Sharks - Matt Rogers (classic books for 11 year olds txt) 📗

far wall. The lighting was low, downplaying flaws, generating a warm atmosphere, encouraging people to move around as they pleased without the sense they were being judged for their spending.

The mob guy was off to one side.

Confirming Slater’s suspicions that he was a sentry.

He might be an important figure elsewhere, but business was business, and when cash was on the line important people suck up their pride and accept their assignment to lesser roles. But that could be exploited.

The only thing worse than doing a job beneath you was screwing up a job beneath you.

Slater made a direct beeline for the guy, who took a back step, more out of surprise than anything else, but there’s a psychological aspect to it regardless.

Slater’s eyes blazed with silent fury. ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’

The mob guy got his back up. ‘What?’

But he kept his voice down, because this was a public place with civilians everywhere.

Slater mirrored the volume, hissing out the side of his mouth, standing only a foot away from the guy. ‘You’re at the wrong place.’

‘What are you talking about, champ?’

‘Don’t “champ” me,’ Slater said. ‘“Champ” the guys upstairs when they find out you’re guarding the wrong building. You’re supposed to be four blocks from here, you dumb wop.’

The guy didn’t even respond to the derogatory insult, he was that confused. He was on the verge of masking his perplexment with aggression, but Slater didn’t allow him the opportunity. With a look on his face like, We’d better get this sorted out quickly, Slater made a Follow me gesture with one finger and then strode straight back out the entrance like he had a thousand other places to get to tonight.

The mob guy didn’t even hesitate. He’d fallen into the shtick like most people do when confronted by a mysterious authority figure.

He obeyed, if only to find out what on earth was going on.

The sidewalk out front was illuminated by muted yellow downlighting and completely unpopulated. There was a lull in the steady stream of customers. Slater walked out and sidestepped, masking himself from view of the lobby with the help of a long row of Vegas-style xeriscaping surrounding the building’s perimeter. It didn’t exactly gel with the Hawaiian theme, but that was a conversation for another time.

The mob guy followed.

He hurried out in a storm of confusion, and started to say, ‘Buddy, who are you?’ before Slater cracked him in the ribs, folded him over, bounced an elbow off the back of his skull and dragged his semi-conscious deadweight along the front stretch of the complex and around the side, into the shadows.

The guy didn’t even get the chance to fire back with his own derogatory term, didn’t call Slater a ditzune or swear up and down at him. He was out of the picture before he knew what hit him.

King walked into the Lagoon Hotel & Casino ten seconds later.

7

King went right, as the lieutenant had done.

Followed the wooden jetty sign reading: casino.

As he predicted, the cop was still out in the open, because nothing in real life moves as quickly as it does in the movies. There’s plain old logistics to take care of — if certain staff members are bent, they’re not always going to be waiting with open arms to receive their cash. They have real jobs, which often involve hitting the floor or squirrelling themselves away in back rooms to take calls or fill out paperwork.

So the lieutenant was at a counter across the casino floor, under a sign reading “cashier”, hunched over and speaking in hushed tones to an attendant behind the security glass. The uniformed woman nodded animatedly, probably ensuring that the appropriate staff member would be with him in no time. He hunched further toward the glass with each sentence, stressing urgency. She kept nodding her understanding. The duffel bags rested at his feet.

It’d be simple enough to stride over there, take the bags, and drag the bent cop out of the building by his collar. Security wouldn’t be able to achieve much in the face of King’s rage.

But he wanted to work his way up the food chain, not find satisfaction with an easy kill.

King ambled across the casino floor.

He passed pensioners funnelling their last pennies into slot machines, eyes glazed with what they thought was hope but was more likely to be Stockholm syndrome. The gambling had them prisoner, and as a result they’d learned to love the odds, despite the fact they were never in their favour.

Love your enemy, and it makes your suffering easier to bear.

Eventually you convince yourself you deserve to lose.

He made it to the roulette tables near the cashier desk and hovered there, pretending to be interested in whether the ball landed on red or black. There was something hypnotic about the dealer’s movements. A repetitive cycle — spin the ball, read out the number, sweep the losing chips into a slot in the table, pay out the winners. Make a little profit for the house each time. A twenty-four-hour game, played on and on, stripping civilians of money they couldn’t afford to lose.

King would never fully understand why the world worked the way it did.

Then the female attendant at the cashier’s desk skirted aside, replaced by an older, severe-looking woman who nodded knowingly to the lieutenant. But there was some detachment there, and King thought he knew why. This cop wasn’t yet in the know. Keith Ray and all his thugs had been gunned down, so new players had to enter the game. The cash couldn’t stop flowing, so the cogs in the chain had to be replaced.

This was the lieutenant’s trial run.

If it went well, he’d get a piece of the action for every cash drop he made in future.

Shame King had to do something about it…

Thankfully, the fact the cop knew nothing meant the process had to be spelled out to him, and therefore King by extension. The older woman jerked a thumb to the left, guiding