Takeover Attempt in Las Vegas Results in Theft and Murder
Chris O'Grady
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Takeover
When you're an operator working alone, you get your inside dope the best way you can. I had a friend or two on the cops, and sometimes I made eat money doing day work for a big detective agency on the Strip, but neither of them were going to keep me posted on current events in the big money areas ar 
ound town.
One of the casinos had been hit the day before, out in the desert. The word was that it was a one-man heist, but nobody seemed to know for sure. The casino's heavy guns looked mean when I ran across some of them around the gambling joints along the Strip. Then in today's paper was an item about a shooting. The body found in the brush early in the morning had been identified as a small-time hoodlum named Mindy Kemp.
A skimmed-cash car of one of the biggest, newest dives in town, Florian's, gets robbed. Then a day later, a guy is found shot dead outside town.
I was interested. Half the readers in town were interested, too, but they weren't going to end up involved in any of it.
I rent desk space in a long room half a block from the Strip. I was reading the newspaper when an insurance man up near the front door which opened onto the side street turned off his desk light and called out: "Good night!"
I glanced at him over the top of the paper.
"'Night!"
That left the light at my desk the only one lit in the long room. The front part of the office was dark. I thought about going up there and turning on a ceiling light, but I got wrapped up in the newspaper again. When I was finished with it, I dropped it in the wastebasket beside my desk.
A guy was standing across the desk, watching me.
I started. I hadn't heard him come in.
After learning how to breathe again, I said, "Good evening. What can I do for you?"
My little desk light didn't illumine his face, just distorted it. He wore a yellow-checked jacket over a light blue nylon shirt, which he hadn't buttoned. I could see his torso, completely hairless, but tanned from much sun.
"You Brandon?" he asked. His voice was low, his words slurred.
"That's right."
"Mr. Mercator wants to see you."
"That's fine," I said. "Now that you know where I am, you can tell Mr. Mercator where he can find me."
For a moment he was silent.
When you're an operator working alone, you get your inside dope the best way you can. I had a friend or two on the cops, and sometimes I made eat money doing day work for a big detective agency on the Strip, but neither of them were going to keep me posted on current events in the big money areas ar
One of the casinos had been hit the day before, out in the desert. The word was that it was a one-man heist, but nobody seemed to know for sure. The casino's heavy guns looked mean when I ran across some of them around the gambling joints along the Strip. Then in today's paper was an item about a shooting. The body found in the brush early in the morning had been identified as a small-time hoodlum named Mindy Kemp.
A skimmed-cash car of one of the biggest, newest dives in town, Florian's, gets robbed. Then a day later, a guy is found shot dead outside town.
I was interested. Half the readers in town were interested, too, but they weren't going to end up involved in any of it.
I rent desk space in a long room half a block from the Strip. I was reading the newspaper when an insurance man up near the front door which opened onto the side street turned off his desk light and called out: "Good night!"
I glanced at him over the top of the paper.
"'Night!"
That left the light at my desk the only one lit in the long room. The front part of the office was dark. I thought about going up there and turning on a ceiling light, but I got wrapped up in the newspaper again. When I was finished with it, I dropped it in the wastebasket beside my desk.
A guy was standing across the desk, watching me.
I started. I hadn't heard him come in.
After learning how to breathe again, I said, "Good evening. What can I do for you?"
My little desk light didn't illumine his face, just distorted it. He wore a yellow-checked jacket over a light blue nylon shirt, which he hadn't buttoned. I could see his torso, completely hairless, but tanned from much sun.
"You Brandon?" he asked. His voice was low, his words slurred.
"That's right."
"Mr. Mercator wants to see you."
"That's fine," I said. "Now that you know where I am, you can tell Mr. Mercator where he can find me."
For a moment he was silent.