The Nightlife: Las Vegas (The Nightlife Series) (2 page)

Demarco didn’t bother to
answer.

“That bad eh?  Maybe you
should quit gambling?  They say that shit’s an addiction!”  Oso’s massive
shoulders and man boobs jounced up and down as he chuckled.  “Que mala suerte
tienes.” 
What bad luck you have
.

Oso was one of the only men
working with Demarco who would ever dare tease him.  He outweighed the boss by
a good hundred pounds.  The strength of their five year working relationship
could withstand the occasional joke at Demarco’s expense, as long as no one
else was around.  He began to realize just how pissed off Demarco really was. 
He’d seen him like this several times before. 
Somebody’s gettin fucked up
hardcore
.  He wished he’d noticed before he opened his big mouth.  He found
it unwise to provoke the boss at times like this.

He tried to smooth it over.  “Just
say the word Jefe, whoever it is, we fuck em up.  Whatever it is, we’ll take
care of it.”  He waited, and waited some more, but Demarco didn’t respond. 
It
must be really bad
.  He hadn’t seen the boss this angry in a long time, not
since that idiot in Chicago tried setting up Demarco in a controlled buy FBI sting. 
Demarco caught on before it was too late––
barely
, and authorities found
the snitch dead in a dumpster a few hours later.  A very convenient overdose.

Oso tried one more time, “Who
is he?  Who we takin’ down?”

“We’re gonna find out right
now Essay!”  Demarco growled as he pounded on Kramer’s office door.

* * * *

James Kramer eyed Demarco
speculatively, wondering if there was any validity to his complaints about Aaron
Pilan’s poker game.  He wasted not a second pulling up the five separate
security video feeds with various angles of view on Aaron as he played at the
same table for the past three hours straight.  He zoomed in on Aaron from
multiple camera views, checking his ears, hands, eyes, his every move, twitch
and gesture.  At various points when Aaron turned to gaze at the surrounding
room Kramer switched to other camera angles to find a potential accomplice.

“There––see––right there––he
looked over there.  Check it out.”  Demarco hunched over the computer monitor.

Kramer hit three other camera
angles in the direction of Aaron’s line of sight.  Nothing, no one.

Demarco tapped the computer
screen repeatedly exclaiming, “There––check that out!”

No matter how many times they
tracked Aaron’s gaze to various parts of the casino floor, the result was
always the same––nothing.  It appeared Aaron played a straight game, albeit an
uncommonly skilled one.

He wasn’t overly concerned. 
The casino security and surveillance procedures made it virtually impossible to
cheat at any game. 
Probably a combination of dumb luck and some marginal
card playing skill accounted for Demarco’s losses
.

He had seen it all, having
worked in casino security for over twelve years.  “I understand how you feel,
but so far I haven’t found anything strange.”

However, the blond
accompanying Aaron was an entirely different story.  She had that unique factor. 
Kramer enjoyed his share of beautiful women.  And like all good things of
limited supply, he could never get enough where women were concerned.  Women
flocked to Vegas pursuing entertainment, sexual fulfillment, romance, riches,
work.  He could make a list of reasons as long as Vegas Boulevard that kept
them coming.

He looked over at Oso,
winked, then looked Demarco straight in the eye.  “I’ve set up an alert on
Aaron Pilan.  We’ll be watching his every move.  I haven’t seen anything yet,
but I’ll have the boys review the footage and see if they can catch something.”

Kramer spent a few more
moments digging through data.  “He’s not a cop or a Fed.  He doesn’t show up on
any of my databases.  He’s just a kid from New York.  Gettin awful lucky though,
eh?”

“Luck’s got nothing to do
with it,” Demarco grumbled.

Kramer pointed at the screen.
“But check out the blond.” 
She merited some special attention
.  “Look
at that body.  She’s something else.  I’ll bet she takes it in the ass, too.  That
one can handle whatever you dish out.  Now,
she’s
casing the room.”

