Sucker Bet

17

Candy Hart was taking a bubble bath when the phone rang. She ignored it, preferring to lie in the tub with her head partially submerged, blowing bubbles through her nose. It was a little kid’s trick and, like her collection of stuffed animals, something she never wanted to let go of.

The phone rang again while she was toweling off. She glanced at her watch on the sink. Nearly two. Nigel was a poor golfer, and she imagined him on the ninth hole of the Blue Monster, staring at a dozen balls in the drink. Picking up the receiver, she said, “Hi.”

“Ms. Hart?”

“Yes?”

“This is Carlos at the front desk. I’ve got a limo driver here who says Mr. Moon called his company and asked that you be picked up.”

“Did he say why?”

“I’ll ask him.” Candy heard Carlos say something to the driver, then come back on the line. “Mr. Moon says he wants you to meet him someplace special.”

Candy smiled. “Tell him to wait.”

Twenty minutes later she walked out of the hotel. The Delano was in a downtrodden neighborhood, and the owners had erected an impenetrable evergreen hedge around the front entrance. Next to the hedge, smoking a cigarette, was a skinny Cuban in a black driver’s uniform. He smiled, revealing a mouthful of gold, then opened the limo’s back door. It was filled with dozens of red roses. Candy got in and stuck her face in the flowers. The scent was intoxicating, and she felt the car pull away.

Leaving Saul Hyman’s condo, Valentine called Bill Higgins on his cell phone. Ten minutes later, they were sitting in a corner of the Loews restaurant, sharing a pot of coffee. Valentine spelled out what Saul had told him, then said, “I think Saul knows more than he’s letting on. I want you to tail him for a few days. You still remember what he looks like?”

“I sure do,” Bill said. “I arrested him after he fleeced a Texas oil tycoon in a bridge game. The Texan was a world-class player, too.”

“Let me guess,” Valentine said. “Saul had inside help.”

Bill nodded. “Saul played the Texan at a table by the hotel pool. At the next table was Saul’s plant. The plant was reading a newspaper with a slit in it. He looked at the Texan’s cards, and by breathing through his nose, he signaled to Saul how to bet.”

“The whiff,” Valentine said.

“You’ve heard of it?”

Valentine said yes. He’d seen his grandmother and one of her friends do it at a card game in the Catskills over fifty years ago.

“I didn’t have enough evidence for a conviction,” Bill said. “But I took what I had to the state gaming board, and they barred Saul from ever returning to Nevada.” He picked up the pot and refilled their mugs. “So, why do you think he’s involved?”

The coffee was unusually good, maybe the best cup Valentine had tasted in Miami. He’d be back here again. “I’m pretty good at knowing when people are lying to me. I didn’t think Saul was, but then I got to thinking. Saul says he hasn’t seen Victor Marks in years. That’s bull. He and Victor were friends for forty years. You ever have a buddy like that?”

“Sure,” Bill said.

“I bet you talk to him every few weeks.”

“At least.”

“So Saul’s lying. He should have said, ‘I haven’t heard from him since Thanksgiving.’ That I would have bought. But not in years.”

Valentine wrote down Saul’s address on a napkin, then described the condo building right down to the height of the hedges. “There’s a wall around the property. If Saul tries to leave, he’ll have to go out through the front entrance. I saw his car keys sitting on a table. He drives a Toyota.”

Bill paid for the coffee, and they rose from the table. Everything had seemed fine until that moment, then the facade on Bill’s face cracked and the deep worry lines broke through. Valentine said, “Something wrong?”

“I got a call from the Broward police. A body was found in a Fort Lauderdale Dumpster. They think it’s Jack Lightfoot. They want me at the morgue to make an ID.”

Valentine could tell that Bill was hurting inside. That was where they were different. He hardly ever felt bad for crooks. They walked outside to the valet stand.

“You want company?” Valentine asked.

“If you’re up to it,” his friend said.

Whoever had dumped Jack Lightfoot’s body was not very smart. He had seaweed in his hair and swamp water in his lungs, and both arms and one of his legs had been chewed off. It was obvious that he’d died in a swamp.

Enough of his face remained to make a positive identification, and Bill’s hand had shaken as he signed the coroner’s statement. An hour later, Valentine dropped him off at the Loews, then went back to his hotel. He felt dog-tired, and the king-size bed in his room was calling to him. Walking into the Fontainebleau’s lobby, he spotted an Indian woman in a dark business suit by the elevators. Late twenties, short black hair, flat face, a little stocky. She approached him with an expectant look on her face.

“Mr. Valentine?”

He nodded, and she handed him her card. Gladys Soft Wings. Her title was legal representative for the Micanopy nation. It was a deceiving name. There didn’t appear to be anything soft about her.

