Deadman’s Poker

41

Mabel Struck was about to leave for a late lunch when the phone rang. She’d spent the morning soothing the nerves of several panicked casino bosses, and had worked up an appetite. She looked at the phone, and saw that it was Tony’s private line. Only a few people had the number, and she stared at the Caller ID. It was the boss himself.

“Grift Sense,” she answered cheerfully.

“Is this a money-laundering operation?”

“There you are. How’s sunny Las Vegas?”

“Fine. I saw something this morning that you would have really enjoyed.”

“What was that?”

“I saw a ventriloquist turn a crowd of smart people into a bunch of dummies.”

“A ventriloquist? I thought you were out there working.”

“I am out here working,” he said. “I’m on my way to a meeting with Bill Higgins. I called to see if Romero had sent the FBI’s file on George Scalzo.”

Mabel spun in her chair so she faced Tony’s computer, and opened his e-mail account. Six new messages had arrived in the last twenty minutes, and she quickly scrolled through them. The last was from Special Agent Romero.

“Got it. Would you like me to read it while you drive?”

“You’re psychic,” he said.

Mabel stuck the phone into the crook of her neck and opened Romero’s e-mail. The special agent had sent a thank-you note, and she read the note first.

“Dear Ms. Struck: Thanks for your help last night. When our agents knocked down the wall in the basement, they discovered the hidden electromagnets, plus a large bag of cash. Our suspect has decided to change his plea, and is cooperating with the prosecutor.

“Unfortunately, I cannot fulfill your request and provide you with the FBI’s current case file on George Scalzo, since the law does not allow me to share information regarding ongoing investigations. However, I did remove from the file information regarding Scalzo’s relationship with Chris DeMarco, and have pasted it into the body of this e-mail. Feel free to contact me if I can be of further assistance. Yours truly, Special Agent Romero.”

“You helped the FBI crack a case?” Valentine asked.

“Why, yes, I did,” Mabel said.

“That’s great. Now I can retire, and get out of this racket.”

“Listen to you! Are you ready to hear what Romero sent?”

“Fire away.”

Mabel scrolled down the e-mail. “Let’s see. Special Agent Romero included some background information about George Scalzo. Would you like to hear that?”

“Why not? Mobsters are always good for a few laughs.”

“Okay. Scalzo was initiated into the New Jersey mob at eighteen. By twenty-two, he had been involved in over a dozen crimes, including kidnapping, murder, loan-sharking, bookmaking, racketeering, fire-bombing, extortion, and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. He’d been to state prison three times, and it didn’t do him any good.”

“What a charmer,” Valentine said.

“Okay, here’s the case file. It’s broken down by date. On September 19, 1981, a prostitute named Danielle DeMarco and her blind four-year-old son, Chris, rented a house two blocks south of Washington Street in Newark, New Jersey, where George Scalzo lived. Living with Danielle was a black pimp named Jester (real name unknown).”

“Chris DeMarco’s mother was a hooker?”

“That’s what it says here. Two weeks later, Danielle DeMarco was arrested for rolling a john in a motel. Jester posted her bail, but left Chris alone at home. The boy left the house somehow, and made his way over to Washington Street. He ended up walking into a restaurant called Carmine’s where a birthday party was taking place. Scalzo was there playing the piano, and talked Chris into sitting on the piano stool with him.”

“Scalzo plays the piano? I sure hope he doesn’t sing.”

“You’re hysterical. The next day, Scalzo turns Chris over to the police, and the boy is reunited with his mother. That night, while Danielle is working the streets, Jester decides to punish Chris for leaving the house. According to neighbors who listened through an open window, Jester beat him with a coat hanger, then burned his arms and chest with a cigarette.”

The connection had gone quiet. Then she heard Tony cough, and continued.

“Word of the boy’s abuse spread through the neighborhood, and the police were summoned the next morning. Danielle refused to open the front door, and said nothing was wrong. The police left to get a warrant. Not long after their departure, a town car containing four men pulled up in front of the house. The four men got out, and forced their way inside. They pulled Jester from bed and started to beat him up. When Danielle came to her pimp’s aid, the men threw her down a flight of stairs.”

“Nice guys.”

“At twelve fifty-five that afternoon, Jester and Danielle were admitted to the emergency room of a local hospital. Every major bone in Jester’s body was broken, and Danielle was suffering from a broken leg and a broken back. Two hours later, they were both pronounced dead.”

“Jesus.”

“The police went to Danielle’s house but could not find Chris. Although scores of neighbors saw the men break in, none of the neighbors were willing to identify the four men for police.”

“Sounds familiar.”

“The next day, Scalzo contacts the police, and tells them that Chris had come to his house. When the boy is turned over to the police, he is wearing new clothes, and his cigarette burns have been treated by a doctor. The police turn him over to Health and Human Resources, who put him in a foster home. Four weeks later, George Scalzo’s sister, Lydia, files papers to become Chris’s legal guardian. Lydia tells friends in the neighborhood she is doing this for her brother, who never had children.

“Three months later, a judge in Newark bestows legal guardianship of Chris DeMarco to Lydia Scalzo, and the boy is transferred from his foster home to Lydia’s house. Within a few days, he is living with his ‘Uncle George’ next door. And... that’s where the e-mail ends.”

“Well, that explains a lot,” he said.

Mabel saved the e-mail message, then turned away from the computer. “You need to be careful with this one, Tony.”

“I’m always careful,” he replied.

“I know that. But this isn’t your ordinary hoodlum.”

“It isn’t?”

“No, it’s a psychotic who had a woman killed, and stole her child.”

“That’s one way to look at it. I’ll be doubly careful.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Here’s my exit. Oh, by the way, lunch is on me today.”

“Why, that’s awfully nice of you,” she said.

“You broke a case, you deserve it. Talk to you soon.”

Mabel said good-bye and hung up the phone. Reading about George Scalzo getting custody of Chris DeMarco had an unsettling effect on her, and she realized she wasn’t hungry anymore. Men could be such monsters when they wanted things. She decided to take a walk instead, and slipped on her shoes. It was a beautiful day, and she felt certain that a leisurely stroll around the neighborhood was just the thing to lift her spirits.

42

Gardunos served the best Mexican food in Las Vegas, with a terrific waitstaff and homemade dishes you couldn’t find anywhere else. It was ten o’clock when Valentine slid into the booth across from Bill Higgins. The restaurant had just opened it doors, and they were its only customers. The look on Bill’s face said he did not feel well.

“What’s wrong?” Valentine asked.

“I’ve got some bad news this morning,” his friend said.

“Concerning me?”

“Yes, concerning you.”

Since getting into the consulting racket, Valentine had discovered that he wasn’t doing his job if he wasn’t regularly pissing someone off.

“I’m a big boy, I can take it,” he replied.

Bill removed an envelope from his pocket, and handed it to him.

“It isn’t pretty,” Bill said.

A waiter delivered bowls of homemade chips and salsa, and Valentine stuffed a chip into his mouth. He’d tried to call Gerry several times during the ride over, and now nearly choked as he pulled a photograph of his son bound to a chair from the envelope. The lower half of Gerry’s face was sheeted in blood, and there was a cornered look in his eyes, like he knew he’d reached the end of his rope. Paper-clipped to the photograph was a note that had been banged out on an old-fashioned typewriter.

He put the note down, and looked across the table at Bill.

“They delivered this to you?”

“A kid on a bike brought it to my office an hour ago,” Bill said.

“It was nice of them to check out flight arrangements for me.”

Bill drummed the table with his fingertips. Their waitress took that as a cue, and scurried over. Bill tried to wave her away, and a hurt look crossed her face. Valentine intervened and ordered the homemade guacamole, a house specialty. She smiled and disappeared through swinging doors into the kitchen.

Valentine stared at his friend’s face. Bill was in a tough spot. The kidnappers had put Gerry’s fate in Bill’s hands. Bill continued to drum the table and the waitress reappeared. Valentine ordered two iced teas.

“You’re going to have to order the whole menu if you keep that up,” he said when she was gone.

“You’re not making this any easier,” Bill said.

“I’m not leaving town, if that’s what you want to know,” Valentine said.

“You’re not?”

“No. I step on that plane, and they’ll put a bullet in Gerry’s head.”

“How can you be sure?”

Valentine picked up the photograph and pointed at his son’s face. “He’s not wearing a mask. My guess is, neither are the guys who abducted him. Gerry saw their faces, which is as good as a death sentence.”

“Who do you think is behind this?”

It was Valentine’s turn to drum the table. Skip DeMarco’s cheating, Jinky Harris’s wanting to kill Gerry and his friends, and the strange things taking place at the World Poker Showdown were all connected, even if he didn’t know exactly how. Their iced teas came, and he took a long swallow of his unsweetened drink.

“I have a good idea,” he said.

“Then let’s go to the police,” Bill said.

Their booth looked onto the parking lot, and Valentine paused to stare at the dusty bumper of his own rental. “My son said he thought a cop was tailing them yesterday. If that’s true, then the police are the last people we should contact.”

Bill poured enough artificial sweetener into his tea to kill a horse. “Dirty cops or not, the police need to be involved. If they find out Gerry’s been abducted and we didn’t tell them, they’ll haul us in. We need to do this by the book, Tony.”

Valentine felt himself slowly exhale. The memory of Gerry’s first car had popped into his head, and how Gerry had wrapped the vehicle around a telephone pole within forty-eight hours of owning it. It was always something, and he looked at Bill.

“Let’s call Pete Longo,” he said.

Twenty-five minutes later, Longo slipped into their booth at Gardunos. He wore old jeans and a polo shirt and hadn’t shaved, and Valentine guessed it was his day off.

“How’s your son doing?” Longo asked.

Valentine slipped the photograph of Gerry across the table. The detective’s eyes grew wide, and he put down the chip dripping with salsa he was about to stuff into his mouth. He read the note accompanying the photo.

“When did you get this?” he asked Bill.

“Nine o’clock this morning.”

Longo shifted his gaze to Valentine. “I walked your son out of the station house this morning at three A.M.”

“I know,” Valentine said. “He called and left me a voice mail.”

Longo turned the photograph face down on the glistening table. The loss of weight had given his face gravity beyond his years, and he shook his head sadly. “I was talking to your son about Jinky Harris, and the problems I’ve been having nailing him. I told your son it’s like my phones are being tapped.”

“Maybe they are,” Valentine said.

Longo picked up the chip he’d been meaning to eat. “That’s why you asked me to come here, isn’t it? You think I have a dirty cop in my department, and he’d find out we were meeting.”

“That’s right.”

The salsa had made the chip soggy, and it split in half before it reached Longo’s mouth, and landed with a plop on his place setting. He stared at it, then at them.

“Shit,” the detective said.

Cops held grudges. It came with the job. You worked the streets long enough, and you ended up hating people. Longo had a grudge with Jinky Harris, and he made it clear he would break as many rules as necessary to help them find Gerry. It was a good start, and Valentine leaned across the table and dropped his voice.

“I once nabbed a gang of dice cheaters in Atlantic City. They took the casino’s dice, and switched them in plain view for shaved dice. There was no subtlety. These guys had been around for a while, and I finally got one of them to open up. He told me it was all about distraction. Right before they did the switch, a drunk started arguing at a blackjack table, while a pretty girl started peeling off her clothes at the roulette table, while a couple staged a fight in the aisle. They were all part of the gang.”

“Like a giant smoke screen,” Longo said.

“Exactly,” Valentine said. “This afternoon, I’m going to create a smoke screen, and distract everyone who I think had something to do with my son and his friends being abducted. Once that happens, I want to have a chat with Jinky Harris.”

“By yourself?” Longo said skeptically.

“Yes.”

“The guy has twenty guys on his staff, and a seven-foot-tall bodyguard.”

Valentine glanced at Bill. “Think your agents can handle twenty guys?”

