“Very good.”
The body torqued beneath the covers. Maybe the poor bastard will suffocate and save me the trouble, he thought.
Doucette jerked away the hood. A large piece of duct tape covered the prisoner’s mouth. Recognition was like a splinter in the chest, and Billy thought he might get sick.
It was Mags, crying her heart out.
FORTY-THREE
“Crunchie tells me this little lady is a friend of yours,” Doucette said.
The words hung in the air. The old grifter had been waiting for a chance to get back at him, and Billy hoped there was more than one bullet in the gun they gave him to shoot Mags.
“She’s no friend,” he lied.
“But you know her,” the casino boss said.
“I caught her painting cards at blackjack in your casino and had a cocktail waitress give her the brush. She left her chips on the table and ran. End of story.”
“Why help her out? What was in it for you?”
“I felt bad for her. I knew what you were going to do to her.”
“That’s it? You felt bad for her? Give me a fucking break.”
“She also has a great ass.”
“That’s more like it. Were you going to hook up with her, and get it on?”
“That was the plan. Wouldn’t you?”
Doucette’s eyes did a little dance. Every guy in Vegas was a pussy hound; Doucette had checked Mags out while she was being tied up, and liked the merchandise. Talking about her ass was crude-especially after having agreed to kill her-but sometimes crude worked, and Billy wasn’t surprised when the casino boss slapped him on the shoulder.
“I could learn to like you,” Doucette said.
They waited another hour before moving her. Now tied to a wheelchair with the duct tape still in place, Mags was taken by service elevator to the basement garage, where Ike and T-Bird placed her struggling body into the cramped trunk of a limited-edition Mercedes-Benz AMG Black Series, a racecar capable of devouring any track in the world. She wasn’t the first cheater to take her last ride in the trunk of a car, and probably wouldn’t be the last.
“Be careful,” Doucette said. “The last time, you scratched the paint.”
“Can she breathe?” Billy asked.
The casino owner shrugged indifference and slammed the trunk. To Ike he said, “Meet us in the usual place. Thirty minutes. Don’t be late.”
“Got it, boss,” Ike said.
With Doucette at the wheel, Shaz riding shotgun, Crunchie in back, the Mercedes hurtled up the exit ramp, the roar of its engine echoing in the garage long after it was gone. Ike and T-Bird trotted toward a stairwell with Billy on their heels. He had agreed to kill someone to save his own skin. There was no doubt in his mind that he was capable of pulling the trigger. What he didn’t know was if he was capable of living with himself in the days and weeks that followed. His conscience would eat at him, and he was afraid it might eat him alive.
They took the stairwell to ground level. Went outside to the employee garage, climbed three levels, and got into the Camaro’s front bench seat, sitting three across. It was tight, but Billy wanted to talk to Ike and T-Bird during the drive and gauge their facial expressions. Ike made his tires scream going down the spiral exit ramp, and hit the street doing sixty.
“Think you can make it to Lake Mead in thirty minutes?” Billy asked.
“Who said we were going to Lake Mead?” Ike said.
“That’s where all the cheaters get buried.”
“Is there anything you don’t know, man?”
The deserts of Las Vegas were pockmarked with shallow graves that had no tombstones or markers. The nameless dead surrounded the city and often became unearthed during new home construction and road projects. In the past two decades, 150 had been discovered; it was believed there were many more. The police told the media that these deaths were the work of hit men and roaming serial killers, but Billy knew otherwise. The dead, in fact, were cheaters who’d gotten caught one too many times plying their trade. Not all cheaters met this gruesome fate, just those damn fools who didn’t know when to quit. The casinos got tired of busting them, so they whacked them instead.
Where the bodies popped up often indicated where the cheater was caught. The Apex area near Nellis Air Force Base was used by casinos on the north side of town, the roads leading to Mount Charleston were favored by old downtown’s casinos, and State Route 160 from Blue Diamond to Pahrump was popular with casinos on the Strip’s south end. But in terms of sheer numbers, the recreation area around Lake Mead won the prize, with half the city’s nameless graves having been found there, usually near campsites or hiking trails.
Ike took the 215 east into Henderson, got off on Lake Mead Parkway, and followed the signs toward Boulder Basin, a brightly lit Albertsons and Walmart the only stores for miles. It was a different world out here, the vast space easy to get swallowed up in. Billy realized he had broken into a cold sweat, and glanced at his car mates. Ike and T-Bird were sweating as well.
“Tell me how this is going to work,” he said.
“There’s a campsite up the road where we buried Ricky,” Ike said. “We’ll pull in there, and me and T will dig a grave. You’ll shoot the bitch, and we’ll plop her into the ground. That’s about it.”
“What’s Doucette’s role?”
“Doucette sits in his car with his sick wife and watches. They get off on this shit, especially her. She enjoys seeing people suffer.”
“Has she always been like that?”
“Once upon a time, she was cool. Wasn’t she, T?”
“Way cool,” T-Bird said.
“So what happened?”
“Doucette happened,” Ike said. “Shaz went to work stripping for him, and he started sending her down to Tijuana to get naked in a club he owns. Each time she came back, she was loaded with blow. The stuff is ninety percent pure, worth forty grand an ounce. All the strippers in Doucette’s clubs move blow for him. Rock fronts the operation, sells the stuff on the streets.”
“How did she get so messed up?”
“I’m getting to that part,” Ike said. “The girls carry the blow inside of them. Doucette’s rule-he thinks it’s safer that way. Some girls swallow the bags; others shove them up their assholes. Shaz used her pussy. One day she’s driving back from Tijuana and the bag broke. She passed out, crashed the car. Two days later, she woke up half-dead in a hospital bed with a diamond ring on her finger. Doucette married her while she was out.”
“So if she got arrested, she wouldn’t testify against him.”
“You got it.”
“Was she okay with that?”
“Yes and no. She got off on the ring. What made her crazy was that she couldn’t have no babies. The doctors had to take out her sex organs to save her life.”
“They gave her a hysterectomy.”
“Yeah. It screwed up her head. Shaz got out of the hospital and was arraigned. Judge felt sorry for her, gave her probation. That night, she was in the club, drinking champagne at the bar with Doucette. Another stripper comes over, kisses him on the mouth. Shaz grabs the bottle off the bar and crushes her skull. Poor kid bled to death. Shaz laughed over her dying body.”
“She got off on it?”
“Uh-huh. It was scary.”
“She’s a liability. Why doesn’t Doucette get rid of her?”
“She’s his wife. If she disappears, people will start asking questions. He’s stuck with her. Here’s our turn. So what are we going to do? You going to kill this bitch?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Billy said truthfully.
“Well, you’d better decide, because if you don’t, they’re gonna kill you.”
Ike drove down a bumpy gravel road to a deserted campsite. Lake Mead offered cheap lodging to campers and RVs, which included electrical hookups along with water and sewer, and the campsites were often full. This particular campsite was deserted, without a single tent or recreational vehicle. A sign tacked to a pine tree explained the situation.