Funny Money

2 Cold

The cemetery was called Sunset Gardens, the manicured grounds new and horrible. The atmosphere was not serious enough, the place better suited for a happy-clappy John Tesh concert, with thirtynothings sipping overpriced wine and talking on cell phones. Getting out of the limo, Valentine heard another pallbearer mumble that Doyle wouldn’t have been caught dead in a place like this, ha, ha.

Grunting, the six men lifted the coffin out of the hearse and walked solemnly to the freshly dug hole that would serve as Doyle’s final resting place. The cold February air blew hard on their backs. Old-timers called Atlantic City the lungs of Philadelphia, the easterly winds often cruel and punishing. Depositing the coffin on a gurney, they filed out under the funeral director’s watchful eye.

Valentine walked with his head bowed, disgusted. Who wanted to be buried in a place that looked like a golf course? He’d buried his wife eighteen months ago and come away hating the business of death. Would you like the thousand dollar pine coffin, Mr. Valentine, or the two thousand dollar polished maple? What was he supposed to say — put her in a cardboard box, she won’t care and neither do I? But his grief had been too great, and he’d gotten hosed every step of the way, from the flowers to the tombstone. When he died, he was going to be cremated, his ashes spread on the Atlantic City shore. Simple and efficient, the way death was meant to be.

He stamped his feet to stay warm and listened to Doyle’s brother, Father Tom, read to the crowd from the New Testament. Cops and pols and every judge from the past thirty years had come to pay their respects. You couldn’t have worked law enforcement in Atlantic City and not known Doyle, and there wasn’t a dry eye on the lawn.

He stole a glance at Liddy, Doyle’s widow. She looked stricken, like she still could not believe it. A cop’s wife for so long, she must have thought that when Doyle retired the risk of his getting killed would end. She’d dropped her guard, and now she was paying for it. Her two sons, Sean and Guy, were doing a good job holding her up. Sean, a redhead, was his old man’s spitting image. Guy was more like Liddy, a musician, reflective.

Behind them, confined to a wheelchair, was Doyle’s mother Sarah. Back in ’74, Sarah had spearheaded the Casinos — No Dice campaign. She’d done such a good job convincing New Jersey voters that gambling was a bad bet that when a referendum did pass four years later, it was isolated to Atlantic City, a town nobody cared about. He remembered the last time he’d seen her. It was the night Doyle had gotten shot, twenty years ago. She’d come into the emergency room to thank him for nabbing Doyle’s shooter, who lay dying next door.

Father Tom asked the crowd if anyone wanted to speak in Doyle’s memory. Valentine stepped forward.

“Doyle was my best friend. And my partner. I know he’s looking down on us and not liking all the long faces. I know a lot of stories about Doyle. This one’s my favorite.

“Once, Doyle and I caught a chip thief. The thief’s name was Thurman, and he wasn’t very smart. Thurman would put his coffee cup on the table next to another player’s chips. When the player wasn’t looking, Thurman put the cup on the chips and stole one with gum stuck to the cup’s bottom.

“Doyle and I caught Thurman and ran him in. Thurman swore he didn’t know how the twenty-five dollar chip got stuck on his cup. We realized we didn’t have any proof except a used piece of gum, and it was going to be Thurman’s word against ours in court.

“Finally, Doyle had an idea. He went into the station house’s kitchen and found a metal colander. He put the colander on Thurman’s head and connected it with wires to a photocopy machine. While I distracted Thurman, Doyle wrote the words HE’S LYING on a sheet of paper and put it in the copier.

“Doyle had me do the questioning. I said ‘Thurman, did you steal that man’s twenty-five dollar chip?’ Thurman said, ‘No, sir!’ and Doyle pressed the copy button. The piece of paper came out, and Doyle held it up and said, ‘Uh-oh!’

“So I said, ‘Thurman, you’ve been doing this for a while, haven’t you?’ And Thurman said, ‘No, sir, not me.’ And Doyle pressed the copy button again. This time when the copy came out, it was enlarged to twice its size. Thurman started trembling, and Doyle said, ‘I think we’ve got our man!’

“Thurman confessed a short while later.”

