Deadman's Bluff

14

Bill Higgins dropped Valentine at Celebrity at a few minutes before nine. As Valentine walked through the front doors, he remembered his breakfast date with Gloria Curtis, and hurried through the lobby toward the restaurant. A concierge dressed like Jungle Jim hurried toward him.

“Mr. Valentine?”

“What’s up?” he said, not slowing down.

“I have a message from Ms. Gloria Curtis.”

“What does it say?”

“It’s a written message.”

The concierge whipped a small white envelope from his outer breast pocket and presented it to him. Valentine dug for his wallet to tip the guy.

“No need, Mr. Valentine. My compliments.”

The concierge walked away. The help got paid garbage in Las Vegas, and he chased the guy down and stuck a twenty in his hand, then walked to the elevators reading Gloria’s note.

Tony, I heard what happened last night! I’m in my room. Please call me.

He found a house phone, and when an operator came on, asked for Gloria’s room. She picked up the phone on the first ring.

“Tony, is that you?”

“Hello, Miss Curtis,” he said, knowing that hotel operators often listened to calls.

“Where are you?”

“I just walked through the front doors.”

“Zack called me earlier. He said you and Rufus Steele were attacked in your suite last night, and the men who did it were found dead in the stairwell.”

“That’s the Reader’s Digest version,” he said.

“Were you beat up? Did they damage that beautiful face?”

His cheeks burned. Never before had anyone called his face beautiful. “The face is fine. My neck is sore, but it will heal.”

“Please come up to my room,” Gloria said. “I’m in 842.”

Valentine hesitated. The older he’d gotten, the more important mealtime had become, and he’d been looking forward to eating breakfast.

“Do you still want to eat?” he heard himself ask.

“I ordered breakfast through room service. I hope you like your eggs scrambled with cheese in them.”

“That’s exactly how I like them,” he said.

“You’ve got a neck like a bull,” Gloria said, examining the bruises on the back of Valentine’s neck while he sat on the couch in her living room.

“I should. I stand on my head ten minutes every day.”

“How long have you been doing that?”

“About twenty-five years.”

She sat down beside him with a funny look on her face. She wore a powder blue suit, white blouse, and a Hermès scarf wrapped around her neck. She’d told him a few days ago that her network was putting her out to pasture because she was getting older, but to him, she looked just right.

“It’s one of my judo exercises,” he explained. “I took judo up when I started policing casinos. My boss didn’t want us using our guns on the casino floor, so I got involved in the martial arts.”

“Let me guess. Shootings are bad for business.”

“Yes. It seems gamblers see it as a sign of bad luck, and stay away in droves.”

“So you still practice?”

He stretched his neck and nodded. Normally he went to judo class three times a week, and could still throw around guys half his age. Telling her would only sound like bragging, so he kept quiet. Breakfast sat on a trestle tray in an alcove off the living room and smelled delicious. Gloria saw his eyes drift toward the food, and she brought her hand beneath his chin. She raised his face an inch and held his gaze.

“If I were to ask you a question, would you give me an honest answer?”

“I’d try,” he said.

“Come on. Yes or no?”

“Yes.”

“Did you shoot those two men in the stairwell last night? Everyone says you did.”

“Who’s everyone?”

“Please answer me,” she said.

You couldn’t be a television announcer for as long as Gloria and not have great eyes. Hers were a soft aqua that could melt your heart if you looked into them too long.

“No, I didn’t shoot them,” he said.

“Do you know who did?”

“No idea,” he said.

Gloria stared deeply into his eyes. After a few intense moments, her face softened, and he guessed she believed him. She gave him a soft kiss on the lips, then led him to the food.

He pulled a chair out for her, then sat down to break fast. He’d known Gloria four full days, and their relationship seemed to be forging ahead at warp speed. He liked her, she liked him, and they never ran out of things to talk about.

Below a metal tray a Bunsen burner kept the food warm. Everyday scrambled eggs with cheese, bacon, hash browns. She loaded up his plate, and as he bit into a strip of bacon, she gave him a look.

“Something wrong?”

“I was wondering about your sports jacket,” she said, serving herself half the amount of food she’d served him. “You’ve worn it every day, yet it always looks fresh. No wrinkles or stains. Do you get it dry-cleaned each night?”

“I have several,” he admitted.

“You alternate them?”

“Yes.”

