CHAPTER THREE | SIENNA
“Knock, knock—LVPD!”
Startled, I gasped as my eyes flicked up from my desk and landed on Officer Grant Curtis, tapping his knuckles on the grey wall of my office cubicle.
“Sorry. I hope I’m not interrupting?”
“Erm…” I glanced back at my laptop, hoping he would take the hint. “Actually, I was just finishing up my report on the Black Diamond Lounge raid.”
“Oh yeah?” Grant missed the hint by a mile as he looped his thumbs through the belt loops of his crisp khaki pants and took a step into my office.
Officer Grant Curtis certainly looked the part of a small-town cop, in his khaki LVPD uniform, complete with silver badge and a gun holstered at his hip. But Sin City was a far cry from a small town… and the officer standing in my cubicle was nothing like the smooth-talking cops you see in the movies.
“Does your report happen to mention anything about a cool undercover cop who body-slammed Luis Barva down onto the ground?” Grant asked, craning his neck over my desk to sneak a peek at my laptop screen.
“I’m afraid that’s confidential,” I said, slamming the laptop shut.
Grant wasn’t giving up that easy. He hung around the front of my desk, eyes blinking down at me intensely.
“Would you consider a bribe?”
I couldn’t tell if he was joking or serious. I went with the former and replied,
“We talkin’ cash?”
“I can’t do cash,” he shook his head. “But what about lunch? There’s a new taco joint that just opened up—”
“I can’t,” I cut him off. Then I pointed at the Tupperware container of pasta salad and added, “I packed my lunch today.”
“Rain check then,” he sighed in defeat as he slunk back towards the front of my cubicle. When he got to the gap in the wall, he stopped and turned back to me.
“You know… you’re a really tough nut to crack, O’Malley.”
“Maybe some nuts just don’t want to be cracked.”
Grant’s mouth dropped open with a shocked expression. Like he couldn’t believe I’d just said that. I could tell there was a whole hell of a lot more that he wanted to say, but instead he turned out of my cubicle and walked away.
I immediately let my head slump forward into the palms of my hands, and my thumbs kneaded at my forehead in exasperation.
Grant Curtis had been dangling date invitations and subtle flirtations over my head ever since he was officially assigned as my officer contact over a year ago. I never took the bait… but that didn’t stop him from offering it.
I had zero interest in dating someone that I worked with. In fact, I had zero interest in dating anyone, period. And least of all, him! I wasn’t sure if I had a type, but it was definitely not him.
My last attempt at a relationship was back in undergrad at Nevada State. We met at freshman orientation, and we went steady all the way up to winter break our junior year. That Christmas he was supposed to take me home to meet his parents for the first time… but on the last day of finals week I caught him making out with my best friend in the school library.
Plot twist: my best friend was a guy.
After watching my love life crash and burn, I never really recovered. I graduated the following year, sans boyfriend but with a double-major in Social and Criminal Justice. Then I hooked an internship with the Nevada Gaming Commission. I started out in Reno, and within six months I was transferred to Vegas.
Is it ironic that I’d been utterly celibate and single ever since I moved to Sin City? Probably, yeah. But right now, my career was my only priority, and I didn’t see it changing anytime soon. The sooner Officer Grant Curtis came to terms with that, the better. But he was just refusing to get the hint.
Although the Nevada Gaming Commission often worked hand-in-hand with the Las Vegas Police Department, we were technically separate entities. That’s why it was crucial to keep an open line of communication with my officer contact.
I pried open the Tupperware and stabbed at the pasta salad with a plastic fork, spearing a tri-colored rotini noodle and a sliver of black olive. I was about to take a bite when I heard a second visitor knock on my cubicle wall.
This time, it was my boss.
Chief Mark Kaplan headed up the Las Vegas unit of the Nevada Gaming Commission. Unofficially, he was also the Chief Executive Officer of the Major Douchebag Committee.
“Chief!” I blurted out. The rotini noodle fell off my fork and splattered onto the front of my white button-down blouse.
Kaplan raised his eyebrows in bemusement, then muttered, “I’d like to have a word with you in my office, when you get a chance.”
Just as quickly as he had appeared, the chief vanished behind the cubicle wall. For several seconds I stared at the vacant spot where he had been standing, in a state of shock.
The chief never asked me to come his office… and he definitely never paid a visit to my cubicle. There was only one explanation, and when realization struck, my jaw practically dropped into my lap.
“Shit,” I hissed to myself. “Shit, shit, shit!”
I spun around in my chair and nearly stood up, but then I remembered the noodle on my shirt. I flicked it into the waste basket under my desk, then I dabbed at the pale orange stain with a paper napkin. The spot didn’t budge; it had already infiltrated the cotton and left its mark. Why was it imperative to wear white?
“Shit!” I hissed again. I gave up on the stain and quickly snapped the lid back onto the bowl of pasta salad and shoved it aside, then I stood up from my desk and smoothed the wrinkles out of my black slacks and blouse.
This is it, I told myself. This is the moment you’ve been waiting for. It’s finally here.
That “moment” was my promotion to Lead Investigator. I had been vying for the spot ever since I joined the Gaming Commission’s Investigation Division. Over the last few years I had done more than pay my dues as an undercover agent, and one by one, I had watched all of my counterparts get promoted. Everyone but me.
I had worked my ass off as a special agent, but it never seemed to get me anywhere. Five years with the Commission, and I was still right where I started: working undercover in the field and playing dress up for casino stakeouts and brothel raids.
I knew that I was good at my job. The Black Diamond Lounge was proof of that. I had earned that promotion fair and square. It was my turn.
That had to be the reason why Kaplan wanted to talk.
