Chapter Seven: Catch Me If You Can
Ink
Getting called away like that really pissed me off. I’d been on the verge of catching Jaz. Then some douche bag decided it would be a good idea to try and steal a lady’s purse near the dollar slot machines. Damien and I escorted his drunk ass right out of the casino.
“Let go of me, I was helping the lady!” The man stunk to high heaven of cigarettes and heavy booze. The man must have taken a bath in the stuff.
“Yeah right, you were helping yourself to her money, you bum. Get the hell out of the casino.” I had no patience for men who stole from or beat women. My thought pattern made me check myself as I thought of my conduct to Jaz. I wanted to wring her neck and at the same time, kiss her deeply. My forehead creased with concern for my actions.
“You guys aren’t going to press any charges, are you? Come on. I got no money, please don’t,” the stinky man begged.
“We won’t as long as you never ever set foot in here again. If you do, we will call the cops and they will lock you up,” I told him.
He stumbled as he raised his middle finger to us.
Damien and I both looked at one another.
“More trash to take out,” Damien said with extra venom in his voice. “His name is Roy. We gave him a chance once already and he blew it, so there we go, he’s outta here.”
“Yup. I want to get back to the floor, there’s something I want to check on,” I said.
“Okay, all good. Just remember we have to write an incident report for this one,” Damien reminded me.
“No problem. I’ve got a break in the next hour, so I will probably get to it before you. I will get you to sign off on it and leave it for you upstairs,” I offered.
“Good man. You’re doing a great job here. Keep it up. We’ve had security detail come in here prior to you and they were trash. I like working with you, buddy.”
If I could do a good job I would. I was representing my brothers. Hearing the validation made me feel like I’d made a difference for our club’s reputation. “Thank you. That’s the job we do here. Can’t have this drunk stealing women’s purses.” I meant it too, but I was anxious to locate Jaz.
“Right. See you later on. If you need anything, just radio.”
“Cool.” I moved back to the ground floor and searched for Jaz. I peeled my eyes over the patrons, looking for the sassy one. I couldn’t see her anywhere. Confusion rattled my brain as my heart sank at her slippery departure. I wanted to see her again, but she kept evading my grasp.
I was a persistent man, one of the reasons why I used to be able to sell a lot of pills back in the day. As the distant memory slid into my head, I winced. The fire. The pain. If only I could erase it from my brain. I didn’t know how to talk about it to my brothers, but the nightmare of flames engulfing me was buried deep in my subconscious somewhere. I shook it off and went back to patrolling the floor.
My break time came soon enough. I was determined to search for the original security footage I saw of Jaz changing the cards over on the table. I knew it was a long shot, but I had to locate the footage. Marty was in the room with a couple of other security guards. He seemed bandy-legged and some days he looked like he’d had enough. To me he was past retirement age and should’ve considered training other staff rather than doing security detail himself.
I chuckled to myself. If I made this suggestion to Marty, he would have a few words for me. “Hey Marty, can I speak to you for a minute? I wanted to get your input on a question, since you’ve been here so long.”
Marty dragged his hooded eyes up to me. “What you got for me, Ink?”
“Just wondering what we do if a cheater is found on the floor,” I said.
“Ah, a cheater,” Marty said as he nodded his head.
“What’s the standard protocol? Is it an automatic ban from the casino?” I knew the answer theoretically, but wanted to see how it would be handled.
“If we have all the footage and evidence, yes. Depending on the nature of it, that can swiftly turn to criminal charges.”
“Okay, good to know. Thanks.”
Marty patted me on the shoulder. “No problem.”
I sat down next to Marty in front of the cameras that ruled the behind the scenes world of the Red Stone Casino. “I briefly remember in our training that was the case.”
“Right,” he replied shortly.
I left it at that. Any further questions would most likely raise Marty’s suspicions. He kept watching the screen, and I stepped away to make a call to Bones.