“Not a problem,” Bill said.

Valentine looked back at Longo. “Anything else about Jinky we should know?”

“Yeah,” the detective said. “The bodyguard fancies himself a karate expert. He fights in those tough-man competitions.”

“What’s his name?”

“He calls himself Finesse.”

Valentine had never cared for fighters who gave themselves comic book names, and decided he could deal with Finesse. “There are two things I’m going to need from you, Pete.”

“Name them,” Longo said.

“First, I want you to pull any cops from the vicinity of Jinky’s club when Bill’s agents raid the place.”

Longo looked at Bill. “I’ll need you to coordinate the time of the raid with me.”

“Done,” Bill said.

Longo looked at Valentine. “No problem.”

“Second, I’m going to need a SWAT team at my disposal,” Valentine said. “Once I get Jinky to tell me where Gerry is being held, I want that team to rescue him.”

“Consider it done,” Longo said.

The three men shook hands, and the deal was struck.

Longo picked up the tab, then leaned forward on his elbows. His eyes swept the room the way only a cop’s can before he spoke. “Since we’re putting our cards on the table, I guess it’s time for me to show mine. Tony, does the name Ray Callahan ring any bells?”

Valentine gave it some thought. “Not particularly.”

“You busted him in Atlantic City fifteen years ago.”

Valentine hated hearing that his mind was going, and struggled with the name some more. “I arrested a Raymond Callahan at Resorts International in 1991 for cold-decking a poker game where he was the dealer. The prosecutor let him cop a lesser charge, and he did probation. Same guy?”

“Same guy,” Longo said. “Callahan’s a dealer in the World Poker Showdown. He collapsed yesterday and was rushed to the hospital. The hospital ran a background check and his rap sheet popped up. How do you cold-deck a poker game?”

There were many ways to switch a deck of cards during a game of poker. Some involved wastepaper baskets, others, umbrellas and sports jackets with large pockets. But in the end, what made any deck switch fly was a pair of steady hands and nerves of steel. Raymond Callahan, as Valentine recalled, had an abundance of nerve.

“Practice,” he said. “How can Callahan be a dealer at the World Poker Showdown when he has a criminal record?”

“I asked myself the same question, and decided to talk to my boss about it,” Longo said. “Karl Jasper, the president of the WPS, didn’t submit a list of names of their poker dealers to us. Those dealers are working without Sheriff’s Cards.”

By state law, employees of Las Vegas casinos could not work without Sheriff’s Cards. Possessing one meant you’d been vetted, and had a clean record.

“How can that be possible?” Bill asked.

Longo’s eyes again swept the room. His voice dropped an octave lower. “Jasper is claiming that this is a private event, and that his organization did the vetting.”

“Your boss isn’t buying that, is he?” Bill asked.

“My boss says he’s going to put the screws to Jasper, but we’re now into day four of the tournament, and so far, nothing has happened,” Longo said. “I’ve seen him act this way before. He talks a big game, but doesn’t do anything.”

“Why?” Bill said.

“High jingo.”

High jingo meant the sheriff was getting pressure from above not to interfere with the tournament, and Valentine wondered if it was coming from the mayor or even the governor. To them, the World Poker Showdown was a good thing, since it brought money and exposure to Las Vegas. They didn’t see the harm a crooked tournament could cause, simply because it was easier to look the other way. He tossed his napkin onto the table and slipped out of the booth.

“I need to talk to Callahan,” Valentine said. “Where is he?”

43

Valentine drove to the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada where Ray Callahan was a patient, and parked in the visitor parking lot. Bill had let him keep the photograph of Gerry, and he placed it on the steering wheel. For a long while he stared at his son’s bloody face and the cornered look in his eyes. Saving his son’s ass had become something of a specialty over the years, but each time he’d done it, it had been with the knowledge that one day he’d run out of luck and his son would take a hard fall. Closing his eyes, he prayed that this was not that day.

Inside the hospital he found a friendly receptionist who directed him to Callahan’s room on the fourth floor. Callahan was in the intensive care wing, the cancer he’d been battling having come back with a vengeance. Valentine explained that he was doing an investigation for the Gaming Control Board, and asked if Callahan had had any recent visitors. The receptionist opened up the visitor logbook, and thumbed through its pages.

“Just his lawyer,” she said.

Valentine wrote down the lawyer’s name and put it into his wallet. He thanked the receptionist, and took the elevator to the fourth floor.

Of all the employees who worked in a casino, the dealers were a casino’s biggest concern. There were a lot of reasons for this. Dealers handled large sums of money at the tables, but rarely got to keep any of it. They tended to make scale, and relied on tips to pay their bills. And they usually gambled on the side.

Some dealers ended up resenting the casinos, and decided to pay them back. There were dozens of ways a dealer could do this, from using sleight-of-hand to rig a game, to collusion with outside agents, and sometimes even forming a conspiracy with other dealers. Whatever the method, the end result was almost always the same. The casinos lost their shirts.

The elevator parked on the fourth floor and he got out. A sign pointed the way toward ICU and he started walking. During the drive, his memory of Callahan had come back. Callahan had used a cold-deck machine to switch during a game in the casino’s card room. A cold-deck machine was a black bag concealed behind the waist of the dealer’s pants. Inside the bag was a metal clip that held a stacked deck. At the appropriate time, the deck in use would be dropped in the bag, and the stacked deck grabbed. The term cold-deck came from the fact that the switched deck was colder to the touch. As he recalled, Callahan had made the bag disappear during the bust, which had helped reduce his sentence.

Callahan’s room was at the hallway’s end. Valentine stuck his head in, and saw that Callahan was propped up in bed on oxygen, taking a nap. He walked into the room and stood by the bed. After a moment, Callahan’s eyelids flickered open. A look of fear spread across the dealer’s face.

“Did I die and go to hell?”

Valentine grinned. “You remember me, huh?”

“Of course I remember you. You nailed me in Atlantic City. That crummy partner of yours isn’t with you, is he?”

Doyle Flanagan, Valentine’s partner, had been the bad cop of the team, and liked to kick the chairs out from underneath any cheater they hauled in. Landing on your ass had a way of staying with you, and most cheaters never forgot the experience.

“He’s downstairs in the lobby,” Valentine said.

“Very funny. What do you want?”

“Can I sit down?”

“No.”

Valentine got a chair anyway, and sat down beside Callahan’s bed. There was a faraway look in Callahan’s eyes, and he shifted his gaze to the view of distant mountains circling the pinkish horizon.

“Nice view,” Valentine said.

“It’s pollution.”

“I busted you how many years ago?”

“Fifteen,” Callahan said.

“And you’ve been doing business ever since.”

The muscles in Callahan’s neck tightened, and he continued to look away. “I haven’t been cheating, if that’s what you mean. What happened in Atlantic City was a one-time thing. I was down on my luck, and made a mistake. I paid my debt to society.”

It sounded like a speech a lawyer had written for him. Valentine found himself staring at Callahan’s hands, which rested above the sheets. The nails were manicured by decades spent riffle-shuffling cards and were polished by smooth felt tables. They were a card mechanic’s hands, and Callahan guiltily pulled them beneath the covers.

“I want you to leave,” Callahan said.

“Just answer one question for me.”

“No.”

“Why did you do it?”

“Cold-deck the game in Atlantic City? I needed the money.”

“No, why did you cheat the World Poker Showdown, and signal the cards you were dealing to Skip DeMarco?”

Callahan’s face clouded with anger. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do.”

Callahan pulled himself up in his bed, and looked around for the call button, which was attached to a string and hung from the wall. The string was hanging behind the bed, out of Callahan’s reach, and Valentine made no attempt to retrieve it for him. “Get out of here, or I’ll start yelling my head off, and have you thrown out.”

Valentine rose from his chair. He’d forgotten how much he enjoyed making creeps uncomfortable; it was one of the great perks that came with being a cop.

“I want you to think about something. You’ve beaten your cancer before, and you just might beat it again. If you do walk out of here, you’ll be facing a murder rap. Is that how you want to spend the rest of your life, in jail?”

“A murder rap?”

“That’s right.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Valentine put the chair back against the wall, and went to the door. “It’s been nice catching up with you. I’ll tell my partner you said hello.”

“Come back here,” Callahan said angrily.

“You’re not going to have me thrown out?”

“No, I want to hear about this.”

Valentine got the chair back, and returned to Callahan’s bedside. This time when he rested his elbows on the metal arm, Callahan did not look away.

“It’s like this,” Valentine said. “George Scalzo stole a poker scam from a guy named Jack Donovan. Jack was dying at the time, and Scalzo had Jack murdered so he wouldn’t squeal. Only, Jack did squeal.”

Taking out his wallet, Valentine removed the playing card that Jack had given Gerry, and showed it to Callahan. “This is our evidence. George Scalzo is going down, and so is his nephew. The question is, do you want to go down with them?”

“Can I see it?”

He let Callahan hold the playing card. Callahan stared at the card for a few moments, then handed it back.

“Is that your evidence?” he asked.

“That’s part of it,” Valentine said. “Do you want to go down the river with them or not?”

“Tell me something first,” Callahan said.

“What’s that?”

“This guy Donovan, what was he dying of?”

The hairs on the back of Valentine’s neck went straight up. He wanted to ask Callahan what that had to do with anything, but sensed that he’d blow whatever rapport he’d established.

“Cancer.”

“You said he was terminal.”

“Yes,” Valentine said.

Valentine saw Callahan’s eyes shift, and stare at the playing card that Valentine held in his hand. There was a connection here that he wasn’t getting, and he didn’t know how to press Callahan without revealing that he didn’t know how the scam worked. That was the problem when working with too little information. Sometimes, you got yourself painted in a corner and couldn’t get out.

“Afraid I can’t help you,” Callahan said.

Valentine stood up. “We’re talking about life in prison, Ray.”

Callahan’s face was vacant. He’d seen through the ruse, and wasn’t buying it.

“Don’t let the door bang you in the ass on the way out,” he said.

44

If there was a dead time on the congested highways of Las Vegas, it was midday, when everyone was at work. Valentine made it back to Celebrity in fifteen minutes, and walked through the hotel’s front doors with the picture of Gerry clutched in his hand. His son was being held somewhere in Las Vegas, and he wasn’t going to leave until he rescued him. Upstairs in his suite he found Rufus Steele sitting on the couch, counting the money he’d won that morning.

“Hey pardner, long time no see.”

The money was stacked in piles on the floor. Real gamblers did not use checks, and nearly all of Rufus’s winnings were in hundred dollar bills, most of them brand-new. Over the years he’d heard gamblers call money “units,” and learned that it wasn’t the value that was important, just the level of the action that the units allowed the gambler to play.

“I need your help,” Valentine said.

Rufus was wrapping the stacks with rubber bands, and looked up. “Well, it’s about time I returned you a favor. Name it.”

“I need for you to stage one of your scams later today, and get as many gamblers as you can involved. I’ll make sure Gloria Curtis is there. I’m going to alert the World Poker Showdown people to be there, and I want you to say some things about the tournament which aren’t particularly flattering.”

“Sounds right up my alley,” Rufus said. “What exactly am I going to say?”

“You’re going to announce that you’ve learned that the dealers in the WPS haven’t been cleared by the Metro Las Vegas Police Department, which makes them the only dealers in the state of Las Vegas who haven’t. You’re also going to say that you’re aware that one of these dealers has a criminal record for cheating.”

The fun drained from Rufus’s face and he gazed at Valentine with renewed respect. “Sounds like your investigation is moving right along.”

“It sure is.”

“The World Poker Showdown is behind this whole thing, aren’t they?”

“Let’s just say there’s a link which I need to get to the bottom of.”

“Just so I don’t get sued for slander, who’s this dirty dealer?”

“His name is Ray Callahan,” Valentine said, “and I busted him in Atlantic City for cold-decking a game fifteen years ago. He’s got a record.”

