DOUBLE MINT (12 page)

“Is there another way out of here?”

Fantasy’s head darted around. The three doors in front of us led to the dining room,
where the bankers were having dessert and someone at a microphone was keynote addressing
them. To our right was the main kitchen, but it was the long way. On our left was
nothing but solid wall.

“Doesn’t look like it,” I said. “We’ll have to go through the dining room.”

We slipped in quietly, hugging the back wall, until I spotted a very familiar face.
One I’d grown up with. Cooter Platt. I stopped cold to make sure it was him, and Fantasy
ran into me. What in the world was Cooter Platt doing here? A man seated at one of
the banquet tables asked Fantasy if he could have more coffee.

“No,” she said. “You’ve had enough.”

Clearing the dining room, we made our getaway. We ran past Megan with the braces,
down the wide conference corridor, thump thump, bounced down the moving escalator
skipping steps until we reached the casino, sprinted through it, then took the lobby
staircase two steps at a time to the mezzanine level, where we dashed around Scoops,
the ice cream shop, scanned ourselves into the Super Spy elevator, raced down the
dark hall, and only after we’d coded ourselves into our 3B offices did we stop for
air.

My phone was on the table in front of us, the screen busted into an intricate spider
web—thank you, rotten Apple—and under it, a note:
Dammit, Davis.

I passed the note to Fantasy. She read it and said, “Ouch,” then she sent her banquet
beret sailing across the room. After ten minutes of total silence, we dragged our
sorry feet into Control Central, where I reached in a bottom file drawer and got a
new phone from the stash.

I bit the cellophane off the box, then hacked Verizon—if they ever track me down,
I’m dead meat, because I hack them all the time—deactivated the busted one, and activated
the new one, saving myself an afternoon at the phone store.

“Let me see your phone, Fantasy.”

“Why?”

She had a brand new phone, and not because she destroyed them on a regular basis like
me. Her phone was the size of an unabridged dictionary, did everything but sweep the
porch, and she was protective of it. With me anyway. Understandable, given my phone
history.

“I want to see the pictures of the men in black.”

“I’ll send them to you.”

Rolling my chair to a computer with the energy of a flea, a flea who had the flu,
a flea who had the flu and her flea husband was fed up with her, I logged in to see
emails flying in.

“How many pictures did you take?”

She looked up from her phone. “I didn’t. I shot video.” She shook her phone. “Sixty
frames a second,” she said, “so I think I’m sending about five thousand pictures.”

“Well, stop.” The emails fell all over each other as my inbox tried to keep up. “Click
through there and find the best shots you can of the three men and send those.”

She used her thumb and forefinger to push and pull the screen, poking this, prodding
that, then sent three high resolution photographs straight to the printer. I rolled
back and caught them.

“How’d you get such good pictures?”

She shook her dictionary phone and smiled.

“How’d you get the air vent lines out?”

“Picasa,” she said. “Editing software.”

I scanned them into the Bellissimo system to see who these guys were. Not surprisingly,
they were Paragon Protection’s tech crew. Our surveillance caught them riding the
escalator to the conference level several times Sunday, the day they checked in, then
again on Monday morning, loitering around the conference reception area.

“They’re the ones who were waiting on Christopher Hall,” I said.

“They started all of this,” she said.

“Magnolia Thibodeaux started all of this.”

“Pitiful,” Fantasy said. “You’re pitiful.”

We were up to Monday afternoon when surveillance caught them in the casino, but not
together. They were scattered along the main aisle. Watching the contents of the Bellissimo
vault being rolled through by waiters. More shots of them, later Monday afternoon,
with a very familiar face. My husband’s. As he accompanied them into the cash room.

The three-man Paragon tech crew who installed and rigged the Mint Condition machines
was the same three-man Paragon tech crew who inspected the Bellissimo vault.

“Keep watching, Fantasy.” I logged onto another computer. “If you see them interacting
with anyone, freeze the shot. Tell me what they ate for breakfast and follow them
to the men’s room. We need to know every step they’ve taken since they walked in the
door.”

I didn’t have names or fingerprints. Just photos. Scanning them into any national
database with nothing but their square jaws, wide foreheads, and crooked noses would
take forever and a day.

“What else can your Picaso do, Fantasy?”

“Picas
a
,” she didn’t look up from the monitor. “These men spend more than half their time
with Conner Hughes, the Paragon Protection man, and Picasa can do anything.”

“Go back to your phone,” I said.

“And what?”

“Something, anything. Find me one of these guys with a distinguishing characteristic,
some kind of identifying marker. I need a scar, a missing tooth, a third eyeball.”

