Loaded Dice

31

Valentine walked back into the living room and saw Fontaine standing with a group of FBI agents, shooting the shit. He wasn’t handcuffed, and Valentine felt his head start to spin. Fontaine was a career criminal, yet the agents were talking to him like an old pal.

Two agents walked past, carrying the cowboy in a black body bag. The guy whose face Valentine had broken with the door was sitting up, and being given smelling salts by one of the FBI agents. He wasn’t wearing handcuffs, either.

Valentine realized Fontaine was staring at him. He returned the look and saw Fontaine smile like a guy who knows he’s Teflon-coated. One of the FBI agents said, “Let’s go,” and Fontaine walked up to Valentine, said, “My scar’s bigger than yours,” and followed the agent outside.

Valentine went to the window. Parting the blinds with a finger, he watched Fontaine hop into a car waiting by the curb. He had to imagine his feet were nailed to the floor to force himself not to go after him.

The remaining FBI agents cleared out of Lucy’s condo a few minutes later. Fuller got in Valentine’s face one more time and told him not to get any stupid ideas.

Valentine shook his head. He had run out of those.

Standing by the living room window, he watched the FBI agents pull away from the curb in three black sedans. Fontaine sat in the passenger’s seat of one car, being treated like a VIP. He let the blind drop and shook his head. The world had gone crazy and no one had bothered to tell him.

In the kitchen he found Lucy pouring herself a glass of wine. She got a Coke out of the fridge and said, “I know you like the artificial stuff, but is this okay?”

He said sure and took a seat at the kitchen table. She served him the can, then sat down across from him. Hoisting the wineglass to her lips, she took a long pull. The drink brought instant relaxation to her face. She lowered her glass and looked at him long and hard. The white in her eyes had turned pink.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Not really,” she said. “What happened to your face?”

“The head of finance at the Acropolis cut me.”

“Let me guess. He works with Fontaine.”

“Yeah. He seems to be the brains behind the operation. He also had tremendous clout within the Acropolis. My guess is, he had the twenty-five grand you won stolen from your room.”

Lucy’s eyes narrowed. “I hope you beat the shit out of him.”

“Come to mention it, I did.”

They went back to their drinks. Lucy polished off her wine, then went to the counter and refilled her glass. Watching people drink booze was one of his least favorite things, yet Lucy wasn’t bothering him. She deserved it.

She sat back down, this time taking the chair next to his.

“The way you shot the cowboy.”

Her words hung in the air like a puff of smoke. He let her finish.

“You’ve shot people before.”

“Yeah. I was a cop.”

“How many?” she asked.

“This is the fifth.”

“Does it bother you?”

“It will stay with me, if that’s what you mean.”

“How long?”

He drained his can of Coke and felt the buzz he got whenever he mixed sugar with caffeine. The look in her eyes said she really wanted to know.

“The rest of my life,” he said quietly.

She drew her chair closer and put her arms around him in an embrace, drawing his head close to her bosom, holding it there and kissing his crown.

She bandaged his face in the bathroom. Then, arm in arm, they walked to her bedroom, the movement of their bodies pressed against each other as natural as anything Valentine had ever felt. Like they were floating a few inches off the ground.

In the bedroom, she found a candle, propped it on her dresser, and lit it. It was perfect, he thought. She unbuttoned his shirt, and he stared at the bed, imagined them making love, then him jumping out of bed to go search for his son.

She had his shirt open to his navel, her fingers sifting through his mat of chest hair. In her kiss he felt a smile. He put his arms around her waist and held her.

“I have to go look for my son,” he said.

“You’re not going to stay?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

She heard the hesitation in his voice, and said, “Can’t your son wait?”

He shook his head. “He’s involved with this.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Lucy said.

She buttoned his shirt back up, gave him another kiss. They walked into the living room, and Lucy opened the front door for him. The dog that had barked when he’d shot out her light was still barking. No one in the neighborhood seemed to give a damn. He didn’t like that, and said, “Maybe you should stay in a hotel tonight.”

“Believe it or not, we have a neighborhood watch group,” she said.

“Right,” he said.

They both found it in them to laugh.

“I’ve got friends I can stay with, if it will make you feel better,” she said.

“Please. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

She kissed him again, and Valentine said good night.

Pete Longo lifted his head off the steering wheel. He’d fallen sound asleep, and stared now at the luminous clock on his dashboard. Seven twenty-five. Rolling down his window, he sucked down the cool night air, then glanced upward at the blinking stars that were slowly filling the evening sky.

Taking the infrared binoculars off his lap, he found the house he’d seen Valentine go into. Valentine’s car was still parked in the driveway, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t let him slip away. The front door opened, and a couple became silhouetted in the doorway.

Longo stared at them. It was Valentine and an attractive-looking woman. The problem with infrared binoculars was that they didn’t allow you to actually see in the dark. They needed light to work, but Valentine and his lady friend were giving him plenty of that.

He watched the woman kiss Valentine good night. She was real passionate about it. He tried to remember the way Kris used to kiss him. Had it been that good?

He decided that it had.

He’d had a lousy time of it since Valentine had broken his nose yesterday. He’d stuffed cotton up his nostrils, taken some aspirin, and figured he’d be okay. Only he hadn’t, and had woken up this morning with a splitting headache. He decided he needed a doctor and killed the day running around town, trying to find one willing to see him. The emergency rooms were all jammed with pregnant women and kids that had fallen off bikes, and it wasn’t until four that he’d found a two-year intern willing to shine a penlight up his nose.

“Your septum is deviated,” the intern said.

“Is that why I can’t breathe?” Longo asked.

The intern had taped a butterfly bandage to the bridge of his nose, and nodded. “You need to get your nose fixed by a surgeon. Otherwise, you’ll be breathing through your mouth the rest of your life.”

Valentine’s car was backing down the driveway. Longo reached down to start up his own car, and cursed. The keys weren’t in the ignition. He frantically ran his hand across the seat. Valentine’s car came down the street, and he lay sideways on the seat and watched the car’s headlights pass.

Sitting up, he dropped his hands to the floor. According to Murphy’s Law, the keys would have fallen to the most inconvenient spot. Sure enough, he found them lodged beneath the accelerator and the floor mat.

He jammed the keys in the ignition and fired up the engine. He was thinking about taking a shortcut to catch Valentine and did not see the fist come through his open window.

It caught him flush on the jaw. Pools of black appeared before his eyes. His door was jerked open, and a pair of hands pulled him roughly from the car. He rolled out and landed on the macadam. A thing began to crawl out of his stomach. Dinner.

“Aw shit, he’s puking,” a voice said. “You shouldn’t have punched him so hard.”

“He deserves it, fucking Peeping Tom,” another voice said.

“How can you be sure he’s the Peeping Tom?”

“I just am.”

“Look, here’s his binoculars,” a third voice said.

Longo made himself get sick. It was keeping them from hitting him anymore, and that was a good thing. He cracked an eye and saw three pairs of sneakers standing around him. Neighborhood vigilantes, one of them carrying a baseball bat. He flipped his wallet out of his back pocket, let it hit the ground. It contained the last of his money, and it was the only way he could think of to save his ass.

“Look, he’s trying to bribe us,” the first voice said.

“Take the money and break his kneecaps,” the second declared.

“Aren’t you the brave one,” the first said.

Longo saw the third man pick up the wallet. Seeing Longo’s gold detective badge, he dropped it on the ground.

“He’s a frigging cop,” the third man declared.

They did what any smart law-abiding citizen would do and ran like hell. Longo heard the front doors of their houses slam shut.

Soon the neighborhood grew peaceful, and the barking dog quieted down. He slowly got to his feet. His brain had been rattled; he was seeing two houses across the street where there was only one. The good news was, his jaw didn’t feel like it was broken.

“Hooray,” he whispered.

Longo climbed into the car. Turning the engine on, he hit the AC button and positioned the vents to blow in his face. It was an old trick he’d learned in college, the quickest way to cure a night of drinking.

The cold air felt like invisible ice cubes rubbing on his skin. Sucking up his courage, he dropped the visor above the steering wheel and looked at his face in the lighted vanity mirror.

“Jesus,” he groaned.

He had raccoon eyes, a swollen jaw and the undercarriages of his eyes were ringed black. The bad part was, it would look worse in a few hours. A lot worse.

He needed to find an ice pack and a soft bed. He was clutching his wallet in his left hand, and he opened it. They hadn’t touched his money, and he had enough for a cheap motel room. Making amends with Valentine would have to wait.

Driving away, Longo noticed a sign: NEIGHBORHOOD WATCHDOG GROUP. He’d always thought neighborhood groups were idiotic. He didn’t feel that way anymore.

32

Gerry took a hot shower in his motel room. His conscience would not let him forget that he’d killed a man a few hours earlier, and a pounding sensation filled his head.

Coming out of the bathroom, he found Pash and Amin in his room, the door that joined their rooms wide open. His hair was still wet, and he flipped it off his forehead the way he used to as a kid. To another Italian, the gesture was as rude as fuck you.

“I suppose you want to know what’s going on,” Amin said.

Gerry nearly told them to leave. Only he wanted to hear Amin’s side of things. The room had twin beds. He sat on one while the brothers sat on the other.

“I have a pretty good idea,” he said.

“You do?”

Gerry nodded. Amin had taken off his sweatshirt and was no longer packing a gun behind his belt buckle. Gerry said, “You figured out a way to take the money you were making at blackjack and quadruple it. You bought drugs.”