Rufus glanced at the piles of money at his feet. Just a few short hours ago, he’d been poorer than a church mouse, but that, as gamblers liked to say, was ancient history. Still looking at the money, he said, “Tony, your timing is impeccable. Right after you left, I got into a verbal altercation with the Greek and his friends. Seems they thought about my X-ray vision stunt, and didn’t like the fact I had a bag over my head.”

“You think they knew you were using a ventriloquist?” Valentine asked.

Rufus did a double take. The look on his face was priceless, and Valentine wished he had a camera with some film in it. The old cowboy coughed into his hand.

“Who the hell told you that?”

“Nobody. I figured it out myself.”

“You’re pretty damn smart for a cop.”

Valentine had heard that for most of his adult life. Cops were supposed to be dumb. When people ran into a smart one, it tended to surprise them.

“Thanks a lot.”

“You’re welcome,” Rufus said. “Like I was saying, I decided to give the Greek and his cronies a chance to win their money back, and bet them I could beat a racehorse in the hundred-yard dash. They were skeptical at first, but when I told them that they could pick the horse and the jockey and the field to run on, they took me up on the wager.”

“You’re going to do what?”

“You heard me. I was the state champion runner in high school, and still can burn rubber when I have to.”

Rufus was seventy years old if he was a day, and he still chain-smoked cigarettes, drank whiskey, and played cards all night long. He did all the things you weren’t supposed to do when you got old, and Valentine couldn’t envision him beating a ten-year-old kid in a footrace, much less a racehorse.

“You’re serious about this?”

Rufus took out a pack of smokes and banged one out. “Dead serious.”

“When’s this going to happen?”

“Around nine o’clock tonight. The Greek is keeping the field location a secret. He’ll call me right before, and we’ll meet there and run the race.”

“Where’s he getting the horse from?”

“Wayne Newton has a bunch of horses out at his place. I hear he’s going to pull the fastest one.”

“How much are you betting?”

The old cowboy indicated the stacks of money lying on the floor, then spread his arms as wide as possible.

“You’re betting all of it?”

“Yes, sir. That DeMarco kid says he’ll play me for a cool million bucks. Well, right now I’ve got about half that much. It’s time to shoot the pickle.”

“Shoot the what?”

“The pickle. It means to go for it.”

Had the situation been different — and Gerry’s life hadn’t been hanging in the balance — Valentine would have tried to talk some sense into Rufus. The Greek and his cronies weren’t going to let the same dog bite them twice, and would make sure that the racehorse Rufus ran against was lightning fast. But every man had his poison, and he guessed Rufus’s was making outlandish wagers.

“What time do you want me downstairs, stirring up the pot?” Rufus asked.

Valentine checked the time. It was twelve forty. Something had been nagging at him, and he realized what it was. His lunch date with Gloria Curtis had been for twelve thirty, and he said, “I’ll call you once I’ve got everything in place.”

Rufus picked up a stack of hundreds lying at his feet. He licked his thumb, and began counting them. “I’ll be waiting,” he said.

Valentine found Gloria sitting by herself at a corner table in the lobby restaurant, and she shot him a dagger as he pulled up a chair. Relationships between men and women were defined by how they fought, and he guessed theirs was about to be tested.

“I’m sorry I’m so late,” he said. “Something came up, and I had to deal with it.”

Gloria’s cell phone was sitting on the table beside her plate. She fixed him reproachfully with her green eyes. “Did you forget how to dial a phone?”

He swallowed hard. The polite thing would have been to call, and tell her he was running late and not to wait for him. But he hadn’t done that. He considered taking out the photograph of his bloodied son and showing it to her, only that was what a kid in the sixth grade would do, beg forgiveness and ask for sympathy at the same time. He needed to take his medicine like a man, and said, “No, I just forgot about our lunch date. It was wrong of me, and it won’t happen again. Scout’s honor.”

The look on her face said she wasn’t buying it. She looked incredibly sexy when she was angry, and he guessed if he told her so, she’d slap him right across the face.

“Look, Tony,” she said, “you’re my life support system right now. Every story I’ve gotten in the past two days has come from you. Understand?”

He wasn’t sure that he did, but nodded anyway.

“My job and my career are on the line,” she went on. “I’m depending upon you to come through. On top of that, I’ve decided that I really like you.”

“I like you, too,” he said.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea. I can’t turn into your shadow, or be a puppy dog that waits for its master to come along and toss it a bone when he feels like it. I’ve got too much pride for that.”

He stared down at the white tablecloth. If anything good had come out of this job, it was meeting her, and now that was going up in flames. He looked up into her eyes.

“Let me make it up to you.”

“I don’t think that’s possible.”

“Let me try, anyway,” he said. “I feel very bad about this. I don’t mean to lead you and Zack around. I’m not that kind of guy.”

“You’re not?”

“No. I just...”

“Suffer from short-term memory loss?”

No matter how old he got, Valentine was never going to use his age as an excuse for bad behavior.

“I get preoccupied sometimes,” he explained. “It drove my late wife crazy. She used to make me write appointments on my hand so I wouldn’t forget them.”

“On your hand? I used to do that as a little kid.”

“Hey,” he said, “it works.”

Gloria leaned forward, and gave him another hard look. Her own look was neither friendly nor unfriendly, and he sensed that she wanted to believe him, and get things back on track, only she wasn’t going to let him wound her a second time.

“All right,” she said, “I’ll give you another chance.”

Valentine took his hand, and placed it upon her hand resting on the table.

“I won’t let you down,” he said.

45

Gerry Valentine had decided that people who couldn’t fit in anywhere else, fit in just fine in Las Vegas.

Take the four goons working for Jinky who’d been beating the daylights out of Frank, Vinny, and Nunzie for the past two hours. As enforcers went they were laughable, and did not know the first thing about getting someone to talk. Rule number one was that you never used your bare fists to hit someone, because knuckles usually broke before jaws did. Rule number two was that if you started out by hitting someone hard, they’d never cooperate with you. But these guys had never been to that school, and after two hours of abuse, two of them had broken hands, and no one had spoken a word.

“How’s your face feel?” Gerry asked Vinny, who’d been dragged in his chair to where Gerry was sitting, his face a bloody pulp.

“My nose is broken, my teeth are broken, and I can’t see out of my left eye,” Vinny said through horribly swollen lips. “But you know me, I can’t complain.”

Gerry forced himself to smile. Even in the worst of times, you had to find reasons to smile. He looked across the warehouse at Nunzie and Frank. The goons were beating up Nunzie, and making Frank watch. They still were asking the same question — “Which one of you shot Russ Watson in the parking lot?” — and neither Nunzie nor Frank had uttered a peep in response.

“You think Nunzie will crack?” Gerry whispered.

Vinny shook his head. “Not the Nunz. He’s solid as a rock.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“So, what’s the plan?” Vinny asked.

Gerry stared at the steel door across from where they sat. Sunlight seeped through the bottom and had formed a small puddle of light. Twenty minutes ago, Jinky Harris had driven his wheelchair through that door, and moments later they’d heard a car drive away. Not having Jinky around had bothered Gerry. He could talk with Jinky, maybe strike some kind of bargain. He couldn’t do that with the guys he’d left behind.

“What plan?” he asked Vinny.

“The plan to get us out of this rat hole,” Vinny said.

“I don’t have a plan.”

“So, come up with one. You were always the man with the plan when it came to disaster relief.”

“I was?”

“Yeah. Remember the time I owed that money to those gangsters in Atlantic City? You came up with the best plan.”

“I did?”

Vinny spit something onto the floor, and Gerry watched it roll past his feet and stop. It was small and white. A tooth.

“Yeah,” Vinny said, making himself talk so he wouldn’t be scared. “I borrowed five grand from two gumbas who ran the Italian Men’s Social Club on Fairmont Avenue. I was supposed to pay them back on Wednesday at noon, only I wasn’t going to have the money to pay them back until Saturday. You remembering this?”

Gerry was watching two of the goons take turns whacking Nunzie in the kisser. Nunzie had a neck like a weight lifter and his head hardly moved from the blows.

“A little,” he said.

“So, I called you up, and you came up with the best plan.”

“Refresh my memory.”

“You knew two squares who worked at a bank,” Vinny said. “They had short hair and wore blue suits and neckties. You called them, and talked them into helping me out. They agreed to meet me on Wednesday at a few minutes before noon in the parking lot of Harold’s House of Pancakes where I was supposed to be paying off the gumbas.”

One of the goons connected with a solid right cross. Nunzie let out a soft grunt, the sound being amplified in the warehouse’s high ceiling.

“You left a part out,” Gerry said.

“I did?”

“Yeah. I also told you to buy the bank guys attaché cases and dark sunglasses to wear so they’d look like FBI agents.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right,” Vinny said. “It was a nice touch.”

“Thanks.”

“So, I pull into Harold’s at a minute before noon on Wednesday, and the gumbas are sitting there in their Caddy, waiting for me. I hop out of my car holding a brown paper bag stuffed with crumpled newspaper—”

“I think that was my idea, too.”

“It was, and as I’m crossing the parking lot, the two bank guys jump out of their car holding their attaché cases. They stopped me, pulled out their wallets, and shoved them in my face. I never understood that part.”

“They were supposed to be showing you their badges,” Gerry explained. “You know, like they were FBI agents.”

Vinny looked stunned. “So that was what it was about. Well, they hustled me across the parking lot, shoved me into their car, and we drove away. I was in the backseat with the paper bag in my lap, and saw the gumbas standing in the parking lot by their Caddy with these looks on their face. It was fucking priceless.”

“Did you give them their money?”

“Oh yeah,” Vinny said. “On Saturday I went to the club and paid them off. They took me aside and said, ‘We saw what happened. You took it like a man.’”

“You made two new friends.”

“That’s right. So, come up with a plan like that.”

Gerry stared at the ceiling. Bound to a chair in a warehouse in the middle of the desert and Vinny was telling him to come up with a plan to let them escape. If he had that kind of power, he wouldn’t have gotten himself in this situation to begin with.

“Let me think about it.”

“Hey,” Vinny said, “we’ve got all day.”

The sound of a man screaming snapped their heads. Gerry stared across the warehouse at one of the goons who’d been punishing Nunzie. He was clutching his hand and dancing around in agony. Nunzie, his face swollen and distorted, was laughing at him. Frank was laughing as well. Three down, one to go, Gerry thought.

“We need to keep stalling these guys,” Gerry said.

“That’s your plan?” Vinny asked.

“Yeah. My guess is, my old man has the cavalry looking for us. If we keep stalling and don’t tell them what they want to know, they won’t kill us right away.”

Vinny spit some bloody mucus on the floor. His eyes had been bulging out of his head, his heart racing out of control, and now, finally, he was beginning to look normal.

“If we get out of this alive, you’ve got to explain how it works between you and your old man.”

“How what works?”

“How you manage to get along, but not always like each other.”

That was a good question, and one that Gerry wasn’t sure he knew the answer to. He and his old man had always been civil to each other. Over the years, that civility had turned into tolerance, and now it was bordering on something that felt like what a father and son were supposed to feel toward each other. But it sure hadn’t started out that way.

The guy who’d broken his hand came over to where Gerry and Vinny were sitting. The look on his face said he’d had enough screwing around, and wanted a straight answer out of one of them.

“You assholes going to tell us which one of you killed Russ?” he asked.

“You want to know who killed Russ?” Vinny replied.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Russ died of a broken heart,” Vinny said. “He couldn’t stand being in love with Jinky, and not having his love returned. So Russ shot himself.”

There was only so much nonsense a person could take, and Gerry thought the mutt was going to shoot Vinny right there. Instead, he walked to the center of the warehouse, and took out a cell phone. He made a call, and spoke to someone in a hushed voice while glaring at them. Hanging up, he turned to his partners and called out in a loud voice.