She pulled her phone to her nose and began poking. “Uh-oh.” She flipped her phone
around. “I got tats.”

“Yeah?”

“Prison tats.”

I rolled my chair closer to her. “How’d you do that?”

“X-ray.”

“You can see through their clothes?”

“Not straight through, but enough.” She tilted her phone. “See the tattoos on this
guy’s hands and neck? They’re covered with something, makeup. Picasa can filter out
makeup.”

That’s terrifying.

Where was I?

Prison tats.

I scanned their tattooed mugs into the National Criminal Database. Ten minutes later,
I got a hit on one. I asked for his known associates and found the other two. All
convicted criminals. Between the three men, they had eight convictions. All burglary
or burglary related. All banks. The longest stretch had been a nickel, the other two
had done three years each. Model prisoners, all three.

“Damn.” Fantasy read over my shoulder as I scrolled through the three men’s records.
“No robbery. Just burglary. What’s up with that?”

I tore my eyes from the monitor. “They didn’t go in when the banks were open, Fantasy.
They broke in when the banks were closed. It’s burglary because their crimes didn’t
involve victims.” When a bank is robbed, masked gunmen endanger others by blasting
in with Uzis at high noon on payday, and everyone has to hit the floor. When a bank
is burglarized, it’s the dead of night, or Sunday morning, and the perpetrators aren’t
charged with endangering human lives. Just burglary.

“We need to find them on the property,” I said. “I’ll check surveillance in the hotel.
You check the casino.”

Two sets of hands clicked across keyboards.

“Found them.” Fantasy won.

I rolled my chair to her screen and watched as the three convicted vault thieves entered
the count room on their way to the Bellissimo vault. With my husband.

Thirteen

Contrary to all
Ocean
movies and general public perception, casinos keep the money in the bank like everyone
else. Most casinos gather it and pass it off to armored trucks at odd and varying
hours, then the trucks take it to the bank where it’s deposited. This isn’t exactly
how we do it, but in general, that’s how it’s done. Which is not to say casinos don’t
have vaults. We all do. But there isn’t anywhere near as much currency in a casino
vault as people imagine. It’s also a myth that casinos keep enough money on hand to
cover every bet on the floor. That would be tens of millions of dollars, if you factor
in the possibility of thousands of slot machines hitting synchronized jackpots (never
gonna happen) (although it would be fun) (for the players) (not so fun for the casino),
so no. It’s not true.

One closely held secret is where casino vaults are located. I’ll tell you where ours
is, but don’t get any bright ideas. And if you do, bring your scuba gear, because
the only way to get to it is by water. The vault is under the casino, which means
it’s submerged, because the Bellissimo casino is built on barges. Our casino is built
on three huge semi-submersible barges. They’re two hundred feet wide and two hundred
feet long, ten feet deep, and they’re anchored by steel pipe piles that run one hundred
and twenty feet into the Mississippi Sound. (A Mississippi law, amended after Hurricane
Katrina, but alive and well when the Bellissimo was built—Mississippi casinos had
to be on water.) (Dockside gambling.)

The only operating vault at the Bellissimo today came with one of the barges. It’s
a concrete cavity built by Paragon Protection and dropped below the floor into one
of the barges. So to get to it, you’ll have to swim. Then get through the perimeter
cage (think shark tank), at which point you’ll be electrocuted, along with all marine
life in the Gulf, and even then, you’re not in the vault. You still have to penetrate
twenty-four-inch thick precast concrete walls all the way around, with sensors that
alert half of Mississippi if a tadpole gets too close.

A better bet for today’s burglar would be the count room. Behind the main cage in
the casino is a room where cash is constantly on the move, being counted, banded,
then sent out the front door to the main cage or downstairs to the vault. Money goes
to the main cage in bags or in a till; it goes to the vault in a box built to withstand
an atomic blast. After the box is (full) sealed, it takes a heavily documented and
witnessed ride to the vault, directly below the count room, and stays there all of
three minutes before it tunnels through a below-ground conduit system built by Paragon
Protection directly to the bank. If you think you can catch the money on the way to
the bank, think again, because you can’t dig ten feet under city streets without (hitting
a gas line) someone noticing.

Attention all thieves: It would be easier to break into the Antwerp Diamond Center
(Gem District, Antwerp, Belgium) than the Bellissimo vault, and chances are you’ll
only be arrested and convicted if you go for the diamonds. Set your sights on the
Bellissimo vault and you won’t get off so easily. You’ll be pushing up daisies.

