Wild Card

Chapter 47

Valentine drove home with dollar signs swimming in his head. When Mink had said a hundred thousand dollars a day was being stolen from Resorts, he had assumed it was a bullshit number, used to suck Mink in. Only the audit backed Mink up. Six months divided into eighteen million dollars was a hundred thousand dollars a day. He made thirty-six grand a year. He would have to work for a thousand years to make that much money.

Pulling up his driveway, he tried to guess how many employees were involved in the skim outside of Vinny Acosta and his runners. He put the number at a dozen people in the casino and hotel’s accounting departments. Hard-working people who’d decided thirty-six grand a year didn’t cut it, and had decided to go to work for the mob.

You’re all going down, he thought.

A young woman stood on the stoop of his house. Early twenties, dirty brown hair, wearing a fake fur coat. Definitely not a ‘I’d like to talk to you about Jesus’ nut. As he pulled up the driveway, she turned around. It was Sissy, the Visine Queen. Parking, he jumped out of the car. If he was seen with another hooker, Banko would have his scalp. Approaching her, he said, “What are you doing here?”

“Selling girl scout cookies.”

“Who gave you my address?”

She eyed him cooly. “I date a cop on the side. He told me.”

“What do you want?”

Sissy shot him a nasty look. “You’re not very hospitable.”

“I’m on suspension. What do you want?”

“It’s about Mona.”

“What about her?”

“She’s missing. I think she’s in trouble.”

He looked up and down the street for Hatch or any other detectives that might be watching his house. The street was empty, and he escorted Sissy inside. She slipped out of her fake fur, and threw it over a chair in the dining room. She wasn’t wearing trashy clothes, or anything particularly alluring; little make-up, and no perfume. She refused to sit down, and stood next to his dining room table. She was all business.

Sitting on the table was a box of family photographs that Lois planned to hang around the house to replace those destroyed by the burglars. The top photograph caught Sissy’s eye, and she picked it up. It was of Lois modeling a bathing suit when she was younger.

“This your wife?”

“That’s her,” he said.

“She’s a beauty.”

Valentine took a deep breath. Sissy was trying to be nice, but it didn’t matter. He wanted her to say what was on her mind, and get out of his house.

“What happened to Mona?” he asked.

Sissy continued to admire the photograph. “She’s disappeared. Went to the beach yesterday and never came home. We do buddy checks. When she didn’t answer her phone this morning, I went looking for her.”

“Any luck?”

“Just her car. It was parked in the lot of the Catholic church near the casino. I talked to the priest. He said it had been there overnight.”

“You file a missing person’s report?”

“No. Do you mind?”

Before he could object, Sissy removed Lois’s photograph, and picked up the one beneath it. It was of Gerry at his fifth birthday. He was dressed in a Batman costume and was blowing out the candles on a sagging ice cream cake. Sissy rubbed his face with her thumb, then seemed embarrassed and put the photograph down.

“Why not?” he asked.

“I’m leaving town. I did what I could.”

“I thought Mona was your friend.”

“You think a missing person report is going to make a difference?”

“It’s a start,” he said, growing angry with her.

She took her fake fur off the chair, and slipped it on. “I told Mona to stay off the streets until this sicko was caught. She didn’t listen. You know why?”

He shook his head.

“There’s an old expression. Quit the business, before the business quits you. Mona didn’t know when to quit.” Sissy walked to the front door, opened it, then turned and looked him square in the eye. “I do.”

He followed her outside to the curb. Sissy drove a baby-blue Mustang, and it was packed with everything she owned, the clothes and kitchen utensils thrown across the seats like she’d robbed a rummage sale.

“If you see her again, tell her I’m sorry,” Sissy said.

Valentine watched her drive away, then went back inside his house.

He sat at his kitchen table, and tried to decide what to do with the information Sissy had given him. The rules for being suspended were clear: No involvement in any active investigations. He couldn’t call Banko without getting himself in more hot water, only sitting on the information wasn’t an option, either. Not if he wanted to sleep at night, and live with his conscience. He picked up the phone and called Lois at work. His wife was on break, and he told her everything that Sissy had said.

“You have to call Banko, and tell him,” Lois said when he was finished.

“Even if I end up getting fired?”

“Yes,” she said firmly.

He’d thought of a dozen surreptitious ways of getting the information about Mona to Banko without getting involved. As if reading his thoughts, Lois said, “He may not be happy with you Tony, but he will believe you, and that’s what counts.”

It made him feel better, knowing his wife was behind him. He told her that he loved her, then hung up and called his superior.

“Let me get this straight. A hooker drove to your house, and gave you this information?” Banko said incredulously a few minutes later. His tone was severe, and Valentine could feel an invisible noose tightening around his neck.

“That’s right,” he said.

“You entertain hookers at your house often?”

“She dates a cop. Said he gave her my address.”

Banko swore like he’d banged his thumb with a hammer. “Did she tell you this cop’s name?”

“No, sir.”

“Why—”

“I didn’t ask her.”

“If there’s a bad apple on the force, I want to know about it.”

Valentine was standing at his sink, looking at his postage stamp of a backyard filled with cheap kid’s playthings. It was what thirty-six grand a year bought you, and he said, “I was more concerned about Mona, if you want to know the truth.”

There was a long pause on the other end.

“All right, here’s what I’ll do,” Banko said. “I’ll file a Missing Person report on Mona, and distribute it to the force, along with her mug shot. In return, I want you to promise me you’ll stay off this case. If you get a lead, you’ll call me. No more rogue police work, understand?”

Valentine gripped the receiver and felt his vision blur. Banko had called him a rogue cop. He was finished as a detective, and they both knew it.

“Yes, sir,” he said quietly.

The phone went dead in his hand.

Putting his overcoat on, Valentine went outside, and got a shovel from the garage. Crossing his backyard, he stopped at the birdbath, and used his muscle to move it a few inches. It was ugly as sin, and had only stayed because he couldn’t afford to replace it.

Then he began to dig. Two feet down, he put the shovel aside, and used his fingers. The address book and video tape were buried in plastic zip-lock bags, and he removed them from the hole, then refilled it and went back inside.

He found a pencil and a legal pad in a kitchen drawer, and spent the next hour writing down everything he knew about the skim at Resorts. In language anyone could understand, he explained how the skim was being reported on the books, and included how Resorts’ hotel routinely over-charged customers, a practice which he’d known about, and now guessed let the hotel off-set giving away an occasional free room to a high-roller.

Finished, he wrote up the cast of characters, which included Crowe, Brown, Freed, Mickey Wright, Vinny Acosta, the names of the runners in the address book, and the names of hotel and casino employees who did the books, and who he believed were involved. Only one name didn’t make the list, and that was Mink. Losing Marcus was punishment enough for what he’d done.

Then he reread the report. It was four pages long. The crime he was painting would be easy for anyone to understand, including any of the local reporters he knew. But, there was also a problem. It contained a lot of insider information, and if the papers did publish it, people would know he’d written it, and he would be labeled a disgraced cop with an axe to grind. If that’s what it takes to get the truth out, so be it, he thought.

He found an envelope in the kitchen cabinet, and sealed the report inside of it. He knew the address of the Camden Union Register by heart, and was writing it on the envelope when the phone rang. Lifting the receiver to his ear, he heard Lois’s voice.

“I love you,” she said.

“I love you, too,” he told her.

“So, how did your talk with Banko go?”

Valentine stared down at the envelope in his hands.

“I think it’s time for a career-change,” he said.