Disclaimer: If I owned Ocean's Eleven, that'd be wicked cool. Sadly, though, I don't.
a/n: this story is for my brother Matt, who came up with the whole idea, and wanted me to write about it. So if you like the idea, thank him.
"The MGM bingo hall is one of the biggest, most popular halls you'll ever come across. It's where all the old people who have a lot of money but don't want to spend it on casino gambling go. Needless to say, guys, the people who man the daubers here are pretty damn loaded."
"Will this work?"
"Little to no security, no suspicions…yeah, I don't see why not."
"Everyone knows what their job is, correct?" Danny Ocean wants to know, adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose.
There's a slight murmur of affirmation, but this doesn't satisfy Mr. Ocean.
"Let's go through, play by play."
"12:32," Danny's right-hand man, Rusty Ryan, mutters.
"I drop and start seizing on the floor," Virgil Malloy says, pointing down to his light brown slippers.
"Isn't that my job?" Virgil's twin brother, Turk, wants to know.
"No, ya old coot, you go down and act like a hero, trying to give me CPR," Virgil explains, whacking his twin brother upside the head with his cane.
"I have bad knees! Danny, you told me that I'd be collapsing," Turk insists.
"Even if you have to collapse, your knees will still get hurt. You'll have to be twitching all over the place, ya dumb bastard!" Virgil snaps.
"Hey, if I'm a bastard, then so are you!"
"Sweet Lord almighty, Turk, if I hadn't already taken my pills…"
"Malloy boys, cease and desist!" Rusty commands, stepping in between the two feuding brothers. He points to Virgil, "You, seize," and then to Turk, "You, CPR him." He takes a bite of his ham and cheese sandwich, then resumes his post of leaning against the door frame.
"Thanks, Rusty." Danny nods in his direction slightly.
"12:35," Rusty answers.
"I intercept the call from the nursing home phone when they try and call 911 for an ambulance," Livingston Dell, the team's tech nerd, contributes.
"12:36."
"Rus, that's you," Linus Caldwell, the team's rookie, whispered, nudging his cohort, who was just re-pocketing a bottle of tropical fruit Tums.
"Oh. Right. I come in and pull another 'Did somebody call a doctor?' bit from the Bellagio job. I put my hands on Virgil's forehead and then he knows to stop seizing. He can just play dead from then on.
"12:38."
"Me and Yen come up in the ambulance and load Virg onto a stretcher, then get out asap," Basher informs them.
"12:41."
"I take the prize money and get my ass out of there," Linus says quickly.
"12:42. I leave with Yen and Basher."
"And while all of this is going on," Danny begins.
"I'm the bingo caller," Frank Catton says.
"I pretend to be playing and make small talk with the ladies," Saul Bloom tells Danny. Reuben Tishkoff nods.
"I do that, too."
"All right, guys, sounds good. Let's see if we can make this work." Danny claps his hands together as an indication of dismissal.
"Ooh, my, would you look at that young whippersnapper over there, eh, Rosemary?" an old woman sitting next to Reuben whispers, elbowing her dozing friend.
"Wha…which one are we looking at here, Betsy?"
"The one with the gray hair."
"Everyone in this whole damn bingo hall has gray hair, Betsy!" Rosemary snaps, popping a coffee-flavored toffee into her mouth.
"The one who's wearing blind-man glasses, then," Betsy clarifies, gesturing with her hand toward Danny.
"That young' in looks like my son," Reuben interrupts the two ladies. "A striking resemblance, if I do say so myself."
"Your son must be a pretty handsome fellow," Rosemary answers, flashing her fake teeth at Reuben.
"It's very odd, how the two of them look so alike."
"Maybe he is yer kid, and ya just forgot about 'im," Saul says in a gristly voice. "Maybe yer older than ya thought, ya old fart."
"Maybe you're more senile than you though, ya old hag," Reuben shoots back. Saul smirks.
"Now, now, boys, no need to go fighting each other over something as tiny as this," Rosemary assures them.
"B-9," Frank calls out in a monotone.
"Yes! One more, one more, c'mon, G-51. You can do it, baby, I know you can," Virgil mutters, crossing his fingers in anticipation under the table. "You can…"
"Oh, sweet Jesus! Someone call a doctor!" Betsy shrieks as she watches Virgil go down hard on the tile floor and start convulsing. He is showered in colorful bingo chips as his body slams against the table's legs. His eyes are wide and wild.
"Damn, Virg is good," Danny mutters to himself under his breath.
Turk jumps out of his seat and cautiously approaches his twin brother. With an apprehensive sigh, he drops to his knees and begins to perform CPR on Virgil.
