Gift sense

3

In his dream, Valentine is a young man and his body still knows how to sprint. It is winter and he is running down the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, his lungs gripped by the wet bronchial cold of the sea. He passes Mel's Famous Foot-Long Dogs and the shuttered cotton candy stand. It is a moonlit night, and down by the shoreline, he sees a gang of men taking turns kicking a fellow police officer, who is lying in the sand. The officer is his brother-in-law, Salvatore, and he jumps the railing and draws his gun, firing in the air. The gang scatters.

"Oh, Jesus, Sal," Valentine says.

His brother-in-law is spitting up blood. Valentine kneels in the sand and cradles Sal's head in his arms. Soon the flow of blood stops and Sal's breathing grows tortured. Valentine gently shakes him, but his brother-in-law does not respond. Something warm seeps from Sal's body, and Valentine realizes it is Sal's soul he has encountered.

Voices fill the air. The gang has reappeared on the Boardwalk. Their leader, the notorious Sonny Fontana, jumps the railing and approaches him. He is holding a gun and makes Valentine drop his weapon. Then he makes Tony get to his feet.

Valentine has been hunting Fontana since the day the casinos opened in Atlantic City. Fontana has committed dozens of crimes, and now he can add murder to his resume.

Fontana smiles at him, like Sal's passing is no big deal. He puts his hand on Valentine's shoulder.

"You and I need to come to an understanding," he says.

Valentine cannot help himself. He knocks the gun out of Fontana's hand, then puts his hands around Fontana's throat. The gang members jump the railing, drawing their weapons.

Valentine squeezes hard, Fontana's eyes bugging out of his ugly face. It is suicide, but Valentine cannot stop himself.

It is a dream in which he has no control.

"What's up?" Valentine said, rubbing sleep from his eyes as he unlatched the screen door. Embarrassed, the freckle-faced FedEx driver stepped onto the porch and stuck a padded envelope into Valentine's hands.

"Sorry, Mr. Valentine, but I found this floating around my van," the driver explained sheepishly. "I rang the bell a few times. When you didn't answer, I got worried."

"Why?" Valentine asked crankily.

"You're the biggest customer on my route. I don't want to lose you, Mr. Valentine."

Lose me? The driver's knocking had ruined his nap, and Valentine was too groggy to come up with a clever comeback and fire it off, so he said, "Glad to hear it."

The driver handed him a clipboard and said, "If you'll just sign on the bottom line, I'll let you get back to bed."

"Won't sign anything I can't see," Valentine replied, fitting his bifocals on. "And I wasn't in bed. I was in the living room, working. Am I really the biggest customer on your route?"

"Just about."

Signing the form, Valentine asked, "Got a name?"

"Ralph Gomez," the driver replied.

Valentine stared at the driver's milky white arms and checkerboard face. "You don't look like a Gomez. I would have pegged you as a Murphy or an O'Sullivan, not a Gomez."

"What's a Gomez supposed to look like?"

"I don't know. Spanish, maybe Mexican. You've definitely kissed the blarney stone."

Gomez realized he was being complimented, and a thin smile creased his face. "My mom. Dad was Cuban-came over in the fifties. So what are you? Italian?"

Was he Italian? What kind of question was that? Even in his earliest baby pictures, Valentine looked Italian.

"No," Valentine snapped, "I'm Mongolian."

"Beg your pardon?"

"Chinese, like the fortune cookie."

Gomez's smile disappeared and his freckled face twisted in puzzlement, then outright confusion. The joke had flown right over his head and off the screened porch and was now spinning somewhere high above the stratosphere.

"Your mom or dad?" he inquired.

The envelope contained a surveillance tape from a casino in Reno, plus another frantic note from a pit boss. Every day across America, casinos were getting ripped off, the losses totaling millions of dollars. So much work, so little time.

Going to the kitchen, Valentine fixed his third cup of coffee of the day. Normally, two was his limit, but he'd slept so hard that he didn't think he'd fully wake up if he didn't get some caffeine into his system. Filling his cup from the tap, he poured the contents into the back of the Mr. Coffee maker, then placed his cup directly on the hot pad.

Thirty-five years married and you still act like a bachelor, Lois would say, watching the ritual each morning as she fried his egg and blackened the bottoms of his English muffins.

It's effective, he'd reply.

And frugal, she'd say.

That, too.

I bet it saves us, what, fifty cents a month on coffee beans, she'd say. Maybe more.

It's all I want, he'd say. Why fix more?

You make being wasteful sound like a crime, she'd say, spooning sugar into his cup, a smile on her face.

Maybe it is, he'd reply.

He sat at the kitchen table and sipped the scalding brew. Coffee just didn't taste right if it didn't take the skin off the roof of his mouth. The phone had rung earlier and he stared at the blinking answering machine. One of the great things about being retired was not having to call people back if you didn't want to. And right now, he didn't want to.

He glanced at his watch. Nearly dinnertime. Yet what he felt like eating was a big breakfast. The diner on Alternate 19 served a good one, twenty-four hours a day, but he didn't like sitting at the counter alone, looking old and pitiful.

