“Shocking. Tell him to get in here.”
“Don’t order me around.”
“I have something you want, Frank, remember? Go get him.”
“You’re being really stupid, Mags.”
She laughed in his face. She had a job waiting with Billy’s crew when this was over. That, and a brand new life. Frank could go to hell, for all she cared.
Frank got his boss from the car and they came inside. Mags slapped the termination letter on the dining room table for them to read. When they were done, she asked them if they had any questions. None were forthcoming, so she signed each letter next to where she’d printed her name, then stuck the pen in Frank’s hand. Frank signed each document next to where his own name was printed. The pen was passed to Trixie, who initialed both signatures and dated them. Mags walked them outside to the car, feeling elated.
“I’ll be by at twelve thirty to pick you up,” Frank said. “And don’t try to cross me. I’ll throw your ass in jail if you do.”
“And deny you your promotion? I wouldn’t dream of it,” she said.
Frank got into the SUV and disappeared behind the tinted glass. Trixie remained in the driveway.
“I’d suggest you pack your belongings and get out of Vegas when this is done,” Trixie said. “The other hustlers in town won’t be very accommodating when they hear you’re a snitch.”
“Do you plan on telling them?” she asked.
“Word will get out. It always does.”
“Hold that thought. I’ll be right back.”
Mags got her cell phone from the bedroom. Coming outside, she opened the Gallery app and stuck the phone in Trixie’s face. With her thumb, she scrolled through the shots she’d secretly taken of Frank and her doing the nasty in various hotel rooms during the past year. There were over sixty. Each had a date. Frank was big on cunnilingus, and the dreamy look in his eyes as he was going down on her made his boss turn crimson.
“That’s extortion,” Trixie said.
“You hurt me, I hurt you,” she said.
“Are you threatening me?”
“Why yes, yes, I am.”
“The gaming board will destroy you. Or did you forget that?”
“My girlfriend has a memory stick with these photos on it. If anything ever happens to me… Well, you know the rest.”
Trixie’s face was a blank, but behind his eyes a bad movie was playing where everybody died in the end. Mags touched his sleeve.
“Call it a truce. You can’t win all the time, you know,” she said.
“We’ll see about that.”
They left and she went inside. She was going to call Billy and tell him about the raid. She didn’t know how to break the news without telling him she was a snitch, but she’d figure it out. But first, she was going to lie down before the side of her head exploded.
FIFTY-ONE
In Billy’s opinion, Vegas hotels served the best food around. Take the late-morning room-service breakfast he was eating in his suite. A mouth-watering frittata made from organic cage-free eggs, grilled chicken, roasted tomatoes, and a slice of sourdough toast on the side. Growing up, he’d never dreamed a meal could taste this good.
His Droid beeped. Travis had sent him a text. The counterfeit gold chips were done and had passed muster. The last cheat to take down Vegas with fake chips had been another Providence native, Lou “The Coin” Colavecchio, and that was over twenty years ago. Billy sent Travis a reply and told him to bring the crew to the hotel for a meeting, then resumed eating his breakfast.
Ike and T-Bird sat across from him, battling their hangovers with coffee.
“What are you smiling about?” Ike asked.
“That was my guy. The fake chips are ready,” he said.
“You still haven’t told us how this scam’s going to work,” Ike said, holding his mug with both hands. “It would be nice to know, considering we’re a part of it.”
“Yeah, let’s hear the details,” T-Bird chimed in.
The time for secrecy was over. Clearing the table, he took a pair of salt and pepper shakers and placed them on the table’s edge. On the left side of the table, he placed a sugar bowl; on the right side, the purple zinnia in a small vase that had come with his meal.
“This table represents the casino, and these salt and pepper shakers are you guys,” he said. “The sugar bowl is the blackjack pit. The flower is the cage. With me so far?”
“Which one of us is the salt?” T-Bird wanted to know.
“Shut the fuck up,” Ike said.
“Here’s what’s going to happen. At three forty-five, the Gypsy wedding will take place inside the chapel. The ceremony will last fifteen minutes. When it’s over, the Gypsies will walk down the hall through the lobby and enter the casino.” He walked two fingers across the table, stopping at the sugar bowl. “Upon reaching the blackjack pit, they’ll stop to have their picture taken. This distraction will allow them to perform a little act called the Dazzle. The Dazzle is designed to fool security into not seeing that a member of the wedding party is gone.”
“One of them’s going to disappear?” Ike asked.
“It will seem that way. The invisible member will remove a dealing shoe hidden inside the bride’s gown and switch it for a shoe on a high-limit table. At that moment, I’ll alert security, and they’ll pounce and expose the scam. That’s when you rob the cage.”
“How we going to do that?” T-Bird asked.
He pushed the salt and pepper shakers toward the single flower. “At four o’clock, Ike will call the cage and tell the cage manager that Rock is ready to cash out. A few minutes later, you guys will appear. T-Bird will have two lovely ladies with him who work for me. He’ll pass the fake chips to the cage manager and get the money orders in return. You’ll leave through the hotel’s back exit with my crew. We’ll chop up the money later.”
“But I don’t look nothing like Rock,” T-Bird protested. “The cage manager’s gonna notice and sound the alarm.”
“No, he won’t. According to a blackjack dealer named Jazzy I spoke with, the Saturday employees are starting their workweek. Since this is Rock’s first visit to the hotel, it’s a lock the Saturday employees have never seen him. They don’t know who Rock is.”
“So how’s the cage manager going to know?” T-Bird asked.
“He’ll have to take Ike’s word for it,” Billy said.
“So I gotta be convincing when I call the cage,” Ike said.
“That’s right. You have to sell the cage manager that T-Bird is Rock.”
“I can do that,” Ike said.
T-Bird didn’t look comfortable with the explanation.
“If it makes you feel better, I’ll have my girls put you in disguise,” he said. “They can shave your head and tie a pillow around your belly. By the time they’re done with you, you’ll pass as Rock’s twin brother.”
The bird man mulled it over. “Well, all right. Sure hate losing my dreads.”
“So grow them back. One more thing. Two members of my crew will be stationed by the cage. If an employee happens by, they’ll turn him. Any questions?”
“I’m good,” T-Bird said.
“What about the Gypsies?” Ike said.
“What about them?”
“You know how Doucette is about cheaters. You gonna let him kill them?”
“Why do you care what happens to the Gypsies?”
“I don’t care. I just wondered if you were gonna let him.”
He’d been avoiding the question for days, believing that when the time came, he’d come up with a clever way to save the Gypsies from getting their brains bashed in. The time was now, and he balled up his napkin and tossed it onto his plate.
“Let me think about it,” he said, and went outside to the balcony.
He hung on the railing, racking his brains. How was he going to stop the Gypsies from getting hurt without getting himself hurt in the process? No good solution came to mind.