Deadman’s Poker

1

“I can beat any poker player in the world,” Jack Donovan whispered.

Gerry Valentine leaned on the cold metal arm of the hospital bed while staring into the eyes of his dying friend. They’d gone to grade school together, gotten hauled into the principal’s office a few dozen times, and when they’d gotten older, broken a bunch of laws together. They were as close as brothers, and to see lung cancer take Jack’s life away had been one of the most painful things Gerry had ever experienced.

“Think we should go find a game?” Gerry asked.

A weak smile crossed Jack’s lips. Gerry had flown into Atlantic City from Florida that morning and spent the afternoon at Jack’s bedside, reminiscing with his friend. When nightfall had come, the nurse on duty had allowed Gerry to stay well past visiting hours.

“I’m serious,” Jack whispered. “I can beat any player in any game.”

“Is this a scam?”

Jack was on oxygen, his voice barely audible. “Yeah. Came to me when I was getting chemotherapy. The gaff is invisible, and there’s no evidence left behind.”

Jack had been a scammer since they were teenagers, and he knew all the angles. A scam that didn’t leave evidence could make someone rich beyond their wildest dreams.

“And have you actually tried it out?” Gerry asked.

“What, you think I’m going to hustle the nurses?”

“So you don’t really know if it works,” Gerry said. “Stuff that looks good on paper doesn’t always work in the real world. Remember that time you fell in the fountain outside Caesars, and nearly drowned?”

Jack rolled his eyes. “Did you have to bring that up?”

“Sorry.”

“Look, Gerry, this is the crown jewels of poker cheating. I taught it to some guys who want to scam a poker tournament in Las Vegas. Only, now they’re reneging on their end of the deal.”

“How?”

“They won’t pay me. They know I’m dying, so they think they can screw me.”

Gerry didn’t think there was anything lower than what Jack was describing. Whoever had said there was honor among thieves hadn’t known many thieves.

“What do you want me to do?” Gerry asked.

“Remember Vinny Fountain?”

“Sure.”

“Vinny wants to buy the scam for a hundred grand. I want you to sell it to him and give the money to my mom. She’s living on federal assistance.”

Jack’s feet were sticking out at the end of the bed and Gerry pulled the blanket down to his toes. As a kid, Jack had been a runt, and everyone in the neighborhood had called him Little Jack. Then one summer he’d shot up like a beanpole, and lost the adjective.

“I need to stretch my legs,” Gerry said. “Want me to get you something?”

“What’s the matter?” his friend asked.

“I just need to think about this.”

“You scared your father will find out?”

Jack knew him too well. Gerry had joined his father’s casino consulting business a year ago. The casinos paid them to catch cheaters, and he didn’t think his father would be too happy to find out his son was selling cheating secrets to scammers.

“I could get somebody else,” Jack offered.

“No, I’ll do it,” Gerry said. “I just need to figure out how to keep my father in the dark. What’s this scam, anyway?”

Jack lifted his head and looked straight down at the floor. Gerry looked as well, and spotted a canvas bag lying beneath the bed. He knelt down and parted the bag with his fingers. Inside were a dozen decks of cards, and a metal strongbox with the words DANGER, DO NOT OPEN! printed in white letters across the front. Jack had always liked practical jokes. Gerry closed the bag, stood, and went to the door.

“You want something?”

“Get me a Coca-Cola,” Jack said.

The night Jack had fallen into the fountain outside Caesars Palace in Atlantic City and nearly drowned had been a classic example of a perfect scam gone wrong. Gerry knew this better than anyone else because he’d orchestrated it.

He walked through the hospital’s cafeteria and found the bin with iced sodas. He pulled two out, then selected a couple of sandwiches from the pre-fixed food section. When he went to pay, he caught the cashier yawning.

The wall clock said eleven o’clock. That didn’t seem real. He’d arrived at noon, and had been talking with Jack for most of the day. It was strange that the debacle at Caesars hadn’t come up before now; it had been the first and last time they’d tried to scam a casino together.

Gerry had been eighteen at the time. His father was a detective with the Atlantic City Police Department, and had been assigned to protect the island’s twelve casinos. His father knew more scams and greasy hustles than anyone around, and as a result, Gerry overheard a lot. One night, while his parents were doing the dishes, his father had told his mother that Caesars had seen a rash of marked cards called luminous readers. These cards could only be read by someone wearing glasses or contact lenses outfitted with special infrared material. Gerry, who’d been in the next room watching TV, immediately ran upstairs and called Jack on the phone.

“You’re not going to believe this,” Gerry told him.

Jack found an optometrist in town willing to fit him with special contact lenses to read luminous paint. The lenses were difficult to see through, and Jack spent several days walking around wearing them. When he stopped bumping into things, he called Gerry on the phone and told him he was ready to scam Caesars.

That night, Gerry drove Jack to Caesars in his father’s car. The casino was a replica of Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, only smaller and not nearly as opulent. Nothing in Atlantic City was as opulent as Las Vegas, yet it hadn’t stopped the place from making billions of dollars a year.

Caesars sat on Atlantic Avenue. Gerry pulled the car in front, and watched Jack put drops into his eyes, then pop the contact lenses in. Too many cops in Atlantic City knew Gerry, and he couldn’t walk into a casino without someone recognizing him. So, it was up to Jack to rip off the place.

“Good luck,” Gerry said.

“This is going to be like stealing candy from a baby,” Jack said.

Jack got out of the car, and walked across Caesars’ promenade. The place was fancy, with lots of nude statues and gushing water fountains. Jack walked directly into the largest fountain, his body flipping over the metal railing and going headfirst into the water. He had not practiced with the lenses at night, and was almost blind.

Gerry jumped out of the car and saved his friend from drowning, but not without getting collared by casino security, and by a cop for leaving his car illegally parked. When neither authority liked the bullshit story Gerry concocted to explain what had happened, his father was summoned. It had been a long night.

That had been many years ago. Now it seemed funny as hell, but the truth was, they could have both ended up in jail. That was how Gerry saw his past now; there were consequences for breaking the law. Getting married and having a baby had changed his perspective.

Gerry pressed the elevator button while holding the sodas and sandwiches against his chest. The hospital was quiet, and he waited while humming a song he couldn’t get out of his head. Finally he decided to take the stairs.

The stairwell had a dank smell. Halfway up, he heard footsteps, and looked up to see an Italian guy about his age coming down. The guy was dressed in black, had pocked skin and wore a scowl on his face. Normally, Italians were hospitable to other Italians. This guy wasn’t, and grunted under his breath when Gerry said hello.

“Suit yourself,” Gerry said when the guy was gone.

A minute later he walked into Jack’s room. The monitor next to Jack’s bed was beeping, and the oxygen tube that had been attached to his friend’s nose had been ripped out, and lay on the floor. Jack lay with his arms by his side, his chest violently heaving.

“Jack!”

Gerry hit the red emergency button on the wall to summon the nurses. He stared at the monitor; Jack’s oxygenation had fallen below 80 percent. He put his face a foot from his friend’s.

“Who did this?”

Jack’s eyes snapped open. “Hitman...”

“Hitman for who?”

“Guys I taught scam...”

“Why? You can’t hurt them.”

“Afraid I’d squeal...”

“Squeal about what?”

Jack’s hand came out from beneath the sheet. Clutched between his trembling fingers was a playing card. Gerry took the card: It was an ace of spades from the Celebrity Casino in Las Vegas.

“Is this part of the poker scam?”

Right then two nurses ran into the room. They pushed Gerry away from the hospital bed as they worked to get Jack’s oxygen intake back to normal. It was at that moment that Gerry noticed that the canvas bag underneath Jack’s bed was gone. He shouldered his way between the nurses and lowered his face next to Jack’s.

“What’s the scam?” Gerry whispered.

Something resembling a smile crossed Jack Donovan’s face, like he was happy to have pulled Gerry back into the fold. But then the look was replaced by one of pure fear.

“Tell me,” Gerry said.

Jack’s mouth moved up and down.

“I... so...”

“You so what?”

“I... so...”

“Come on.”

“Bye... Gerry.”

Jack’s mouth stopped moving. And then he stopped breathing. Jack had accepted that he was dying, and he had asked his friends to accept it as well. Gerry had tried, yet it didn’t make it any easier now that it had actually happened. He bowed his head and wept.

2

Tony Valentine could feel his son’s eyes burning his face. He knows the news isn’t good, Valentine thought. Still, it didn’t make this any easier. Hanging up the phone, Tony sat down on the couch beside his son. He put his hand on Gerry’s arm.

“The police are ruling it a suicide,” he said.

“What? What are they smoking?”

“I’m sorry, Gerry, but all the evidence is pointing that way.”

“For Christ’s sake, Pop, don’t take the company line on this.” Gerry put his bottled water on the coffee table in his father’s living room. “Jack was murdered. Take my word for it. I was there in the goddamn room.”

Eight days had passed since Jack Donovan’s death in the intensive care unit of the Atlantic City Medical Center. After Jack had been buried, Gerry had come home and asked his father to ride the coattails of the homicide detectives working the case. Still having juice with the Atlantic City Police Department, Valentine had obliged his son.

“Gerry, the only evidence you have is a suspicious-looking guy in the stairwell,” Valentine said. “The nurses are saying that Jack talked about ending his life when things got bad. Maybe that’s what he did.”

Indignation rose in his son’s face. “Jack was in the middle of telling me about this poker scam. Said it was the greatest thing since the baloney sandwich. I left, and that guy came into the room and pulled Jack’s tubes and beat on Jack’s chest. Jack said he was a hitman.”

“The police checked Jack’s room for fingerprints. The only prints besides Jack’s and the nurses’ were yours.”

“The police also found a pair of rubber gloves in the garbage pail by the door,” his son said. “The guy was a pro.”

“There isn’t any proof, Gerry.”

“What about the playing card Jack gave me? Isn’t that evidence?”

It was like déjà vu all over again. Valentine had examined Jack’s playing card for hours, found nothing, then sent it to an FBI forensic lab in Langley, Virginia, where he had a friend. All the tests had come back negative.

“The FBI didn’t find anything, Gerry. The card is normal.”

“No, it’s not,” his son said. “Remember that scam you told me about at the Silver Slipper in Las Vegas? Major Riddle, the owner, lost his casino to a poker scam that one of his dealers pulled off. How long did the police examine those cards?”

“Two weeks,” his father said.

“And the cards came up clean,” Gerry said. “Then they sent them to you, and what did you find? The cheaters used an X-acto knife to draw tiny lines on the faces of all the high cards. The dealer felt when high cards were going to Major Riddle, and he signaled the other players.”

“What does that have to do with this case, Gerry?”

“I’m saying that stuff gets missed. If Jack said that card was marked, then it was marked. You have to ask the Atlantic City police to start over.”

Valentine blew out his cheeks. He’d already called in a bunch of favors with the police in his hometown; any more and he might start losing friends. It didn’t help matters that Jack Donovan had been a scammer and had been run in many times.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Valentine said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that I’m running out of options, Gerry.”

“Come on, Pop. I’m begging you.”

Valentine stared at the videotapes stacked next to his VCR/DVD player. He was on monthly retainer for dozens of casinos, and every day got a videotape from a client who thought his casino had been ripped off. He’d been neglecting his work to help Gerry, and couldn’t continue to ignore his customers without it affecting his income.

“I’m trying, Gerry,” he said.

His son pushed himself off the couch and walked out of the house.

Valentine believed that food was the antidote for most things that ailed you. Fixing two ham-and-Swiss-cheese sandwiches, he poured some potato chips onto the plates, stuck two cans of soda into his pockets, and went out the back door to where Gerry stood, smoking a cigarette in his postage-size backyard.

“You hungry?”

“No,” his son said.

“I made you a sandwich.”

“Pop, it’s four o’clock in the afternoon.”

“Eat something anyway. It will make you feel better.”

Valentine put the food on the plastic table in his yard, and pulled up two plastic chairs. His son begrudgingly sat down and they began to eat. A few minutes later, Gerry pushed his empty plate to the center of the table, and stared at his father.

“Did I ever tell you that Jack came to Mom’s funeral?”

Valentine was still eating his sandwich, and glanced at his son. His wife had died two weeks after they’d moved to Florida to retire. He’d taken her body back to Atlantic City, and buried her beside her parents. The ceremony was for friends and family, and Valentine was sure Jack Donovan had not been present.

“You could have fooled me.”

“He was in a tree,” Gerry said.

“Hanging out with his friends?”

“I’m being serious, Pop.”

“Why was he doing that?”

“Because cops were there, and Jack was wanted at the time.”

Valentine put his half-eaten sandwich onto his plate. “Why was he at your mother’s funeral, is what I meant.”

“Jack loved Mom, and he loved you.”

Valentine put his elbows on the table, and gave his son a hard look. He’d always considered Jack something of a public menace as well as a bad influence on his son, and had never hidden those feelings. Now he waited for Gerry to explain himself.

“Remember when I was a kid, and the Donovans lived on our block?” his son asked.

“Sure,” Valentine said.

“Mom used to ask Jack down on Christmas day to open presents, and have breakfast with us. Then, around noon, Jack would go back to his house, and open presents with his parents. We did that until the Donovans moved. Remember?”

Valentine nodded.

“When I got older, Jack explained to me that his parents were both drunks, and used to fight in the morning. Christmas day was always bad. He realized that you and Mom invited him down so his Christmas wasn’t spoiled by his parents’ fighting. He loved you guys for that.”

Valentine sipped his soda. His own father had been a drunk, and he’d always felt bad for kids whose parents abused the sauce. He picked up his sandwich, and noticed that an almost invisible line of ants had crawled onto the table, and they were attacking his food. He dropped his sandwich on his plate.

“You know that when Jack got older, he was involved in a lot of bad stuff,” Gerry said. “But what you didn’t know was that Jack protected you, Pop. None of the things he was involved with ever happened when you were on duty. And none of the gangs he ran with ever robbed anybody when you were on duty, either. That was the deal if someone worked with Jack, and he always stuck by it.”

Valentine drummed the table. It would have been a Hallmark moment had Gerry told him that Jack had avoided a life of crime because of the Christmas mornings he’d spent at their house. This revelation was anything but.

“I’m touched,” he said.

“Jack looked out for you, Pop. You should be grateful.”

Valentine found himself wishing he’d arrested the kid and hauled him in front of a judge. That was the type of treatment that usually straightened out the Jack Donovan’s of the world. He walked over to the garbage pails behind his house, and tossed the paper plate with his sandwich. Returning to the table, he said, “I’ll continue to ride the Atlantic City detectives working the case and I’ll continue to examine the evidence. But I can’t promise you anything, Gerry.”

Gerry rose from the table. From his pocket he removed a piece of paper and unfolded it. It was a composite that Gerry had paid a courthouse artist in Atlantic City to draw of the man he’d seen in the hospital stairwell. He handed the drawing to his father.

“Just look at the case some more, Pop, that’s all I’m asking.”

Valentine patted his son on the back. It was tough to lose a childhood friend, harder still when you thought the friend had been murdered.

“I’ll do what I can,” Valentine said.

3

Gerry left, and Valentine went inside and back to work. As he walked through the rooms to his office, he paused to dust off a stack of videotapes. Along with his collection of crooked gambling equipment and books, the house contained his massive library of casino surveillance tapes and DVDs. Twenty-five years of cases were shoved into the dwelling, and every inch of storage space was filled with boxes.

He hadn’t intended for the house to be that way. When he’d retired from the Atlantic City Police Department and moved to Florida two years before, he’d been ready to turn his back on the gambling world. But then his wife had died, and his social life had vanished. His days had turned into treading water. Out of necessity he’d gone back to work and started his consulting business.

His office was in the rear of his house. Normally his office manager, Mabel Struck, was manning the phones, but she had taken a much-deserved vacation, and was cruising the Caribbean. The room felt lonely without her, and he sat at his desk and sorted through the mail.

Today’s batch contained several letters from frantic casino bosses. Every day somewhere a casino got ripped off. Sometimes, an old-fashioned grifter was responsible. In other cases, high-tech whiz kids were using a new gadget to beat the house. In this game of cat-and-mouse, the mouse sometimes won.

As he tore open each envelope, he checked to see if the sender had enclosed a check. That meant they were serious, and not shopping for free advice. Today’s mail had two checks. The first was from a French casino that was losing a few grand a night at baccarat. The second from a Houston oil man who believed he’d been ripped off in a private poker game. Each check was accompanied by a CD on which the sender had recorded the suspected cheater’s play. As Valentine popped the oil man’s CD into his computer, the office phone rang.

“Grift Sense,” he answered.

“This is Mark Perrier, general manager at Celebrity Casino in Las Vegas,” a man’s voice said. “Is Tony Valentine available?”

Celebrity was one of the newer casino chains. Instead of hiring gamers to run their casinos, Celebrity employed stuffed suits from the corporate world.

“For a price,” Valentine said.

“Excuse me?”

“He’s available for a price,” Valentine said, then added, “It’s a joke.”

There was a short silence on the line.

“I’d like to speak to him,” Perrier said.

“He’s busy right now, making a living. Can I tell him what this is about?”

“No, you cannot.”

Valentine had never consulted for Celebrity’s casinos, and didn’t think this conversation would change that. He dropped the receiver loudly on the desk, then noisily ruffled some papers. After a few moments, he picked the phone back up.

“Valentine here.”

“Wasn’t I just speaking to you?” Perrier asked angrily.

“That was my associate, Mr. Lipschitz,” Valentine said. “People tell us we sound a lot alike. What can I do for you?”

“Mr. Valentine, I’ll get right to the point. My owner has asked me to contact you regarding a homicide investigation taking place in Atlantic City. It involves a known cheater named Jack Donovan.”

Lying on Valentine’s desk was the playing card that Jack Donovan had given Gerry. He picked the card up, and stared at the garish Celebrity logo on the back.

“What about it?” Valentine asked.

“Celebrity would like the case to go away.”

“Is that so?”

“The Atlantic City police have informed us that you are the primary reason the case is still open. Celebrity is presently hosting the World Poker Showdown, the largest poker tournament in the world. Having our casino associated with a murder investigation of a known cheater could be a public relations nightmare. I don’t want to threaten you, Mr. Valentine, but if this case were to hit the newspapers and damage our reputation, we would seek punitive damages against your company.”

“That sounds like a threat to me,” Valentine said.

“I hope you’ll strongly consider what I’ve said.”

“Jack Donovan had a Celebrity playing card in his possession when he died. Were you aware of that?”

There was another silence on the line, this one a little longer.

“Mr. Valentine, I don’t like the course this conversation is taking,” Perrier said. “I’d appreciate an answer to my question. Will you drop this case or won’t you?”

“Get lost,” Valentine said, and hung up the phone.

Valentine scratched his chin while staring at the Celebrity playing card lying on his blotter. Where there was smoke, there was usually fire. If Celebrity wanted the case to go away, it was not just because of the bad publicity. Casinos received bad publicity every day, and it didn’t stop people from gambling in them.

He had an idea, and he went on his computer, opening the database of his friends who worked in the gaming industry. Information on close to a thousand people was kept on this database. He pulled up all the names of people he knew who’d gone to work for Celebrity. There were thirty files. Scanning through the names, one jumped out at him: Paul Cummins, an old crony from Atlantic City, and one of the top security men in the business. Paul had recently gone to work for Celebrity’s casino in Detroit, and Valentine called him on his cell phone.

“Paul here,” Cummins answered through a mouthful of food.

“Quit eating on the job.”

“As I live and breathe, if it isn’t Atlantic City’s gift to the world.”

“I miss you, too. Look, Paul, I need your help.”

“Name it.”

“A Celebrity playing card has turned up in a murder investigation,” Valentine said. “The card is clean, but something tells me it’s still a valuable clue, only I’m not seeing what it is.”

“Well, for starters, our playing cards aren’t in general circulation,” Cummins said. “Whoever had our card shouldn’t have, because they’re not supposed to leave the casinos.”

“They’re not?”

“No, sir. Ever since we got scammed by our own cards last year, we stopped selling them to the general public.”

Valentine felt like a bucket of ice water had been poured down his back. Years ago, casinos had sold used playing cards in their gift shops. But then the used cards had started turning up on the tables, mucked in by skilled sleight-of-hand artists. Some casinos had started “canceling” the used cards before they sold them by punching a hole in them, while others had stopped the practice altogether.

“So how would someone get a card out of one of your casinos?” Valentine asked.

“They wouldn’t,” Cummins said. “Not legally, anyway. Our cards are printed by the U.S. Playing Card Company in Cincinnati, and shipped by armored truck to each casino. When the cards reach the casino, they’re kept under lock and key until they’re delivered to the tables. The cards are used for an eight-hour shift, then collected, inspected, and destroyed.”

“How could someone get one of your cards?” Valentine asked.

“They’d have to bribe an employee. If that happened in Detroit, I’d find out about it, because every card is accounted for before it’s destroyed.”

Valentine picked up the card lying on his desk. “What would you do?”

“I’d have the employee arrested,” Cummins said. “I’d also notify management, and we’d probably do something drastic, like have all our playing cards changed. Now, if you don’t mind, I want to ask you a question. A Celebrity playing card has obviously been taken from one of our casinos. I’d like to know, which one?”

“Why?”

“Job security.”

Valentine examined the card in his hand. Celebrity’s name was printed in bold colors on its back, but not the casino’s location.

“I don’t know,” Valentine said.

“Just tell me the back color,” Cummins said.

“Purple.”

“Be still my beating heart.”

“Not yours?”

“No,” Cummins said. “Purple is from our new casino in Las Vegas that opened last week. They’re hosting the World Poker Showdown.”

“When last week?”

“The grand opening was Friday night. They didn’t invite you?”

Valentine counted backward on his fingers. Last Friday was six days ago, and Jack Donovan had died eight days ago. Another bucket of water came splashing down his back, this one even colder than the first.

“Thanks, Paul,” he said. “Thanks a lot.”

4

Valentine said good-bye to Cummins and hung up, then weighed calling Gerry. He wanted to tell his son what he’d learned, and also to apologize. He hadn’t believed that Jack Donovan was murdered. Now, he knew better.

He’d let it wait. Confirming what Gerry already knew wasn’t going to make his son feel better. In fact, it would only get him more worked up. Better to let Gerry spend a peaceful night with his wife and baby, and tell him tomorrow.

His size twelves made the wooden floors creak as he padded through the house to his kitchen. He poured himself a glass of water from the tap, and had it halfway to his lips when he remembered how awful the water tasted in Florida. Like a science experiment, as Gerry was fond of saying. He took a long swallow anyway.

The kitchen window looked onto his backyard, and he watched a mother cardinal deliver an insect to a nest of babies. The babies’ mouths were visible above the nest’s branches, each screaming Me! The mother dropped the insect and flew away.

He poured the rest of the water down the drain. Jack Donovan had been in the hospital for several months. That meant the cards from Celebrity’s Las Vegas casino had been delivered to him. Jack had doctored them in some fashion, and given them back. Being a smart crook, he’d kept one for himself, just in case he ever needed to blackmail his partners. That was the card he’d given to Gerry. The blackmail card.

But why had his partners killed him? The poor guy didn’t have much time left. His partners must have been afraid of something.

Valentine went outside and sat on the back stoop. The sun was setting, its dying rays turning the sky a burnt orange. Some nights, he crossed the bridge to Clearwater Beach, and watched the sun set over the Gulf of Mexico. It was painful without his wife, but he did it anyway, knowing that time was the only thing that could heal his wounds.

His stomach was making funny sounds, and he realized he didn’t feel well. He went inside and opened the pantry in search of the Pepto. As he started to pour out a spoonful, he realized what was bothering him. Jack Donovan had been murdered while Gerry was visiting him. The murderer could have waited, but had obviously wanted to shut Jack up. Was the murderer afraid of Jack revealing the poker scam to Gerry?

He put the Pepto back on the shelf. It made all the sense in the world. No wonder Gerry was so upset. His visit to Atlantic City was why Jack Donovan had died.

