Robbing a casino would be a crazy big start to a criminal career

Iris scanned the casino, the weight of the gun in her pocket an anchor. A cloud of cigarette smoke hovered over the clanging slots, wisps of it drifting down. The gamblers stared at the machines, mesmerized like worshipers begging for answers from their gods. Perched on stools in front of the slots, their faces lit by the flashing lights, each pull of the lever was a prayer. Even when the spin hit a payout, and gold tokens clattered out, they never lost that dazed expression, just scooped up their winnings without a sound and fed them back into the machine.

She carried a round gold coin in her left hand. Exactly like the tokens held by every gambler in the casino, one side featured the image of a four-leaf clover. The other side held a horseshoe. Unlike every other casino she’d ever been in, this one used only this chip on every game, not just the slots. No telling how much it was worth. There was no denomination printed on the coin, only the name of the casino—The Elysian.

She resisted the urge to drop the token into one of the slot machines, because she knew one thing for sure – the devil loves a loser. Iris had known this from the time she was a kid in thrift store clothes, stealing food and smokes from the convenience store near the trailer park. Bad luck followed her into the Army, giving her a gift of shrapnel in her back and memories she buried with her dead comrades.

Squeezing past a crowded blackjack table, she spotted Felix, the second man in their group. Tall, and so thin he barely cast a shadow, Felix shifted from foot to foot in a weird dance. Their third member, her boyfriend Chance, should be joining them. Broad-shouldered and solid, people often mistook his size for power, when it was Iris who could deadlift twice her weight.

The building felt impossibly huge, bigger than the outside had suggested. An endless row of slot machines stretched at the back of the casino. And the more she wandered the floor, the more packed it became with people. She could swear she hadn’t seen the front doors open. Where were they coming from?

Felix raised his chin at Iris, then stepped over to the roulette wheel. She made her way to stand on the other side of the table, across from him. They kept an eye on the bulky fellow whom they had determined was the only security detail. The bulge of a gun under his suit jacket gave him away.

 A silver-haired woman dressed in a thin gray cloak brushed past Iris and slid a handful of tokens onto the square marked for black. The wheel spun and dropped the ball onto 18 red. Without pausing, the old woman dumped another pile of gold onto the table. Where had she pulled those from? Granny didn’t look like she had money to spare. Iris shook her head. It wasn’t her problem. She wasn’t there to stop anyone from blowing next month’s rent money. She was there to rob the place. 

They had hatched the plan two weeks ago, when Felix stopped by Iris and Chance’s apartment. Felix had just finished a run through Mexico. He’d driven a semi down to Tijuana, unloaded a trailer filled with hijacked televisions and picked up a different sort of cargo. On his way back to Vegas, he took to the back roads, avoiding weigh stations and troopers. He described the casino as though it were a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

“I came over a rise and there it was, lit up like Christmas,” he told them. “Nothing else around for miles.”

Iris called out from the kitchen, where she was stacking plates in the dishwasher. “Are you sure you weren’t hallucinating from all that trucker speed?”

Felix laughed. “Oh, hell no. I did wish there’d be something to see besides asphalt and cactus.”

“So, you stopped and checked it out?” Chance asked.

“Sure did. I’ve been looking for a score like this.”

Iris joined them in the living room. As Felix described the casino, she stood behind Chance, where he sat on the couch, and placed her hands on his shoulders.

“This place is old school. The slots are mechanical, and I didn’t see a security camera anywhere. It was past two a.m. and it was packed. Imagine the money going through there.” Felix scratched at a scabbed-over sore on his arm.

“I don’t know.” Chance twisted around to peer at Iris. “Sounds too good to be true.”

Chance stared at her, waiting for her response. He always followed Iris’s lead, waiting for her to make the important decisions. She’d have to weigh this opportunity carefully. Chance and Felix had been friends for years, but unlike Felix, Iris’s boyfriend had never done anything illegal. Robbing a casino would be a crazy big start to a criminal career.

“It might be too good, but it’s also true. Look here.” Felix set a gold token on the coffee table.

Iris walked from behind the couch to pick up the coin. The token was heavy, real metal, golden and warm as though it had absorbed sunlight. How much was it worth? She imagined stacks of these coins and bundles of dollars. Hundreds, thousands, enough money to buy whatever you wanted.

When she had been in the Army, she had dreamed of being stationed somewhere cool and green. Instead, she had temporarily traded the Nevada desert for the sand in Iraq. She learned to dismantle and put back together both rifles and Humvees, and one of those skills got her employed at a fast oil change place. Decent money, but not enough to get her out of the desert.

