Take Down (2 page)

TWO

WEDNESDAY, THREE DAYS BEFORE THE HEIST

Vegas was hustler heaven, with over a hundred casinos that never closed. A smart hustler could have five operations going and spend his night making withdrawals like they were ATMs. Two hundred here, another two hundred there—it all added up to a decent night’s pay.

Those scores paid the bills, but it was the big takedowns that bought the houses and the fancy toys. Every casino had chinks in the armor that could be exploited. Every casino could be taken down. That was where the crews came in, and the planning.

Billy’s crew was in a grind joint on Fremont Street called the Four Queens. Foul cigarette smoke, stinking ashtrays, perfume turned sour on little old ladies sweating out their Social Security checks, combined with flashing slot machines gave the joint its special charm. It was supper time, and they were about to rip the place off for thirty grand.

His crew consisted of seven members, each of whom had a specific job. The big dude shooting the dice was a sleight-of-hand expert named Travis. The luscious brunette and redhead distractions at the far end of the craps table were Misty and Pepper. And the two college-aged boys who’d actually place the bets and take off the game were Morris and Cory.

Billy was the captain and gave the orders. Nothing happened without his say-so.

The casinos knew Billy, so he took precautions. Tonight he wore a sleeveless T-shirt and fake buckteeth that made him look like a country bumpkin. No security guards were sniffing around, and he signaled Travis to start the play. The big man scooped the dice off the table.

“Winner, winner, chicken dinner!” Travis said.

Three casino employees worked the game: a boxman to watch the money, a dealer to supervise bets and make payoffs, and a stickman who moved the dice around the felt with a hook-shaped stick. To keep them distracted, Misty and Pepper wiggled their asses and flashed plenty of cleavage. Before joining Billy’s crew, they’d done porno, and were not the bashful type.

Stealing a die off a craps table was a gutsy play, but it could be done. Travis threw one die down the table, while secretly thumb-palming the second in his enormous hand. The human eye could only watch one moving object at a time. As the lone die ricocheted off the wall, Misty and Pepper jumped back, pretending the second die had jumped off the table and grazed them.

“You hit me!” Misty said.

“Me, too,” Pepper chorused.

“Die on the floor,” the stickman announced.

Resting his arm on the table, Travis dropped the stolen die into Billy’s glass of Coke, where it floated to the bottom and disappeared. The boxman shot Travis a suspicious look. Travis turned his hand over, exposing a clean palm.

“Be more careful next time,” the boxman scolded.

“I will,” Travis said.

Play was halted as the stickman hunted for the lost die. Eventually, the search was called off and the stickman returned to the table. Reaching into the white plastic bowl on the table, the stickman sent a new pair of dice down the felt with his stick.

“Not so hard this time,” the stickman said.

“You got it,” Travis replied.

Travis scooped up the new pair, and play resumed. Billy watched the three employees to make sure they were cool with the play. No one had felt a breeze, and he headed for the front door with the stolen die.

He hustled down the sidewalk on the south side of Fremont Street. Old downtown was the pits, the sidewalk filled with nasty-looking hookers and panhandlers. On the corner stood Cory and Morris, having a smoke. Both had curly mops of hair and could have been stand-ins for the actor Daniel Radcliffe. They had aspirations to one day run their own crew and would have scrubbed toilets if Billy told them to.

“Hey, Billy. Everything cool?” Cory asked.

“Everything’s cool,” Billy said. “You gents ready?”

They both dipped their chins. Billy had to believe they were two of the most innocent-looking thieves in town. It was one of the reasons he’d recruited them.

“Be back in a few,” he said.

“We’ll be waiting,” Morris said.

Billy entered the city parking garage on Fremont and climbed the stairwell to the second level, where the rented stretch limo he used for his jobs was parked. Earlier that evening, he’d picked up his crew from their homes, the limo stocked with cold drinks and deli sandwiches. None of the cheats who’d ever run with him could say he hadn’t treated them well.

Leon sat on the limo’s hood, plugged into his MP3 player. He was a square john but did not care that Billy was a cheat. Driving Billy’s crew around was better than selling dope or pimping, which was how a lot of limo drivers made a buck. Leon unplugged himself.

“Your teeth are funky. Where’d you get ’em?” he asked.

Billy pulled the fake teeth out of his mouth and slipped them into his pocket. “Party City. They’ve got lots of cool stuff. I need you to call the Golden Steer and make a reservation for eight. Ask for one of the private rooms. We’re eating steak tonight.”

“What time?”

“Make it an hour from now.”

“You got it, boss.”

Billy climbed into the backseat of the limo. Gabe, the seventh member of his crew, lay sprawled across the rear seat, watching college basketball on the miniature TV while chowing on a sandwich. Seeing Billy, he sprang to attention.

