Their waiter hustled over. “Is everything to your satisfaction?”
He waved the waiter closer and whispered to him. The waiter nodded and left. To T-Bird he said, “I just told our waiter it’s your birthday. Just watch. He’s going to bring out a piece of cake with a candle and get the entire staff to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to you.”
“Did you ask him to do that?” the bird man asked.
“I didn’t have to.”
“Then how you know he’s going to?”
“Because our waiter thinks we’re high rollers. I could tell by the way he served us and how overly polite he’s been. Our waiter thinks that if he takes extra special care of us, we’re going to take care of him, so he’s going to pull out all the stops.”
“A cake with a candle and everybody in the fucking kitchen singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to little ole me, and you didn’t tell him to,” T-Bird said skeptically.
“That’s right.”
“You’re messing with us again.”
“Bet you I’m right. Loser picks up the tab.”
“You’re on.”
Sixty seconds later, their waiter returned to their table holding a dessert plate containing a slice of molten chocolate cake with a lit white sparkler on top, which he placed in front of a slack-jawed T-Bird. The rest of the waitstaff appeared and gathered round the table, along with the female bartender, both the cooks, and a gang of grinning busboys. On the count of three, they broke into a rousing rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ sung in Portuguese while enthusiastically clapping their hands. By the time they were done, every diner in the restaurant was applauding, and Ike was laughing his fool head off.
FORTY-SIX
While T-Bird settled the tab, Billy waited outside. It was a faultless night, and he watched a jet pass beneath the stars. He couldn’t remember ever gazing up and not seeing a plane. With the same ferocious determination of lemmings, suckers flocked to Vegas to gamble their money away. One day, they were going to collectively wake up and realize the town was a big scam. Until that happened, he’d ride the wave along with everyone else.
His Droid vibrated. Ly calling. The late hour spelled trouble. If she hadn’t been his friend’s girlfriend, he wouldn’t have taken the call.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Gaming agents come to motel looking for me,” she said. “They bang on everyone’s door, tell people open up. I climb out bathroom window, hide by pool. Finally they leave.”
“Tell the manager to move you to another room.”
“You tell him. I scared.”
“Come on, work with me.”
“You want gaming board to arrest me? Maybe I tell them how we cheat Slots A Fun. I bet they like to hear about that.”
Blackmail. As if he didn’t have enough problems right now. He told her to hold tight and ended the call. Ike and T-Bird came outside. He sensed a subtle change in them. They’d accepted the fact that they were clueless and needed to do what he said.
“I need you to cover for me for a few hours,” he said.
“No problem,” Ike said.
Ike took Flamingo to Koval and pulled into the motel parking lot where Ly was holed up. Billy checked for unmarked vehicles and saw none. As he started to get out, Ike stopped him.
“Me and T want to hear details about tomorrow’s scam,” Ike said.
“Yeah, like what are we supposed to do?” T-Bird asked.
He’d purposely avoided talking about details, knowing they’d wake up tomorrow having forgotten. It was the problem when you worked with morons.
“I’ll go over the details tomorrow over breakfast,” he said. “Just make sure you get a good night’s sleep. You need to be on your toes.”
“Sleeping’s never been a problem.” Ike shot T-Bird a disgusted look.
“That’s not funny,” T-Bird said.
Billy didn’t want to hear anymore, and jumped out. The Camaro roared away. He took another look around the parking lot before approaching Ly’s room and tapping on the door.
“It’s me, open up,” he said.
She let him in. She’d lost the dealer’s uniform and wore tight-fitting designer jeans, a sleeveless pink top, and a gold necklace with a crouching-tiger ornament.
“Any sign of the gaming agents?” he asked.
“There were no gaming agents,” she replied.
“Then why’d you call me?”
She gave him a kick in the nuts. Pools of black opened before his eyes, and it took all his willpower not to go down. The lost snapshot of Mags’s daughter lay on the dresser, and he guessed it had gotten stuck in the money he’d given her.
“I hate you! You ruin my life!” she exclaimed.
“You’re the one who wanted to cheat casinos,” he gasped.
“Yeah, but I didn’t know you were piece of shit.”
“I saved your ass, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, then you leave me in this dump, go play around with other girl. Fuck you!”
The snapshot had set her off. He picked it up and waved it in Ly’s face.
“She’s the daughter of a woman I know. There’s nothing between us.”
“You lie. Billy Bullshit should be your name.”
“I’m not lying. And by the way, I’m not your boyfriend.”
She snatched the snapshot from his hand and tore it in half.
“I hate you,” she said again.
Women were complicated. There was nothing between them, yet Ly had gotten her feelings hurt. He needed to set her straight, so he took her outside to the pool, where they sat in lounge chairs by the water’s edge. Next to the diving board was a metal sign explaining all the reasons hotel guests weren’t allowed to swim at night. Ly still had the pieces of Amber’s graduation photo clutched in her hand.
“Her mother’s a grifter named Maggie Flynn,” he explained. “Mags got me started in the rackets. I ran into her the other night, and we had a drink and talked about her joining my crew. After she left, I found her daughter’s photo on the floor. I stuck it in my wallet and mistakenly gave it to you. That’s the story-okay?”
“This woman going to work with you?”
“No. I found out she’s a snitch for the gaming board.”
“How you know that?”
“She tripped up. When we first met, I told her how my old man wanted me to go to college. I left after a year, and Mags asked why I quit. I never told anyone that I quit, except the gaming board. When Mags repeated the lie, I knew she was working with them.”
“This woman no good.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Why you quit college? Something bad happen?”
He stared at the pool’s still surface. He’d traveled three thousand miles to escape the utter shame of his failure, yet there were times when the distance wasn’t nearly far enough. Ly put her hand on his arm.
“What you do? Sleep with all the girls and make them cry?”
“I wish it was that simple.”
“You not going to tell me?”
“No.”
“I tell you my secrets. Why won’t you tell me yours?”
She was prying, and he gave her a hard look.
“Why do you care? There’s nothing in it for you.”
“I just trying to be your friend.”
“Do you really mean that?”
She took her hand away and nodded solemnly.
“All right. Here’s why I left,” he said.
The beginning of the end of his days at MIT had begun early one Saturday morning with a visit from two big-gutted Boston cops. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he’d stepped into the hallway outside his dorm room to discover the boys in blue banging on doors, looking for him. When he’d asked what the problem was, the one in charge had wagged a finger in his face.