He got a call as he pulled into Turnberry Towers. It was none other than Mags. Just yesterday she’d proclaimed that she never wanted to lay eyes on him again, and here she was, giving him an old-fashioned phone call. He answered with a cheerful, “Hey there.”
“You stupid little bastard,” she swore.
The valet approached. The valet liked his job too much, leading Billy to assume the residents’ cars were being taken for unauthorized spins. He waved him away and parked in the building’s shade. “I missed you, too.”
“Fuck you, Billy. And the horse you rode in on.”
“Are you going to explain what I did or just curse at me?”
“Frank Grimes just paid me a visit. Frank tracked down the Gypsies to a rented house on the north end of town. He went out there to arrest them, only your friends were gone. But they left behind a calling card in the grass next to the driveway.”
“What kind of calling card?”
“Excuse me. You left a calling card in the grass by the driveway.”
“I did?”
“Yes, you little turd. Remember the surveillance photo I gave you? Well, it must have fallen out of your pocket onto the grass.”
He shut his eyes and took a deep breath. He’d given the photo to Tommy Boswell, who must have let the photo slip out of his pocket while he was climbing into the trunk of the getaway car. Even the best crooks screwed up and became complicit in their own demise. To make matters worse, the photo had landed in the hands of Frank Grimes, who prided himself on making cheats’ lives miserable, one day at a time.
“Can the photo be traced back to you?” he asked.
“It sure can. You need to fix this, Cunningham. Right fucking now.”
Mags was on tilt and running off at the mouth. He needed to look her in the eye and calm her down. Having her come to his penthouse was not a good idea, since she might say something out of line in front of the desk clerk or a resident and blow his cover. And then he’d have to go to the trouble of finding a new place to live.
Across the street, a brand-new joint called SLS shimmered like a mirage in the desert. He’d recently checked out the casino and found the pit bosses and dealers so green that they could have fallen off the backs of potato trucks. There were loads of dining options, ranging from super expensive to el cheapo, and he decided to meet Mags there.
“Meet me at Umami Burger at the SLS Hotel in half an hour. And don’t be late.” It was a crass thing for him to say. Mags had helped him, and in return he’d screwed up and put her in a bad light. But she still needed to be reminded who was in the driver’s seat. Otherwise, she’d run all over him.
She started to royally curse him, and he ended the call.
Mags sat down at Billy’s table at Umami. “Talk about treating a girl to a good time. This place is a toilet. At least you could have picked some place nice.”
Umami was nothing to write home about. It had a split personality and billed itself as a burger joint, beer garden, and sports book. It did none of those things well. There was nothing to recommend it, except fifty big-screen TVs that made it impossible to eavesdrop. The gaming board had bugged bars all over town, and Billy chose his meeting places carefully.
“This is my daughter, Amber. Amber, meet Billy Cunningham.”
Amber Flynn also pulled up a chair. She was a softer version of her mother, with short-cropped brown hair and a face that made you want to buy her a drink. She’d graduated college not long ago and had the self-assured air of a person who thought anything was possible.
“Nice to meet you,” Billy said. “You guys want something to drink? Or a burger?”
“We didn’t come here to eat,” Mags said. “I’m going to get right to the point. Frank Grimes wants me to help him find the Gypsies. If I do that, he leaves me alone. If not, he’s promised to turn my life upside down and destroy me.”
“Is Grimes serious?”
“Dead serious. My producer knows.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that if I don’t get Grimes off my back, Night and Day will be shut down, and I’ll be out of work.”
Billy glanced at Amber, then back at her mother. “How much does she know?”
“I don’t keep secrets from Amber.”
“You need to help my mother,” Amber said, breaking her silence. “That asshole suit from the gaming board has it out for her.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Billy said.
“That’s not good enough.” Amber sounded so much like her mother that it was scary. She put her elbows on the table and leaned in. “My mother helped out your friends, and you dropped a piece of evidence that’s put my mother in a bad situation. I know you didn’t do this intentionally, but you were still responsible, and you’ve got to own up to that.”
Mags had told Billy that Amber had majored in criminology with a minor in psychology, making Billy think that Amber believed she might plumb the recesses of the criminal mind and learn what made people turn bad. In the meantime, she needed to be straightened out, so he said, “I didn’t ask for your mother to give me that photograph. She didn’t tell me that it could be traced back to her or that I needed to destroy it, which I would have been more than happy to do. So don’t throw a guilt trip on me, okay? Shit happens, especially in our line of work.”
That shut the kid up but fast. A waitress hit the table. Billy ordered three Sculpin IPAs before Mags or her daughter had a chance to read the menu. The waitress departed.
“I don’t like IPAs,” Mags said.
“Neither do I,” her daughter echoed.
“It’s an acquired taste.” He paused to let that set in, then said, “Why does Grimes have it out for the Gypsies? There are other thieves he could chase who would land him a promotion.”
“Frank said the Gypsies are special, that no one’s ever caught them,” Mags explained.
“He wants the recognition,” Billy said.
Mother and daughter stared at him, not understanding.
“Grimes wants to be recognized by his superiors,” he said. “It’s what drives most people in law enforcement. They need a superior to tell them they’re better than average.”
“You’re good,” Amber said.
“Call it whatever you want,” Mags said. “Grimes is hell-bent on nailing your friends to the wall. So what the hell are we going to do?”
Their beers came. Mags and her daughter sipped and winced. IPAs were a creation of the British army in their desire to bring beer to soldiers stationed in India during the 1800s. The beer’s unusually strong hops were not for more sensitive palates or the faint of heart.
“We’ll send Grimes in another direction,” he said.
A spark of hope lit up Mags’s face. Acting was draining the life out of her, and the bewitchingly beautiful creature who had seduced him into a life of crime was a shadow of her former self. It broke his heart, but he didn’t see how he was going to get her back.
“How are you going to do that?” Mags asked.
The germ of an idea was forming in Billy’s head. The Gypsies were a big fish, but there was an even bigger fish to be caught, one that would all but guarantee Grimes a promotion and get him the praise of his peers. He finished off his beer.
“Tell me,” Mags insisted.
“I can’t,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Because I haven’t entirely figured it out yet. But I will. You have to trust me on this. I’ll get Grimes off your back, and you can go back to being a TV star.”