Page 34 of Conning the Billionaire
Lying low meant no cons, no support roles, no picking up waitressing shifts at the Tropicana, and not leaving her crappy apartment in the derelict house.
Not that she had that many shifts at the Tropicana, anyway. Her role was relegated to twenty-nine hours per week or less, usually much less, thus ensuring they didn’t have to offer her benefits like health insurance.
But she caught up on her GED homework, so that was a plus.
Her friends ran their cons without her because they had bills to pay.
Kylie pawned the blond Italian’s earrings for fifteen thousand bucks and kept half of that after Salvatore’s cut, so she had enough money for a while. They’d even agreed to give Alma an extra five hundred dollars for a doctor’s appointment for her kid.
But damn, Kylie had been hoping to save some of that cash to get out of Atlantic City and away from Salvatore Grande someday.
But the week was hard.
The girls had given her excellent advice, and Kylie knew they were right. It was an asinine idea to call the blond Italian. It was absolutely insane that she pulled his number up on her phone, the contact reading “Goddamn Blond Italian,” and her thumb hovered over the round spot to start the call.
If she did call him, he would speak to her in that low, warm, completely neutral voice, and maybe they would meet, and perhaps he would have a different hotel room, and maybe she’d go back to his room and he would tie her up before he took her like he’d promised, rough and almost violent, pounding into her.
Her thumb shook as she held it over the spot, actively keeping herself from making the call while her body tingled and the folds between her legs grew sensitive.
After a week, even with frugal living, Kylie had to take a cocktail waitress shift at the Tropicana or get fired.
She couldn’t afford to get fired. That cocktail waitress stint was steady money, and the gossip about what convention was at which hotel was priceless.
Kylie had to go to work.
12
NOT AN ACCIDENT
KYLIE
Going to work as a cocktail waitress out in the open was stupid, but Kylie didn’t have a choice. The other girls had been working their tails off, trying to cover the money that Salvatore expected in his envelope the following week.
It was a substantial number.
But waitressing that Saturday evening was not without risks. The Borgata management had probably found out she worked at the Tropicana because all those guys talked to each other. With one phone call, they’d know her schedule, too. They might send goons to rough her up for the eighty grand.
And after the Borgata did that, the Tropicana would probably fire her. The fake ID she’d submitted for employment eligibility verification was under the Kylie Miller name. She’d told them not to run it through the state employment system when they hired her. Times being what they were after the pandemic when the Boomers retired and a bunch of everyone else became partially disabled, the AC casinos were begging for anyone who could work, and they didn’t look too closely if that’s what it took to hire someone.
Disguising herself with different makeup or a fake nose wouldn’t fool the Borgata goons if they came. The Tropicana management would point her out for them.
But Kylie’s money was dwindling.
The Borgata’s management wasn’t as scary as Salvatore Grande would be if he didn’t get his weekly donation to the cause.
In the end, she duct-taped her boobs together, put on her makeup, and went to work at the Tropicana.
After adding up her few bills in her wallet one more time, Kylie tossed a short scarlet cocktail dress and some high-heeled sandals into a shopping bag. She would just avoid the Borgata like her girls had said. The Ocean Casino Resort would probably have richer targets, anyway.
Her shift was scheduled for three o’clock that afternoon, so she rode a city bus that smelled like sour milk over to the Tropicana and changed in the staff locker room into her cocktail waitress uniform, which had a short froufrou skirt and plunging strapless neckline.
As it was October, the Halloween crap was up.
The Borgata and the Ocean Resort casinos were decorated with tasteful autumn displays, and their restaurants served roasted pumpkin soup.
Not the Tropicana.
The Trop went all-in with the kitsch. An enormous jack-o’-lantern encrusted with flashing lights greeted guests as they walked in, its maw opening and closing like a Macy’s parade float as it slowly turned back and forth on its axis.
