“You want us to kill another cheat?”
“Yup. Guy’s been scamming us at baccarat. We want him to disappear.”
Grimes opened the mouth of the bag and let Junior have a look. Money blinded people to reality and brought down their defenses. Junior motioned him inside and locked the door.
“Let’s go talk with my father,” Junior said.
They headed down a narrow hallway to a living room filled with cheap furniture. There were no wall hangings or framed memories of the past, nothing to suggest a life other than the one the Haneys were living right now. Wilmer Haney sat on a couch watching wrestling on the muted TV. On the coffee table were the remains of several meals served on paper plates. Grimes had decided that Wilmer was as unpredictable as a wild animal and was the one to worry about. Wilmer stopped watching TV and glared murderously at Grimes.
“He’s got another job for us,” Junior explained.
Wilmer grunted under his breath in a language only his son understood.
“My father doesn’t understand why you aren’t at home,” Junior said.
“The casino where I work called me in,” Grimes explained. “They caught this guy cheating us at baccarat. He’s done it before, so we decided it was time to get rid of him.”
Wilmer let out another grunt. On the third finger of his right hand was the antique ring that had belonged to Cal Branche. It occurred to Grimes that if the father hadn’t picked Branche’s body clean like a vulture after murdering him, none of this would have occurred.
“My father wants you gone. Come by tomorrow, and we’ll talk about it,” Junior said.
“You don’t have to be hostile about it.”
“Just go.”
Grimes placed the money bag on the coffee table, reached in, and removed the 9mm Glock 43 pistol hiding beneath the stacks. He pointed it at Wilmer’s forehead and squeezed the trigger. The bullet went straight through and popped the back of Wilmer’s head like a rotten piece of fruit. Blood flew back into Grimes’s eyes, momentarily blinding him.
“You motherfucker!” Junior screamed.
Grimes aimed at the sound of Junior’s voice and emptied the magazine. Junior let out a bloodcurdling scream and his body crashed to the floor, taking down a lamp on the way.
Grimes staggered into the kitchen. At the sink he found a dishrag and wiped the blood from his eyes. He was disintegrating inside, the act of taking another life more horrible than anything he could have possibly imagined. Hiring Junior and his father to whack Billy Cunningham had seemed like a smart thing to do; Cunningham had ruined his career, and a payback had been in order. Now, in hindsight, he had to believe it was the stupidest thing he’d ever done.
His cell phone vibrated and he pulled it from his pocket. It was Bill.
“All done,” Grimes said.
“I knew you could do it. Come out and get the kerosene so we can finish this.”
It had been Bill’s idea to burn the house down. The fire department did not like coming to this area of town, and by the time they responded, the Haneys’ house would be an inferno, and all evidence of the crime would be gone.
“I think I’m going to pass out,” Grimes said.
“Hold yourself together, Frank. It’s almost done.”
Grimes ended the call. In the fridge he found a two-liter bottle of Coke from which he took a long swig. The job was almost finished, but it would never end. For the rest of his life, he would dream about the suspicious look on Wilmer’s face right before he shot him.
When Grimes returned to the living room, Junior was propped up against the wall, trying to peck out 911 on his bloodied cell phone.
Grimes found a butcher knife in the kitchen and finished the job.
Fifty-Four
— TWO WEEKS LATER —
The day after ripping off Carnivale, Billy had driven to Santa Monica and booked a suite at the Hotel California with an ocean view and electric guitars autographed by famous rock musicians hanging on the walls. He was in a festive mood and didn’t mind paying the exorbitant rates.
He’d spent the days hanging on the beach, his nights on the pier eating at Rusty’s and the Albright. He took rides on the roller coaster and Ferris wheel, visited the aquarium, and did all the other touristy stuff. What he didn’t do was talk to any of his crew.
His crew had also left town. Gabe was in San Diego spending quality time with his daughters; Travis had taken his family to Disneyland; Pepper and Misty were relaxing at a spa in Palm Springs; Cory and Morris had gone to the mountains to hike but were probably in Colorado smoking weed with exotic names like Pineapple Express and Martian Mean Green.
As the end of the month rolled around, Billy called his stockbroker and gave him instructions on what to do with his portfolio.
On the first day of the next month, Billy ordered room service and stayed glued to the flat-screen TV in his suite, watching the business channel. This was the day that quarterly earnings were announced. By that afternoon, Billy knew that he’d hit a home run right out of the park.
A few minutes after the stock market closed, he texted his crew.
They met up at Gabe’s place a few days later. Billy splurged, ordered lunch from the Delivered Dish, and laid it out on the kitchen table. There was enough food for a small army.
His crew wasn’t in a talkative mood. Kept in the dark for too long, they’d become moody and suspicious. Billy decided to start the meeting on a high note, and he walked around the kitchen and handed each member an envelope with their name printed on it.
Misty opened her envelope and shrieked. “This check is for more than a million bucks.”
“That’s right,” Billy said.
“But that wasn’t what you told us in Tahoe. You said it would be less.”
“The payout was bigger than I expected. There is one downside. You have to declare the money as income on your tax returns and pay your taxes. If your accountant asks you where you got the money, tell him you made it on the stock market.”
“Now I get it. You shorted them, didn’t you?” Cory said.
“Those business classes you’ve been taking are really paying off,” Billy said. “You’re right, I did short them.”
“For how much?”
“Seventy bucks a share.”
“That’s huge. How many shares did you own?”
“Two hundred thousand.”
“Jesus Christ. You made a fourteen-million-dollar profit. No wonder you didn’t tell us what the deal was. If word got out, you’d go to prison for insider trading.”
Misty looked confused. “What the heck are you talking about?”
“Wang’s win at the Carnivale happened on the last day of the company’s fiscal quarter,” Cory explained. “The loss forced the company to report a loss and the stock tanked.”
“How do you make money from that?” Misty asked.
“I’ve been playing the stock market through a broker,” Billy explained. “Three weeks ago, I had my broker borrow two hundred thousand shares of Carnivale stock. I told my broker to sell the shares the same day for what I paid for them, which he did. When Carnivale’s stock tanked, I bought two hundred thousand shares at the lower price and returned the borrowed shares to the lender while pocketing the difference.”
“Is that legal?” Misty asked.
“You bet it’s legal,” Billy said.
Travis wore a worried expression. The certified check hadn’t wowed him like it had the others. If anything, the big man looked more than a little scared. “Look, Billy, we’ve all figured out that you got a gaffed wheel into Wang’s sky palace. You and I both know that the gaming board’s going to dissect that wheel in their lab and eventually figure out what the secret is. Once that happens, they’re going to realize we were involved and come looking for us.”