Valentine took a turkey-and-cheese Subway sandwich out of the refrigerator, and ate half while standing at the kitchen sink. One of the great shortcomings of the male species was its unwillingness to cook food for one person, and Valentine had started buying sandwiches from Subway and storing them in the fridge. He ate an apple for dessert, then decided it was time to go across the street and have a talk with his son.

Gerry and his beautiful wife and baby lived on the same block, only across the street and at the other end. The distance kept things healthy, and he tossed the core of his apple into the bushes before crossing.

The burg they lived in was called Palm Harbor. It was sandwiched between several other burgs, and the residential streets saw little traffic. He and his late wife had bought their house right before real estate prices had gone through the stratosphere. These days, it seemed everyone wanted to live in a small town.

Parked in front of Gerry’s house was a car with a Z license plate. A Z meant it was a rental. Exhaust was coming out of its tailpipe, music blaring out of its radio. As Valentine got closer, he glanced at the driver. An Italian guy around his son’s age, with a drooping moustache and sunken eyes. Valentine slapped his hand on the sill of the open window.

“Good evening.”

The driver stuck his head out and grunted like a caveman.

“Are you looking for someone?” Valentine inquired.

“Just enjoying the beautiful outdoors,” the driver said.

Valentine walked to the end of the block, then turned around and walked back to the car. The driver was looking at him in a way meant to inspire fear. A famous criminologist had once claimed that career criminals could be typed by hostile attitudes. The guy parked in front of Gerry’s house could have been the poster boy for that study. Valentine walked up to the driver’s window.

“What’s up?” the driver said.

“I lost my dog. You didn’t happen to see him, did you?”

“What kinda dog?”

Valentine put his hands together. “He’s about this big, black hair, a mutt.”

“Can’t say I’ve seen him.” The driver lit the cigarette dangling from his lips and blew a cloud of smoke Valentine’s way. “Sorry.”

Valentine gave the guy a hard look. His gut told him the guy was up to no good. His gut also told him that the guy hadn’t come here by himself, and that his friends were inside Gerry’s house, and were also up to no good.

“Oh, look, for God’s sake, he’s under your car,” Valentine said.

The driver sat up straight. “He is?”

“Yes. Come on, boy, come here.”

Valentine knelt down, then grabbed his back in mock pain. “Oh, Christ, my sciatic nerve is acting up. Would you mind helping me?”

The driver snuffed his cigarette in the ashtray and opened his door. As he climbed out from behind the wheel, Valentine leaned his body against the door, and pinned him. The driver let out a yelp like he’d been kicked. Valentine continued to press the door.

“You carrying a gun, buddy?”

“No.”

He didn’t look like the trustworthy type. Valentine stuck his free hand through the open window, frisked him, then opened the door, and yanked the guy out. Holding the guy’s arm, he gave it a twist, and the guy started to corkscrew into the ground.

“You claustrophobic?” Valentine asked.

“What’s that?” he gasped.

“Didn’t think so.”

There were several buttons on the driver’s open door. Valentine found one to open the trunk, and punched it. Then he led the driver around the vehicle, and made him climb in. To his credit, he didn’t complain as Valentine slammed the trunk down.

Valentine climbed into the car. He liked to know who he was dealing with; he opened the glove compartment, and pulled out the rental agreement. The car had been rented that afternoon at Tampa International Airport to Vincent Fountain, whose driver’s license was from Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Valentine ran home, got his loaded Sig Sauer from the hollowed out copy of Crime and Punishment on his desk, then ran back to Gerry’s house. His heart was pounding as he opened Gerry’s front door with a spare key, and slipped into the foyer.

The house was a New England — style clapboard with original wood floors, and it was hard to walk on them without making noise. He could hear talking from the kitchen and moved toward it, his feet telegraphing every step. He stopped at the swinging door, and tried to imagine the people he was dealing with.

He decided they weren’t Mafia. He’d grown up around the mob, dealt with them plenty as a cop. The Mafia had a code of ethics, as hard as that was to imagine. One of those codes was never to mess with a guy’s family. That told him that Vincent Fountain and company weren’t connected.

He pushed the door gently and peeked inside the kitchen. Gerry and Yolanda sat at the kitchen table, his granddaughter asleep in Yolanda’s lap. They looked remarkably calm. There was a mirror behind them, in its reflection two smarmy Italian guys. One was tall and thin and talked too much. The other was about six three and had the proud, damaged face of a boxer. The boxer stood behind the swinging door, his arms crossed in front of his chest.

Valentine put his foot to the door and gave it a healthy kick. He’d been the New Jersey state heavyweight judo champ five years running, and still took class three times a week. He wasn’t the man he used to be, but could still deal with a couple of two-bit punks, and that was exactly what he had here.

Valentine entered the kitchen to find the boxer now lying on the tile floor with blood pooling around his mouth. The guy doing the talking stopped.

“You Vinny?” Valentine asked him.

“Yeah. Who the hell are you?”

The Sig Sauer was in Valentine’s right hand. He tossed it into his left, then used his right to punch Vinny in the jaw. It was a move straight out of the Keystone Cops, and Vinny’s head snapped. Then he fell backward and hit the floor. Valentine looked at his son.

“Get your wife and daughter out of here,” he said. “Right now.”

5

Gerry and Yolanda left the kitchen without saying a word. Valentine glanced into his granddaughter’s face as her mother carried her out. Lois hadn’t stirred throughout the whole commotion.

Hearing the front door close, Valentine frisked Vinny and the boxer while they lay on the floor. They were both clean, and he threw cold water on their faces and made them get up. With the Sig Sauer, he pointed at the sink.

“Get the blood off your face,” he told the boxer.

The boxer splashed his face with cold water. When he was finished he pulled on his front teeth and seemed pleased that none were broken. Valentine picked up a dishrag and tossed it to him.

“Now clean up the floor.”

The boxer got on his knees, and cleaned up the bloodstain. As a cop, Valentine had learned that there were two ways to deal with lowlifes. The first was through brute force, the second intimidation. He told Vinny and the boxer to take our their wallets and hand him their driver’s licenses. The two men obeyed.

Valentine wrote their names, social security numbers, addresses, and driver ID numbers on a piece of paper. They were both residents of Atlantic City, and the boxer’s name was Frank DeCesar. Valentine told him to pick up the digital camera on the windowsill above the sink.

“Toss it here.”

Frank tossed him the camera, and Valentine pointed it at them.

“Say cheese,” he said, and snapped a picture.

The picture came out just fine. Valentine placed the camera on the kitchen table, then pointed at the door with his Sig Sauer.

“Let’s go.”

“You’re Gerry’s father, aren’t you?” Vinny said as they walked through the house.

“No, we just look alike,” Valentine said.

“Look, Mr. Valentine, this isn’t what you think. Frank and I came here to present Gerry with a business proposition, that’s all.”

“Let me guess. You want to open a pizza parlor together.”

The two hoodlums stopped at the front door. Vinny was dumb enough to think he was being serious. “It’s a little more involved than that, not that I want to bore you with the financial stuff. But our call is strictly business. We did not come here to harm your son or daughter-in-law, or granddaughter, who I must say is a beautiful little child.”

Vinny had a face that only a mother could love — sallow eyes, crooked nose, and two rows of teeth that looked like a rotted picket fence. His strength seemed to be his ability to string words together. Valentine pointed the Sig Sauer at Vinny’s chest.

“Don’t ever mention her again.”

“Her?”

“My granddaughter,” Valentine said.

“No, sir, I won’t.”

They walked out the front door of Gerry’s house. It had grown dark, and a lone streetlight illuminated the block that Valentine called home. He watched Vinny and the boxer get into the rental. Vinny looked around in a panic.

“Where’s Nunzie?”

“Taking a siesta in the trunk,” Valentine said.

The rear end of the car started to rock. Nunzie was banging around like a bear. Vinny turned and yelled at him to calm down.

“He your brother?” Valentine asked.

“Yeah, how did you know?”

“Inflection.”

Valentine was standing by the driver’s window, and he tucked his weapon behind his belt, then knelt down so he and Vinny were eyeball to eyeball.

“How much do you boys know about me?”

“You’re an ex-cop from Atlantic City.”

“Anything else?”

Vinny scratched the stubble on his chin. He knew he was getting off easy, yet seemed unwilling to acknowledge it. “You do work for the casinos, catch cheaters.”

“That it?”

Frank leaned over, and whispered in his ear. Vinny’s face turned dead serious.

“You whacked the Mollo brothers,” Vinny said.

Valentine gave him his best, no-nonsense stare. The year before, some throwbacks in Atlantic City who’d been threatening Gerry had gotten blown up in a car. Even though Valentine had nothing to do with their murder, everyone on the island believed that he had. Sometimes, those things worked to your advantage, and he banged the rental loudly with his hand, then stood up.

“Don’t ever come back here again,” he said.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Vinny said.

Valentine watched the rental drive to the next block, then stop. Vinny hopped out, and let his brother out of the trunk. As Nunzie climbed into the backseat, they all started yelling at one another, and he found himself smiling. Three guys in their prime had gotten outfoxed by a retired sixty-three-year-old. It didn’t get any better than that. He walked down the street to his house and was met by Gerry at the front door.

“What happened?”

“I let them go with a warning,” Valentine said.

“You beat them up any more?”

“Just their egos.”

Valentine went to his study and put the Sig Sauer back in the book, and then it hit him. While the suit from Celebrity had been threatening him, three punks had been threatening Gerry. Were the two events linked? He found Gerry waiting in the hall.

“Pop, I know those guys, for Christ’s sake.”

“Friends?”

“No, but I know them, from the old days.”

“They have an invitation?”

“No, but—”

“No buts. They were up to no good. A man’s house is off-limits, especially when his wife and daughter are there.”

Gerry rolled his eyes and looked at the ceiling. Valentine went into the living room, and found his granddaughter playing on the rug with Yolanda. His late wife had hooked the rug out of his old police uniforms and Yolanda was always trying to clean up the messes that the baby left on it. Valentine had told her not to worry about it. He’d been spit on, pissed on, and puked on plenty of times as a cop; what harm would a little more do? He sat on the couch, and the baby crawled toward him. She’d be walking soon, and he clapped his hands and saw her smile.

“What’s the weather like in Puerto Rico this time of year?” he asked.

Yolanda lifted her head. Her parents lived in a bucolic town outside of San Juan, and she’d been talking about paying them a visit.

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

“I’d like the three of you to go down there. I’ll spring for the airline tickets and rental car.”

“Oh, Dad, that’s awfully nice of you,” Yolanda said. “I’ve got time off coming from the hospital, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”

Valentine picked up his squealing granddaughter while looking at his son. Gerry had a strange look on his face. He took his daughter from Valentine’s arms and handed the child to her mother.

“I need to talk to my father,” he said.

Yolanda started to speak, then thought better of it. She pushed herself off the floor and walked out of Valentine’s house with the baby in her arms. The front door made a loud click as it shut behind her.

Gerry sat down across from his father on the couch. “Pop, Yolanda doesn’t know I used to be a bookie.”

“You ever going to tell her the truth?”

“Sure, someday I’ll tell her.”

“Who the hell is Vinny Fountain?”

“An old business acquaintance. He came here to tell me that a mobster out of Newark named George Scalzo was responsible for Jack Donovan’s murder.”

“George ‘the Tuna’ Scalzo?”

“That’s right. The Tuna stole Jack’s poker scam, and had Jack whacked. The Tuna is out in Las Vegas, backing a player named Skip DeMarco in the World Poker Showdown. DeMarco is going to cheat the tournament using Jack’s scam.”

“What’s Vinny’s connection, besides his undying love for Jack?”

“Vinny agreed to buy the scam from Jack, with the money going to Jack’s mother. She lives on federal assistance.”

“And Vinny wants you to fly with him to Las Vegas, and get the scam back.”

“That’s right,” his son said.

“I hope you weren’t considering going.”

“It crossed my mind.”

“That’s dumb, Gerry.”

His son made a face like he wanted to argue, but knew it wouldn’t get him anywhere. He said, “Jack was my buddy. I owe it to him.”

Friendship had a way of making a person blind to certain realities. George Scalzo was a ruthless criminal who’d killed scores of men over the years. Vinny Fountain and his bumbling buddies were no match for someone like that.

“I’ve got a better idea,” Valentine said.

“What?”

“Take your wife and daughter to Puerto Rico and lie low for a while.”

A wall of resolution rose in his son’s face. “You’re saying I should put my tail between my legs, and run?” Gerry said.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Whenever George Scalzo gets involved with something, dead bodies turn up. I don’t want you to be one of them.”

“I can take care of myself, Pop.”

“What about your family?”

“I can take care of them, too.”

Valentine stared long and hard into his son’s handsome face. Gerry was thirty-six, and still young enough to think that nothing could harm him. Only age was going to teach him otherwise.

“Just do as I say, okay?”

“That doesn’t sound like a partner talking to me,” Gerry said.

Valentine took another deep breath. His son had joined his business with no money, and had been living off his father’s largesse while he learned the ropes.

“No, it’s your father talking,” he said.

His son rose from the couch with a dark look on his face.

“Gee,” he said, “and I thought we were in business together.”

He walked out of the room before Valentine had a chance to reply.

6

Valentine went to his study and shut the door. Gerry had a way of getting under his skin that left him feeling battered, and he wished Mabel was there. His neighbor was good at refereeing when their arguments got heated.

He sat down at his desk. Sticking out of his computer’s hard drive was the CD from the oil man that contained a clip of suspected poker cheating. Normally he didn’t work late, but he felt out of sorts and decided to have a look.

His computer whirred as it accepted the disc. Within seconds he was studying a grainy film of a poker game in the back room of a neighborhood bar. Eight middle-aged guys smoking fat cigars sat around a table with a castle of colored chips in its center. It was not something Valentine normally dealt with, and he found the letter that had accompanied the CD.

A Houston oil man had been invited to join an ongoing high-stakes game at a local watering hole. He had lost his shirt three weeks running. Suspecting foul play, on the fourth week the oil man secretly filmed the game with a video camera hidden in a briefcase.

Valentine put the letter down, and stared at the film playing on his computer. Cheating at private poker games was the largest unchecked crime in America. It cost unsuspecting players millions of dollars a year. He watched the game for a few minutes, then noticed a plastic Budweiser sign behind the table.

The oil man’s cell phone number was given at the bottom of the letter. He punched the number into his phone, and moments later was talking to an older gentleman with a drawl so thick he could have cut it with a knife.

“You work fast, Mr. Valentine. You figure out what’s going on?”

“Maybe,” Valentine said. “Let me ask you a couple of questions first.”

“Be my guest.”

“I’m staring at the CD you sent me. There are eight players at the table. Are you the player wearing the string tie and twirling a toothpick in your mouth?”

“Well, I’ll be darned. How did you know that?”

“It’s because of where you’re sitting at the table,” Valentine said.

“It is?”

“Yes. You’re in what gamblers call the hot seat. You sat in that chair every week, didn’t you?”

“How the heck did you know that?”

“The guy who owns the bar is running a peek joint. The Budweiser sign behind the table is made of Plexiglas. It’s tinted on the front, but not the back, and works like a two-way mirror. Someone standing behind the wall can see through the sign, and spot the cards you’re holding. That information is transmitted to the guy who owns the bar either by radio or by a waitress who delivers it to him on a cocktail napkin.”

“You’re saying this whole thing was a setup designed to fleece me?”

“I’m afraid so. Did you lose much money?”

“Sixty grand, but that’s not the point. The man who owns that bar swore to me that he ran a clean game. He gave me his word.”

“May I make a suggestion?” Valentine said.

“By all means.”

“Show your local sheriff the film. Then have him call me. I’ll explain what’s going on, and he can file charges against the bar owner. If you’d like, I can fly to Texas, and act as an expert witness at a trial.”

“That’s awful generous of you, Mr. Valentine, but I have a better idea.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ll just go and shoot the son-of-a-bitch.”

Valentine hung up the phone, then picked up the oil man’s check and endorsed it. He hadn’t made much money as a cop, and felt a certain satisfaction each time he signed the back of a check that he’d received for solving a scam. His bank account was growing fatter by the week, and he supposed one day he’d go out and buy himself a new car, or some nice new clothes, or maybe even a boat. Someday, but not today.

As he started to shut down his computer, he remembered why he’d come back to his study in the first place. Digging into his pocket, he removed the sheet of paper on which he’d written down Vinny Fountain’s and Frank DeCesar’s social security numbers, driver ID numbers, and addresses. He canceled the shut down and went into his e-mail, hitting the button for NEW MESSAGE. Then he typed in the recipient’s name: Eddie Davis.

Eddie was an undercover detective with the Atlantic City Police Department, a hip black guy whose resemblance to the actor Richard Roundtree from the first Shaft movie was uncanny. Eddie had joined the force after Valentine had retired. They’d never worked together, and had no mutual friends in the department. But they did have bond. Eddie had helped Valentine catch the people who’d murdered his partner, and they’d become good friends.

Valentine copied Vinny Fountain and Frank DeCesar’s information into the body of the e-mail, and hit SEND. Picking up the phone, he called Eddie at home.

“Am I getting you at a bad time?” he asked when Eddie answered.

“Just entertaining a lady friend.”

“I can call back.”

“She was just leaving, weren’t you, honey?”

Valentine heard a woman’s angry voice, followed by an unpleasant exchange. The conversation ended with a door being slammed.

“I’m back,” Eddie said.

“I hope I wasn’t the cause of that,” Valentine said.

“Not at all. She was starting to use offensive language, so I figured it was time to end things.”

The mean streets of Atlantic City were as bad as any in the nation, and Valentine couldn’t imagine any language that Eddie might find upsetting.

“What kind of offensive language?”

“You know, words like marriage and commitment. That sort of thing.”

“You’re never going to settle down, are you?”

“The fields are too green for a man to stop mowing.”

“I guess that means no.”

“I’ll find the woman of my dreams someday,” Eddie said.

Valentine’s eyes found the framed photograph of his late wife that sat on his desk. She’d never stopped being the woman of his dreams, even after she’d died.

“So what’s up?” Eddie asked.

“I just sent you an e-mail with the names of two punks in Atlantic City I’d like you to check out. I need everything you can tell me about these jokers. Criminal backgrounds, who they run with, crimes they’ve been accused of, the whole shooting match.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem. Anybody I know?”

“Vinny Fountain and Frank DeCesar. There’s also a third one, Nunzie Fountain.”

Eddie went silent, and Valentine said, “You know them?”

“Their names have come up.”

“How so?”

“This is in strict confidence, okay?”

“Of course.”

“Vinny and Frank are informants. There was a flood of bad heroin on the streets a year ago; lots of hookers were shooting up and dropping dead. Vinny and Frank came forward, gave us enough information to track the source, and shut the operation down. The department didn’t pay them or anything.”

“What are you saying, they’re good Samaritans?”

“In a way, yeah,” Eddie said. “Don’t get me wrong. They’re wise guys, but they’re also locals. They didn’t like what was happening, so they put a stop to it.”

“Sounds like they want to go to heaven,” Valentine said.

Eddie laughed. “I’ll run a check on them first thing tomorrow.”

7

At eight o’clock in the morning, Gerry drove his family across Highway 60 toward Tampa International Airport, the rush-hour traffic made bearable by the near-perfect spring weather. Warm temperatures, and not a cloud in the flawless blue sky. The baby was asleep in her car seat in the back, while his wife sat beside him reading the paper. He drove with his eyes glued to the road, even though traffic was hardly moving.

“What time did your father come over last night?” Yolanda asked.

“Late,” Gerry replied.

“I’m surprised I didn’t hear him.”

“He tried to be quiet. He knows how lightly you sleep.”

“What made him change his mind?” his wife asked.

Lying had never been Gerry’s strong suit, and it was rare that he was able to pull the wool over his wife’s eyes. Yolanda had a sixth sense when it came to knowing the truth, and he guessed it was why she hated it when he tried to break bad news to her over the phone.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Come on. You must have some idea.”

“I guess he realized I’m not a kid anymore,” Gerry said.

“You’re always going to be a kid in his eyes.” His wife took out a sanitary wipe and cleaned off their daughter’s chin. “You need to get used to it.”

The traffic began to move and Gerry goosed the accelerator. Ahead was the Courtney Campbell Causeway, the four-lane highway bordered on both sides by the gently lapping sea. Yolanda had hit the nail on the head. His father was still treating him like a kid. Only he wasn’t a kid anymore; he’d stopped being one the day he’d started taking bets from his classmates in high school. He’d done that for twenty years along with plenty of other illegal things, yet somehow his father had forgotten that.

“We’re partners now,” Gerry said. “My father can’t be bossing me around if we’re going to work in the same business together.”

“Even if he knows it’s for your own good?” his wife asked.

Gerry feigned a laugh. Yolanda was the best thing that had ever happened to him. She was beautiful and wickedly smart and loved him to a fault. But she didn’t always back him up, especially when it came to disagreements with his old man.

“Even then,” he said.

People who lived in Tampa liked to say that their airport was the best in the country. Gerry had used the airport a few times, and joined the chorus. The place worked like a fine Swiss watch. He parked in short term, and got his wife’s suitcase out of the trunk along with his daughter’s stroller. They took an elevator down to the second level, and headed for the American Airlines counter. Within ten minutes the suitcase had been vetted by two TSA agents, and Yolanda had the boarding passes to San Juan.

They strolled around the main concourse, looking inside the shop windows, then bought two coffees at the Starbucks stand and an oatmeal cookie for their daughter. Yolanda glanced at her watch and said, “Well, I guess we should be going.”

The flight didn’t leave for another hour, and Gerry knew that Yolanda would pre-board because of the baby. He asked, “Had enough of me, huh?”

Yolanda kissed him on the lips, then looked into her husband’s eyes.

“What I mean is, it’s time for you to go to work,” she said.

“Think my old man will dock me if I show up late?”

“With that attitude, yes.”

“Do I have a bad attitude?”

“You do with your father. He brought you into his business to help you, Gerry. That says a lot about what type of person he is. I know he can be a bear sometimes, but he has your best interests at heart and always will.”

Gerry didn’t doubt what Yolanda was saying for a minute. His old man had been there for him through thick and thin. But he also knew that if he didn’t avenge Jack Donovan’s murder, he wasn’t going to be able to live with himself.

They walked over to the Concourse E shuttle and kissed again. Then he gave his daughter a kiss. His wife gave the security person her driver’s license and the boarding passes, and a moment later was let through. Gerry waved good-bye, and watched Yolanda and his daughter board a tram that would take them to their airline gate.

Gerry drove his car out of short-term parking and handed the ticket attendant his stub. Moments later his charge was printed on a digital screen next to the attendant’s booth. NO CHARGE.

“I get to park for free?” Gerry said.

“You just made it under the minimum amount of time,” the attendant said.

“What a great place.”

“Tell me about it. Have a nice day.”

He followed the signs out of the airport until he saw one that said AIRPORT RETURN. He got in the left lane, and looped back the way he came. A minute later he reentered the parking area, and headed for long term. He spent several minutes finding a spot, parked, and sat behind the wheel watching a jet depart on a runway. He imagined Yolanda and his daughter on that jet, and how he would feel if something happened to them and he was not by their side. Pangs of guilt swept over him, and he supposed that was the penalty for being untruthful with his wife.

He got his suitcase from the trunk. He’d stowed it there the night before, when Yolanda was sleeping. His wife believed she was a light sleeper, but ever since she’d had the baby, she slept like a log.

He took a tram to the main concourse, then an elevator to the second level. As he exited the elevator, he stopped beneath a giant electronic board that showed the morning’s arrivals and departures arranged alphabetically by city. There were three flights out that morning, and he didn’t think he’d have trouble getting a seat. He went to the Delta counter and handed a reservation agent his driver’s license and credit card.

“Where are we going today?” the agent asked.

“Las Vegas,” Gerry said.

