by James Swain
He found the rental car sandwiched between two rusted old junkers that looked ready for the scrap heap. That was one of the bad things about casinos. They attracted people who’d run out of everything but dreams. The space between the cars was narrow, and Gerry was sliding between them to unlock the driver’s door when he saw a long shadow on the asphalt. He turned around slowly, fearing the worst. Sensing his alarm, his friends also turned.
Standing twenty yards away was a man who looked familiar. Tall, lanky, wearing faded blue jeans and a dungaree shirt with a square bulge in the pocket, the man wore his hair straight back, and had a look on his face of pure menace. The handgun that dangled by his side rounded out the picture. Then Gerry recognized him. It was the construction worker from the Voodoo Lounge, the guy that Gerry knew was part of the scheme to kill them. Their eyes met, and the construction worker raised his gun.
24
“Great shirt,” Gloria Curtis said, spearing a shrimp in her shrimp cocktail.
“You like it?” Valentine asked.
“Yes. The color matches your eyes.”
Valentine smiled as he buttered his roll. They were having dinner in Celebrity’s revolving restaurant atop the hotel while watching the desert turn a burnt ochre color.
“I saw you buying it earlier,” she added.
He looked into her face and saw her eyes twinkle. If he’d learned anything from the past two years of taking stabs at dating, it was that women appreciated when a man tried to look nice on their behalf. How this simple fact had escaped him during his forty years of marriage, he had no earthly idea.
“It’s a new color for me,” he said. “I’m glad you like it.”
“New, as in you haven’t worn it in a while?”
He shook his head. “I can’t remember wearing blue as a kid. I wore it as a cop when I was in uniform and had a beat, then switched to jeans and sweatshirts when I went undercover. When I started policing casinos, I wore a black sports jacket and a white shirt.”
“You always wore white shirts? No variations?”
He again shook his head. One year for Christmas, his wife had given him a pink button-down shirt, and he’d worn it to work. Everyone had made so much fun of him, he’d retired it to the closet and never worn it again.
“So why did you decide to wear blue today?” she asked.
The buttered roll still hadn’t made it into his mouth. He hadn’t wanted his shirt to become the main topic of their conversation, and said, “My closet is filled with white shirts. When I look at them, I see the past. I guess I felt it was time for a change.”
Gloria stabbed another shrimp out of her cocktail. Las Vegas sold more shrimp than anywhere else in the world, and the ones swimming in cocktail sauce in Gloria’s glass were of the monster variety. She chewed her food contemplatively.
“I have this bad habit of wondering about things until they start driving me crazy,” she said. “I guess it’s why I became a journalist. When I was talking to Rufus Steele the other day, I mentioned to him that the Nevada Gaming Control Board had hired you to investigate the tournament, and he made a comment that’s been bothering me.”
“What did he say?”
“Rufus said that the first time he played poker in Atlantic City, you saved his life, but also ruined his life. When I pressed him for an explanation, we got interrupted, and I never got my answer. Can you explain what he meant?”
A waiter appeared with their meals. He was a different guy from the one who’d taken their dinner order, who’d been a different guy from the one who’d taken their drink and appetizer order. The restaurant touted itself as the best in Las Vegas, only its service was nothing but asses and elbows. The waiter tried to take Gloria’s shrimp cocktail away so he could set her plate down, and she grabbed it from his hand.
“I’m not finished with that,” she said.
The waiter looked at her blankly. Normally Valentine would have given him a lesson in table etiquette, but instead told him to bring the plates back in five minutes.
“And make sure they’re hot,” he said as the waiter walked away.
“So, where were we?” Gloria said.
“Rufus’s comment about my saving and ruining his life.”
“Right. What did he mean?”
He decided his roll was not meant to be eaten, and put it down on his bread plate. He spent a few moments dredging his memory. He’d dealt with many situations during his years in Atlantic City, and Rufus Steele was buried deep in the past.
