Tex (Burnout) (50 page)

“Alice-” Burton said, clearly annoyed now.

“Abby!”

Burton looked taken aback at her sharp tone.

“My name is Abby. You should know it. Because I’m buying your hotel. For the bargain basement price of 3 million dollars. Plus a cash incentive.”

Burton looked at Kessler and then at Abby. “What?” he asked and Abby could not stop herself from actually rolling her eyes at her boss who could not be less qualified to own a plastic Monopoly hotel let alone a gem like the Custer.

“I’m. buying. your. hotel,” she said slowly, emphasizing that she though Burton was basically a moron.

Burton’s jaw set. “It’s not for sale.”

Abby sighed and flipped open the briefcase she’d brought along with her. She grabbed a sheaf full of 8 X 10 glossies and tossed them across the table. They were surveillance shots of the working girls coming to and from the Custer.

Burton stared at them, but then regained his haughty air and sneered at her. “This is nothing,” he told her. “This is bullshit.”

Abby picked up the second stack of photos and flung them. They were license plates of the cars whose drivers availed themselves of the Blue Orchid’s services. “This is just the polite version. For Mr. Hilliard,” Abby said, nodding at the older man. “I’ve got your whores on video, too.”

That part was actually a bluff. But Abby was a Vegas girl through and through.

“Now,” she said authoritatively. “Like I said, I’m buying the Custer for 3 million dollars.” She turned the briefcase around, revealing the rest of its contents to Burton and slid it across the table toward him. “The 3 mil is for the IRS, all nice and legal-like. This,” she said, indicating the 2 million in cash, “this is yours to do whatever you want.”

Mr. Hilliard opened his own briefcase and set out a bill of sale in front of Burton. “I think you’ll find,” the lawyer said, “that all our paperwork is in order.”

Burton hesitated, staring at Abby and the pinstriped man. The phone’s intercom light blinked and the tell-tale chime rang out. Abby pressed the button. “Ms. Raines,” came Susan’s voice over the speaker. “Your associates have arrived.”

“Thank you, Susan. Send them in, please.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

The door swung open and Mark entered first, followed by Hawk, Shooter, and Abby saw that even Easy had come.

“Gentlemen,” Abby said. “These are my associates.”

None of them said anything, but they were clearly curious, looking back and forth between Kessler, Burton, and Hilliard. Abby slid the pen across the table to Burton. “I think we’re all pretty clear at this point on the particulars.” She reached behind her into the waistband of her tailored trousers and pulled out her .38, pointing it at Burton.

“Holy fuck!” shouted Kessler. Burton’s eyes widened, but he was too scared to speak. Mr. Hilliard said nothing. Neither did the four enormous ex-army rangers lined up against the wall.

“Sign the papers,” Abby demanded. “Take the check, and the cash incentive...
and get the fuck out of my hotel
.”

Kessler looked at Burton, who did nothing helpful, and then turned to Hilliard. “Do something!”

Abby smiled and shook her head. “He’s not going to help you. Mr. Hilliard was Slick Mick Dugan’s lawyer for more years than I’ve been alive. He’s Old Vegas.”

“Very Old Vegas,” Mr. Hilliard added, leaning back in his chair. “I suggest, Mr. Burton, that you accept the sum Ms. Raines is so generously offering you. You’re lucky to even get that. In the event the police discover your...sidebusiness...all your assets will be seized, accounts frozen indefinitely.”

Burton, finding no aid with Hilliard, looked at the men along the wall.

“They won’t help you, either,” Abby told him. “They’re here to carry your bodies out the back door if you don’t sign.”

Kessler stood up suddenly. “Susan! Susan!”

Abby rolled her eyes. “Susan’s not going to help you. I offered her a management job with a shit-ton of vacation time.”

“What the fuck?” Kessler shouted.

“Bitches,” Abby scoffed. “I know, right?” She pulled the hammer back on the .38.

Kessler looked at his boss. “You’ve gotta do something!”

Burton glared at him. “Like what? Go to prison? No, thanks.” Burton picked up the pen.

“At least give me half!” Kessler cried. “I arranged everything. I set up the front!”

“And did a great job, too,” Burton said sarcastically. “Since apparently any fucking bitch with a college degree could figure it out.” The pen scratched loudly as he initialed the highlighted lines and then signed his name on the last page.

Burton stood up, picked up the briefcase, and stormed out the door with Kessler on his heels, begging for a cut.

The chime on the phone rang out again. Abby lowered the gun and hit the button. “Ms. Raines,” said Susan. “The Asshole and The Complete and Total Bastard are heading outside. “Everyone’s assembled in the ball room.”

“Fabulous,” Abby replied and disconnected.

She tucked the gun into the back of her waistband again, hiding it under her blazer.

“Thank you, Mr. Hilliard, for coming all his way.”

The old man grinned at her and stood up. “It was worth it. Felt like old times.” He shook her hand and headed out the door.

Abby picked up the sale paperwork and followed Hilliard out of the meeting room door. “Almost done,” she told the men. The rangers followed her.

Her heels clicked on the tile floor as she walked to the reservation counter. Susan looked up at her and picked up the large box on the counter.

“Here, I’ll take that,” Hawk said, grinning at her.

Susan blushed and handed it over.

