Funny Money

15 RDX

They left him with a long piece of string with a handcuff key tied to the other end. Valentine took his time pulling the string in and freeing himself, not inclined to run after them. Getting KO’d was no fun, especially at his age. He’d feel the effect for days, maybe longer.

The cold had seeped into his bones. Rising, he took a piss in the corner, then walked around the room. Stopping at a window, he stared at a white van sitting at a traffic light a block away. It was the same van he’d seen outside the IHOP, a real junker. It didn’t make sense. They’d stolen six million bucks, why not get a decent set of wheels?

He found the stairwell and descended cautiously, clutching the railing for dear life. A rat ran past, brushing his ankle. Kicking down a splintered door, he stepped into a backyard strewn with bottles and cast-off tire rims. The building next door looked familiar and he peered over the fence. Two blocks away, he saw the Chatterbox’s neon sign. He hopscotched his way to the sidewalk, then started walking.

The temperature had dropped, his breath as white as freshly fallen snow. At the corner, a woman stepped out of the shadows. It was the hooker from the Chatterbox. She parted her jacket and he saw that she’d stripped down to the red underwear she’d so kindly shown him earlier.

“Scram,” he said.

The Chatterbox was closed. He banged on the front door anyway. The bartender came to his rescue, microwaving him a cup of coffee and giving him an ice pack. Fifteen minutes later he climbed into the Mercedes. He had the key in the ignition when he heard a voice inside his head.

Never let your guard down.

Yun had said that to him a hundred times the year he’d gone undefeated. He got out, dug a newspaper out of a trash bin, and spread it on the macadam. Then he looked under the car.

“Jesus Christ,” he said.

Davis arrived with the Atlantic City bomb squad.

He’d taken Valentine’s advice and ditched the Chevy for an immaculate ’74 Thunderbird. Driving it, he didn’t look like a cop anymore, a fact he seemed to appreciate as much as anyone.

“She’s my baby,” he said. “Bought her secondhand when I got out of high school. Put a new engine in, refurbished the interior. The whole nine yards.”

He’d brought two cups of police house coffee. Valentine found himself liking the detective again. Sitting in the Thunderbird, they watched the bomb squad defuse the explosive device taped to Valentine’s starter and drop it in a bucket of water. The captain of the bomb squad waved to Davis. Davis replied by flashing his brights.

“How long were you on the force?” Davis asked.

“Thirty years.”

“Was Doyle your partner the whole time?”

“Just about.”

“Like being married, huh?”

“Worse,” Valentine told him.

“How was it worse?”

“No sex.”

The detective spit coffee through his nose.

“You’re brutal,” he said.

Valentine wasn’t going to argue with him there. The bomb squad van drove away. Davis leaned against his door, staring at him in the semidarkness. “You realize I’m going to have to investigate this.”

“Of course.”

“Anything you want to tell me?”

Valentine shrugged. “I was in the bar, I came out, found a bomb under my car. What else is there to tell?”

“How about that bump on your head?”

“I slipped on the stoop.”

“Alice Torkalowski told me you were New Jersey state judo champ five years running.”

“That’s right.”

“Then you didn’t fall down coming out of some bar.”

Valentine sipped his coffee. “Sorry.”

“So here’s the deal, my friend. Don’t leave town. In fact, don’t leave your motel. I’ll call tomorrow, and you’ll come down to headquarters and talk to a bunch of detectives and try to get this straightened out. Dig?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Because if not, I’ll haul you in and toss your ass in jail. Understand?”

“Yes, sir,” he said.

Valentine drove around town looking for the European’s white van because that was what his instincts told him to do. Looked in every alley and obscure side street and came up with air.

Slowly the night turned into day. He stopped and bought Advil and a bottled water from a crazy-looking soul sitting behind bullet-proof glass. Taking four, he drove back to the Blue Dolphin and soon was fast asleep.

His dreams were tortured, the events of the last three days mixed up in the bouillabaisse of his subconscious. Mercifully, the chambermaid knocked on his door at 10:30 A.M., and he dragged himself out of bed.

He took the usual shit, shower, shave, then lay on the bed and waited for his head to clear. He was beginning to wonder what the hell he was doing. He’d nearly bought the farm twice in the past two days, and still was no closer to avenging Doyle’s death. Maybe there was something to be said for staying put in Florida and growing old with his neighbors.

His cell phone rang. He waited a minute, then dialed into voice mail. It was Mabel. He called her back.

“I was worrying about you,” his neighbor said.

“I’m okay,” he said.

“You don’t sound okay.”

“Nothing that a fifth of bourbon won’t cure.”

“But you don’t drink.”

“There you go. Any luck on Yahoo?”

“Come to mention it, I’ve had a very productive morning. You wouldn’t believe how much information there is on the Internet about bomb making. Pipe bombs, Molotov cocktails, fertilizer bombs. You name it, it’s out there. There wasn’t a lot about RDX, or should I say, what is out there is classified information. So I called the Pentagon.”

The ceiling had started to spin. Valentine closed his eyes and said, “You didn’t.”

“I’m a taxpayer. Anyway, this nice young lady did a search on her computer. She said that RDX is used by the army and not available on the open market. It has many of the same components as nitroglycerin, only it’s ten times more powerful. She said that only really experienced bomb makers use it, because of the danger.”

“Where is it manufactured?”

“In the good old U.S. of A. Oh, hold on. There’s a call on the other line.”

Valentine put a pillow over his head. Then he tried to make sense of what Mabel had just said. The European was using an explosive that wasn’t available on the open market. So how had he gotten his hands on it?

“It’s that slimeball Nick Nicocropolis,” his neighbor said, coming back on.

“Who’s ripping him off now?”

“Some guy at blackjack. Nick taped him scratching his arm, and says you can see him sticking his hand up his sleeve. Nick thinks he’s switching cards. He had the player detained, but he wasn’t wearing a holdout, whatever that is.”

A holdout was a generic term for any device that allowed a crossroader to keep a playing card hidden on his body. Some holdouts were intricate pieces of equipment that cost thousands of dollars, like the Kepplinger body harness, while others were simple devices, such as a bulldog clip attached to a piece of elastic.

“So the guy was clean,” Valentine said.

“Nick said all he found was some trash around the player’s chair.”

“What kind of trash?”

“I’ll ask him.” She put him on hold, then returned. “Gum wrappers, a broken rubber band, some cigarette butts, and an eight-by-ten index card.”

“There’s his evidence.”

“Where?”

The pillow wasn’t doing any good, and he tossed it on the floor. “The rubber band and the index card. The crossroader wears the rubber band around his biceps with the index card tucked beneath the elastic. That’s what holds the cards. When he smells trouble, he sticks his hand up his sleeve and breaks the rubber band. The evidence falls to the floor.”

“Can Nick prosecute with that?”

Valentine smiled into the receiver. Mabel was starting to sound like a cop. She really wanted this gig to work, and he found himself wanting it to work as well.

“No, but the crossroader is still screwed.”

“How so?”

“Nick has his face on film. He’ll make his security team memorize it. He’ll also send a picture to the Griffin Detective Agency, and they’ll put it in a book that they sell to the other casinos. The crossroader won’t be able to get a game of jacks.”

She giggled. “That’s wonderful. One more question.”

“Shoot.”

“When are you coming home?”

He heard a knock on his door. Sliding off the bed, he stuck his eye to the peephole in the door. It was Detective Davis, and the look on his face was not friendly.

“Soon,” he told his neighbor.