“If I remember correctly, this was in early 1980,” he said. “Atlantic City had opened it’s first casino a year and a half before, and we were attracting gamblers from all over the country, including a lot of poker players. Now, we didn’t have any legal poker rooms in our casinos, so these guys were playing in private homes on the island, or in rooms in the casino.”
“Was that legal?”
“No, but that never stopped a poker player from playing in a game. Especially Rufus. It’s a risky proposition, too, when you consider how often these games get hijacked.”
“Hijacked?”
“It’s what poker players say when a game gets robbed. Did you happen to notice the thick rubber band Rufus wears around his wrist? A lot of the old-time poker players wear them.”
Gloria thought about it while devouring another shrimp. “Come to mention it, I did see a rubber band around his wrist. I assumed it had some meaning.”
“It does. A poker player’s best friend is a rubber band. If a guy comes out of a game, and thinks he’s about to get hijacked, he’ll pull his bankroll out of his pocket, and encircle it with a rubber band. Then he’ll toss the bankroll under a car, or over a wall, and recover it later.”
“That sounds awfully dangerous.”
“They say playing poker is the most dangerous way to make an easy living.”
“Okay, back to your story,” Gloria said.
“Right. Rufus comes to Atlantic City to play poker in a private game in a casino hotel. Rufus looks me up, knowing I’m the head law enforcement officer, and introduces himself. He doesn’t come out and say he’s there to play poker, but I figured it out. He was famous even back then, and I realized he was asking me to look out for him. You know, make sure he doesn’t get hijacked.”
“Why would you do that? You knew the game was illegal.”
“A lot of reasons. For one thing, if the game got hijacked, it would bring bad publicity to the casino. Another is that if people gamble inside a casino, it’s hard to stop them from going up to their rooms, and playing cards. The third is, I liked the guy.”
“The third reason is the best,” she said.
“The next morning, I get to work, and call Rufus’s hotel room, just to see how he’s doing. The phone rings and rings, but he doesn’t answer. I call the hotel’s housekeeping, and ask them to send a maid up, and have her knock on the door. I get a call back, saying there’s no answer. Now, either Rufus is a heavy sleeper or he’s in trouble, so I called hotel security and alerted them. Then I ran over there.”
“Ran?”
“Yes. My office was in one of the casinos. At the time, there were three casinos in Atlantic City, and they were all connected by the Boardwalk, so it was easier to run between them than taking my car. It was also a good way to stay in shape.”
Gloria broke into a big smile. “That’s a wonderful image.”
He felt himself blush, not entirely sure what she meant. She reached across the table and placed her hand on his wrist.
“Please tell me the rest.”
“Right. I reach the hotel, and go up to Rufus’s room. Hotel security is standing outside, not knowing what to do. I kicked down the door, and ran in. Rufus was lying in the bathtub with a gag in his mouth. His wrists were tied behind his back with piano wire, and his ankles were tied as well. The piano wire had cut through the skin, and he was slowly bleeding to death.”
“How horrible.”
“I untied him, and he told me that he
’d won fifty thousand bucks playing poker the night before, then come back to the room. Two guys had lock-picked the door, and jumped him at three o’clock in the morning. They had stockings over their faces, only one of the guys started coughing, and had to pull the stocking off. Rufus saw his face, so the guys decided to give him the piano wire treatment, and leave him.”
“You mean they meant to kill him?”
“They sure did.”
“Did Rufus know the man?”
“No, but he saw his face, and the guy was scared of Rufus fingering him. I rushed Rufus to the hospital, then tracked down the guys who’d robbed him, and hauled them in.”
“But how did you do that, if Rufus didn’t know them?”
“Piano wire isn’t something most crooks carry around with them. Atlantic City is a small island, and there’s only one piano store. I called it, and asked them if two guys had been in the day before, and purchased any wire. Turns out, they had. They’d paid for the wire with a credit card, so it was easy to track them down.”