Among the sea of mourners there were a few sad smiles. Returning to his place with the other pallbearers, Valentine bowed his head. Father Tom finished with the Lord’s Prayer, and then the crowd dispersed.

Doyle and Liddy lived in a split-level ranch house in the suburb of Absecon. Cars lined the street, and Valentine parked his rental on the next block. He hadn’t talked to Mabel all day, so he turned on his cell phone and dialed his office.

His call went straight to voice mail, which meant Mabel was talking to a customer. “Hey, kiddo, it’s me. Hope everything’s okay. I’m leaving my cell phone on. Call if you need anything.”

He got out of the rental and hiked it, the cold making him shiver. Finding the front door ajar, he went inside.

The living room was smoky and filled with cops, and he shook hands and slapped backs as he made his way over to a corner where Father Tom was tending to his mother, Sarah. Kneeling, Valentine kissed the elderly matriarch of the Flanagan clan on the cheek.

“It’s been too long, Mrs. Flanagan,” he said.

“Mother had a stroke last summer,” Father Tom told him. “She can’t speak.”

Valentine stared into the elderly woman’s withered face. In her chestnut-colored eyes he saw the old sparkle, all systems on go. Rising, he pumped Father Tom’s hand. Ten years Doyle’s junior, he’d given up a football scholarship to Notre Dame to do the Lord’s work. The priest said, “Mother and I were just looking at an old picture of you and Doyle. Weren’t we, Mother?”

The old woman blinked. Valentine swallowed hard.

“I’d like to see it,” he said.

In the middle of the living room, a table had been arranged with old photographs of Doyle. Father Tom removed one and handed it to him. It was a black-and-white snapshot of Valentine and Doyle in their septic cleaner uniforms, their first real jobs.

“I was trying to remember the slogan on your uniform,” the priest said.

“We’re number one in number two,” Valentine replied.

That got a smile out of him. Sarah blinked some more. Valentine put the photo back and excused himself.

In the kitchen he found Liddy tending to several guests who sat around the breakfast nook. Putting the coffeepot down, she threw her arms around him.

“Oh, God, Tony,” she cried softly. “When Lois died, I couldn’t imagine how you felt. Now I know.”

No you don’t, he thought, holding her tightly. You haven’t woken up for a year and a half saying good morning to someone who isn’t there.

“How the boys holding up?”

“So, so,” she sniffled. “We celebrated Sean’s thirty-fifth birthday last week. You know what he told me? He said, ‘I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to appreciate my own father.’ ”

Valentine thought of his own son, whom he’d been warring with forever, and wondered if those same words would ever leave Gerry’s lips. He doubted it.

“Where are they?”

“Out on the patio.”

“I want to talk to you later, if that’s okay.”

She smiled bravely. “I’ll be right here.”

He found Sean and Guy sharing a cigarette by the brick barbecue. He hugged Guy first and felt the younger boy’s heart beating wildly out of control. Guy pulled away and walked to the other side of the yard.

Hugging Sean, Valentine said, “Is he all right?”

“I think it’s just sinking in,” Sean said.

Valentine edged up to the younger boy. “Hey.”

Three generations removed from the motherland, Guy looked more Irish than either of his parents. He popped a cigarette into his mouth and offered Valentine one.

“Didn’t know you smoked,” Valentine said.

“Seemed like a good day to start.”

It was a good line, and Valentine gave in and took one. He’d quit the day he’d made detective and never found anything to replace the sensation of nicotine. They shared a match, and he filled his lungs with the great-tasting smoke.

“During the funeral, all I could think about was Dad’s killer,” Guy said. “How he got up this morning, had breakfast, read the paper, and did all the things that my father will never do again. It made me so... angry.”

Guy started to cry. He was going to miss his old man for the rest of his life, and there was nothing that Valentine could tell him that was going to make it any easier to deal with. They finished their cigarettes, and then Valentine’s cell phone rang.

It was Mabel. Guy and Sean went inside. Standing on the edge of the patio, Valentine said, “How’s it going?”

“I’ve got a panicked customer on the other line,” she said.

“Who?”

“Nick Nicocropolis in Las Vegas. He called up and yelled in my ear for five minutes. Said he’s getting ripped off by some slot cheats. He’s rude and very crude.”

