Chapter 125 Sucker Punch

Chapter 125 Sucker Punch
POV: ELI
He was already moving when Pam burst through the revolving doors.
"She still needs to finish Barry's admission form," Pam said, falling into step beside him. "You have to go to the MGM. Burnham's there with the Feds. If we wait for her, we lose Russell and there's no one to arrest."
Eli looked at the doors. "Let's go."
The arrest went exactly as planned.
Russell's face when he saw the empty vault. Felipe stepping out of the shadow with the nine millimeter. The cops and Feds filing in behind Burnham. Russell's wrists in cuffs. The Miranda rights delivered with the particular satisfaction of a man who had waited a long time to say them.
"Manufacturing and distribution of prohibited substance," Burnham said. "And I am also here to inform you that you are a fugitive from justice in the state of Louisiana. For the murder of Earl Havens."
Russell laughed. "A forty-year-old cold case? Your only evidence is the lack of it."
"Your fingerprint matched the one lifted from the barrel," the Fed said. "Forensic science has come a long way in forty years."
The cuffs went on. Russell stopped in front of Eli on his way to the door.
"This is round one," Russell said. "I have a Havens trinity under my belt. This is far from over."
Eli reached into his breast pocket and pressed something into Russell's jacket. "Keep that. It's a replica. The real Scarface is at the Mob Museum." He tilted his head. "Oh. Right. You can't."
Russell held his stare. "We'll see."
They took him out.
Eli watched until the elevator doors closed. Then he took out his phone and dialed Palomino's number.
Out of coverage area. Please try again later.
He dialed Jake.
"Just dropped Jerry at the Obsidian Ace," Jake said before the second ring finished.
"Brigail. Do you know where she is?"
A pause. "Isn't she with Pally?"
"Still in the basement. Stay at the North." He hung up and tried Thompson's line.
Four rings. Voicemail.
He tried Palomino again.
Same mechanical voice.
He picked up speed through the hallway. Felipe jogged to keep alongside him.
"Problem?" Felipe asked.
"I can't reach her."
That was enough. Felipe said nothing else.
The elevator doors opened and Pam stepped out.
"I've been trying to call you," she said.
"We're going to the Mandalay." He stepped into the lift. "Get in."
They reached the ground floor and moved through the lobby. Almost two in the morning. A few guests drifting toward the casino. Staff changing shifts. His phone buzzed in his hand.
Incoming call from the Obsidian Ace tower.
"Michealson," he answered.
"Boss." Jimmy's voice had the specific register it took when something was wrong and he was trying not to say so directly. "You with Brigail?"
"No."
"I intercepted a 911 from the Mandalay. Manager reporting a breach. Possible robbery in progress at the vault."
The lobby kept moving around him. He stopped.
"Did you check the surveillance?" he said.
"First thing. Only eight people entered the basement since six tonight. Three night guards. Two guards, a nurse, Brigail, and Pally. Nobody else." A pause. "I ran the full 48-hour tape. Same thing. Three in, three out on the guard rotation. I called Pally and JT after the 911. JT said no alarm was raised. Pally confirmed the same from the basement."
Eli pinched the bridge of his nose. "Run it again from this morning."
"Already did, boss."
Pam and Felipe were forming a quiet perimeter around him, blocking him from the sight lines of passing staff.
"I think I know what this is," Felipe said.
Eli looked at him.
"Seven years ago. MGM vault. Cleaned out completely, never made the news. Russell and Victor staged the entire thing. Victor laundered the money. I cooked the books so Russell could maximize the insurance claim. No thieves, no alarm, no evidence." He paused. "A 911 from the manager with no disturbance inside. Russell's desperate. He got away with it once."
Eli nodded at Felipe. "Call Sandy. Ask her about the Mandalay vault coverage."
He pressed his own phone back to his ear. "Jimmy. Keep the basement feed up. Can you see her?"
A pause that lasted too long. "I lost her when she followed Barry to the basement parking lot. There's no surveillance down there."
Of course. Russell's Chariot ground. He would never install cameras there.
"Other exits?"
"One door from the basement to the hotel. No elevator from the parking lot. Four exit ramps for vehicles, one access ramp separated from the rest." A pause. "One vehicle in and out since midnight. The ambulance from the paraplegic center."
Felipe was already on his phone. He held it out to Eli a moment later.
"Sandy," Eli said.
"Are you certain it's staged?" She didn't wait for confirmation. "That's the problem. If Russell wanted insurance fraud, he'd hit the MGM vault. Everyone in the industry knows the Mandalay vault is effectively decorative. Chips and petty cash for the tables. Nothing of real value."
Eli felt the cold start moving through him from somewhere in his chest outward.
"What if he claims Brigail changed the protocol after she signed the new contract?"
"She can't do that. An actuary was present at the signing. The insurance firm assesses the asset value of the hotel at every change of ownership." Sandy paused. "I know for a fact that Russell was bribing the firm's physician for a clean bill of health."
"Why."
"Because Russell's life insurance was pegged to the company." A silence. Then her voice came back different. Slower. "Eli. The firm only covers the life insurance of the CEO."
He heard her say it.
He understood what it meant.
The phone left his hand before he registered letting go of it. He heard it hit the marble floor. He did not pick it up.
He stood in the lobby of the MGM Grand at two in the morning and understood what he had missed.
Russell had not been slow playing at the poker table because he had a strong hand. He had been buying himself minutes. Keeping Eli in the room. Keeping him watching the wrong board while the real game happened in a basement with no cameras and one exit and a woman who was worth considerably more to Russell dead than alive.
The Mandalay vault had nothing in it.
Brigail was the vault.
The break-in was the cover story for what came next. A robbery gone wrong. A tragic casualty. An insurance payout to the new CEO that would go directly to Russell the moment Susannah Edgington's estate was processed.
Russell had looked at his watch three times at the poker table. He had been waiting for the call that confirmed she was in position.
Not staging a robbery.
An assassination.
"Eli." Pam's voice reached him from somewhere that felt very far away.
He turned and walked to the doors.
"Get the car," he said. His voice came out completely level, which surprised him, because nothing else was.
Roman was already at the entrance with the engine running before Eli reached the revolving door.
He got in.
"Mandalay," he said.
The car moved.
He pressed his palm against the door and stared at the strip going past the window, all that light and motion, all that perpetual Vegas noise, and thought about a girl in a black dress in a basement with no cameras and one exit and a nurse he had never authorized and an ambulance that had already come and gone.
He had planned for everything.
He had not planned for this.
The car accelerated.