Mabel materialized on his back stoop. He unlocked the door and she strolled in wearing canary yellow slacks and a flowered shirt right out of an old Sears catalogue. Because of the heat, she changed clothes several times a day, each outfit more garish than the last.

"I'm going grocery shopping and thought you might need a few things." Opening the refrigerator, she peered at the vacant shelves. "How about some Italian bread to go with your lasagna? Publix has a wonderful bakery."

Trying to put mom-and-pop delis out of business, the local supermarket now sold fresh bread and rolls. They almost tasted like the real thing, so he said, "Sounds great. Want a hot drink?"

"Tea, if you have it."

He put the kettle on, then extracted a ten from his wallet and slipped it into Mabel's shirt pocket.

"What's that for?" she asked.

"Gas money. How was your afternoon?"

"I watched the ball game. The Devil Rays won. It was so exciting."

Among the locals, it was a source of constant amazement that Tampa Bay's new baseball team was capable of winning a single game. Every time they did, it made the front page of both newspapers, with new heroes being christened every day. Valentine found the whole thing very perplexing. He'd grown up bowing to the Yankees, who were expected not to lose.

"I also worked on a new ad," she said. "Want to see it?"

"I'd be flattered," he said.

She produced a square of paper with borders and fancy type, the proud product of a home PC. Old? Tired? Forgotten? Has retirement got you singing the blues? Want to get even with your kids? And all those pesky credit card companies? Enroll today in Grandma Mabel's school of financial insolvency. You too can live like a millionaire. Remember: Dying broke is the best revenge!

"It's different," he said, sliding the ad back.

"You don't like it."

"It doesn't tickle my funny bone. It's…"

"Come on-I can take it."

"I don't know. A little extreme."

"Jokes are supposed to be extreme." Her mind was made up, and she tucked the ad away. "It's going to cost more to run, but Social Security is sending me two hundred extra a month, so it won't be a stretch."

"Then go for it," Valentine told her.

"So what did you do this afternoon?"

"Believe it or not," he said, "I watched the tape I showed you earlier today."

"Still got you stumped?"

The kettle was singing. Valentine fixed Mabel's tea, spooning in a half-teaspoon of honey, and served his neighbor.

"Right now, I've got two theories," he replied, sitting down again. "The first says the guy's reading the dealer's body language each time she peeks at her hole card. In those situations, his winning percentage is unbelievably high."

"Really?" Mabel sounded amused. She sipped her tea. "What does she do-stick her tongue out each time she has blackjack?"

"It's a little more subtle than that."

"Try me."

"Well, there are two types of dealers: those who want you to win and those who don't. If a player can peg which type of dealer he's got, he has an advantage."

"You're losing me. Why do certain dealers want you to win and others not? Why should the dealer care?"

"Tips," he explained. "The ones who want you to win expect a tip when the night is over. The ones who don't are usually so jaded that no amount of money will make them happy. They want the players to lose because it makes them feel good."

"And the dealers give their feelings away by their body language?"

Valentine sipped his coffee and nodded. "They're called tells. Poker players use them all the time. I've never seen them used at blackjack, but there's always a first time."

"He'd have to be very good, wouldn't he?"

"Damn good."

"What's your second theory?"

"The girl is signaling him."

"How?"

"I have no earthly idea."

"How can that be a theory if you don't know how it's being done?"

"Because it's logical," he explained. "Experience says lean toward the simplest theory. Maybe she's doing it with her eyes or her lips or the way she flares her nostrils. I'd have to see her in person to know for sure."

"So the girl's guilty?"

"It's a distinct possibility."

Mabel put her cup down, her eyes fixed on the blinking answering machine. Valentine fidgeted uncomfortably.

"Not to change the subject," she said, "but have you spoken to Gerry lately?"

"He called over the weekend," he mumbled.

"Did you have a conversation, or did he have to leave a message on that horrible machine?"

If Mabel had a flaw, it was her unwillingness to let sleeping dogs lie. Six months before, he'd lent his son fifty thousand dollars to buy a bar in Brooklyn, New York. His son had been in and out of trouble over the years, and Valentine had always begrudgingly bailed him out. The bar, Gerry had promised him, would be a new beginning. So when Valentine had gone to visit a few weeks ago, he'd been shocked to find Gerry sitting at a desk in the back room, running a bookmaking operation. "You're early," his son had quipped, a phone pressed to his ear. Removing his belt, Valentine had whipped his son's butt good-and had not talked to him since.

"What's so horrible about my machine?" he asked.

"You need to change the message."

"I like the message. It's me."

"Are you going to answer the question or not?"

"You know," he said, "when you talk like that, you sound just like my dearly departed wife."

"I'm sorry. Would you please answer the question?"

"I was out in the backyard."

"Did you call him back?"

"I haven't gotten around to it."

"Tony, I'm ashamed of you."

"That makes two of us."

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

"I'm ashamed I dislike my son as much as I do."

