He slipped the photo into his breast pocket. “What else does Grimes know?”
“Grimes knows that they’re the Gypsies and that they’ve been ripping off joints for a long time. Grimes is trying to get his boss’s job, and he thinks that busting them will be his ticket to the big time. He’s determined to arrest your friends and put them away.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“You think you can save them?”
“I’m sure going to try.” He stepped away from the door and gave her a smile that would have melted most women’s hearts. “Thanks for the save.”
He was making the parting easy. Mags appreciated that, and she said a tender good-bye and shut the door. A bad feeling made her pull it open and stick her head into the hallway.
“Hey! What about our deal?”
Now at the elevators, he turned to look at her. “What deal?”
“You promised to leave me alone. I want to hear you say it, Billy.”
The elevator doors parted. He got in without answering her.
“You dirty little shit!” she yelled after him.
Twenty-Four
Billy stuffed the vet’s cap into a wastebasket before coming out of LINQ and heading north on the Strip’s crowded sidewalk. The party was in full swing, and the smells of booze and weed were as pungent as a cheap hooker’s perfume. Weed was legal in Vegas, but it was a crime to do it inside a casino or in public, and that included having it in your bloodstream if a traffic cop pulled you over, but that didn’t stop the stoners from lighting up whenever the mood suited them. He didn’t have a problem with people getting stoned, unless they worked for him.
He came to the Venetian and glanced over his shoulder before going inside. He didn’t think he was being followed, but he’d learned it never hurt to be careful. The Grand Canal Shoppes lined the Venetian’s famed canals and sold everything from Salvatore Ferragamo to New York pretzels. The Rockhouse was a popular joint, with cute waitresses who got paid to dance whenever the music came on. Tommy Boswell, Cory, and Morris were sharing a plate of Dirty Jersey sliders in a corner booth. Billy took the empty spot next to Tommy and got hit on by a waitress in shorts and a bikini top.
“Hey, hey, the gang’s all here,” she said. “What’s your pleasure, handsome?”
“You still have Big Dog on draft?” Billy asked.
“It’s our biggest seller. Sixteen or twenty-two ounce?”
“Sixteen. And a glass of water.”
The waitress left, and Tommy Boswell pushed the last slider Billy’s way. The Boswells had ice cubes running through their veins, and you would never have known that Tommy had just escaped by the skin of his teeth from the law.
“Thanks for saving my neck,” Tommy said.
Billy bit into the slider. Tommy had been made by the gaming board, which meant that some very good photographs of his smiling puss were being circulated to every law enforcement agent in town. Tommy was a wanted man and would remain that way for the rest of his life. For most cheats, being made was the kiss of death. The cheat could never enter a Vegas casino again without risk of arrest. This often led to the cheat getting a face-lift, or if that option wasn’t acceptable, seeking another line of work. The waitress brought his beer, which he used to wash down his last bite. Then he took out the photo Mags had given him and showed it to Tommy.
“Recognize this?” Billy asked.
Tommy studied the photo. No smart cheat was going to discuss a prior job, knowing anything he said might come back to haunt him. That left Billy to fill in the blanks. “The lady with the white hair is a claimer your family used to steal a rigged jackpot. The claimer’s behavior tipped off the gaming board, who secretly photographed Kat, Nico, and you having lunch with the claimer. The gaming board kept this photo in their database and waited for your family to show your faces again. Nico got made on Fremont Street, Kat got made at the Tropicana. Today it was your turn.”
Tommy tried to slide the photo back to him. Billy stopped him.
“Keep it.”
Tommy quizzed him with a glance.
“To show your father,” Billy explained.
Tommy’s face went blank. Tommy wasn’t connecting the dots and seeing the big picture. In that regard, Victor’s children and Billy’s crew were light-years apart. Billy expected his crew to think on their feet and question him about aspects of their work. This was not the case with the Boswells, so Billy explained.
“Your family came to Vegas to do a job with my crew,” he said. “The first night we visit a casino together, Nico gets made. Then it happens to Kat, now you. If you didn’t have that photo, you might think that I had something to do with this.”
“I’d never think that about you,” Tommy said.
“Maybe not, but one of your siblings might,” Billy said. “They’d think I ratted them out to the gaming board and set up your family. It happens. And then one day your family would find a way to pay me back.”
The words were slow to sink in. When they did, Tommy’s expression changed. He slipped the incriminating photo into the inner pocket of his sports jacket.
“You want me to have a sit-down with my father, show him the photo, and tell him the gaming board is on to us,” Tommy said.
Billy nodded and sipped his beer. In the world of thieving, how you delivered bad news was often as important as the news itself.
“What then?” Tommy asked.
“Then I’ll have to explain to your father how much trouble you’re all in,” Billy said.
Vegas had more public parking than any other city in the world, a gift from the saint that watched over motorized vehicles. Every casino had its own parking garage, and there were plenty more scattered along the Strip. Billy walked two blocks to Bally’s parking garage and picked up his car, then caught up with Cory and Morris and followed them to the Boswell’s rented house. He stayed a safe distance behind, just to make sure Cory and Morris weren’t being tailed.
A few blocks from the rented house, he got a call from Pepper.
“Is this the most beautiful hustler in Las Vegas I’m speaking to?” he answered.
“That’s me,” Pepper said.
“What does that make me, chopped liver?” Misty chimed in.
Pepper’s cell phone was on speaker, and it was a party line.
“You should have told me we weren’t alone,” Billy said. “What’s up?”
“Guess who called us earlier,” Pepper said.
“Travis?”
“You’re psychic. That rat bastard was in his car, asked if he could come over and discuss a business deal with us. I told him we were busy and hung up. Then I called the guard at the front gate to our club and told him not to let that fucking guy in if he showed.”
“Did Travis say what his deal was?”
“Travis said he was going out on his own, and if we had any brains, we’d join him.”
“Sounds like Travis is plotting a mutiny.”
“He can walk the plank by himself,” Pepper said.
“Travis also tried to get Gabe to defect,” Misty added. “Gabe told Travis to go fuck himself and hung up on him.”
The Boswells’ place was up ahead. Billy needed to end the call but did not want to sound ungrateful. It would have been easier for Pepper and Misty to pretend that Travis had never contacted them. Instead, they’d reached out and leveled with him.
“Thank you for telling me this. I plan to deal with Travis once this job is done.”
“You have my permission to shoot the rat bastard,” Pepper said.