Funny Money

23 Shaft, The First Version

Valentine couldn’t believe it: Gerry and Yolanda were gone. He knocked on the door to his son’s hotel room again, just to be sure. Then saw the hand-written note lying on the ground. Kneeling, he picked it up.

Went to catch a dream. Back by 6.

“You dope,” Valentine said. He heard the phone ringing in his room as he unlocked the door. There was only one person he felt like talking to right now, and that was Mabel. Taking a chance, he answered the phone and was rewarded by the sound of her cheerful voice.

“You’re going to be so proud of me,” she said.

“What did you do?”

“I solved my first case.”

He made the bed sag and unbuttoned his coat.

“Tell me.”

“Well, you got a FedEx package this morning marked urgent, so I figured I better open it. Inside was a letter from a joint in Laughlin, Nevada, called Lucky Lill’s, and a check for two hundred dollars. Lill wrote the letter herself. She sounded desperate.”

Valentine couldn’t help but smile. Mabel had called the place a joint. Casinos with names like Lucky Lill’s were joints. His neighbor was learning the business fast.

“I know two hundred dollars is below your minimum fee, but you know how I am about money. So I figured maybe I could help her. Lill’s husband died a few months ago and left the casino to her. Lill doesn’t know much about gambling. She sent a surveillance tape of three Asian men who beat her for five thousand dollars at blackjack. I watched the tape for hours and figured out they were card counting.”

“You sure?”

“I’m positive.”

“How?”

“One of the books in your library said that the best way to spot card counters is by bet fluctuation, so I wrote down how the Asians bet. Any time they quadrupled their bets, I got suspicious. I wrote down the time showing on the surveillance tape, then rewound it and played the tape back. Then I wrote down which cards came out of the shoe. They were all high-valued. Which meant they were counting.”

There were easier ways to spot counters, but Mabel’s method would do in a pinch. She was right: He was proud of her.

“You tell Lill this?”

“I most certainly did. She was most appreciative.”

“Congratulations,” he said.

“I assume you’ve decided to stay in Atlantic City and finish your job.”

“I have. Thanks for the pep talk yesterday.”

“You’re welcome. One last thing. Detective Davis called about an hour ago. He said if you didn’t call him by three o’clock, he was going to track you down and have you arrested. I assume he’s joking.”

“Of course he’s joking.” He glanced at his watch. It was a quarter till three. What had he done wrong now? He started to sign off, then said, “You did good, kid.”

“You think I have a future?”

“I sure do,” he said.

He called Davis on his cell phone and caught the detective driving in his car. Davis did not sound happy. They agreed to meet at the IHOP.

Ten minutes later Valentine pulled into the vacant lot and parked. Locking the .38 in the glove compartment, he went inside.

Dottie, his least favorite waitress, was manning the register, an impossibly long ash dangling from her cigarette. He’d never come back for his change, and he stopped at the counter.

“Remember me?”

“Nope.”

“I was in the other day with my son. I gave you a hundred-dollar bill for breakfast; you said you didn’t have any change. Told me to come back later.”

“Wasn’t me,” Dottie said.

“Sure it was.”

“Look mister...”

“I want my change,” he said irritably. “The meal was nine bucks. Add a buck tip, and you owe me ninety dollars.”

“I’m telling you, it wasn’t me.”

Valentine could tell where this was going. He should have come back immediately and not let Dottie write him off. In the back counter mirror he saw Davis’s Thunderbird pull in. The detective came through the front door with a stern look on his face, his designer shades vanishing into his breast pocket. He was wearing hip-hugger jeans and a black leather jacket and looked just like he’d stepped off a movie set. Valentine motioned him over.

“Dottie, this is my friend Eddie.”

“Hi,” she said stiffly.

“Hello, Dottie,” the detective said.

“Dottie and I have a little disagreement,” Valentine said, “which you could settle by showing her your credentials.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your badge.”

Davis flipped open his wallet and stuck his silver detective’s badge in the mean-spirited woman’s face. Dottie changed colors, her waxy cheeks glowing red. Davis kept the badge out, and Valentine sensed that he was enjoying himself. Maybe he’d come in for coffee once and Dottie had been slow serving him. Or hadn’t bothered serving him at all. That kind of crap went on every day in America.

“So what do you think?” Valentine asked her.

The no sale flag appeared on the register. Dottie counted ninety dollars into his waiting palm. Valentine handed her two dollars back. “Two coffees, when you get a chance.”

“I hope she’s not in the back pissing in our cups,” Davis said as they slid into the farthest booth from the counter. “I’ve seen that one before.”

“Why don’t you ask her?” Valentine suggested.

“You’re just filled with good ideas, you know that?”

Their coffee came, Dottie bringing giant mugs and pouring from a fresh pot, treating them like normal customers. Davis spooned cream and sugar into his mug, then said, “I thought you told me yesterday you were going to apologize to Kat Berman.”

So that was what this was about. Feeling relieved, Valentine said, “I got sidetracked.”

