Chapter Three #2
“Simple,” I said. “I need a crew that can scare the shit out of Zeke Smalls and anyone else dumb enough to get in our way. I want you as my SAA. Full control over security, tactics, and procurement. You want your own budget, you got it. If you want more than that, you negotiate it up front. But you answer to me, and nobody else.”
She considered it, the way people do when they want to say no but are tempted by the yes.
“What if I say no?” she asked.
“Then I'll come back tomorrow,” I said. “And the next day. Until you run out of bullets or I run out of patience.”
That made her laugh, a rusty, honest sound. “You shoot?”
“I can out-shoot half the old guys in this town,” I said.
She unzipped a duffel at her feet and produced a fresh mag, loaded it in three seconds flat. “Let’s see it, then,” she said. “Winner gets to set the terms.”
“Deal,” I said.
We took adjacent lanes. She handed me a spare eye/ear set. It was military, and better than range junk. I strapped in. We both loaded, braced, and waited for the Range Officer to nod.
Twenty rounds. Standard silhouette. Closest grouping wins.
Spade went first, smooth as a sewing machine, double-taps and quick reloads. All her shots were inside a fist-sized knot, dead center. Mine were wider at first, but I settled in, exhaling slow, letting the rhythm take me. When it was over, the Range Officer reeled both targets in.
He whistled and held up the two sheets.
Spade’s was perfect, but mine had one outlier. I’d added a left-shoulder flyer. She saw it, and her mouth twitched.
“Nice shooting,” she said.
“You too,” I replied.
She tore her target off, folded it, and stuffed it into her bag. “Sergeant at Arms?”
“Sergeant at Arms,” I said, and handed her the patch. “You in?”
She took it, running her thumb over the edge, the same way Joker had. “You run a tight ship, Selene?”
“Tighter than the Army,” I said.
She shook my hand, grip firm, no games. “I’ll start tomorrow.”
“I’ll have a bike waiting,” I said.
We walked toward the parking lot, side by side, guns cased and slung.
“First order?” she asked.
I thought about it. “We need arms. Big, loud, and untraceable.”
She grinned. “I know a guy.”
Of course she did.
We stood by our bikes, the heat rippling off chrome.
“One more thing,” she said, sliding on her wraparounds.
“Shoot.”
“You got a plan for Zeke?”
Did everyone know Zeke was coming after me and mine? “Yeah,” I said. “I plan on making him irrelevant.”
She nodded, got into the Ford Bronco, and peeled out in a spray of gravel.
I watched her go, the patch already sewn onto her cut, and knew I’d picked the right bullet for the job. Two down, too many to go.
***
They say Vegas is built on hope and loss, but in the VIP room, all I ever saw was hunger.
The high-stakes table at Aces Wild was an altar, and tonight the faithful brought offerings in the form of liver spots, shaky hands, and too much cologne.
The buy-in was enough to buy a double-wide in North Vegas, but no one at this table looked like they’d ever lived in anything with wheels.
Aces sat with her back to the wall, black bob gleaming under recessed lights, hands resting light on the felt.
Her fingers were long, immaculate, nails lacquered an opalescent blue that caught every pulse of neon through the one-way window.
She wore a silk shirt, gold thread woven through the black, and a vintage Rolex.
She looked like the kind of woman who belonged in Monaco, but would knife you in a Walmart parking lot if the cards told her it was time.
I posted up at the bar, two drinks in hand, and let the show run. It was midnight, but in here it might as well have been a bunker. No clocks. No time except what was measured in hands and chips.
Aces had a gift, and it wasn’t just memory.
She played the table, not the deck. The tourists bought in heavy, too drunk to notice the way she stacked the deck.
Her tells were all intentional, breadcrumbs for the desperate.
She’d lose three hands in a row, lulling the room, then rake a monster when nobody dared call her.
The best con was the one that didn’t look like a con.
I watched her bust an oil baron from Houston, then edge out a crypto creep in a designer blazer.
The whole time, she drank nothing but seltzer, letting the others buy her rounds she never touched.
Discipline. She never looked at me, but once, when the rest of the table was howling over a lost hand, she glanced up. Just a flicker. But it said everything.
The game finally broke when a local banker lost his shirt, got up to puke, and never came back. Aces gathered her winnings, then signaled the pit boss, who brought her a black velvet pouch. She swept her chips inside, slipped out a five-dollar bill, and left it as a tip. All class.
I intercepted her by the exit. “Care for something stronger than water?”
She didn’t break stride. “Is it on the house, or do I have to win another hand?”