There’s another way, the land way, and humans can get to the vault that way, certainly,
but only after going through the count room. The two doors into the count room are
trapdoors and the system is called mantrap. (Which I think is sexist.) When you enter
the first door, you’re alone inside four steel walls and the door in front of you,
which gets you into the count room, won’t unlock until the door behind you is locked.
If you get that far (which you won’t) and are deemed unauthorized, you won’t get any
farther, because you’ll be mantrapped. If you attempt count room entry and you aren’t
authorized, you sit there, mantrapped, until half of the badges in Mississippi are
in place and ready to untrap you, at which point you get cuffed and hauled off. Mississippi
has a zero tolerance policy for casino thieves.

Access is granted to the count room for Mr. Sanders and Bradley, a very few department
heads, and the dedicated security detail. The count and vault clerks, who are the
worker bees, the middle men, the money shufflers, are also granted entry, and they
all go through screening to get in and out like they work at the White House. Shoes,
keys, and jewelry in a bucket. No personal items, including cell phones, in or out.
Then the employees are x-rayed, weighed, and wanded all over. This happens every time
they clock in and every time they clock out.

Once cleared for entry, the count and vault clerks pull up currency and tokens from
the vault at the beginning of their shifts, verify its accuracy, then distribute it
to cash clerks, who pass it out to the cashiers, who allocate it out in the casino.
During their work day, the count clerks accept deposits from the same cashiers, who’ve
received it from the casino floor, then pass it to the vault clerks, who send it to
the vault. Back and forth, the same money, with the excess, of which there is a ton,
shooting through concrete tubes to the bank.

At the end of a count and vault clerk shift, they’re required to reconcile all these
transactions. They get to go home when everything balances to the penny, and for all
this effort, working in a box with two-way mirrors, cameras, and guns trained on them,
they make just above minimum wage. One of the lowest paid jobs in the casino. Go figure.

Two interesting things. The best count room heist ever was when a minimum wage vault
clerk dropped sealed vault bags stuffed with cash in the garbage can under her desk
all day, threw up in it, then happily carried out her own trash and they never saw
her again. (Not here. It happened in Atlantic City.) (Disgusting.)

Second interesting thing? The count room is where we found Baylor two years ago. We
needed an additional warm body in a hurry and to save the time of vetting someone,
No Hair nabbed Baylor from security detail in the count room, where he guarded the
vault entrance.

So on this day, the last Tuesday in July, a day I believed my husband to be in mortal
danger, I called Baylor.

“I need in the vault.”

“What?”

“Baylor. Listen up. I need to get into the vault. Tell me how to get into the vault.”

“You can’t,” he said. “No one can get into the vault.”

“Bradley’s in the vault, Baylor, with criminals.”

“What?”

“How can I get to him?” I was hot and I was cold. I couldn’t blink. I tried to, I
couldn’t.

“Call the count room and they’ll get him for you.”

Fantasy grabbed the phone from me. “She tried that, Baylor. The count room won’t put
her through. Please tell her there’s no way to get in the vault.” She listened, batting
me off, then said, “We’ll see you when you get back.”

“Fantasy!
What
?”

“Davis, calm down and sit down.” She demonstrated. She sat down, crossed her legs,
gently placed my new phone beside her on the sofa and said, “I’ll talk to you when
you settle down.”

I was at her mercy for the information Baylor had given her, so I sat down across
from her, my heart in my throat, and started counting. Ten, nine, eight—if I got to
one, I’d shoot her.

“You need to get a grip.” This is how she talks to her sons. “First of all, the vault
is empty. There’s nothing to steal. Second, there are armed guards carrying Ruger
assault rifles with him, Davis, and Bradley is safe.”

She rose, crossed to the refrigerator, reached in, and pulled out two bottles of water.
She opened hers and poured it down her throat. I moved mine around on my face.

“I trust you, Davis.” She screwed the lid on the empty bottle. “You know I do. But
you need to settle down. Yes, there’s something going on. Yes, we need to figure out
what it is. And we will. But right now, you’re crossing the line between business
and personal. You need to get your head on straight.”

“You’re right. I’ve crossed the line. It’s very personal. It’s my husband. I’m going,
Fantasy. Right now. Are you in or out?”

Conflict worked its way across her face. “When this is done, Davis, don’t say I didn’t
warn you.”

“What did Baylor say?”

“He said you could get in the count room if they think you’re Bianca.”

* * *

I sprayed myself Honey Kiss Bianca Blonde and dressed (Helmut Lang—cropped black sleeveless
turtleneck over skinny black mini mini skirt, bare legs, and Zenith back-zip leather
six-inch sandals), in record time. Then I beat on the door of the count room, demanding
to see my diamonds.

A count clerk looked through the security window. “Mrs. Sanders?”