8

One of the curses of the retired was the excess of unstructured time. Though not yet retired, Valentine had read that in a magazine published by AARP and had taken it to heart. Every morning, he followed a strict routine — twenty minutes of exercise, followed by breakfast while reading the paper. By nine he was ready to start work, and would go to his study and check his e-mails. More often than not, a panicked casino boss in some part of the world had contacted him the night before, and his workday would officially begin.

But today felt a little strange. He had plenty to do — with six e-mails having come in since last night — but his enthusiasm was not there. Perhaps it had something to do with the cryptic note he’d found stuffed in his newspaper from Gerry. His son had taken his family to San Juan early that morning, and promised to call in a few days.

Valentine stared out the window onto his backyard, and tried to put his finger on why he felt out of sorts. It took only a moment for him to realize what was wrong.

He was alone.

He’d battled loneliness since his wife had died, and considered it his greatest nemesis. He needed to stay engaged, regardless of the task. He was still staring out the window when his office line rang. He answered the phone without enthusiasm.

“Tony, is that you?” It was the familiar voice of Bill Higgins. Director of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, Bill was responsible for policing Nevada’s casinos. They had been close friends for over twenty-five years.

“Sure is. You’re up early.”

“Just doing the Lord’s work,” Bill said. “I’ve got a problem that I was hoping you could help me with.”

“Help’s my middle name,” Valentine said.

“Good. Are you familiar with the World Poker Showdown?”

“Sure. Largest open poker tournament in the world, held in Las Vegas for eight days every year, over five thousand players competing for a ten-million-dollar grand prize. This year’s event is being held at Celebrity’s new casino.”

“I didn’t know you stayed up on the poker stuff,” Bill said.

“Beats playing shuffleboard.”

“There you go. There’s an old-timer entered in the tournament named Rufus Steele. His nickname is the Thin Man. You know him?”

Valentine smiled into the receiver. Rufus was the last of the true Texas gamblers, and had never met a wager he didn’t like. “I helped Rufus out of a jam in Atlantic City twenty years ago. You know what they used to say about Rufus? If he stood sideways and stuck his tongue out, he’d look like a zipper.”

“Well, the zipper is kicking up a storm. He got knocked out of the tournament last night, and started yelling that he’d been cheated. The tournament is being televised this year by one of the sports channels, so of course they interviewed him. It’s making all the casino owners in Las Vegas nervous.”

“How so?”

“Poker has been Las Vegas’s salvation since 9/11,” Bill said. “It draws more players with money than any other game. It’s keeping the casinos happy.”

“And Rufus saying that he got cheated in the biggest game in town might kill the goose that laid the golden egg,” Valentine said.

“Exactly.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Two things. The interview is going to be shown on television again. I’d like you to watch it, and see if you think Rufus has a legitimate beef. If he does, I’d like you to watch a surveillance tape of Rufus’s table in an e-mail I’m about to send you.”

Valentine stared at his computer screen. The six e-mails he’d received last night were from casinos that paid him monthly retainers. He needed to address them, but didn’t want to leave Bill hanging. He didn’t put money before friendship, and never would.

“When does the interview come on?”

“Ten minutes.”

“I’ll have a look, and let you know what I think.”

The only new thing Valentine had purchased since moving to Florida was a giant-screen TV, and that was because his old TV had gotten blown out during a lightning storm. Sitting in his La-Z-Boy, he hit the power on the remote, then surfed through the hundreds of channels he paid for but never watched, until he hit upon the sports channel showing the World Poker Showdown.

To Valentine’s way of thinking, poker tournaments were the only real competitive sport on TV. No one was getting paid except the blow-dried announcers, and every player paid an entry fee. He wondered how the prima donnas in baseball and football would feel if they had to pay to play their games in the hope of winning a prize.

An announcer named Gloria Curtis appeared on the screen. She’d been a big-time sports analyst for years, then gotten sent down to the minor leagues of cable. Valentine had always liked her and turned up the volume.

“This is Gloria Curtis, reporting from this year’s World Poker Showdown in Las Vegas. I’m standing here with poker legend Rufus Steele, who was knocked out of the tournament last night and is crying foul over what happened at his table.”

The camera pulled back, and Rufus Steele entered the picture. He still looked like an advance man for a famine. He wore his usual cowboy garb — boots, blue jeans, and a denim shirt buttoned to the neck — and could have stepped straight out of a rodeo. His Stetson was held politely in his hands.

“Rufus,” Curtis said, “could you explain to our viewing audience what happened last night?”

“I was cheated,” Rufus said, staring into the camera.

“Can you explain how you were cheated?”

“I’d be happy to. The tournament starts with everyone having two hundred dollars in chips. As a result, everyone plays tight. Now, the tournament directors also move players around every hour to keep things fair.”

“I’m with you so far,” Curtis said.

“Good. The second hour into the tournament, I was up two hundred dollars, and doing the best at my table. Then the tournament director brought over a new player. This player had fourteen hundred dollars in chips, which put everyone at a disadvantage. Within an hour, this player knocked several players out, including myself.”

“How is that cheating?” Curtis asked.

“The cheating occurred at that player’s previous table,” Rufus said. “It is statistically impossible for that player — who is an amateur — to have won that much money in such a short amount of time.”

She looked flustered. “But Mr. Steele, you’re playing cards. People get lucky.”

Steele gave her an icy stare. “Ma’am, are you familiar with something called the Poisson distribution?”

Gloria Curtis shook her head no.

“The Poisson distribution is a mathematical method of analyzing rare events. One assumption of the Poisson distribution is that the chance of winning is equally distributed. Every individual should have an equal chance when it comes to a game of cards, or playing the lottery. Make sense?”

“Certainly,” she said.

“Well, I went back to my room, and used the Poisson distribution to analyze the chance of that player being the only player in this tournament to have won that much money in such a short period of time. Would you care to know what the odds are?”

“Please.”

“Six billion to one. Where I come from, that ain’t called luck.”

Valentine heard the phone ringing in his study. He killed the power, and walked to the back of the house while thinking about what Rufus had just said. Rufus looked like a bumpkin, but it was just an act. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have lasted as long as he had.

He picked up the phone, and heard Bill say, “So, what do you think?”

“I’d say you’ve got a problem,” Valentine told his friend.

9

“You think Rufus was cheated?” Bill asked.

“It sure sounds that way.”

“Come on, Tony, there’s no smoking gun, just his word against the tournament director’s. I thought Rufus might say during the interview that he saw this other player marking cards or stealing chips, but he didn’t say anything like that. Quoting some obscure mathematical equation isn’t grounds to say you were cheated.”

“It is in poker,” Valentine said.

There was a pause on the line. Valentine found a pad and pencil on his desk, and jotted down the number of players in the World Poker Showdown, then determined the likelihood of one player beating seven other players within an hour based upon the Poisson equation. Although his formal education had ended in high school, he’d become schooled in statistics and probability when he’d started policing Atlantic City’s casinos, and as a result understood the math behind the games as well as anyone. Finished, he stared at the long number on the pad. Rufus had been dead on: six billion to one.

“Would you mind explaining?” Bill said.

Poker was not a big casino game, and not a lot of people in the gambling business understood it. He said, “Sure. Poker isn’t like other casino games, where the players gamble against the house, and the house always has an edge. In those games, the house is expected to win.”

“I’m with you so far.”

“Good. In poker, every player has the same chance, especially at the beginning of a tournament, when players start with an equal number of chips. Now, the odds of an amateur beating seven other players out of all their chips within the first hour is off the chart.”

“But it could happen,” Bill said.

“Maybe, but not necessarily,” Valentine said.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means it could happen, but probably won’t, especially in a tournament like the World Poker Showdown. There are a number of reasons. First, people always play tight on the first day, because they don’t want to get bounced out. Second, amateurs tend to be picked on by pros or more experienced players, so the chance of an amateur knocking out seven other players is slim.”

“Maybe the guy got lucky,” Bill interrupted. “That’s a big part of the game.”

“I’ll agree with you there.”

“So, the amateur who beat Rufus Steele got lucky.”

“That would be the natural assumption,” Valentine said, “only the Poisson distribution rules that out in this situation.”

“How?”

“When applied to gambling, the main assumption of the Poisson distribution is that the chance of winning is randomly distributed. Which means that every individual has an equal chance. For example, if someone won a million-dollar jackpot on a slot machine, that’s luck. Right?”

“Of course.”

“However, if someone won two million-dollar jackpots on the same machine within an hour, that’s probably cheating. You agree?”

Bill let out an exasperated breath. “Yeah, probably.”

“The same thing is true in poker. An amateur might beat a guy at his table out of all his chips in an hour. However, the chances of him beating two guys is unlikely, and the odds of him beating everyone is exactly what Rufus said during his interview.”

“Six billion to one?”

“Yeah, give or take a few thousand.”

“So the amateur was cheating.”

“That would be my guess.”

“You want the job?” Bill asked.

“What job?”

“I want to hire you to figure out how this amateur beat those seven players at his table. I’ll send you the surveillance tapes, plus the footage Gloria Curtis’s cameraman shot. Study them, and tell me what the guy’s doing. Then we can bar him from the tournament, and everyone will be happy.”

“Does Celebrity know you’re hiring me?”

“No,” Bill said. “They haven’t been very cooperative. Between you and me, I think they’d just like this whole thing to go away.”

Valentine thought back to the threatening phone call he’d received from the suit at Celebrity. Most casinos tried to expose cheating, and get the cheats barred or arrested. Celebrity was taking the opposite approach, and doing everything possible to pretend it didn’t exist. It didn’t smell right, and he stared at the Celebrity playing card on his desk.

“Who’s the suspected cheat?” Valentine asked.

“An amateur named Skip DeMarco.”

Skip DeMarco was the same player that Gerry had said was in Las Vegas using Jack Donovan’s poker scam. Maybe he could nail DeMarco, and give his son something to smile about.

“You want the job or not?” Bill asked.

“I want it,” Valentine said.

A minute later, Bill’s e-mail appeared on his computer screen with the surveillance tapes of Celebrity’s poker room and the footage shot by Gloria Curtis’s cameraman attached.

He watched the poker tape first. Celebrity’s surveillance cameras were digital, and the tape’s resolution was crystal clear. Eight men in their late twenties sat at a table along with a professional female dealer, who wore a red bow tie and starched white shirt.

Skip DeMarco sat in the center of the table. He wore purple shades and stared into space as he played. The game was Texas Hold ’Em, with each player dealt two cards to start. Instead of peeking at his cards like the other players, DeMarco brought his cards up to his nose, and stared at them. He enjoyed belittling his opponents and trumpeting his own wins. Had it been a private game, someone would have silenced him, either through words or a request to step outside. But this was a tournament, where anything was permissible. By the hour’s end, he had everyone’s chips.

Valentine paused the tape and got a diet soda from the rattling fridge in the kitchen. The fridge had come with the house, and he’d been meaning to buy a new one, only it still worked, and he’d never believed in getting rid of things simply because they were old. Back in his study, he resumed watching the tape.

Everything about the game looked on the square. DeMarco played smart, and got good cards when he needed them. Maybe the odds of him beating the other players were six billion to one, but sometimes those things happened. He decided to play Gloria Curtis’s tape, and see if it revealed anything.

Curtis had interviewed DeMarco at the end of the first day of the tournament, right after DeMarco had beaten Rufus Steel. DeMarco was tall and good-looking, and she held the mike up to his face.

“I’m speaking with today’s Cinderella story of the tournament, Skip ‘Dead Money’ DeMarco, an amateur player from New Jersey. Although this is your first tournament, I’m told you’ve played poker for many years.”

“I got my chops in Atlantic City,” he said, holding a beer to his chest.

“Can you tell us where the name Dead Money comes from?”

“It’s what the old-timers call amateurs.”

“Well, it looks like you knocked one of those old-timers out today,” Curtis said. “Rufus ‘the Thin Man’ Steele wasn’t very happy with how you beat him.”

“Too bad,” he said.

“Rufus claims you had an unfair advantage.”

“Try disadvantage. I’m legally blind, and have been my whole life,” he said. “Try playing poker and not being able to see your opponents’ faces.”

“What about Rufus’s claim?”

“Rufus Steele is past his prime. I’m starting a petition to have his name changed.”

“To what?”

“The Old Man.”

“How far do you think you’ll go in the tournament?”

“All the way,” he said.

The camera switched to show DeMarco at the poker table, raking in the chips. Valentine froze the tape and stared at DeMarco’s face. One thing that hadn’t diminished as he’d gotten older was his memory; he’d never seen this guy play poker in Atlantic City.

So why had he lied? DeMarco could have said he’d learned to play on the Internet, just like millions of other people. Only he’d wanted to let Gloria Curtis know that he was experienced, and that his winning wasn’t a fluke. Valentine picked up the phone, and punched in Bill Higgins’s cell number.

“I want to see some more tapes,” he said.

“You think he’s cheating?” Bill asked.

“I sure do.”

It took Bill several hours to get him the additional surveillance tapes from Celebrity. By law, Nevada’s casinos were required to film any area of the casino where money changed hands. The buy-in for a poker tournament was no different, and at noon the tapes appeared on Valentine’s computer.

The tapes were about as inspiring as watching paint dry. Endlessly long lines of men and women stood in front of dozens of tables, waiting to pay the ten thousand — dollar entry fee and get a table assignment.

It took an hour and a half of searching to find Skip DeMarco. He stood in a long line, drinking coffee and talking with several other players. He walked with a cane, his movements out of sync with everything around him.

Valentine scrutinized the players standing with DeMarco. It was the same seven guys who’d played with him the first day. People registering together in poker tournaments were never supposed to be placed at the same table. But the WPS had let DeMarco sit with his pals, and they’d folded to DeMarco, and let him amass a huge stack of chips that later let him beat Rufus Steele. It was cheating, pure and simple.

But what bothered Valentine most was the scope of it. DeMarco was involved, and so were seven of his friends. Someone in tournament registration was also involved. That made nine people. That was a lot of people to push one player into the next round.

“Sounds like a conspiracy,” Bill said, after Valentine explained what he’d discovered.

“It does, except there’s a flaw,” Valentine said.

“What’s that?”

“Eight members of the gang are now useless to DeMarco. His pals are out of the tournament, and whoever helped him in registration can’t do him any good now. DeMarco is on his own, and there’s another seven days to play.”

“Then why did he do it?”

Valentine picked up the Celebrity playing card lying on his desk. He had a sneaking suspicion that there was something else going on, and he wasn’t seeing it.

“I honestly don’t know,” he said.

“Have you ever heard of a blind person cheating at poker before? Or any game?”

“No.”

“Neither have I. I think he’s got something up his sleeve. Maybe he’s doing a special for one of those reality-TV shows, and he’s going to show how he swindled the world’s biggest poker tournament. Stranger things have happened. In the meantime, he might end up ruining the tournament and hurting every casino in town.”

“The guy is a world-class jerk,” Valentine said.

“Meaning my scenario isn’t so far-fetched.”

“Not at all.”

“So here’s what I’d like to offer you,” Bill said. “Come out here for a few days, and scrutinize DeMarco’s play. If you catch him doing anything illegal — bending a card, peeking at another player’s hand, copping a chip — we’ll bust his ass and bar him for life. Say yes, and I’ll fly you out first class, pay your daily fee, and put you up. On top of that, you’ll earn my undying gratitude.”

Valentine’s gut had been telling him that something wasn’t right at this tournament. Now he could find out what it was, and thumb his nose at the threatened lawsuit from Celebrity. It was a sweet deal if he’d ever heard one.

“For you, anything,” Valentine said.

10

The day Gerry Valentine had become a partner in his father’s business, he’d gotten a history lesson about Las Vegas. He hadn’t wanted to get a history lesson, but his father had wagged a finger in his face, and made him listen.

“It’s for your own good,” his father said.

So Gerry pulled up a chair and let his father talk.

Back in the 1940s, Las Vegas had been a dumpy gambling destination that attracted illiterate cowboys and other rough trade. Then two men with long criminal backgrounds came to town and changed the place. The first was a New York mobster named Bugsy Siegel. Bugsy was famous for wearing tailored suits, murdering anyone who got in his way, and helping Meyer Lansky and Al Capone start organized crime in America. Bugsy believed Las Vegas could be turned into Monte Carlo, and had sunk millions of the mob’s money into building the town’s first mega-resort on Las Vegas Boulevard. It was called the Flamingo, and was the beginning of the fabled “Strip.”

The second was a Texas gambler named Benny Binion. Benny had a police record a mile long, and liked to say, “I never killed a man that didn’t deserve it.” Benny left Texas after learning that the Rangers had orders to kill him on sight. Las Vegas welcomed him with open arms, and he bought the Horseshoe on Fremont Street in old downtown. His first day open, Benny hung out a sign that said WORLD’S HIGHEST LIMITS, and attracted every serious gambler around.

According to Gerry’s father, these two men had created modern Las Vegas. It was the town’s legacy, and no one was ashamed of it. But it did bother his father. His father believed that casinos, and the people who ran them, must have integrity. The majority of casino owners did not share this view, and had given his father a nickname. They called him Mr. Black and White.

This was on Gerry’s mind as he stepped off the plane at McCarran International Airport. A lot of people in Las Vegas knew his father and didn’t like him. And because Gerry was looking more like his father every day, people were going to recognize him. What were they going to call him? Mr. Black and White Jr.?

He ducked into a gift shop inside the terminal. Five minutes later he emerged wearing a Dodgers’ baseball cap, cheap sunglasses, and his shirt pulled out of his pants. He glanced at himself in the reflection in the gift shop’s window.

“Beautiful,” he said.

He rented a car, and drove to a joint on Las Vegas Boulevard called the Laughing Jackalope. Las Vegas was always boasting about being the fastest-growing city in the country, and about all the great jobs the city offered, but only the casinos made serious money. Every other place struggled to make ends meet. The Jackalope was no exception.

He squeezed the rental between a maxed-out Harley and a mud-caked junker. The Jackalope’s cross-eyed, albino bartender was considered a good source of information, and Gerry found him at the bar, standing like a statue beneath the TV. There was a hockey game on, a dozen guys slugging it out on the ice.

“A draft,” Gerry said, taking a stool.

The albino filled a mug with beer. He put a giant head on it, and plunked it onto the water-stained bar; the beer rolled down the glass. Having once run a bar himself, Gerry realized he was being insulted.

“Two bucks fifty,” the albino said.

“Can I get a scoop of ice cream with my drink?”

The albino didn’t laugh, nor did the drunken prophets sitting at the bar.

“Two bucks fifty,” the albino repeated.

“You always so hospitable?” Gerry asked as he paid up.

The albino eyed the C-note that Gerry had tugged out of his wallet. “I remember you,” the albino said. “You’re from New York.”

“Was,” Gerry said.

“Where you living now?”

“Sunny Florida.”

“You like it down there?”

“Love it.”

“I hear the summers are murder.”

“They’re not as bad as here.”

“Here? Give me a break. You have the fucking humidity. We don’t.”

“No, you just step outside and burst into flames.”

The albino’s face cracked. Almost a smile, but not quite there.

“Drink your beer,” he said.

The albino walked down the bar to take care of a female customer. The woman didn’t have any money but wanted another drink. The albino showed her to the door, then returned.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I’m looking for a couple of brothers who came into town yesterday,” Gerry said, a frosty beer moustache painting his upper lip. “Their names are Nunzie and Vinny Fountain. There’s a third guy with them, a gorilla named Frank.”

“Tush hog?” the albino asked.

Gerry had never heard anyone use that expression except his father. A tush hog was a muscleman employed by mobsters who enjoyed putting the hurt on people. Usually, their presence was enough to settle things.

“Wouldn’t know. I’ve never seen him fight,” Gerry said.

“Let me make a phone call, see what I can find out,” the albino said.

Gerry reached into his wallet and folded the C-note. He handed the money to the albino along with his empty mug. The albino walked down the bar, picked up the house phone, and made a call. Gerry lifted his gaze and stared at the TV. The hockey players were still fighting, their masks and gloves lying on the ice. He remembered going to a hockey game at Madison Square Garden with Jack Donovan, and Jack saying that hockey games had to have fights. Otherwise, they would last only about fifteen minutes.

The albino came back. “Your friends are staying at the Riviera.”

“Thanks,” Gerry said.

Going out, Gerry stopped to watch two guys at the pool table playing one-pocket. One-pocket was the favorite game among skilled players. Both players were too drunk to make any decent shots, and he left before the game ended.

He stepped outside into a blast of heat coming off the desert. The sunlight was fading, and the casinos’ feverishly pulsing neon was beginning to define the skyline. Standing in the parking lot, he stared northward at the brilliant sphere of light coming out of the Luxor’s towering green glass pyramid. The light had attracted thousands of moths, which in turn attracted hundreds of bats, and their wings beat furiously against the sky. He tried to remember the last time he’d seen a bat in the desert. Behind him, a car pulled into the lot, and two guys jumped out.

“Is that supposed to be a disguise?” one said sarcastically.

Gerry spun around. It was Vinny and the tush hog. He glanced into the idling car, and saw Nunzie behind the wheel.

“How did you find me?” Gerry asked.

“The albino called me,” Vinny said. “We’ve got an arrangement.”

“You sleeping with him?”

The tush hog laughed under his breath. Vinny threw an elbow into the bigger man’s ribs. Then Vinny stared at Gerry for what seemed like an eternity.

“Is your father with you?” Vinny asked.

“No, I came alone,” Gerry said.

Vinny rubbed his jaw. It was still swollen from where his father had popped him. Vinny’s eyes were burning, the ignominy of the punch slow to fade.

“Let’s go for a drive,” Vinny said.

11

Valentine said good-bye to Bill and hung up the phone, then went to his bedroom and started packing for Las Vegas. Into his hanging bag went two pairs of black slacks, two white button-down cotton shirts, and two black sports jackets that dated back to his days policing Atlantic City’s casinos. He threw in a gold necktie his wife had given him and zippered the bag closed. The clothes were the same ones he always wore when he was working — his uniform.

The phone rang while he was eating supper. He’d recently gotten Caller ID, and saw that it was Bill. He answered with a bite of sandwich still in his mouth.

“What would you say to appearing on TV when you come out here?” Bill asked.

He swallowed the food in his mouth and nearly choked.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Afraid not. Gloria Curtis won’t let this story die, and neither will the network she works for. They’re hounding me about Rufus Steele’s allegations of being cheated. I told Gloria that I’d hired an outsider to investigate. Now she’s wants an interview with you.”

“You know how I feel about going on TV,” Valentine said.

“Yes, that it’s stupid and has ruined more investigations than it’s helped,” Bill said. “But here’s my problem. Gloria broke this story. If you don’t talk to her, she’ll go on air, and start speculating about why the Nevada Gaming Control Board hired you. That would hurt your investigation and the tournament.”

He put his dirty plate in the sink and ran warm water over it. He’d appeared on television a handful of times while working on cases, and always regretted it. His statements had been distorted, and he’d been challenged by nitwits who knew nothing about the gaming industry or cheating. Worse, his mug had gotten put out there for everyone to see, something that was unhealthy in his line of work.

“Sounds like you’ve gotten yourself painted into a corner,” Valentine said. “How about we offer her a compromise?”

“Name it.”

“I’ll talk to Gloria, but not on the air, because showing my face would compromise the investigation. She can ask me questions, and I’ll answer them to the best of my ability. Then she can tell her viewers what’s going on.”

“You’d be willing to do that?”

“Sure.”

“Will you tell her anything?”

“Of course not,” Valentine said. “It’s none of her flipping business. Can I make another suggestion?”

“Of course.”

“Get ahold of Rufus Steele, and tell him to keep his mouth shut until I get out there and get to the bottom of what’s going on. If he gives you any lip, tell him I’ll expose his sorry ass.”

“Expose him how?”