“They’re bringing over the flamethrower,” he said.

46

At exactly two o’clock in the afternoon, Gloria Curtis appeared in the lobby of Celebrity’s hotel with her cameraman. She wore a white blouse and a black suit with a diamond broach on the lapel that made her look like a million bucks. Valentine stood near the lobby phone booth, watching. She saw him as she passed, and winked.

Gloria walked over to the doors leading to the World Poker Showdown, and stood a few yards away from the pair of stern-faced security guards blocking the entrance. Zack’s camera had a light, and it basked Gloria in its artificial glow. Her presence immediately drew a crowd of curious passersby coming out of the casino.

“Good afternoon. This is Gloria Curtis reporting from the World Poker Showdown in Las Vegas. Today is day four of the tournament, and folks, if you don’t mind my saying so, we’ve got a couple of bombshells for you.”

Valentine saw three men in tailored suits standing on the far side of the lobby. The man in the middle appeared to be in charge, and had dyed black hair, padded shoulders, and teeth so artificially white they appeared to glow. Valentine guessed this was Karl Jasper, president of the WPS. He had called Jasper’s room ten minutes ago, and left an anonymous message to be in the lobby at two if Jasper knew what was good for him.

“But first, a rundown on today’s tournament,” Gloria said, her eyes focused on the camera. “Skip DeMarco, the blind poker phenom from New Jersey, is still in first place, and has accumulated four million dollars in chips. In second place with two million dollars is last year’s winner, Gene Mydlowski. The rest of the pack is far, far behind.

“But the real story is not the action taking place behind these doors. The real story comes from Rufus Steele, the legendary poker player who lost in the first round, and claims he was cheated. Rufus has told me that he’s learned from the Metro Las Vegas Police Department that a dealer who was working the tournament is a known cheater, and was prosecuted in New Jersey for cold-decking a poker game. For those of our viewers who don’t know what cold-decking a poker game means, we’re going to show you a clip of this cheating move in action.”

Gloria went silent and lowered her mike. Mabel had e-mailed Gloria a surveillance tape of a poker dealer cold-decking a game, which Zack would later edit into the segment. After ten seconds had passed, Gloria brought the mike up to her face.

“Rufus Steele has also told me that the dealers being used in this tournament are not from this casino, and in fact have not been cleared by the Las Vegas sheriff’s department to deal these games. That’s the law here in Las Vegas, and the folks running the World Poker Showdown are breaking it.”

Valentine was watching Jasper, and saw the president of the WPS ball his hands into fists while his face turned the color of a fire truck. Jasper was standing next to a large bird cage, and seemed oblivious to the yellow-headed parrot flapping its wings and screeching at him.

“Now, let’s talk to Rufus Steele, the man who broke this story,” Gloria said. “Here he comes right now.”

Zack turned and pointed his camera at the elevator banks. Rufus had stepped out of a car a few moments before, and was waiting to make his entrance. He wore a fluffy white hotel bathrobe, white socks and sneakers, and his Stetson. As he crossed the lobby, he began punching the air like a prizefighter. Many in the crowd applauded, and Rufus waved to them good-naturedly, then sidled up beside Gloria.

“Rufus, it’s good to see you again,” Gloria said.

“The pleasure’s mine, Miss Curtis,” he said.

“During the first day of the tournament, you claimed you’d been cheated by a player. Now, you’re claiming the whole tournament is cheating.”

“That’s right.”

“Would you please explain for the folks at home.”

“This tournament stinks like a three-day-old fish left out in the sun,” Rufus said, a smile plastered across his leathery face. “The dealers haven’t been checked out. One dealer actually got arrested for switching decks in Atlantic City a few years ago. That’s like having a bank robber working as a teller. The people running the World Poker Showdown have some explaining to do.”

Valentine continued to stare at Karl Jasper. If there was ever a good time for Jasper to step forward and defend his tournament, this was it. Only Jasper wasn’t having any part of the discussion and looked genuinely scared.

“Well, Rufus, I suppose our viewers would like you to explain the unique getup you have on,” Gloria said. “Are you becoming a boxer?”

“Just getting ready for my race tonight,” Rufus said.

“Your race?”

“Yes. As you know, I’m going to play Skip DeMarco in a heads-up poker game for one million dollars. In order to raise the cash, I’ve agreed to run a footrace against a racehorse, winner-take-all.”

“A real racehorse?” Gloria said, her eyes widening.

Rufus put on his serious face, and nodded. “Yes, ma’am. My sources have told me that I’ll be up against a champion, no less. The horse I’ll be running against is being loaned out from Wayne Newton, who has a number of prize horses on his farm. This one’s a thoroughbred, and is being used for stud.”

“And the horse is a champion?”

“I believe it ran in the Kentucky Derby a few years ago, and is still competitive.”

“How much are you betting on yourself to win?”

“Five hundred thousand dollars,” Rufus said with a toothy smile.

“How long will the race be?”

“We’ll be competing in the one-hundred-yard dash.”

“Rufus, I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but don’t you think you’ve bitten off more than you can chew?” Gloria asked, her tone one of genuine concern. “There isn’t an athlete in the world who can outrun a racehorse.”

“I can,” he said with a positive air, “and I will.”

Before Gloria could pose another question, Rufus undid the knot in his bathrobe, then pulled off the garment and let it drop to the floor. He was wearing a white T-shirt and a pair of black boxing trunks and had the physique of a telephone pole. He began to do jumping jacks for the camera, and the crowd, which had swelled to over a hundred people, cheered him on. If people in Las Vegas loved anything, it was an underdog, and a chant quickly went up.

“Rufus! Rufus! Rufus!”

“I want you folks to all come out and see me tonight,” Rufus said, his face red from exertion. “You too, Miss Curtis.”

Gloria was holding the mike by her side, and doing all she could not to burst into laughter. “Trust me, I’ll be there,” she said.

“Rufus! Rufus! Rufus!”

“Remember, folks,” Rufus said, still doing his jumping jacks. “Roses are red, violets are blue. Horses that lose to cowboys are turned into glue.”

“Rufus! Rufus! Rufus!”

Valentine stared across the lobby at Jasper by the birdcage. The president of the WPS had company. George Scalzo was standing beside him, and looked ready to kill Rufus with his bare hands. Valentine wondered how it felt to rig a poker tournament so his nephew could win, only to have all the glory stolen by a sly old fox.

Valentine suddenly had an idea, and elbowed his way through the crowd. It was illegal for anyone who worked in a casino to be in the company of gangsters, and he assumed the same was true for presidents of poker tournaments. He got up behind Zack, and whispered in the cameraman’s ear. Zack nodded, and pointed his camera at Jasper and Scalzo on the other side of the lobby.

“Got them,” Zack said.

47

At two thirty Valentine was on the road and driving to his rendezvous with Bill Higgins. He’d called Bill before leaving Celebrity, and told him how he’d caught Jasper and Scalzo together on tape.

“That’s a home run,” Bill said.

Valentine certainly thought so. He had everything he needed to put the screws to Jasper. Las Vegas did not let casino people fraternize with mob guys, and Jasper would be run out of town on a rail, and the tournament shut down. The World Poker Showdown was as crooked as a carnival, and needed to be exposed.

Fifteen minutes later, he pulled into the parking lot of a McDonald’s on the north side of town and found Bill parked beside the kid’s play area. He got out of his rental, and hopped into Bill’s unmarked car.

“I hear you really shook them up at the WPS,” Bill said.

Valentine fastened his seat belt. “Good news travels fast, huh?”

“Jasper is screaming his head off, calling everyone under the sun.”

“Let him scream all he wants,” Valentine said. “He broke the law.”

Bill flipped open his cell phone, and called one of his agents. While Valentine had been setting the WPS’s house on fire, Bill had marshaled three dozen of his best field agents and put them inside Jinky Harris’s strip joint. When Bill gave them the word, the agents would raid the club under the pretense of looking for gambling activity. That would give Valentine time to find Jinky, and persuade him to reveal where Gerry and his friends were being held hostage.

“I need a gun,” Valentine said.

Bill pointed at the glove compartment. Valentine popped it open, and took out a Sig Sauer. “You remembered,” he said, slipping it into his jacket pocket.

“It’s the gun of choice of old farts,” Bill said.

“Speaking of old farts, I need to find a walking cane.”

“What for?”

“It goes good with my gray hair,” Valentine said.

Bill drove to Naked City. Naked City sold sex in the private VIP rooms of strip clubs, in massage parlors, and behind closed doors of dirty bookstores. The only place you couldn’t find sex in Naked City was on the streets. Bill pulled up in front of a medical supply store called ABC Medical and Valentine hopped out.

Five minutes later, Valentine emerged from the store walking with a burnished wood walking stick. He’d also purchased a pair of dark sunglasses, and a white captain’s fishing hat. As he slid into the passenger seat, Bill stared at him.

“You bought the hat and glasses in there?”

“I bought them from the guy behind the counter,” Valentine said.

“How much?”

“Thirty bucks.”

“You got hosed.”

As Bill pulled out of the lot, Valentine adjusted his hat and glasses. The guy behind the counter had worn the hat with the sides pulled down, like Gilligan on the old TV show. It had a comical effect, and he tried it, then appraised himself in the reflection of his window. He looked like the captain of a shuffleboard team. Perfect.

Bill drove several blocks, then turned down the street to Jinky’s club. The Sugar Shack was at the very end of the street. The club was doing brisk business, with several black stretch limousines parked by the curb.

“You sure you’re up for this?” Bill asked.

“Sure, I’m sure,” Valentine said.

Bill looked at his watch. “The raid will take place in exactly five minutes.”

Valentine didn’t need to look at his watch. He knew how long five minutes was, and whacked the burnished walking stick against the palm of his hand.

The Sugar Shack’s admission fee was fifteen bucks. Valentine asked for a senior discount and thought the cashier was going to physically throw him out the door. He paid up, got his hand stamped, and ventured inside.

The club was a sprawling, multilevel room filled with pulsating strobe lights, blaring disco music, and exposed female flesh. There were three stages, just like at Barnum & Bailey’s circus, and they were filled with naked women doing exotic dances and swinging on brass poles. He guessed the crowd of guys watching them to number eighty, which meant almost half of them were Bill’s agents. He found an empty spot at the bar and ordered a club soda.

“Seven bucks,” the bartender said, serving him the drink.

Valentine slid a twenty his way. “Tell Jinky his appointment is here.”

The bartender gave him the hairy eyeball. “Who are you?”

“George Scalzo’s brother, Louie.”

The bartender walked down to the end of the bar and disappeared through a beaded curtain. Valentine followed him, practicing his limp. The short time he’d been living in Florida had convinced him that older people were invisible, and were therefore entitled to go wherever they pleased. He passed through the beaded curtain without anyone saying anything, and entered a narrow hallway illuminated by a red bulb hanging from the ceiling. He spied the bartender at the hallway’s end. The bartender rapped three times on a blue door, then spotted Valentine.

“Hey mister, you’re not supposed to be back here.”

“I thought you told me to follow you,” Valentine said, shuffling toward him.

“I didn’t say no such thing.”

“You sure?”

“Positive. You need to go back inside.”

Valentine caught up to him, and pretended to be breathing heavily. He put his free hand on the bartender’s shoulder and took several deep breaths.

“Sorry, son. My hearing’s going. Old age ain’t for sissies.”

The blue door opened, and a seven-foot-tall black guy emerged. Valentine guessed this was Finesse, the guy with designs on being a professional fighter. Finesse looked like he’d been lifting weights, his pectoral muscles bulging through his turtleneck sweater. He glared down at the tops of their heads.

“Who’s this guy?” Finesse asked the bartender.

“Permit me to introduce myself,” Valentine said, touching the brim of his hat. “Louis Scalzo, also known as Louie the Lip. I believe you’re expecting me.”

