Page 53 of Gambler's Conceit
“He came to remind me that there’s some guy tarnishing the casino’s reputation. Which we all already know.” I sigh and sit down at my desk again. “It’s that internet streamer, the one who fashions himself as an ‘investigative journalist.’ Grandfather must have seen that short interview with him on the news last night.”
Grant makes a disgusted sound. “Oh, him. I’ve had our guys looking into his finances. No obvious connections to anyone important, and he only has about thirty grand in the bank, along with student loans debts. If we go forward with the lawsuit?—”
“No,” I interrupt. “That’stoo slow. Grandfather wants him gone entirely.” I glance at Vortex. “So that’ll be your job.”
“All right,” Vortex says, shrugging. “So gone-gone? Not just a warning?” He knows that just because my grandfather wants things a certain way doesn’t mean that it’s always the best way.
I don’t want to invite a murder investigation into the casino. I know Vortex will do a good job and nothing will get linked to us, and I have enough friends in the Calamity City police that I’m certain we can skate by.
But it’s sloppy, and it looks bad. It certainly won’t make the rumors about the Roi de Pique evaporate.
“What do you think?” I ask Grant. “Is this guy going to stop after a warning?”
Grant shrugs. “No girlfriend or kids. He’s been posting that he won’t cower to bullies.”
That reminds me of somebody else. Good thing Havoc isn’t part of this side of the casino.
“Just get rid of him, then. Make him give you all his online account information so we can scrub it, too.” I groan in annoyance. “I wish Grandfather would let go of this place. I don’t need him micromanaging. He wasn’t doing this for Earl!”
Vortex’s brows furrow, but he glances at Grant before seeming to decide not to comment. Vortex had been working for one of the other branches of the Spade Family business, but I’d poached him when I’d taken over the casino. He’s only vaguely aware of how things were before. He’s only ever seen Earl interfere with my business.
Grant looks like he wants to say something, though, so I bark, “Spit it out.”
“Earl deferred to Leon in a lot of things.” Grant shrugs. “Yeah, the place was failing, but it was less… clean.”
I glare at him. “So he wants this place to have a fucking target on its back? It needs to look like a legitimate business. If we rake in earnings while not a single person attends the casino because it’s a fucking shithole, the IRS would never believe that the cash is clean.”
Grimacing, Vortex offers cautiously, “I didn’t see how it was before, but I think your reasoning is solid.” He looks at Grant again, irritating me with how he’s deferring to him. It doesn’t matter that Grant is the casino’s official manager. Here, those things matter less than honesty and working through these problems.
“I didn’t say it was better before!” Grant says defensively. “Just that your grandfather misses the old days.”
Of course he does. Family gatherings often include him regaling us with stories of the good old days, when Calamity City was more lawless—when the four families ruled the city openly, and when nobody ever dared to stand against us.
It hasn’t been like that for at least forty years. The fucking IRS and FBI did a whole sweep of the city, and the families had been left scrambling with half their members arrested and the others under extreme scrutiny. It’s fucking lucky we still own the casino—and we wouldn’t still own it, if Earl had continued to use its assets to pay off his debts.
“Fine, fine.” I hit the spacebar on my keyboard with more force than necessary and watch the screen wake up. I have a hundred new emails, but I have no interest in dealing with them right now.
I switch over to the burner email I’d made for my new project. One new message. At first I think it’s spam, but when I hover over it, I see the message preview.
We heard you were looking into a certain lost pet.
“Boss?” Vortex asks. “You need anything else?”
I nod, distracted, as I open the email. “Yeah. Did you find out anything more about Seven?”
Vortex shakes his head. “Not much. He’s not from Calamity, but we knew that. If he’d had an ID or something, it would’ve been easier, but I don’t have a name to track him down with. It’s not like Seven is his real name, and I don’t even have an age to go by. Missing persons in the tri-county area don’t have anything on him.”
The email is short.
We heard you were looking into a certain lost pet.
Any information about him would be handsomely rewarded. It could be a mutually beneficial arrangement.
“You could try missing persons in…” I stop myself and consider how much I want to reveal. I have my suspicions, based on what I know of the illegal markets in the country, but nothing concrete. “Try the east coast. You can start with Benton or New Bristol.”
“Benton or…” Vortex repeats, giving me an incredulous look. “You think he traveled that far?”
It’s one of the major human trafficking hubs, even after one of the biggest families went under after an FBI raid several months ago.