“It’s on me,” I said. “But it comes with a side of business.”
She stopped, considered. “I don’t do business after midnight.”
“You’ll want this one,” I said, and led her to the private lounge.
The room was Buck’s old domain, walls lined with pictures of fights, cars, and Elvis. I poured two fingers of scotch and gestured to a seat.
Aces took the drink, swirled it, then set it down untouched. “Let’s talk, then.”
“Road Captain,” I said. “You run transport. Bikes, runs, maybe the occasional chase.”
She smiled, slow and sharky. “You know I haven’t been on a bike in years?”
“I know you were the best runner in Clark County for five straight years. Never got caught, never lost a load.”
“That’s because I don’t take chances,” she said.
I shrugged. “You take calculated risks.”
She laughed, the sound sharp and pretty. “You want me to join your band of merry women. Why?”
“Because Vegas isn’t about muscle. It’s about movement. You get people and product from A to B without anyone seeing. That’s the real game.”
She considered the glass, the way some people stare at fire. “You’re building a crew to go up against Zeke.”
I nodded.
Aces clicked her tongue. “That’s a high-variance play.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But I have a feeling you know the odds better than anyone.”
She finally took a sip, then set the glass down again. “You’re going to have to do better than a club patch and a compliment.”
“How about a percentage of the house?” I said.
Now I had her attention. “How much?”
“Five points on every run. Bonuses for new routes.”
She smiled. “And you think I’m not going to cheat?”
“I think you’ll cheat for us,” I said. “Not against.”
Silence. A long one, while she weighed the risk like she was holding it in her palm. “You ever driven The Loop?” she asked, abruptly.
“Once,” I said. “On a bet. Nearly wrecked the Harley on the off-ramp.”
She nodded, pleased. “That’s where we’ll do our first dry run. If you can keep up, you get me. If you can’t, I walk.”
“Deal,” I said.
She handed me a card. It was blank except for a phone number, written in a tight, perfect hand. “Text me at 3 AM. No earlier.”
“Three AM,” I repeated.
She looked at the Road Captain patch I set on the table, ran her manicured thumb over the threads, then slipped it into her purse.
“Don’t call me before three,” she said again, and swept out, leaving the scotch untouched and the air heavy with perfume.
Tomorrow, the real game would start. Four days, and I already had my ace.
***
Every casino has two hearts. The first is the floor, all noise and shine and dollar signs.
The second is the back office, where there are gray walls, flickering fluorescents, and the tick of calculators and the smell of stress sweat.
On day four, that’s where I found Glitz, holding court over a kingdom of chaos.
The accounting office was a padded cell for the numbers-obsessed.
The carpet was older than Buck, and the computers had stickers from three operating systems ago.
Glitz was at the center, her arms spread, and her fingers flying over a pair of laptops.
Her phone was wedged under her chin, earbuds in, music pulsing so loud I could hear it from the hallway.
Around her, the desk was an explosion of paper that included ledgers, receipts, uncashed checks, and a coffee mug filled with ball bearings instead of pens.
Glitz looked straight out of a Wall Street meme, with her platinum hair in a severe French twist and suit tailored to a scalpel’s edge.
But the cuffs were rolled just high enough to flash the sleeves of the tattoo, showing barbed wire, roses, and a Fibonacci spiral.
There was another ink peeking from her collar, something geometric and blue.
She didn’t glance up when I entered. “You here to fire me?” she said, still typing.
“Why would I?” I asked.
“You don’t have the balls.” Her fingers stopped just long enough to yank out the earbuds. She turned, and for the first time, I noticed her eyes. One was blue, one gold, and both rimmed with exhaustion. She fucking hated her job.
“Selene,” she said, and I decided the entire town knew I was out recruiting.
“Glitz,” I replied. “You got a minute?”
“Not unless you brought a time machine.” She gestured to the pile of spreadsheets. “I’m two days behind, and the Feds just changed their reporting forms again. If I ever meet a Treasury agent, I’m gonna strangle them with red tape.”
I leaned against the doorframe. “You ever think about getting out of the office?”
She laughed, a rough, husky sound. “And do what? Run the pit? I’d eat three croupiers before noon.”
I tossed the Treasurer patch on the table. It landed between a stack of comp vouchers and a calculator with half its keys missing.
Glitz stared at it, then at me. “That’s not funny.”
“I’m not joking.”
She picked up the patch, turned it over, then tossed it back down. “I have priors, you know.”
“I know you turned state’s on your old boss, too,” I said.