“He’s George Scalzo’s brother,” the bartender explained.

Finesse scratched his chin like a great thinker. “George Scalzo’s brother? How come I never heard of you?”

Valentine leaned on his cane with both hands and looked up into the giant’s face.

“Your boss has,” he said.

Finesse motioned him inside and shut the door. Jinky’s office had a large desk, several plush leather chairs, and several ugly paintings hanging on the walls. Next to the desk was a trestle tray loaded with food, and Valentine eyed the chicken chow mein and barbecue spare ribs.

“You guys throwing a party?” Valentine asked.

Finesse put his finger to his lips and shushed him. Jinky was at his desk, talking on the phone while gnawing on a spare rib. He had a napkin tucked into his collar, yet had managed to smear sauce all over his face. Hanging up, he stared at his bodyguard.

“Who’s this clown?” Jinky asked.

“Your appointment,” Finesse said.

“I don’t have an appointment,” Jinky said.

“You don’t?”

“No. Get rid of him.”

Valentine had edged up beside Finesse. Holding his walking stick by its center, he whacked Finesse in the kneecap with the round handle. It made a clean sound against the bone, and Finesse’s mouth opened in a perfect O. Valentine brought the stick straight up, and caught him on the tip of the nose. A torrent of blood spurted across the desk, and Finesse went down clutching his face with both hands.

There was only so much threat in a walking stick, and Valentine dropped it on the floor, then drew the Sig Sauer from behind his belt, and aimed it a few feet above Jinky’s head. Jinky did not seem terribly concerned, and continued eating.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Jinky said.

Valentine squeezed the trigger. The bullet hit the frame of the painting hanging behind Jinky, ruining it. Jinky’s napkin slowly fell from his collar.

“You’re crazy, mister.”

Taking the snapshot of his bloodied son from his pocket, Valentine dropped it on Jinky’s desk, then aimed the gun at an imaginary bull’s eye on Jinky’s forehead.

“You have something of mine,” Valentine said, “and I want it back.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jinky said.

Valentine picked up the walking stick from the floor. He was prepared to beat the information out of Jinky if he had to. Jinky looked at him defiantly.

“Hit me all you want,” Jinky said. “It won’t get you anywhere.”

Valentine sensed Jinky wasn’t the type to squeal. He patted Jinky down, then made him go down the hallway in his electric wheelchair and through the beaded curtain into the club. The raid was in progress, with club employees and strippers lined up against one wall, the scared-out-of-their-wits patrons on the other. Valentine pulled a Gaming Control Board agent aside, and asked him where Bill Higgins was.

“By the VIP rooms,” the agent replied. “I think he found the mother lode.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re running a gambling den,” the agent said.

Next to murder, there was no worse crime in Las Vegas than running an illegal casino, and Valentine tapped Jinky’s chair with his walking stick.

“You’re going down,” Valentine told him.

Valentine made Jinky lead him to the VIP rooms. A swarm of agents was standing by a door marked PRIVATE and parted as the two men entered. The room had plush carpeting and subdued lighting, with a bar covering one wall, and four blackjack tables, a roulette table, and a craps table in the room’s center. Bill was standing by one of the blackjack tables and had pulled several decks of playing cards out of the shoe. He looked up as they entered.

“You crummy piece of shit,” Bill said to Jinky. “You’re running a bust-out joint!”

Jinky sunk low in his chair. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,”

“This shoe is short twenty high-valued cards,” Bill said, throwing down a handful of cards in disgust. “You were cheating the players.”

“I swear to God, it must have been one of the dealers,” Jinky said.

Bill approached Jinky with a look of rage distorting his face. It was bad enough that Jinky had been running an illegal casino in his own club, but it was worse that he’d been running a casino that cheated. Las Vegas had spent twenty-five years trying to convince people it was a safe place to gamble, and the stain from this would hurt every casino in town, and make Bill Higgins look bad. Bill put his hands on Jinky’s shoulders and shook him.

“You’re lying,” Bill said.

“I swear on my mother’s grave, I’m not,” Jinky said. “We just ran the casino to keep the patrons happy. I didn’t know there was cheating going on.”

Valentine found himself staring at the craps table. It was shaped like a tub, and reminded him of a table he’d seen during a raid of an illegal casino in Atlantic City years ago. That table had been manufactured by a crooked gambling supply house out of Miami. Crossing the room, he went to where the stickman stood at the table, and felt around the polished wood. His fingers found an indentation and he tapped it, and heard a hollow sound.

“Hey, Bill,” he called across the room.

Bill turned his head. “What?”

“Look at this.”

Valentine pressed the indentation and a hidden compartment in the table popped open, revealing a small shelf containing six pairs of dice. He removed a pair and threw them on the table. They came up a two, or snake eyes. A loser.

“They’re loaded,” Valentine called out.

Bill turned, and smacked Jinky in the face with the palm of his hand.

“That was for your mother,” Bill said.

48

Jinky Harris wouldn’t talk.

Bill had hauled Jinky into one of the VIP rooms, and was giving him the third degree. There were only so many things Bill Higgins could do to make Jinky talk, and none of them were working. Being a law enforcement officer, Bill had to follow the rules, even when someone’s life was at stake. It was one of the job’s great drawbacks.

Being retired, Valentine didn’t have to follow the rules, and he went back to Jinky’s office and retrieved his walking stick from the floor. Finesse was sitting on the couch and nursing a large purple welt on the bridge of his nose. Valentine removed the photograph of Gerry from his pocket, and tossed it on the coffee table. Then he pointed at it.

“That’s my son. Know where he is?”

Finesse looked at him blankly. Valentine was sure he knew something, and raised the stick like he was going to take his head off. The giant cowered in fear.

“I don’t know anything!”

“You’re a sorry excuse for a bodyguard, you know that?”

Finesse didn’t take the bait.

“I just do as I’m told.”

Valentine got behind Jinky’s desk and started looking for a scrap of paper with an address or some other clue that would lead him to Gerry. The blotter was splattered with drops of blood, as was the phone receiver. He stared at the giant.

“You made a phone call, didn’t you?”

Finesse did not reply. Valentine whacked the cane against his palm.

“I’m prepared to beat it out of you, buddy.”

Finesse jumped off the couch and bolted out the door. He was dragging his bad knee but still moved pretty fast. Valentine followed him down the hall, and saw Finesse raise his arms over his head as he entered the strip club. He was going to let himself be arrested, rather than let Valentine work him over.

Valentine returned to Jinky’s office and slammed the door behind him. In anger he raised the cane and smashed a framed photograph of Jinky with a naked stripper hanging on the wall. He had blown it. If he’d handled Finesse right, he could have made him talk, instead of letting his temper take over.

He checked Jinky’s desk a second time, just to be sure he hadn’t missed anything. He picked up the phone, and hit the redial button. He got a frantic busy signal and let out a curse. He decided to go back to the club, and see if Bill had gotten Jinky to open up. Gerry’s photograph was lying on the coffee table. As he picked it up, he noticed something he hadn’t seen before. A red smudge on Gerry’s right cheek.

It was too bright to be blood. On Jinky’s desk was a magnifying glass used for reading. Valentine picked up the magnifying glass, and examined the smudge.

It was a woman’s lipstick. A kiss.

Now he had a clue, only he didn’t know what it meant. He went to the minibar behind Jinky’s desk and stole a Diet Coke. He always thought better with caffeine rushing through his bloodstream, and he sucked it down while staring at the photograph. Gerry had called him right after he’d been released from the police station, and said he was going straight to the motel. If Valentine remembered correctly, the motel’s name was the Casablanca. On a hunch he got the motel’s phone number from information, and called it.

“Haven’t seen your son since yesterday,” the manager said after Valentine identified himself.

“He didn’t come around early this morning with his friends?”

“Nope.”

“Mind answering a question for me?”

“Go ahead,” the manager said.

“How far are you from the Metro Las Vegas police station?”

“Two point three miles.”

“Thanks. I really appreciate it.”

Valentine hung up. Gerry and his friends had never reached their motel. Chances were, they’d been nabbed right as they’d left the police station. A pretty girl had talked them into driving her someplace, and given Gerry a kiss for his trouble. His son had always been a sucker for a pretty face.

He finished his soda still looking at his son’s face. Pete Longo had practically admitted that he had a dirty cop in his department. That cop must have orchestrated this. There was no other way it could have worked so well. He tossed his empty bottle into the trash, then picked up the phone, and dialed the Las Vegas Metro Police Department’s phone number from memory. An operator answered on the fifth ring.

“Let me speak to Detective Longo,” he said.

Pete Longo was having the day from hell. Besides being asked by Bill Higgins to stay out of a major bust, he’d just learned that Jinky Harris had been operating a bust-out joint right under their noses. It was a big black eye for the city, and no one was going to get more heat over it than the police department. His secretary stuck her head into his office.

“Some guy named Tony Valentine is holding on line two,” she said. “Want me to get rid of him?”

“No, I’ll take it.”

The door closed and Longo picked up the mug of coffee that had been sitting on his desk since early that morning and slurped it down. Then he picked up his phone and punched in line two. “This is Detective Longo. Can I help you?”

“This is Tony Valentine,” the caller said. “How would you like to do a horse trade?”

Longo pulled himself closer to his desk. “What are you offering?”

“I think I’ve nailed your dirty cop.”

The words were slow to register. Maybe the day from hell was about to show its silver lining. Longo removed a fresh legal pad from his drawer along with a pen.

“What do you want in return?”

“Jinky Harris won’t tell us where my son and his friends are,” Valentine said. “I want you to promise me that you’ll make this cop talk, no matter what.”

“You want me to hurt him?”

“Just do whatever you have to do. You don’t have to tell me how.”

Longo realized his hand was shaking. He had suspected there was a dirty cop in the department for over a year, and had lost many nights’ sleep over it.

“Give it to me from the top,” Longo said.

“Is that a promise?”

“You have my word,” the detective said.

Longo meticulously wrote down Valentine’s theory of how his son and friends had been abducted outside the station house. When Valentine was finished, Longo read it back to him, making sure the times corresponded to the correct events.

“That’s it,” Valentine said. “A pretty girl was waiting for my son at the station house. She was bait. She convinced him and his friends to drive her someplace, where Jinky’s boys were waiting. That’s my theory.”

Longo thought back to early that morning when he’d released Gerry and walked him to the reception area. He’d done a quick scan of the visitors, like he always did. There hadn’t been any pretty girls sitting on the plastic chairs bolted to the floor. Had she come from somewhere inside the station house? He put his pen down.

“Let me look into this,” Longo said. “Give me a number where I can get back to you.”

Longo wrote Valentine’s cell number on his blotter and hung up. Then he sat at his desk, deep in thought. He had to handle this right, and not make any accusations until he was certain he had the right cop. He pushed himself out of his chair, and walked to the front of the station house with the legal pad pressed to his chest.

The receptionist on duty was a no-nonsense female sergeant named Cobb. Cobb sat behind a three-inch piece of bulletproof Plexiglas, her eyes riveted to the reception area. No matter what time of day it was, the reception area was always filled with angry and sometimes desperate people. Longo came up behind her, and asked to see the logbook. Cobb pulled it off the desk.

“Don’t go too far with that,” she snapped.

Longo pointed at the chair behind her own. “Here okay?”

“Perfect,” she said.

He sat down, opened the logbook on his lap, and found the entries from early that morning. The station house had several hundred visitors a day, and it took him over a minute to find Gerry Valentine’s entry. Gerry had signed out at 3:04 A.M. According to Tony Valentine’s theory, the girl who’d baited Gerry had done so right after he’d been released, which meant she’d probably signed out around the same time. Longo checked the names of the visitors who’d signed out around the same time as Gerry, and found only one. A woman named Bonnie Vitucci.