“Rufus got arrested when he was a teenager. He rescued stray dogs from the pound, paid a groomer to make them look like an exotic breed, then went into wealthy neighborhoods, and sold them to widows with a sob story about needing money. At his trial, he told the judge he was doing the town a favor, because the women became attached to the dogs, and kept them after their coats grew out. The judge gave him ninety days.”

He dried the plate with a towel and heard Bill laughing.

“That’s wonderful,” his friend said.

Valentine went into his study and printed his flight itinerary off the computer. His flight left Tampa at seven A.M., which meant he needed to get up by four thirty in order to drive to the airport and deal with security. It made him tired just thinking about it, and he folded the itinerary into a square and stuck it into his wallet.

He shuffled into his bedroom and set the alarm clock, then undressed and lay naked on his bed. Nighttime was the most difficult time, and sometimes he imagined that everything that had happened since Lois’s death was a dream, and that she would walk into the room, and his life would return to normal. A stupid dream, but one he still held on to.

An hour later the phone rang. He answered it with a groggy “Hello.”

“Hey, Tony, hope I didn’t wake you,” Eddie Davis’s voice rang out.

“You did, but that’s okay.”

“I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you,” his friend from the Atlantic City Police Department said, “but it’s been a long day. I did a background check on those three names you gave me. I also took it upon myself to ask my pal over at the New Jersey Gambling Commission if they had a file on those boys.”

“Did they?”

“Yeah. Look, are you someplace where you can talk?”

Valentine’s eyes opened wide. His bedroom was pitch dark, and except for the light creeping through the blinds from a streetlight, he couldn’t see a blessed thing.

“I can talk. What did you find?”

“It isn’t good, Tony.”

He sat up straight and immediately felt light-headed. The phone had a short cord, and he heard it go crashing to the floor. He groped in the dark, found the phone, and clumsily replaced it on the night table.

“You still there, Eddie?”

“I sure am. Here’s the down and dirty, Tony. According to police records, Vinny Fountain, Nunzie Fountain, and Frank DeCesar are small-time scammers who’ve had a hand in dozens of shady operations on the island in the past ten years. Mind you, they’ve never been arrested, but their names have come up during plenty of investigations.”

“Wise guy wannabes,” Valentine said.

“Exactly,” Eddie said. “Now, here’s what I got from the New Jersey Gambling Commission. The GC got a tip several years ago that the Fountains were conspiring to scam a casino in Atlantic City, and decided to conduct an investigation. The Fountains were followed and had their phones tapped.”

Valentine threw his legs over the edge of the bed. What the hell was Eddie talking about? He’d never heard of the Fountains in conjunction with any scam, and there wasn’t an Atlantic City scam that he hadn’t known about when he was a cop.

“What year was this?” he asked.

“It was 1998.”

That was three years before he’d retired.

“You’re sure?” Valentine asked.

“Positive.”

“But that’s impossible. I would have known.”

“Just listen,” Eddie said. “The Fountains moved around a lot, and did most of their talking on pay phones. There was a bar in Brooklyn where they went a few times, and made some calls. Guess which one.”

Valentine blinked in the dark. “My son’s.”

“There you go.”

Which was why he’d never heard about the investigation. Someone over at the Gambling Commission had made the link, and decided to keep Valentine out of the loop. He thought back to the scene in Gerry’s house the day before, and what Vinny Fountain had said to him. We’re just discussing a business proposition with your son. He turned on the night table lamp, and flooded the bedroom with light.

“What happened to the investigation?” he asked.

“It fell apart,” Eddie said. “The Fountains never went through with the scam for whatever reason. There wasn’t enough evidence on the wiretaps to convict them of conspiracy, so the GC dropped it.”

Valentine rubbed his face with his hand. It would have been nice to think that Gerry hadn’t known what the Fountains were doing in his bar. After all, guys made phone calls in bars all the time. Only Gerry had run an illegal bookmaking operation and had known every scammer that had stepped into the joint. Gerry had been involved with these hoodlums, maybe even had a part in their scam. It was embarrassing as hell.

“Thanks, Eddie. I really appreciate you going to the trouble.”

“Sorry to ruin your night,” Eddie said.

12

“What the hell is a tush hog?” Frank asked.

They were in Vinny’s rental, cruising the strip. Nunzie was driving, Frank riding shotgun, Vinny and Gerry in the backseat acting like sightseers. Nighttime in Vegas was a trip, the sky so brilliantly lit that it put the brain on overload. They’d been driving around for a while. Vinny had apologized to Gerry for coming to his house the day before without calling, and Gerry had apologized for his father roughing Vinny and Frank and Nunzie up. That had been the nature of their relationship for as long as Gerry could remember. He would do a deal with Vinny, they’d have a fight, then later end up apologizing.

“A tush hog is an old-timer’s expression for an enforcer,” Gerry said.

“Is that what I am, an enforcer?”

“You were a professional boxer once, weren’t you?”

“Yeah, but all my fights were in Europe,” Frank said.

“So?”

“No one in the United States saw them. If my fights had been over here, people would be afraid of me, you know?”

“You’re still a tush hog,” Gerry said.

Frank shook his head, not liking it. “It makes it sound like I have a big ass.”

“You do have a big ass,” Nunzie said.

Everyone in the car laughed. Then Frank punched Nunzie in the arm, and the rental crossed the double line on the highway. Suddenly they were driving straight into oncoming traffic. Nunzie spun the wheel, and they recrossed the line to safety.

Gerry released his death grip on the door handle, took a few deep breaths, and felt his heartbeat slowly return to normal. That was the bad thing about working with the Fountain brothers. Everything would be going along just fine; then, without warning, your life was dangling in front of your face.

Vinny told Nunzie to drive to an area of town called Naked City. It was on the north end of Las Vegas, stuck between the strip and Fremont Street, and was filled with sleazy strip clubs, adult bookstores and fetish shops, and run-down massage parlors. Gerry had heard that every business in Naked City had ties to organized crime. The mob had once run the town’s casinos; now they just ran the flesh trade.

Nunzie pulled up to the valet in front of a strip club called the Sugar Shack. The valets were all grown men and not moving terribly fast. Gerry had seen similar setups in strip joints up and down the East Coast. The mob ran the valet concession, and gave jobs to made guys just out of prison.

As they waited for a valet to take their car, Vinny said, “I set up a meeting with Jinky Harris. He owns this joint. He also runs the town’s rackets. I wanted him to know what we were doing out here, make sure he was cool with it.”

“I’ve got a question,” Nunzie said.

“What?”

“If this guy’s so important, how did he get a name like Jinky?”

Vinny reached around the headrest and grabbed Nunzie by the ear. No words were spoken, just a gentle twist of the lower lobe. Nunzie twisted painfully in his seat.

“All right, all right, it was a dumb question,” Nunzie said.

The club’s interior was upscale as far as strip clubs went. On three brightly lit stages, dozens of naked young women pranced and danced and gyrated on brass poles, their bodies showing more silicone than Palo Alto. It was a feast for the eyes, but what got Gerry’s attention was the free buffet laid out on two long tables beside the main bar. He stared longingly at the steaming food while Vinny asked the bartender if the boss was in.

“Who wants to know?” the bartender replied.

“Vinny Fountain and associates,” Vinny replied.

The bartender picked up the house phone and made a call. Gerry continued to stare at the food. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast and was starving. He waited until the guy serving the food turned his head, and tried to pilfer an egg roll.

“The food’s for customers,” a booming voice said.

Gerry looked up into the face of a black guy easily seven feet tall. His head was shaved and the strobe lights in the club danced off his skull. Gerry removed his hand.

“Sorry.”

“As well you should be,” the giant said. “Which one of you is Vinny?”

“I am,” Vinny said.

“Mr. Harris will see you now,” the giant said.

They followed him through a red-beaded curtain, then down a dimly lit hallway to a blue door. As the giant rapped on the door, Nunzie whispered to Frank, “Now, that’s a tush hog.”

Jinky’s office was straight out of the movie Scarface, with thick white carpet, luxurious leather furniture, and ugly wall hangings. The boss sat in a motorized wheelchair behind a massive marble desk. In his fifties, he wore a purple velour tracksuit, had a full beard, and looked wider than he was tall. On the desk were four plates of food from the buffet, along with a tall glass of milk. The sizes of the portions were phenomenal. Jinky shook out a cloth napkin, and tucked it into his collar.

“You’re from Atlantic City?” Jinky asked.

“That’s right,” Vinny said.

“I hate Atlantic City. What can I do for you?”

“We’re in town to settle a score,” Vinny said. “I didn’t want to bother any of your operations.”

Jinky plunged his fork into a steaming mound of chow mein. “A score with who?”

“George Scalzo. He’s scamming World Poker Showdown,” Vinny said.

“George ‘the Tuna’ Scalzo?”

“That’s right.”

“Another New Jersey scumbag. What did Scalzo do to you?”

“He stole something of mine, and killed our friend.”

Jinky twirled the noodles on his fork, then stuck the fork into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed, then turned to glance at the giant, who stood behind him.

“We got any action at the WPS?” Jinky asked.

“Just the ring games,” the giant replied.

“You rig them?”

“Yeah,” the giant said.

Ring games were the side games at poker tournaments, and usually played for high stakes. By rigging these games, Jinky would make a killing without coming under the scrutiny of the tournament’s rules and regulations.

“Stay away from the ring games,” Jinky told them.

“Won’t touch them,” Vinny said.

Gerry’s stomach emitted a growl. The smell of the food was too much for his digestive system to bear. Jinky dropped his fork onto his plate.

“What, your mother doesn’t feed you?”

Gerry couldn’t believe Jinky was treating them this way. Had Jinky walked into his bar in Brooklyn, he would have shown him a certain level of hospitality. Like a cup of coffee and a chair.

“I caught him stealing an egg roll,” the giant said.

“Don’t ever step into my club again,” Jinky said.

Gerry nearly told him to shove it, but instead removed his baseball cap. “I haven’t eaten all day, and my hunger got the best of me. I meant no disrespect.”

Jinky leaned back in his wheelchair and scratched his beard. If he didn’t accept the apology, he’d look like an ingrate. As the boss, he was supposed to be above that.

“Apology accepted,” Jinky said.

Gerry put his baseball cap back on.

“Now get the hell out of my club, and don’t ever come back.”

Gerry felt like he’d been backhanded across the face. Had the giant not been standing there, he would have said something. He noticed a framed photo sitting on the desk. It showed Jinky holding a plaque outside the Acme Oyster House in New Orleans. Gerry had gone to New Orleans with Yolanda before the baby had been born, and had eaten at the Acme. He remembered seeing the plaque hanging above the main shucking area. He looked at his host.

“I can’t believe it. You’re the guy who ate forty-two dozen oysters at the Acme Oyster House in New Orleans, aren’t you?”

Jinky leaned forward. “Forty-two and a half. You been there?”

“Sure,” Gerry said. “I could only eat two dozen.”

“You like oysters?”

“Love ’em. I also love milk.”

Jinky picked up the glass of milk on the desk. “Me too. Since I was a kid.”

“How much do you drink a day?” Gerry asked.

Jinky counted on his fingers. “Ten glasses, at least.”

“Over a gallon?”

“More than a gallon.”

“Think you could drink a gallon of milk in an hour?”

“With my eyes closed,” Jinky said.

Gerry took his wallet out and removed all his cash, which he tossed on the desk.

“Bet you can’t,” he said.

Hustlers have an expression: “Pigs get fed, hogs get slaughtered.” Gerry had decided that it was time for Jinky to get slaughtered. He was going to pay this bastard back for not showing them any respect, and he was going to do it in a mean way.

The giant took Gerry’s money and counted it on the desk. There was exactly four hundred dollars, which wasn’t much by Vegas standards.

Jinky glanced up at Vinny. “You want some of this action?”

Vinny started to say no, but Gerry elbowed him in the ribs.

“Take the man’s bet,” Gerry said under his breath.

“What?”

“Just do as I say.”

Vinny blew out his lungs and removed a wad of cash from his pocket. He threw half of it onto the desk beside Gerry’s money. The giant counted it as well. Twenty-six hundred bucks, all in C-notes.

“Three thousand bucks says I can’t drink a gallon of milk in an hour?” Jinky said. “What if I drink it in half an hour?”

“We’ll pay you double,” Gerry said.

Vinny let out a gasp.

“You’re on!” Jinky exclaimed.

The giant went down the hall to the kitchen. When he returned he was holding a fresh gallon of milk. He opened it, and poured a tall glass for his boss. Jinky raised it in a mock toast.

“Here’s to the easiest six grand I’ve ever made. Thanks, boys.”

Jinky drank the first four glasses of milk without a problem. But by the fifth glass, he began to slow down, the color of his face turning from deep red to a subdued pink. He was struggling to keep the liquid down, and placed the empty glass on his desk and filled his lungs with air. A little over half the gallon was gone.

“How much time have I used?” he asked.

“Fifteen minutes,” the giant said. He sat on the edge of his boss’s desk, guarding the money.

“Give me a minute to catch my breath.”

“You’ve got another forty-five minutes, boss.”

“Fifteen,” Jinky said. “I’m going to drink the rest in fifteen.”

“Don’t hurt yourself, boss.”

“Shut your mouth,” Jinky said.

The sixth glass was a monumental achievement, and went down as slow as honey. By the time the seventh had been raised to Jinky’s lips, five more minutes had passed, and Jinky’s face had turned as white as the liquid in the glass. He was a goner, and Gerry tugged Vinny on the sleeve.

“Get out of his way,” he said beneath his breath.

“He gonna blow?” Vinny whispered back.

“Any second.”

“You slip something into his drink?”

“No. It’s all the enzymes in the milk. The stomach can’t tolerate them all at once. The king is about to be dethroned.”

Vinny hid the smile on his lips. “Long live the king,” he said.

13

Valentine landed at McCarran International Airport at nine thirty the next morning, and was greeted by Gloria Curtis as he stepped out of the jetway. She wore a striking blue suit and stood out among the poorly dressed tourists. He’d watched her announce sports for years, and always liked her direct, no-nonsense style. She looked younger than her age, which he guessed to be fifty. She was an attractive woman who’d opted for crow’s feet instead of a face lift. He liked that, too.

“Mr. Valentine, I’m Gloria Curtis with WSPN Sports,” she said.

He did not slow down, his clothing bag slung over his shoulder.

“How did you get out here without a ticket?” he asked.

It wasn’t the best lead, and he saw a twinge of hurt on her face. “I was just wondering,” he quickly added. “Being an ex-cop, my curiosity kind of runs away with my mouth sometimes.”

“I was supposed to be leaving this afternoon,” she said. “I used that ticket. Look, I’ll get right to the point. I need to air my story in a few hours.”

“Time’s a-wasting, huh?”

“Yes. I have a deadline to meet, and I’m hoping you’ll accommodate me.”

“Off camera, as we agreed,” he said.

“Yes. I rented one of the airport’s conference rooms.”

Valentine shook his head.

“Would you prefer one of the casinos, instead?” she asked.

He shook his head again. If there is anywhere in the world where the expression “The walls have ears” is true, it is in Las Vegas.

She made an annoyed face, and he said, “Don’t worry. I know the perfect place we can talk.”

There was something deliciously sweet about taking a woman that you’d always admired for a drive ten minutes after meeting her. But that was what Valentine was able to do, having rented a convertible at the Avis counter while convincing Gloria that a car would be the safest place to have their conversation about cheating at World Poker Showdown. As he opened the passenger door for her, she smiled.

“How nice. You’re also a gentleman,” she said.

Outside of the airport he got onto Tropicana Avenue and took it to Las Vegas Boulevard, then headed south, away from town. The pattern of two- and three-story condominiums broke after a few miles, the scenery changing to desert fields that lay in dusty rest. He glanced at his passenger and saw her eyeing the scenery.

“This feels like a date,” she said with a laugh in her voice.

“Does that mean the interview’s off?”

She turned in her seat, the shoulder harness pulling at her blouse.

“Don’t try to wiggle out of this one.”

He stared at the highway. “Fire away.”

“First of all, I’m pretty sure that Skip DeMarco cheated during the first day of the tournament,” she began.

“How did you do that?”

“I got my hands on the tournament registration logbook. DeMarco registered with the same seven guys he played with. I looked at the tapes from their table. They all folded to him, and gave him a huge advantage because he had so many chips. That let him beat Rufus Steele, plus a number of other top players. It was such an advantage that he’s currently the chip leader in the tournament. I also ran a background check on him. His uncle is a gangster from Newark named George ‘the Tuna’ Scalzo. Scalzo is out here, backing him.”

Gloria folded her hands in her lap, obviously pleased with herself.

“So what’s the question?” Valentine asked.

She shot him a bite-your-head-off look. “Are you trying to be funny? I want you to confirm what I just said.”

“Confirm what?”

“That DeMarco is a cheater.”

“Can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because you don’t have any proof,” Valentine said.

“But I just told you my proof.”

“It won’t hold up. Play devil’s advocate with me for a minute. DeMarco registers with seven guys, and they end up at the same table. It looks suspicious, but maybe it’s a coincidence. He is blind, so you can’t blame him. Unless you can get one of those seven guys to admit it was done on purpose, you’ve got nothing.”

He took his eyes off the road and glanced at her. “Agreed?”

Gloria bit her lower lip. “I guess.”

“Now, those seven guys fold to DeMarco. Or did they just lose to him? Unless one of them says they gave him their chips, you’ve got nothing. Agreed?”

“Come on. You and I both know that DeMarco cheated.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. There are plenty of cheaters playing in the World Poker Showdown, including your source, Rufus Steele.”

“He is?”

“Yes. Rufus has been conning people for fifty years. Having one crook accuse another crook of cheating isn’t credible.”

“But Rufus has never been arrested,” she said. “I checked him out.”

“He’s still a crook.”

“But—”

“Trust me on this, okay?”

She acted wounded, and Valentine guessed she’d already written her story, and was just hoping he’d verify it so she could get in front of a camera and blow the lid off DeMarco’s scam. That wasn’t going to happen if he had a say in the matter, and he saw a gas station ahead and turned his indicator on.

“Look, Gloria,” he said when they were sitting in the gas station’s parking area. She had refused his offer of a hot drink, and stared coolly at him as he spoke. “A lot of gamblers are crooks. They try to get an edge whenever they can. Sometimes it means doing things that aren’t kosher.”

“And Rufus is one of these people.”

“He sure is.”

“Give me an example.”

The gambling world was replete with stories of how Rufus Steele had conned suckers out of their hardearned dough. He sensed that Gloria had taken a liking to Rufus, and he tried to pick a story that wouldn’t offend her too badly.

“Rufus is the master of the proposition bet. Know what those are?”

She shook her head.

“A proposition bet is one that you can’t win, even though it looks fair. Here’s one of my favorites. Rufus showed up at a dog track in Miami one day. It was early in the morning, and the track wasn’t officially open. With him is a greyhound with a big, lumpy belly. The dog looks like it’s pregnant. Rufus starts chiding the trainers, and tells them that his dog is faster than theirs. Within five minutes, he’s got everyone riled up, and a bunch of trainers willing to bet him otherwise. Needless to say, Rufus took them on.”

“Did he win the bet?”

“Of course he won,” Valentine said.

“But I thought you said the dog was pregnant.”

“The dog looked pregnant. Rufus had fed her a bowl of hard-boiled eggs for breakfast. For some reason, they blow up a dog’s stomach, but they don’t affect their movement. The dog was also a world-class runner. It beat the field by two lengths.”

“How clever.”

“Clever like a fox. Rufus won thirty grand on that bet.”

“Thirty grand? That’s cheating.”

“It sure is.”

Gloria stared out the windshield at the convenience store. She looked defeated, and glanced at her watch, then across the seat at him.

“I think I’ll take you up on that hot drink,” she said.

Valentine bought two cups of coffee and shared a cinnamon doughnut with her. He felt he needed to impress her, yet at the same time, didn’t want to get too close and blow his investigation. He pointed at the last piece of doughnut and said, “That’s got your name on it.”

She popped the piece into her mouth and smiled as she chewed.

“You sure know how to show a girl a good time,” she said.

“I get the feeling that I’ve put you in a bad spot.”

“Sort of.”

“Tell me what the problem is. If I can help you, I will.”

“Do you really mean that?”

“Of course I mean it.”

She wiped her mouth with a paper napkin. “It’s like this, Tony. Next year, I turn fifty. In the broadcast news business, that’s a mature age for a man, ancient for a woman. I’m being put out to pasture. No more major league baseball games or NFL football analysis or any plum assignments. It’s billiards tournaments and lumberjack competitions these days. Covering the World Poker Showdown was a favor by the head of the network. And I blew it.”

“You mean by saying there was cheating.”

“Yes. Based on what you just told me, I can’t prove it. Mark Perrier, the guy who runs Celebrity, is threatening a lawsuit if I don’t recant the story. If I do recant, I’ll lose my job with the network. What’s the expression? I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place, and I don’t know what to do.”

Perrier was the same guy who’d threatened him over the phone two nights ago. Valentine was seeing a pattern that he didn’t like. Perrier should be trying to get to the bottom of these allegations instead of covering them up. He reached over and touched Gloria’s sleeve. She looked into his face, her eyes hopeful.

“Do you know what the bad part about getting old is?” he asked.

“The wrinkles?”

“People don’t think you count anymore.”

“Oh,” she said.

“As a result, you spend a lot of time showing people you do count. Sort of like when you were a kid, and no one took you seriously.”

“You’re saying growing old is like regressing.”

“To other people it is. Now, I’m going to level with you, and I don’t want it going any further than this car. Understood?”

“Certainly,” Gloria said.

“I didn’t travel three thousand miles to investigate some pissant scam. There’s something seriously wrong with this tournament and I’m going to find out what it is. It might take me a few days, so here’s what I suggest you do. Have your boss at the network call me. I’ll tell him what I just told you. I’ll also promise him that you’ll get an exclusive once I’m done. That should get you off the hook.”

“You mean that?”

“Of course I mean it.”

The look on her face was something special. Surprise and happiness and something akin to admiration all rolled into one. She brought her body across the seat, placed her hand against his chin, and planted a kiss on his cheek. Her lips were soft, and brought back long-buried memories that made his heart stir.

“Thank you, Tony,” she said.

14

Valentine took out his business card and wrote his cell number on the back. He’d only given his cell number to a handful of people over the years, yet handed it readily to Gloria Curtis. He started the car and pointed it toward Las Vegas.

“Tell your boss to call me anytime,” he said.

“I will. His name is Ralph. He has a tough exterior, but deep down he’s a real jerk.”

Valentine laughed. “He ride you hard?”

“Like a mule.” She pulled a pack of Kools from her purse and banged one out. “Mind if I smoke?”

“I might attack you.”

“Trying to quit?”

“Yes. I kicked the habit when I was a cop, didn’t smoke for twenty years. Two years ago I started again. Now, I’m not sure if I’ll ever quit.”

“Why did you start again?”

“My wife died.”

“I’m terribly sorry.”

“Then my son joined my business,” he added, forcing a smile. “I think that was the clincher.”

“May I ask you a question about your son?”

Valentine stiffened. Talking about Gerry with strangers was never a favorite subject: too many surprises came up. He pointed out the window at the buff desert ringed with bluish mountains. “Sure is beautiful scenery,” he said.

“Did you bring him to Las Vegas to help you with this case?”

The road back to town was as straight as an arrow. He stared at the double line in its center while playing her question back in his head. The first part was a statement of fact — Gerry was here, and somehow Gloria had found out — the second a question.

“How did you know my son was in Las Vegas?”

“Guess,” she said. “I already gave you a clue.”

“You did?”

“Yes. Remember how we met?”

Valentine continued to stare at the road. “You met me at my plane, meaning you have a contact with the airlines who told you what flight I was on.”

“That’s right,” she said, lighting up.

“That’s illegal, you know.”

She choked on the cigarette’s smoke. “You sound like a cop when you say that.”

“Sorry.”

“Do you want a cigarette or not?”

“Can I just have a puff of yours?”