“That’s right,” Amin said.

Pash was looking at the carpet, wanting no part of the conversation. Reading his body language, Gerry guessed that the drugs were Amin’s idea. He felt bad for Pash.

“What did you buy?”

Amin seemed confused. “Mexican drugs,” he said.

“Coke, smack, or meth?”

“Smack?” Amin said.

“Heroin.”

“Cocaine,” Amin said. “We bought cocaine.”

“How many pounds.”

“Seventy-five.”

“Uncut?”

“It is pure, if that’s what you mean.”

Back when Gerry had run his bar, he’d heard about a lot of drug deals, and he knew how much seventy-five pounds of coke would fetch on the street. A telephone number, as some of his patrons liked to say. He fell straight back on the bed and for a long moment stared at the cheap popcorn ceiling. Dead flies were embedded in the popcorn, and he imagined them trying to escape the room, flying suicide runs into the ceiling. He pulled himself up into a sitting position and looked at his partners. Pash was still showing him the top of his head, while Amin held his gaze.

“A third of it is yours, once it’s sold,” Amin said.

“Not interested,” Gerry said.

“I will sell it in a few days, and give you your share,” Amin said. “Cold hard cash. If you want to leave then, you can.”

Gerry didn’t like the direction the conversation was heading. Amin was crazy—he’d killed a drug dealer. The Las Vegas police would know there were drugs on the street, and put plants out. If Amin wasn’t careful, he’d walk right into the hands of the law.

“No thanks,” Gerry said.

“But we had a deal,” Amin replied.

He had an emotionless way of talking, and it surprised Gerry, considering he’d watched a man burn to death a few hours ago. He said, “You never said drugs were involved.”

“Why does that make a difference?”

“It just does.”

“But why? It is business. Nothing more.”

“You ever see the movie The Godfather?”

“No.”

Pash lifted his head and whispered something into Amin’s ear. Amin’s expression changed, and he said, “Oh, the film with Marlon Brando?” He looked at Gerry. “Yes. I have seen that one. It is one of Pash’s favorites.”

“There’s a scene in that movie,” Gerry said. “All the godfathers are sitting around a gigantic table, trying to convince Brando to help them sell drugs in New York. Brando has the judges in his back pocket, and the godfathers want him to peddle some influence. Only Brando won’t do it. Remember that scene?”

Amin had to think. Pash whispered again, and Amin said, “Yes, I remember it.”

“Good. Brando tells the other godfathers that he won’t do it. He says, ‘Drugs will be the death of us all.’ Well, I feel the same way. I’ve never been involved with them, and I never will be. Okay?”

“But a third of the money is yours,” Amin insisted.

Gerry took a pack of cigarettes off the night table and popped one into his mouth. He wasn’t going to tell Amin that he was damn straight some of the money was his—he’d saved their asses. Rising, he went to the door, said, “Give it to charity,” and walked outside to have a smoke.

Valentine drove back to the Acropolis with his head spinning. He’d nearly jumped into the sack with Lucy Price. The woman had more problems than a Hollywood starlet. He couldn’t deny the magnetism he felt when he was around her. But was it enough of a reason to have a relationship with her?

The valet stand at the Acropolis was deserted, and he parked his rental by the front door and ventured inside. A velvet rope had been run across the entrance to the casino, and a sign announced that the place was closed. He stuck his head into One-Armed Billy’s alcove. Even Big Joe Smith was gone.

He went to the front desk and rang the bell. A reservationist with a familiar face emerged from the back room. Seeing him, she broke into a smile.

“Hi, Mister Valentine. I hear you kicked some ass this afternoon.”

Her name tag said LOU ANN. “It wasn’t that big a deal,” he said.

“Tell that to Albert Moss. I hear every bone in his face is busted.”

“Where is everybody, Lou Ann?”

“Our guests checked out when they heard the casino was closed,” she said sadly. “Kind of a glum day. I hear Nick’s going down.”

“You work here a long time?”

“Since I got out of college.”

“What’s that? Five years?”

Her smile returned. “Try twenty. You checking out, too?”

“No, I’m here for the duration. I’m looking for my son. His name’s Gerry. He hasn’t been in asking for me, has he?”

“I’ve been on duty since this afternoon, and I haven’t seen him,” Lou Ann said.

He’d promised Fuller he’d bring Gerry in by midnight. Henderson was a twenty-minute drive, and he decided to head out there to track his son down. He hadn’t done that since Gerry was in high school, running with the wrong crowd. The more things change, the more they remain the same, he thought.

He stepped away from the desk. “Thanks anyway, Lou Ann.”

“You want something to eat?” she asked. “The cook’s trying to get rid of the food. No reason to let it spoil.”

“Thanks for the offer, but I need to run,” he said.

“It won’t take five minutes. Give the staff some hope, knowing we have a guest.”

He didn’t know how to refuse a request like that. Lou Ann pointed at Nick’s Bar, and he crossed the casino and went in. A dozen employees were sitting at tables, eating. He sat down, and the hostess took his order.

While he waited for his food, he realized that Lou Ann and the other hotel staffers knew that Nick was heading toward bankruptcy and wouldn’t have the funds to meet their next paychecks. They’d stayed out of loyalty, a quality that was hard to find these days. Nick had always bragged that he had the best employees; now he understood why.

His cheeseburger arrived with a monster helping of french fries and an onion slice as big as the bun. He asked the hostess to thank the cook. The TV above the bar was on, and as he ate, he stared at the mute images on the screen.

He realized the images looked familiar. It was the same gang of FBI agents he’d met in Lucy’s condo. They were standing in the desert beneath the blazing sun. Behind them, a building was burning out of control. He found the bartender and persuaded him to jack up the volume with the remote.

The picture on the screen changed to a blond newswoman clutching a sheet of paper. “Reports differ as to what happened at a deserted auto shop off the Boulder Highway this afternoon,” she intoned gravely. “The highway was closed in both directions for several hours, with both the police and FBI manning the roadblocks. At the scene is Action News reporter Lance Peters.”

The picture changed to a Hollywood-handsome reporter standing in the desert. Grasping the mike with both hands, he said, “Thanks, Mary. Earlier, I talked with a Henderson Police Department spokesman and learned that there was a gun battle at the auto shop, which left one man dead. His partner, a Mexican illegal, was arrested in town driving a vehicle with an expired license.”

The picture jumped back to the female newscaster. “Lance, is it true that the FBI appeared on the scene with dogs and helicopters, and refused to let traffic pass in either direction?”

Back to Lance. “Yes, Mary. There are dozens of FBI agents out here. If I didn’t know better, I’d think we had a major catastrophe on our hands.”

The picture returned to Mary. “Did you get the opportunity to talk to any of them, Lance?”

Lance’s face lit up the screen. “That’s when things got hairy, Mary. The FBI refused to answer my questions, and threatened to seize our cameras and recording equipment if we filmed them. I do know that the FBI has taken the Mexican to an undisclosed location and is interrogating him.”

The picture went back to Mary. “Sounds like our tax dollars hard at work. In other news, six members of UNLV’s baseball team were suspended today for allowing imposters to attend classes for them. The team’s coach is appealing the suspension. All six players are hoping to play in next week’s College World Series . . .”

Valentine stuffed the last of his french fries into his mouth and rose from the table. Maybe the FBI could get involved with that case as well. They sure had gotten involved with everything else going on in Las Vegas.

He threw down ten bucks for the hostess, then remembered his cell phone. As he powered it up, it started to ring. He stared at its face and felt his heart skip a beat.

His son had finally decided to call him back.

33

Lying on the bed in his motel room with the lights out, Gerry spilled his guts to his father. He told him everything—from the moment he’d hooked up with Pash and Amin five days ago to the shootout at the gas station that afternoon. His father, God bless him, didn’t rush to pass judgment. He just listened, his breathing calm and measured.

“That’s all of it,” Gerry said, glancing at the clock on the bedside table. Twelve minutes had passed. It hadn’t been nearly as bad as he’d thought it would be.

“My gym bag was found in the townhouse of a dead stripper,” his father said. “You think Amin killed her?”

“Must have,” Gerry replied, keeping his voice below the TV, which he’d turned on to a baseball game, the running commentary a perfect cover. “Pash told me Amin was using strippers to launder chips into cash.”

“There’s nothing to tie you to this girl?” his father asked.

“No, Pop. I haven’t dated or slept with or even kissed another woman since I met Yolanda. I’m clean.”

“Good for you,” his father said.

The remark made Gerry feel good all over. His father didn’t hand out compliments very often, not that he’d done anything to deserve any. But they were nice to hear, and he added them to the mental checklist of things he wanted to do when his own kid grew up.

“So, you want me to go to the FBI,” Gerry said.

“Yes,” his father replied. “You need to let them hear your side of it, pronto.”

“What if they don’t believe me? What if they think I bought the gun and shot this girl?”

“I can prove you didn’t,” his father said.

“You can?”

There was a click on the line, indicating his father had another call.

“Hold on, Wonder Boy, I’ll be right back.”

His father put him on hold. Wonder Boy. His father hadn’t called him that in a long time. One summer when he was a kid, they’d vacationed at a resort in the Catskill Mountains, and his father had taught him a mind-reading trick called Second Sight. His father would stand on one side of the room, holding a coin given to him by a spectator in his fist. He’d say, “I want you to think hard. Please . . . be quick.”

