The Scam (13 page)

Trace shook his hand. “I'll tell you a little secret, Mr. Blackmore. Back when I was a gambler myself, my favorite casinos were the ones off the Strip, the dark rooms so thick with cigarette smoke that you could barely see the cards in your hands, but you could still smell the sweat, beer, and puke in the air.”

“You just described my living room,” Boyd said. “And my office.”

“That does not surprise me,” Billy Dee said to Boyd, then offered his hand to Trace. “I'm Lou Ould-Abdallah, but you may call me Lou. I'm glad you settled on a compromise between a casino that reeks of urine and one that's shaken every twenty minutes by the eruption of a fake volcano. This suite is perfect. I couldn't ask for anything more except, perhaps, a change in my luck.”

“I can't do anything about your luck, Lou,” Trace said, shaking Billy Dee's hand, “but if you do think of something else you'd like, perhaps a masseuse to loosen your muscles after sitting at the table all day, just ask Natasha or one of our other staff members. We will see to your needs immediately.”

“I've got some,” Boyd said with a mischievous grin. “I'd like a large Tim Hortons Caramel Latte Supreme and a dozen Honey Dip Timbits when you get a chance.”

“We'll see what we can do,” Trace said and slipped his arm around Nick's shoulder, like they were old chums. “Nick, do you have a few minutes? I'd like to steal you away for a quick chat.”

“Of course.” Nick turned and winked at Kate as he walked away with Trace. “Keep my seat warm, honey. Win me a quarter million while you're at it.”

Billy Dee and Boyd returned to their seats at the table.

“There probably isn't a Tim Hortons within ten thousand miles of here.” Boyd grinned at Billy Dee and bet $100,000 on the next hand.

“You like to needle people just to see how far you can push,” Billy Dee said, betting $100,000 with Boyd this time. “I've known men like you before, may they rest in peace.”

The dealer looked up at Kate.

“Will you be joining us?” Luisa asked.

“Maybe later,” Kate said, moving to the bar while she eavesdropped on Nick and Trace through her earbud.

Nick and Trace walked out of the suite, closed the door, and went to the elevator directly across the hall. Trace pressed the elevator call button.

“What would you like to talk about?” Nick asked.

“You, Nick. I'd like to get to know you better now that we're doing business together.”

“There isn't much to tell. I'm just an international entrepreneur who takes advantage of new opportunities as they come along.”

The elevator doors opened, and there was a Côte d'Argent security man waiting for them inside.

Dumah, Nick thought.
Crap.

“R
emember me?” Dumah asked Nick as Nick stepped into the elevator.

“Of course I remember you,” Nick said, thinking how to choose his words so Kate would get a grip on this new development. “Congratulations, Dumah. It's good to see you've found a job worthy of your skills.”

Dumah caught him with a brutal sucker punch just below the rib cage and Nick folded, unable to breathe. Dumah grabbed him by the arm and propped him up.

“You understand now that we need to have a serious discussion?” Trace asked Nick.

Nick nodded, making an effort to relax, to give his lungs a chance to expand.

“Good,” Trace said. “You're going to allow Dumah to assist you across the floor to my office.”

Nick nodded again.

Kate heard everything that was happening in the elevator through her earbud. So did Billy Dee and Boyd. They looked over at her with concern, and she smiled at them from behind the bar.

“Go ahead and play without me, gentlemen,” she said. “I think I need some air. I'll be right back.”

Kate palmed a corkscrew from the bar and walked into the foyer. Natasha Ling was at the door, quietly standing, waiting to be of service.

“I'm just stepping out for some air,” Kate said to Natasha.

“I'm so sorry, but you're not permitted to leave the suite at the present time,” Natasha said, blocking Kate's path. “I suggest you go back to the bar and enjoy the game. Maybe have an egg tart. They're quite delicious.”

“I suppose I could.” Kate looked over her shoulder to make sure they were both out of view of the baccarat table before stepping close to Natasha and head-butting her. “But I won't.”

The hostess staggered back, stunned by the blow. Kate shifted the corkscrew to her left hand and decked Natasha with a solid right hook, bouncing her head off the door and knocking her out cold. Kate caught Natasha before she reached the floor, dragged the woman into the adjoining bedroom, closed the door, and continued on her way to rescue Nick.