Longo stared at the Person Here to See box next to Vitucci’s name. It was blank. Rising from his chair, he tapped Cobb on the arm.

“Who was working the graveyard shift last night?”

“Boy, your memory’s going,” the sergeant said.

“Why do you say that?”

“I was working the graveyard shift. Fannie got sick, so I took her shift.”

Longo pointed at Bonnie Vitucci’s name in the logbook. “Does this woman’s name ring any bells?”

Cobb had eyes like a lizard, and looked at the name in the log without shifting her head. She cracked her bubble gum and nodded at the same time.

“Who is she?”

“A stripper who also does tricks on the side,” Cobb said. “She got arrested for offering an undercover detective a BJ.”

“When was this?”

“About a year ago.”

“How can you remember that clearly?”

“It was her walk,” Cobb said.

“Her walk?”

“Yeah. The way she sashayed through here when she got arrested, you’d swear she was sleeping with somebody in the department. That’s what we thought.”

“We?”

“The other ladies on the staff. We.”

Longo realized he was nodding his head. Everything Cobb had said made perfect sense. Jinky Harris had gotten one of his strippers to start sleeping with a detective, and the stripper had pulled the detective over to the dark side. That was how those kinds of things worked. He knew that for a fact, because he’d fallen for a stripper himself once. Sex made you blind and it made you stupid. He put the log back in its place and thanked Cobb for her help.

Longo returned to his office and shut the door. He sat down in front of his ancient PC and pulled up Bonnie Vitucci’s rap sheet. The mug shot showed a pretty blonde in her late twenties with a faraway look in her eyes. He read the rap sheet, and saw that the charge had been reduced to a misdemeanor when the arresting officer had not shown up in court for her trial. Longo guessed that this was when the affair had started.

The arresting officer’s signature was at the bottom of the sheet, and he hesitated before scrolling down. He knew every detective on the force, and considered nearly all of them his friends. He found himself almost not wanting to know who it was.

Longo took a deep breath. His own affair had nearly cost him his career, and his marriage. But his buddies on the force had closed ranks, and so had his wife and two daughters. They had given him a second chance, and he’d sworn to them that he’d never screw up again.

But this situation was different. This dirty cop had fed information to Jinky Harris, who’d ruined the lives of more young girls than anyone in Las Vegas. Longo took out his wallet, and stared at the plastic-enclosed snapshot of his two teenage daughters. The girls Jinky had ruined were just like them, he reminded himself.

Longo put his finger on the mouse and scrolled down to the name of the arresting officer on the rap sheet. Detective Hector Frangos. He’d known Hector since they were both rookie cops, and had been to his house in Henderson a couple of times for backyard barbecues. Hector had a wife and three small children, and if he remembered correctly, the youngest was autistic. He’d considered him a friend, up until now.

He picked up his phone and started to dial Hector’s three-digit extension. He was about to ruin the life of a brother officer, as well as the life of his wife and three kids. It didn’t seem right, considering that he’d been given a second chance for committing the same crime. But then again, no one ever said life was fair.

He punched in Hector’s extension while his other hand removed the pair of handcuffs attached to his belt, and placed them on his desk.

49

Gerry Valentine had once read in Newsweek magazine that the biggest challenge for terrorists who made bombs was not to get blown up in the process. According to the article, over half the terrorists who made bombs either blew themselves up, or created a bomb that blew up prematurely and killed the wrong people.

The same thing appeared to be true of operating a flamethrower. Turning one on was relatively simple, provided you didn’t set yourself — or someone standing nearby — on fire. Once you got past that part, handling a flamethrower was easy.

Luckily, the four men who’d been beating them up in the warehouse had not read the article, and were taking turns setting one another’s clothing on fire while starting up the flamethrower Jinky had sent over. It was designed like a lawn blower, and spit out a terrifying, long, bright orange flame. Each time one of them caught on fire, Gerry prayed that the man handling the flamethrower would drop it on the ground and break the damn thing.

But it wasn’t meant to be. The guy who’d brought the flamethrower to the warehouse stepped out of the shadows, crushed his cigarette into the ground, and cursed the men in Italian. The man went by a single name. Mario. His English was broken, and he frequently reverted to speaking Italian. He was skinny, and had hair and eyebrows so black they looked painted on.

Mario took the flamethrower, and showed the men how to operate it. As flames shot across the warehouse, they illuminated his face, and even though he was on the other side of the warehouse, Gerry instantly recognized him. It was the man he’d seen in the stairwell of the Atlantic City Medical Center ten days ago.

“That’s Jack Donovan’s killer,” he said under his breath.

“You’re sure?” Vinny asked.

“Yeah, that’s definitely him.”

“This is just getting better and better,” Vinny moaned.

They watched Mario continue his tutorial. Gerry knew that the Mafia liked to use guys right off the boat to do dirty jobs because they were hard for the police to trace. Guys who came into the country illegally were called wops. It meant “without papers.” Mario had an air of ruthlessness about him that was almost palpable, and Gerry imagined him ripping the oxygen tubes out of Jack Donovan’s nose, and then pounding on Jack’s chest with his fists, robbing Jack of his last breaths.

“That guy is a psycho,” Vinny said.

“You think so?” Gerry asked.

“He’s got Anthony Perkins written all over him. Just look at his eyes. There’s no life in them.”

Gerry stared at Mario’s eyes. They looked like the eyes you’d find on a stuffed animal. His father had once told him that professional killers nearly all shared one thing in common. They’d been abused as children, and no one had done anything to stop it. This made them angry at the world, and allowed them to enjoy the work that they did.

Jinky’s men still couldn’t get the hang of operating the flamethrower. Mario got angry with them, and started to direct the action. He had one man get behind Frank’s chair and wrap a steel chain around Frank’s neck. Then Mario turned the flamethrower on, and brought the flame within a few feet of Frank’s face.

“Tell us which one of you shot Russ Watson, or we’ll burn your head off,” the man strangling Frank said.

Frank stared wide-eyed at the flame hovering near his face. He seemed to be debating what to do, as if there was a choice at this point. He stubbornly shook his head. He wasn’t giving in to these guys; not now, not ever.

“Tell me,” the man said.

“Screw you,” Frank said.

Mario brought the flame closer to Frank’s face. Frank pulled his head back, and the guy strangling him jerked his head forward. Frank’s head was turning colors, first purple from the lack of oxygen, then bloodred from the heat of the flame. Smoke poured off his face as his eyebrows began to catch on fire. The man doing the strangling turned his attention toward Gerry and Vinny, who sat bound in their chairs on the other side of the warehouse.

“You boys liking this?” he yelled to them.

“Turn the flamethrower off, and I’ll tell you who did it,” Gerry yelled back.

“Tell me now,” the man replied.

“Turn off the flamethrower,” Gerry yelled.

“Go fuck yourself,” the man yelled.

“I hear you’re the expert,” Gerry yelled back at him.

“You’re next, asshole.”

Gerry had been silently praying for a miracle, and he got one. Frank’s right hand — his hitting hand — had popped free of the ropes. Frank made a fist and brought his hand up in an arch, catching the guy strangling him flush on the side of the face. The chain came loose from around Frank’s neck, and fell jangling to the concrete floor.

Getting hit by a boxer was different from getting hit by an ordinary Joe, and the guy who’d been doing the strangling came staggering around Frank’s chair, his eyes rolling in his head. Frank grabbed him with his free hand, and threw him directly into the path of the flamethrower. The man’s clothing and hair instantly caught fire, and he threw his arms into the air, screamed, and took off at a dead run.

Mario looked surprised at the turn of events, but not terribly upset. He extinguished the flamethrower by flipping off a switch, and stood with the three men and watched their partner do flaming pirouettes in the center of the warehouse. Within a few moments the flaming man fell face-first to the floor, his arms and legs twitching. Mario and the others stood silently and watched him die.

“We need to call Jinky, tell him what happened,” one of the men said.

“I have better idea,” Mario said.

“What’s that?”

“We kill them, then call Jinky.”

They all seemed to think this was a good idea. Mario drew an automatic handgun from behind his belt.

“I do them,” Mario said.

“You want to kill all four of them?” one of the men said.

Mario nodded his head forcefully. “All four,” he replied.

Frank had continued to pull at the ropes holding him to the chair. He was nearly free, his fingers nimbly pulling the knots apart. Nunzie was cheering him on while trying not to look at the men who were about to kill them.

“Come on, Frankie Boy,” Nunzie said.

“Almost there,” Frank said, breathing hard.

Gerry looked sideways at Vinny, and saw his friend’s lips moving.

“You praying?”

“What else is there to do?” Vinny asked.

Gerry looked at the door. Shadows were dancing in the puddle of light streaming through the bottom of the door, indicating there were people standing outside.

“Start yelling,” Gerry said.

“What?”

“You heard me. There’re people outside. Start yelling.”

Vinny started yelling like it was nobody’s business. His voice was drowned out by a battering ram being applied to the door, the sound echoing across the warehouse’s ceiling. The door buckled on its hinges, but did not give way.

“It’s a raid,” one of Jinky’s men shouted.

The man drew a gun holstered beneath his sports jacket, aimed, and pulled the trigger. The bullet hit the door and ricocheted dangerously around the warehouse. His partners also drew their weapons and fired at the door, determined to shoot it out with whoever was on the other side. Within seconds bullets were flying, and Gerry was reflexively jerking his head while begging God to spare him from being shot.

“Look at Frank,” Vinny said.

“Why?”

“He’s almost free.”

Gerry stopped jerking his head and stared across the warehouse. Frank had almost wriggled free of his ropes. He was taking his time, just like he had in the casino parking lot. Standing, he walked over to where the flamethrower lay on the floor, picked it up, and clutched it against his chest the way Mario had instructed. Then he got up behind the four killers. The flamethrower’s flame was on low, and he jacked the flame up, then squeezed the trigger, causing a huge flame to leap through the air. It engulfed the men, catching their clothes and hair on fire. Within seconds they were screaming and running wildly in circles around the warehouse.

One by one, the men dropped to the floor, and stopped moving. The battering ram was still hitting the door, the sound like a clock ringing its final toll. Frank solemnly lowered the flamethrower while shaking his head.

“Enough of that shit,” he declared.

50

One winter when Valentine was a detective on the Atlantic City police force, his wife had talked him into taking a few night courses at a local community college. She had thought the classes would help round him out and broaden his horizons.

The two courses that had made an impact were an English course, which had turned him on to reading Raymond Chandler and other crime writers, and a philosophy course, which had gotten him thinking about things he’d never thought about before.

In the philosophy course he’d read a problem by the French philosopher Descartes that he’d never forgotten. The problem was this: You take your son and his friend to the beach. The two boys go swimming, while you stay on shore. Suddenly, you realize the boys have been pulled out by an undertow and are drowning. The boys are far apart, and as you swim out to rescue them, it becomes apparent only one can be saved. You are responsible for your son’s friend, since you’re the adult in charge, but you’re also responsible for your son, since you’re his father. Who do you save?

According to Descartes, you saved your son.

Descartes’ reasoning was perfectly logical. You might someday forgive yourself for letting the other boy drown, but you would never forgive yourself if your son drowned. It was a lesson that Valentine had never forgotten.

As the Metro Las Vegas Police Department SWAT team entered the warehouse where Gerry and his friends were being held, Valentine ignored the orders of the SWAT team’s commander, and came in behind them. The warehouse smelled of smoke, and he stared at the four burning bodies lying on the floor, the three men tied to chairs, and a man with a horribly damaged face holding a flamethrower. Then his eyes found his son.

Of all the men in the room, Gerry looked to be in the best shape. Gerry hadn’t been badly beaten up, and the look on his son’s face said that his spirits were still intact. The others needed help in one form or another, but Valentine ignored them and ran to his son. He untied the ropes holding Gerry prisoner. His son rose and they hugged each other.

“Go outside and stay with the cops,” Valentine said.