“You’re holding a quarter,” Gerry would say. “The date is nineteen sixty-five.”

The trick was a real fooler. It was based on a simple code. I stood for the number 1. Am for the number 2. Can for the number 3. Other simple words stood for the numbers 4 through 9, and 0. By stringing the right words together, his father could relay the coin’s value, and date, in a single sentence.

They had done the trick for every guest at the resort. One of the older guests had christened him Wonder Boy, and the name had stuck. He heard his father come back on the line.

“Was that Mabel? How’s Yolanda doing?”

“I wasn’t talking to Mabel,” his father replied. “It was a woman I met.”

Gerry perked up. “She got a name?”

“Lucy Price.”

“You like her?”

“I met her yesterday.”

“Does she like you?”

“It seems that way.”

Gerry threw his legs over the side of the bed. He’d been hoping his father would start courting again. He’d hung out with a female wrestler for a while, but that had been a grief thing. “Good for you, Pop,” he said.

He heard his father breathing into the phone, and guessed he didn’t want to talk about it. Gerry said, “So how can you prove that I didn’t kill this stripper?”

“Easy,” his father said. “Nevada requires its gun stores to have surveillance cameras in case of robbery. That means there’s a picture of whoever bought the three fifty-seven with your credit card.”

Gerry smiled into the receiver. Leave it to his old man to save the day. He glanced at his watch. It was a few minutes past eight. “I’m going to pack my stuff and check out. I’ll meet you at nine-thirty.”

“Why so long?” his father asked suspiciously.

“Pop, it’s Saturday night. Traffic is going to be horrible. I’ll meet you at the Jokers Wild casino on Boulder Highway. There’s a small theater inside the lobby.”

“Why that dump?”

“There’s an act playing there you have to see.”

“This is no time to be seeing acts,” his father scolded him. “The FBI wants to talk to you.”

“You said we have until midnight.”

“Why push it?”

“Pop, this will take ten minutes. You won’t regret it. Trust me.”

He heard his father breathing into the phone.

“The Jokers Wild it is,” his father said.

Gerry hung up feeling good about things. There wasn’t that much in his life except Yolanda to feel good about, but his father could do that to him. Sometimes, his father could be the best person in the whole world.

He got his suitcase from the closet and opened it on the bed. He put his dirty clothes on one side, his clean on the other. Sandwiched between them, he put the Gucci loafers he’d bought in a casino gift shop. He’d seen them in the store’s window, and even though he was broke he knew he had to have them. From the bathroom he got his toilet kit, and he was done.

He went to the door and stopped. Should he say good-bye to Pash? Deep down, he still liked the guy—even if he was a chip off his brother’s block in the lying department. Better not, he decided. There was no telling how Amin might react.

He put his ear to the wall that separated their rooms. Pash and Amin were on the other side, engaged in a heated conversation. Their TV set was on, and he realized they were watching the same baseball game.

He had an idea, and turned up the volume of the set in his room. It would blend in with their set; he could leave without anyone being the wiser.

He opened his door. A gust of night air blew into his room and made him shiver. A highway ran parallel to the inn, and he saw globes of yellow light float mysteriously by, the headlights disembodied from their vehicles. He could hear boom boxes and people trash-talking in cars.

He took a deep breath. It was time for him to face the music. He crossed the gravel lot, his shoes crunching loudly. His suitcase was heavy, and halfway to his car he started to drag it. Popping the rental’s trunk, he hoisted the suitcase off the ground and threw it into the back.

He heard footsteps. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Amin coming up behind him wearing a grim look on his face. He didn’t think Amin was stupid enough to try something out in the open, and he started to walk around to the front of the car.

Amin called his name.

“Not interested,” Gerry said.

Amin yelled at him. Gerry slowly spun around and saw Amin standing ten feet away. Amin had stuck the .357 behind his belt buckle. Gerry glanced over his shoulder at the hundreds of cars passing by. Whoever had said there was strength in numbers hadn’t been kidding. He looked Amin in the eye.

“Go ahead and try something,” he said.

34

Valentine had taken Gerry’s call standing outside Nick’s Bar. Hanging up, he tried to remember where the Jokers Wild was situated on the Boulder Highway. He thought it was halfway to Henderson, on a deserted stretch of desert. A real down-and-dirty kind of place. He could only imagine what his son wanted to show him.

His cell phone was ringing, and he stared at the caller ID. It was Bill Higgins. He felt his jaw tighten. Bill had betrayed him. There was no other explanation for the FBI appearing at Lucy’s house. The bad part was, Bill knew that he and Fuller hated each other.

“Hey,” he said.

“We need to talk,” Bill said.

“I’m busy.”

“This is about your son. How soon can you get to my house?”

Valentine frowned into the phone. He had no intention of driving to Bill’s house tonight, and started to tell him so. Bill cut him short.

“You need to hear this, Tony. I don’t want to see your boy getting hurt.”

Valentine heard the warning in Bill’s voice. Bill’s house was due south, Jokers Wild southwest. Fifteen minutes max from one to the other. “I’ll be right over,” he said.

Bill’s partner, Alex, greeted him at the front door. Alex was a veteran ATF agent, a tall, gravel-voiced outdoorsman who spent his weekends rappelling in the mountains.

“What happened to your face?” Alex asked.

“A cheater over at the Acropolis cut me.”

“Pay him back?”

“In spades.”

Alex smiled and led him to Bill’s study. Tapping on the door, he said, “Tony’s here,” then walked away. Valentine went in. The room’s light was muted, the shades drawn. Bill sat behind his desk, wearing the same clothes from the day before. His TV was on, the image frozen. It was a surveillance tape, and showed an Ivy League guy in a Brooks Brothers suit playing blackjack. His stacks of chips reached just below his chin. If Bill was watching him, he was either a card-counter or a cheater.

“Have a seat,” Bill said.

Valentine sat across from the desk and watched Bill rub his face with his hands. He hadn’t shaved, and his stubble was predominantly gray. He was up for retirement in a few years, and Valentine guessed he’d take the same route as most Gaming Control Board directors—to the private sector, where he’d make three times the salary and deal with half the headaches. He lowered his hands, and Valentine saw that his eyes were bloodshot.

“You and I go back a long time,” Bill said. He let the statement hang for a few seconds. Then he said, “I’m about to tell you some things that could get me fired.”

“I appreciate that.”

Bill put his weight on his elbows and leaned forward. “Remember that letter you wrote two years ago, criticizing the FBI for demanding that every casino in the country start profiling Middle Eastern gamblers?”

“Sure.”

“Do you remember why the FBI asked the casinos to do that?”

Valentine dredged his memory. “There were two reasons. The first was that the FBI had information about a Middle Eastern gambler in the U.S. with ties to the 9/11 attackers. The second was that a Middle Eastern man was seen the morning of 9/11 about a mile from the White House. He showed a gas station manager a five-thousand-dollar casino chip. The manager thought it was suspicious, and reported it.

“The FBI thought the two stories might be linked. They asked the casinos to play Big Brother, and scrutinize every Middle Eastern gambler. I heard about it, wrote the FBI a letter, and reminded them there are five million Middle Easterners in the U.S. Profiling every one who plays in a casino is a waste of time.”

“You’re aware the FBI dropped the idea.”

“Yes. What does this have to do with my son?”

“The FBI found the guy,” Bill said. “Your son’s been seen with him.”

Valentine thought back to Gerry’s description of Amin and Pash.

“Jesus,” he said aloud.

There was a stack of photographs lying on Bill’s desk. Bill flipped the top one over. It was a surveillance shot of a Middle Eastern man, early thirties, playing blackjack. “This guy popped up in a homicide investigation in Biloxi last month. He befriended a gambler he met in a casino, used the guy’s credit card to buy stuff, then skipped town when things got hot. Before he ran, he murdered the guy and tried to make it look like a suicide.

“A homicide detective saw similarities in the case to another gambler suicide in Biloxi. Thinking he might have a serial killer on his hands, he sent the information to the FBI’s Behavioral Science Division. The FBI matched the case to four other gambler suicides they’d been investigating in Reno, Atlantic City, New Orleans, and Detroit.

“The FBI showed the photograph to the gas station manager in Washington. He confirmed that it was the same guy he’d seen the morning of 9/11. The FBI sent the photograph to every casino in the country, asked them to be on the lookout.”

Bill flipped over a second photograph. It showed two people standing outside a Strip casino called Excalibur. One was the Middle Eastern man, wearing shades and a baseball cap. Beside him was a pretty blond woman.

“Last week, a casino here spotted the guy and alerted the FBI,” Bill said.

Valentine pointed at the blonde. “That the stripper who was murdered?”

“Yes.”

Bill flipped over the last photograph on the desk. Valentine stared at it, and felt his face grow flush. It was the same man, this time wearing an elaborate disguise. He was sitting at a blackjack table. In the seat next to him was Gerry.

“This photograph was taken last night at the MGM Grand. The FBI believes your son is in mortal danger. They also think you’re protecting him. Fuller called me a little while ago. I told him that if you promised you’d bring Gerry in, you would.”

Valentine struggled for something to say.

“No need to thank me,” Bill said. “This can’t be easy for you.”

“How does Fontaine figure into this?”