Abby turned to the men. “Just one more meeting and then we’re done,” she told them.

“Yes, Ma’am,” said Shooter, grinning.

Abby headed straight up the large staircase and entered the double doors, leading to the large ballroom where everyone who was currently employed at the Custer Hotel was assembled, sitting at the tables.

Abby breezed into the middle of the room and stopped. She held up the signed paperwork. “As of now, I own the Custer Hotel,” she told the audience. There were some murmurs through the crowd. “It’s been a long and eventful morning, and I really don’t have time for bullshit,” she announced. “You all know what’s been going on here. It stops today. I’m sure some of you have become accustomed to management looking the other way while you get paid for essentially doing nothing. That also stops now. If you don’t like it, get the fuck out.”

She nodded to Susan who directed Hawk to set the box down. Susan took off the lid and grabbed stack after stack of spiral bound business plans and set a stack down on each table as Abby continued.

“I have plans for this hotel,” she announced. “We’ll be doing a systematic renovation that, finishing on schedule, should take less than year and turn the Custer into a four star, luxury hotel which is the highest star rating we can achieve while still complying with the guidelines for obtaining and maintaining historic status, which I’m also applying for at the end of the year.

“What this means for you is more work, more attention to detail, and no excuses regarding job performance. It also means more guests and more money.
A lot more money. For all of us.
I’m inviting all of you to stay on and help me turn the Custer into the best hotel in the Black Hills. If you’re not interested, get the fuck out. I’ll replace you.

“If any of you think you’ll stay and try and start up your own sidebusiness like Mr. Kessler, I will ask one of these men-” She jerked her thumb at the large bikers standing a few feet away, “to break your fucking legs. And then they will
throw
you the fuck out. I hope you’re sensing a theme there. No more pussy for sale, no more bullshit.

“So take these home with you when your shift ends tonight,” she encouraged. “Look them over. I’m going to need a lot of help making this place shine. You need to think about whether or not you want to be a part of it.”

The employees filed out of the ballroom, eyeing the rangers warily, and keeping their distance. As Susan left the large assembly room, she shut the double doors. Abby, exhausted from the morning’s events, collapsed into an empty chair.

Each of the men picked up an extra prospectus and looked them over.

“Abby,” Mark said. “Where did you get that money?”

She sighed. “The Dugans.”

Mark’s jaw twitched. “You did not borrow millions of dollars from the mob.”

She scoffed. “Of course not. It was a gift.”

Mark narrowed his eyes. “How much did they give you?”

Abby could see no way around telling him the truth or any reason to keep it from him. “Ten million dollars.”

Hawk let out a low whistle.

“Why would the mob
give
you ten million dollars?” Mark demanded.

Abby looked up at him. “I told you my mother was cheating on my father. But I didn’t tell you with whom. With the old man. Mick Dugan. They’d been seeing each other for years. Even before my mother married my father. She actually started out as the old man’s mistress. When he wouldn’t divorce his wife to marry her, she married my father instead. She was pregnant with me at the time.”

“So Slick Mick Dugan the mob guy was your real father?” Shooter asked.

Abby shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t really know. I never opened the DNA test results. My mother thinks he was. If it’s true and I had filed a claim, I could have eventually ended up with a third of the Canyon.”

“How much is that worth?” Easy asked.

Abby shrugged again. “Hard to estimate exactly, since a large chunk of its worth is based on the action at the casinos at any given moment. But say roughly, I don’t know, two, three hundred.”

“
Two hundred million dollars?!
” Easy cried.

Abby nodded. “Pretty conservative, but something like that. I signed away any future claim on the Canyon in exchange for a cashier’s check for ten million. I bought the Custer for five and the extra five should more than cover operating costs until I get the place back in the black.”

Easy scoffed. “You should have asked for more.”

Abby shook her head. “Well, I didn’t want to go for a ride in the desert.”

“This is what you were talking about,” Mark finally said. “When you were fighting with your mother and you said our relationship wasn’t for sale.”

Abby nodded. “It’s not like the Dugans would just hand over the money to buy me out. And they sure as fuck wouldn’t just give me shared control of operations, either. It’d be a court fight. I’d win. There’s no doubt. But it’d take a few years at least. I’d have to stay in Vegas to sort it all out. My life is here. With you. With our friends.”

Easy stared at her and then turned to Mark. “She gave up sixty million dollars for you.”

Abby shook her head. “It doesn’t feel like I gave up anything.”

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

Six weeks later.....

It was Friday evening and Abby found herself yet again stuck in her office. Granted it was a bigger office, now that she’d thrown Kessler out on his ass and taken over his. But since she’d bought the Custer, she rarely seemed to actually leave it. She was determined, though, to get out at a semi-decent hour. She shut down her computer and opened her bottom desk drawer to get her purse. She had nearly made it out the door when the phone’s intercom buzzed.

She considered it. Briefly. But then decided that she’d had enough for one day and just kept walking. She didn’t make it far, though. Susan snagged her before she even set foot in the lobby.

“Complaint,” the other woman said.

Abby groaned.

“They want to talk to someone ‘more senior’,” Susan said, making airquotes.

“Give them free champagne.”

“Already did.”

“What’s the problem?” Abby asked, because to her way of thinking, all her problems could be solved with a few strong martinis.