“I need to help my friends,” his son said.

“Just do as I say. I’ll take care of your friends.”

Gerry tried to say something. It was unusual for him to be at a loss for words, and he started to walk to the open door with light streaming through, then turned and walked across the warehouse to one of the burning bodies lying on the floor. Gerry stared down at the corpse and balled his hands into fists.

Valentine came up next to him. “What’s wrong?”

“This is the guy who killed Jack Donovan.”

Valentine looked down at the blackened body and then up into his son’s face. Many times he had heard wronged people say that there was nothing sweeter than revenge, but had never believed it himself. He placed his hand on his son’s shoulder.

“Feel any better?”

“You mean because this bastard’s dead?”

“Yeah.”

“No,” Gerry said. “I don’t feel any better at all.”

Gerry walked out of the warehouse, and Valentine untied Vinny and Nunzie from their chairs, and told them to go outside as well. As both men got to their feet, they shook Valentine’s hand and thanked him.

When they were gone, Valentine went over to check on the man with the damaged face. The man had put the flamethrower on the ground, and was standing with his hands against the wall, and his feet spread apart. While one SWAT team member frisked him, a second SWAT team member pointed a rifle at him. The man’s face looked like something out of a horror movie, and he grinned at Valentine.

“Hey, Mr. Valentine, how you doing?”

“Frank? What happened to you?”

“They tried to get me to talk,” Frank said, still grinning.

“You tell them anything?”

“Naw. They would have killed us.”

Valentine immediately understood. Frank had been willing to take the punishment on the slim hope that they’d be rescued. He was as dumb as an ox, but sometimes that was what you needed to survive in this world.

“Let him go,” Valentine said to the SWAT team members.

The man holding the rifle shifted his attention to him.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. He’s one of us.”

The man looked at his partner, who’d finished frisking Frank. Then he lowered his rifle and they both walked away. Valentine went up to Frank and saw him smile. He whacked Frank on the shoulder and the big man winced.

“Not so hard,” Frank said. “That’s my bad arm.”

Valentine led Frank outside and turned him over to a pair of medics who’d come in an ambulance, and were attending to Gerry, Frank, and Nunzie. The medics had already inspected the corpses inside the warehouse, and were happy to have live people to be treating. Valentine walked over to the police van they’d arrived in. Bill Higgins stood beside the van, making a call on his cell phone. Bill had stayed outside with Jinky Harris, who sat in the back of a van in his electric wheelchair. Jinky had started singing like the fat lady in the opera once he’d heard that Detective Hector Frangos had been arrested, and was cooperating with the Metro Las Vegas Police Department.

“Mind if I talk to your prisoner?” Valentine asked.

“Be my guest,” Bill said.

Valentine popped open the van’s back door and climbed in. Jinky’s chair was strapped to the floor of the van with pieces of rope, making him a prisoner. Jinky had the look of a caged rat, and started protesting before Valentine had shut the door.

“Get the hell away from me.”

“Hear me out.”

“No! Get away from me! Hey Higgins, get him away from me!”

Valentine slammed the door, then got down on his haunches and looked at Jinky. “If you had half an ounce of common sense, you’d play ball with me.”

Jinky stared through the van’s tinted window at Bill standing outside, talking on his cell phone. When he realized Bill wasn’t going to save him, he calmed down.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“Some straight answers would be nice.”

“I brought you here, didn’t I?”

“That’s a good start.”

“What do I get in return?” Jinky asked.

Valentine glanced at his son and three friends standing outside the van. It was a miracle they hadn’t died, and he wanted Jinky to pay for what he’d done to them. Only Jinky was the key to finding out what was going on at the World Poker Showdown, and he was determined to solve this case. Then he had an idea.

“Come clean with us, and I’ll get Bill Higgins to persuade the prosecutor to cut you a deal.”

The air-conditioning in the van had been shut off and the interior air was warm and sticky. Jinky removed a wadded-up Kleenex from the pocket of his tracksuit and dabbed at his reddening face. “Is that a promise?”

“Yes, it’s a promise.”

“Okay. What do you want to know?”

“How is Skip DeMarco cheating the World Poker Showdown?”

“You think the Tuna told me? Get real.”

“You must have some idea what’s going on.”

“I’ll tell you what I know,” Jinky said. “The Tuna stole a poker scam from some sick guy in Atlantic City. Nobody knows what the scam is, but it’s supposed to be perfect. No traces, no clues, nothing. There’s only one drawback.”

“What’s that?”

“It can make a person really sick if they don’t handle it right,” Jinky said. “That’s what everyone says, so it must be true.”

Valentine thought back to his meeting with Ray Callahan at the hospital, and how Callahan had stared at the playing card Valentine was carrying in his wallet.

“Is that why two dealers in the tournament collapsed?”

Jinky shrugged. “Could be. Like I said, I don’t know what the scam is.”

“Next question. Why did you try to have my son and his friends killed?”

Jinky dabbed at his face some more. “There’s a lot of mob money being bet on DeMarco to win the tournament. I have nothing against your son and his friends, but when they started screwing with DeMarco, I got told to whack them.”

“By the Tuna.”

“No, not the Tuna.”

“Then who?”

“If I told you that, I’d be dead tomorrow.”

“Even if the police put you in protective custody?”

“I’d still be dead tomorrow,” Jinky said.

Valentine looked in the big man’s face and knew he wasn’t going to get the name. He didn’t know anything more about how DeMarco was cheating the tournament than he had when he’d stepped off the plane at McCarran yesterday. Worse, he’d nearly lost his son in the process of trying to find out. He opened the rear door and started to climb out.

“What about my deal?” Jinky asked indignantly.

He turned. “What about it?”

“Are you going to talk to Bill Higgins, like you said?”

Valentine paused. As a cop, he’d prided himself on never going back on his word. The oath that went with being a police officer was something he’d always upheld. But being retired was different. He was his own man now.

“No,” he said.

“But you promised me!”

“I lied,” Valentine said.

51

One of the most depressing movies Valentine had ever seen was called Leaving Las Vegas. In the film, an alcoholic comes to Las Vegas, shacks up with a hooker, and proceeds to methodically drink himself to death. The title had summed up the plot perfectly. For some people, the only way to leave Sin City was in a pine box.

Valentine was not going to let that happen to his son, or his son’s friends. He retrieved his rental car from police headquarters, then drove Gerry, Frank, and the Fountain brothers to their motel to get their things and check out, then straight to the airport. It was a tight fit in the car, but he wasn’t going to let them out of his sight until they were safely on an airplane, and headed home.

“The four of you may have to come back out here and testify in a trial,” Valentine said as he parked the rental in short-term parking. “If that happens, I’ll come out as well.”

“I don’t want to ever come to Las Vegas again,” Vinny said as they walked across the lot toward the terminal. “I used to think I understood how this town worked, but I was wrong. This place is like another planet.”

Once inside, Frank and the Fountain brothers went to the American Airlines counter and booked three seats in economy on a flight to Philadelphia that left in ninety minutes. The reservationist kept looking at Frank’s battered face, as if she might consider him a security risk. Valentine leaned on the counter and spoke to her.

“He’s a professional boxer.”

“You his manager?”

“Sort of.”

“He ought to consider another line of work,” the reservationist said, printing out three boarding passes and sliding them across the counter.

“You should see the other guy,” Valentine said.

They walked to the security screening area, stopping on the way to buy Frank a baseball cap and sunglasses so his face wouldn’t cause any small children to burst into tears. As the three men got in line, they shook Valentine’s hand and thanked him for all he’d done. Valentine turned to his son as they passed through the metal detector.

“Think they’ll ever straighten up?”

Gerry waved to his friends. “And do what? Become monks?”

They returned to the ticketing area and went to the Delta counter, the main carrier into Tampa, and Valentine purchased a seat on the ten o’clock red eye for his son.

“Don’t you think I should stay and help you?” Gerry asked.

“No. Remember what I told you before we came out here?”

“Sure. No job is worth getting killed over.”

“Well, I have a new saying.”

“What’s that?”

“No job is worth losing your son over.”

Gerry wanted to say something, only didn’t know how to say it. Instead, he gave his father a bear hug in the middle of the terminal with dozens of people swarming around them. They hadn’t done enough of that kind of thing when Gerry was growing up, and when they were finished hugging, Valentine offered to buy his son a cheeseburger.

“You’re on,” Gerry said.

They walked around the terminal and found a food court where the prices were so high Valentine thought he was in Paris. But there were times when he was willing to pay just about anything for a decent cheeseburger with a slice of onion, and he tossed the menu aside and ordered for both of them. When the waitress had departed, Gerry said, “Hey, look. The tournament is on TV.”

The restaurant had a horseshoe-shaped bar with a TV perched above the bottles of liquor. Valentine spun around in his chair, and saw Skip DeMarco being interviewed. DeMarco was wearing his familiar smirk, and the caption beneath him read World Poker Showdown Tournament leader — $5.8 million in chips. Valentine shook his head in disbelief. Only a few hours ago, Bill had told him that he was heading to Celebrity to shut down the tournament.

The story ended, and Valentine crossed the restaurant, and stood in a quiet corner before flipping open his cell phone and calling Bill.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked his friend.

“As of this afternoon, the World Poker Showdown is being classified as a private event,” Bill replied. “Unless I can prove that cheating is taking place, I’ve been told to lay off.”

“Told by who?”

“The governor of the state of Nevada.”

The burden of proof that was required of the police and other law enforcement agencies in the U.S. was not required of the Nevada Gaming Control Board. The GCB could shut down any gambling operation based on suspicion of cheating. And since the WPS was already on thin ice — from DeMarco rigging the first day’s seating, to dealers with criminal records and a president who hung with mobsters — Bill didn’t need an excuse to pull the curtains. If anything, it was long overdue.

“Can he do that?” Valentine asked.

“Yes,” Bill said. “It’s in his job description.”

“But why would he do that?”

“Because the tournament is a huge success. You don’t screw with success in this town, Tony.”

Valentine put his hand on his forehead and left it there. No matter what it was about in Las Vegas, it was always about the money.

“I got some other bad news this afternoon,” Bill said. “Ray Callahan, our crooked poker dealer, died.”

“Somebody whack him?”

“No. Callahan died from cancer complications. Now we’ll never know how he was involved with DeMarco’s scam.”

Valentine removed his hand from his forehead and pulled out his wallet. The playing card that Jack Donovan had given Gerry was stuck in his billfold, and he peeled back the bills with his fingers and stared at it. Ray Callahan had wanted to know what Jack had died from, and had not seemed surprised when Valentine had told him cancer. It was the clue he’d been looking for and it had been staring him right in the face.

“Let me ask you a question,” he said. “If I can prove DeMarco’s cheating, will the governor let you do your job, and shut down the World Poker Showdown?”

“He won’t have a choice,” Bill asked.

“Even if the WPS is the biggest show in the history of television, and drawing more tourists than Las Vegas has beds?”

Bill laughed into the phone.

“Even then,” his friend said.

Valentine stared at the playing card in his wallet. He’d been baffled by scams before but always managed to solve them. If he couldn’t solve one, then he needed to get out of the gambling business and into gardening or shuffleboard or whatever the hell it was retired people in Florida did.

“I’ll call you later,” Valentine said.

He heard Bill start to speak, then hesitate. “Are you still on the case?” his friend asked.

“You bet,” Valentine replied.

Valentine said good-bye and folded his cell phone. His son was standing beside him. Valentine removed the playing card from his wallet, and handed it to him. “The secret of how DeMarco is cheating is in the hospital where Jack Donovan died. Jack found something there that can be used to mark cards. It doesn’t leave a trace, and is dangerous if not handled properly. I know it’s been a rough couple of days, but I want you to go to Atlantic City, look through the hospital records, and find out what it is. I’ll ask one of my police buddies to accompany you, so no one tries to whack you.”