Bill frowned. “The FBI got a hold of this guy’s phone bills and discovered he has a network of associates around the country. They listened to some calls and realized he was talking in a complicated code. Fontaine is a master at cracking ciphers, so the FBI sprang him out of prison. I was against the idea.”

Valentine looked at the clock on Bill’s desk. It was a few minutes past nine. It was going to take fifteen minutes to reach the Jokers Wild, and he didn’t want to be late. His son had gotten into trouble before, but never anything like this.

He rose from his chair. Bill stood as well, and handed him the surveillance photograph taken outside the Excalibur.

“You didn’t get that from me,” he said.

Valentine folded the photograph and put it in his pocket. “The FBI think I’m somehow involved because I wrote that letter two years ago, and then my son shows up with this guy.”

“I told Fuller it was a coincidence.”

“Did he believe you?”

Bill shrugged. “Hard to say what Fuller believes. He’s paranoid. He’s gotten the bureau all screwed up because of it.”

“You’re telling me,” Valentine said.

Bill started to walk him out of the study. Valentine stopped in the doorway. The frozen face on Bill’s TV had finally struck a bell.

“That’s Karl King,” he said.

Bill walked back into the room. “Know him?”

“He’s a card-counter. One of the best.”

“You’re kidding. He hardly ever looks at his cards.”

Valentine found the remote and resumed the tape. He stared at the other players, then the spectators standing behind the table. A regular joe smoking a cigar caught his eye. He stood behind King stiff as a statue. Counters had come up with many ways to camouflage their skills. Valentine said, “The guy with the cigar is doing the counting and passing the information to King.”

“How?”

“He has a computer strapped to his leg. See how he’s got his hand stuck in his pocket? He’s entering the cards’ values into the computer.”

Bill stared at the screen. “How’s he passing the information?”

“The computer does that with a radio signal. King wears a transmitter in his ear. The information is sent by Morse code.”

“But the casino’s RF detector didn’t pick anything up,” Bill said.

Every casino had an RF detector. Used to detect illegal radio frequencies on the casino floor, they were pointed down at the players from the ceiling.

“The signal is going through the back of King’s chair,” Valentine explained. “That’s why the RF detector isn’t catching it. The frequency is too short.”

“How do you know so much about this?”

“I busted King’s students a few months ago.”

“His students?”

“He’s a professor at MIT.”

Bill walked him to the front door of the house. They shook hands, and Valentine thanked him for his help. Bill had a funny look on his face.

“What’s wrong?” Valentine said.

“How do I stop King?” Bill said, clearly exasperated. “I can’t tell the casinos to have security walk the floor and point RF detectors at everyone.”

Valentine slapped his friend on the back. Sometimes the most obvious solutions were the ones everybody missed.

“Change the chairs the players sit in to ones with solid backs,” he said. “That should put an end to it.”

35

Leaving Bill’s neighborhood, Valentine turned his rental rightonto Las Vegas Boulevard. In the distance, he could see the neon spectacle that was Las Vegas at night, the casinos burning up hundreds of thousands of kilowatts trying to outshine each other.

Traffic was bumper to bumper, and he crawled ahead while staring at a green laser beam coming out of the tip of a pyramid-shaped casino called Luxor, the light ruining an otherwise flawless sky. Turning on the car’s interior light, he removed the surveillance picture from his pocket and drove with it on the steering wheel.

Was it his fault that this guy hadn’t been caught? He hated to think that it was, but still didn’t believe the FBI’s approach had been the correct one. Profiling people based on skin color was a throwback to the dark ages. There were better ways to catch criminals.

He drove with the picture on the steering wheel, staring him in the face.

At nine twenty-five he pulled into the Jokers Wild parking lot. The casino sat on a deserted stretch of the Boulder Highway. A rinky-dink marquee boasted nickel slot machines and single-deck blackjack.

He ventured inside. There was a theater just off the lobby. People were lined up for the nine-thirty show. Had Gerry said he’d meet him by the theater, or inside? He didn’t remember, and decided to stick his head inside the casino.

The gaming area was a low-ceilinged room with enough cigarette smoke to make breathing dangerous. It was packed, and he elbowed his way through to a pair of double doors. Opening them, he entered a bingo parlor. A caller in a plaid jacket stood on the stage.

“Folks,” the caller said, “it’s time to get up from your seats. Come on, you can do it. Don’t want the support hose to cut off our circulation!”

Valentine returned to the lobby. Gerry had said that he wanted him to see an act in the theater. He’d made it sound like something special. Was his son already inside, waiting for him? He bought a ticket and went in.

The theater was filled with rough-looking people chugging beers. He walked up and down the aisles but didn’t see his son. The lights dimmed, and he went and stood by the exit. Over the PA, a man’s booming voice said, “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Jokers Wild, the entertainment capital of Las Vegas—”

“Right!” a guy in the audience with a ponytail yelled.

“—and maybe the world. Tonight we’re proud to introduce two premier novelty acts. Get ready to laugh and be amazed, to hold your sides and not believe your eyes. The show is about to begin!”

“Get on with it,” Ponytail yelled.

“Our first act is a man who needs no introduction. You’ve seen him on Johnny Carson, heard his voice in a hundred TV commercials. Here he is, the master of mirth, the one, the only . . . Hambone!”

A spotlight hit center stage. The crowd did its best to make some noise. An old guy with a face like a basset hound shuffled out. Walking into the spotlight, he shielded his eyes with his hand.

“Turn that fucking thing down,” he hollered.

The spotlight dimmed, and the old guy lowered his hand. He wore a tuxedo, or rather the tuxedo wore him, his shoulders sagging so badly that it seemed his clothes were the only thing keeping him from falling to the floor.

“So how you folks doing this evening?” he asked.

“Better than you,” Ponytail replied.

Hambone threw his arms out in surprise. “Holy cow! I didn’t know this was Jerry Springer! Hey buddy, you ever help a comic before?”

“No!”

“Well, you’re not helping one now. Shut up!”

The crowd started laughing. Valentine saw a man enter the theater, and he tapped him on the shoulder. The man turned around. It wasn’t Gerry.

“Sorry.”

“A funny thing happened on the way to the show,” Hambone said. “I got here! But seriously folks, it’s tough when you’ve got Celine Dion singing down the street. Anyone know how much money she’s making a week?”

“Two million bucks,” someone said.

“Two million bucks,” Hambone repeated. “But it’s not steady!”

A woman in a red dress appeared on stage. She wore her hair like Snow White and weighed about two hundred pounds. Holding up an envelope, she said, “Telegram for Hambone!”

“That’s me,” the comic said. Snatching the envelope, he tore it open. “It’s from the William Morris Agency. Oh, boy. It says, Hambone—stop. Saw the act—stop, stop, stop, stop . . .” He crunched the telegram into a ball and tossed it over his shoulder. “Everyone’s a comic!” Turning to his assistant, he said, “What’s your name?”

“Twiggy.” She had a voice like air slowly escaping from a balloon. “Hambone, is it true you were once a boxer?”

“That’s right.”

“How many fights did you have?”

“A hundred and one.”

“How many did you win?”

“All but a hundred.”

“Ever make any extra money boxing?”

“Sure. I sold advertising space on the soles of my shoes.”

“I heard you had back trouble.”

“It’s true. I had a yellow streak up and down my back.”

“Why did you quit?”

“Couldn’t make hospital expenses.”

It wasn’t long before the crowd turned hostile. Arm in arm with his assistant, Hambone shuffled off stage, immune to the audience’s taunts and jeering. Valentine checked the time. Nine forty-five. He would give his son fifteen more minutes, then drive to Henderson and start looking for him.

There was something wrong with the curtains, and the next act had to set up in front of the audience. Valentine found himself smiling as Ray Hicks and Mr. Beauregard, the world’s smartest chimpanzee, came on stage. Two months ago, Hicks had saved his life in Florida, and they had become friends. This was why Gerry had picked the Jokers Wild to meet, he realized. To surprise him.

Hicks wore a canary-yellow sports jacket, baggy black pants, and a porkpie hat. He was funny looking, only no one in the audience was paying attention to him. They were looking at Mr. Beauregard, who wore a magnificent tux with a shiny satin cummerbund. As the chimp glided across the stage on roller skates, his eyes settled on Valentine’s face. A happy noise came out of his mouth.

“Good evening,” Hicks said, holding a microphone. “My name is Ray Hicks, and this is Mister Beauregard. Several years ago, while traveling with my carnival in Louisiana, I found Mister Beauregard in a pet shop, abused and underfed. I bought him for five hundred dollars.”

“Louisiana?” Ponytail shouted. “They shoot mad dogs there, don’t they?”

“I planned to teach Mister Beauregard a few simple tricks,” Hicks went on, “and put him in my carnival. But when I tried to train him, I discovered that Mister Beauregard had already been to school.”

A large chest sat stage center. It was the act’s only prop, and the chimp flipped open the lid and removed a beat-up ukulele. He strummed the instrument with his thumbless hand.

“Someone name a song, any song,” Hicks proclaimed.

“Free Bird,” Ponytail called out.

Mr. Beauregard started playing really fast, the music instantly familiar. Ponytail and his girlfriend stomped their feet, as did others in the crowd. “He’s good,” someone said.

“Another song,” Hicks said.

“The theme from Friends,” someone called out.

Hicks said, “Mr. Beauregard, do you know the theme from Friends?”

The chimp skated to the edge of the stage. Suddenly there was music.

“Yeah,” the person who made the request said.

