The Tale of the Bucky Gang: Part I

“We're gonna do it tonight.” Danton Bucky beat against the tabletop like it was a pair of drums.

“Would you lower your voice.”

“Oh calm down, Bud, no one is gonna hear us. There's no one in here.”

Bud Straite looked around the empty diner. “Still, this whole business makes me nervous. Last thing we need is someone finding out what we're doing 'cause you can't keep your mouth shut. Where is Cooper anyway?”

“I told him to go get the girls.” Danton leaned back in his chair watching his friend mull over his eggs, letting them get cold.

Bud pushed the plate away and dropped his fork in defeat. “Forget it, I'm not hungry anymore.” He stood up and tossed a Big Top casino chip on the table.

Danton stood up with him. When Bud turned toward the door, Danton picked up the casino chip without being seen.

The two men stepped out of the dimly lit building, into the bright summer sun of New Reno. Off to the north was Reno Proper. It would take an hour to get to the downtown metro center of the colony. They turned south though, toward the Oasis casino.

Danton was a cool, slick character. Trouble might have followed this dude, but he didn't show it. Bud was the polar opposite. He constantly held a sick expression on his yellowy pale face.

“So, tell me again how this is going down?” Bud asked.

“Simple. We walk in there with them girls. They distract the guards and we enter the vault. We fill as much ammo as we can into our packs and get the hell out of there. Bing, bang, boom.”

“That's the part I'm afraid of: Bing, bang, boom.”

Danton led the two man party down a side street a few blocks from the Oasis.

“Is this where we're meeting Cooper?” Bud asked.

“Yeah, quiet though.”

The street was empty. A silent calm made this detour creepy. Bud looked back toward Virginia, the main street that cut north through New Reno. “I don't know about this, Danton.”

“Shh.” Danton put his hand to his mouth and whistled two short bursts followed by a long whistle. There was silence. A warbling whistle came from one of the boarded up buildings to their left. A door was ajar and moved slightly.

“Over there,” Danton motioned.

They didn't see who had whistled them over, they just entered the building. The door slammed behind them, everything went dark. Their eyes desperately tried to adjust to the black.

An explosion of light shone in the distance and was followed by a teardrop of dancing firelight. The light ceased, leaving red embers from the end of a cigarette.

“I hear you boys were looking for some girls.” A croaky voice bellowed.

Bud and Danton's eyes were adjusting better. The form of a thin, almost sickly thin, woman appeared. She took a long drag from her cigarette which she held tenderly between her nonexistent lips.

“Yes ma'am,” Danton answered. “My man Cooper spoke with you then?”

“I had a conversation with him. He was shifty though. Made me uncomfortable.”

“Mama Dee, I assure you there is nothing to...”

“Spare me.” She cut him off. “I've come to know many quick talking men like you mister. Guess how many of them are still around to quick talk. None. They're all dead. Their fast words always got 'em killed.

You're friend didn't give me a good feeling. Now I don't let my girls go out with anybody I get a bad feeling about. He had trouble written all over him, and I can see that same trouble written all over you.”

“I'm sorry Mama Dee,” Bud pleaded. “My friends weren't trying to upset you. They were just hoping to get some girls for the evening so we could look like big shot high rollers in front of some rivals. Everyone knows a Mama Dee girl is a piece of ass with class. So we figured that 'cause your girls are so expensive, these rivals would respect us better for affording them.”

Mama Dee flicked her spent cigarette into a corner and lit up a new one. She looked over Bud, unsure if he was a shyster. “You.” She pointed her cigarette at Bud. “You I like. I don't get the same uneasy feeling I get with your friends. You look like you've got plenty to hide and I know you're lying to me right now, but my stomach isn't ill with you. If you're there, then you boys can take out my girls tonight.

The woman pressed a button on her chair and two men appeared from another room. One was a tall brute holding the other man by his arms. The other man was Cooper Bucky.

“My girls will be ready for you gentlemen just after sundown. The cost is three hundred chips each, any flights of fancy is extra. The girls will let you know. Now get out before I change my mind.”

The bright sun was harsh but the sharp pain went away quickly. The three men strolled down Virginia and entered the Oasis casino.

The lights and sounds of the slot machines on the casino floor always made people forget that there was a dead world a few steps beyond the front door. It was like the old world was still alive inside the casinos. A flame of progress unwilling to be doused by the atomic bombs that burned everything else many years ago. The excitement level of the casino wasn't too high at the moment. Most people didn't gamble until night fall. The three of them stuck out seeing how it was mid day. They split up. Bud went to a row of slots; Cooper, the craps table; and Danton found his way to the bar.

To the passive observer, they would have seemed to be just three unrelated men enjoying separate experiences at the casino resort. But at a closer look, each one of these men was not paying any attention to what they were doing. They all kept glancing toward the change room and the movements of the guards. Their goal was just behind the cage of the change room. The casino's vault. The vault was filled with all caliber types of ammunition. It gave the chip currency its balance. Robbing a casino vault would be the hit of the century. Only one person had ever stole from a casino vault and lived to tell the tale.

Ten years ago a man by the name of Arthur Petrovic walked into the Black Diamond Casino and shot up the place. Him and his posse went into the vault and got away with a ton and a half of ammunition; bullets ranging from all caliber sizes ranging up to artillery shells. They rode out of town with almost no opposition. He opened a casino just outside the Great McCarran Wall to the east called the Mariner Casino. Arthur goes by Rattlesnake Pete these days. A hero to every roughneck, scoundrel, and bandito this side of the Sierras.

The three men hoped they could have an easy time just like Rattlesnake Pete but were prepared if it wasn't as unopposed.

After a couple hours, they each left the casino separately and met at an abandoned lot a block from the resort.

“Well boys, what do you think,” Danton asked as he came strolling up to his two cohorts with his patented Cheshire grin. “Is it gonna be as easy as stealing some sweet thing's virginity, or what?”

Cooper looked at Bud. “I don't know about this plan, Danton.”

“Cooper, don't tell me Bud's nerves have shaken off on you. We can do this. I can taste it.”

“You're talking about stealing from Her. She's had people killed just for looking at her wrong. I think Bud's right, we shouldn't do this.”

“I'm not afraid of Angela Romanovski. Hell, I'm not afraid of anybody. Cooper, I can see it in your eyes, you want to do this. You want more than this sad, miserable existence like me. We'll be kings when were rich in ammunition.”

“Dead kings, Cooper.” Bud chimed in. “What's so good about having all that ammo if it means you're a marked man?”

Cooper couldn't look at either of them. He just looked toward Reno Proper at the behemoth buildings own by the kings of New Reno. “I'm tired of living this life. I want more, Bud.” He looked at his yellowy pale friend. “Danton's right. I do want more. I've always wanted more.” Cooper stood by his slick brother. “We can't do this without you though, Bud. You heard Mama Dee. She'll only let us have the girls if you're there with us.”

Bud turned away from the two men. “Fine. But when this is all over, I'm taking my share and leaving for New Vegas. I'll be as good as dead here anyway.”