4

Valentine was sinking in a bottomless lake. He felt weightless and surprisingly calm. Dying isn’t so bad, he thought.

He heard a sharp crack! that sounded like thunder. The rope strangling him went slack, and fell to the floor. He took a deep breath, then spun around. His attacker was holding his arm, cursing in pain. Valentine kicked the man’s legs out from under him. Called the sweep, it was the best way to take someone down. As the man fell forward, Valentine kneed him in the face for good measure.

He heard another crack! from across the suite. Rufus stood in the middle of the living room, brandishing a bullwhip. He cracked the whip like a pro, repeatedly hitting the black guy in places that were hard to defend: his ankle, face, and crotch. Valentine had seen Rufus slip something beneath the couch a few nights before, and had assumed it was a pair of shoes.

“Look out behind you,” Rufus said.

Valentine spun around. The effort made his head throb and the room spin. The white guy had gotten up and was staggering out the door, his face a bloody mess.

“Tony, behind you again,” Rufus called out.

Valentine turned again, this time a little more slowly. Rufus’s attacker ran past him. He joined up with his partner, and their pounding footsteps reverberated down the hallway. Cracking his whip, Rufus followed the two men into the hall. His Stetson was back on his head, and he looked as regal as any cowboy had the right to look.

“Anytime, girls,” Rufus yelled, standing in the hallway. “Come back anytime.”

Valentine got his wits back, then searched the suite for a weapon. He settled on a brass flower vase sitting on the TV. It was shaped like a woman in a floor-length dress. He went into the hall with the vase clutched in his hand.

“Call hotel security,” he told Rufus.

“Sure. You okay?”

“Never better,” Valentine said.

Like Hansel and Gretel in the forest, their attackers had left a trail. Instead of bread crumbs, they’d left drops of blood. He followed them to the hallway’s end, stopping at the doorway to the emergency exit stairwell. Opening the door cautiously, he stuck his head in, staring into semidarkness.

From down below came voices. His adrenaline had burned off, and the bridge of his nose felt as wide as his head. The smart move was to retreat. He’d escaped, and that was the important thing. Only Valentine wanted to pay these jokers back. When it came to killers, he believed in the Old Testament’s advice: “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” He went into the stairwell, and listened some more.

When Valentine returned to the suite a minute later, Rufus handed him a towel wrapped around some ice cubes. Sitting on the couch, he pressed the towel to his nose.

“I called hotel security,” Rufus said. “They’re dealing with a problem in the casino, and will be up in a few. Hey, Tony, you’ve got blood on your shirt. You okay?”

Valentine looked down at his shirt. The lower half was soaked in red.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Well, you don’t look fine,” Rufus said.

“Okay, so I’m lousy.”

Rufus pulled a suitcase from the closet. He unzipped a pocket, removed a glass pint of bourbon, and offered it to him. “This is the finest bourbon known to man, brewed in a Mississippi bathtub by the great-grandson of Jack Daniels himself.”

“No thanks,” Valentine said. “But go ahead yourself.”

Rufus unscrewed the top and took a long pull, smacking his lips when done. Some men, like Valentine’s father, could not drink without turning into monsters. Others, like Rufus, seemed better for the experience.

Rufus retrieved the coiled bullwhip from the floor. It looked like a thick black snake whose head was hidden within its coils, and he tucked it beneath the couch.

“You always carry that around?” Valentine asked.

“Used to carry a gun,” Rufus said. “After 9/11, I started carrying the whip. In some ways, it’s better than a gun. You should learn how to use one.”

“You think so?”

“It’s like fly casting a fishing rod. Ever try that?”

“I fly-fished once on vacation,” Valentine said. “I caught the hook on my earlobe. Had to go to the emergency room at the hospital to have it removed.”

“Maybe you should stick with beating people up.”

“Thanks.”

Rufus returned his pint to the suitcase, then consulted his wristwatch. It was an old silver dollar that had been turned into a timepiece. The coin needed polishing, but probably wouldn’t see any in Rufus’s lifetime.