“It has often been said that animals communicate on a different level than humans, and perhaps can tap into thoughts,” Hicks said. “Impossible? Just watch. May I have a volunteer from the audience?”

Ponytail hoisted his girlfriend’s arm into the air. The spotlight found her, and she reluctantly went up. She was a big woman, and looked like she slept in the road. Hicks coaxed her into revealing her name.

“Bitch,” she said.

A chalkboard was wheeled out. Hicks positioned the chalkboard so it was out of Mr. Beauregard’s line of vision, then handed Bitch a piece of chalk.

“Please write the name of a song on the chalkboard,” he said.

Bitch wrote KNOCKING ON HEAVEN’S DOOR.

Mr. Beauregard was playing the song before the last letters were on the board. It had a slow, easy pace, and someone in the audience clapped along.

“Another, please,” Hicks said.

Bitch wrote COCAINE. Mr. Beauregard nailed it again. This time, there was real applause. Ponytail stood up in his seat and said, “Give that woman a sugar cube!”

Bitch jumped off the stage like she was diving into a mosh pit. She ran after her boyfriend with tears streaming down her face and the audience howling. It was an ugly scene, and Valentine heard a voice over the PA announce that the show was over.

“I thought I saw your face in the audience,” Hicks said, ushering Valentine into his dressing room a few minutes later. “Like my dear mother was fond of saying, it ain’t much, but we call it home.”

The dressing room was a pit, the plaster walls so badly pocked it looked like they’d been riddled with a machine gun. Mr. Beauregard sat in a leather director’s chair. He had his skates off and was puffing on a cigarette.

“I’m looking for my son,” Valentine said. “You haven’t seen him, have you?”

“Gerry?” Hicks tossed his porkpie hat on a chair, revealing a few loosely combed strands of white hair across his freckled scalp. “He came by the other day with his two friends. They didn’t stay very long.”

“Something happen?”

“Mr. Beauregard did not like your son’s friends. I believe the feeling was mutual.”

Valentine looked at the chimp. Hicks claimed he had special powers. Valentine didn’t believe that, but he knew that the night Hicks had saved his life, Mr. Beauregard was involved. He’d smelled him standing nearby, only Hicks had later told the police otherwise, and Valentine had gone along with him. He removed the surveillance photo from the Excalibur, and showed it to Hicks. “This one of my son’s friends?”

Hicks squinted. “My vision is not what it used to be.” Taking the photo from Valentine’s hand, he showed it to the chimp. “Mister Beauregard, was this one of them?”

The chimp looked at the photo and hissed.

“Yes,” Hicks said.

Valentine put the photo away and looked at his watch. It was just before ten. Maybe Gerry had gotten stuck in traffic and was out in the lobby. “I need to run. How long you in town for?”

“Until we decide to leave, “ Hicks said. “We’re four-walling.”

“What’s that?”

“We rent the theater, then set our ticket price based upon a certain number of people coming to each show. Unfortunately, I did not factor in the drawing power of Celine Dion. Did I, Mr. Beauregard?”

The chimp removed a rubber knife from his jacket and plunged it into his heart. Falling back on his chair, he let his tongue hang out the side of his mouth. Hicks said, “I have my carnival to return to if we decide show business isn’t to our liking.”

Valentine said good-bye and shook his hand. Mr. Beauregard was still playing dead. Hicks said, “Mr. Valentine is leaving. Let’s not be rude.”

Mr. Beauregard sat up in his chair. Reaching into his jacket, he removed a cigar wrapped in plastic and offered it to Valentine. Valentine had always enjoyed a good smoke, and slipped it into his pocket. He watched the chimp dig out a pack of matches and hand them over as well.

“I guess he wants me to smoke it right away,” Valentine said.

“I believe he does,” Hicks said.

36

Valentine checked the lobby. Then he walked through the casino and got readdicted to smoking without having to light up. He even looked inside the bingo parlor again. His son had pulled a no-show.

He walked outside to the parking lot. It was nothing new. Gerry had been breaking his promises to him for as long as he could remember.

He got into his rental and saw his cell phone lying on the passenger seat. He’d left it on, and the phone was blinking and beeping. He grabbed it off the seat and went into voice mail.

“Hey, Dad, Wonder Boy here,” his son’s voice rang out. “Look, something’s come up. I can’t make it over tonight. I’ll call you later, Dad. Bye.”

Valentine took the cell phone away from his ear and stared at it, his anger clouding his vision. Something’s come up? What the hell was Gerry thinking? His son knew the FBI was looking for him, and that he’d put his ass on the line to help him out. If he’d been sitting beside him, Valentine would have strangled him.

A car’s horn made him jump. The parking lot was packed, and in his mirror he saw a burly guy in a pickup truck, hoping to grab his spot.

“Hey Pop, you leaving?” the guy asked.

Valentine shook his head and watched the pickup drive away. The guy had called him Pop. Gerry called him Pop, just like he’d called his own father Pop. Gerry never called him Dad.

Valentine replayed the message.

“Hey, Dad, Wonder Boy here . . .”

His son was trying to tell him something. He thought back to the code they’d used in the Second Sight act when Gerry was a kid. Then he remembered: Dad had been part of the code. Dad meant Gerry hadn’t understood him, and needed help.

Dad meant trouble.

He burned down the Boulder Highway to Henderson where his son was staying. Digging out his wallet, he extracted the slip of paper with the Red Roost Inn’s phone number and punched it into his cell phone. The night clerk answered. Valentine asked to be transferred to his son’s room.

“He checked out,” the night clerk said. “Actually, his buddy checked out for him.”

“Describe the guy who checked my son out,” Valentine said, standing in the motel’s dingy office ten minutes later, having broken every speed limit and run every red light on the drive over.

The night clerk was walking testimony to the evils of alcohol, his face a mosaic of busted gin blossoms, his eyes runny and dispirited. He scratched his unshaven chin, thinking. Valentine tossed down twenty bucks to prod his memory along.

“Middle Eastern, five-ten, about a hundred and seventy pounds,” the clerk said. “Not a bad-looking guy, except he was always scowling. He and his brother shared a room.”

“How long they been here?”

“Couple of weeks.”

Valentine removed the surveillance photo from the Excalibur and laid it on the desk.

“That him?”

The clerk gave it a hard look. “Yup.”

A ledger sat on the desk. Valentine flipped it open and heard the clerk squawk.

“That could get me fired,” the clerk said.

Valentine tossed him another twenty. Then he scanned the names in the ledger. Two stood out. Amin and Pash Amanni. Pointing, he said, “This them?”

“Sure is.”

“Let me see their credit card imprint.”

“Didn’t use one.” The clerk removed a flask from a drawer. The money had put him in a celebratory mood, and he took a pair of shot glasses from the same drawer and slapped them on the desk. He unscrewed the flask with his teeth.

“You a drinking man?” he asked.

Valentine felt something inside him snap. The shot glasses shattered as they hit the floor. The clerk jumped back like he’d been struck.

“Hey mister, I was just trying to be—”

“I don’t care what you were trying to be. I need to find these guys. Anything you can remember before you get drunk would help.”

Valentine put his hand on the flask. The clerk swallowed hard, realizing he wasn’t getting any hooch unless he cooperated. He scrunched his face up, giving it some effort.

“Come to think of it, there were a couple of things,” he said.

Amin and Pash Amanni had liked to eat pizza. They also went to the movies a lot. Those were the two things the clerk remembered.

It wasn’t much, but better than nothing, and Valentine killed the evening visiting every pizza shop and movie theater in Henderson. At each he showed Amin’s surveillance photo to the help, asked if anyone recognized him.

None of the ringed and pierced employees did.

By midnight he felt ready to drop from exhaustion. Sitting in a strip mall parking lot, he ate a slice of pizza that tasted like cardboard with catsup. He washed it down with a soda, told himself he had to keep looking. If Amin knew he’d been photographed in the MGM the night before, he was probably staying away from Las Vegas. That left Henderson as his only real hiding place, unless he was camped out in the desert.

Valentine realized he was dying for a smoke. He’d gone cold turkey a year ago, and didn’t get the cravings for nicotine unless he was under stress. He pulled Mr. Beauregard’s cigar from his pocket, peeled away the plastic, and passed it beneath his nose. The tobacco was dry, but still smelled wonderful.

He fired up the cigar with the rental’s lighter and filled his mouth with the great-tasting smoke. It lifted his spirits and calmed his nerves at the same time.

He saw the lights go out in the pizza parlor. Other stores around Henderson were probably closing as well. Which left fewer places for Amin to hide.

He started up the car and was backing out of his spot when he heard the explosion. It was right in his face, and very loud. It snapped his head back, and he saw nothing but eternal blackness. Your life just ended, he thought.

The banging on his window brought him back to the real world, and Valentine stared at the kid who’d served him the pizza standing beside his car. He rolled his window down.

“Hey mister, you all right?” the kid anxiously asked.

Valentine touched his arms, and then his face. Everything felt fine.

“Yeah, I think so,” he mumbled.

“What happened?”

“I honestly don’t know,” he replied.

The kid sauntered off. Valentine inspected the car. The windshield wasn’t broken, nor were any of the windows. He turned on the interior light and stared at his reflection in the mirror. His lips and chin were covered in black soot. It slowly dawned on him what had happened. Mr. Beauregard had given him an exploding cigar.