"No, no, no, you don't do CPR on a person having seizures, are you crazy?" a man with massive coke-bottle glasses scolds, shoving Turk out of the way. "You stick a spoon in his mouth or something, so that he doesn't bite his tongue off."
"Rusty, go," Danny whispers. On cue, Rusty appears at the lobby doors, clutching a small black bag.
"Where's the—oh, there he is," he says, rushing over to Virgil. "Scooch over, sir, I can take it from here." Rusty pulls out a wooden spoon and prepares to prod it into Virgil's mouth. Before he does so, he manages to rest both of his palms on Virgil's forehead.
Virgil stops dead, eyes closed.
"Damn, what a healer he is," Rosemary whispers approvingly, watching Rusty drop the spoon in fake dismay.
"Did you already call an ambulance? Is it on its way?" Rusty yells at Frank.
"We called one a few minutes ago, sir, I—"
"Damn it, work with me here! He doesn't have much longer!"
Every old person in the building with their hearing aid in and functioning properly turns to the window as they hear sirens approach the parking lot. Two men emerge from the back, carrying a stretcher between them. In no time, they're inside the bingo hall, laying the stretcher down next to Virgil's limp body.
"How long has he been like this?" Basher asks, strapping Virgil into the stretcher.
Rusty shrugs. "At least eight minutes, estimation."
"We've gotta go fast, then; he might not make it." With that, Basher and Yen lift the stretcher and exit the hall just as quickly as they entered. Rusty packs up his bag—which basically consisted of him putting his wooden spoon away—and quickly trails behind the two ambulance personnel.
"Linus," Danny breathes.
Linus gets up from his chair near the prize table. He walks toward the woman who's in charge of handing out the prizes, a sour, unlikable old lady named Beatrice, and pretends to trip on one of the table legs. On his way down, he grabs the overstuffed manila prize envelope and slips it into his jacket pocket. As he does this, Frank leans down, pretending to give Linus a hand up. As one hand reaches down, the other places an identical envelope filled to the brim with newspaper clippings and tissues in the real envelope's place.
"Oh, God, I'm sorry about that, ma'am," he apologizes, his voice dripping with sincerity. "I, I didn't mean to…I mean, I haven't really been myself ever since the arthritis kicked in, and…"
"Just make sure it doesn't happen again, sir," Beatrice says coldly.
Linus looks genuinely hurt as he accepts Frank's hand up. "Thanks," he says, smiling slightly.
"Not a problem, sir. All right, people!" Frank yells, clapping his hands to get the attention of the bingo-goers. "We're going to have to cancel the rest of today's games due to the recent circumstances." His announcement is greeted with a moaning noise, like the kind a class of fourth-graders would make when they found out that their teacher was assigning them homework over the weekend. "Now, now, I know you're upset, but we'll be back tomorrow, ready to go. You're all welcome to come back then. Have a good rest of the day, ladies and gents."
The bingo game is adjourned, and sixty or so old folks slowly begin to stand up and stretch.
"Well, it was nice talking to you ladies; are you coming back tomorrow?" Reuben asks Rosemary and Betsy.
"We might be," Rosemary answers, grinning.
"That's nice. Then maybe we'll see you again."
"Maybe you will." Rosemary sounds a little too seductive for Reuben's comfort level, and he stares down at his shoes.
"Let's get a-goin', then, Bart," Saul says.
"In a second, Zeke. Let me just get my jacket on…" As Reuben does what he told Saul he would, he notices Rosemary slip a napkin into his jacket pocket. Bewildered, he stares at the pocket, then up at Rosemary.
"Gimme a call some time, Zekey-kins," she says.
Reuben's face reddens. "I…uh…sure," he falters.
"All right, Bart, you've had your fun," Saul tells his friend, trying to hold in his laughter. "Let's get a move on." With that, the two of them walk out the back exit. Reuben looks over his shoulder, and Rosemary blows him a kiss.
"Excellent seizing there, Virg," Danny commends, clapping Virgil on the back.
"Thanks." Virgil grins, pleased that Danny didn't compliment his brother, as well.
"How much did we get out of that?" Rusty wants to know, taking a bite of out a cookie he was given by the secretary on the way out.
Linus pulls the envelope out of his jacket, tears it open, and dumps the money on the ambulance floor. He pulls out a calculator and begins punching some buttons. He looks up a few minutes later.
"$4,346."
The team lets out a low whistle.
There's a short silence, then Danny voices what's on everyone's minds. "Guys, we're gonna need to rob way more bingo halls than just this."