The Collectors

“Hey, honey, you don’t have to do that,” Bagger said. “You’re really pretty, how do you say, bonita! That’s right. Muy bonita, bitch.” He motioned to one of his men. This gent picked up Carmela, carried her over to the open window and tossed the lady out.

They all listened to one long scream and then a thud.

Bagger picked up the glass of orange juice on the tray and drank it down in one long gulp. He wiped his mouth with a napkin and said, “I drink orange juice every day. You know why? It’s got a ton of calcium. I’m sixty-six, but do I look it? Hell no! Feel this muscle, Tony, go ahead and feel it.” Bagger flexed his right biceps. Tony, however, seemed paralyzed.

Bagger feigned surprise. “Why so upset? Oh, because of the bitch going out the window? Don’t worry about that.” He looked at the man who’d done the tossing. “Hey, Mike, you aimed for the swimming pool, right, like in that James Bond movie? Which one was that again?”

“Diamonds Are Forever, Mr. Bagger,” Mike said promptly.

Bagger smiled. “That’s right, Diamonds Are Forever. Damn, I love that James Bond shit. That’s the one with what’s-her-name in the teeny bikini where you can see her butt crack. Stephanie Powers?”

“Jill St. John, Mr. Bagger,” Mike corrected politely.

“Right, right, I always get those two broads mixed up. Bitches look just alike when they ain’t got nothing on. Go figure.”

“I didn’t quite make the pool with the lady, Mr. Bagger,” Mike admitted.

“But you tried, Mike, you tried, that’s the important thing.” He turned back to Tony. “That’s the most important thing, right, Tony?”

Tony was obviously too horrified to speak.

“Besides, it’s better this way, because the two old folks downstairs? You’re not gonna believe this, they just keeled over and died when we walked in. And there’s no way a pretty little thing like that bonita bitch could’ve kept up a big place like this all by herself. I look at it as a favor what we did, don’t you, Tony?”

Tony nodded with great difficulty.

“Now feel my muscle. I want you to feel the strength I got in this body.”

Not waiting for Tony to take the initiative, Bagger grabbed his hand and pulled it over to his flexed biceps. “You feel how hard that is, Tony? Do you understand how strong I am now? You got a real good sense of that?”

Tony wailed, “Please don’t kill me, Mr. Bagger. Please. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Bagger gave Tony’s fingers a crushing grip and let them go. “Come on, don’t do that, apologies make a man look weak. Besides, it was a great scam, really first-rate. Everybody in the whole gambling world knows that you guys put one over on my ass to the tune of forty mil.” Bagger looked away and drew a deep, calming breath, apparently trying hard to keep from dismembering the young man with his bare hands, at least for a few more minutes.

“But first, let’s get one important thing squared away. I want you to ask me how I found you. I want you to know how smart I am and how fucking dumb you are. So ask me, Tony, how did I track you down, with all the places you could’ve gone in the whole freaking world after ripping me off?” Bagger grabbed ahold of Tony’s slender neck and jerked him close. “Ask me, you little prick.” A vein throbbed in Bagger’s temple.

Tony said haltingly, “How did you find me, Mr. Bagger?”

Bagger slammed a forearm into Tony’s shallow chest, knocking him back against the bed. Then the casino chief stood and paced. “I’m glad you asked me that. See, the bitch who ran the scam, she had you watching me that first night to make it look like I was under surveillance. Now, the only way to look into my office is to get a room on the twenty-third floor of the hotel across from my casino. So I go over there and make some inquiries about who occupied any rooms on that floor on that day that looked out onto my place. And I checked out every single person on that list.”

He stopped pacing and grinned at Tony. “Until I found you. You were smart not to use your own name at the hotel, but you made a slip that the bitch and her sidekick didn’t. That’s why I couldn’t track them down, ’cause they left nothing behind.” Bagger wagged a finger at him. “But you, you went and got a massage, because I checked on that. And you hit on the chick that gave you the rubdown, looking for a little action on the side. But you didn’t last too long with the lady and then ran into the bathroom to puke your guts out. While you were in there the bitch rolled your wallet and took some cash to add to the lousy C-note you gave her for popping early. And that’s where she saw the driver’s license with your real name. It was pretty dumb to keep it in there, Tony.

“So while you thought the BJ only cost you a hundred bucks, you can see the price tag really turned out to be a whole lot more. And the lowlife told me everything I needed to know for a lousy grand. Don’t ever trust the bitches, Tony, they’ll screw you every time, and don’t I know it.”

He sat back down next to Tony, who was now quietly sobbing. “You got a rep, young man. Gadget boy, do anything with a computer. Like putting spy shit on my bank wiring system and stealing forty million of my money. I mean, that’s talent. So anyway, I greased a lot of palms, checked your friends, your family, traced some calls you made back home, killed a few uncooperative people, and now I find myself sitting here with you on the sunny coast of Spain or fucking Portugal or wherever the hell we are.” He slapped Tony’s bare leg.

“Okay, good, now I got that off my chest, we can move on.” He motioned to one of his men, who pulled a compact pistol out of his jacket holster, spun a suppressor on the muzzle, chambered a round and handed it to Bagger.

“No, please, no,” Tony whimpered before Bagger silenced him by jamming the pistol in the young man’s mouth, breaking his two front teeth in the process.

Bagger wedged a forearm against Tony’s windpipe, holding him down on the bed and sliding his finger near the trigger.

“Okay, Tony boy, here’s the drill. You get one chance at this. One chance,” he repeated slowly. “And it’s only because I feel generous. Why, I don’t know. Maybe I’m mellowing in my old age.” He paused, licked his lips and said, “The bitch. I want her name and everything else you know about her. You tell me that, you get to live.” He looked around the cavernous bedroom. “Not here, not on my dime. But you get to live.