Valentine thought back to the chimp handing him the pack of matches. He hated to be played for a fool, and thought about calling Ray Hicks, and giving him a piece of his mind. Then his cell phone rang.

He stared at the luminous clock on the dashboard. It was twelve-oh-five.

“I need more time,” he told Fuller.

“You just ran out of that,” the director of the FBI replied.

37

Hog-tied and gagged, Gerry lay across the backseat of Amin’s rental car and watched the sun break over the horizon.

Dawn was different in Las Vegas. Before the sun ever came up, the sky put on a show, turning from black to magenta to a magnificent dark blue. The changes were gradual, yet also severe, as if the colors were being sucked from the desert.

Soon sunlight flooded the rental, and he heard Pash and Amin stir in the front seats. They had driven into the desert around eleven o’clock, parked behind a deserted building, and promptly gone to sleep. Gerry hadn’t slept at all, his heart pounding so hard he thought it might explode.

Amin rubbed the cobwebs from his eyes, then climbed out of the rental and walked away. Lifting his head, Gerry looked through the side window and saw Amin standing twenty yards away, pissing on a cactus. He kicked the back of Pash’s seat.

“Wake up,” he said through his gag.

Pash turned around and stared at him. His happy-go-lucky expression had been replaced by one of mounting dread. “Be quiet,” he whispered.

“Not until you tell me what’s going on.”

Pash reached over and tugged his gag down. “Be quiet, or my brother will put a bullet in your head.”

“The truth,” Gerry said. “I think I deserve that.”

“My brother will kill you, do you understand?”

“Big fucking deal.”

That hit Pash hard. “You are not afraid of dying?” he asked.

Not as much as you, Gerry nearly said. Before he could reply, Pash turned back around. “My brother is returning. Please shut up.”

Gerry lifted his head. Amin was still draining the monster. During the night, he’d realized he might die not knowing what the brothers were up to, and he said, “Come on. I have a right to know.”

“How so?” Pash said, staring straight ahead.

“I saved your lives yesterday, didn’t I? Just tell me the truth.”

“Stop it. Please.”

“You’re not drug dealers. I figured that out.”

Pash stiffened like a thousand watts of electricity had been jolted through his body. His chin dropped down and touched his chest, and Gerry realized he was fighting back the overwhelming urge to cry. “How did you know that?” he asked.

“You didn’t sample the merchandise.”

Pash lifted his chin and looked over his shoulder into the backseat.

“Please explain.”

“The meeting with the Mexicans,” Gerry said. “You gave them cash, and they gave you drugs. Only you didn’t try the drugs, or test them with chemicals. For all you knew, they could have sold you cornstarch.”

A guilty look spread across Pash’s face.

“What I can’t figure out is, what the hell did they sell you?” Gerry said. “Amin got a beat-up briefcase. It was too small to be filled with weapons. So what was in it?”

Pash was trembling, as if the secret were burrowing a hole in him. He reached between the seats and readjusted the gag over Gerry’s mouth.

“I am sorry this is happening,” he said.

Valentine dragged himself through the Acropolis’s deserted lobby. He’d driven around Henderson until three AM, then stopped at an all-night gas station for a coffee and a jelly doughnut. The next thing he remembered was waking up in his car at nine o’clock with a pancake-sized coffee stain on his shirt.

He heard someone call his name. It was Lou Ann, the pleasant receptionist he’d chatted with yesterday. He shuffled over to the front desk.

“I’ve got some terrific news for you,” Lou Ann said.

Terrific news? He thought he’d run out of that. He waited expectantly.

“Your airline found your luggage,” she said.

On the scale of one to ten, it was a minus two. Then he remembered that the shirt he was wearing was his last clean one. That made it a plus two.

“Great,” he said. “Where is it?”

Lou Ann removed a piece of paper from the counter and read from it. “Your suitcase was in Portland. The airline is routing it to Los Angeles. It should be here sometime tomorrow.”

He thanked her and went to the elevators. While he waited for a car, he took out his cell phone and stared at its face. No messages. No Gerry. For all he knew, his son was in another city, or buried in the desert. He’d called Bill Higgins twenty minutes ago to see if the FBI had maybe found his son. Bill had said they hadn’t.

The elevator doors parted. As he stepped in, a hand clasped his shoulder. He spun around and stared at Wily. He was so tired, he hadn’t heard him approach.

“Mind some company?” Wily asked.

“Only if you don’t mind my yawning.”

Wily said he didn’t. As they rode up to the penthouse, Valentine removed Amin’s photograph from his pocket and showed it to the head of security.

“Ever see this guy before? He’s a card-counter.”

Wily studied the photo. “No, but he shouldn’t be too hard to track down.”

Valentine didn’t think he’d heard Wily right. The doors parted, and they got out.

“How you going to do that?”

“Easy,” Wily said. “The casino subscribes to FaceScan. They have the face of every known card-counter in a database in their computer. I’ll give them your picture, see what they turn up.”

Valentine had a feeling the FBI had already tried that, but there was always the chance they’d missed something. He slapped Wily on the arm.

“Anyone ever tell you how smart you are?”

Wily feigned embarrassment. “Look, there’s something I need to talk to you about. As a friend.”

“What’s that?”

Wily hemmed and hawed. Valentine didn’t think he could have made a speech if his life depended upon it. Finally, Wily gave up, and walked down the hallway to Valentine’s suite. “Give me your key,” he said.

Valentine gave him the plastic key. Wily swiped the door and pushed it open.

“This is what I want to talk to you about,” he said.

Valentine entered the suite. The living room was filled with flower arrangements, their fragrance strong enough to knock over a horse. A card was propped up on the coffee table, addressed to him. Picking it up, he tore the envelope open.

It was a Valentine’s Day card with a big heart in its center, only his name had been added to the front. A Tony Valentine’s Day card. It made him smile, and he opened it and read the note.

I THINK I’M FALLING IN LOVE WITH YOU

Wily told him to sit on the couch, then got two Diet Cokes from the mini bar. Valentine held the card in his fingers and stared at Lucy’s proclamation of love.

Wily made the couch sag and handed him a soda. Valentine took a long swallow. He’d read that the artificial sweetener in Diet Coke stimulated the body’s craving for sugar, and was bad for you. It was a shame it tasted so damn good.

Wily cleared his throat. “Look, Tony, what I’m going to say isn’t easy. But you’ve got to hear it. For your own good.”

“Go ahead.”

“Lucy Price is bad news.”

“You think so?”

“Yes. Know what her nickname is?”

“No.”

“The Blowtorch. She burns everyone she gets near.”

Valentine put the card on the coffee table. “I really don’t want to hear this right now, okay?”

Wily took a long pull on his soda and stared at him. “Know how many times I’ve wanted to say that to you over the years? About a hundred. Know why I didn’t? Because I realized that everything that comes out of your mouth is true.”

“Are you suggesting I shut up and listen?”

“Yeah,” Wily said. “Hear me out.”

“Go ahead,” he said.

Wily put on his serious face. “It’s like this. Lucy Price couldn’t stop gambling if her life depended on it. She’s lost everything. House, car, family. Six months ago, her husband took their kids and moved to Utah. He got a job and sent her an airline ticket. She won’t join him.”

“Who told you this?”

“Her husband did. He used to work here. He begged her to get help, but Lucy wouldn’t go. She doesn’t think she has a problem. She’s a lost cause.”

“Don’t say that.”

“You like her, don’t you?”

Valentine thought about it. “I’d like to,” he admitted.

“Don’t.”

“You make her sound like a leper.”

“The casinos in Las Vegas have a program for compulsive gamblers. If a person with a problem asks us, we’ll bar them when they come in. Over a thousand people have signed up. It started up in Canada, works great.”

“So?”

“Lucy wouldn’t sign up,” Wily said.

“You tried?”

“About a dozen times.”

Valentine finished his soda. What a wonderful time he was having in Las Vegas. He’d lost his son, gotten his face slashed, and now this. He stared at the open card sitting on the coffee table. I THINK I’M FALLING IN LOVE WITH YOU. Did Wily know how precious those words were? Wily had a wife, probably got to hear sweet nothings whenever he wanted. He didn’t know what it was like to be alone.

Wily glanced at his watch, then rose and went to the door. Taking the surveillance picture of Amin from his pocket, he said, “FaceScan’s office is on my way home. I’ll drop this off, ask them to run it through their computer.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.”

“Call them in a couple of hours. They get backed up on weekends.”

“I’ll do that.”

Wily’s fingers were on the doorknob. Lowering his voice, he said, “I’m sorry, Tony, but I had to tell you,” and walked out of the suite.

38

Valentine drove to Lucy Price’s condo in Summerlin thinking about his conversation with Wily. Wily had called Lucy a lost cause. He didn’t believe that. No one was truly lost. That was the one thing he’d learned growing up Catholic. There was always a shot at redemption.

Pulling into her driveway, he realized he should have called, and let Lucy know he was coming. After what had happened last night, she’d probably gone and bought a gun. He saw the front door open. Grabbing the paper bag off the passenger seat, he climbed out of the car.

Lucy stayed in the doorway. Her skin did something magical in the daylight, its glow soft and mysterious. He came up to her and she kissed him.

“Did you find your son?”

“Still looking. I had to come and see you. Thanks for the flowers.”

“After last night, it was the least I could do.”

