The stall smelled about the same as it always did – you’d think for a place that made its living on ensuring patrons came back, they’d do a better job of cleaning their washrooms.
I checked my watch again. Eight o’clock had come and gone quickly, and I’d hoped to hear the dead-drop before eight-thirty. It happened sometimes, but more often than not it was at least nine by the time I was able to open the door and get moving.
No one seemed to care that the stall was closed for hours, though it had taken me several months to get used to the fact that I wasn’t in any immediate danger. I preferred the casino beat to the protection racket I’d been on, overall, since it meant that I could get some reading done, but there was certainly an element of concern as I stayed huddled in my green metal enclosure.
The first few weeks had been the worst. Every time someone had come into the bathroom I felt my blood pressure rise, and my hand went instinctively to the tattoo on my right arm. It hadn’t been something I wanted, by any means, but it came with the job. No ink, no work, and this was about the only avenue I had upwards, unless I wanted to take out a hit on one of my less well-known superiors, That was costly, not to mention dangerous, since there was a good possibility the man I hired would be known to the establishment, and he might be willing to take a better offer, come back, and do the job to me instead.
Outside the stall, I heard the sound of clanging metal, and felt my body tense. Two equally-spaced bangs followed, and I started the countdown in my head. One hundred seconds later, I flushed the toilet, straightened my coat, and stepped outside. The washroom was empty, thankfully, and I moved quickly to the garbage can, a latex glove snapping into place as I reached into the dark metal enclosure. A quick pull and I drew out a thick pack wad of cash wrapped in brown paper, checked it over quickly to make sure it had no rips or tears, and then slipped it into my pocket.
Two minutes later and I was out the front door, no one inside the wiser. The Unit was up another $200,000, in large part thanks to me.
***
Three more weeks passed with no problems, and I’d started to get used to the rhythm and flow of the whole thing. I tried not to think too much about how the money was getting from the casino floor to me, since it had been made clear to me that the more I knew about things that weren’t my job, the bigger a liability I became, but I was naturally curious. My reading list started to angle toward some of the best literature about casino knock-overs and counting cards, and it didn’t take me long to come up with a plausible scenario for how the money was getting from players to the bathroom I was holed up in.
The real genius of the system wasn’t in how they were winning the cash or replacing chips with counterfeit versions, but that none of us running the money had any idea what the others doing the same looked like. I was fairly distinctive, thanks to a six-foot-four frame, a pockmarked face and a voice that was straight out of a horror movie. If any of the others saw me, they’d remember until one of the higher-ups decided to put a gun to their head.
I paused in my reading for a moment to stretch. A big man in a small stall made for an uncomfortable few hours, but I’d been told that I was to be inside with the door locked by 7pm every Wednesday, and that was exactly what I was going to do. The black t-shirt I had on rode up my arm as I let out a breath, and I caught sight of the ink I’d been compelled to get ground into my flesh. They’d at least allowed me to put the word in another language, but I still knew it meant “property”, and that made it difficult to take, no matter that no one else could read it. I understood the idea – excessive stress made the thing turn silver, and was usually tied to a guy getting caught doing what he wasn’t supposed to. Of course, guys who were more stressed than usual had a whole set of problems that I didn’t have to worry about, and they just had to find ways of managing their nonsense. I could rationalize my way out of most things, and if I got made, well, I knew what I had coming for me.
The clanging sound came at 8:30, and I was out the stall and into the garbage as soon as my one hundred seconds were up. Package firmly stashed, I slipped onto the casino floor and was halfway to the front doors when a hand caught my arm from behind.
He was a big man, but no one I’d ever seen before. From the skin tone and eye-shape I’d say Polynesian or Hawaiian, but I wasn’t about to ask him about his ancestry.
“What?” I grated. “You got some kind of problem?”
He didn’t say anything, but just stood there sweating, his floral-print shirt soaking through with sweat. It wasn’t that hot in the casino.
“What?” I said again, but he didn’t respond. The edge of his shirtsleeve had inched up as he pulled on my arm, and I could see a half-gold marking there, one that was changing to silver as I looked at it.
I cursed under my breath. He’d been made – and was smart enough to know that someone had to come out of the bathroom with his drop. Too bad he was dumb enough to get me involved.
Pulling him in close, I put my arm around him and let him out to the parking lot. This had become complicated.
- D
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