Valentine was paid monthly retainers by a dozen casinos, and in return provided advice when the casino suspected it had been ripped off. Nick, owner of the Acropolis Resort & Casino, was a hardheaded little jerk who’d refused to sell out to the big hotel chains and was struggling to stay alive.

“Did Nick describe the scam?”

“Yes. He said a cleaning lady found thousands of silver dollars in a room and thought it suspicious. A husband and wife were staying in the room, so security watched them. The couple were playing one slot machine exclusively. Security detained them but couldn’t find anything. Nick’s holding the couple, and they’re screaming lawsuit.”

Guilty people usually did. “Call Nick up and have him describe what security found on the couple when they grabbed them. I’ll wait.”

Mabel put him on hold. Slot cheats were limited in their methods of stealing coins and rigging jackpots, and he had a feeling Nick’s security people were missing something obvious. His neighbor came back a minute later.

“Nick said the couple both had money, credit cards, and their ID. Oh, and both were drinking glasses of iced tea.”

“Nothing hidden up their sleeves?”

“No. And Nick said they frisked them.”

“Huh. Let me call you back.”

Shivering, he walked around the patio a few times. Eighteen months ago, he’d helped Nick nail another gang of cheaters, and the Acropolis’s layout slowly came back to him. Nick’s joint was ancient and still had many old-fashioned Bally’s cast-iron slot machines. Cast-iron slots could be manipulated much easier than the new computer-chip models, and he realized what the couple was doing. Taking out his cell phone, he punched in Nick’s number from memory.

Moments later, Nick was on the line. Nick was many things — sex fiend, loudmouth, ex-drunk — and also the squarest casino owner in Las Vegas. Valentine spelled it out to him. “The couple you arrested are a couple of old-time slot cheats. In one of their glasses of iced tea — which I hope you didn’t throw out — is an extra-long spoon. When they hit a jackpot, one of them blocks the machine from your surveillance cameras, while the other sticks the spoon up the coin slot so more coins will come out. It’s called spooning.”

“How the hell do I prosecute?” Nick growled.

“Check the spoon for marks, and check the inside of the slot machine for similar marks. If they match, that’s all the evidence you need to convict.”

“You’re sure about this,” Nick said.

“I’d bet my reputation on it.”

“You’re a smart guy,” Nick said, “even if you are from New Jersey.”

“Good-bye,” Valentine said.

The crowd thinned out around five; by six, it was just Valentine and Liddy and the boys. Tying on an apron, he filled the kitchen sink with hot water and attacked the dishes, Guy drying and Sean putting away, Liddy fixing another pot of coffee. The stereo played one of Doyle’s dixie jazz albums, Jack Maheu’s seductive clarinet floating through the house, Doyle’s easy laugh haunting every other note. When the dishes were done they sat at the kitchen nook with their cups.

“Tony,” Liddy said, “did you talk to Doyle recently?”

Valentine shook his head. He had not told anyone about his last conversation with Doyle. “No. Why?”

She stared into the depths of her cup. “Something was troubling him. We went out to dinner last week, and Doyle was grumpy and out of sorts. Finally, I asked him what was wrong, and he said, ‘If I told you, I’d have to kill you.’ He was trying to make a joke, but it didn’t come out that way.”

Valentine had a senior moment and dribbled coffee onto his shirt. He got a sponge from the sink and blotted it out before it turned into a stain. Then he said, “He must have said something...”

Liddy shook her head. “I tried. But he wouldn’t open up.”

Valentine finished his coffee. When Doyle was a cop, he’d talked to Liddy about the cases he was working on — Liddy had told Lois and Lois had told him — and Valentine had never seen any harm in it, Liddy not being the type to blab. So why hadn’t Doyle talked to her about this case?

The stereo played its last song and the house became silent. After a long moment, Sean spoke. “Yesterday, I met with a detective named Davis who’s working on the case. I asked him if he had any leads, and he told me that nine out of ten murders are committed by people the victim personally knew, or were friends with. I said, ‘Detective, you obviously didn’t know my father.’ He didn’t get it.”

“No one who was Doyle’s friend would have killed him,” Liddy said, wiping her eyes.

“Amen,” Valentine said.