“Are they all black?”

“All black. My late wife used to call them my uniform, I guess because you can only wear a black sports jacket with a white shirt and dark pants.”

“You been wearing them for a long time?”

He thought about it. “Twenty-eight years.”

Her fork landed on her plate with a jarring clang. “You’ve worn the same make of black jacket for twenty-eight years?”

He suddenly realized the deep hole he’d dug for himself. If he’d learned anything since he’d started dating, it was that women were as interested in a man’s personal habits as they were in his opinions. And he had just told her that he was a neanderthal.

“Maybe I should explain,” he said.

She leaned forward. “Please do.”

“It’s sort of a long story.”

“I like long stories.”

His mouth had become dry, and he sipped ice water.

“In the 1970s, New Jersey was going broke, so the politicians tried to convince the voters to legalize casinos, even though nobody wanted them. Our illustrious governor, a guy named Brendan Byrne, barnstormed the state, and told people that New Jersey’s casinos would be different than Las Vegas, and would feature ‘European-style’ gambling.”

“As in Monte Carlo?”

“Yes, as in Monte Carlo. Byrne made it sound like James Bond was going to be gambling, instead of some poor guy who hauled garbage.”

“How funny.”

“It was. When gambling was legalized, Byrne established a dress code. Men were supposed to wear jackets inside the casinos.”

“Classy. Did it work?”

He smiled, the memory as fresh as the day it had happened. “It was a disaster. The first casino was Resorts International. It opened on Memorial Day weekend, and the line of people was a mile long. When the doors opened, they came in like a stampede. The casino had put five hundred black sports jackets in a cloak room near the entrance, with the idea being that men who didn’t have a jacket would rent one. No one did.

“I was working inside the casino. One day, the floor manager comes up to me, and says, ‘Tony, turn around.’ I did, and I felt him run a tape measure across my back like a tailor in a clothing store. He said, ‘Perfect, you’re a size forty-two,’ and he told me to follow him.

“He led me to the room where the sports jackets were, and pointed at a rack. He said, ‘Tony, these jackets are forty-twos. Take what you want. We’re throwing them out.’ Well, they were all brand new, and my wife and I were barely scraping by, so I loaded up my car, took them home, and stored them in a spare closet. The next day, I loaded up the car again.”

“How many did you take?”

“All of them.”

“How many was that?”

He’d worn through two jackets a year for the past twenty-eight years, and still had a half dozen left.

“Sixty-two,” he said. Then added, “It saved us a lot of money.”

“Did you ever consider retiring the jackets after you left the police force?”

“Yeah, but I decided against it. The jackets were Geoffrey Beene, who’d had a boutique at Resorts. They were the best clothes I’d ever worn.”

“Your uniform,” she said.

“Yeah. My uniform.”

Gloria looked at her watch and stood up. “I need to run. I have an interview with one of the poker players in ten minutes. Stay and finish breakfast, if you like.”

She grabbed her jacket off the couch and hurried to the door. He followed her, not certain what she thought of his story. He hoped it didn’t make him sound too eccentric.

“Will I see you later?” she asked, stopping at the door.

They were the sweetest words she could have said. Valentine started to answer, then remembered what he’d wanted to talk to her about.

“I need to tell you something,” he said.

She put her jacket on, and tossed back her hair. “What’s that?”

“There may be another hitman gunning for me.”

“That’s awful, Tony. What are you going to do?”

“I need to change my room, maybe start wearing a disguise when I’m in the hotel. I wanted you to know in case—”

“In case what?”

“In case you didn’t want to be around me.”

“But I enjoy being around you,” she said. “Do you think I invite every guy I meet up to my room for break fast?”

He did not know what to say. She put her arm on his shoulder and rested it there—something a good friend might do. She crinkled her nose. “Thank you for telling me. May I make a suggestion?”

“Sure.”

“Move in with me. You can sleep on the couch.”

His napkin escaped his fingers, and fell to the floor. Gloria was the nicest woman he’d met in years, but that didn’t change the fact that he was investigating the tournament, and she was covering the tournament for her network. He never mixed business and pleasure, which was why the words that came out of his mouth surprised him.

“Okay.”

“Just okay?”

“I mean, yeah, that’s great.”

She gave him a kiss, then consulted her watch again.

“Now I’m late. Talk to you later.”

She was out the door before he could say good-bye.