“Well, she called the station this morning. The call got transferred to me. I told her we’d spoken, and how sorry you were. I promised her I’d find you and get you to apologize.”

Davis was starting to grow on him. He said, “Did she give you a number where I can reach her?”

“You’re not getting off that easy,” Davis said.

“What do you mean?”

“I called her ten minutes ago and told her I was meeting you here. She’ll be by soon. You can apologize to her in person.”

Valentine’s cheeks grew warm. He felt like he was six years old and his mother had just scolded him. “I really appreciate this, Eddie.”

“I bet you do. So here’s what I want in return.” Taking a piece of paper from his leather jacket, he unfolded it, and slid it across the table. “The lab boys put Doyle’s notebook through an ESDA machine yesterday. The machine detected an impression of a page that had been torn out. It was a note Doyle had written to his brother, Tom. Take a look.”

Valentine slipped his bifocals on. The ESDA machine made a copy that looked like a bad Xerox, and he had to squint.

Davis leaned forward and lowered his voice. “If I’m reading this note right, it seems that Doyle discovered another scam at The Bombay, one where employees were involved. Normally, I’d go and lean on Tom Flanagan and find out what Doyle told him. However, since you were tight with Doyle, I figure you might be able to get him to open up.”

Valentine put his bifocals away, then slid the note back to the detective. “The scam Doyle is referring to involved slots. A lot of employees were in on it, probably a whole shift. But it never came off.”

Davis sat up very straight. “Say what?”

“I spoke to Liddy Flanagan about it. She said Doyle spoke to the auditors at the Division of Gaming Enforcement, and the Casino Control Commission. They monitor the take on The Bombay’s slot machines every week. And the auditors said the take was normal.”

“So what happened?”

Valentine chose his words carefully. He hated guessing, but in this case, he had no choice. “My gut says Doyle stumbled onto the scam right as it was about to happen. The employees got scared and backed off.”

“You don’t think the employees killed Doyle to keep him quiet, do you?”

Valentine shook his head. “Doyle had a lot of friends at The Bombay. But I’ll tell you this: Every one of them probably pissed in their pants when Doyle got killed.”

“Thinking they’d get blamed,” Davis said.

“Exactly.”

The detective grew silent. Then said, “We’re talking about what, a hundred employees who must have known about this.”

“At least.”

“People in the cage, security people, chip people, dealers. A lot of lives ruined if I decide to keep digging.”

“A lot of lives.”

Davis finished his coffee. Conspiracy to defraud a casino was a serious crime in New Jersey. But Valentine had a feeling the people involved had learned a lesson. Like Doyle, he had a lot of friends at The Bombay, and he did not want to see them go to jail for a crime that had never come off.

“Let it go, Eddie,” he told the detective.

Their check came. Davis was taking his wallet out when his eyes flew out the window. He whistled through his teeth. “As I live and breathe. What do we have here?”

Valentine followed his wolfish gaze. A navy Saturn had parked in the IHOP lot, and a knockout of a woman was getting out. He slipped his bifocals back on. It was Kat Berman.

“That’s her,” Valentine said.

“That’s the woman you knocked down?”

Davis’s eyes were dancing, the juices flowing to places they hadn’t been flowing before. They both stood up as Kat entered the restaurant and approached their table. She was wearing makeup and had brushed out her mane of hair, the effect strong enough to make Valentine catch his breath.

“So let’s hear it,” she said, looking straight at Valentine.

“I want to apologize,” he mumbled.

“So do it!” she snapped.

“I’m sorry about the other night. I was out of line.”

She crossed her arms. “That’s pretty lame.”

“I’m really sorry,” he said, feeling like an idiot.

“That’s a little better.”

“From the bottom of my heart.”

“Much better.” She glanced at Davis. “Hello.”

The detective was grinning like a kid at his first school dance. “How you doing,” he said cleverly.

She looked at Valentine. “Would you mind?”

“Mind what?”

“Introducing us.”

Valentine was not used to having his tongue tied in knots. This woman was having a strange effect on him. He said, “Kat Berman, I’d like you to meet Richard Roundtree.”

“Nice to meet you, Richard.”

Davis stared at Valentine like he’d lost his mind.

“Who?”

“What did I say?”

“Richard Roundtree...”

Kat was laughing. “You know, you look just like him.”

“Who?” the detective said.

“Richard Roundtree,” they both said.

Davis was fuming, any potential for magic reduced to a shambles. He shot a murderous glance at Valentine, who busied himself staring at the floor.

“I need to run,” the detective said. “It was nice meeting you, Kat.”

“Nice meeting you, Richard,” she giggled.

Valentine walked Davis to his Thunderbird. He put his hand on the younger man’s arm and got the cold shoulder. “Hey look, I’m really sorry. I think it has something to do with growing old. Not all the neurons connecting.”

Davis murmured something unpleasant under his breath, then got into the car. A moment later the window rolled down, his profile a study in constraint.

“You are one cagey old man,” he said.

And before Valentine could ask him what he meant, the detective gunned the ancient engine and drove away.