She shook her head, and he took one and let her light it. He filled his lungs with the great-tasting smoke, and for about five seconds the world felt right again. It wasn’t long, but sometimes that was all you needed.

“Your airport contact must have seen that Gerry flew here, and told you,” he said.

“Your powers of deduction are amazing,” Gloria replied, holding her cigarette like a movie starlet. “So, do you work cases often with your son?”

“Sometimes.”

“Bringing a kid into a family business must be hard,” she said.

The road had become super-sized, as had the cars passing by. Gerry was supposed to be in Puerto Rico, looking after his wife and baby, and not here in Sin City, doing whatever the hell he was doing. Valentine took several deep breaths and felt himself calm down.

“You have no idea,” he said. “Where are you staying?”

“Celebrity,” she said.

“Me too.”

A mile before town he got onto Highway 105, and ten minutes later pulled into Celebrity’s main entrance. Las Vegas casinos were designed like carnival attractions, the casino willing to say or do anything to get you inside its doors. Celebrity was no different. Its exterior looked like the entrance to Tarzan’s lair, with elephants and giraffes and other jungle beasts roaming the grounds, the animals kept in check by natural deterrents. A valet dressed like Jungle Jim hustled over to take his car.

Gloria started to get out, then turned to face him. “I’m going to need filler to run while I’m waiting for your case to break. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.”

“Filler?”

“Stories, human interest stuff.”

“I can make some introductions. I know a lot of the famous players.”

“Let’s talk later about it, okay?”

The words were slow to sink in. He’d been wondering what kind of impression he’d made on her, and guessed it was several notches above what he’d thought. She scribbled her cell phone number on the back of her business card, then stuck the card between his fingers. “Call me when it’s convenient,” she said.

He watched Gloria walk away, then got out of his rental and pulled his garment bag from the trunk. Every dark cloud had a silver lining. Hearing that Gerry was in Las Vegas was bad news, yet meeting Gloria was not. There was a bounce in his step as he went inside.

Celebrity’s lobby had an enormous atrium filled with screeching macaws and giant yellow-headed parrots. It was fun for about five minutes, which was how long he had to wait in line to get registered. After that, the panicked look on the birds’ faces started to bother him, and he stopped looking at them.

His room wasn’t clean, so he parked his garment bag with the concierge, and crossed the lobby to the casino. Like every joint in town, Celebrity’s casino offered the same money-losing games, except for one difference. They had built a huge card room designed exclusively to hold the World Poker Showdown. It was as long as a football field, and had plush carpeting and real crystal chandeliers. Considering that most poker players would rather drink out of a toilet than tip a cocktail waitress, Celebrity’s management had made a huge investment.

Two armed guards stood outside the card room. The WPS’s main prize was ten million in cash, and it was on display inside in a Plexiglas box. Each night, the money was put into a vault. As publicity gimmicks went, there was nothing like it.

A giant-screen TV showed the action inside, with thousands of men and women sitting at green baize tables. The game was Texas Hold ’Em and each player was dealt two face-down cards to start. After a round of betting, three communal cards, called the flop, were dealt face up in the center of the table, followed by another round of betting. Then two more cards, known as Fourth Street, or the turn, and Fifth Street, called the river, were dealt face up, with a round of betting after each card. The five cards in the center were common to all players, who used them with their hole cards to make the best hand.

He went to the registration desk and asked for Bill Higgins. A man behind the desk picked up a walkie-talkie and called inside. Bill emerged through the doors thirty seconds later, all out of breath. Bill was Navajo by birth, and had the demeanor of a statue. Not only was he the most powerful law enforcement officer in Nevada, he was the best law enforcement person Valentine had ever known.

“One of the dealers is passed out cold,” Bill said.

“Heart attack?”

“Could be. He keeled over during the middle of his deal.” He turned to the guards. “An ambulance will be here soon. Be prepared to clear a path for them.”

“Yes, sir,” they both said.

Bill opened the doors, and Valentine followed him in. The unconscious dealer was in the room’s center, being attended to by several other dealers. A crowd of gamblers stood off to one side, making wagers on whether or not the dealer was going to live. Valentine went over and told them to knock it off.

“You a cop?” a guy holding a fan of bills asked.

“How bad do you want to find out?” Valentine replied.

The parasites scattered. He joined Bill, and knelt down beside the dealer. One of the other dealers was shaking his head.

“He just had radiation treatment for cancer a few weeks ago,” the dealer said. “I guess he wasn’t as strong as he thought.”

“What’s his name?” Valentine asked.

“Ray Callahan.”

The name was vaguely familiar. Valentine gently slapped Callahan on the cheek.

“Hey Ray, rise and shine. Breakfast is on, and everyone’s waiting for you.”

Callahan slowly came around. He blinked hard, and for a brief moment was wide awake. He stared at Valentine with a glint of recognition, then went back under. Three EMS guys pushing a gurney rushed into the room. They got Callahan on a stretcher, then rolled him out.

A gambler across the room called out, “Is he still alive?”

Valentine spotted the guy who asked this, and shook his fist at him.

“I met with Gloria Curtis earlier and got her under control,” Valentine said when he and Bill were in the coffee shop. “She’s willing to play ball.”

“You going to give her an exclusive if you find anything?” Bill asked, blowing the steam off his drink.

“I didn’t have a choice. Look, I need to level with you about something.”

Valentine took out his wallet, and removed the playing card Jack Donovan had given Gerry. Bill stared at the card, then turned it over and stared at it some more.

“This is from this casino, isn’t it?” Bill said.

“That’s right. It turned up in a murder investigation in Atlantic City. The victim gave the card to my son before he died. He claimed he could beat any poker game in the world. Trouble is, we can’t find anything wrong with the card.”

Bill dropped the playing card on the table. “Was this person credible?”

“He was a scammer. He and my son were childhood friends.”

“So the tournament is being cheated.”

“Yes. The problem is, I have no idea how. I’d suggest you start checking every deck of cards before and after it’s used. Especially those at Skip DeMarco’s table.”

Bill made a face. “So DeMarco is cheating.”

“That’s where the evidence is pointing.”

“But he’s legally blind. How could he be reading the cards?”

Valentine had thought about it during his flight out that morning, and had come to the conclusion that DeMarco, like many sight-impaired people, must have an elevated sense of hearing that compensated for his lack of sight. If someone at the table were reading the backs of the cards — such as the dealer — they could signal DeMarco by the way they breathed. Hustlers called this The Sniff and often used it to pass information.

“I think someone’s reading them for him,” Valentine said. “Start watching the dealers at DeMarco’s table.”

The waitress came and topped off their cups. As Valentine raised his to his lips, he stared at Bill. The look on his friend’s face said he was frustrated as hell. Despite his obnoxious behavior, Skip DeMarco was the darling of the tournament. Busting him for cheating was the last thing Bill wanted to do.

“Rufus Steele called me earlier,” Bill said. “He heard you were in town, and wants to talk to you. He’s staying in the hotel.”

Valentine put his cup down. Rufus’s interview with Gloria Curtis had bothered him. It was rare for a cheater to call another player a cheater. Rufus must have had good reason, and Valentine wanted to know what that reason was.

“Give me his room number,” Valentine said.

15

“It’s open, and I’ve got nothing worth stealing,” Rufus Steele called out.

Valentine opened the door to Rufus’s hotel room and poked his head in. Rufus was standing by the bed with the phone pressed to his chin, the look on his face pure agitation. Seeing Valentine in the doorway, he flashed a crooked grin, and motioned him inside.

“Hey, Tony, you’re a sight for sore eyes. How you been?”

“Fine,” Valentine said, shutting the door behind him.

Rufus hadn’t changed that much since Valentine had last seen him. He was in his scruffy cowboy clothes and looked like he’d just stepped out of a spaghetti western. Back in his day, he’d been the greatest poker player in the world, but that had been a long time ago. Compared to the brash young kids who now ruled the poker world, Rufus looked sadly out of place.

“Hello,” Rufus said into the phone. “Is this the hotel’s general manager? Well, listen to what I’m about to say. You have as much chance of getting me to leave this room as you do getting French kissed by the Statue of Liberty. That’s right, son. I know the law, and you can’t throw me out. You think I’m mistaken? Well, here’s an idea. Why don’t you take this phone and shove it up your ass?”

Rufus dropped the receiver into its cradle. Then he grabbed two sodas from the minibar, and pointed at a pair of chairs by the room’s window. They made themselves comfortable and clinked bottles.

“They trying to throw you out?” Valentine asked.

“They sure are. They’re mad I blew the whistle on that smart-aleck DeMarco kid,” Rufus said. He took a long swig of soda and let out a belch. “Besides, I can’t leave the hotel even if I wanted to.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t pay the bill. I blew the last of my money on the entry fee.”

“Times been hard?”

Rufus tilted back his cowboy hat. His forehead was covered with liver spots and his hair was a thin reminder of the mane he’d once sported. “Yeah, but I guess I should have expected it. They say a poker player spends the first twenty years of his life learning, the second twenty years earning, and the last twenty years yearning for what he once was. I believe I may have entered into that third stage.”

“You can still beat ninety-nine percent of these kids,” Valentine said.

“Thanks. I needed that.”

“Bill Higgins said you had something to tell me.”

Rufus raised the soda to his lips and all the liquid inside disappeared. “You need to grill the tournament director. He seated those boys together with DeMarco. It was fixed from the start.”

“Can you prove that?”

Rufus frowned. “No, but it’s obvious what happened.”

Valentine leaned forward in his chair. He remembered Rufus once telling him about poker games in Texas where they’d put guys with machine guns on the roof of the house to protect the players inside. Rufus had seen plenty of thieves in his day, and would undoubtedly run across plenty more. “Rufus, you’re taking this personally. That’s not like you. There will be other tournaments.”

“This is different,” Rufus said.

“How so?”

“That kid bad-mouthed me on national television. My ninety-eight-year-old momma called me from the Sunset Nursing Home. She said, ‘You need to teach that loudmouth a lesson, Rufus.’”

Valentine put his soda on the windowsill. Then he pulled his chair a few inches closer to his host. “I want you to do me a favor.”

“Name it.”

“Stop calling DeMarco a cheater. That’s my job.”

“So what should I call him?”

“A worm, a toad, a snot-nosed schoolboy who doesn’t know his ass from third base, a rank amateur, whatever you want.”

Rufus grinned, getting his drift. “I’ll do it, provided that you return the favor, and let me go about my business.”

“Meaning what?”

“I made a bet with a guy in the tournament which I’m about to go downstairs and settle.”

“A sucker?”

“I suppose you could call him that. He fancies himself a professional poker player.”

“What’s the bet?”

“I bet him ten thousand dollars that I could make a fly land on a sugar cube. The sucker thinks I’m off my rocker. I ask that you not tell him otherwise.”

“I thought you said you were broke,” Valentine said.

Rufus put down his drink, then pulled out both his pockets. There was nothing in either of them. “I am. That’s what makes the bet so intriguing.”

There was an impatient knock on the door. Rufus took his time getting to his feet, his old bones moaning and creaking. He’d been a cowboy all his life, had a wife and a bunch of screaming grandkids, and still called Texas home. He’d once told Valentine that he didn’t permit gambling around the house, and Valentine had believed him.

Rufus opened the door and stuck his head into the hallway. A hotel maintenance man stood outside accompanied by a beefy security guard. The guard did the talking.

“Mr. Steele? I’m with hotel security. We’d like to come into your room.”

“What for?” Rufus asked.

“The general manager informed me that you swore at him a few minutes ago,” the guard said.

“All I did was ask him to shove the phone up his ass,” Rufus said.

“He was deeply offended by the remark.”

“Guess he doesn’t spend much time inside his casino, huh?”

“The general manager has instructed our maintenance man to take your phone out of your room,” the guard said.

“You’re kidding me, aren’t you?”

“Afraid not,” the guard said. “Please step aside.”

Rufus’s shoulders sagged. He turned and looked back into the room at Valentine sitting by the window. “Can you talk to this guy, Tony?”

“I’m afraid it won’t do any good,” Valentine said.

“I thought you were here on behalf of the hotel.”

“The Gaming Control Board hired me.”

Rufus’s shoulders sagged some more. He stepped away from the door, and gestured weakly with his arm. The two men entered the suite. The maintenance man took an electric screwdriver off his belt, and placed it on the bed. Then he dropped to his knees, and peered behind the bed, looking for the electrical outlet that the phone was plugged into. Valentine got out of his chair, and came over to where Rufus stood. He felt bad for Rufus, but didn’t know how to express it without offending him any further. Take away a man’s pride, and there wasn’t much left.

Rufus turned to the guard. “Can I make one last call?”

The guard scratched his chin. “Is it local?”

“It’s right here in the hotel,” Rufus said.

“I don’t see why not.”

“I have your permission?”

“Sure,” the guard said. “Go ahead.”

The maintenance man got off the floor, and gave Rufus some room. Rufus picked up the phone’s receiver, and punched in zero. An operator came on the line, and Rufus asked to speak to the hotel’s general manager. A few moments later, he was put through.

“This is Rufus Steele,” he said when the GM came on. “Remember that phone I suggested you shove up your ass? Well, hold on, son. They’re about to deliver it to you.”

16

The sucker was waiting for Rufus in one of the tournament side rooms. He was in his mid-twenties, wore his shirt out to hide his round stomach, and had yellow spiked hair. He was extremely loud, and jabbered away like he’d already won the bet. With him were a pair of tanned guys sporting expensive clothes and nice haircuts. Valentine guessed these were the hairy legs backing the sucker’s play.

Hairy legs were a big part of gambling. They were the money men, and often had more capital than common sense. In Valentine’s opinion, they were a major reason why high-stakes poker had exploded around the country. Most had gotten their wealth from the stock market or the high-tech boom, and frittered it away backing egotistical movie projects and professional poker players.

Introductions were made, with Rufus telling the sucker and his backers that Valentine was “an ex-police detective from the fair state of New Jersey who I asked to be here to keep things honest.” The sucker eyed Valentine skeptically, as did the hairy legs.

Valentine nodded politely to them.

“I want to establish some rules before we start,” the sucker said.

“By all means,” Rufus replied.

“First of all, we get to provide the sugar cubes. We’ll put them on the table, then you get to pick which cube you think the fly will land on.”

“How many sugar cubes do you want to put on the table?” Rufus asked.

“Ten,” the sucker said.

“That’s a lot.”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes, it makes it harder. Let’s make the bet twenty thousand,” Rufus said.

The sucker’s mouth dropped down, as did his backers’ mouths.

“You want to bet twenty thousand dollars instead of ten thousand?” the sucker said.

“That’s right,” Rufus replied. “If you put ten sugar cubes on the table, it will be harder for me to persuade the fly to land on a particular one. I’m willing to take the gamble, provided we bet twenty thousand dollars on the outcome. I think that’s fair, don’t you?”

One of the hairy legs let out a laugh. “Sure, why not?”

“There’s one other stipulation,” the sucker said. “We get to provide the fly.”

Rufus tilted his Stetson back like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Excuse me, son, but I figured we’d use one of the flies that was buzzing around the place. It’s never too hard to find a fly inside a casino, you know.”

The sucker shook his head. It was obvious he’d thought this out, and decided that Rufus was somehow going to provide a trained fly to win the wager. They were standing beside a round table with a tablecloth draped over it, and the sucker reached beneath the table, and triumphantly came up with a glass mayonnaise jar. The jar had the lid on, into which were poked several airholes. Buzzing around inside the jar was a large house fly.

“We’ll use this one,” the sucker said.

Rufus extended his hand, and the sucker handed him the jar. The old cowboy stared at the buzzing fly, then held the jar up to the light, and stared some more. After some thoughtful consideration, he handed the jar back to the sucker.

“You’re on,” Rufus said.

Rufus explained to the sucker that he was going to have to hypnotize the fly, and would need at least five minutes in order to do so. The sucker agreed, and placed the mayonnaise jar on the center of the table. Rufus sat down at the table, and stared into the jar while the fly flew around making an angry buzzing sound.

Valentine removed Gloria Curtis’s business card from his wallet and retreated to the corner of the room. He flipped open his cell phone and punched in her number. She answered on the second ring, and sounded like she was in a restaurant.

“I’ve got a neat human interest story for you,” he said.

“That was fast,” she said.

“Come to the first side room next to where the tournament is being played. And bring a cameraman with you.”

“I’m in the restaurant across the lobby, having lunch with my cameraman,” she said. “We’ll be right over.”

Gloria and her cameraman appeared sixty seconds later. Valentine cornered them, and got them out of earshot of the sucker and his backers. Standing in the corner of the room, he explained Rufus’s bet and the sucker’s stipulations, then explained how Rufus was hypnotizing the fly to do his bidding. Gloria looked at him like he’d lost his mind.

“Excuse me, but you think this is suitable for TV?” she said, sounding more than a little put out. “For Christ’s sake, Tony, we don’t put crazy people on.”

“He’s crazy like a fox,” Valentine said. “Rufus will win, trust me.”

“But how?”

“I have no idea, but he will.”

Gloria pointed at the sucker standing on the other side of the room. “That’s Benjamin Gannon. He’s a graduate of MIT, and a bona fide mathematical genius. I’m sure he’s looked at every angle there is with this bet, and knows he can’t lose. Rufus Steele is going to look like a fool. I’m not going to televise that.”

She was really annoyed, and her cameraman seemed to mirror her feelings. He was a young guy, and wore a gold earring in each ear like a pirate. Valentine guessed they had never heard the Damon Runyon tale about the gambler betting the farmer that he had a deck of cards where the jack of spades would spit cider in your ear, and the farmer taking the bet, and proceeding to get an earful of cider. He made them both sit down, and explained what was going on.

“Rufus is pulling the hook, line, and sinker. Rufus met Gannon during the first day of the tournament. My guess is, there was a fly buzzing around, and Rufus made some offhand remark about flies being able to be trained. That’s the hook. Then, Rufus wondered whether flies really could be trained. He tells Gannon he might have found a way. He knows Gannon is a genius, and will think he’s crazy. That’s the line, and Gannon bit on it. Now Rufus is performing the sinker. He’s gotten Gannon’s backers to double the bet, and if any more suckers come into the room, he’ll get them to make wagers as well. That’s how the game is played, and Rufus is a master at it.”

“But you’re leaving the most crucial part out,” Gloria said. “How does Rufus make the fly land on the sugar cube?”

Rufus had risen from his chair, and was looking around the room for him. The fly was still buzzing around the mayo jar, looking no more hypnotized than when Rufus started staring at him. Valentine saw a smile crease the old cowboy’s lips.

“I think we’re about to find out,” Valentine said.

“Okay cowboys and cowgirls, I’m ready,” Rufus declared.

By now there were fifty-plus people in the room. Gloria got them to bunch up behind Rufus, which made the group look much bigger. She stuck her microphone into Rufus’s face, and tried to get him to say a few words.

“Sorry, ma’am, but this takes a lot of concentration,” he said.

The sucker tore open a box of sugar cubes. He removed ten, and laid them across the table in a line. Rufus took a plastic coffee stirrer from his shirt pocket. It had been resting there all along, and Valentine had not paid any attention to it. Rufus said, “Okay, now here’s the deal. Everyone has to be clear on which sugar cube you want the fly to land on before the fly is released from the jar. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” the sucker replied.

“Good. Now, which one do you want? And you can’t change your mind, and confuse things. Whichever cube you pick, that’s the one the fly lands on. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“Then let’s go. Which cube do you want, son?”

“Third from the left,” the sucker said.

“Your left, or my left?”

“My left.”

Rufus brought the tip of the coffee stirrer directly above the sugar cube that was third from the sucker’s left. “You mean this one, son?”

“That one,” the sucker said.

Gloria stood between them, moving her microphone back and forth as they spoke. She was cool under pressure, and reminded Valentine of a referee at a boxing match. You knew they were there, yet paid no attention to them. Rufus put the stirrer back into his shirt pocket. Then he picked up the mayo jar from the table. Staring into it, he said, “Third from his left, pardner.”

He handed the mayo jar to the sucker.

“You open it, son. Good luck.”

The sucker carefully unscrewed the jar, and allowed the inmate to escape. The fly flew around their heads like an angry kamikaze, causing several gamblers to duck. The fly flew straight up, and did several circles above their heads. Finally, its wings lost their steam, and it descended upon the table, where it landed upon the sugar cube third from the sucker’s left. Gloria was filming the table when it happened, and got a shot for the ages. The sucker’s mouth dropped open and his pink tongue fell out. One earful of cider, coming right up!

Valentine was watching Rufus, and saw the old cowboy wearily shake his head. All the talking had plumb worn him out, and he sat back down at the table, threw his cowboy boots onto a chair, and tilted back his Stetson.

“I win,” he declared.

17

The fly remained on the sugar cube for half a minute, oblivious to the gamblers gawking at it, or the TV camera, or the pulsating sounds of the casino filtering in every time someone opened the door. It was just a fly, small and harmless, yet for those thirty seconds, it was the most important thing in the room. Finally it flew away, and Gannon’s backers paid up and the gamblers drifted off and everything returned to normal.

“Rufus, would you mind doing a wrap-up interview?” Gloria asked.

“My pleasure,” Rufus said, getting to his feet and straightening his string tie. Gloria stuck the microphone up to his face, and he flashed his best smile.

“This is Gloria Curtis, talking with world-famous poker player Rufus Steele, who just hypnotized a fly into landing on a sugar cube. Rufus, that was quite a performance. What are you going to do with the money you won?”

Rufus was a good foot taller than Gloria, and the microphone hung a few inches below his chin. He paused, then said, “Challenge that boy who beat me.”

“Excuse me?” she said.

“I’m going to challenge that boy who beat me two days ago,” Rufus declared.

“Skip DeMarco?”

“Yes. I’d like to play him again, heads-up, winner-take-all.”

“This is the same man who you accused of cheating in the tournament,” Gloria said. “Now, you’re saying you’d like to play him again.”

Rufus glanced briefly at Valentine, who was standing behind the cameraman, then back at Gloria. “I’ll let the authorities decide whether anything inappropriate happened on Thursday. In the meantime, I’d like to play that boy again, see if he really knows anything about cards. My guess is, he doesn’t.”

“You do realize that DeMarco is currently the chip leader in the World Poker Showdown, and has won over a half-million dollars in just two days,” Gloria said.

“Not to be impolite, but that doesn’t mean much,” Rufus said.

“Would you care to explain to our viewers?”

“This is a tournament, and you play for these little plastic coins called chips. I’m talking about playing for cold hard cash, the way we play down in Texas.”

“Do you think that would give you an advantage?”

“Ma’am, that young man would be like a missionary with a bunch of hungry cannibals. I’d eat him alive.”

Gloria knew an ending when she heard it, and faced the camera. “This is Gloria Curtis, reporting from the World Poker Showdown in Las Vegas. Back to you.”

“I owe you a steak and an ice-cold beer,” Gloria said a few minutes later. “That was really wonderful.”

The room had emptied, leaving Gloria and Valentine and the empty mayonnaise jar. Gloria’s cameraman stood off to the side, breaking down his equipment.

“I’ll take you up on the steak,” Valentine said.

“You don’t drink?”

He shook his head. She looked surprised, like all cops were supposed to drink.

“My father was a drunk. I swore off the stuff before it ever touched my lips.”

“Then I guess we’ll just have to settle for a steak. Maybe over dinner I can bribe you into telling me how Rufus pulled that little stunt.”

Valentine was not about to tell Gloria that he didn’t have the slightest idea. She went to speak with her cameraman, giving him the opportunity to pick up the ten sugar cubes on the table. Most animals were attracted to sugar’s sweet smell, and he wondered why the fly hadn’t hopped around from cube to cube, instead of landing on the cube third from the left. He remembered his office manager once predicting where a fly would land on a table, and had the sneaking suspicion that the scam was older than he was. He went over to where Gloria stood with her cameraman.

“Would you do me a favor?” he asked.

“Name it,” she said.

