“We talk now,” Broken Tooth insisted. “I got a job for you, make us both rich.”
“What kind of job?”
“No discuss over phone. We meet up, and I explain the deal.”
“Sounds like a plan. I’ll call you back in the morning.”
“No good. We meet tonight.”
There was desperation in Broken Tooth’s voice, and Billy guessed the guy was broke. Normally, he had a soft spot for hustlers down on their luck, only this joker was out of line. “Listen, pal. I’m working right now. We’ll get together tomorrow, and I’ll buy you lunch.”
Broken Tooth cursed him. Billy had heard enough and said, “Lose my number,” and hung up. To the tattooed attendant running the zip line he said, “Let’s get this show on the road.”
“Which did you pay for, the zip or the zoom?” the attendant asked.
“The zoom. I heard that was the way to go.”
“Only if you want to be a superhero. Put on this uniform.”
He climbed into the flight uniform and zipped up the front. “This feels tight.”
“It’s supposed to feel tight,” the attendant said. “If it were loose, you’d fall out and plunge to your death. Lie down on the table so I can strap you in.”
He lay on his stomach on the table in the room’s center. The attendant attached hooks on the back of the uniform to a thick metal cable that ran the length of Fremont Street, which let riders exceed forty miles per hour while dangling in the air like Peter Pan.
“Has anyone ever fallen?” he asked.
“Not recently,” the attendant said.
“You sure about this, boss?” Leon asked.
“Damn straight,” he said. “See you back at the limo.”
The attendant flipped a switch. The wall in front of the table lowered, and a blast of cold air invaded the room. He felt like he was about to be shot out of a cannon, and he took a deep breath. The attendant gave him a gentle push, and he slid off the table and flew headfirst down Fremont while dangling from the cable. His heart was racing, and down below he spied the break-dancers and half-naked women hustling tourists for tips. It was as sleazy as a carnival sideshow, and he wouldn’t have traded it for any city in the world.
At the ride’s end was a landing platform. A female attendant unstrapped him, and he stepped out of his uniform, his skin tingling from the adrenaline rush. If he ever hooked up with Mags again, he’d make sure to bring her here.
Taking the elevator to the street, he encountered his first problem. The Shriners were in town for a convention, the sidewalks teeming with drunks wearing maroon fezzes. Instead of blending in, he was going to stand out like a sore thumb in his disguise.
He ducked into a shop called Hats R Us. When he emerged, he was wearing a fez with a tassel and looked like the rest of the gang. Except he needed a drink. Inside a dive called Mermaids, he purchased a strawberry daiquiri. Fremont Street had the market cornered on bad food, and the bartender tried to talk him into an order of deep-fried Twinkies, but he took a pass.
Drink in hand, he entered the Golden Gate. It was a low-ceilinged joint and very loud. He found Victor Boswell, the leader of the Gypsy clan, in the back playing a slot machine, a carved walking stick propped against his chair. He took the chair beside the older man.
“I won a hundred-dollar jackpot earlier,” Victor said with a laugh.
“Dinner’s on you,” he said.
“That won’t pay for appetizers. Whatever happened to the endless buffets the casinos used to serve? I used to take my family to them all the time. Saved me a fortune.”
“Gone but not forgotten.”
“I’ve been watching your crew. You’ve schooled them well. The big guy’s got it down pat. What’s his deal?”
“Travis dealt blackjack at Palace Station and was cheating on the side. He was about to get promoted to pit boss when I recruited him.”
“You’ve got to be sharp to be a pit boss.”
“Travis has eyes in the back of his head. He’s also good under fire.”
“I like him.” Victor fished some coins out of his bucket and fed them into the machine. “The girls are also good. So’s the fat guy. The two punks, I’m not so sure about.”
Victor was talking about Cory and Morris, the screwup kings. Cory and Morris were reformed potheads, or so they’d led Billy to believe.
“What did they do?” Billy asked.
“Nothing. They know how to move.”
“Then what’s bothering you?”
“Their appearance.”
Cory and Morris had to be two of the most innocent-looking cheats in town; it was one of the reasons Billy had recruited them into his crew. “What’s wrong with their appearance?”
“They barely look legal,” Victor explained. “Caesars got in trouble for letting underage kids play in their poker room, so the casinos are carding anyone who doesn’t look old enough. I should know; it happened to my daughter Kat.”
Cheats had to look unspectacular when doing business inside a casino. A cheat needed to blend in and avoid scrutiny. To be remembered often spelled disaster down the road.
“I’ll give them a makeover,” Billy said.
His cell phone vibrated. Travis had texted him.
We have a problem
“Something’s up. Let me go check on the troops.”
“Look at that, I hit another jackpot,” Victor said.
Two
Billy headed over to the blackjack pit to see what the trouble was. The Golden Gate’s blackjack tables had maximum bets of a hundred dollars, which was puny for Vegas. Fremont Street attracted a blue-collar crowd, and it was all the traffic would bear.
Travis stood inside the pit, clutching a bottle of Bud. Travis’s job was to watch the action and signal the crew if security swooped in. Billy edged up beside the big man.
“You rang?” he said under his breath.
“False alarm,” Travis said. “I thought a security guy was watching us, but he split. What’s with the fez? You look like an Arab.”
“There’s a Shriner’s convention in town. Everyone getting along?”
“So far, so good. The Boswells are real pros.”
Billy shifted his attention to the five blackjack tables closest to the entrance. At each table a member of his crew sat in the last seat, to the dealer’s right, in the position called third base. A member of the Gypsies sat to the dealer’s left, at a position called first base. The Boswells were betting a hundred dollars a hand, and they were winning big.
That was because Billy’s crew was cheating. Each member had a small mirror concealed in their hand called a shiner. By holding the shiner against the table at an angle and slightly lifting that hand, his crew could secretly glimpse the cards as they came out of the dealing shoe. This let his crew know the value of the dealer’s hand before the dealer did.
His crew signaled this information to the Boswell at their respective tables. The Boswell would play accordingly and rip off the joint. The advantage of having two cheats working a game was that the Boswells could play loose and draw no heat.
Most scams had flaws, and playing the lights was no exception. If a shiner caught the light the wrong way, a reflection would hit the ceiling. These reflections resembled dancing fireflies and were easily spotted by pit bosses.
It was Travis’s job to watch the ceiling. If a dancing firefly appeared, Travis would drop his beer bottle and curse. This was the signal for everyone to clear out.
“You mind covering for me? I need to piss,” Travis whispered.
“Go ahead.”
Travis left. Moments later, a security goon wearing a polyester suit and a cheap tie appeared at Cory’s table. Billy stiffened, believing Cory had exposed the shiner, and the goon had been sent to bust Cory. The goon circled the table, bypassing Cory, and went straight to the Boswell at first base, which happened to be Nico, Victor’s favorite son, and demanded to see Nico’s ID. Nico had on his best choirboy face and handed over his driver’s license. Casinos didn’t interrupt a player unless there was good reason, and Billy got ready to run.