'Only in the biblical sense,' Nick said.
'What the hell is that supposed to mean?'
'It means it was a fling, no big deal,' he said. 'I didn't ask her to marry me or anything.'
'You two-timing, good-for-nothing prick!'
'Get away from him!' Sherry screamed at Nola.
'Make me, bitch!'
The two women met in the middle of the room, scattering everyone working at the master console. Sherry was in better shape and threw punches like she'd had lessons, while Nola was more of a scratch-and-pull kind of fighter. Within seconds, they were rolling around on the floor, tangled in each other's arms. Nick grabbed a fire extinguisher and doused them both with white foam.
'Don't just stand there,' he told Wily. 'Do something!'
Wily did. He grabbed Nick by the shoulders and spun him around. There were a hundred eighty-four monitors on the wall and each showed absolute bedlam downstairs. The Texan and pizza king were whupping their security boys good, the hustlers as skilled in the martial arts as they were in cheating at cards.
'Are we recording this?' Nick bellowed.
'I think so,' Wily said.
'You think so?' Nick stuck his head into the adjacent room, which housed the VCRs the monitors were hooked up to. Each machine had a red light on, indicating it was recording. Fontaine's gang was going to jail for a long time. He shut the door and locked it.
'Come on,' Nick said.
'What about the girls?' Wily asked.
Lying beneath the console, Sherry had gotten Nola in a half nelson and was systematically pulling out clumps of her hair, while Nola retaliated by biting her nemesis savagely in the bosom. That Sherry didn't feel it did not come as a surprise. Standing in the room's open doorway, Nick shrugged his shoulders.
Then he ran out.
Nick had never seen anything like it. Guys fighting guys, women fighting women, his employees trying to break up one fight while others erupted all around them. Chips and glasses and chairs were flying through the air; people were ruining his joint just for the hell of it. Nick had never understood the impulse, but he recognized it in others: the appetite for destruction.
He quickly marshaled his troops. First he commandeered a dozen dishwashers and his front desk staff, then the dealers who were on break or hiding. Each was given something solid to hold-golf clubs from the pro shop for the ladies, brooms and pool cues for the gents-and then sent into battle with these simple instructions: 'If they put up a fight, beat them into the ground.'
Nick's employees streamed into the casino. The craps table had been turned on its side by two dealers attempting to protect a rack of chips from a mob's greedy hands. With a handful of dishwashers backing him up, Wily descended on the mob, their war whoops sending shock waves through the casino.
It was Nick's distinction to have nothing but ladies in his gang. There was Betty, the sixty-year-old chip girl, and Louise, who ran Housekeeping and who claimed to have changed more of Nick's dirty sheets than his own mother. Over the years, he'd pissed off every single one of these women, yet every single one had stayed. They were his people, and as he led them toward the blackjack pit, a chant went up.
Nick, Nick, Nick.
At table fifteen the pizza king was kicking Karl and Leroy senseless. Clutching a Big Bertha, Nick moved in, swinging the driver around his head like a bolo. He hated guys who fought with their feet. You want to kick, take up tap dancing. He slammed the driver into the pizza king's back and sent him sprawling.
Nick, Nick, Nick.
'I'm just getting warmed up,' Nick told the crowd, charging to the other end of the pit. Several tables had been overturned, and the Texan was dancing around and karate-chopping his security men silly. He was Chuck Norris and Lethal Weapon rolled into one, and Nick wisely steered clear. Two tables away, he saw Wily pounding the daylights out of someone and he went to investigate.
It was Fontaine. Wily had pinned him to the table and was driving his right fist repeatedly into the hustler's face.
'Call the Texan off,' Wily said, drawing his fist back. 'Make him stop before he kills someone.'
'Fuck you,' Fontaine said.
'Get off him,' Nick said.
Wily did, and Nick grabbed Fontaine's ear and twisted until the skin turned a violent purple. The hustler fell to his knees in agony.
'You want me to tear it off?' Nick asked, being polite about it. 'I can do that. It's your call.'
'I can't call him off,' Fontaine cried, writhing beneath Nick's hand. 'He's an ex-con. Swears he won't go back to the joint. You're going to have to kill him.'
'That can be arranged,' Nick said. He released Fontaine's ear, then kicked him in the nuts for good measure. To Wily, he said, 'Sit on him!'
The pit boss complied. 'What are you going to do?'
'I'm going to get Joe,' Nick said.
His employees had gotten the mob under control, so Nick ran across his ravaged casino and ducked into One-Armed Billy's alcove. Just as he was paid to do, Joe Smith sat on his stool, looking bored out of his mind.
'How'd you like to get in on this action?' Nick asked.
Joe brightened. He was still young and in great shape, all seven feet and three hundred pounds of him, and he jumped off his stool like a sprinter coming out of the blocks.
'You mean that, Mr. Nicocropolis?' he said. 'You gonna let me break the rules?'
'I sure am. Come on.'
Joe was so conditioned to staying with Billy that Nick had to drag him out of the alcove. Once outside, he stiffened, his eyes traveling the length of the casino and coming to rest on the Texan, who was hopping around on one foot, like a crane.
'Who's that dude?' Joe snarled.
'The enemy. Think you can handle him?'
'Looks like a bird. Maybe I'd better pluck his feathers.'
Nick smiled gleefully. This was going to be great. Too bad Valentine was going to miss it, that dumb Jersey greaseball.
Mike Turkowski, ex-hockey player and bartender at Brother's Lounge, had been standing beside the Acropolis's notorious fountain for twenty minutes, staring into the casino with a pair of infrared binoculars no bigger than a cigarette pack. Over the years, he'd been involved in a dozen casino rip-offs, all of them successful, and one thing had been true with each. The last people the casinos called were the cops. No one trusted them, especially when large sums of money were lying around. Which made his job that much easier.
Mike brought his wristwatch to his face, noting the time with one eye: 10:14. Fontaine told him to wait until 10:20, and if the ruse didn't work, run. His car was parked across the street, a one-way ticket to Seattle in the glove box, a suitcase in the trunk. Leaving town without telling his friends didn't thrill him, but that was part of the business.
At 10:16, he saw Nick duck into One-Armed Billy's alcove. Only one guy in the whole world could move Joe Smith off his stool, and that was Nick Nicocropolis. Fontaine had called it perfectly.
Mike tossed the binoculars into the fountain and started walking toward the front entrance. He saw Nick and Joe Smith leave the alcove and run across the casino, just like Fontaine said they would. Pushing open the front doors, Mike slipped into Billy's empty alcove.
Taking five silver dollars from his pocket, Mike quickly fed them into the machine. Then he pulled the giant arm.
The reels flashed by, stopping on two watermelons and four lemons. Which was where the expression 'a lemon' came from. Taking a tennis ball from his pocket, Mike wedged it into the base of the arm so it could not spring back. From the sleeve of his jacket, he removed a pair of coat hangers and fitted them together in an L, then he bent a fishhook into one end. Kneeling, he inserted the hook into Billy's coin tray and shoved the hangers into the machine, his eyes fixed on Billy's twenty-six-million-dollar jackpot. Billy was insured by Lloyd's of London, and