“Did you retrieve all of Rufus’s money?”
“Every last cent. That was how I ruined him, so to speak.”
“What do you mean?”
“The law required that I inform the Internal Revenue Service about the money Rufus had won, since it was income. I ran into Rufus about ten years later, and he told me that the IRS had been auditing him every year since.”
“Couldn’t you have prevented that?”
“You mean not tell the IRS?”
“Yes.”
Valentine shook his head. “It would have meant breaking the law.”
A look crept across Gloria’s face that was neither a smile nor a frown. The shrimp had vanished from her shrimp cocktail, and the sun had dropped low enough in the horizon for dusk to have settled in. The real day for Las Vegas was about to start.
“Now I know why you always wore black and white,” she said.
It took Valentine five minutes to flag down their waiter, and convince him to bring their food. He touched their plates as they were served, and was pleased they were hot. He and Gloria had both ordered plank-grilled salmon with garlic mashed potatoes. They seemed to have a lot in common, and dug into their meals.
“My producer loved the piece with Rufus and the fly,” Gloria said. “He’s going to run it tonight after they show the highlights from the tournament. You saved me with that call.”
“Saved you how?” Valentine asked.
“I found out a few hours ago that my producer was going to call me home. It’s the worst thing that can happen to a reporter when they’re out on assignment. After he saw the segment, he told me to stay a few more days, and see what I could dig up.”
“So you still have your job.”
“It sure looks that way.”
“Glad I could help.”
“My producer thinks Rufus’s stunt was a trick, and that he really didn’t hypnotize the fly. I told him if anyone would know the secret, it was you.”
Valentine put a piece of salmon into his mouth and chewed. He’d come to dinner prepared to explain the sugar cube trick to Gloria, but now found himself having second thoughts. He guessed it had something to do with seeing Rufus so down on his luck earlier, and all his clothes piled unceremoniously in the middle of his room. Rufus was slowing down, which was death for any gambler, and the vultures were starting to pick him apart. He had no desire to join the carnage.
“I don’t have a clue,” Valentine said.
25
Gerry watched the construction worker walk toward them, aiming his gun. It was a simple .22, a gun that was relatively quiet compared to most handguns. Gerry had heard that mob guys and hitmen liked .22s because once the bullet entered the body, it tended to ricochet and cause a lot of damage. Vinny and Nunzie dove between a pair of parked cars, and a bullet whistled over their heads.
The construction worker kept coming forward, his weapon now aimed at Gerry. Gerry followed the Fountain brothers’ lead, and ducked behind a car.
“Gimme the keys,” Frank said, standing beside the trunk of the rental.
Crouching, Vinny dug the rental keys from his pocket.
“Here,” he said, throwing them in Frank’s direction.
Frank plucked the keys out of the air and unlocked the rental’s trunk. He was amazingly calm, and it reminded Gerry of his mother’s favorite expression: “Everyone is good for something.” As a boxer, Frank had faced guys who were bigger than he was, and who punched harder than he did, but Frank had beaten them all. He was afraid of nothing. The other thing Frank was good at was seeing into the future. Before they’d left the Voodoo Lounge, he’d gone back inside the bar, and returned carrying the bartender’s .38 Magnum, which he’d placed in the rental’s trunk.
“Never know when you’ll need a gun,” he’d remarked.
Frank now removed the .38 from the trunk as the construction worker took a shot at him. The bullet hit an SUV parked behind Frank, winging it and causing the car’s alarm to go off. Gerry heard the construction worker curse, and knew the guy was making a classic mistake. It was hard enough to shoot someone while standing still, but moving forward made it doubly hard.
Grasping the .38 with both hands, Frank leveled its barrel at the construction worker, causing him to freeze in his tracks. Frank squeezed the trigger and nothing happened. He squeezed again, and heard another click.
“I need backup,” Frank yelled.