“Would you consider interviewing DeMarco, and informing him of Rufus’s challenge? I’d like to see his expression when you break the news to him.”

Her eyes sparked. “Think you’ll see something in his face?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m thinking.”

“What do gamblers call those?”

“Tells.”

“Ooh,” she said. “This is fun. If DeMarco really is a cheater, you think he’ll cringe at the idea of playing Rufus again.”

“I sure do.”

“Will that help your investigation?”

“Let’s just say it will put me one step closer to the truth.”

“Ooh,” she said. “I love it.”

They went into the lobby, and found DeMarco standing outside the card room being interviewed by a Japanese TV crew. He was a shade under six feet, and looked like he worked out, his shoulders tapering down to a thin waist. He held a long metal cane in his hand, and was wearing thick dark glasses. Valentine had seen plenty of blind people in casinos — most liked to play the slot machines — and he’d seen people pretend to be blind as cover for a scam. DeMarco’s body language said he was the real thing.

DeMarco’s handlers stood behind him. One was big and looked like a bodyguard, the other an old man carrying a canvas bag. The old man was dressed in black, and had silver hair slicked back on both sides and lizard eyes. He was the epitome of an old-time gangster, and Valentine guessed this was George “the Tuna” Scalzo.

“Someone’s done a marketing makeover on DeMarco,” Gloria said under her breath. “New haircut, new wardrobe. Very smart.”

“Think he’s being groomed?”

“Sure looks that way.” To her cameraman she said, “Zack, ready to rock?”

“Uh-huh,” Zack said, hoisting the camera onto his shoulder.

DeMarco was wrapping up his interview as they approached him. Hearing them, he turned his head and offered the thinnest of smiles.

“Gloria Curtis, WSPN Sports Television,” Gloria said, sticking the microphone in his face. “Congratulations on being the tournament money leader the second day in a row.”

“Nice perfume,” he said.

“Do you still feel confidant that you’ll win the tournament?”

“Shouldn’t I?”

“There are over two thousand players left in the field.”

“And they’re all chasing me,” he said.

“Rufus Steele, an old-timer who accused you of cheating the other day, has issued a challenge. Are you aware of it?”

DeMarco froze, the bluster leaving his face. His Adam’s apple bobbed, and then he squared his shoulders and shrugged it off. A nice recovery, Valentine thought.

“Rufus is challenging me?” he said.

“Yes,” Gloria said. “He wants to play you heads up for cash.”

“If I played every person I beat in this tournament, I’d never leave,” he said. “No thanks. I’ve got more important things to do.”

“Would you play him after the tournament was over?”

“You mean, after I win the tournament?” he said.

“Very well. After you win the tournament.”

“Sure, I’d play him. A million bucks, heads up. Neither of us leaves the table until the other guy has all the money.”

Gloria turned to the camera. “And there you have it. A pair of gamblers, one old, the other young, ready to lock horns and play poker for two million dollars, cash. It doesn’t get any better than that. Back to you.”

“That was great,” Zack said, lowering his camera.

“We done?” DeMarco asked.

“Yes,” Gloria said. “Thank you.”

DeMarco lowered his cane and walked away. He was either blind as a bat, or up for serious Academy Award consideration for Best Actor. He entered one of the casino’s noisy bars with his handlers behind him. Valentine felt a hand on his arm, and turned to find Gloria standing beside him.

“Did you ever think of being a producer?” she asked.

“No, should I?”

“Yes. You’re filled with good ideas.”

Gloria needed to review and edit the film before Zack sent it to the network. Still holding Valentine’s sleeve, she said, “How about dinner tonight? The hotel has a steak house. I’ll buy you a New York Strip, and you can explain how the sugar trick works.”

“You’ve got a deal,” he said.

“Eight o’clock at Bogart’s,” she said. “I’ll make the reservations.”

He watched her walk away. Then he crossed the casino, and found a bank of phone booths. He entered one, shut the door, and pulled out his cell. Mabel, his office manager, was coming home from her cruise today. He wanted to say hi, hear how it had gone, and find out how the damn sugar trick worked. He finished punching in her number when the white courtesy phone in the booth rang. Out of curiosity, he answered it.

“Tony, this is Bill Higgins,” the caller said.

Valentine nearly dropped his cell phone on the floor. “How did you find me?”

“I’m in the Celebrity surveillance control room, watching the casino floor on the monitors,” Bill said. “I saw you enter the phone booth, and called you.”

Valentine stared at the domed ornamental light in the ceiling of the booth. If there was a hidden camera in the light, he couldn’t see it.

“I know this is going to sound strange,” Bill went on, “but I was just watching you in the bar.”

“But I wasn’t in the bar,” Valentine said.

“Well, I saw you in the bar, drinking a beer. Then on another camera, I saw you duck into the phone booth. And I asked myself, how can he be in two places at once?”

It took a moment for what Bill was saying to register. His son was in the bar. Bill had never met Gerry, which explained the confusion. “This guy in the bar who looks like me,” Valentine said. “Is he sitting with three Italian guys?”

“Yeah,” Bill said. “They’re at a table in the corner.”

“Does one of them look like a boxer who went too many rounds?”

“Right again.”

Valentine was still burned that Gerry had lied to him, and come to Las Vegas on the sly. A little payback was in order so he said, “I want you to backroom them.”

“On what grounds?”

“The guy in the bar is my son. He needs to be humbled.”

“Got it,” Bill said.

Backrooming was a casino’s way of dealing with undesirable people. The person or persons would be led by security to a windowless room, where they were read the riot act by someone who worked for the casino. It was about as much fun as getting arrested, and a perfect reality check for his son.

“You coming upstairs?” Bill asked.

“Of course I’m coming upstairs,” Valentine said, opening his cell phone. “But first I’d like to make a phone call, if that’s okay with you.”

“Sorry,” his friend said.

18

Mabel Struck had returned from her cruise ready to go back to work. It wasn’t that cruising wasn’t fun — seven days in the Caribbean was most people’s idea of a dream vacation — and she’d enjoyed the food and nonstop activities. But after a couple of days it had become predictable, and by the week’s end she’d been downright bored. Going away on vacation had convinced her that she had the best job in the world, and she’d come home eager to get back to it.

She unlocked the front door to Tony’s house and punched the code into the security system, then took off her shoes and walked to Tony’s office in the back. Tony had gotten her in the habit of taking her shoes off, and the house was usually so quiet she could hear a pin drop. Better to hear yourself think, her boss had explained.

She found a note from Tony Scotch-taped to the computer. Gerry and Yolanda were in San Juan, while Tony was in Las Vegas investigating a poker tournament. Her boss had left a stack of letters on the desk that needed to be addressed, plus a few dozen unopened e-mail messages. He ended by telling Mabel he hoped she’d had a good time, and hadn’t gotten too sunburned.

Mabel found herself smiling. That was the thing she liked about Tony. He always cared about the personal things. As she started to go through the letters, she glanced at the clock in the shape of a roulette wheel on the desk. It was three P.M. Right about now, the square dancing lessons would be starting on the ship, and the midafternoon tea. It was fine if you liked prepackaged fun, only Mabel had decided that there was only so much of that kind of thing she could take. The nitty-gritty of the real world was more to her liking, and she was happy to be home.

The phone rang as she was scrolling through Tony’s e-mails. Normally the afternoons were quiet around the office, no doubt because most casinos were quiet in the afternoon as well, and she answered the phone with a cheerful, “Grift Sense.”

“Are you a shopping service for crooks?” a familiar voice said.

“Only if they have a sense of humor,” she replied.

“Sign me up,” Tony said. “It’s nice to hear your voice.”

The fun part about working for Tony was that he never took the job too seriously. As he was fond of saying, no one had ever cried when a casino lost money.

“Yours too. How is sunny Lost Wages?”

“Hasn’t changed a bit. I read in the paper that they’d built a brand-new elementary school within five hundred feet of a brothel, so they’re going to have to move it.”

“The brothel?”

“No, the elementary school. Can’t keep those girls out of work. So, how was your cruise? Did the unlimited buffet live up to your expectations?”

“The food was incredible,” she said. “But there was one thing which happened on board that bothered me.”

“Let me guess. You had to beat off all the eligible men who wanted to dance with you.”

Mabel felt herself blush. Her late husband had been fond of calling her beautiful, but that was her husband. Hearing Tony say she was attractive made her wonder if there was something to it. “No, it was in the ship’s casino. They shut it down one night, right when everyone was winning. When they reopened the next night, they’d lowered the limits on the table games to twenty-five dollars. Do you know why they did that?”

“I sure do,” he said. “If I tell you, will you answer a question for me?”

“What is it?”

“How do you get a fly to land on a sugar cube?”

She burst out laughing. “Oh, Tony, my great-grandmother taught me that trick. Don’t tell me someone pulled it on you?”

“Actually, he pulled it on a roomful of guys, and won twenty thousand bucks in the process. It kind of had me baffled.”

“He’s a fly whisperer.”

“A what?”

“Just kidding,” Mabel said. “You go first, then I’ll explain.”

“Here’s the deal,” Valentine said. “Cruise ship casinos have a problem. They’re only open at night. As a result, they only have a limited amount of time to win money. Most casino games grind you down. A player’s chances of winning are much greater in a casino the less amount of time they stay there.”

“Really?” Mabel said.

“Yes. You lose in a casino, but only gradually. That’s what keeps you playing. However, in the first few hours, you also have the best chance of winning some money, because you have your entire bankroll. Make sense?”

“Yes,” Mabel said. “The cruise ship casinos are only open during the evening, and are susceptible to more losses than a casino that stays open longer.”

“That’s right. Because of this situation, some cruise ship casinos have been known to cheat their customers. They short the decks in blackjack and don’t pay jackpots on slot machines. Since they operate in international waters, there isn’t much the authorities can do about them.”

“Is that why they call them ‘cruises to nowhere’?”

“No, but it should be.”

“Do you think the ship I was on was cheating?”

“No,” Valentine said. “They closed down early because they were getting beaten. That’s standard procedure. When the casino starts losing money, management stops the hemorrhaging.”

“That hardly seems fair,” Mabel said.

“Casinos don’t gamble. Your turn.”

Knowing a con or scam that Tony didn’t know was rare, and Mabel could not help but savor the moment. Excusing herself, she went to the kitchen and poured herself an iced tea, then returned to the study and sat down in Tony’s big comfortable chair. Only after she’d taken a gulp of her drink did she pick the phone back up.

“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?” he said.

“To the max. You’re so hard to pull the wool over, I consider it a special occasion.”

“It’s really something stupid, isn’t it?”

“Simple, but not stupid. Let’s use your famous Logical Backward Progression, and analyze what happened,” she said. “Explain to me what you saw.”

“A sucker put ten sugar cubes on the table, and picked one. Rufus waved a coffee stirrer over it. A fly was let out of a mayonnaise jar, and it flew around, then landed on the sugar cube the sucker picked.”

“What didn’t the fly do?”

“You’ve lost me,” he said.

“The fly didn’t land on the other nine cubes,” she said. “Why not?”

“I don’t know.”

“Because those cubes have no smell. Flies are attracted by smell. Sugar in its pure form doesn’t have an odor. But, if you add moisture to sugar, it will release a powerful odor. That’s what attracted the fly to the cube.”

“So Rufus used the stirrer to drop moisture onto the cube.”

“Yes,” Mabel said. “It doesn’t have to be very much for the fly to smell it.”

“Well, I guess you learn something new every day,” he said. “ I’ve got to run. Gerry is being held in the back room of a casino, and I need to have a talk with him.”

“I thought Gerry was in San Juan with Yolanda,” Mabel said.

“He came out here on the sly. I’m about to go read the riot act to him.”

“What should I tell Yolanda if she calls?” Mabel asked.

There was a long pause on the line.

“Tell her Gerry’s doing a job with me,” Valentine said.

Mabel smiled into the receiver. No matter what Gerry’s transgressions might be, Tony always stuck up for his son. It was Tony’s biggest flaw, and a constant reminder to Mabel that no matter how much Tony fought with Gerry, he placed parenthood above all else.

“I will,” she said.

19

Valentine killed the connection, thinking how impressed Gloria Curtis was going to be when he explained the sugar scam over dinner. It would make him seem more rounded, knowing that sugar didn’t smell in its natural state. He hadn’t had the urge to impress a woman in a long time, and liked the way it made him feel.

He took the stairs to the third floor of the casino and walked down a windowless hallway to a steel door marked PRIVATE. A surveillance camera was perched above the door, and he stared into its lenses. Moments later the door buzzed, and he entered Celebrity’s surveillance control room.

The room’s lighting was subdued, the air kept at a chilly sixty degrees so the electronic equipment would run properly. Valentine let his eyes adjust, then stared at the opposing wall of video monitors, the four-color digital pictures as clear as real life. Bill Higgins stood beside the monitors, talking on a cell phone. Bill shut his phone, and walked over with a grim look on his face.

“I don’t know how to tell you this,” his friend said, “but your son and his friends just robbed someone in the casino.”

“What?”

“I was on the phone, telling hotel security to backroom your son when it happened,” Bill said. “Your son and his three friends ran out to the parking lot, and got away. Your son’s in serious trouble, Tony.”

Trouble. It should have been Gerry’s middle name. Bill spoke to a tech sitting at a desk. The tech typed on a keyboard, and a tape appeared on a monitor showing Skip DeMarco, his bodyguard, and the Tuna exiting the casino bar. The tape had a time and date code in the right-hand corner, and had been taken a short while ago.

“Watch,” Bill said.

Gerry and his friends came out of the bar moments later. They were moving fast, and they threw themselves into the bodyguard and DeMarco, knocking them to the floor. Then Gerry grabbed the canvas bag from the Tuna, and with his friends ran out of the picture. The tech hit a button and froze the tape.

“Have you called the cops?” Valentine asked.

“No, I was waiting for you,” Bill said.

Valentine tried to imagine his son in prison. Nevada’s penal system was one of the harshest in the country, and Gerry would never be the same if he ended up doing time. If he hadn’t asked Bill to backroom his son, Bill wouldn’t have been watching Gerry on a surveillance camera. He felt responsible, even though it was Gerry who’d broken the law.

“Don’t,” Valentine said. “He’s working with me.”

Bill gave him a look of pure astonishment. “Tony, he just robbed a guy.”

Valentine pointed at the frozen picture on the monitor. “See that old guy? That’s George ‘the Tuna’ Scalzo, a mobster out of Newark. I’m convinced he’s scamming the tournament. He’s also backing DeMarco.”

“You’re saying your son robbed DeMarco with your permission?”

Valentine swallowed hard. “Yes.”

“Do you have any proof against Scalzo?”

Valentine shook his head.

Bill crossed his arms in front of his chest and gave him a hard look. “Tony, listen to me. Scalzo is downstairs talking to hotel security. He’s going to file charges. I have to show security the tape of your son, and identify him. It’s the law.”

Valentine glanced at the tech, then edged closer to Bill and dropped his voice. “The law? The Gaming Control Board routinely busts people you suspect of cheating without any proof. Correct?”

Bill slowly nodded.

“That means that you’re the law, Bill. And since you hired me to investigate this tournament, you have to back me up. My son is helping me solve this case, and I don’t want you to show security the tape. Okay?”

Bill thought it over. “What if Scalzo calls the police?”

“Let him.”

“But the police will ask for the tape.”

“Tell them the camera was taping something else.”

One of the common fallacies of the casino business was that surveillance cameras taped everything on the casino floor. In reality, the cameras were constantly rotating, and missed a great deal of what was going on. Over 50 percent of the casino was not being watched most of the time. It was why casinos lost so much money to cheaters.

Bill went over to the tech and spoke to him. The tech stared up at Bill, his eyes wide. He slowly typed a command into his keyboard. Valentine stared at the frozen picture on the monitor. The picture went into reverse, and stopped just before Gerry and his friends exited the bar.

“You sure you want me to do this?” the tech asked.

“Yes,” Bill said. “Erase the whole thing.”

The screen went blank and stayed that way. Valentine felt the air trapped in his lungs escape, and he went over and slapped Bill on the back.

“I owe you,” he said.

“I need to talk to you about the tournament,” Bill said.

“I’m all ears.”

Bill nodded at one of the offices. A casino’s surveillance control room should have been the safest place in the world, but secrets often escaped from there as well. They went into the office and Bill shut the door. “I’ve been recording DeMarco’s play, and having an old hustler watch the tapes to see if he can spot any hankypanky,” Bill said.

“Which old hustler?”

“Sammy Mann.”

Sammy Mann was an old-time crossroader who’d given up his life of crime and gone to work helping casinos. He was a nice guy, as far as ex-crooks went.

“He find anything?” Valentine asked.

“Sammy says DeMarco is either incredibly good, or he’s cheating.”

“But not lucky.”

“His luck stinks,” Bill said. “He’s gotten the worst draws of any player in the tournament. But, he’s got this knack of knowing when to play his good cards.”

Valentine considered what that meant. If DeMarco knew when to play his good cards, it also meant that he knew that his opponents were weak. Knowing those two things said that DeMarco knew every card on the table. Either the kid was psychic, or he was using marked cards, just like Gerry had been saying all along.

“Did you have today’s cards examined?”

“Yes. We sent them over to the FBI’s forensic lab after today’s round was done. The FBI even gave the cards the burn test.”

The burn test was a clever way to detect if a playing card was marked with a foreign substance. The suspected card was slowly burned while being examined under a microscope. If there was a foreign substance on the card, it would burn differently and reveal itself.

“What did they find?” Valentine asked.

“Absolutely nothing,” Bill said.

There was nothing more frustrating than knowing a scam was taking place, but not having enough evidence to nail the cheaters and shut it down. They agreed to talk again later that night. Bill opened the office door, and they walked back into the surveillance control room.

As Valentine passed the wall of monitors, he saw a tape of the Tuna taken in the casino lobby right after he’d been robbed by Gerry and his friends. The Tuna was stomping his feet and cursing up a storm, and looked almost comical. Valentine walked over to the tech whom Bill had told to erase the tape. The tech was sucking a thick shake like it was the only food he’d had in days.

“Any particular reason you’re watching this tape?” Valentine asked.

“Just covering my ass,” the tech said.

“How so?”

“Mr. Higgins told me to erase the tape of that guy having his bag stolen. I figured I’d better erase the aftermath as well.”

“I’d like to watch it before you erase it.”

“Be my guest,” the tech said.

Valentine went back to the monitor and watched the tape. The Tuna was poking DeMarco’s bodyguard in the chest while yelling at him. The bodyguard whipped out a cell phone and made a call. Thirty seconds later a guy with pocked skin entered the picture. Valentine felt the icy chill of recognition and turned to the tech.

“Freeze this.”

Instantly the image became frozen on the monitor.

“Now enlarge the guy’s face.”

“I can show you his pimples,” the tech said.

“A head shot will do.”

The face became enlarged, then appeared on every monitor on the wall. The tech was having fun, showing what his toys could do. It was enough of an overload to jolt Valentine’s memory into remembering where he’d seen that face before. Taking out his wallet, he removed the composite that Gerry had paid a courthouse artist to draw of Jack Donovan’s killer, and compared the composite to the face on the monitor. It was a match.

“Are your tapes digital?” Valentine asked.

“State of the art,” the tech said. “We use Loronex.”

Loronex was a digital surveillance system that could take a picture of a person, run it against ninety days of past tapes, and pull up any tapes the person appeared on.

“Find this guy in your digital database,” Valentine said. “I want to see where he went after this tape was shot.”

The tech’s fingers were a blur on the keyboard. Moments later, the monitors came alive with a new tape. It showed the guy with the pocked skin walking through the front doors, and giving the valet a stub for his car. As he waited for his car, he removed a shiny business card from his pocket, and dialed his cell phone while staring at it.

“Can you enlarge that card?” Valentine asked.

The business card became enlarged on the monitor. It was for the Sugar Shack, and had a naked girl lying horizontally across it. Bill, who’d been talking to another tech, came over to where Valentine stood.

“That’s Jinky Harris’s club,” Bill said. “He runs the local flesh market.”

“Is he in the mob?”

“He sure is.”

Valentine stared at the monitor while feeling his heart pound against his rib cage. Gerry and his friends were in real trouble, and not just because they’d stolen the Tuna’s canvas bag. He took out his cell phone and called Gerry’s cell. An automated voice answered, and told him to leave a voice or text message. His son was always picking up text messages from his wife, and Valentine typed a short message telling Gerry his life was in danger. He marked it urgent and hit send.

“Do you mind my asking you a question?” Bill asked.

Valentine snapped his cell phone shut. “What’s that?”

“Is your son really working with you?”

A lie was only good if you kept it going.

“Yes,” he said.

20

Las Vegas was like any other major city once you get away from the downtown, the roads and highways jammed with impossibly long lines of traffic. Highway 15, the main thoroughfare on the west side of town, was particularly bad, with lots of tire-burning stop-and-go. Gerry drove in the slow lane, searching for their exit.

“Boy, that was slick,” Vinny said, the canvas bag Gerry had snatched from the Tuna sitting protectively in his lap. “Those assholes didn’t know what hit them.”

“You did a good job knocking down that bodyguard,” Gerry said.

Vinny glanced into the backseat at Frank and Nunzie. “It was just like the good old days, wasn’t it, guys?”

Frank and Nunzie both started laughing. They had spent their formative years doing hit-and-runs on drunks playing the slot machines in Atlantic City’s casinos, knocking them off their stools and stealing their plastic buckets of coins. For a lot of bad kids, it had been the equivalent of having a summer job.

“So, when are we going to open the bag?” Nunzie wanted to know.

“Yeah,” Frank said, leaning between the seat, “let’s see what this secret is.”

Gerry took his eyes off the highway and glanced at Vinny. They’d talked about this earlier; Jack Donovan had lost his life because of this secret, and Gerry didn’t think they should just open up the bag, and start playing with it like a toy.

“We’re going to wait until we get back to the motel,” Vinny said.

“Aw, come on,” Frank said belligerently. “I want to know what it is.”

“Me too,” Nunzie said.

“Only when we’re back at the motel,” Vinny said.

Since Vinny was buying the secret, his word stood. Frank looked dejected, and popped an unlit cigarette into his mouth. It made him look like Marlon Brando from On the Waterfront, and he said, “I got a question. I know we were moving fast, but what if the cameras caught us? We could go to jail.”

Gerry saw their exit and put his indicator on. “The cameras are always rotating. Which means we had a one-in-two shot of not being seen. Sort of like a coin toss.”

Frank thought it over, then removed a quarter from his pocket, and tossed it into the air. Nunzie called heads, and Frank caught the coin, and slapped it on the back of his hand. He slowly pulled his hand away. Nunzie’s face said it all. Tails.

“Gotcha,” Frank said.

Gerry was in the motel parking lot when Vinny’s cell phone rang. Vinny had downloaded Frank Sinatra singing “My Way” and used it as the chime for his cell phone. The novelty had already worn off, and Gerry felt like tossing it out the window. Vinny answered the call, then covered the phone’s mouthpiece with his hand.

“It’s Jinky Harris,” he announced.

“Ask him if he’s still cleaning up the milk,” Gerry said.

“Shut up. That goes for everybody, okay?”

Everyone in the car quit talking, and Vinny took his hand away.

“I’m here, Jinky. What’s shaking?”

Vinny’s head bobbed up and down while he listened to Jinky talk. Vinny couldn’t have a conversation without some part of his body acting like a metronome. If he was standing, it was his hands; sitting, his head or his foot.

“You got it,” Vinny said. “We’ll meet you at the Voodoo Lounge in twenty minutes. I know where it is. See you there.”

Vinny killed the connection and gave Gerry instructions to the Voodoo Lounge. It was halfway between Las Vegas and the town of Henderson, and well off the beaten path. As Gerry headed back to Highway 15, Vinny explained that Jinky wasn’t angry about the night before, and wanted to talk to them about a business proposition.

“Jinky says he’s got a sweet deal for us,” Vinny explained.