Two minutes later, I was mantrapped. I can get away with looking like Bianca Sanders
seven days a week, but I didn’t win rounds two or three, retina scans and fingerprint
matches. The minute I was mantrapped, the vault automatically locked down. With Bradley,
Conner Hughes, and the three men in black in it. As I would learn later, the gorillas
with assault rifles did their jobs and held the five men, including my husband, at
gunpoint until the all’s clear signal came from above.

Bradley was told that a woman trying to pass herself off as Bianca Sanders had tried
to breach the count room. They didn’t take the gun off my husband until I was safely
tucked in the back of a squad car and all said and done, cash room security is impressive.

Fantasy, dressed like a high roller in a Jean Paul Gaultier strapless gypsy dress,
waited for me just outside the count room door in VIP Player Services, where if she
angled just right, she had a sliver of a view of the cash room door. She dragged out
an application for an outrageously large casino marker for twenty minutes and when
she couldn’t stretch it out one more minute and I still hadn’t come out the door,
she pinged my phone and found me on my way to the city jail on Porter Avenue. She
snagged Austin Burgess, the head of the Bellissimo legal team, and together they explained
the “misunderstanding” when I was midway through intake, just about to be booked.

Fantasy got nose to nose with the booking officer. “Do you really want to arrest Bianca
Sanders? You better give it some thought, young man. You better think about your future.”

“But they said this
wasn’t
Bianca Sanders.”

Fantasy spun around. “Bianca?”

I pointed a finger at the booking officer, swirled an air circle aimed at his nose,
and said, “Die, police person.”

They let me go.

We rode back to the Bellissimo in Austin’s Buick Enclave. I sat in the back seat with
his dry cleaning, two umbrellas, and a twenty-five pound bag of Old Roy dog food.
He drove like my grandmother, gunning it, then backing off, gunning it, then backing
off. Lurch forward, slam back.

“Sorry, Mrs. Sanders.” Sweat rolled down Austin’s pale face. “Ooops. My bad, Mrs.
Sanders.” This, when he was checking me out in the rearview mirror and veered into
oncoming traffic.

Fantasy patted his arm. “Calm down, Austin. This isn’t her first trip to jail.”

I searched for a seatbelt under the dry cleaning. “Not a word of this to Richard,
Austin.” When I spoke to him directly, his foot must have slipped and he floorboarded
it, almost running us under a casino-hopper mini bus.

“Really, Austin.” Fantasy pushed buttons until she had the air full blast, then pointed
the vents at Austin’s face. “Settle down. It’s her own fault she was arrested. She
dresses like a prostitute.”

Which gave Austin a small choking fit.

“Pull this thing over. I’m driving.” She turned to the back seat. “This is your fault,
Bianca.”

“This is Baylor’s fault.” Baylor always leaves out the details. Like retinas and fingerprints.

Back at the Bellissimo, security swarmed. Radios buzzed with the good news that the
First Lady had been located. I was escorted to the Executive Offices. When I walked
into the casino manager’s office, his secretary gave me the uh-oh/good-luck look.

“Sit.” The casino manager pointed.

The clock ticked for a full five minutes. This is how it feels on the chopping block,
in the plane going down, at cheerleading tryouts. Then I caught him checking out my
legs. I didn’t consider how short this skirt was when I put it on.

The first thing I “didn’t need to know,” according to Bradley, was that the three
convicted burglars I thought were trying to kill him in the vault were actually
on
the Paragon payroll, as contract consultants and technicians. They did their time
and now they made a living showing one of the nation’s largest suppliers of banking
security how to render their products and services even more secure.

“Conner Hughes trusts those men, Davis. He doesn’t take a single step without them.”

“And you knew this?”

“I’m talking, Davis. You’re listening.”

Another thing I “didn’t need to know” was the money inside Mint Condition was, as
per the agreement Holder Darby made with the Gaming Commission on behalf of the Bellissimo
and in conjunction with Paragon Protection for the Independent Bankers of Alabama
Conference, genuine. Real money. Federal Reserve issue.

My actions had forced him to stop what he’d been doing, come clean with Conner Hughes
about his trigger-happy in-house investigation team, and the results, he presented
to me, indicated Paragon Protection was following every rule to the letter in every
way, and the only problem, according to Bradley, was
me
.

“We’re lucky you weren’t thrown in the back of a patrol car and hauled off to jail,”
he said, as mad as he’s ever been at me, “and no, I won’t be home tonight. I’ll be
at dinner with Conner Hughes cleaning up the mess you made.”

Working together, after today’s events, he told me, was something we’d need to have
a long talk about when he got home tonight. I blinked back tears. Up to that point
I sat there and took it, but with that, I got misty.