She led him inside. The condo smelled of fresh coffee and burned toast. She offered to make him scrambled eggs, and they went into the kitchen. He sat at the breakfast table and placed the bag between his feet. As she fixed breakfast, he found himself staring at her furniture and kitchen appliances. All of it was old and beat-up. Every compulsive gambler he’d ever known lived like this. He tried not to think about it.

“Hope you don’t mind them runny,” she said, ladling the eggs onto a plate.

“Not at all. Got any Tabasco sauce?”

“Sure. I think it’s pretty old, though.”

She found the Tabasco in a cupboard and sat down. Years of eating crummy diner food had gotten him addicted to Tabasco, and he sprinkled it on his eggs. With his foot, he pushed the bag across the linoleum floor so it touched her chair.

“This for me?”

He nodded. “It’s all for you.”

She made a face, then picked the bag up from the floor. She opened it and let out a shriek. The bag fell from her hands, its contents spilling onto the floor.

“Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” Lucy grabbed his arm. “It’s my twenty-five thousand dollars, isn’t it? Isn’t it?”

He nodded and kept eating. It was actually the money Chance Newman had paid him two days ago for demonstrating Deadlock. He’d decided that it wasn’t a coincidence that Chance had paid him the same amount that had been stolen from the safe in Lucy’s hotel room.

“You got it back from them, didn’t you?” she asked.

Another nod. The eggs were terrible. He kept shoveling them into his mouth, wanting her to do all the talking.

“I’m not going to ask you how,” she said, her face glowing. She picked up the stacks of bills from the floor and held them tightly against her bosom. “Do you know what this means, Tony? Do you know what this means to me?”

She kissed him, then jumped to her feet, kicked off her flip-flops, and danced around the kitchen like a ballerina, pausing to do an occasional pirouette, the stacks of money slipping from her grasp. He put his fork down and smiled.

“It means you can get your life in order,” he said.

She stopped in the middle of a spin. “What’s that?”

“It’s what you said to me on the balcony. The money was going to help you get your life in order.”

“Is that what I said?”

“Yes. Now you can.”

She laughed. The sound was harsh as it escaped her lips. “It means that my luck’s changed, that’s what it means. It means that Lucy Price is back.”

The eggs were doing a number on his stomach. He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin and stood up. The moment of truth was at hand, and he could feel his legs shake.

“I want to talk to you about something,” he said.

Lucy picked up the money from the floor and put it into the bag. Done, she rose.

“What’s that?”

“I want you to do something for me.”

A dreamy look spread across her face. “Whatever you want,” she said.

“I want you to enter into a Gamblers Anonymous program and start going to meetings. They hold them every night. You’ve got to address this problem.”

It was as if he’d slapped her across the face. Lucy stepped back until she was leaning against the kitchen counter, looking at him like he was the most horrible person alive.

“What problem? What are you saying?”

“Your gambling problem, the one you can’t control.”

“Who said I have a problem?”

“I did.”

“What makes you the expert? You’re not a shrink.”

“I’ve worked in casinos most of my life. I can recognize a gambling problem when I see one.”

“I’m down on my luck. So are a lot of people.”

No, he thought, you’re desperate. It was why she’d let Fontaine talk her into being his shill. Deep down, she’d probably sensed the deal was too good to be true, only her situation had clouded her judgment.

“You need help,” he said.

“Don’t fucking lecture me,” she said angrily.

“That’s what I want.”

“No. Go to hell.”

“Please. For me.”

Her face had gone red, and she shook her head violently. The Lucy he knew was gone. This was Lucy the gambler. From his jacket, he removed the Valentine’s Day card he’d found in his suite and propped it beside his plate of food. Then he looked at her.

“I’m leaving,” he said.

“Are you going to take the money back?”

“It’s yours,” he said.

She crossed the kitchen while staring suspiciously at him. Then she snatched up the bag with the ferocity of a mother pulling her child from a rushing stream. He waited, always the optimist when it came to things of the heart.

“Good-bye,” she said.

39

The sound of someone banging on her front door awakened Mabel from the deepest of sleeps. She lifted her head off her pillow and found a dead phone lying on her chest. Beside it was a pad of paper and the things a desperate casino boss had asked her to write down last night. Had she gone to sleep while the casino boss was talking to her? She honestly didn’t remember.

Climbing out of bed, Mabel threw on a bathrobe and walked barefoot down the cold hardwood floors of her house. “Hold your horses,” she called loudly, and ducked into the bathroom.

A minute later, she cracked open the front door. Yolanda stood on the stoop, dressed like she was going on a trip. In her hand was a suitcase. Mabel threw the door open and said, “Did your water break?”

Yolanda shook her head. “No, but it’s time. Can you drive me?”

“Are you dilating?” Mabel said, backing down the drive five minutes later.

“No, everything’s normal.”

“Then how—”

“I just know,” Yolanda said.

Just about everybody in Florida went to church on Sunday, and the traffic out of Palm Harbor was miserable. Mabel drove the speed limit, taking Route 19 to State Road 60 then heading east over the causeway to the mainland.

“But how do you know?” Mabel asked.

Yolanda drank from a bottled water. “My mother told me I would have a dream. She said a truck would come to my house. A man would open the back, and the truck would be filled with apples. She said I would smell the apples in my dream. If the apples were green, it was a boy. Red, a girl.”

“And you had this dream last night?”

Yolanda raised her eyebrows and smiled. She could do that, and tell you exactly what she was thinking. Mabel grabbed her hand and squeezed it excitedly.

“What color were they?”

“Red. It’s going to be a girl.”

The hospital Yolanda had chosen was called St. Joseph’s, only everyone called it St. Joe’s. It was a long drive from where they lived, but Yolanda had checked around and been told it was the best. That, and she’d found the right doctor, a white-haired Russian gentleman with a twinkle in his eye and the gentlest of hands. Those hands, she had decided, would bring her child into this world.

“Did you talk to Gerry? Does he know?” Mabel asked when they were on Dale Mabry Highway and only a few miles from the hospital.

“He hasn’t called since yesterday,” Yolanda said.

“Oh,” Mabel said.

A wailing ambulance blew past, and traffic stopped altogether. Mabel threw the car into park. She glanced at Yolanda and saw the corners of her mouth trembling.

“What’s wrong, dear?”

“There was another part of my dream,” she said.

“Please tell me.”

“The man with the truck gave me an apple. I went into our house to show Gerry. Only he was gone, and so were his clothes and all his things. It was like he’d disappeared.”

Cars were moving again, and Mabel tapped the accelerator. Reaching across the seat, she took Yolanda’s hand and held it all the way to the hospital.

Amin pulled up Bart Calhoun’s gravel driveway and saw his teacher’s mud-caked pickup truck parked in the garage. Calhoun had not impressed him as the type who spent his Sunday mornings in church. He killed the engine and took several deep breaths. He did not like this part of it. Calhoun had helped him. But it was necessary.

Amin looked up and down the street. The neighborhood was not fully developed, and Calhoun’s closest neighbor was a quarter mile away. He opened his door and glanced sideways at Pash. His baby brother looked terrified.

“Promise me you will not let me down.”

Pash stared at the dashboard as if hypnotized.

“Answer me,” Amin said.

“I will not let you down,” Pash whispered.

Amin glanced in the backseat at Gerry, still bound and gagged. “What about him?”

“He is not going anywhere.”

“What if he tries to escape?”

“I will beep the horn to alert you.”

Pash’s lips were trembling. Amin put his hand on his brother’s knee and said, “The end of one journey is at hand, while another is about to begin.”

Amin started to climb out. In his mirror, he saw Gerry staring at him. Reaching between the seats, he smashed his fist into Gerry’s stomach. Gerry curled into a fetal position, his gag muffling his screams. Amin had killed five different men whose identities he’d stolen in the past two years, and their final moments had ranged from defecating on themselves to crying like babies.

“If you try to escape, I will come out and shoot you. Understand?”

“Yes,” Gerry spit through his gag.

Amin adjusted the .357 in his pants so the handle hung over his belt buckle. He covered the weapon with his sweatshirt and got out of the car.

He was smoothing the sweatshirt out when Calhoun answered the door. His teacher was unshaven, and there was lint in his buzz cut. Like he’d just woken up, Amin thought. Only Calhoun’s eyes were alert. He squinted at Amin.

“What’s up?” Calhoun asked.

“Pash and I are driving to Laughlin to play blackjack,” Amin said. “I wanted to ask you a couple of questions to help avoid the surveillance.”

There was a hesitation in Calhoun’s response, a split-second delay that wasn’t normally there when he spoke. A screen door separated them. Calhoun kicked it open with his foot.

“Want some coffee?” he asked as they crossed the house and entered the converted garage that served as Calhoun’s classroom.

“No thanks.”

Calhoun flipped the fluorescent lights on, and their brightness momentarily blinded Amin. He walked painfully into a desk and heard Calhoun’s pace quicken. His teacher was heading for his office.

Amin followed him, fingering the .357’s handle beneath his sweatshirt. His teacher’s office was Spartan. A desk, and a swivel chair with busted leather. On the desk sat an ancient PC. Its screen saver was on, and showed tropical fish swimming in a deep blue ocean.

Calhoun took the chair and slapped his elbows on the desk. The desk was covered with flash cards that he used to test his students.

“What seems to be the problem?” Calhoun asked.

Amin hesitated. His teacher had already forgotten their conversation.

“Pash and I are going to Laughlin.”