“I’m here on behalf of my client, Chief Running Bear.”

“Your client?”

“The chief was involved in an altercation with five other tribe members. One of them died.”

“I hope it was Harry Smooth Stone.”

“Excuse me?”

“He put an alligator in my car. Nearly bit my hand off.”

Gladys took a square of paper from her pocket. Unfolding it, she handed it to him. “This is the only evidence I have against Smooth Stone. Running Bear found it in his trailer.”

Valentine studied the equations written on the ledger paper, then handed it back to her. “The equations are the hold for five blackjack dealers at your casino.”

“What’s that?”

“The hold is the equation a casino uses to determine how much money it’s making at its games. If these numbers are accurate, these dealers are cheating.”

“How can you be certain?”

“The average hold for a blackjack table is twenty percent. Your dealers are showing a hold of forty-four percent. They’re pocketing twenty-four percent and letting the casino keep the other twenty.”

Gladys looked relieved. “Running Bear said you would know. Now I need to ask you a favor.”

“You want me to explain it to the police?”

She seemed taken aback. “Actually, to the elders of my tribe. How did you know?”

“It’s what I do for a living,” he said.

The elders of the Micanopy nation were five pewter-haired men whose median age Valentine guessed to be seventy-five. They sat behind a long table wearing equally long faces. Each wore a dungaree jacket and a denim shirt, their faces road maps of the lives they’d lived. Valentine remembered reading how Micanopy warriors had prevented the white man from settling in Florida until the early 1900s. These men’s fathers and grandfathers, he guessed.

To the elders’ right sat Running Bear and Gladys Soft Wings. To their left, Smooth Stone and his three accomplices and their attorney, a pointy-headed Indian kid in a cheap suit. Behind them stood six tribal policemen armed with Mossberg shotguns.

Both attorneys presented their clients’ version of the story. Unlike a court of law, no one was asked to swear on a Bible, and a blindfolded statue called Justice did not look down on them.

Then it was Valentine’s turn. He gave his credentials, then removed the piece of ledger paper that was Running Bear’s only evidence and laid it on the table. The elders collectively lowered their heads.

“This piece of paper was found in a ledger of Harry Smooth Stone’s.”

“Objection,” the pointy-headed lawyer said, jumping to his feet. “We don’t know if that came from a ledger of Harry’s or not.”

“It’s his handwriting,” the lead elder said. “Sit down.”

The lawyer swallowed hard. “You sure?”

“I taught him to write,” the elder barked. “Sit down.”

The lawyer returned to his seat. The lead elder shot him a look that said he wouldn’t tolerate another interruption. Valentine pointed at the equations on the paper and continued. “This is classic evidence of cheating—something I’ve seen in dozens of cases. The head of the gang keeps a ledger to assure the rest of the gang that no one’s getting shortchanged. It’s the only way everyone can get along.”

The lead elder made a face. “Are you saying all of these men were cheating?”

“That’s right.”

“Why didn’t our security people spot it?”

That was a good question. Clearing his throat, Valentine said, “Your security people probably did.”

The lead elder frowned. So did his colleagues.

“Please explain.”

“I need to ask you a few questions.”

The lead elder considered it. “All right.”

“How many people live on the reservation?”

“Twenty-five hundred.”

“How many are related?”

“Nearly everyone,” he said stiffly.

“How many people work in the casino’s security department?”

The elder looked to Running Bear, who said, “Forty-six.”

“All related?”

Running Bear had to think. “Yes.”

“Which means your security people are watching their cousins, aunts, and grandparents, which is the worst possible thing you could have in this business.”

The lead elder stuck his jaw out. “Why is that?”

“In most casinos, security people are ex-cops and detectives. They never fraternize with anyone on the casino floor, nor do any socializing. This disassociation allows them to be objective observers. If you compare that to what’s going on in your casino—”

“Excuse me,” the pointy-headed lawyer said. “But is anyone going to offer up a shred of evidence here? Or are we going to let this man run off at the mouth? My clients have rights.”

The elders collectively frowned. They impressed Valentine as smart men who knew the truth when they heard it. What the lawyer was asking them to do was go backwards. It was the only thing the legal profession was really good at.

“Do you have any more proof?” the lead elder asked.

“Give me the surveillance tapes of these men dealing blackjack, and I’ll give you loads of proof,” Valentine said.

“You can do this right away?”

“I’ll need a day or two,” Valentine said.

The elders went into a huddle, then took a vote.

“Done,” the lead elder said.

Before Valentine could say another word, the elders had filed out of the room, followed by Running Bear and the other accused men. He’d taken this job because he wanted to escape from his problems. It wasn’t working out that way, and he found himself wishing that he’d stayed home.

“Nice job,” Gladys said as they left the trailer.