They took an elevator to an unfinished fourteenth floor of the hotel’s first tower. He felt a hand on his shoulder and followed Shaz down a hallway with no carpet, their feet echoing off harsh concrete. She unlocked a door to a suite with a “DO NOT ENTER” sign hanging on the knob.
“This is where we bring cheaters,” she said.
The suite had colored wires springing from holes in the walls. The dead bolt was thrown and the breath caught in Billy’s throat. He was about to die. There was no other reason for them to bring him here. Old-timers called it getting eighty-sixed. Eight miles out in the desert, six feet down in the ground.
“You with us, Billy?” Shaz asked.
“How did you know my name?”
“Haven’t figured it out yet? You will. Walk with me.”
“Come on. I didn’t even steal any money from you,” he pleaded.
“Shut up.”
A hallway led to the master bedroom. She took a tube of Vicks VapoRub from her pocket and rubbed the ointment beneath each nostril, then passed the tube to the punishers.
“What are you doing?” His voice cracked.
She let out a hideous laugh and entered the bedroom. A violent push sent him stumbling behind her. The stench knocked him sideways; then the visuals took over. Blood splatters on the fancy bedspread, the wallpaper, sprayed across the ceiling like a Jackson Pollock painting and across the carpeted floor. Someone had died here, and had not gone quietly.
Positioned beside the bed was a tripod with a video camera; next to it, a director’s chair. It took a moment for the significance to sink in. When it did, he nearly got ill.
The sick bastards had filmed it.
Shaz’s fingernails dug into his flesh. She pulled him across the bedroom, the smell growing worse as they neared the closet. Something dead was hanging inside the closet. Bringing his hand to his mouth, he tried not to puke the onion rings he’d eaten earlier.
“Why don’t you just get it over with?” he said.
She drew close to him. “What did you say?”
“You heard me. Shoot me, and get it over with.”
“Do you want to die?”
“Do I have a choice?”
She pressed herself against his body. She was getting aroused on his fear, and he desperately wanted to get away from her.
“You don’t have to die, but you have to look first,” she said.
“Why do I have to look?”
“Because I want you to.”
She sprung open the closet door. Inside a poor stiff hung from the clothing rack. Death robbed you of life and of dignity as well. The stiff had lost both. Short and skinny, with short dark hair, he was wrapped in plastic and had a thick rope tied around his neck, the other end tied to the rack. The right side of his skull had been shattered, the blow so severe that it had caused his left eye to break free of its orbit. The eye hung loosely on his discolored cheek like a displaced Christmas ornament, his other eye shut in permanent sleep. Something was wrong with his hand, and Billy realized two fingers were missing. Then he noticed the stiff’s toes. Someone had worked them over with a hammer until they didn’t look like toes anymore.
He asked himself, why? Why beat the poor guy to death, when putting a bullet in his head and plopping him in the ground would accomplish the same thing? Why go to the trouble?
“Recognize him?” she asked.
Billy shook his head. He didn’t think the poor guy’s mother would recognize him. Shaz picked up the stiff’s wallet from the night table. Pulling a California driver’s license from the billfold, she shoved it in Billy’s face.
“How about now?”
He studied the photograph and name on the license.
“Never heard of him.”
“Stop fucking with me.”
“I’m not fucking with you. I don’t know him.”
She turned the license around. A hideous laugh escaped her throat.
“Silly me. I’m showing you the wrong license.”
Digging in the billfold, she pulled out a second driver’s license.
“How about now?”
He read the information on the second license. Richard “Ricky” Boswell, 1824 Rodale Circle Drive, Sacramento, CA. Age twenty-two, five feet three inches tall, one hundred thirty-two pounds. It took a moment for the name to register. The stiff was a member of the Boswell clan. Descendants from a tribe of Romanian Gypsies, the Boswells had started scamming Vegas in the 1990s and were still going strong. They were so skilled in the art of scamming that other cheaters simply referred to them as the Gypsies. They were the mountain that Billy one day aspired to climb, and he felt bad that one of their group had gone out the hard way.
He handed the license back.
“Yeah, I know him. He’s part of a family of cheaters called the Gypsies.”
“We know that. We caught him walking around the casino taking pictures on his cell phone. His family sent him here to scope the place out.”
“He told you that?”
“Yes. Little Ricky also told us that his family was going to take our casino down, and there wasn’t a fucking thing we could do about it.”
“He bragged about it?”
“That’s right, the little asshole.”
Which was why the punishers had tortured the poor kid and eventually murdered him. The picture was getting clearer now, and Billy said, “You want me to figure out what the Gypsies’ scam is. That’s why you brought me here, isn’t it?”
“You catch on fast. Can you do it?”
The Gypsies had fooled the best brains in the business with their intricate casino scams, including the enforcement division of the Nevada Gaming Control Board. Trying to figure out how they planned to rip off Galaxy’s casino was a tall order, but he was willing to give it a try, for no other reason than to buy himself precious time.
“I need to look at his personal belongings, see if he took down any notes,” he said. “That should point me in the right direction.”
“You think you can dope out the scam by looking at his things?” she asked.
“You bet.”
She shoved the director’s chair in front of him.
“Let’s get started,” she said.
ELEVEN
The Gypsies’ story was known to every cheater in Vegas. They’d immigrated to the Midwest in the 1960s, where they’d made their living boosting furniture from department stores in the Chicago area. Boosting furniture wasn’t easy, and the Gypsies had used a ploy called the Dazzle to get the job done.
The family would enter a department store and stand next to the desired item. Dad would give a signal, and the kids would start moving around the floor as if doing a square dance, their movements choreographed to mesmerize any onlookers into looking the wrong way. At the same time, two sons would pick up the item and brazenly walk out the front door.
All scams eventually ran their course. Seeking greener pastures, the Gypsies had moved to Nevada in the 1990s and hit the casinos. Using the same ploys, they’d attacked the blackjack tables and switched the dealing shoes with dealing shoes containing stacked decks of cards. Other scams involving dice, roulette, and rigging slot machines soon followed.
Decades later, they were still going strong.
Billy sat in the director’s chair and tried to avoid looking at Ricky’s corpse. Shaz handed him three items off the night table: an iPhone, a light meter, and a small notepad.
“Those are his things,” she said. “Now tell me what the little fucker was up to.”
He examined the iPhone first. There were no text or voice messages, just an e-mail from JetBlue confirming a flight out of town departing Saturday night. He now knew something important: the Gypsies were planning to scam Galaxy’s casino on Saturday afternoon. Cheaters always left town a few hours after ripping off a casino.
The notepad was next, its pages filled with cryptic notations and measurements. When he looked up, Shaz was burning a hole in him.