Reno made his way into the side room off from the casino and saw the thief stretched out on the floor, with his men standing around him.  One of his men was still giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.  He was still trying to get a heartbeat.  Bo closed the door behind them.

“Still nothing?” Reno asked.

“Nothing, Boss.  He’s got a condition.  A serious heart condition.  His heart gave out.”

“A heart condition and stealing in my joint,” Reno said.  “What he thought was going to happen?”

Although Reno said those words, and his men agreed with him, he was still inwardly shaking.  They didn’t mean to kill the guy.  They just wanted to teach his ass a lesson.

His man finally gave up, and stood up.  “It’s done,” he said.  “He’s dead.”  Then he looked at Reno.  “What you want to do, Boss?”

“Get rid of him,” Bo said.  “What do you think?”

Bo, a young, good looking black guy, was new on the team and was quickly garnering a lot of ill-will due somewhat to his attitude of superiority, but mostly to jealousy.  A former casino cheat himself with an eagle’s eye for other cheaters, Bo was fast becoming Reno’s right-hand man.  And the OGs didn’t like it.  “I wasn’t talking to you, Aube,” the resuscitation attempter said.

“Well I’m talking to you,” Bo replied.  He had gumption, which was why Reno liked him.  “Get rid of him.  Dump him out of Nevada altogether.  That’s what you do.”

“What about the cameras?” Reno asked.

“I have a standing order for Pab or anybody working the relevant booth to turn off cameras whenever you arrived on the casino floor to handle physical affairs,” Bo said.  “I told all of them that was the rule going forward.  No cameras when you were handling your business.  And they know what to look for to know the difference.”

“And you had a guy back there to make sure those cameras turned off?” Reno asked.

Bo’s confident face suddenly looked stricken.  “No, sir,” he said.

Reno gave him an angry look and then Reno, half of the men in that room, and Bo behind them, took off.

The men who remained behind smiled and high-fived.  “About time Wonder Boy showed some cracks,” one of them said, and they all laughed.

But it was no laughing matter to Reno.  He and his men hurried across the casino.  Reno had nearly a thousand cameras trained on various areas of his establishment, and he knew what each camera angle in each sector was responsible for.  He headed straight to sector nine.  Pablo Medina’s section.

Reno unlocked the door, and he and his men walked in.

Pablo was seated behind a desk with ten monitors in front of him.  He rose to his feet when Reno and his entourage walked in.  “Hey, Boss,” he said.

“Did you kill the feed when I first entered the casino?” Reno asked him.

Pablo’s face turned red.  He glanced at Bo, whom he knew had a standing order, and then looked back at Reno.  “Ah, I don’t think I did, sir,” he said.

Reno glanced back at Bo, and then took a seat in front of the monitors.

Bo gave Pablo a harsh look, but he knew, deep down, he should have been more hands-on.

But at least they were going to correct the error, Bo thought, as Reno pressed buttons and showed his expertise regarding every aspect of his organization.  His men stood behind him in awe as he zoomed in on the exact time he entered the casino without asking Pablo for any direction.

And there it was in living color: Reno and his entourage entering the casino, Jimmy coming over, and then the beatdown.  Even though men had surrounded them, as a shield to prying eyes, it was a poor shield.  The licks and kicks that landed on the cheater were obvious.

Reno shook his head angrily as he did a splice procedure and removed that section of the tape from the day’s recordings.  It was not only erased, but Reno knew how to destroy it without trace.

Then he stood back up.  Pablo expected to get a serious lecture.  But he didn’t.  Reno, instead, turned his fire on Bo.  Bo, after all, was the kid he had high hopes for.  Bo, after all, was the kid he expected to handle this shit.  For some reason, even Reno’s family didn’t quite understand, Reno had a strong affection for Bo.

“Don’t you ever give a standing order on something this serious without checking yourself to make sure it’s being carried out.  You understand me?”

“Yes, sir.  I’m sorry, Reno.  I . . . fucked up.”

Reno could see the pain on Bo’s handsome face.  The others were waiting for Reno to drop the hammer on him.  Maybe even demote him or, in their wildest dreams, kick his ass to the curb.  But Reno, inexplicably to them, seemed to forgive Bo anything.

“Just don’t let it happen again,” he said.

Reno’s other crewmembers were astounded.  If that had been them, they would have been fired on the spot.

But there was more than one way to skin a cat.  And one of Reno’s swifter crewmembers pointed out another issue that would have fallen under Bo’s purview.

“What about the guests?” one of the men thought to ask.  “They may have videotaped the whole thing themselves on their cellphones and shit.  What about them, Aube?”

The other men smiled.  Bo don’t think of everything, their expressions seemed to say.

Reno looked at Bo.  It was obvious Bo had dropped that ball too.  Bo felt like crap.  He thought he had his shit together.  He was realizing, in the span of one morning, that he didn’t.

“Get the pit bosses to ask around,” Reno said to Bo.  “And you, personally, check every camera angle that could have captured somebody with their cellphones filming.  Any shit shows up on the news,” he said to Bo, “and your ass is fired.”

His other men smiled.

“Yes, sir,” Bo said.

Then Reno exhaled.  Bo could see the exhaustion in his eyes.  “Go home, Reno,” he said.  “Get some rest.  I’ll handle it.  Don’t worry.”

“If your ass would have handled it before, it wouldn’t have been an issue.”  But then, as usual when it came to Bo, he softened his blow.  “But you’re right.  I’m dead on my feet.  I’m going to bed,” he announced, and headed for the exit.

Bo and the crewmembers followed behind him, with the crewmembers shaking their heads.  They all were beginning to realize that fighting a young upstart like Bo was almost tantamount to fighting a member of Reno’s own family.  They were wasting their time.

But when the crew left the booth, closing and locking themselves out and Pablo Medina in, Pablo hesitated.  And then reached beneath his desk pad and pulled out a thumb drive complete with the copied file before Reno erased it.  He held the drive in his hand, as if he was thinking about the implications and, if found out, serious repercussions.  But then a look came on his face.  And he was determined.  What did Reno Gabrini ever do for him, anyway?  He placed that thumb drive into his hip pocket.