing glasses. By altering three areas on his face, he could dupe the facial recognition software the casinos used to catch cheats. Rising from his seat, he stood behind Travis and watched the switch from above.
“Do it again,” he said.
Travis’s hands were the size of cow udders. Before Billy’s eyes, the red pair of dice in the big man’s right hand magically became a green pair.
“That’s pretty. Your thumb’s hardly moving.”
“I’ve been working on it.”
“It shows.”
The pilot’s voice filled the cabin. Within minutes they bumped down and taxied to a small terminal. McCarran was always busy and provided most of the tourists who fed the town’s casinos. Without it, Vegas was nothing more than a bus stop in the desert.
As Billy and his crew disembarked, a uniformed driver from the Rio named Kevin greeted them. Limo drivers were expected to treat every customer the same. Most could ignore wealth or even fame, and Kevin was friendly without being over the top.
Kevin pulled their luggage out of the belly of the jet and loaded it onto a cart. They followed Kevin to a stretch limo parked at the tarmac’s edge.
“No Leon?” Pepper asked under her breath.
Leon was their regular limo driver. His crew liked Leon, and Leon often partied with them after a job was finished.
“Not this time. Keep your eye on Kevin. He’s our ticket into Carnivale,” Billy said.
“I thought he worked for the Rio.”
“He does. He’s also on Carnivale’s payroll. So are the rest of the Rio’s drivers. They get paid to alert Carnivale when whales hit town who Carnivale might want to steal.”
“Like us.”
“Right, like us.”
“Is that why you hired the private jet? To make us worth stealing?”
“You catch on fast.”
Kevin made small talk during the drive to the Rio. Were they planning to see any shows during their stay? Kevin rattled off the different productions at the casinos’ theaters while doing a nice soft sell.
“We were going to see Bruno Mars tomorrow night at the MGM Grand, but our tickets fell through,” Billy said. “The ladies are really bummed.”
“I’ll say.” Pepper pouted.
As he drove, Kevin scribbled down this piece of information. As part of his deal with Carnivale, Kevin passed along valuable tips that could be used to lure Billy away from the Rio.
Billy brushed the sleeve of his sports jacket, signaling Gabe to start the conversation they’d rehearsed for this very moment. Gabe fitted on a pair of reading glasses and opened the MacBook Air on his lap. His nimble fingers deftly played on the keyboard.
“Just got an e-mail from Ned Bryant at Morgan Stanley,” Gabe said.
“Ned Bryant’s a moron,” Billy said.
“I think your opinion of old Ned is about to change.”
“How so?”
“Ned got an offer from Synergy Health Systems to buy your shares of the company.”
“Tell him no.”
“You haven’t heard the offer.”
“Tell him no anyway. All good negotiations begin with no.”
“Whatever you say, boss.”
The limo had a fridge stocked with miniature bottles of Dom Pérignon. Billy found the glasses and poured bubbly for his crew. “What’s Synergy offering?”
“Twenty-four bucks a share. You paid seventeen,” Gabe replied.
“Refresh my memory. How many shares do I own?”
“You own twenty percent of the company, roughly five million shares.”
Billy faked a yawn. A thirty-five-million-dollar profit on a stock sale would have gotten most people doing cartwheels in the street. But for billionaire venture capitalist William Cummins, which was the alias he was using, it was just another deal.
“Should I stay or should I go?” Billy asked.
“The health-care industry is fickle. My advice is to get out now,” Gabe said.
“I like your advice. Sell all of it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Gabe made an imaginary call to Ned Bryant on his cell phone and okayed the sale. In the windshield’s reflection, Billy spied Kevin making another notation on his pad.
In Vegas, whales ruled. Whales didn’t have to wait in line, or make reservations, or engage in any of the mindless day-to-day activities of the unwashed masses. The world was their oyster, and whales took advantage of that oyster every chance they got.
Billy and his crew waltzed past the Rio’s check-in and were soon eating breakfast at the Hash House A Go Go. Billy ordered the house hash and flapjacks, while Cory and Morris got black skillet pork ribs. Gabe and Travis settled on farm-fresh sandwiches while Pepper and Misty got salads. The lunch crowd had yet to appear and the place was a tomb.
“I’m not understanding something,” Misty said. “Why does the Rio think you’re a whale? Don’t whales need to be really rich to get that status?”
Billy blew the steam off his coffee. He liked when his crew questioned an aspect of a particular play. It told him that they were thinking.
“To the Rio, I am rich,” he said.
“How’d you swing that?” Misty asked.
“Every casino is hooked up to a casino credit-reporting agency called Central Credit. It’s the TRW of the gambling industry. I hacked the Central Credit site and created a profile of a fictitious billionaire named William Cummins. Cummins has a big line of credit in Atlantic City and the Caribbean islands. That’s why the Rio’s giving us the star treatment.”