In the restroom at the end of the hall, Grace flushed the toilet, came out of the stall, and was at the sink washing her hands when the helper walked in.  Grace looked up at the woman through the mirror over the sink, smiled, and then looked back down to continue washing her hands.

At least that was what the helper thought she was doing.

Grace, however, had already noticed the knife at the woman’s side.  Tommy had taught her how to do what he called a spot check every time a stranger entered her orbit.  “Let them think your eyes are on them.  But make sure your eyes are really on their hands.  Know where their hands are,” Tommy warned Grace, “at all times.”

And Grace’s quick spot check of that woman’s hands had uncovered what the woman was attempting to conceal at her side: a knife.

That was why, when the woman gripped the knife and began hurrying toward Grace as if she was a ninja skilled in traditional ninjutsu, and was ready to attack, Grace timed it as carefully as she could and quickly stepped aside as soon as the woman leaped toward her and lunged forward.  She thought she was stabbing Grace in the back with the kind of impact that could only kill.  But she missed.

The woman’s momentum carried her into the sink and Grace, taking advantage of the woman’s lost of balance, pushed her, head-first, into the mirror.  The mirror cracked with a violently shattering sound, the knife dislodged and fell to the floor, and the woman’s head was bleeding profusely.

But like a trained ninja, the woman was a pro who would not be defeated that easily.  She grabbed Grace by the catch of her arms and pushed Grace back against the door of one of the restroom stalls, and then reached for her knife once again.  But Grace kicked her in her midsection, causing them both to lose balance and fall on their butts, but the woman had a maniac’s determination.

But just as the two women were about to go at it street-style, Tommy flung open the restroom door.  When he saw Grace on the floor, and when he saw so much blood, his heart dropped.  But then he saw the woman knocked down as well.  And the knife dislodged from her hand.  And he was grateful that his wife had learned to fight back with all she had, because he would have been too late.

Others, too, had heard the commotion in the restroom and were running up the hall to find out what was transpiring.  Including the mayor himself.

But Tommy didn’t wait for, or need backup.  As the woman tried to grab the knife one more time, he used his big Ferragamo shoe and kicked her in the chin so decisively that it knocked her out with that single blow.  Then he retrieved the knife near the attacker, and then hurried to Grace.  “Are you okay?” he asked, as others entered the restroom.

“I’m okay,” Grace said as Tommy helped her to her feet.  “I’m okay,” she unconsciously repeated herself, as she kept her eyes on ninja.  “Just don’t let that bitch get away!”

Tommy looked at the female attacker.  She was a stranger to him.  But the possibility of her getting away was not going to happen.  Anybody who attempted to harm his wife wasn’t going anywhere.

“Don’t worry, babe,” Tommy whispered to Grace.  “She’s not getting away with this.”

But he was at the mayor’s home.  The mayor’s security detail and later the police themselves, took over custody of the woman.  But that wasn’t going to stop Tommy.

His opportunity came later that same night.  He had taken Grace home and had beefed up security around his house, and then he disappeared.  Grace didn’t know where he’d gone, and neither did his security chief, but both knew he was handling his business.

And he was.  Just downtown, near the police station.  One of his contacts on a force he used to command when he was once a police captain, gave him a beforehand notice that the prisoner, one Marilyn Chiver, a paid assassin, a woman who refused to talk, was being transported from the station to a more secure location.  This was necessary, Tommy was told, because she had attempted to assassinate the wife of a Gabrini.  “You may see yourself as a legitimate businessman with no mob ties,” his contact said, “but that’s not how the Vegas Police sees you.”

And less than an hour later, Tommy Gabrini, the man known far and wide as Backdoor Tommy, stood in a room inside a building on that same street.  As soon as the assassin emerged out of the station in handcuffs, ready to be escorted, late at night, to that undisclosed, secure location, Tommy took the rifle he had at the ready, with silencer on, and shot her twice in the head.  She was down before the cops even knew she’d been hit.  She was dead before the cops had any idea where the shot even came from.  And Tommy was packed up, and was already leaving the scene of the crime.

In and out quickly, the backdoor way.

And the debt, at least from the assassin’s end, was paid in full.

Who hired her, however, was another story.  That debt was yet to be paid.

But whoever the mastermind was, Tommy thought, was going to pay too.  He got into the waiting SUV, and rode away.