buddy israel, nicknamed "aces" born a bastard, mom laverne chased the pipe dream from a dairy queen in kansas city to the vegas stage. two months after stepping off a greyhound, she gets knocked up by some hood.
biological abandons her and the showgirl thing goes sideways so she winds up working as a magician's assistant to make extra cash.
and young buddy learns everything about cards from this mandrake motherfucker his mom is working for.
but magic man was also a degenerate gambler and got caught dealing bottom- deck at a mob-owned poker parlor. he didn't get outta there with much more than a pulse.
point is, he passed on all this slight of hand shit onto aces and the kid is sick with it. by the age of twelve buddy israel is positively prodigal with a deck of cards. by sixteen, he's headlining the mgm's main room.
this punk is pulling down ten bills a night and more showgirl geech than you can shake a stick at. four years of sold-out shows, he becomes the unofficial mob mascot
wiseguys start to think this sonofabitch is a mystic, something special. and aces plays it up, lets the legend grow, takes time off from his stage act and starts showcasing the chip on his shoulder.
he buys into his bullshit, building street cred, he's got plans and pull, he's makin' plays, living the mob life for real. somehow, it takes: lounge act turned legitimate thug.
in reality, he doesn't know the ball from the bounce. he's not a crook, so he starts fucking up fast and picking up speed, putting a floodlight on the whole carlotta organization. cops get curious, start camping out, compiling names and faces and pretty soon israel's bullshit has brought the heat to bear on none other than primo sparraza--
then i'm sure you've heard of these guys. the tremor brothers.
no? then you've both been living under the same rock, 'cuz these cocksuckers are infamous. three brothers, same skank mom, different deadbeat dads, used for that suicide-kamikaze style shit. you heard about that huge shoot- out in cleveland?
the teamsters had a reform measure going to ballot that didn't sit too well with the local syndicate. night of the polling, big black-tie to-do downtown and the tremor brothers crash the party. literally.
donald mcgarey, the local union rep, is the mark. the tremors go ripshit riot on the whole club, seven people dead, twenty-eight wounded. just to get to this one guy.
--and they get it about as good as they give it. in the melee, one of the brothers catches blowback from a jammed piece and is temporarily blinded, the other takes bullets to the lower back and can't walk. the third gets popped in the neck and passes out. mcgarey gets out of the club alive. and not much further.
they're speed freaks, neo-nazi's. sworn to the swastika, supposedly read and recite "mein kampf" like mother goose. and these motherfuckers can go megaton at the drop of a hat.
so what do you think?
the bond on israel expires in eighteen hours, after that, it's a jump ball. our window is now.
his law firm, same one that hired me. israel walked out after he made bail and nobody's seen him since.
so i guess you're not going.
i know his location, we've got the drop of a maybe half a day before that location gets grape-vined and the rest of the world gets hipped.
he's. fuckin'. he's comin'.
they worked as swingmen for the vegas vice squad-- what? five, six years?
rip, my right hand to god, we're gonna go in and recover this asshole and everybody's gonna leave the theater grinning. trust me.
same place that rents the guard's uniforms. there's a shift change at 9am. graveyard goes home and we can blend in with the day shift coming on.
we'll have to get our hands on them. there's two separate units; casino floor. count room security and general hotel security-- does he want to hear this or what?
nobody put a gun to your head.
then quit acting like somebody shit in your cereal bowl. reed just gave us fifty grand.
your attitude sucks.
two security levels, the one we're going in under the guise of, hotel security, has restricted access. they're mostly there to monitor the lobby, handle disturbances on the different floors and toss out drunks. there's a thirty-five member employee rotation going from graveyard to day shift. if we split up, we can blend in and enter unnoticed. once we're inside the hotel, we'll regroup.
i forgive you darwin.
if i needed your i.d. and your car and me and my brothers were wanted by the law, i woulda killed you to get 'em too.
oh hell yeah. we's just in the wrong place at the wrong time. so don't feel so bad dude.
i don't mind now anyway.
you know, up here in heaven, it's beautiful. way better than fuckin' hawaii or any place like that.
i'm glad i'm here. i love it. i'm gonna get laid by some fine ass angels and then go hang out with jesus and them.
i got it made in the shade amigo. hey, i'll see you up here some day, don't worry.
i know so.
don't tell your asshole brothers you know about it, that money is for you old boy.