Gerry blinked, and then he blinked again.

“I thought you wanted me to go home.”

“I changed my mind.”

“So I’m still working with you on the case?”

“You were never off the case.”

“I wasn’t?”

“Of course not. You’re my partner, aren’t you?”

The happy look in Gerry’s eyes was one Valentine hadn’t seen in a long time. There was a time in every man’s life when he had to emerge from his father’s shadow, and this was Gerry’s time. His son slipped Jack’s playing card into his shirt pocket, and hugged his father again. Valentine was surprised at how good it made him feel.

52

“My producer thinks this story would make a terrific made-for-TV movie,” Gloria Curtis said, microphone in hand.

Valentine nodded, staring at the magnificently conditioned racehorse standing a dozen yards away. The horse’s front legs were going up and down like pistons while a trainer held it in check with a lead rope. Valentine had put Gerry on a plane for Atlantic City, then driven to the University of Nevada football field where Gloria and several hundred gamblers were preparing to watch Rufus Steele challenge the horse in the hundred-yard dash.

“It isn’t over yet,” he reminded her.

“You sound awfully pessimistic,” Gloria said, shivering from a breeze.

He continued to watch the horse, which had deposited a steaming pile of manure on the field. His late father had liked to bet on the ponies, and had always run to the betting windows after seeing a horse take a crap.

“Just being realistic,” he said.

“Meaning this may not having a happy ending.”

Valentine didn’t say anything, not wanting to jinx Rufus, who stood on the fifty-yard line, doing jumping jacks in his Skivvies T-shirt and black boxing shorts while exhorting his fellow gamblers with nonstop banter.

“Come on, boys, what do you say? I’ll give you even money I can beat that nag in the hundred-yard dash. That’s even money!”

A group of gamblers stood around the horse, and appeared to be making sure the animal hadn’t been doped. The group included the Greek, who asked the trainer to lift the horse’s saddle, then peered beneath it to make sure there were no hidden electronic devices that might slow the animal down. Satisfied, he turned to his fellow gamblers.

“Looks good to me.”

“Check its hooves,” one of the gamblers said. “Maybe Rufus took off its shoes.”

The Greek decided this was a good idea, and went to the noneating end of the horse and attempted to lift one of its hind legs. Before he could say Jack Robinson, the Greek was sitting on his rump in the grass, having been kicked solidly in the thigh. The other gamblers rushed to his aid.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” the Greek said, rising and dusting himself off. “That’s one hell of an animal. I think we just might have a bet here.”

The horse was led to the center of the field where it began to prance around on its hind legs. Valentine wondered if Rufus had bitten off more than he could chew, and glanced at Gloria. She looked equally worried.

“Maybe I’d better go talk to him,” he said.

Rufus was still doing his exercises. He was all skin and bones, with some sinew thrown in for good measure. He winked as Valentine approached.

“Hey, Tony, you ready to help me fleece these suckers?”

“Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

“Of course I’m sure,” Rufus said, stopping to suck down the cool night air. “Come on, don’t tell me you’re losing faith in me?”

Valentine looked across the field at the competition. The Greek had hired a professional jockey to ride the horse, unwilling to let Rufus provide the rider. The Greek’s jockey was a diminutive man with a pinched face and expressionless eyes, his uniform the color of money. With the trainer holding the horse, the jockey climbed into the saddle, then took the horse down the field at a canter.

“A little,” Valentine admitted.

“You don’t think I can beat Greased Lightning?”

“Is that the horse’s name?”

“Yeah. Raced in the Kentucky Derby a few years back, came in fourth,” Rufus said. “The owners use it for stud now. A real nag, if you ask me.”

Valentine knew enough about horses to know that nags weren’t used for stud. The jockey had stopped in the end zone and turned Greased Lightning around. With a tip of the hat to the Greek and his friends, he took off at a dead gallop. A football field is exactly one hundred yards long, and Valentine clocked the horse with his watch. Greased Lightning went from end zone to end zone in seven seconds flat.

He turned to see Rufus removing a cigarette from a pack of Marlboros. The Greek and his cronies were standing nearby, and watched Rufus light up and take a deep drag.

“Rufus,” Valentine said, “you can’t beat what I just saw. Give up.”

Rufus exhaled a thick plume of smoke into the still night air.

“Say that a little louder,” he said under his breath.

“Why?”

“Because I want those boys standing nearby to hear you.”

Valentine raised his voice. “Rufus, you can’t beat what I just saw.”

Rufus looked pleased and offered the pack. Valentine reached for it, then hesitated. He was going to quit smoking, even if it killed him, and withdrew his hand.

The Greek and his cronies stepped forward.

“We want to make a wager,” the Greek announced.

Rufus ground his cigarette into the grass. “How much?”

“First we want to settle the odds,” the Greek said. “We want three-to-one on Greased Lightning. Take it, or leave it.”

Rufus held his chin and gave it some thought. Of all the gamblers assembled on the field, the Greek had the biggest bankroll, and his action would dominate the wagering. He said, “I’ll do it, with one stipulation. You get in front of the TV camera, and say what you just said into a mike. That you want three-to-one odds on a champion racehorse beating a seventy-two-year-old broken-down cowboy in the hundred-yard dash. Say that, and it’s a deal.”

The Greek looked crushed. He had won a TV poker tournament recently, and was a celebrity in the poker world. He liked being famous, and was what gamblers called a trophy hunter. Using the palms of his hands, he smoothed out the creases in his bowling shirt, and let the appropriate amount of time pass before speaking again.

“Even money it is,” the Greek said.

“How much?”

“I’ll bet you a half-million that you can’t beat Greased Lightning in the hundred-yard dash.”

“Five hundred thousand dollars?” Rufus asked.

“That’s right,” the Greek said.

“Tony, you hear that?” Rufus asked.

It was more money than most people made in an entire lifetime, and Valentine slowly nodded.

“I heard,” he said.

The Greek and Rufus shook hands, and the deal was struck.

“Good evening and welcome to the playing field of the University of Nevada,” Gloria Curtis said, staring into the camera. “This is Gloria Curtis, reporting to you from Las Vegas, the city that never sleeps. Standing beside me is a man who never sleeps, Rufus Steele, legendary poker player and gambler. Tonight, Rufus is betting a sizable sum—”

“One half million dollars,” Rufus said proudly.

“—that he can outrun a former Kentucky Derby hopeful named Greased Lightning in the hundred-yard dash. Rufus, how are you feeling?”

“Like a spring chicken,” the old cowboy said.

“I must tell you that in all my years reporting sports, I’ve never seen a matchup as intriguing as this one.”

Rufus was about to reply when Greased Lightning bounded up behind them, the jockey pulling back on the horse with his reins.

“What do you say we get this started?” the jockey asked them. “This isn’t a pleasure horse I’m riding, folks.”

“Right,” Rufus said. “Just give me a second to set up our course.”

Rufus walked over to a large beach towel lying on the ground. On the towel sat a jug of drinking water and a brown paper bag. Rufus picked up the bag and removed a plastic traffic cone painted in orange Day-Glo paint. He tossed it to Valentine.

“Tony, do me a favor, and go put that cone on the center of the fifty-yard line.”

Valentine marched out to the middle of the football field, and placed the cone in the center of the fifty-yard line. When he returned to the sidelines, the Greek was shouting and wagging an angry finger in Rufus’s face.

“That’s cheating!” the Greek shouted.

Rufus flashed his best aw-shucks grin. “No, it’s not. I said we’d be running the hundred-yard dash. I never said those hundred yards would be in a straight line.” He turned to Valentine. “Did I, Tony?”

Before Valentine could answer, Rufus turned to Gloria. “Did I, Miss Curtis?”

“No, you didn’t,” they both answered.

Rufus pointed at the end zone. “We start the race from there, and when we reach the cone, we turn around, and run back to the end zone. Plain and simple.”

A hush fell over the crowd of gamblers. The Greek had balled his hands into fists and his face resembled a pressure cooker ready to explode. He stormed across the field to where Greased Lightning and the jockey were standing. The horse was kicking at the ground and seemed to know that it was about to be asked to perform. The Greek had a short conversation with the jockey, then returned to the sidelines.

“You’re on,” he told Rufus.

There was too much artificial light in Las Vegas for any stars to be visible. Only the moon could be seen in the pitch dark sky, and it appeared to be slyly winking at them. Valentine followed Rufus to the end zone from where the race would start.

“The Greek sounds pretty confidant,” he said.

“That’s because the jockey thinks he can make the turn, and still beat me,” Rufus replied, doing windmills with his arms to loosen up. “If the horse was a rodeo pony, I’d be in trouble. But not a racehorse.”

“You sure?”

“Positive, pardner.”

Greased Lightning came into the end zone kicking up a storm. The jockey had his riding crop out and was sitting high in the saddle. Valentine guessed the jockey was planning to take the horse down the field at half-speed, make the turn at the fifty-yard line, and come back at a full gallop.

“I don’t know, Rufus,” Valentine said.

From the paper bag Rufus removed a starting gun, which he handed to Valentine.

“Make sure you pull the trigger when the race starts,” Rufus said.

The crowd of gamblers followed them into the end zone and stood behind the two participants. Rufus and Greased Lightning toed the starting line, the jockey practically standing up in his stirrups, the old cowboy in classic sprinter’s pose.

“Tony, be our starter,” Rufus called out.

Valentine walked over to where they stood. He paused to make sure Zack was filming them, then pointed the starting pistol into the air.

“Gentlemen, take your marks.”

The wind blowing off the desert had died and the air was remarkably still. A jet passed overhead, the whir of its landing gear coming down shattering the stillness. Greased Lightning emitted a loud whinny.

“Get ready — go!”

Valentine fired the starter into the air. The cap in the gun made a loud bang! and the horse screamed like it had been shot. It fled ahead and went down the field at supersonic speed. Rufus appeared to be frozen, his legs stuck to the ground, as the animal passed him.

The gamblers let out a collective roar, with the Greek shouting the loudest. Rufus was huffing and puffing, running about as well as someone his age could run, which was to say not particularly fast. Before he’d reached the fifteen-yard line, Greased Lightning had reached the fifty and was still running.

“Come on, Rufus,” Valentine yelled. “Come on!”

The jockey was pulling back on his reins with all his might. The horse started to break, its back legs tearing up the ground like hoes. When it finally came to a stop, it was near the opposing side’s twenty-yard line. The jockey jerked the horse’s head, trying to turn the animal around. The horse obeyed, and when it was turned around, came to a dead stop, as if the race was over. The jockey slapped its side with his crop while digging his heels into its side.

By now, Rufus had reached the cone in the center of the field, done a nifty spin, and taken off back for the finish line. The old cowboy still had some run in him, his long legs covering the ground with amazing agility. Sensing disaster, the Greek and his cronies stood at the finish line, jumping wildly up and down.

“Run!” Valentine yelled through cupped hands.

Rufus hit the ten-yard line as Greased Lightning crossed the thirty. It was a contest now, and Rufus took a half dozen giant steps, and then fell face-forward with his arms outstretched as the horse raced past him.

“I win! I win!” the Greek shouted while doing a juvenile victory dance.

Valentine hurried over to where Rufus lay and helped him to his feet. The old cowboy was covered in grass and dirt and took a moment to get his bearings.

“Did I lose?” he asked under his breath.

“It was mighty close,” Valentine said. “Let’s look at the tape.”

Zack stood on the sideline with his camera pointed at the finish line. He rewound the tape, and let Valentine and Rufus watch the race on the tiny screen on the back of the camera. The ending was close, but the outcome was perfectly clear. Before Greased Lightning reached the end zone, Rufus’s hand had broken the plane of the finish line.

Rufus called the Greek over, and let him watch the tape. When it was over, the Greek was crying. Rufus raised his arms triumphantly into the air.

“I win,” he declared.