He had watched Michelle’s
comings and goings from the casino floor several times over the past three
weeks.  She flirted outrageously, and the men flocked to her.  She invited it. 
He had watched her being propositioned repeatedly.  He took notice of the one
time she followed two men up to their room, leaving an hour or so later.  He
knew the score.  She was up for rent, for sale by the hour, one of the
multitudes of escorts found in Las Vegas.

“You want me to give her some
special attention?  I can
hook
her if you like.”  Demarco offered with a
knowing smirk.  “She’s just your type, and the new product from last week packs
a real punch.”  The high purity china white heroin they dealt in was so
addictive that a girl could be easily
hooked
in one or two nights of
partying.

Kramer admitted, “Be a shame
to let an ass like hers get away.  I think that’s a wonderful idea.”  He
smiled.

Demarco smiled back.

A new agreement had been
formed.  It wasn’t anything they hadn’t done before.  Demarco had
hooked
several
different women at his insistence.

Kramer drummed his fingers on
the desk thinking, then shot a look of consideration at Demarco.  “How about I
invite them to a VIP dinner here at the hotel.  Let me get a feel for Pilan.  And
we’ll go from there.”

Demarco sat up all attention.
 “And you’ll let us take care of the punk when the time is right?”

He thought long and hard.  They
shared expenses and profits in the cocaine import trade, but he remained
conveniently detached from Demarco’s back-alley methods of problem solving.  “I
really can’t be tied to that sort of
thing
.”

“If you want
her
, you
gotta get rid of
him
.”  Demarco stabbed his finger at the image of Aaron
Pilan frozen on the security monitor.

“Look, let’s do this a step
at a time.  We’ll talk about it again after I meet them.  Let me find out what
makes him tick.”

Demarco and Oso nodded
reluctantly in unison.  It wasn’t an easy sell.  Kramer sensed Demarco’s barely
contained rage.  But he knew his partner would keep a cool head as long as
there remained the potential to get what he wanted so badly.

“I appreciate your help, but
I think you’re gonna find out I’m right.  And if you want my help with her, I
need your cooperation with him.”  Demarco had just modified the agreement.

They eyed each other for a
moment. 
We’ll see about that. 
He felt confident he could work his
magic on Michelle and pull her out of Aaron’s sphere of influence without
Demarco’s ‘help’. 
Enough of this shit, on to more important business
.

“Alright then, Juan Carlos
will be here in two days.  We’ve agreed on twenty thousand per kilo.  He says
its premium grade uncut product.  We’ll have to see for ourselves when he
arrives, but I think we can trust him on that point.  We’re taking delivery of
five kilos for now.  I assume you can move that all at once with your crew in
Chicago?”

“Of course, but we’re gonna
cut it first.”  Demarco stated the obvious.

“I assumed as much.”  Kramer
nodded.

“We should get at least eight
kilos by the time its cut.  If the price is right we can unload it all in one
shot.  What kinda price did you have in mind?”

He who mentions price
first loses
.  He put it back on
Demarco.  “What do you think they’ll pay?”

“I’d say we should expect
twenty-five thousand apiece if we want them motivated enough to take all eight. 
That leaves enough value on the table for them.  I think we could hold out for
more money with a little patience, maybe sell them individually for thirty
thousand each.”

He shook his head.  Only
fools sit on their product for a couple thousand more.  He always went for the
quick buck, unload the product immediately.  A smaller profit right now was far
better than a larger profit later, less hassles and bullshit, less risk.

“No, I’m good with selling it
at twenty five a kilo if they take it all.  That’s two hundred thousand minus
the hundred we paid Juan Carlos.  Minus ten thousand to your driver, we catch
ninety thousand.  Forty-five apiece.  Not bad for a couple days effort.”

* * * *

Aaron received the invitation
at the door of their hotel suite, reading it over while Michelle changed her
clothes.