Holding the token up to the light, she frowned, thinking about how long she would have to work to save enough money to get them out of the shitty little apartment where the rent went up every year and sand blew in through the cracks in the window frames. How many years of dealing with rude customers, smelling the stink of oil and exhaust, digging the grease from under her nails?

“A place like that, it’s bound to have guards, even if it doesn’t have cameras,” Iris said. She dropped the coin into her pocket. “We’d have to get out quickly, have an escape route planned,” Iris said. “We need a fast car.”

Grinning, Felix bounced in his seat. “I can get one.”

“And a gun,” Iris added.

At this, all three quieted until Chance cleared his throat. “We hit it, we’ll be set up for life. Head down to Mexico and live like kings,” he said.

“Okay,” Iris said. But not Mexico, unless it was someplace on the gulf. The beach might be fine—lie there on a towel and sip margaritas and listen to the ocean. “We’re in. There’s one more thing we need, and this is how we do it…” She told them her plan.

On the night of the robbery, Felix arrived in a 2019 Dodge Charger. Iris didn’t question where he got it. It took them two hours to reach the casino, following Felix’s vague directions. Iris rolled down the windows, filling the Dodge with the scent of sage and sunbaked earth. The asphalt road spooled out like a gray ribbon. She had been about to give up and turn around when the glow of neon green lit the horizon.

They circled the building, and Iris noted the back entrance to the casino. She parked next to a 1956 Chevy with a thick layer of dust coating its turquoise paint. All the cars in the lot were covered, as though a sandstorm had blown through. Iris checked the safety on the pistol Felix had given her, then tucked it into the waistband of her jeans.

Gold columns stood on either side of the revolving door at the casino entrance. Iris paused for a breath at the top of the steps leading to the door, while Felix and Chance hung back behind her, waiting. She had the option to turn around, leave, and the guys would follow her. Instead, the door spun open as though inviting them in.

They split up to reconnoiter the space. When they met at the roulette wheel, Chance sidled up next to Iris and spoke in a low voice. “Found the office. It’s at the back, past the blackjack tables.”

“That’s got to be where they store the cash,” Iris said.

She tapped the side of her nose—the signal to start their plan. Felix and Chance set off. They each had a single smoke bomb, and in forty-five seconds they would light them.

Iris weaved through a crush of people. The closer she got to the office, the more bodies crowded in around her. She mumbled excuses as she pushed against unyielding flesh. Not one of them talked, and each had a vacant stare like those in a trance. It was as though these gamblers knew what she intended, and they were determined to stop her. She had to get through. That money was hers.

She was at the start of the hallway leading to the office when she heard Felix yell, “Fire!”

The people in front of her parted, then shuffled forward, away from her. Iris expected screams and confusion. In fact, their plan depended in part on this. In the rush of people escaping the fake fire, Felix and Chance would slip out and meet her with the car at the back. Instead, the only sounds were the continued ringing and whirring of the slot machines. A fog of blue and gray smoke filled the casino and filtered into the hallway.

Iris passed through the crowd. Behind her, they swayed and bumped into each other. A low hum sounded, like an electric motor starting up. She ran toward the office. Just as she reached the door, a gunshot boomed from the casino floor. And at last, someone screamed. Then another shot, another scream.

Iris turned. Should she go back? No. Whatever had happened out there was over. Banging on the metal door, Iris yelled, “Fire!” Whoever was inside ignored her. Maybe no one was there? An alarm sounded, the blare of a claxon horn overpowering all other noise.

Again, she beat on the door. The alarm cut off. She drew the gun, then with her free hand grabbed the handle to the door. It swung open.

Iris stepped across the threshold, and the door shut behind her. Inside was a darkness so thick it felt solid. She reached out a hand, fumbling. Her fingers brushed the edge of a table, and when she swept her hand across it, she knocked loose what she thought must be a stack of the gold chips. They clinked as they struck the floor. She fell to her knees and scooped up as many as she could with one hand, then dropped the pistol so she could pick up more coins. The door opened.

The security guard stood at the opening. He raised his gun, the barrel a giant blank eye staring at her. When he spoke, his voice sounded like it came from a deep well. “Win? Or lose?”

For an answer, Iris grabbed for her gun. The blast from the guard’s gun deafened her. Pain blazed hot through her chest before the world turned cold and black.

She woke outside the casino, on the steps leading up to the revolving door. The guard stood in front of her, and she flinched when he lifted his hand. But this time it was empty. He took her arm and led her through the doorway.

“You chose to lose,” he said in answer to her unspoken question.

She followed him inside, to an empty seat before a slot machine, and dropped her gold token into the machine, pulled the lever, and prayed for paradise.

THE END