Doucette saw the wisdom of what Billy was saying. He spent a long moment studying the problem on the other side of the glass. “I’m still not letting her walk out of that room until she signs that release. Fuck, she’ll sue me for everything I have, and probably get it.”
“You can’t bargain if you don’t know what her deal is,” he said.
“How can I find out what her deal is if she won’t talk?”
“Can I see her ID?”
“Give it to him,” Doucette said.
Billy spent a moment studying the sheet. The woman’s last name was familiar. He could remember every score he’d ever pulled off, right down to the date, time, and the money he’d made. So where had he seen the name Torch? Then it hit him: the name had been on the welcome board in the lobby. Bradford Allaire and Candace Torch were getting hitched in the hotel’s wedding chapel on Saturday followed by a private reception.
Cecilia Torch was the mother of the bride. The punishers had humiliated her, and she was hesitant to call the cops or get her husband involved, fearful she’d ruin her daughter’s upcoming nuptials. That was why she wasn’t responding to the host’s offers.
“I saw the name Torch on the welcome board in the lobby,” he said. “This woman’s daughter is getting married in your hotel Saturday, and she’s afraid she’s going to spoil the wedding. That’s why she’s not talking.”
“Is that all that’s bothering her?” Doucette looked relieved. “Hell, I can fix that.”
Doucette straightened his necktie and went next door. He was as smooth as a snake charmer, and he apologized to Cecilia Torch for the terrible injustice that had occurred, and began to pile on the goodies. Along with all the free stuff the casino host had offered, he was going to throw in free spa treatments for the ladies in the wedding party, free golf for the men, and, best of all, the surprise appearance at the reception of Grammy Award-winning singer Tony Marx, who was appearing in the casino’s theater and who would serenade the bride and groom.
Everyone had their price. For a mother, it was seeing her daughter happy on the most special day of her life. Rising from her chair, Cecilia Torch gave Doucette a motherly hug before snatching the pen from the casino host and scribbling her name across the release.
Together, Cecilia Torch and Doucette walked out of the room.
Billy stared at the empty chair long after Cecilia Torch was gone. It could just as easily have been Mags sitting in that chair, only Doucette wouldn’t have been bribing her but having Ike and T-Bird beat the living daylights out of her. That would have been hard to watch, and he wondered how he would have dealt with it.
“Billy.”
He turned around. While he’d been daydreaming, the punishers and Shaz had left the room, leaving him and Crunchie alone. The old grifter held his arm at chest height, fist cocked, a set of car keys protruding from his fingers, ready to plunge into Billy’s face.
“Going to poke my eyes out?”
“Yup,” the old grifter said.
“I got it worked out, didn’t I?”
“You made me look bad.”
“You already looked bad. Get over it.”
“Don’t play cute with me. I saw what you did in the casino. You paid that cocktail waitress to give Lady Picasso the brush, and she bolted from the table and ran. That one’s working with you, isn’t she? Another of your hot numbers.”
“You think I’d let one of my friends work this place, after what you did to me last night? Get real. I wouldn’t do that to my worst enemy.”
Crunchie’s face softened, if only a little. The story added up.
“Then why did you have the waitress give her the brush?” the old grifter asked.
“I wasn’t sure she was marking the cards, so I had the cocktail waitress brush her to see how she’d react. When she jumped from her chair, I knew she was a cheater.”
“How clever. You still let her go.”
“What was I supposed to do, tackle her? That was Ike and T-Bird’s job, and they blew it. When they grabbed the wrong woman coming out of the restroom, I told them to let her go, but did they listen? Did you listen? Hell, no. Stop blaming me for your fuckups.”
“You’re a slick son of a bitch.”
“It’s the truth. Believe what you want.”
The old grifter lowered his fist and pocketed his keys. “Maybe it is the truth, but know this. This little stunt doesn’t change a fucking thing. You still have a job to do, and that’s to find the Gypsies before they scam us Saturday afternoon. If you don’t come up with the goods, your crew is going down, and so are you.”
“You’d really hurt my crew?”
“Damn straight I will. And don’t give me that bullshit about the code saying you can’t rat out another cheater. Nobody believes that anymore.”
“I do.”
“Like hell you do.”
“We live by the code. The rules when it comes to other thieves are clear. Don’t expose another thief’s identity. Never rat out another thief to the law. Help another thief whenever you can. Those are the rules, man.”
“Do you really believe that, Billy? With all your heart, and all your soul?”
“Damn straight I do.”
“Then why’d you agree to rat out the Gypsies? Wait, I’ll tell you why. Because you want to keep your crew from going to jail. They mean more to you than the fucking code, don’t they?”
The real answer was right there, but Crunchie was too blind to see it.
“You’re no different than me, kid. You just don’t want to admit it.”
Crunchie walked out of the room thinking he’d won the argument. Billy followed him into the hall knowing otherwise. The deal he’d struck with Doucette had been nothing more than a bold-faced lie, born out of necessity to save his friends. By lying, he’d bought himself time to work his way out of his jam. If he put his mind to it, he’d find a way to make sure no harm came to the Gypsies, while continuing to abide by a strict set of rules that he’d lived by for most of his life. He may have been a criminal, but he wasn’t an animal. There was a difference, despite what the old grifter believed.
TWENTY-SIX
Mags awoke with a start and spent a moment collecting her thoughts. She hated screwing in hotel rooms, but that was the price you paid for sleeping with a married man.
She slipped naked out of bed. From the closet she grabbed a fluffy white bathrobe several sizes too big, then fixed herself a stiff drink at the minibar.
“You want something?”
Special Agent Frank Grimes stood on the balcony in his striped boxers, gazing down at the Strip. After picking her up outside Galaxy, they’d come to Harrah’s for a good screw and a nice room-service meal. She hadn’t been in the mood, but there was no arguing when Frank wanted it. His wife had cut him off years ago, and he was hornier than a pack of Cub Scouts.
She’d known a few cops in her time. Most hated their jobs and longed for different careers. Gaming agents were a different breed. The state gave them unlimited power to police casinos, and they spent their days running down cheaters and collecting tax revenue. Crooks feared them, and casinos hated them. For Frank, that was just fine.
“How about a cold beer?”
No response. Normally, Frank jumped at the sound of her voice. Her purse lay on the dresser, the contents pulled out, including the metal tin containing the daub she used to mark cards. The breath caught in her throat.
When she’d become an informant for the gaming board, she’d promised Frank she’d stop cheating, and had gone right on doing it, thinking he was too infatuated with her to figure it out.
Stupid her.
The room had matching leather chairs. Drink in hand, she parked herself in one and let her bathrobe part. She wanted Frank to see her pussy when he came inside. It was crude, but what the hell else could she do? Her body was all she had left.