27. Parker #2
“They’ve been here for three hours. I don’t care if you can’t take them to the basement, they need to go.” She dropped her hand from her headpiece and whirled around.
Her eyes widened when she saw me, and her bottom lip trembled.
“Uh, Mr. um, Mr. Adair. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she stammered.
Up close, she was close to fifty. Though from a distance, she didn’t look a day over thirty.
This must be the manager of Maikel’s club.
How progressive of that misogynistic asshole to have a woman running the LA club.
Although, the US did things a little differently.
“Please, drop the ums, love. It’s just Mr. Adair.” I stopped close to her as I pulled a hand to my lips and pressed a kiss against her knuckles.
Could she see the chaos I was about to wreck in my eyes?
I hoped not. It was far more fun that way.
“Of-Of course. Mr. Adair.” A flush crept up her neck, which must have been fierce to show with such brightness under the flashing neon lights.
“What can we do for you this evening? Are you here to enjoy our hospitality? We can have a VIP room set up for you and your….” She most likely was going to say guest, but one look at Anton and anyone would know he was there to bring death at my behest. “Man.”
“Unnecessary. I’m more intrigued by what you were just chatting about over your radio. What kind of problem is the club experiencing?”
“Oh. Oh!” She took on a disgruntled expression.
“We have a few small celebrities here tonight. Isaac Kim and Atlas Jones are here with their manager, Joaquin Amaya. They’re two of America’s It faces for men right now.
And at least one of them knows how to count cards.
They’re losing every few hands, then stealing everything from the house.
We can’t give them the standard treatment because their arrival was very public. ”
Models….The very ones Amorette believed had the Qing Dynasty vase. I couldn’t have planned this better.
I bet they knew Grace.
“Show me their table. I’ll take care of it.”
“Sir,” she said and cleared her throat, dropping her gaze to the floor like she was afraid to speak her next words. “You can’t treat them the same here in the US. They’re public figures. We—”
I waved a hand. “Absolutely understood. I won’t make a scene. Not a public one, anyway…And don’t worry. I won’t leave any physical marks on the men.”
She relaxed when she saw my smile, not showing the same alarm Anton had.
“Good, good. Right this way.” She escorted us down the glossy black hallway until the room opened up into a gambling hall.
The room was Old-World elegance with mahogany wood panels, rich tapestries, and burning candlesticks on podiums around the edges of the room.
Tables and tables were stuffed into the middle to rival the best Las Vegas casinos.
Only there was a more sinister vibe here.
Most of these players walked the darker side of the law. Not like the amateur gamblers in Vegas. I’d love to hear how the models heard about this club.
“There they are, sir.” She nodded to a table right in the center of the room where a bouncer was arguing heatedly with a man.
There was the trio among two other groups of patrons.
But they were all striking. The Asian man was slender and all angles with a shock of shimmering blue-black hair hanging in his face.
He watched the table with a smirk and continued to play even as the tan man argued.
The black man beside him had skin so smooth it practically glowed under the lights.
Cut cheekbones and full lips. He looked bored as he skimmed between the cards and his other friend.
The tan man turned back around with a snarl on his lips. He was of some kind of Hispanic descent. No less beautiful than the other two.
“Which man did you say was their manager?” I played dumb.
The manager laughed. “It’s hard to tell, right?
They are all gorgeous. But the man who was arguing is their manager, Joaquin.
You just missed their fourth, who left about thirty minutes ago.
He’s their bodyguard and just as beautiful but in a more rugged way.
” Her appreciation oozed from her pores as she watched them.
“Perfect. I’m going to sit at this table here for a few minutes, and when I’m ready, I’ll approach. No one else is to bother them until I’ve had time to make my own assessment.”
The man standing over Joaquin touched his ear, mumbled something, and shot one final glare at Joaquin’s head as he stomped away. Joaquin flipped him off over his shoulder without removing his eyes from the table.
Both Joaquin and the Asian man, Isaac Kim, watched the table with neutral intensity. Their faces showed no emotion, yet their eyes drank in everything from the minute movement of the dealer’s hands to the cards being flipped and even what the other patrons at the table were doing.