Nick had recovered by the time the elevator reached the ground floor, but he stayed doubled over, gasping for air, forcing Dumah to support him. He needed a moment to organize his thoughts, to stall for time.

Dumah half-carried, half-dragged Nick out of the elevator and across the noisy casino floor to the VIP salon.

“The VIP salon seems like a nice place to talk,” Nick said. “We can have a few drinks, maybe play some cards after I catch my breath.”

“I'd like a little more privacy,” Trace said. “I'm sure you understand.”

He did. He also knew that Kate was listening and he wanted to let her know where he was, and the seriousness of their situation, without being too obvious about it.

They led Nick through the salon, past the bar, to the door leading to Trace's private dining room. There was a security man standing guard at the door. As they approached, the guard took a transparent key card out of his pocket and passed it over a sensor on the wall, and the door unlocked.

“I'm either having déjà vu or the internal bleeding has deprived my brain of oxygen,” Nick said. “Isn't your private dining room in the same place in Las Vegas?”

“It's exactly the same building, only with half as many floors,” Trace said. “Ironically, it was twice as expensive to build, if you factor in all the bribes I had to pay Chinese officials.”

Nick wasn't in the mood to appreciate irony. He was trying to think of how he was going to talk his way out of this.

The guard held the door for the three men as they passed, then closed it behind them. They walked into the sunny atrium, over the bridge, and into the open dining room. There was a man waiting for them who looked like he'd used his face to pound in fence posts. He was holding a mallet.

Not a good sign, Nick thought. This guy wasn't wearing a chef coat so you could assume he wasn't going to use the mallet to pound the heck out of a veal cutlet.

Dumah pushed Nick into a chair at the pond's edge and secured Nick's wrists to the arms of the chair with zip ties.

“You already know Dumah, from your experience in Dajmaboutu,” Trace said. “This other gentleman is Mr. Garver, our senior customer relations technician. You really don't want to know him.”

“At least not until I can put some plastic sheeting on the floor,” Garver said, hefting his mallet, enjoying the weight. “This is nice carpet.”

“Look, this has gone way too far already,” Nick said. “Untie me, pour me a drink, and let's have a civilized conversation about whatever has got you riled up. You don't want to do something you're going to regret.”

Trace smiled and leaned close to Nick. “I don't have regrets. Only losers have those. Tell me about the scam you're running. Every detail. Don't leave anything out.”

“I'm not scamming anyone,” Nick said. “I'm getting into the junket business.”

“Wrong answer.”

Garver tipped Nick's chair so that the back of the chair was flat to the floor and extended over the pond filled with piranha.

Kate didn't wait for the elevator. She took the stairs down to the casino, listening on the earbud as Nick pointed her to the VIP salon and Trace's private dining room.

She reached the ground floor and opened the door to the casino. A security guard stood in the doorway, his wide body blocking her path. He looked like a Macanese weightlifter stuffed into a Dolce & Gabbana suit that was a size too small.

“Going somewhere?” he asked.

Kate jammed the corkscrew into his crotch, puncturing the fabric of his pants and pressing the sharp point against his shriveling scrotum. His entire body went rigid.

“Unless you want to become a eunuch, you'll step very slowly inside here with me,” she said, backing up into the stairwell. He did as he was told, but the instant the door closed behind him, he head-butted her.

Kate fell back, dazed and angry that she'd been surprised by the same move she'd used on Natasha. He swatted the corkscrew away from her and then backhanded her across the face.

Kate retaliated with a brutal kick to the inside of the guard's left knee, buckling him. He toppled to one side, grabbing Kate's other leg while going down and taking her to the floor with him.

Kate pulled his other leg out from under him as they fell, flipped him over on his back, and drove her elbow into his solar plexus with her full body weight. It was an elbow drop. A
WWE SmackDown
move that took the wind out of him. A follow-up punch in the face put him down for the count.

She searched through his jacket pockets and found a five-inch telescoping steel baton. It was a nice trade up from the corkscrew. Kate got to her feet, held the baton down between her arm and her side to shield it from view, and walked out into the casino.

Nick was balanced on the tipped-over chair with the back of his head hanging an inch above the water.

Trace tossed a piece of dim sum into the pond and the water roiled with piranha, fighting over the morsel.

