The elevator bounced to a stop, and the doors parted.
“You ready?” she asked.
“You serious?”
“I’m always serious when it comes to sex. I can use the key and lock us in. We can fuck standing in the corner, or on top of him. Ménage à trois with a dead man is the ultimate turn-on.”
“You’ve done this before?”
“You bet. Why are you looking at me that way?”
The dead were not meant to be messed with. Had he killed the old grifter himself, it would have been with a bullet to the back of the head. He would not have made him suffer.
He stepped out of the elevator and spent a moment getting his bearings. He was in a private parking garage beneath the hotel, and he started walking toward an exit.
Shaz called his name, begging him to come back.
Even bad people had souls. They were hidden most of the time, but they were still there. His soul had been scorched, and he wondered if it would ever be the same.
He found the stairwell and hurried up it.
FIFTY-SIX
Mags sat in the NV Energy van, waiting for the trap to be sprung. Billy’s crew was going to get busted, and it was all her fault because she’d overslept.
It was the story of her life. She couldn’t blame fate or bad luck for the dumb mistakes she’d made. The choices had all been hers, and she’d screwed up every single time.
Thinking about it wasn’t going to do her any good, and she stared at the video monitors trained on Galaxy’s hotel and casino. The gaming agents were using a facial-recognition software program to locate Billy’s crew as they entered the casino. The agents had scanned the photo of Billy’s crew taken inside the employee parking garage into a computer, and now the computer’s software program was comparing those faces against the tourists going inside.
Poor Billy was a goner. The gaming board had the joint surrounded, determined to get their man. Their reputations, and Frank’s promotion, were riding on it.
At two forty-five, the gruff female agent said, “I’ve got two on monitor number five.”
Mags located monitor number five on the wall. The sex kittens from Billy’s crew were entering the hotel with garment bags slung over their shoulders, while one also carried a Nike gym bag. The female agent relayed the news with a walkie-talkie.
Frank charged into the van. “Show me,” he said.
The tape of the sex kittens was replayed. Frank brought his ugly face up to the screen.
“What about the other members of the crew?” he asked.
“They haven’t arrived yet,” the female agent said.
“You sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. The facial-recognition program would have made them.”
“What do you think’s in the clothing bags?”
“Disguises. They’ll change in a stall in the ladies’ room, or have a room in the hotel. They won’t look the same when they’re robbing the place.”
“Play the tape again, and do a close-up of their faces,” he said.
“What for?”
“Just do it.”
She shot him a simmering look while fingering the toggle on her keyboard. It gave Mags small comfort knowing that she wasn’t the only female that Frank treated like dirt. The tape ran again and was frozen. The sex kittens’ faces expanded and came into sharp focus on the monitor.
“Send that shot to everyone on the team,” he said.
“Anything else?”
“That’s it for now.”
Frank made for the door, then pretended to notice Mags. He knew all the ways to cut her down, and said, “Billy likes them pretty. I hear he gets more ass than a toilet seat.”
“I bet he does,” Mags said under her breath.
Misty and Pepper had been mistaken for call girls enough times to know how to fool hotel security. Dressed in casual clothes and wearing a smattering of makeup, they chattered about a dumb Channing Tatum flick as they strolled past the guards posted inside the front doors.
Soon they were riding an elevator to Billy’s suite. Misty carried the Nike bag with the fake chips, which she tried to avoid peeking into. In a few hours, she was going to be rich, and the thought made her giddy with excitement. She unlocked the door with the spare room key.
It was said that the best things in Vegas were free, only no one could afford them. Billy’s comped high-roller suite was a perfect example, the furniture and decorations to die for.
“I could live here,” Misty said.
“Me, too,” Pepper said.
“Anybody home?”
“I’m on the balcony,” came Billy’s voice through the open slider.
They dropped their things on a couch and stepped outside. Billy stood by the railing, watching the action down below with a pair of binoculars with the sales sticker still on them.
“We didn’t expect to find you here,” Misty said. “What are you doing?”
“I came upstairs to get a better look at those NV Energy trucks parked in front,” he said.
“What’s the matter with them?”
“They’ve been there for a few hours. When was the last time you called the power company on a weekend, and they came out?”
“You think it’s the heat?”
He lowered the binoculars. First the flash of light in the covered parking garage, now the trucks parked out front as if preparing to raid the joint. It could have been nothing more than his imagination taking a trip down paranoid lane, but he wasn’t ready to dismiss his feelings just yet. With his hand, he motioned for Pepper to close the slider.
“No, I don’t think it’s the heat, but I’ve been wrong before,” he said. “If you smell an undercover cop when you’re in the casino, dump the chips and run.”
“But what about our big payday?” Misty pouted.
“There will be more of those down the road. You with me on this?”
“I guess,” she said sadly.
An awkward silence followed. He had instilled the fear of doubt into them. It was the worst possible way to start a job. Putting his hands on their shoulders, he drew them close.
“It’s just a precaution. You never can be too careful in this game. Especially with the people you care about.”
“Awww,” they both said.
They shared a group hug, and things were good again.
Back inside, Billy rapped on the punishers’ bedroom door. Ike and T-Bird emerged a few moments later. T-Bird’s dreadlocks were history, his skull a shiny brown dome.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” Billy said.
“Shut up,” T-Bird said, clearly disgusted. “Took me two years to grow my dreads. They’re part of me, know what I mean?”
“You can grow them back while you’re enjoying your money.”
“We brought some clothes for you to try on.” Pepper unzipped a garment bag and pulled out a pair of billowing slacks, a black silk shirt with mother-of-pearl buttons, and an alligator belt with a gold-plated barbwire accent. “See how these look.”
T-Bird went into the bedroom with the clothes hanging over his arm and returned wearing them. The belt was a nice touch, the type of outlandish accessory that a drug peddler might wear.
“Pants too long,” the bird man grumbled.
“We’ll pin them up,” Pepper reassured him. “Otherwise, what do you think?”
“I guess they’re okay.”
“You look like a player,” Billy said. “Sit down so the girls can give you a makeover.”
T-Bird lowered his body into a chair. Pepper removed a makeup kit from the garment bag, and she and Misty went to work on transforming him into a menacing drug dealer. They trimmed his eyebrows, attached a diamond magnetic earring to his left earlobe, gave him a grill of fake gold teeth to stick into his mouth, and fitted a pair of rose-tinted Ray-Bans on his nose. Finished, they both took a step back and nodded approvingly.