[b]Center City, WA
1:14 AM[/b]

Tracy walked through the smoke filled casino floor. Old ladies chain-smoked unfiltered cigarettes while they worked clattering slot machines with dead eyes. A half dozen dolled up ex-strippers wobbled across casino floors on too tall heels while they dishied out chips and cigarettes. The heavy make-up did a bad job of hidding the miles and the years. Tracy figured for the right price a man could take one of them home. Drunk businessmen played blackjack while geeks in Hawaiian shirts and Shriner fez hats played roulette.

The Gold Rush Casino got its name from Center City's past. The city sprung up in the wake of the Klondike Gold Rush. Situated in the Pacific Northwest, Center City was the one of the last outposts before Alaska and became a boomtown because of it. Like a lot of boomtowns, a primarily male populace needed a place to spend their money. Saloons and brothels popped up across the town to serve the thousands of rough prospectors passing through on their way north. The gold rush dried up and the boom years faded like they always do, but Center City pushed on. Its origins in human desire explained a lot about the current state of the city. How could the city be asked to clean up when vice was in its DNA?

Tracy found a pit boss walking around the craps table. He had his eye on a pair of hot hands rolling eight the hard way for the thrid consecutive time. He seemed mildly annoyed when Tracy got his attention. 

"Yes, sir?"

"Here to see Milligan. Hyde sent me."

Annoyance quickly turned to deference. The pit boss pulled out a walkie-talkie and radioed some unseen party. A moment later, a security guard in a red blazer and slacks was escorting Tracy off the casino floor and into the back. They passed a room crammed with monitors. Every inch of the casino seemed to be under surveillance. Another room down from the monitors had its door open. Tracy saw soundproof padding and a single metal chair bolted to the floor. That was where cheaters went, and Tracy was almost sure there would be no cameras in that room. Based on the pit boss' look, the lucky craps shooter would soon find himself in that little room.

"Mr. Milligan? He's the guy."

The security guard led Tracy into a sprawling office. It was decorated in a very gaudy fashion, leopard print wallpaper and a faux fur carpet. Fake Venus De Milo statues flanked a walnut desk big enough to hold an orgy on. A long glass window behind the desk looked down on the casino floor. Behind the desk, his leopard fur slippers up on the desk, was Joey Milligan. Milligan looked like an extra from a bad disco movie. He wore a bright pink shirt with half of it unbuttoned, a large gold necklace and medallion caught in the steely gray fur on his chest. He also wore a white pair of pants that would have looked embarrassing on a man half his age, but made Milligan look clownish.

"Tracy Lawless, the man the myth the legend."

Tracy took a chair, a plush leopard print wingback, and nodded as Milligan took his feet down off the desk.

"Mr. Hyde said you needed help with something. So he sent me here to check things out. I came as quick as I could."

"For what I pay Hyde in protection, you should have been here the day before yesterday," Milligan grumbled.

Tracy remained quiet while Milligan rooted through his desk. He came up with a remote control and pointed it at a television to his right. The thing clicked on and, after a few button presses, security camera footage rolled on the monitor. Four minutes worth of footage, all of it taken at different parts of the casino at different times over the past month. Tracy noticed the pattern before Milligan even opened his mouth.

"Notice something?"

"It's the same two guys in every shot, always dressed differently and on different nights, but always at the casino and never together. Casers?"

"That's what my security guys think," said Milligan. "They've been here a long time, well long for case job. That's got me nervous, something may be coming very soon. I want you to case the casers, Lawless. Find them and make them pay for even fucking thinking of trying to rob my joint."

Tracy nodded his head and started to stand.

"I'll be on the floor if you need me."