“How did it go?” Gabe asked.

“Travis was a star tonight. So were the girls.”

Billy had discovered Gabe in a mall working at a jewelry kiosk, and had seen a real talent in his chubby hands. Gabe’s job was to manufacture the gaffed casino equipment Billy’s crew used in their heists, an investment that had paid off handsomely. Fishing the stolen die out of his drink, he dropped it in Gabe’s hand. Gabe stole a glance at the game’s score before killing the picture.

“How much you have on the game?” Billy asked.

“Who said I had a bet on the game?”

“I did.”

Gabe held up two fingers, signifying twenty grand was riding on the game’s outcome.

“I thought you were broke.”

“I got a line of credit from my bookie.”

“Who in this town would lend you that kind of money?”

“Tony G.”

“You promised me you’d stay away from that shark. Next time you want to borrow money, come to me instead. Understand?”

“Sure, Billy. Whatever you say.”

Gabe had once owned a swanky jewelry store, which he’d lost betting on college sports. His gambling addiction was severe, and Billy was afraid it was going to get Gabe killed.

Removing a jeweler’s loupe from his breast pocket, Gabe spent a moment examining the serial numbers and logo imperfections stamped on the stolen die. Every casino in town employed these tricks to thwart cheaters.

“Piece of cake,” the jeweler said.

Gabe sprung open a worn leather briefcase resting on the seat. The briefcase contained one hundred pairs of dice stamped with logos from every major casino in Las Vegas. These dice had been acquired through a variety of means, including bribing casino employees. Each die in the briefcase had been loaded with carefully disguised mercury slugs. When thrown on a craps table, winning combinations came up more times than not.

Gabe removed a gaffed pair with the Four Queens logo. Using a portable welding machine plugged into the door’s cigarette lighter, he carefully stamped duplicate serial numbers onto the gaffed pair. When the dice had cooled down, a jeweler’s engraving tool was used to re-create the tiny imperfections on the logo. Finished, he handed the gaffed dice to Billy.

Billy held the dice up to the light and compared the gaffed dice to the stolen die. The serial numbers looked exactly the same on all three, as did the tiny logo imperfections.

“You haven’t lost your touch,” Billy said.

“Thanks,” Gabe said.

“We need to address this problem of yours. It’s going to ruin you.”

“You got any ideas?”

“Ever try Gamblers Anonymous?”

“No. I can’t talk in front of groups.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“You mean that?”

“Of course I mean it.”

Using his Droid, Billy got on the Internet and did a search for a Gamblers Anonymous meeting in Gabe’s part of town. He found two daily meetings and showed Gabe the screen.

“Pick one. I’ll take you to lunch first. Make an afternoon out of it.”

“Can’t it wait? I don’t think I’m ready for this.”

“Pick one, or I’ll fire you.”

“Don’t say that. You’re all I’ve got.”

“Then do it right now. That’s an order.”

“All right. We’ll go to the meeting at the Unity Club at one o’clock.”

“How much are you into Tony G for, anyway?”

“Too much.”

“Are you ever going to learn?”

“I wish I could stop, I really do.”

“You know what they say. There’s no time like the present.”

Billy put the phone away. Back when he was learning how to hustle on the streets of Providence, he’d dreamed of running his own crew. A great idea, only there were times when he felt like he was running a flipping babysitting service.

“Unity Club, one o’clock tomorrow,” he said.

“I’m in,” Gabe said.

As Billy started to climb out of the limo, Gabe flipped the TV back on with the remote. Billy stopped to glare at the jeweler.

“Didn’t you hear a word of what I just said?”

“Come on, man. I’ve got to see how it ends,” Gabe said.

THREE

Coming out of the parking garage stairwell, Billy slipped the fake teeth into his mouth and made sure the gaffed dice were finger-palmed in his hand in a way that could not be seen. There were surveillance cameras everywhere in Vegas, and he could never be too careful.

Hurrying down Fremont Street, he spotted Cory and Morris standing outside the Four Queens and let out a shrill whistle. Tossing away their cigarettes, they followed him inside.

The Four Queens craps pit was by the front doors. It was that way in most joints. The action was loud and frenzied and drew people the way honey draws flies. Travis was still throwing the bones, swigging on a beer bottle filled with water, pretending to be loaded. Billy pressed his body to the table and secretly passed the crooked dice to the big man.

“They’re still warm,” Travis whispered.

“So blow on them,” Billy said without moving his lips.

Cory and Morris came to the table and threw down sizeable cash bets. At the same time, Travis scooped up the casino dice and switched in the gaffed ones in his hand. He wasn’t the greatest dice mechanic who’d ever lived, nor did he have to be. The boxman, dealer, and stickman were trained to watch the money. Everything else was secondary, including obnoxious drunks, screaming women, and people flopping dead from heart attacks. An elephant could have stampeded past, and they wouldn’t have looked up.