“Oh, that’s right. Why do you want to go there? The casinos are all burn joints. Make a big wager, and management will sweat your play like there’s no tomorrow.”

Amin stiffened. Calhoun had his legs under the desk, and was moving them. His teacher was a cowboy. From what Amin had seen in the movies, cowboys were prone to doing stupid things.

“We need a break from Las Vegas,” Amin said. “You mentioned during class that the facial recognition equipment in Laughlin was easy to beat. You got interrupted and never explained how.”

Calhoun smiled at him. “Most of the casinos in Laughlin use the same surveillance cameras they had ten years ago. Walk through them fast enough, and the lens can’t pick up enough information. I’ve got a book on which casinos in Laughlin have them.”

“You do?”

“Sure. Want to see it?”

“Yes.”

Calhoun shot his hands under the desk. Amin hesitated, then jumped back, the shotgun blast coming straight through the desk and missing his head by a few inches. The flash cards exploded into the air.

Calhoun frantically tried to reload. Amin drew his .357 and pumped four bullets into him. His teacher’s chair was on wheels, and he flew straight back, hit the wall, then fell off the chair onto the floor.

Amin came around the desk. Calhoun lay on his back. His eyes had a flicker of life in them. His lips parted, and Amin realized he was trying to say something.

He had always liked Calhoun. His teacher was what Americans called a man’s man. He knelt down and placed his ear next to his teacher’s lips.

“Fuck your mother,” Calhoun whispered.

His teacher died before Amin could shoot him again.

Amin took the swivel chair and sat in front of the PC. The computer looked like the first one ever made. He clicked the mouse to erase the screen saver. The underwater scene vanished, and he found himself staring at an FBI MOST WANTED poster. In its center was a picture of him, standing on the sidewalk outside the Excalibur. He scrolled up and found a note from the sender.

Bart, every casino in town got this last night.

Ever see this guy before?

Amin read the poster and swore in his native tongue.

The FBI had tied him to the murders in Reno, Detroit, New Orleans, Biloxi, and Atlantic City. It didn’t have a lot of information, but it said just enough—last seen in Las Vegas, armed, traveling with his brother—that he knew he’d made the right choice. He couldn’t run anymore, nor did he want to.

He got off the Internet. Calhoun’s computer had a word-processing program called WordPerfect, and he booted it up. The computer was slow, and he banged it several times with his hand, thinking it might speed it along. Finally, the program appeared on the screen. Hitting the CAPS LOCK button, he typed:

AMIN SHOT ME. GOING TO LA. PLANNING SOMETHING HORRIBLE. MUST STOP HIM.

Amin reread the message. Satisfied, he pushed the chair away from the desk. Pash’s passion for the movies had come in handy. Amin had seen enough scenes where dying people wrote notes to believe this one would pass. It was just dramatic enough.

On the bullet-scarred desk sat a cordless phone. He picked it up and punched in 911. The call went through, and an operator said, “Police emergency. Can I help you?”

“Help,” he said hoarsely into the phone.

“Sir? Are you all right?”

“He . . . shot me,” he said.

“Who?”

“Amin. Going to LA. Must stop him . . .”

“Sir? Sir!”

“Going to do . . . something bad.”

He knocked the receiver off the desk, then listened to the operator’s frantic attempts to get him back on the line. He glanced at his watch. It was ten thirty. It would take ten minutes for the cops to arrive, another ten for them to piece things together and alert the FBI. He glanced down at Calhoun’s lifeless body lying beside him.

“Fuck your mother,” he whispered.

40

Valentine left Lucy’s condo and, having no place else to go, drove up and down the Strip. It was a depressing place on a Sunday morning, and he listened to the clatter-and-cling of slot machines rattling out the casinos’ open doors while imagining Lucy at a machine, blowing the money he’d given her.

It was depressing to think about. Finding a jazz station on the radio, he prayed for Sinatra or any of the old crooners to lift his spirits. Louis Armstrong came on, asking what did I do, to be so black, and blue? A sad song, but he hummed along anyway.

Someday, when he was lonely and feeling sorry for himself, he would kick himself over this. He could have struck up a long-distance relationship, seen Lucy when he wanted, and gone with the flow. He could have pretended the gambling problem didn’t exist. It was how a lot of couples lived their lives.

Only he couldn’t live that way. He couldn’t live within a lie. It was the way he’d always been, and he was a fool to think he could change it.

At eleven o’clock he called FaceScan.

Wily had said it would take them a few hours to compare Amin’s picture against their database of known counters. Maybe they had found something the FBI had missed.

He got FaceScan’s number from information, called it, and got a recorded message. The message gave the company business hours and their address. They were just off Sahara Boulevard, and only a few miles away.

Five minutes later, he pulled into FaceScan’s parking lot. The company worked out of a five-story steel-and-glass monolith. There were several dozen reserved FaceScan spaces in the parking lot. All of them were taken.

The lobby was filled with surveillance cameras. He picked up the house phone and called the company’s receptionist, the extensions listed on a laminated sheet beside the phone. A recorded message answered. Hanging up, he started calling the extensions on the sheet. The fifth one answered. A friendly-sounding guy named Linville.

“This is Tony Valentine. I was hoping you could help me.”

Linville came into the lobby a minute later. Midforties, glasses, a neat beard, he pumped Valentine’s hand and said, “I used to work surveillance for Bally’s. Your name came up a lot. It’s nice to meet you.”

Linville looked like the kind of guy who’d pull off the highway and help you with a flat. Valentine explained the situation and Linville brought him inside, took him to the second floor, and led him through a warren of cubicles where the company technicians worked. Each technician sat in front of a blue-screened computer fielding requests sent from casinos with suspected card-counters.

They came to an empty cubicle, and Linville pointed at the chair and said, “This is where Monte sits. He handles the Acropolis, so I’m going to guess Wily brought your photograph to him. I just saw him a minute ago.”

Linville stood on his toes and looked over the tops of the cubicles for Monte, then shook his head. “He’s probably helping someone. Sunday mornings are rough. Sometimes we back each other up, especially when a casino is dealing with a team of counters.”

The clock on the wall said eleven twenty. Valentine could feel his opportunity slipping away. Linville sifted through a pile of papers on Monte’s desk and found the picture of Amin near the top of the stack, with a Post-it note attached to it.

“This your guy?” he asked.

Valentine nodded.

“You know how to use a scanner?” Linville asked.

Valentine nodded again. Moments later, he was sitting at Monte’s computer, getting a quick primer from Linville on how to navigate his way through FaceScan’s software program. It had many similarities to ACT, the database management system he used at home, and he quickly felt comfortable with it.

“Yell if you have trouble,” Linville said. “I’m right down the hall.”

Valentine ran Amin’s picture through the scanner, then downloaded it into the computer. For a guy who hated everything electronic, he’d gotten adept at using computers. He typed in the necessary commands and leaned back in Monte’s chair as FaceScan searched its database of card-counters for a match.

The technicians were a noisy bunch, and he listened to them talking to each other. There was a lot of cursing, and it didn’t surprise him. He’d done a lot of cursing on Sunday morning back when he was a cop. Every casino had downtimes in their surveillance department when not enough technicians were working. Most of these downtimes occurred on Sunday mornings.

A message appeared on the screen.

No match found for your selection.

He scratched the stubble on his chin. Bill had said Amin was a known counter. FaceScan had every known counter in the world. It didn’t make sense. He ran Amin’s photo through the program again, and got the same message.

“Huh,” he said.

He found Linville helping a technician on the other side of the room. A minute later, Linville was standing over him, staring at the computer screen.

“You’re sure he’s a known counter?”

“According to the GCB he is.”

“Anything else on his record?”

“He’s murdered five people.”

Linville exited FaceScan’s database and brought up another program. It required him to submit a password, and he typed his name backward, then hit ENTER. On the screen appeared the home page for the FBI. He navigated through the site until he finally reached the bureau’s search engine.

“FaceScan and the FBI share a lot of information,” he explained. “They use our database, and we occasionally use theirs. The guy you’re looking for should be in their database. If not, he’s the invisible man.”

Linville left. Valentine went through the process of scanning Amin’s picture again, then asked the bureau’s search engine to compare it to its database of known criminals. A box came up on the screen with a message.

Be patient. This could take a minute or two.

Leave it to a government agency to tell someone to be patient. He left the cubicle in search of coffee. His lack of sleep was catching up with him, and he felt on the verge of dropping on the nearest couch.

He found a coffee machine in the employee lounge. Thankfully, it took dollar bills. He bought a double espresso and felt his eyelids flutter the moment he sucked it down. Caffeine put his brain into another gear, and he walked back to Monte’s cubicle with a spring in his step.

The screen was flashing. The FBI’s search engine had made a match. He sat in Monte’s chair. He was finally going to learn something about the son-of-a-bitch who’d kidnapped his son. He clicked the mouse on the button on the screen. A message appeared.

This is a restricted area. Please enter your password.

He typed Linville’s name backward, and hit ENTER. A page appeared on the screen. It was an FBI MOST WANTED poster. In the center of the poster was the same photo he was carrying around in his pocket. Next to it a SPECIAL ALERT had been posted at 2:00, Eastern Standard Time. That was only twenty minutes ago.

He quickly read the alert and felt a jolt to his nervous system as strong as the double espresso. The FBI had determined that Amin was a terrorist, and planning a major attack somewhere near Las Vegas.