I took a deep breath, then I strutted towards his office.
The chief had his nose buried in a case file when I walked in.
“Have a seat,” he said, not bothering to glance up.
I sunk down into one of the stiff plastic chairs in front of his desk. While I waited for his undivided attention, my eyes scanned the office. The walls were covered in peeling, powder blue wallpaper embossed with a faint seashell pattern, each wall decorated with a single framed motivational poster.
The poster directly behind his desk had a picture of a bald eagle staring nobly out at a mountain range. Underneath the image, in bold Times New Roman font, was the word LEADERSHIP.
The chief flipped the case file shut and dropped it on his desk, then glanced at me over the tops of his rimless half-moon readers.
“Do you know why I called you in here today?” he asked.
I responded with a gulp.
“I wanted to congratulate you,” he said.
“Y-you do?”
“You did some great work on the Luis Barva assignment. I don’t say this often, but… I was impressed.”
“Really?”
“Really,” he nodded. “And it’s not just the Barva case. You’ve been putting in a lot of effort around here lately, and it hasn’t gone unnoticed.”
“Chief, I—”
“I’m not finished,” he cut me off. I gulped, and I watched silently as he flicked off his glasses, then he placed both of his hands on the desk, palms facing down.
“As I was saying,” he continued, “I think that you are becoming a real asset to our division.”
My heart swelled in my chest and I could already hear the words that were going to come next; the words announcing my promotion.
This is it. This is it. This is—
“That’s why I want you to go undercover and infiltrate the High Rollers Motorcycle Club.”
“Wait, what?!” I stammered. That was not the big announcement that I was expecting. No matter how I rearranged Kaplan’s words around in my head, I couldn’t get them to spell out “you’re promoted!”
Chief sighed in annoyance, then he flicked open the folder that was on his desk.
“The High Rollers Motorcycle Club,” he repeated. “I trust that you know what a motorcycle club is?”
“Erm… a club for motorcycle enthusiasts?”
“Cute,” he snapped, unamused. “Outlaw motorcycle clubs exist all over the country, operating as organized crime syndicates. Think of them like the mafia, but with leather chaps and Harleys.”
I nodded, still trying to figure out what this information had to do with my promotion.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Kaplan said, holding up a hand as if to silence me. “‘Why would the Nevada Gaming Commission care about a bunch of punks on wheels?’”
“Actually, I was—”
“And that’s a fair question,” Chief cut me off. “Our job is to govern and monitor gaming operations within the state of Nevada. The wheelings and dealings of these little biker gangs— however illegal or nefarious—don’t typically fall within the jurisdiction of the Nevada Gaming Commission.”
Chief grinned proudly, and we sat in silence for several seconds until I realized that he was waiting for me to provide some sort of question or cue for him to continue.
“Okay,” I said simply. “So… why are we interested in the Holy Rollers?”
“The High Rollers,” Kaplan corrected me with a stern glare, “popped up on our radar a few months ago after we received a slew of anonymous tips suggesting that the club was operating an unlicensed casino right here in Clark County.”
“A casino?” I asked skeptically.
Throughout my career at the Gaming Commission, I had helped take down dozens of illegal betting rings and gambling dens. None of those operations were grandiose enough to warrant being called casinos. Not even close.
Illegal gambling was usually small-scale. Table games at private parties, rigged slot machines, unlicensed betting websites… that sort of thing. Even Luis Barva’s perverted backroom poker brothel didn’t quite qualify as a casino.
“A casino,” Kaplan repeated, his voice firm. “Full-service, all underground. All unlicensed.”
“That’s… impossible,” I shook my head. “How could they keep something like that off the radar?”
“They didn’t,” Kaplan said gleefully. “Now the High Rollers Motorcycle Club isn’t just on my radar; they’re the bullseye. And you are going to help me take them down.”
He shuffled through the case folder on his desk and produced a printout of a Google Maps screengrab. It was the street view, and the camera looked up at an old mechanic shop. The sign over the building read LUCKY BRAKE MOTORCYCLE REPAIR.
“Several members of the club share ownership of this so-called repair shop,” he told me. “My guess is that they’re using it as a front to launder money from the casino.”
“That makes sense,” I nodded slowly.
“Good,” Chief said. He flicked the folder closed and pushed it across the desk towards me. “This folder has everything you need to know. Names and faces, where they hang out. I want you to get started right away.”
“It sounds like you already have all the evidence you need,” I shook my head in confusion.
“I thought the same thing about the Luis Barva case,” Kaplan said. “I figured that would be cut and dry; a lapsed license, maybe a few liquor violations. Then you went and found me a couple dozen illegal prostitutes in his backroom.”
“Do you think that’s what’s going on here?” I asked, flicking open the folder again and staring down at the printed-out image of Lucky Brake.
It was hard to imagine much of anything going down at a place like that.
“I don’t know what they’re hiding,” Kaplan shrugged. “But if there is something going on, I want you to sniff it out for me.”
Then Chief leaned forward across his desk. His eyes narrowed and stared directly into mine, and the prickly fringe of his mustache twitched as he breathed heavily through his nose.
“I’m giving you an opportunity to prove yourself, O’Malley,” he said. “A case like this could pave the way to a promotion. How do you like the sound of Lead Investigator?”
I already proved myself, I thought darkly. And that promotion should have been mine a long time ago...
On the inside, I was seething. On the outside, I was completely silent.
Apparently to the Chief, my silence was a sign of acceptance. He sat back in the chair behind his desk and cracked a smile.
“Now why don’t you run along and do what you do best,” he told me. “Put on a short skirt and some high heels, and take these motherfuckers down.”