"Then why won't you call him?"

"He's not worth it," he said, ending the conversation.

Valentine escorted Mabel down the front path to her car, an old Honda Accord with a vanity plate that said spoofs. She got in, and as he closed the door for her, she said, "At least listen to your machine."

"All right, all right," he said.

"And call your son."

"No," he said as she drove away.

Going inside the house, Valentine hit the Play button on his answering machine.

"Hey, Tony-Wily here at the Acropolis. Love the message. I've got a big problem, buddy, and I need your help."

Valentine winced. He hated it when total strangers called him buddy. Pal was acceptable; Hey, friend, okay; Yo, chief, borderline; but never buddy.

"Believe it or not," the pit boss went on, "the guy on the tape showed up again. He started beating us, so we tossed him. Our head of surveillance watched the tape and decided our dealer was signaling him. We had her arrested this afternoon. We showed the tapes to Gaming Control, and they're not convinced. They think we should drop charges." The pit boss coughed nervously. "It's a real fucking mess. I'd like you to fly out here and have a look. I know this is spur of the moment, but my ass is on the line."

"I'll bet it is," Valentine said to the machine.

"Money's no object. I'm begging you, Tony. I'm having an airline ticket couriered to you. Call me."

Valentine erased the message. Vegas in August? Who was this joker kidding? Besides, what could he do? The Gaming Control Bureau was the single most powerful entity in Las Vegas and was responsible for prosecuting any cheating taking place inside a licensed casino. They were the knights on the white horses who were entrusted to keep things honest. Without their support, Wily didn't have a pot to piss in.

He stuck Mabel's lasagna in the microwave while thinking about the young woman on the tape. She was a sweet-looking kid and not the type he'd normally suspect of cheating. Now that she'd been arrested, her career dealing blackjack was over. It would be a crying shame if she was innocent.

The kitchen phone rang. Dinnertime was the witching hour for solicitors, and he let his machine pick up.

"This is Tony Valentine. I don't answer my phone because too many jerks call. Leave a message or a fax. Or you can go away. It's up to you."

"Hey, Pop, it's Gerry," his son's voice sang out. "Guess I missed you again. Glad you're leading an active social life down there."

"Get on with it," Valentine said to the machine.

"… anyway, it looks like I'm coming down to your neck of the woods. I scored some tickets to the Devil Rays and Yankees game tomorrow, and I figured we might catch a game. Whaddaya say? It would be fun, like old times. I'm flying down in the a.m. on Delta. Call me at the bar, okay?"

Valentine took the lasagna out of the microwave and stuck a fork in it. A baseball game sounded great, only not with Gerry. His son had been making his life miserable for years, and he wanted him to suffer and do a little penance. He did not think that was so much to ask.

His doorbell rang. His place was turning into Grand Central Station. Valentine went to the door; through the window, he saw a Tampa Express van parked in his driveway.

He opened the door, and the strangest-looking courier he'd ever seen waltzed in. Shaved head, with a dozen silver pins connected by silver chains adorning the side of his face. The name tag above his pocket said Atom. Had his folks actually christened him that?

Atom handed him a thin envelope, then produced a pen from behind a pierced ear. "Sign on the label."

Valentine scribbled his name, and Atom tore off the receipt.

"Atom, mind if I ask you a question?"

"Not at all."

"How much did it cost to have those pins put in your face?"

Atom smiled, thinking he was being paid a compliment. "I got it done in Ybor City at Pin amp; Pierce. Three hundred for all twelve. The chains were extra."

"Atom, if a man came up to you in the street, knocked you down, and pierced your cheek with a hat pin, they'd put him away for ten years."

Atom looked puzzled. Then his face reddened; Valentine almost could've sworn that the pins also changed color. "This is different," he spouted defensively.

"I'm glad one of us thinks so," Valentine said.

Atom refused a tip. Valentine shut the door and tore open the envelope. Inside was a ticket to Las Vegas on Delta, the departure the next morning. He checked the seat assignment. Wily had sprung for first class.

The phone rang and he let the machine pick up.

"Hey, Pop, it's Gerry. I just spoke to Mabel Struck on her cell phone. She says you're home and that you're probably standing in the kitchen sticking your tongue out at the phone. Look, Pop, enough is enough. I'm coming down to Florida whether you like it or not. We need to hash this out. Like men."

Like men? What were they going to do, Greco-Roman wrestling on the floor? Gerry didn't know how to act like a real man; that was the fundamental problem. "Get serious," he shouted at the phone.

"I mean it, Pop. I'm coming down."

The line went dead. His son sounded hurt. Good. Their rift was finally getting to him. His mother had coddled him, and now that she was gone, he was finally faced with having to grow up, whatever that meant these days.

Valentine checked the ticket again. The return had been left open. Neat-he could fly home once Gerry was safely back in New York. All of a sudden Las Vegas in the middle of August sounded like a nice weekend getaway.

He went to the bedroom and pulled a suitcase from the closet and started tossing clothes into it.