The eye-in-the-sky wasn’t watching Travis, either. If the surveillance cameras had been taping Travis, they might have caught the switch. But the cameras weren’t watching because Travis had been losing, and that made him a sucker. Surveillance never watched suckers.

“Yo, Eveline, lost her drawers in the men’s latrine!” Travis shouted.

Travis sent the crooked dice down the table. Misty and Pepper pounded the railing, urging him on. They had also placed cash bets. The game was locked up.

Eleven, a winner.

The table erupted. Suckers sometimes got lucky, and the boxman, stickman, and dealer displayed no emotion. Travis kept throwing the dice, and their winnings began to add up. Two grand, five grand, then fifteen—the boxman, dealer, and stickman shaking their heads at the sudden turn of events. Like crew hands rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, they were clueless.

When their winnings hit thirty grand, Billy gave the signal to end the play. He’d done his homework and knew how much the Four Queens would lose before security was sent to the table. Winning too much, too often, had gotten more than one crew in hot water.

Small bets were placed on the table. Travis switched out the gaffed dice for the regular pair and threw them hard.

Two, a loser.

The table groaned. The boxman, dealer, and stickman visibly relaxed, and the losing bets were picked up. Resting his arm on the table, Travis dropped the crooked dice into Billy’s hand.

“Where we going for dinner?” Travis whispered.

“Golden Steer,” Billy whispered back.

“That’s a winner.”

Possession of a crooked gambling device inside a casino was a felony, and Billy headed down Fremont clutching the gaffed dice in his hand until he’d reached a construction site for a new casino. New casinos were always popping up in Vegas, even when the economy sucked. He heaved the gaffed dice over a tall wooden fence plastered with “
N
O
T
RESPASSING
” signs.

His skin was tingling as he headed for the elevated garage. There was no greater rush than ripping a joint off, and it wouldn’t be very long before he’d want to do it again. He’d recently done a walk-through of the Luxor, and decided it was easy pickings. That was what made Vegas so great. There were so many scores and so little time.

His Droid vibrated. Only a handful of people had his number, and he yanked the phone from his pocket. Caller ID said it was an old grifter named Captain Crunch. Crunchie was about as friendly as a coiled rattlesnake, but that was how it was with most of the old-timers.

“Hey, I need to call you back,” he answered.

“This can’t wait,” the old grifter said.

“Everything can wait. I’ll call you later.”

“You’ll talk to me now.”

“I’m on a job, man.”

“Fuck your job. There’s a lady blackjack dealer in the high-roller salon at Galaxy that’s flashing every fifth hand, and the dumb shit management hasn’t caught on. This might be the single biggest score on the Strip.”

High-roller salons catered to whales capable of losing millions of dollars without breaking a sweat. The salons were awash in money, and it was every hustler’s dream to take one down. No hustler in town ever had, and Billy would have relished being the first.

“You want me to be a whale?” he asked.

“That’s right. Interested?”

“Of course I’m interested. How are you going to get me into Galaxy’s salon?”

“It’s all been taken care of. Just show up and work your magic. It will be like stealing candy from a baby.”

“What’s your take?”

“We’re straight partners, fifty-fifty.”

“Make it eighty-twenty, and you’ve got yourself a deal.”

“Sixty-forty, and that’s my final offer. Take it or leave it.”

Billy hated to cave but didn’t see that he had any other choice. If he said no, Crunchie would call another hustler, and cut him out of the action.

“I’m in,” Billy said.

“Meet me at the Peppermill at ten o’clock, and I’ll fill you in.”

“See you there.”

He ended the call and headed up the stairwell. Salons had the highest betting limits around and were known to let whales wager $100,000 a hand. If this lady dealer was flashing every fifth hand, he could steal a hundred grand every five rounds, or roughly seventeen hands per hour, which translated into one point seven million bucks for an hour’s work. It got him excited just thinking about it.

But what if he played longer? If he stayed on the tables for several hours, he could cheat Galaxy out of four or five million easy. Normally, casinos cut off a player when he won too much, but the rules were different for whales. The casinos expected whales to occasionally get lucky and take them for a major score, knowing they’d win the money back later on. As a result, whales rarely got cut off.

Whales also got special privileges and were often allowed to play in private rooms, away from the other players, and with employees whom they liked. If a whale was fond of a particular dealer, the whale could request for that dealer to deal his game, and the request would be honored.

Crunchie wasn’t kidding when he said it was the best score on the Strip. It was the best score of the last ten years. And all Billy needed to do was pretend he was some superrich asshole, and the money would be his.