“What kind of deal?” Gerry asked.

“You think he was going to tell me over the phone?”

Gerry got back on the highway and followed the signs to Henderson. Jinky hadn’t been willing to share his egg rolls, yet now was offering them some easy money. It didn’t add up.

“We need to be careful,” Gerry said.

“For Christ’s sake, you think we’re going to get gunned down, going into a bar in broad daylight?” Vinny asked.

Gerry stared at the curving highway. There was a break in the traffic, and he hit the gas, thinking that Vinny didn’t know Las Vegas the way he knew Las Vegas. He’d grown up hearing stories from his father. Las Vegas had more scumbags than any city in America. Anything could happen here, and often did.

“Yes,” Gerry said.

The endless flow of money that was Las Vegas’s lifeblood did not stray far from the casinos, and the Voodoo Lounge looked like a desert outpost, the sandblasted paint job suggesting a long-forgotten Mexican theme. They got out of the rental and went inside.

The lounge was a low-ceilinged fire trap, with posters of bikini-clad women supplied by beer companies covering the walls. There was a pool table with purple felt, some tables, and a silent jukebox. A barrel-chested bartender stood by the cash register, polishing a glass. His only customer, a construction worker at the far end of the bar, was drinking a beer while staring at the hypnotic curls of smoke coming off his cigarette.

Vinny, Frank, and Nunzie took seats at the bar. Gerry looked around before sitting.

“What’s your pleasure?” the bartender asked.

“You have a happy hour?” Nunzie asked.

“We’re always in a good mood,” the bartender said.

“Any house drinks?” Frank asked.

“Ass juice.”

“What’s that?”

“Try one and find out,” the bartender said.

Gerry turned in his seat, and stared at the front door. There was something not right about the place, only he couldn’t put his finger on it. After a few moments of thinking, he realized what it was. No wheelchair access. He nudged Vinny with his elbow.

“This is a setup,” Gerry said.

Vinny stiffened. “Why are you so paranoid?”

“Jinky isn’t coming here.”

“Why not?”

“He can’t get his wheelchair through the fricking door.”

Vinny looked over his shoulder at the front door. “You think it’s an ambush?”

“I sure do,” Gerry said.

Gerry felt the gentle pulsation of his cell phone against his leg. He pulled the phone from his pocket, and stared at the text message: SON. YOUR LIFE IS IN DANGER. BE CAREFUL! POP. He showed the message to Vinny.

“My father feels the same way,” he said.

The most important aspect of a fight was the element of surprise. Whoever got the jump on his opponent usually won. Gerry ordered a draft, and as the bartender poured it, he jumped clean over the bar. At the same time, Vinny leaned over the bar, and grabbed the bartender by the wrists.

The bartender’s .38 Magnum was in a leather holster wedged between two perspiring coolers. Gerry drew the gun, and alternated pointing it at the construction worker and the bartender. Both men stared at him without a trace of fear in their eyes.

“All my money’s lying on the bar,” the construction worker said.

“Mine’s in the till,” the bartender said.

“Lift up your shirts, and show me what you’re carrying,” Gerry said.

Both men complied. The construction worker’s stomach was flat and white, the bartender’s round and hairy. Neither man was carrying any heat. Gerry made them drop their shirts, and pointed at the front door with the Magnum.

“Any idea who’s about to come through that door?”

The bartender had broken out in a wicked sweat. He shook his head.

“The mailman?” the construction worker asked.

Gerry looked at the bartender. “You know.”

“No, I don’t,” the bartender said.

“You’re lying.”

“I swear to God, I’m not.”

The bar’s front door banged open. Sunlight flooded the room, and a hooded man wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a shotgun came in. The hooded man hesitated, letting his eyes adjust. Although Gerry had been a bookie most of his life, he still went to church. He liked to think that God — in His infinite wisdom — watched over him. Like now, for instance. He was holding the most powerful handgun in the world, and had it pointed directly at the door. All he had to do was squeeze the trigger, and he wouldn’t end up playing a harp.

He pumped two bullets into the hooded man’s vest. The man flew backward like he had strings attached to him, the shotgun discharging into the ceiling and making the whole building shake. Gerry kept firing, and sent the man into the parking lot.

A getaway car was parked outside. The hooded man fell backward through the open passenger door, his face exposed to the sun. Gerry stared at his face, and realized it was the guy he’d seen in the hospital stairwell the night of Jack Donovan’s murder. The getaway car sped away before he could squeeze off another round.

A stiff wind shut the front door, and the lounge fell quiet. Vinny, Nunzie, and Frank were frozen to their spots and looked like they’d seen a ghost. Gerry looked at the bartender, who appeared ready to cry.

“You were saying?” Gerry said.

The bartender fell to his knees, sobbing like he expected to die.

“Please don’t kill me,” he said.

“You work for Jinky Harris, don’t you?” Gerry said.

“Never heard of him,” the bartender said.

Gerry glanced down the bar at the construction worker, whose face still didn’t show any emotion. Gerry wanted to believe the construction worker wasn’t part of the plot to kill them, but his gut told him otherwise. The guy had a role. Maybe it was to drag their bodies away or bury them in the desert. Or something else.

Gerry led the construction worker and the bartender to the back room, and locked them in a broom closet. He told them to wait ten minutes before kicking the door down. Then he and Vinny searched the place, while Nunzie and Frank guarded the front door.

Beneath the bar Gerry found a stack of papers with World Poker Showdown printed across the top of each page. He leafed through them, and saw the names of every player in the tournament, along with their odds of winning. Skip DeMarco’s odds were highlighted, and were 40 to 1. It was an angle Gerry hadn’t considered. Anyone who bet on DeMarco to win would make a killing. He stuck the papers under his arm.

“Let’s get out of this toilet,” he said.

They went outside to the parking lot. The wind off the desert had picked up, and invisible particles of sand stung their faces. Vinny stuck his hand out, and asked Gerry for the keys to the rental.

“Let me drive,” Vinny said.

Each time they’d worked together, Gerry had done the driving while Vinny rode in the passenger seat, and called the shots. Now Vinny was acknowledging that a shift had occurred. Gerry hadn’t just saved their lives; he’d also taken charge.

“You sure?” Gerry asked him.

“Positive, man. Hand them over.”

Gerry looked at Nunzie and Frank to make sure they were cool with what was happening. Both men dipped their chins, acknowledging they were okay with the change in leadership. Only then did Gerry take the car keys from his pocket, and drop them in Vinny’s outstretched hand.

21

If there is any electronic device that casinos hate, it is the cell phone. Card counters, shuffle trackers, roulette cheaters, and other sophisticated scammers can use cell phones to transmit information and give themselves an unbeatable edge at different casino games. As a result, their use is banned from every casino in Las Vegas.

Valentine was crossing Celebrity’s casino when his cell phone rang. Thirty minutes had passed since he’d contacted Gerry to tell him his life was in danger, and they’d been thirty of the longest minutes of his life. As he flipped the phone open, a hand came down squarely on his shoulder.

“Cell phones are not permitted inside the casino,” a security guard said.

“It’s an emergency.”

“I’m sure it is. Please take the call over there.”

He followed the direction of the guard’s finger, and crossed the casino to the front lobby with its screeching exotic birds. By now his cell phone had gone quiet, and the message icon was flashing on its face. He retrieved the message, and heard his son’s exuberant voice. The lobby noise was intense, and he pushed the volume control on high.

“Hey, Pop, it’s me. I don’t know how you knew my life was in danger, but your call saved my life.”

Valentine felt the air trapped in his lungs escape. His son was okay.

“I’m sure you’re pissed off that I didn’t tell you I was coming to Las Vegas, but I decided I had to find Jack Donovan’s killers,” his son went on. “You know what you’re always telling me about following my heart? Well, my heart told me to do this, so here I am. I hope you can find it in you to forgive me for disobeying you.

“I’ll call you later tonight. Maybe we can hook up. I’ve got some dirt on cheating that’s going on at ring games at the World Poker Showdown that I thought you’d like to hear. Oh, and Pop? — ”

“What?” Valentine said without thinking.

“—Thanks for the save.”

He erased the message. He and Gerry hadn’t seen eye-to-eye since Gerry had been a teenager. After his wife had died, they’d tried to get back on neutral ground. Although the relationship wasn’t perfect, Gerry was getting better at explaining himself, and he was getting better at listening. As he shut the cell phone, a yellow-headed parrot in a nearby cage began to flap its wings.

“Thanks for the save, thanks for the save,” the bird screeched.

Taking the elevator upstairs, Valentine found himself thinking about his dinner with Gloria Curtis. He wanted to make a good impression, and wished Mabel were around to suggest what clothes he should wear. Not that he had much in the way of a wardrobe, but Mabel’s help would quell the tiny butterflies dancing in his stomach. As he entered his room, he saw the red light on his phone flashing. He picked up the message.

“Hey, Tony,” Rufus Steele’s voice rang out. “I’m in a jam and need your help. Would you mind coming down to my room? Thanks, pardner.”

He glanced at his watch. He had a few hours to kill before dinner, and guessed he could get Rufus to help him pick out his clothes. It wasn’t that Rufus was a great dresser either, but he needed another opinion to get his nerves calmed down. He took the elevator down to Rufus’s floor. The old cowboy answered the door on the first knock.

“Hey, Tony. Sorry to bother you, but I’ve got a real problem here.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Come inside and see for yourself.”

He entered the room expecting the worst, and was not disappointed. Everything was gone — the double bed, the night table, the couch, and the two chairs by the window they’d sat in earlier. Even the wall hangings and clock were gone. The place had been stripped clean, with Rufus’s clothes left in a sloppy pile in the room’s center.

“Who did this?” Valentine asked.

“The hotel,” Rufus said. “They really want me out of here.”

“Did they take any of your personal belongings?”

“No, they left those.”

“What about the twenty grand you won?”

“That’s in the vault behind the front desk,” Rufus said.

“Did you go downstairs and lodge a complaint?” Valentine asked.

“Sure did. They acted real concerned. Guy at the front desk said someone would be sent up to ‘look into things.’ That was an hour ago. That’s the thing I hate about this town. People will piss on your leg while swearing to you it’s raining.”

“How can I help?” Valentine asked.

The old cowboy removed his hat, and held it in front of his chest. “I hate to impose upon you, but I’m too old to be sleeping on the floor. I’d be forever grateful if you’d let me park these tired old bones on your couch.”

Having a roommate during an investigation was never a good idea. But Rufus had his pluses. He’d been the first to nail DeMarco for a cheat, and knew as much about playing poker as anyone alive. Valentine pointed at the pile of clothes on the floor.

“Let me help you with those,” he said.

They stowed Rufus’s clothes in the closet of Valentine’s room, his shaving kit beneath the sink. Rufus was testing the softness of the couch when Valentine approached him.

“I need a favor,” Valentine said. “I’m having dinner with a woman tonight, and was going to buy a shirt down in the men’s shop. I was thinking of blue.”

Rufus threw his legs up onto the couch, and stretched out luxuriously. The couch was not long enough for him, and his cowboy boots dangled over the end.

“Light or navy?” he asked.

“Navy.”

He decided the accommodations were to his liking, and brought his feet back to the floor. “Navy’s strong. You seeing that newscaster woman?”

“Yeah, we’re getting together later. Too strong?”

“No, navy’s good, especially with your dark features. How long you known her?”

“We met this morning.”

“Heck, I’m going to start calling you Sir Speedy.”

Valentine laughed under his breath. “She likes hearing about scams.”

Rufus patted the cushion beside him, indicating he wanted Valentine to sit. Valentine accommodated him, and watched the old cowboy remove a pack of Lucky Strikes from his shirt pocket and bang out a smoke.

“Sounds like a match made in heaven. She’s a smoker, isn’t she?”

Valentine nodded. Rufus placed the cigarette between his lips and took out a book of matches. He hesitated before lighting up. “Do you think it’s possible to light a cigarette, take four puffs, but not change the length of the cigarette?” he asked.

“No, I don’t think it’s possible,” Valentine said.

Rufus lit the match, and placed the flame in the center of the cigarette. It quickly caught fire, and he took four puffs without the cigarette shrinking in length. Valentine saw himself having fun with that, showing Gloria over dessert.

“Know any other pearls?” he asked.

“I know hundreds of the damn things,” Rufus said, exhaling two huge plumes of smoke. “Sometimes I think people take me up on them because they enjoy being hornswoggled. Say, do you mind if I help myself to something to drink?”

“Not at all,” Valentine said. “The minibar’s in the corner.”

Rufus went to the minibar and Valentine saw him remove the last Diet Coke. He sat down on the couch and started to twist it open, then stopped.

“Heck, that’s mighty rude of me. You want this?”

“Come to mention it, yes,” Valentine said.

Rufus was still holding the matches, and he tore one from the pack, then handed it and the pack to Valentine. “Light the match, and hold the flame lower than your fingers.”

Valentine lit the match and held the flame below his hand.

“How long do you think you can hold it that way?” Rufus asked.

The flame was racing up the paper match and starting to warm his fingers.

“I don’t know — five seconds?”

“Betcha this soda pop I can hold it for a minute.”

Valentine blew out the match that was starting to burn his fingers, and dropped it into an ashtray on the table. Then he tore a second match from the pack, and handed it and the pack to Rufus.

“You’re on,” he said.

Rufus put the soda down, then struck the match against the flint. It flamed, and he held it exactly as Valentine had, only moved his hand from side to side like a pendulum, effectively reducing the flame’s head to the size of a pin. Valentine timed him with the minute hand of his watch. Sixty seconds later the match was still quietly burning.

“That’s a keeper,” Valentine said.

Rufus smiled his best aw-shucks smile, then got two glasses from the minibar, and split the soda between them. He was still smiling when they clinked glasses.

22

“How long have you been legally blind?” the news-paper reporter asked.

Skip DeMarco leaned back on the leather couch in his penthouse suite in Celebrity’s hotel. He detected a faint Scottish brogue in the reporter’s voice, and put his age at about thirty, with a college education in the states that had softened his vowels. DeMarco had been blind for as long as he could remember, his condition a hereditary one, not that he was going to tell this son-of-a-bitch that.

There was a glass coffee table with sharp edges in front of the couch, and he leaned forward and found the tall glass of ice water that had been placed there for him. He raised it to his lips and enjoyed its coldness against his dry throat. In the next room, he could faintly hear his uncle George, whom everyone called the Tuna, on the phone, cursing up a storm at hotel management. Back home, if someone had robbed his uncle in broad daylight, they’d end up dead in a garbage can by sundown. But Las Vegas wasn’t home, and his uncle was having a hard time getting anyone to help him. He put his drink down, then raised his hands and held his hands approximately three feet apart.

“This long,” he told the reporter. “Which paper did you say you were from?”

He heard the reporter’s intake of breath. He had put him on the defensive. Good.

“I’m a stringer for the International Herald Tribune,” the reporter said.

“I thought they went out of business.”

He heard the reporter shift in his chair. It was made of wood, and it’s feet moved slightly every time the reporter did.

“It’s still published in Europe and the Far East,” the reporter said.

DeMarco stared straight ahead. He knew where the reporter was sitting, but had decided not to gaze in his direction, further putting him on the defensive.

“Do you consider your blindness a handicap or an asset when you play poker?” the reporter asked him.

“An asset,” DeMarco said.

“Do you feel your opponents play you differently, knowing you’re blind?”

“Differently how?”

“Less competitively.”

DeMarco felt himself stiffen. The reporter was treating him like a three-legged dog that had learned how to run, and he wanted to crack him in the head with something very hard. Only, he told himself not to. He’d already created enemies by calling Rufus Steele an old man, and ripping this asshole wouldn’t win him any friends.

“No. When you sit down at a poker table, it’s like a bunch of piranhas in a swimming pool. Everyone tries to eat everyone else.”

He listened to the reporter scratch away on his notepad. The reporter had also brought a tape recorder, which sat on the coffee table in front of him.

“Can you tell me how your blindness is an asset?” the reporter asked.

“It helps me win,” DeMarco said.

“Would you explain?”

“And give away my secrets?”

“Well... yes.”

DeMarco sensed that the reporter was smiling, and he shifted his head so he was facing the reporter, and flashed a rare smile of his own. “It’s like this. When I was a teenager, I couldn’t play sports or do a lot of the things that my friends were doing. One day, my uncle George took me to Atlantic City and we went to a casino. There was a poker room, and my uncle sat me down, bought me some chips, and taught me how to play. He told me what the other players’ cards were, and then how to play my hand. Even though I lost, I had a great time.

“When I got home, I went to the local bookstore, and bought every book on poker they had. Reading is difficult for me — I have to hold the book up to my nose — but where there’s a will, there’s a way, and I read all of them. One of the books mentioned a store in Las Vegas called the Gambler’s Book Club, and I called there, and talked to the manager. He recommended a book that changed my life.”

DeMarco could hear the reporter scribbling away, and picked up his drink of water and finished it. Then he resumed speaking. “It was called Read the Dealer and was written by a gambler named Steve Forte. The book explained how players could get an advantage against casinos at blackjack. The information was so powerful that the casinos had to completely revamp the way blackjack was played.

“The part of the book that fascinated me was about language. It showed how a player could elicit responses from dealers with simple questions, and how those responses told you if the dealer liked you, or didn’t like you. The book also explained how language could be used to make dealers tip their hands.

“After I finished the book, I realized that the information could be used in poker. By listening to my opponents’ voices when they bet or checked, I would know if their cards were weak or strong. And since I’m very good at listening, I knew that I could compete with anyone in the world.”

“This must have been a wonderful revelation to you,” the reporter said.

DeMarco nodded. He’d been interviewed several times in the past two days and hadn’t enjoyed it, the reporters treating him either like a freak, or an object of sympathy. This was the first time a reporter had treated him seriously.

“It was like being handed the keys to the kingdom,” he said.

The reporter finished scribbling and shut off his recorder. Not once during the interview had Rufus Steele’s allegation of cheating come up, and DeMarco knew that he’d dodged a serious bullet. He heard the reporter rise from his chair.

“Thanks for the interview, and good luck,” the reporter said.

The reporter left, and DeMarco rose from the couch and shuffled across the room to the big picture window that radiated heat late in the day. He placed his fingers against the glass, and imagined the snow-tipped mountains that rimmed the western desert of Nevada. When the tournament was over, he planned to get someone to drive him into those mountains, and let him walk around and smell the mountain air. He heard a door click, and his uncle’s heavy footsteps as he crossed the suite and came up behind him.

“Hey, Skipper,” his uncle said. “How was the interview? Another asshole?”

“This one was okay.”

“You broke through to the guy?”

“Yeah, I broke through to him,” DeMarco said.

“That’s good. Really good.”

For a while neither man said anything, which suited DeMarco just fine. Although he loved his uncle more than anyone in the world, he did not always enjoy their conversations. They were like conversations on TV cop shows, with the guy in charge asking a lot of pointed questions, and everyone else forced to give answers. Uncle George was like that: he was always the one asking questions, and never giving answers. It was a one-way street, and usually left his nephew feeling put out.

“Listen, about what happened in the lobby,” his uncle said. “I’m sorry.”

“There’s no need to apologize, Uncle George.”

“I called the local hospital. They’re sending replacements. We’re covered.”

“Thanks, Uncle George.”

His uncle snorted contemptuously under his breath. “Those motherfuckers are going to pay for stealing that bag, mark my words.”

The bodyguard had told DeMarco how his uncle had been made to look like a fool, the bag being taken from his hands without his uncle putting up a fight, and that his uncle was going to have those responsible killed if it was the last thing he did.

“You know who did it?” DeMarco asked.

“Yeah,” his uncle said. “I know.”

“How did you find out?”

“A local mob guy fingered them for me.”

“They from New Jersey?”

“Don’t ask so many questions.”

DeMarco turned from the window so he was facing his uncle. He hated it when his uncle addressed him like a child. “I have a right to know, Uncle George.”

“According to who?”

“According to me. I want to know who’s after me.”

“Yeah, they’re from Jersey.”

“Atlantic City?”

There was a long pause.

“Yeah,” his uncle finally said.

DeMarco felt himself shudder. There was only one good reason why four guys from Atlantic City would come to Las Vegas to rob them, and he found himself wishing he’d never allowed his uncle to talk him into playing in the World Poker Showdown. He felt his uncle put a reassuring hand on his shoulder, and leave it there.

“There ain’t nothing to worry about, Skipper,” his uncle said.

“You sure, Uncle George?”

“Yeah. Those guys will pay. Just leave everything to me.”

23

While Vinny drove back to their motel, Gerry stared at the Tuna’s canvas bag sitting on the floor between his feet. He’d come to Las Vegas for two reasons — to get Jack’s poker secret, and to pay back Jack’s killers — only now the payback scenario didn’t seem like such a good idea. His father telling him that no job was worth getting killed over suddenly sounded real smart.

“What do you say we get this over with?” Gerry asked.

Vinny took his eyes off the highway and stared at him. “How so?”

“I’m ready to go home. Let’s take a look at Jack’s secret, then split up. I’ll fly up to Atlantic City next week, collect the money you owe Jack, and give it to Jack’s mom.”

“You want to scram, huh?” Vinny asked.

“Let’s just say I’ve had enough of this town. How about you?”

Vinny said yes, then looked in the mirror at Nunzie and Frank.

“What do you guys say?”

Nunzie and Frank nodded vigorously. The scene at the Voodoo Lounge had put the fear of God into them, and they’d hardly spoken a word since leaving.

“Then I guess it’s unanimous,” Vinny said.

They were on Tropicana Avenue heading into town, and Vinny aimed the car at an off-the-strip casino called Lucky Lou’s. Lou’s was a locals’ hangout, and known for its homey atmosphere and endless buffet.

“Why are you going there?” Gerry asked.

“There’s a blackjack dealer on the afternoon shift that flashes her hole card,” Vinny said. “I figured we could see what Jack’s secret is, and make a little pocket money.”

“Who told you about the dealer?”

“The albino at the Laughing Jackalope,” Vinny said. “He got the information from the newest edition of the notebook. He said this dealer was an easy target.”

The notebook was the holy grail for Nevada hustlers, and contained the names of blackjack dealers who flashed their hole card during the deal. By knowing the dealer’s hole card, the player had a 15 percent edge over the house. Gerry didn’t like it, and shook his head. He wanted to get out of Vegas, not scam a BJ dealer.

“Come on, it’s easy pickings,” Vinny said.

“I’m out of the rackets, remember?”

“Then have a beer. Come on.”

The car was drifting across the lanes, heading toward Lucky Lou’s on its own. There was no stopping Vinny when there was easy money to be made, and Gerry picked up the canvas bag from the floor.

“All right,” he said.

Like many off-the-strip casinos, Lucky Lou’s gave gamblers good value, with slot machines that paid out more regularly, and table games that offered better rules. Gerry had always thought it wrong that Las Vegas casinos were allowed to control the odds they offered gamblers, but that was the way the town worked.

Lucky Lou’s was busy, and they passed through a sea of denim and polyester to reach the bar. Gerry ordered draft beers all the way around, and when they were delivered, found a table in the corner of the room. When he was sure no one was watching, he put the canvas bag on the table, and opened it. Inside was a white plastic box wrapped in see-through plastic. Gerry undid the plastic, which was cold to the touch, and handed the box to Vinny.

“For me?” Vinny said, like it was a birthday gift.

“You paid for it,” Gerry said.

Vinny shook the box, then looked at Nunzie and Frank.

“Maybe I should wait and open it later,” he said teasingly.

“Come on, open the box,” Frank said impatiently.

“Yeah, dickhead, open it,” Nunzie chorused.

The box had a plastic clasp, which Vinny undid, then lifted the lid. The four men dropped their heads and stared. Inside were a dozen tiny bottles of yellow liquid, and a hypodermic with several spare needles. For a long moment, no one said anything. Vinny picked up one of the bottles, and held it up to the crummy bar light. He squinted to read the printing on the label, then cursed under his breath.

