Wild Card

Chapter 36

As a kid, Valentine had never had a problem getting a summer job. The Boardwalk always had plenty of openings. There were jobs hawking ice cream, working carnival games, or selling photographs of beautiful women on horseback jumping off the Steel Pier. But, the best jobs were at the amusements and exhibits.

The summer of his sixteenth birthday, he’d landed a job at the Underwood Exhibit. Underwood was the country’s biggest maker of typewriters. As a publicity gimmick, the company had built the world’s largest typewriter, and shipped it to Atlantic City. The typewriter was 1,728 the times the size of a normal typewriter, and weighed five tons. It typed on stationery measuring nine by twelve feet, with a ribbon over thirty yards long. Valentine’s job had been to jump on keys, and type out messages for tourists, a nickel a letter. His father had been working a construction job nearby, and when Valentine was ready to go home, he’d jump on the typewriter’s bell, which could be heard for blocks.

The exhibit had been housed in the Bijou Theater, where it still remained. The Bijou had been built during the Depression to capitalize on the country’s madness for movies, its owner spending a fortune on its terra-cotta facade, terrazzo floors, and twinkling lights embedded in the domed ceiling. These days, the theater sat vacant, its history forgotten.

Valentine pressed the front door buzzer. A sleep-walking guard opened the door, and gave him a curious stare. Valentine showed him his badge.

“I got a call that someone wanted to meet me here.”

“Wasn’t from me,” the guard said.

“Mind if we come inside, and have a look around?”

“Not at all. I could use the company.”

Valentine and Doyle followed the guard past the musty-smelling concession area into the darkened theater. The guard flicked on the overhead lights and the room came to life. “Ain’t nobody been here in a while,” he said.

The theater was as Valentine remembered it, vast and beautiful. The world’s largest typewriter sat on the stage, covered with a blanket of gray dust. Getting paid to jump on something had been fun, and he found himself remembering all the vacationing secretaries who’d paid him to type out barbs to the boss back home.

“Looks like someone got here before us,” Doyle said.

There were fresh footprints around the base of the machine. Valentine got up next to the stage, and saw a message on the stationery, the letters so faint that he had to squint.

Doyle edged up beside him. “Think your father is behind this?”

Valentine’s gut said no. His old man was a drunk. Drunks pissed in doorways, and picked fights in bars. They didn’t go into old buildings, and pull crazy stunts.

“No. I think it’s the Dresser.”

“How would he have known you worked here?”

“Because he’s a local. The FBI has thought that all along.”

“And he’s got a grudge against you.”

“It sure seems that way.”

Doyle decided he wanted to talk to the guard, who’d picked a seat in the theater to park himself in. As Doyle walked up the aisle, Valentine heard a man’s voice. It was so close, it sounded like someone whispering in his ear.

“You like being the hero, don’t you, Tony?”

Valentine looked over his shoulder at his partner. “Did you hear that?”

Doyle turned around in the aisle. “Hear what?”

“That voice.”

“I didn’t hear anything, Tony. You must be imagining things.”

Valentine let his eyes canvas the stage. The typewriter was pushed right up against the wall, leaving nowhere to hide behind it. And the curtains had been removed long ago. There was no one there. So where had the voice come from?

“Defender of the weak and the innocent. All the girls had a thing for you.”

Valentine stared up at the fresco in the dome. The voice seemed to be coming from the air, and he stared at the angels and demons carousing above his head.

“Come on, Tony. I’ve given you enough clues. Don’t you know why I hate you?”

He continued to stare, seeing nothing.

“Something wrong?” Doyle said.

Valentine again looked over his shoulder. His partner was standing beside the guard. “You didn’t hear that voice?”

“No, Tony, honest, I didn’t hear a thing.”

There was a doorway next to the stage. Valentine walked over to it, and stared down a dimly lit hallway at the dressing rooms in the back. It was the only place in the theater to hide. Drawing his .38, he pointed the barrel straight ahead, then glanced back at his partner. “Cover me,” he said.

Doyle limped up behind him, his weapon drawn. Valentine walked down the hallway remembering all the famous actors that used to play the Bijou. His leg hit a trip wire, and he heard a sickening Thwap! Before his life had time to flash before his eyes, his partner barreled into him from behind, and together they hit the floor.

Valentine landed on his side, and watched as a baby grand piano came crashing down on the spot where he’d just stood. The piano once sat in front of the stage, where a lady in a white dress would play old show tunes. As it hit the earth, music rushed out like a drowning symphony.

He got up off the floor, then helped Doyle to his feet. His partner was grimacing and holding his crippled leg.

“You okay?”

“I’ll live,” Doyle said.

The guard came running down the hallway, looking scared to death. He pulled a flashlight out of his back pocket, and shone it up at the ceiling. The piano had been hanging from a pulley. “I don’t remember that being there,” the guard said.

Valentine went to the dressing rooms and checked them. They hadn’t been used in years, and there was no sign of anyone being in them recently. Then, he checked the back entrance to the theater, and found it locked.

There was a pay phone at the end of the hall. Valentine fished a dime out of his pocket, and called Banko.

“You better come down here,” he told his superior.

“You heard a voice?” Banko said fifteen minutes later.

They were standing in front of the stage. In the hallway, they could hear the guard cleaning up the broken piano. Every time he threw a piece of wood in a wheelbarrow, the instrument emitted a mournful chord. Valentine had explained everything — from hearing the voice, to the misspelled message on the typewriter mimicking the messages he’d typed as a kid — and Banko was looking at him like he’d lost his mind.

“It was a man’s voice,” Valentine said. “He whispered my name.”

“Did Doyle hear it? Or the guard?”

“No.”

Banko made an exasperated face. “Tony, this isn’t good. You’re hearing things, and making connections that no one else is making. I want you to do your job at the casino. Stop running around town every time someone calls you on the phone.”

Doyle stood a few feet away, listening. He mouthed the words Say yes.

“Okay,” Valentine said.

“Terrific. If it makes you feel better, I’ll have another detective look into this, and see what turns up.” Banko started to walk away, then came back. “We have a meeting with the CCC tomorrow regarding Louis Galloway. Remember?”

Valentine said, “Of course I remember.”

“What time am I picking you up at your house?”

“Uh... seven-thirty?”

Banko walked away muttering under his breath.