Sharkey and Bess

 267.

Davis and Saunders catch a commercial red-eye back to Vegas. The contrast between the DC winter and the neon sunshine of the desert is shocking, but nowhere near the shock of the news from their local informant that the new CEO, merely a day into his reign as fledgling mob boss wants to talk.

"Could be a slice of Heaven or the whole pie of Hell," Davis comments upon learning of Alex Goldson's summons. Undaunted, they commit to the cosplay and go through a dress rehearsal in preparation, returning to the colorful and dashing power couple offering the financial score of the century in exchange for merely funding the operation's logistics. A return on investment Davis has detailed to be close to a thousand to one.

"If Goldson has a quarter of the greed as his predecessor, as I suspect he does, the meeting should be a mere formality," he adds. Saunders, always the objective pragmatist, suggests that should they err, it be on the side of caution, remembering the night their initial play that had almost cost them their cover, and possibly their lives. "These guys don't fuck around," she says in a rare moment of blatant real-world vulgarity. "Neither do Sharkey and Bess," he returns, citing fearlessness as the main characteristic of the duet's alias.

The lunch meeting is scheduled for the following day at 1000. In preparation Davis considers using the famed modus operandi of card sharks, riverboat gamblers and high-rollers; the double-down. Recalling their earlier calling-card heist propagated by The Queens sublime slot machine hacking app, they agree to send another memo to Goldson.

Dressed to the nines, a idiom Davis says alludes to the Nine Worthies of the Middle Ages: Hector, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Joshua, David, Judah Maccabee, King Arthur, Charlemagne and Godfrey of Bouillon, they call for a limo and head to the Luxor.

They pull into the lavish main entrance reserved for VIP members and prepare for another undercover scene of high adventure and maximum risk. As much as Saunders appreciates the hormonal stimulus, she admits to having second thoughts about the escapade, thinking there might be easier - and safer - ways of skinning this slimy alley cat and setting up the big sting.

"Wait," she bursts as they are about to exit the plush interior of the limousine, "it's been eight months since we hit them the first time, I'll bet a fortune that they've re-written their algorithms and exterminated the bugs. We should call The Queen and double check."

Davis closes the limo door and instructs the driver to take them back to their hotel.

Tipping the chauffeur a cold Franklin, he ends their set-up charade with a cavalier, "Thanks for the ride," temporarily avoiding a disastrous return to play by buying, as the gamers say, insurance, or as Saunders suggests, "a policy of protection.