“We stole the guy’s insulin,” he said.

Gerry grabbed the bottle from Vinny. “Maybe this is the secret.”

“Insulin?” Vinny asked.

“Jack said he came up with the scam while getting radiation treatment in the hospital,” Gerry said. “Maybe he found a way to mark playing cards with insulin.”

Gerry poured some insulin onto a white cocktail napkin. It had no color, and when he wiped it away a moment later, there was no stain. Substances used to mark playing cards were usually derived from ink, and almost always left marks on white surfaces.

“I don’t think so,” Vinny said in disgust.

A minute passed with no one saying anything. For Vinny, that was a rare event. Finally he blew out his lungs and looked at Frank and Nunzie.

“What do you say we go make some easy money?”

“Yeah,” they both said.

The three men rose from the table. Without a word they left the bar and went into the casino. The bar’s walls were made of tinted glass, and Gerry watched them roam the blackjack pit in search of their easy dealer. Then he stared at the box of insulin and felt his spirits drop. He felt like he’d dug himself a hole, and it was growing deeper by the minute. He needed to fix things, and then he needed to get the hell out of Las Vegas.

He spied a cute waitress circling the table. She wore a spandex outfit that was several sizes too small for her, and seemed embarrassed by all the skin she was showing. He motioned her over to the table.

“I need a bag of ice,” he said.

She scurried away. From his pocket he removed the pages he’d lifted from the Voodoo Lounge showing the odds of each player winning the World Poker Showdown, and found the odds on Skip DeMarco. DeMarco was running at 40 to 1. Odds were only meaningful if there was real money being bet on the tournament. He knew plenty of bookies, and took his cell phone and called one in New York named Big Dave.

“As I live and breathe,” Big Dave said. “I heard you’d gone legit.”

“I have,” Gerry said. “I need a favor.”

“Fire away.”

“How much action is on the World Poker Showdown?”

“The last I heard, over twelve million,” the bookie said, a police siren wailing in the background. “And the tournament doesn’t end until next week.”

“Where do you think it will top out?”

“Twenty million, easy.”

“Any idea where it’s coming from?”

“Here, there, and everywhere,” Big Dave said, the siren gradually fading. “There’s a lot of money on that blind guy, DeMarco.”

“How much is a lot?”

“A million, so far. Personally, I don’t think he’s got a snowball’s chance in hell.”

“Why not?”

“He bad-mouthed Rufus Steele. The other players will be gunning for him, mark my words.”

Gerry thanked him and killed the connection. If the tournament ended up taking in twenty million in total wagers, it would be easy for DeMarco’s backers to put a couple million on their boy without drawing suspicion. That would net them a cool eighty million bucks, along with the ten million first prize. It was a hell of a lot of money for a stinking poker tournament.

The waitress appeared with a large Ziplock filled with ice. He placed the ice in the canvas bag with the insulin, then fished out his wallet and tossed a twenty onto her tray. The help got paid dirt in Las Vegas, and she smiled appreciatively.

“Thanks a lot, mister.”

Gerry walked into the blackjack pit, and found Vinny, Nunzie, and Frank sitting at a table with an older woman dealer. Each man had an imposing stack of chips, and was oblivious to the gray-haired pit boss standing nearby, watching them.

Gerry watched his friends read the dealer’s hole card. Nunzie sat to the dealer’s right, and stayed low in his chair. This allowed him to peek at the corner of the dealer’s hole card as it was slipped under her face card. If he saw paint, indicating a king, jack, or queen, he puffed twice on his cigarette. If he saw white, indicating a number card, he puffed once. It was enough information to give everyone at the table an unbeatable edge.

Out of the corner of his eye, Gerry saw the pit boss lift a walkie-talkie to his face. He guessed the pit boss was talking to someone in the surveillance control room about what was happening at the table. It didn’t matter if what was happening was legal, or illegal. The pit boss had a quota to meet for his shift, and if Nunzie, Frank, and Vinny prevented him from achieving that quota, he’d catch hell from his bosses.

Gerry felt the pit boss’s eyes on him, and saw a look of recognition spread across the man’s face. Gerry was sure he’d never laid eyes on the guy in his life. To his surprise, the man came out of the pit like he wanted to shake hands. Then it dawned on Gerry what was going on. The pit boss knew his father.

Gerry bumped Vinny’s chair, and Vinny turned around to stare at him.

“Start losing,” Gerry said under his breath.

“What?”

“Start losing. All of you.”

“But—”

“Do it.”

The pit boss was a few feet away, and had stopped. Gerry turned around.

“I’m sorry,” the pit boss said. “I thought you were someone else.”

“I’m Gerry Valentine. My father’s Tony Valentine.” Gerry removed his business card from his wallet, and handed it to him. The pit boss’s eyesight wasn’t good, and he put his glasses on, read the card, then looked into Gerry’s face.

“You’re the spitting image of your father.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“You here on a job?”

“Yes,” Gerry said. “My associates and I are working with my father on a case.”

The pit boss’s expression changed. He looked at Vinny, Frank, and Nunzie, then back at Gerry. “These three guys are with you?” he asked.

Gerry could have cut the suspicion in the pit boss’s voice with a chain saw, and he placed his hand firmly on the back of Vinny’s chair. “Yes. We’re all together.”

“Your friends are taking us to the cleaners,” the pit boss said.

The challenge in his voice was unmistakable. Gerry glanced at the table. Each man’s stack of chips had dwindled to practically nothing. As Gerry watched, the three men drew cards on another hand, and all lost. Gerry looked innocently at the pit boss.

“You could have fooled me,” he said.

“What the hell are you doing?” Vinny asked as they marched out the casino’s front doors. “We were up three grand!”

“Yeah,” Nunzie piped in. “That dealer was a piece of cake. I was thinking of asking her to marry me.”

No one laughed. The late afternoon sun was blinding, and Gerry shielded his eyes and searched the endless rows of cars in the parking lot for their rental.

“The pit boss knows my father,” Gerry said.

“And because of that, you told us to lose?”

“That’s right.”

“I don’t get it,” Vinny said. To Nunzie and Frank he asked, “Do you?”

“No,” they both said.

Gerry could tell they wanted an explanation, only he didn’t feel like giving it to them, and continued to look for their vehicle. He didn’t like giving up a score any more than Vinny or Nunzie or Frank, but some things were more important than money, like his father’s business.

It was strange how things worked out. Growing up, he’d hated that his father was a cop, and been glad when he retired. Then his mother had passed away, and his father had nearly died of a broken heart. One day, a casino in Atlantic City had asked his father to do some consulting work, and in no time his father was back on his feet, busting cheaters. The work had been his salvation, and Gerry wasn’t going to screw that up.

He found the rental car sandwiched between two rusted old junkers that looked ready for the scrap heap. That was one of the bad things about casinos. They attracted people who’d run out of everything but dreams. The space between the cars was narrow, and Gerry was sliding between them to unlock the driver’s door when he saw a long shadow on the asphalt. He turned around slowly, fearing the worst. Sensing his alarm, his friends also turned.

Standing twenty yards away was a man who looked familiar. Tall, lanky, wearing faded blue jeans and a dungaree shirt with a square bulge in the pocket, the man wore his hair straight back, and had a look on his face of pure menace. The handgun that dangled by his side rounded out the picture. Then Gerry recognized him. It was the construction worker from the Voodoo Lounge, the guy that Gerry knew was part of the scheme to kill them. Their eyes met, and the construction worker raised his gun.

24

“Great shirt,” Gloria Curtis said, spearing a shrimp in her shrimp cocktail.

“You like it?” Valentine asked.

“Yes. The color matches your eyes.”

Valentine smiled as he buttered his roll. They were having dinner in Celebrity’s revolving restaurant atop the hotel while watching the desert turn a burnt ochre color.

“I saw you buying it earlier,” she added.

He looked into her face and saw her eyes twinkle. If he’d learned anything from the past two years of taking stabs at dating, it was that women appreciated when a man tried to look nice on their behalf. How this simple fact had escaped him during his forty years of marriage, he had no earthly idea.

“It’s a new color for me,” he said. “I’m glad you like it.”

“New, as in you haven’t worn it in a while?”

He shook his head. “I can’t remember wearing blue as a kid. I wore it as a cop when I was in uniform and had a beat, then switched to jeans and sweatshirts when I went undercover. When I started policing casinos, I wore a black sports jacket and a white shirt.”

“You always wore white shirts? No variations?”

He again shook his head. One year for Christmas, his wife had given him a pink button-down shirt, and he’d worn it to work. Everyone had made so much fun of him, he’d retired it to the closet and never worn it again.

“So why did you decide to wear blue today?” she asked.

The buttered roll still hadn’t made it into his mouth. He hadn’t wanted his shirt to become the main topic of their conversation, and said, “My closet is filled with white shirts. When I look at them, I see the past. I guess I felt it was time for a change.”

Gloria stabbed another shrimp out of her cocktail. Las Vegas sold more shrimp than anywhere else in the world, and the ones swimming in cocktail sauce in Gloria’s glass were of the monster variety. She chewed her food contemplatively.

“I have this bad habit of wondering about things until they start driving me crazy,” she said. “I guess it’s why I became a journalist. When I was talking to Rufus Steele the other day, I mentioned to him that the Nevada Gaming Control Board had hired you to investigate the tournament, and he made a comment that’s been bothering me.”

“What did he say?”

“Rufus said that the first time he played poker in Atlantic City, you saved his life, but also ruined his life. When I pressed him for an explanation, we got interrupted, and I never got my answer. Can you explain what he meant?”

A waiter appeared with their meals. He was a different guy from the one who’d taken their dinner order, who’d been a different guy from the one who’d taken their drink and appetizer order. The restaurant touted itself as the best in Las Vegas, only its service was nothing but asses and elbows. The waiter tried to take Gloria’s shrimp cocktail away so he could set her plate down, and she grabbed it from his hand.

“I’m not finished with that,” she said.

The waiter looked at her blankly. Normally Valentine would have given him a lesson in table etiquette, but instead told him to bring the plates back in five minutes.

“And make sure they’re hot,” he said as the waiter walked away.

“So, where were we?” Gloria said.

“Rufus’s comment about my saving and ruining his life.”

“Right. What did he mean?”

He decided his roll was not meant to be eaten, and put it down on his bread plate. He spent a few moments dredging his memory. He’d dealt with many situations during his years in Atlantic City, and Rufus Steele was buried deep in the past.

“If I remember correctly, this was in early 1980,” he said. “Atlantic City had opened it’s first casino a year and a half before, and we were attracting gamblers from all over the country, including a lot of poker players. Now, we didn’t have any legal poker rooms in our casinos, so these guys were playing in private homes on the island, or in rooms in the casino.”

“Was that legal?”

“No, but that never stopped a poker player from playing in a game. Especially Rufus. It’s a risky proposition, too, when you consider how often these games get hijacked.”

“Hijacked?”

“It’s what poker players say when a game gets robbed. Did you happen to notice the thick rubber band Rufus wears around his wrist? A lot of the old-time poker players wear them.”

Gloria thought about it while devouring another shrimp. “Come to mention it, I did see a rubber band around his wrist. I assumed it had some meaning.”

“It does. A poker player’s best friend is a rubber band. If a guy comes out of a game, and thinks he’s about to get hijacked, he’ll pull his bankroll out of his pocket, and encircle it with a rubber band. Then he’ll toss the bankroll under a car, or over a wall, and recover it later.”

“That sounds awfully dangerous.”

“They say playing poker is the most dangerous way to make an easy living.”

“Okay, back to your story,” Gloria said.

“Right. Rufus comes to Atlantic City to play poker in a private game in a casino hotel. Rufus looks me up, knowing I’m the head law enforcement officer, and introduces himself. He doesn’t come out and say he’s there to play poker, but I figured it out. He was famous even back then, and I realized he was asking me to look out for him. You know, make sure he doesn’t get hijacked.”

“Why would you do that? You knew the game was illegal.”

“A lot of reasons. For one thing, if the game got hijacked, it would bring bad publicity to the casino. Another is that if people gamble inside a casino, it’s hard to stop them from going up to their rooms, and playing cards. The third is, I liked the guy.”

“The third reason is the best,” she said.

“The next morning, I get to work, and call Rufus’s hotel room, just to see how he’s doing. The phone rings and rings, but he doesn’t answer. I call the hotel’s housekeeping, and ask them to send a maid up, and have her knock on the door. I get a call back, saying there’s no answer. Now, either Rufus is a heavy sleeper or he’s in trouble, so I called hotel security and alerted them. Then I ran over there.”

“Ran?”

“Yes. My office was in one of the casinos. At the time, there were three casinos in Atlantic City, and they were all connected by the Boardwalk, so it was easier to run between them than taking my car. It was also a good way to stay in shape.”

Gloria broke into a big smile. “That’s a wonderful image.”

He felt himself blush, not entirely sure what she meant. She reached across the table and placed her hand on his wrist.

“Please tell me the rest.”

“Right. I reach the hotel, and go up to Rufus’s room. Hotel security is standing outside, not knowing what to do. I kicked down the door, and ran in. Rufus was lying in the bathtub with a gag in his mouth. His wrists were tied behind his back with piano wire, and his ankles were tied as well. The piano wire had cut through the skin, and he was slowly bleeding to death.”

“How horrible.”

“I untied him, and he told me that he’d won fifty thousand bucks playing poker the night before, then come back to the room. Two guys had lock-picked the door, and jumped him at three o’clock in the morning. They had stockings over their faces, only one of the guys started coughing, and had to pull the stocking off. Rufus saw his face, so the guys decided to give him the piano wire treatment, and leave him.”

“You mean they meant to kill him?”

“They sure did.”

“Did Rufus know the man?”

“No, but he saw his face, and the guy was scared of Rufus fingering him. I rushed Rufus to the hospital, then tracked down the guys who’d robbed him, and hauled them in.”

“But how did you do that, if Rufus didn’t know them?”

“Piano wire isn’t something most crooks carry around with them. Atlantic City is a small island, and there’s only one piano store. I called it, and asked them if two guys had been in the day before, and purchased any wire. Turns out, they had. They’d paid for the wire with a credit card, so it was easy to track them down.”

“Did you retrieve all of Rufus’s money?”

“Every last cent. That was how I ruined him, so to speak.”

“What do you mean?”

“The law required that I inform the Internal Revenue Service about the money Rufus had won, since it was income. I ran into Rufus about ten years later, and he told me that the IRS had been auditing him every year since.”

“Couldn’t you have prevented that?”

“You mean not tell the IRS?”

“Yes.”

Valentine shook his head. “It would have meant breaking the law.”

A look crept across Gloria’s face that was neither a smile nor a frown. The shrimp had vanished from her shrimp cocktail, and the sun had dropped low enough in the horizon for dusk to have settled in. The real day for Las Vegas was about to start.

“Now I know why you always wore black and white,” she said.

It took Valentine five minutes to flag down their waiter, and convince him to bring their food. He touched their plates as they were served, and was pleased they were hot. He and Gloria had both ordered plank-grilled salmon with garlic mashed potatoes. They seemed to have a lot in common, and dug into their meals.

“My producer loved the piece with Rufus and the fly,” Gloria said. “He’s going to run it tonight after they show the highlights from the tournament. You saved me with that call.”

“Saved you how?” Valentine asked.

“I found out a few hours ago that my producer was going to call me home. It’s the worst thing that can happen to a reporter when they’re out on assignment. After he saw the segment, he told me to stay a few more days, and see what I could dig up.”

“So you still have your job.”

“It sure looks that way.”

“Glad I could help.”

“My producer thinks Rufus’s stunt was a trick, and that he really didn’t hypnotize the fly. I told him if anyone would know the secret, it was you.”

Valentine put a piece of salmon into his mouth and chewed. He’d come to dinner prepared to explain the sugar cube trick to Gloria, but now found himself having second thoughts. He guessed it had something to do with seeing Rufus so down on his luck earlier, and all his clothes piled unceremoniously in the middle of his room. Rufus was slowing down, which was death for any gambler, and the vultures were starting to pick him apart. He had no desire to join the carnage.

“I don’t have a clue,” Valentine said.

25

Gerry watched the construction worker walk toward them, aiming his gun. It was a simple .22, a gun that was relatively quiet compared to most handguns. Gerry had heard that mob guys and hitmen liked .22s because once the bullet entered the body, it tended to ricochet and cause a lot of damage. Vinny and Nunzie dove between a pair of parked cars, and a bullet whistled over their heads.

The construction worker kept coming forward, his weapon now aimed at Gerry. Gerry followed the Fountain brothers’ lead, and ducked behind a car.

“Gimme the keys,” Frank said, standing beside the trunk of the rental.

Crouching, Vinny dug the rental keys from his pocket.

“Here,” he said, throwing them in Frank’s direction.

Frank plucked the keys out of the air and unlocked the rental’s trunk. He was amazingly calm, and it reminded Gerry of his mother’s favorite expression: “Everyone is good for something.” As a boxer, Frank had faced guys who were bigger than he was, and who punched harder than he did, but Frank had beaten them all. He was afraid of nothing. The other thing Frank was good at was seeing into the future. Before they’d left the Voodoo Lounge, he’d gone back inside the bar, and returned carrying the bartender’s .38 Magnum, which he’d placed in the rental’s trunk.

“Never know when you’ll need a gun,” he’d remarked.

Frank now removed the .38 from the trunk as the construction worker took a shot at him. The bullet hit an SUV parked behind Frank, winging it and causing the car’s alarm to go off. Gerry heard the construction worker curse, and knew the guy was making a classic mistake. It was hard enough to shoot someone while standing still, but moving forward made it doubly hard.

Grasping the .38 with both hands, Frank leveled its barrel at the construction worker, causing him to freeze in his tracks. Frank squeezed the trigger and nothing happened. He squeezed again, and heard another click.

“I need backup,” Frank yelled.

Vinny, who was hiding across the aisle, pulled off one of his loafers, and threw it at the construction worker. The man ducked, not knowing what was being thrown at him. Then Nunzie threw one of his shoes, hitting the construction worker in the side. Gerry stared at Frank, who’d opened up the .38’s chamber, and was inspecting the weapon. Satisfied, he snapped the chamber shut, aimed, and fired.

The bullet hit the construction worker in the chest, and he lurched violently to one side, his arms going straight into the air. The .38’s bullet was a different animal than a .22’s. It was meant to penetrate, and left a larger exit hole than most handguns. The construction worker’s legs moved backward, like they’d taken on a life of their own, his fingers still clutching the .22.

Frank shot him again in the chest. The construction worker was dead, but didn’t know it. Frank shot him a third time, and the .22 flew out of the construction worker’s hand and disappeared beneath a parked car. The man continued going backward, only now his feet had stopped working. He hit the pavement and lay motionless on the ground.

Vinny and Nunzie ran out from their hiding places, and retrieved their shoes. They fitted them on while hopping on one leg. The construction worker stared up at the cloudless sky, the look on his face pure disbelief.

Gerry went over to Frank, and put his hand on the bigger man’s shoulder.

“Jesus, Frank, you okay?”

Frank stared at the dead man and shook his head.

“I got lucky,” Frank said.

Most hitmen worked in pairs, with one man doing the shooting, the other doing the driving. Gerry guessed the construction worker’s driver was sitting in a car in the parking lot, waiting for his partner to run over and jump in.

“Time to get out of Dodge,” Gerry said.

The four men climbed into the rental. Vinny made the tires squeal as he drove out Lucky Lou’s back entrance, and onto a side street with little traffic.

“We need to get lost,” Gerry said.

Vinny drove east and got onto the strip. It was dusk, and the city was starting to come alive, the streets and sidewalks teeming with tourists. It was comforting to be around so many people, and Vinny drove for several minutes without anyone in the car saying a word.

“How the hell did that guy find us?” Gerry suddenly asked. “We left the Voodoo Lounge and drove around. Then we went to Lucky Lou’s. How did that guy know where we were?”

Gerry turned around in his seat. Nunzie and Frank gave him blank looks. Neither man was big in the thinking department. He turned back around and looked at Vinny.

“Any ideas?”

Vinny gripped the wheel and stared at the road. Like Gerry, he’d gone to college for a few years, and had also worked in his father’s business. He knew how to connect the dots, and scrunched his face in concentration.

“He didn’t find us,” Vinny finally said. “He was there in the parking lot, waiting for us. He found the car.”

“So what you’re saying is, this car is being traced.”

“Must be,” Vinny said.

Gerry stared straight ahead. A pack of young women were jaywalking in front of the car. One stopped to wink at him. When Gerry ignored her, she stuck her tongue out, then moved on, her friends laughing hysterically.

“Get off at the next intersection and find a gas station,” Gerry said. “We need to fly speck this car.”

Vinny hung a left on Sahara, and drove until he found a gas station. He pulled into the lot and parked beside the station’s convenience store. The four men hopped out, and Frank grabbed a newspaper out of the trash and laid it on the ground, then slid beneath the car, while Vinny popped the hood and examined the engine with Nunzie. Gerry leaned against the car and watched the street, wary of someone pulling into the gas station and blindsiding them. After a minute he heard Frank speak up.

“Underbody’s clean,” Frank said.

“So’s the engine,” Vinny said, slamming the hood.

Frank slid out from beneath the car. Gerry offered his hand, and helped pull Frank to his feet. The four men huddled beside the building.

“What do we do now?” Vinny asked.

Gerry felt his friends staring at him, and tried to think what his father would do in a situation like this. Whenever his father had a pressing problem, he usually ate something and drank a cup of coffee. Gerry had always thought it was something that cops did, but now saw the value in it. A little break in the action was needed, and he went inside the convenience store.

He emerged a few minutes later with a cardboard tray containing four cups of coffee and a bag of doughnuts. The sun was setting, and the fractured light lit up the sky. He offered the food to his partners. As he did, a tiny sparkle of light on the roof of their rental caught his eye. It was there for an instant, then disappeared.

Nunzie grabbed the bag out of Gerry’s hand, and peeked inside.

“Jelly doughnuts. These all for me?”

“Share them,” Gerry said. He handed Vinny the tray of drinks, then started to take off his shoes and socks. The three men stared at him.

“What are you doing?” Vinny asked.

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

“It looks like you’re taking off your shoes and socks. You going to walk around barefoot?”

“That’s right.”

Gerry climbed onto the hood of their rental, then slid his body onto the roof. In its center he found a small, circular reflector similar to the kind used on bicycles. He peeled it off the roof, then climbed down.

“Look what I found,” he said.

The three men stared at the reflector while eating the doughnuts.

“The reflector can be seen from up in the sky,” Gerry explained. “We were being followed by helicopter. That’s how the construction worker from Voodoo Lounge traced our car.”

Vinny took the reflector from Gerry’s hand, and stared at it.

“Jinky was using a helicopter?”

“Not Jinky,” Gerry said. “The cops. This is how the cops follow people.”

Vinny stopped eating his doughnut, and his face turned pale. Gerry knew exactly what Vinny was thinking, because it was the same thing he was thinking. Jinky Harris had a cop with the Metro Las Vegas Police on his payroll, and was using that person to track their whereabouts with a helicopter, then send hitmen to whack them. They didn’t stand a chance against someone with those kinds of resources.

“So, what do we do?” Vinny asked.

Gerry took the last doughnut from the bag and bit into it. There was only one thing to do, and that was find his father, and ask for his help. He’d been doing that most of his life, and his old man had never let him down.

“Call my father,” Gerry said.

“So, call him.”

A white Impala pulled into the gas station and parked in front of the convenience store. It was an unmarked police car, and a uniformed sheriff got out. He touched the brim of his hat as he passed them, and entered the store.

Gerry took the reflector out of Vinny’s fingers, and walked over to the Impala. He glanced inside the store, and saw that the sheriff was at the counter with his back to him. Gerry placed the reflector onto the Impala’s roof, and pressed down firmly. Then he walked over to his friends.

“That should keep them off our trail for a while,” he said.