Or...
5
Letty caught Isaiah in the parking lot, crouched down beside her car, prying the tracking device off the undercarriage.
He looked up, grinning.
She said, “I was thinking.”
“Yeah?”
“You wanna walk around the crater.”
# # #
It was God-awful hot, Letty already sweating.
Isaiah moved slowly along the footpath. They had to keep stopping to let the tour group up ahead gain distance.
“Ever hear of a man named Richter?” he asked.
“What thief hasn’t? The rock star grifter we all want to be. But he’s just a myth. Urban legend.”
“Actually, he’s not.”
“You’ve met him?”
“I’m doing a job with him.”
Letty felt a pulse of energy ride up the bones of her legs into her stomach, like it had come from the ground beneath her feet.
“Where’s the job?”
“Four and a half hours from where you stand.”
She stopped.
Shielded her eyes from the sun as she stared up at him. He was smiling but his eyes were hidden behind a pair of aviator sunglasses.
“Vegas?”
“Fabulous Las Vegas.”
She said, “A man I respect very much once told me that of all the jobs in the world, the only one I should never touch was a casino. Said ‘there’s all this money floating around waiting for us just to reach up and grab it. Why rob it from the pit of hell?’“
They walked again.
“I’m part of Richter’s ten-man crew,” Isaiah said.
“What’s your superpower?”
“Brute force. Weapons. I was Force Recon back in the day. So the vault in one of the major casinos is having its security system overhauled this coming weekend. We don’t know if it’s Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.”
“I’m not going into any goddamn vault. I’ll just tell you that right now.”
“Me and you both, sister. Here’s the cool part. They don’t trust nobody. Not even the security company personnel. Two hours before the install, they box the cash up and cart it from the vault area into a room in the hotel. Of course, the money is still guarded by its own private army, but at least there’s no vault to break it out of.”
“And what? Richter has a guy on the inside?”
“Exactly. At some point on Friday, twenty-four to thirty-six hours from now, Richter will get a call or a text from his contact. They’ll tell him when the security install is happening and which room in the hotel will be housing all that cash. Richter’s plan is ingenious. The crew gains access to the room directly underneath. We go through the ceiling, set up an ambush, and let the money come to us.”
“You have blueprints of the hotel?”
“No. Too many variables and possibilities. We’ll have to finalize our game plan once we see the room they’ve chosen.”
“Sounds super risky.”
“For sure. But the probability of success is much greater than if we had to go through a vault, grab the cash, and fight our way back out through the casino. No amount of money could get me to sign up for that shit.”
“I guess I’m just confused. I mean, the idea of working with Richter sounds intriguing. But I’m having a hard time seeing where I fit into all of this. Your plan sounds solid. What do you need me for?”
“Jav said you could be trusted.”
“I can.”
“You wouldn’t be working with Richter.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Richter put the crew together, but he’s doing one thing in this whole deal. He’s giving us the room number and the time. It’s his contact at the hotel. I give him that. But he ain’t gonna be anywhere near the hotel room when the half-dozen armed guards roll in with the money.”
“His contact, his show, right?”
“He’s taking half. Other nine of us are splitting the rest. And it’s like we should be grateful for the privilege. That sound right to you?”
“Not so much.”
“So I’m thinking, sure Richter’s a legend, but fuck him.”
“How exactly?”
“I’m running a shadow crew. Brought in Jerrod and Stu, two of my boys from Iraq. We’re going to take down this money. Estimate is thirty-eight to forty mil. Split that four ways, including you, we’re talking possibly seven zeroes apiece. You know what I call that?”
“No, what do you call that?”
“I call that you ain’t gotta do shit ever again money. I call that living right for the rest of your life money. Don’t tell me some part of you hasn’t always dreamed of robbing a casino.”
She was starting to see it—her place in this madness.
They had walked half a mile, and she was dripping with sweat. She looked back at the visitor’s center.
“Richter’s phone,” she said. “You want me to grab it. That’s why you want me, right?”
Isaiah grinned. “Among other things.”
“What other things?”
“Whatever we need. But nothing you can’t handle. And if you ain’t down for that, I’m happy to pay you a flat rate for the grab. But if you want to be in on the split, you see this thing through to the end.”
“I don’t do jobs that require guns,” she said. “Not for any amount of money.”
“Well, I guess it’s your lucky day.”
“No guns? Seriously?”
“No guns for the takedown. Too noisy. Too messy. But if things turn to shit after, I make no promises. If you need to think it over, I can give you one hour. But the clock is ticking.”
“No.”
“No?”
“I don’t need to think it over.”
6
Letty rolled down Las Vegas Boulevard at sunset, the Strip already aglow.
It had been five years since her last visit, and she was happy to see that everything about this city still got under her skin in the best kind of way. Where most people saw absurdity and flash, she saw art and life and possibility. There was the Venetian, lit up like a white angel. The MGM Grand the color of money or the guy at the Blackjack table losing his shirt while everyone around him wins.
She loved the universal hustle.
The bellboys, the strippers, the hookers, the dealers, the doormen, the bartenders.
Everyone angling.
She could live here.
# # #
Isaiah had checked her into a Prestige suite at the Palazzo. After a week of Motel 6’s and worse, this elevation into luxury made her exuberant.
She ordered up room service, then headed downstairs to find an outfit for the evening with the envelope of hundos that Isaiah had provided as a starting expense account.
She bought a dress at Chloe’s.
Pumps at Christian Louboutin.
Had a makeover at a salon called Fresh.
By ten o’clock she looked like a completely different creature. The seven-day accumulation of road grunge gone. She stood at the window in the living room of her suite looking down at the traffic moving along Sands Avenue twenty-eight floors below. Across the street, she had a perfect view of their ultimate target.
The sleek curve of the Wynn.
But tonight wasn’t about money or a vault.
Tonight was all on her.
Richter and his crew would be at Tryst at 11:00 p.m.
A knock at her door pulled her away from the window.
Through the peephole, she saw a bellboy.
Opened the door.
“I have a package for you, ma’am.”
She took the small box and gave him a five-spot.
Letty carried it into the kitchen. It resembled a jewelry box. Simple. Elegant. Gold paper. Her phone rang as she tugged off the white ribbon and tore at the wrapping paper.
“Hello?”
“Get my package?”
“You really shouldn’t have.”
She lifted the top off the box.
A black iPhone and a photograph.
The photo was a headshot of a white man with a shaven head and a few days’ worth of stubble darkening his jaw line. For some reason the smooth head and intense eyes reminded Letty of a thug in a European heist flick. Otherwise, he was unremarkable. Nothing like how she’d imagined the legend. Then again, maybe that was the point.