“Those hotel guards are mighty damn slow,” he said.

Valentine shifted the icepack on his face. A five-minute response time in a Vegas hotel was normal. Although their casinos had state-of-the-art surveillance systems, they were largely ineffective when it came to crimes against guests. There were simply too many rooms.

“They’ll show up eventually,” he said. “Since neither of us were killed, they’re not hurrying. It’s how things work. Everything gets prioritized. Especially guests.”

“And since you and I aren’t whales, we get the pooch treatment.”

“Exactly.”

Rufus removed his Stetson and patted down his hair like he was expecting company. He fitted his hat back on, and looked Valentine in the eye.

“I’d hate this crummy town if I didn’t like to gamble so much,” Rufus said.

In the bathroom, Valentine changed shirts, downed four ibuprofens, then appraised his profile in the mirror. He’d gotten his nose broken twice as a cop, plus a couple times in judo competition, yet it had never flattened. Good genes, he guessed. He returned to the suite, sat on the couch with Rufus.

“Come straight with me about something,” Rufus said.

“Sure.”

“When that guy was threatening me with the pipe, you thought I was selling you out, didn’t you?”

Valentine considered denying it, then decided not to lie. “Afraid I did.”

“Sorry. It was the only ruse I could think of.”

There was a commotion in the hallway. Four uniformed cops entered the suite, followed by Pete Longo, chief detective with the Metro Las Vegas Police Department’s Homicide Division. As Valentine rose from the couch, the cops drew their weapons.

“Stay seated,” a cop ordered him.

Valentine dropped back into his seat.

“Where are your guns?” the cop asked.

“We don’t have any,” Valentine said.

The cops searched the suite anyway. Valentine glanced at Longo, whom he’d known for many years. Longo had recently lost a lot of weight, but hadn’t changed his wardrobe. His rumpled suit swam on his body.

“Can’t you help us, Pete?” Valentine asked.

Longo shot him a skeptical look. “You don’t have any firearms in the suite?”

“There’s a bullwhip lying beneath the couch, but that’s it.”

The cops finished their search. The one who’d been doing the talking approached the couch and said, “You better be telling the truth.”

“Ain’t no reason to lie,” Rufus replied.

“Come with me,” Longo said. “I want to show you something.”

Valentine and Rufus followed Longo out the door, happy to be away from the uniforms. They took an elevator to the lobby, which was swarming with more cops, some in uniform, some plainclothes. Yellow police tape cordoned off an area around a door with an emergency exit sign above it. Longo lifted up the police tape and they walked beneath it. The detective pointed to a door propped open with a metal chair.

“Take a look,” Longo said.

Rufus went first, and came away shaking his head. Then Valentine stuck his head in. The light inside the stairwell was muted, and he let his eyes adjust. When they did, he saw their two attackers lying at the bottom. Their faces looked eerily peaceful, save for the bullet holes in their foreheads.

“Recognize them?” Longo asked, now behind him.

“Those are the guys who just attacked us in our room,” Valentine said.

“Did Rufus Steele shoot them?”

“No.”

“Did you shoot them?”

“No.”

“I’d like to do a paraffin test for gunshot residue.”

“Be my guest.”

“I also want to talk to your son. Last time I checked, he had a grudge against some mobsters in town. Maybe this was his way of paying them back.”

“Gerry isn’t in Las Vegas, ” Valentine said. “I put him on a plane to Philadelphia four hours ago.”

“Why did you do that?” the detective asked.

He almost told Longo it was none of his business, then reminded himself he was a suspect in a double homicide and everything was Longo’s business. “The World Poker Showdown is being scammed, and nobody knows how. The secret is in a hospital in Atlantic City.”

“And you sent your son there to figure it out.”

“That’s right.”

Longo’s face was stoic. He doesn’t believe me, Valentine thought. Gerry’s stay in Vegas had been rough, and Valentine didn’t want his son getting dragged back here.

“If you don’t believe me, call him,” Valentine said.

Longo dug his cell phone from his pocket.

“Give me your son’s number,” the detective said.

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