Take Down by James Swain

T-Bird was shorter, with pretty dreadlocks that bounced on his shoulders. They’d both played defensive end for the Pittsburgh Steelers and sported glittering Super Bowl rings.
    They took turns smacking Billy around. They were punishers and were paid by the casino to inflict pain upon unwanted guests, just as cocktail waitresses were paid to act nice. Being mean was their job, but they still didn’t have to hit Billy as hard as they did.
    Soon Billy’s ears were ringing. Somebody answer the phone. Tasting his own blood, he spit some onto his palm and held his arm out as if directing traffic. The beating stopped.
    “Keep hitting him,” Shaz ordered them.
    “I don’t want his blood on me. Little fucker might have AIDS,” Ike said.
    “Or ebola,” T-Bird said.
    “You’re both pathetic.” Looking into the ceiling camera, Shaz raised her arms as if to say, What now? Scant seconds later, her cell phone rang.
    “Follow me, girls,” she said.
    She went into the hall to take the call. The punishers dutifully followed.
    Billy sank into the plastic chair. He’d taken a few hits to the jaw, and he ran the tip of his finger across his teeth to see if they were still intact. To his surprise, they were all there.
    So much for small favors.
    Although his body hurt, he wasn’t scared. Soon the Metro LVPD would be summoned, and he’d be taken to the Clark County Detention Center and booked. There he’d be allowed to call his lawyer and post bail. He’d be a free man by morning, and he’d go home to his condo to lick his wounds and figure out how he was going to beat this rap.
    Cheating cases were hard to prove. Nevada juries would not convict unless there was clear videotape evidence of the crime. Billy was always aware of the cameras when he was making a play, and hid his actions. As a result, the times he’d been busted he’d always plea-bargained out and had to pay fines to the court. It was a small price to pay for all the money he’d stolen from the casinos.
    From the hallway came the sound of Shaz talking. He needed to find out how she’d made him for a cheater. His disguises had flown by the best security people in town, and it was going to bug him until he learned how she’d done it.
    The unholy trio returned. A smelly towel was thrown in his face. He wiped away the blood, thinking the storm had passed.
    A minute later, he learned otherwise.

    They took an elevator to an unfinished fourteenth floor of the hotel’s first tower. He felt a hand on his shoulder and followed Shaz down a hallway with no carpet, their feet echoing off harsh concrete. She unlocked a door to a suite with a “ D O N OT E NTER ”sign hanging on the knob.
    “This is where we bring cheaters,” she said.
    The suite had colored wires springing from holes in the walls. The dead bolt was thrown and the breath caught in Billy’s throat. He was about to die. There was no other reason for them to bring him here. Old-timers called it getting eighty-sixed. Eight miles out in the desert, six feet down in the ground.
    “You with us, Billy?” Shaz asked.
    “How did you know my name?”
    “Haven’t figured it out yet? You will. Walk with me.”
    “Come on. I didn’t even steal any money from you,” he pleaded.
    “Shut up.”
    A hallway led to the master bedroom. She took a tube of Vicks VapoRub from her pocket and rubbed the ointment beneath each nostril, then passed the tube to the punishers.
    “What are you doing?” His voice cracked.
    She let out a hideous laugh and entered the bedroom. A violent push sent him stumbling behind her. The stench knocked him sideways; then the visuals took over. Blood splatters on the fancy bedspread, the wallpaper, sprayed across the ceiling like a Jackson Pollock painting and across the carpeted floor. Someone had died here, and had not gone quietly.
    Positioned beside the bed was a tripod with a video camera; next to it, a director’s chair. It took a moment for the significance to sink in. When it