“All it takes is one piranha brushing against your cheek, smelling your flesh, and they'll all swarm on you,” Trace said to Nick. “They'll eat your face right off your skull and then start chewing their way into your brain. That could happen any second now.”

“I'd like to prevent that from happening,” Nick said.

“Then tell me what you and Kate did to Derek Griffin.”

“We wanted his half a billion dollars,” Nick said in a rush. “We found out where he was hiding and decided the best way to get his money was to kidnap him. Make him pay a ransom to free himself.”

Trace tossed another piece of dim sum just under Nick's head, and Nick could actually hear teeth gnashing, as the piranha chewed on one another in their mad lust to get a share of the steamed dumpling. He wondered if Kate, Boyd, and Billy Dee could hear it, too.

Kate could hear it. She didn't know exactly
what
she was hearing, but she knew it couldn't be good. She crossed through the crowded VIP salon toward the guard who was posted at the door to Trace's dining room. As she neared him, she whipped the baton open in her hand. It expanded to two feet of solid tempered steel with a satisfying metallic snap.

The guard reached for his gun. Kate whacked his arm, then his knee, and, as he fell, she brought the baton down across his back, finishing the job.

Kate dropped the baton and took the guard's holstered gun, trading up her weapon once again. If this trend continued, the next guard she disarmed would have a rocket launcher.

She rummaged through the guard's pockets, got his key card, and swept it over the sensor by the door.

“Did Griffin pay?” Trace asked Nick.

“Not the half billion, but we got ten million dollars out of him. We split that with the pirates and set him adrift in international waters,” Nick said. “That's it.”

Trace sighed in a show of disappointment. “You're still holding back. You haven't explained how Griffin ended up in Palm Springs two days later.”

Trace tossed an egg custard tart into the water above Nick's head. The tart broke apart when it hit the water and the piranha went insane. The water boiled with them. The razor-toothed fish were jumping all around Nick's head. One of the monsters was bound to land on his face soon.

“We told some bounty hunters where they could find him,” Nick said. “I've got no idea how he ended up in Palm Springs after that.”

“Why would you give him to bounty hunters?”

“To protect ourselves,” Nick said. “Griffin couldn't come after us if he was broke and in a prison cell.”

“So you're just two lowlife swindlers trying to make a buck any way you can.”

“Of course we are,” Kate said.

Trace, Garver, and Dumah had been so caught up in the piranha frenzy happening around Nick's head that they hadn't heard Kate come in. Now there she was, standing on the bridge, aiming a gun at Trace. She had a strong and natural firing stance. She was firmly in control of herself. Trace saw beads of sweat on her chest, flecks of blood on her knuckles, and stony determination in her gaze. In that moment, she was the sexiest and most dangerous woman Trace had ever seen.

“Who else would have friends like Ould-Abdallah and Blackmore?” Kate said as she walked toward Trace, keeping her gun leveled at him as she did. “Who else would set up a junket to launder money through a casino in Macau? I don't know what kind of people you thought we were supposed to be. Missionaries, perhaps?”

Trace didn't move as she approached. “I see your point.”

“Do you? You're making money on this deal and so are we. So what difference does it make what we did in the past? Are you in this business to make money or not?”

She stepped right up to him and pressed the gun barrel against his forehead. Trace looked her in the eye for a long moment. He thought about what she'd said and about the violence that she must have inflicted just to get to this room. He totally understood why Griffin risked everything to get her into bed.

“I guess I lost my head,” he finally said.

“Not yet, but you almost did. The only reason your brains aren't all over the wall is because I don't want to jeopardize the money that we're making upstairs.” Kate lowered the gun, handed it to Trace, and then looked past him to Dumah. “Don't just stand there, you dumb ape, get Nick out of that chair.”

Trace gave Dumah and Garver a nod and the two men lifted the chair upright. Dumah cut the zip ties, freeing Nick's wrists.

“I'm disappointed in you, Evan,” Nick said. “I thought you were a smart man. You could have made a lot of money with us. But after tonight, we're taking our business to the Grand Lisboa. Now if you'll excuse us, we've got a game running upstairs.”

Nick put his arm around Kate, and they walked over the bridge just as a bunch of security guards came rushing through the door from the VIP salon. Trace ordered the guards to stand down with a simple wave of his hand. The bewildered guards moved aside and let Nick and Kate pass.