Vinny, who was hiding across the aisle, pulled off one of his loafers, and threw it at the construction worker. The man ducked, not knowing what was being thrown at him. Then Nunzie threw one of his shoes, hitting the construction worker in the side. Gerry stared at Frank, who’d opened up the .38’s chamber, and was inspecting the weapon. Satisfied, he snapped the chamber shut, aimed, and fired.
The bullet hit the construction worker in the chest, and he lurched violently to one side, his arms going straight into the air. The .38’s bullet was a different animal than a .22’s. It was meant to penetrate, and left a larger exit hole than most handguns. The construction worker’s legs moved backward, like they’d taken on a life of their own, his fingers still clutching the .22.
Frank shot him again in the chest. The construction worker was dead, but didn’t know it. Frank shot him a third time, and the .22 flew out of the construction worker’s hand and disappeared beneath a parked car. The man continued going backward, only now his feet had stopped working. He hit the pavement and lay motionless on the ground.
Vinny and Nunzie ran out from their hiding places, and retrieved their shoes. They fitted them on while hopping on one leg. The construction worker stared up at the cloudless sky, the look on his face pure disbelief.
Gerry went over to Frank, and put his hand on the bigger man’s shoulder.
“Jesus, Frank, you okay?”
Frank stared at the dead man and shook his head.
“I got lucky,” Frank said.
Most hitmen worked in pairs, with one man doing the shooting, the other doing the driving. Gerry guessed the construction worker’s driver was sitting in a car in the parking lot, waiting for his partner to run over and jump in.
“Time to get out of Dodge,” Gerry said.
The four men climbed into the rental. Vinny made the tires squeal as he drove out Lucky Lou’s back entrance, and onto a side street with little traffic.
“We need to get lost,” Gerry said.
Vinny drove east and got onto the strip. It was dusk, and the city was starting to come alive, the streets and sidewalks teeming with tourists. It was comforting to be around so many people, and Vinny drove for several minutes without anyone in the car saying a word.
“How the hell did that guy find us?” Gerry suddenly asked. “We left the Voodoo Lounge and drove around. Then we went to Lucky Lou’s. How did that guy know where we were?”
Gerry turned around in his seat. Nunzie and Frank gave him blank looks. Neither man was big in the thinking department. He turned
back around and looked at Vinny.
“Any ideas?”
Vinny gripped the wheel and stared at the road. Like Gerry, he’d gone to college for a few years, and had also worked in his father’s business. He knew how to connect the dots, and scrunched his face in concentration.
“He didn’t find us,” Vinny finally said. “He was there in the parking lot, waiting for us. He found the car.”
“So what you’re saying is, this car is being traced.”
“Must be,” Vinny said.
Gerry stared straight ahead. A pack of young women were jaywalking in front of the car. One stopped to wink at him. When Gerry ignored her, she stuck her tongue out, then moved on, her friends laughing hysterically.
“Get off at the next intersection and find a gas station,” Gerry said. “We need to fly speck this car.”
Vinny hung a left on Sahara, and drove until he found a gas station. He pulled into the lot and parked beside the station’s convenience store. The four men hopped out, and Frank grabbed a newspaper out of the trash and laid it on the ground, then slid beneath the car, while Vinny popped the hood and examined the engine with Nunzie. Gerry leaned against the car and watched the street, wary of someone pulling into the gas station and blindsiding them. After a minute he heard Frank speak up.
“Underbody’s clean,” Frank said.
“So’s the engine,” Vinny said, slamming the hood.
Frank slid out from beneath the car. Gerry offered his hand, and helped pull Frank to his feet. The four men huddled beside the building.
“What do we do now?” Vinny asked.
Gerry felt his friends staring at him, and tried to think what his father would do in a situation like this. Whenever his father had a pressing problem, he usually ate something and drank a cup of coffee. Gerry had always thought it was something that cops did, but now saw the value in it. A little break in the action was needed, and he went inside the convenience store.