“We have been cordially
invited to a special dinner for VIP guests, where we will be introduced to
hotel management and learn about VIP platinum privileges,” he announced
frowning.

“Your success in the casino has
attracted too much attention,” Michelle yelled out the bathroom door.  “We left
New York to get away from the attention, and now you bring it again with these
imbéciles
at the poker table.”  She had lectured him repeatedly
from day one of their strange relationship.  Attention equaled trouble ––
deadly trouble.

They emigrated from New York
to Las Vegas three weeks ago, to avoid the mere possibility of attracting
attention.  Their disastrous confrontation with two of New York’s finest had
become a smoking hot investigation.  They were supposed to be lying low.

“I warned you.”  She’d been
on him for days about being
too good
at poker.  He’d won over $300,000
on the high-stakes Texas Holdem’ tables in only three weeks’ time.  The dealers
all knew him on a first name basis.

From the tenor of her
thoughts, he knew she wouldn’t let this slide by without an I-told-you-so. 
“Now they know we are here.  I assure you they are watching.  There is no such
thing as privacy in Las Vegas.  
Ils te passeront aux cribles
.”

He couldn’t be a hundred
percent certain, but he thought she said something about them going over his
ass with a fine tooth comb.  Technically, she led and he followed.  As boss,
Michelle preferred a quiet unobtrusive nightlife.

Time to change the subject
.  “What do you think?  Should we attend this VIP
thing?”  He spoke to her backside as she shimmied out of her skin tight jeans.  She
revealed an enticing set of curves split by a rosy pink freshly shaved center. 
She rarely wore underwear.

He fought the urge to impale
her right then and there, bending her over the bathroom sink pounding her ‘till
she screamed his name.  Another urge took precedence –– the need to feed. 
That’s what he kept telling himself as his erection strained to escape his
pants.  She could make him hard in five seconds flat with that fabulous view.  Michelle
had an ass to die for.

“I think it will be good to
meet people.  We are so new here.  If we choose to stay, we will need some
contacts.”  She looked back over her shoulder with a spark of arousal in her
vivid green eyes.

Through the psychic bond they
shared, emotions and thoughts dashed back and forth between them.  She clearly
read his desire to bury himself in her deep and hard.  He knew she considered
taking a few moments to catch a satisfying pounding from her slave-lover.  Aaron
envisioned his rock hard cock sliding up in from behind.   She licked her lips
savoring his mental picture.  This was the beauty of their deeply intimate
psychic bond––the silent communication could be extremely intense.

This was one of several
facets of their unusual relationship.  He’d met her barely five weeks ago, and
that fateful meeting changed the course of both their lives forever.  Fatally
wounded by a stray shot from a crooked police officer, he would have died if
not for the introduction of Michelle’s blood into his system.

A whole shit-ton of unintended
consequences accompanied her rash decision to save his life.  Psychically bonded
to Michelle, she was now his
master
.  Though they were complete
strangers at the time, they had learned to deal with this level of intimacy, to
actually enjoy it.  Things progressed quickly.  Affections bloomed, aggressions
exploded, two NYPD detectives were brutally murdered, and now they were here in
Vegas, a neat, new couple happily in love.

And his hunger for blood
demanded satisfaction.

His colorful imagination
refused to cooperate with his thirst.  In his mind’s eye, he continued to
ravish Michelle’s behind as she bent over completely, touching her toes.

“Just a quick one?”  She
taunted with her tongue flicking in and out provocatively.

She reached back and slid her
finger in between her thighs to tease, exposing her wet inner folds in further
invitation.  She wasn’t playing fair, but then she never did.  Michelle read
Aaron’s steadfast insistence to feed rather than fuck, along with his desire to
enjoy the concert compliments of Caesar’s Palace.

She stood up and stuck her
pouty bottom lip out in disappointment.  “Are you sure you want to see this
concert?  Is so loud! 
J’ai mal à la tête
.
 I get the bad head!”