Isaac grinned and struck up a light conversation with the man and woman next to him, who were dazzled by his looks. Or maybe his celebrity status. It could be either.
“They’re skilled,” Anton quietly noted.
I nodded. They certainly were. “They’re young con-men in the making.” With an eye for tricks and a head for numbers. Of course, they could be shit at it, but only time would tell. And luckily, I had plenty of it in this dark corner of the gambling hall.
We sat there for almost two hours, watching this young trio of men earn millions from the house. One man with a large cowboy hat and a mustache big enough to cover Texas realized what they were up to and he wasn’t snowed by their good looks.
“What the fucking hell are you doing?” He stood up, all bluster and crude hand gestures. Yet, in the grand scheme of things, he was a small man with no muscle, no intimidation factor. “You fuckers are cheating.”
He swung and hit Joaquin right in the face. His head snapped back. His buddies both jumped up to take his back, but I was already weaving around the table to stop an altercation. I raised a hand to let the approaching manager know I had this taken care of.
She stopped in her tracks but didn’t look away. Mainly because she was drinking them in with a hungry gaze.
“Sanders,” I said cheerily, slapping a heavy hand down on his nape. “Funny seeing you here.” His eyes widened seconds before recognition dawned, and a sneer curled his top lip.
“You fucking traitor, you—”
“Shh.” I placed a finger on his lips as I nodded Anton toward the trio. “Take these fine men back to our ride. I’d like to have a word with them.”
“Hell no,” Joaquin snarled. “We need to cash out. There’s at least three mil in chips here.” He tapped the chips harshly, knocking some over.
“You leave with the chips, or you leave with your lives. Your choice.” I shrugged.
The staff here wouldn’t kill them, not if they were indeed celebrities, but they didn’t know that.
Anyone else scamming the system would get thrown in the basement with a bullet to the head and a few broken bones for good measure.
Atlas placed a hand on Joaquin’s shoulder and shook his head. So, Joaquin was the hothead. He looked between his two friends and nodded. It was a chore, but he backed down from his anger.
“Fine,” he grunted and shrugged out of Atlas’ hold. Anton wasted no time moving them through the crowd, leaving me alone with good old Sanders.
“You a dead man, Adair,” Sanders whispered gleefully.
“Is that right?” I turned back to him with a smirk.
“All the men in Vicente’s inner circle are looking for you.”
“They’re not looking very hard,” I remarked drily. “We’ve been at our home the entire time.”
Some of the excitement dimmed in his eyes.
Not because he was afraid of me but because he lacked a comeback.
Vicente was an intelligent man—one of the smartest. Yet I couldn’t understand why he kept this piece of shit around.
Just because he had a head for business didn’t mean he had the guts and wits to really survive in the Institution. Or outside of it.
“Listen, I just came here to cause some trouble.” I smiled, confusing him even more.
“Why would you admit that?”
“Because you’re going to help me.” I peered past his shoulder to the candles burning next to the column. A column draped in a dark, mysterious tapestry like something from medieval England.
“Huh?”
I didn’t give him any time to rub his two brain cells together.
As if perfectly timed, a patron lightly brushed my back, and I stumbled into Sanders, giving him a helping push into the candles.
His hat brushed them and immediately burst into flames, probably a by-product of whatever treatment he sprayed on the felt to keep it crisp.
His screams were music to my ears as he whipped it off his head and waved it in the air. Oh, look, he caught the tapestry on fire. In true old-fabric fashion, the fire raced up the column.
People yelled and raced toward the exits as the manager grabbed my arm. The fire alarm started to blare and the water sprinklers kicked on.
“Mr. Adair! You have to get out of here!” She tried to pull me toward the door, but I waved her off.
“Help the patrons. I’ll see myself out.” Pivoting on my heel, I left her standing next to a now empty table. The patrons wasted no time exiting all on their own. They valued their lives more than the value of the chips.
I whistled as I took the long way out, knocking over candles and helping the other tapestries along. Might as well make sure the place truly burns. If you’re taking the time to cause trouble, it better be worth it.