by James Swain
“What about Nucky Balducci?” Gino asked.
The Lobster had lost his appetite and tore off his bib. He extracted an Arturo Fuente Opus X from his pocket and viciously bit off the end. A waiter appeared with a light, and the cigar’s tip glowed a bright orange. “What about that dumb wop?”
“I thought he was running things in AC,” Gino said.
“Nucky runs the nickel-and-dime crap,” the Lobster said. “This is out of his league. I sent Vinny Acosta down. He’s running the AC operation now.”
The Lobster spent a few minutes enjoying his cigar, oblivious to the stifling haze it was creating inside the restaurant. Three years ago, on November 5th, 1976, one day after New Jersey voters voted to legalize casino gambling, New York’s five mafia families had congregated in the back room of a restaurant on Carmine Street in Little Italy. A single topic had been on the agenda: The opening of Resorts’ casino in Atlantic City. At the meeting, it had been decided that The Lobster would run the Atlantic City operation, with the five families splitting the profits. The Lobster was the natural choice for the job. He’d made his bones in Las Vegas in the fifties, and knew how to rip off a casino.
The Resorts’ scam was a huge moneymaker for the mafia, and was netting the five families three million dollars a month. Eight more casinos would be opened in Atlantic City in the next three years. Each would be shaken down, and the operation set up. The projected take was twenty-seven million a month, almost a million bucks a day. It was enough money to make the Lobster’s head spin.
“Life is fucking good,” he proclaimed.
The Lobster paid the tab, then flirted with the twenty-year old hat check girl before venturing outside. The air was chilly, and he took his time tying his scarf, enjoying the last few puffs on his cigar. Gino and Frankie dutifully trailed a few steps behind.
Tossing the cigar into the gutter, the Lobster stepped out of the restaurant’s shadows into the sun-drenched afternoon and sucked in the invigorating air. His black Lincoln town car was parked at the curb, its engine idling. He considered taking a short walk, then decided against it. Exercise had never appealed to him. Opening the passenger door, he started to climb into the town car, then heard pounding footsteps on the sidewalk. His head instinctively snapped at the sound.
A skinny Italian kid with pimply skin and wearing a tan leather jacket was running towards him. The Lobster immediately recognized him. It was one of the Andruzzi twins from Philly, come to assassinate him.
“Frankie! Gino!” he cried. “Get him!”
Frankie and Gino jumped in front of their boss, at the same time drawing their weapons. Before they could get off a round, the Lobster heard a dull popping sound, and saw his bodyguards crumple to the sidewalk. A set-up, he thought.
The Lobster had always suspected he’d die this way. His belly full of rich food, the taste of a cigar in his mouth, his guard down. The price for being a glutton. He glanced over his shoulder just to be sure. The other Andruzzi twin stood behind him, aiming a gun with a silencer directly at his face. Nearly a million bucks a day, the Lobster thought, and joined his Gino and Frankie on the sidewalk as he was shot dead.
Chapter 19
Fuller and Romero pulled into Valentine’s driveway at noon the next day. Valentine hobbled out of his house on crutches, his right foot covered in a green ski sock. He slid into the back seat of the FBI agents’ car, and laid his crutches on the floor.
“I hear you want to talk to some ladies of negotiable affection,” he said.
Fuller’s eyes danced in the mirror. He was driving, and wore a black sweater that showed off his physique. “Rumor has it you’re the expert.”
“You can’t work this town and not be one,” Valentine said. “Get onto Pacific Avenue and head north until you hit Harold’s House of Pancakes.”
“That the local hangout?” Fuller asked.
“There’s usually one or two girls hanging around.”
Fuller followed his instructions. Leaving Margate, he drove through the suburb of Marvin Gardens, entered Ventnor with its rows of majestic mansions that locals called slammers, and then came to the mean streets of Atlantic City. The scenery changed from spectacular to slum in the time it took to smoke a cigarette. A sign for Harold’s House of Pancakes loomed in the windshield. Valentine had Fuller pull into the lot.
“Hookers like to eat here,” Valentine said. “Manager has a special for them.”
They went in. The restaurant was paneled in knotty pine turned smeary from grill grease and smoke. Valentine canvassed the back of the room. In the corner sat a hooker hunched over a plate of rheumy eggs with hash browns that looked like wood shavings. Her eyes locked onto his.
“Looks like we’re in luck,” Valentine said.
Her name was Mona. Valentine had always thought it was a put-on, until he’d run her in, and the name had appeared on her rap sheet. “I popped out of my mother’s belly, doctor slapped my ass, I started moaning like a cat in heat,” she had explained, her wrist handcuffed to a chair as he finger-typed his report. “Name stuck.’”
Valentine had always liked her after that. Mona was heavy on the sarcasm, and he guessed she was trying to hide the real self, which was a strung-out, broken down women whose best days were past. She liked him, too, as much as any hooker could like a cop.
“Mind a little company?” Valentine asked.
Mona looked the three men over. “Pick up the check?”
Fuller agreed, and they sat down at her table. Mona’s right hand held a fork, her left a cigarette. She hacked violently in their faces. “I hear you got shot,” she said.
Valentine showed her where the bullet had gone through the palm of his hand.
“No more life line, huh?” she said.
The bullet’s scar had wiped away the life line on his hand.
“All gone,” he said.
“What’s with the crutches?”
“I fell down running after my wife.”
Mona laughed hoarsely while sizing up Romero and Fuller. “Who are these Toms?”
“Special Agent Fuller, Special Agent Romero, FBI.”
“You’re hanging out with fast company.”
“I’m helping them with a case.”
A waitress with a cigarette glued to her lip took their order. Coffee all the way around.
“What do you want from me?” Mona asked.
Romero removed an envelope from his jacket, took out head shots of the Dresser’s four victims, and slid them Mona’s way. She pushed her plate to the far end of the table, then spread the photographs in front of her and stared.
“These girls were working Resorts,” Valentine said. “Know any of them?”
Mona pointed a gnarly finger at one. “She kind of looks familiar. Haven’t seen her in a while.”
Romero removed the Dresser’s composite and showed it to her.
“How about him?” Valentine asked.
Mona studied the composite for a few moments. “Naw.” She looked up, and her eyes rested on Romero, as if trying to place him.
“Now you, I know,” she said.
Romero dabbed at his brow with a paper napkin. It was cold inside the restaurant, yet there was sweat pouring off him. Had he gone out for some fun, and done her?
“You must be mistaken,” the FBI agent said.
“Don’t get smart with me, federal agent man. I saw you the other morning in the Catholic church over on Atlantic. You were in the front pew, praying. You said good morning to me. Remember?”
She banged out a cigarette from her pack of Kools. Romero picked up her lighter and fumbled with it. Finally, he got her cigarette lit.
“Yes, I remember,” he said.
Mona inhaled deeply on her cigarette. “I pray for my sister. She’s dying of leukemia. Who you praying for?”
“A dead friend,” Romero said.
“That ain’t nothing to be ashamed off,” Mona told him.
Fuller and Romero had printed flyers with the Dresser’
s composite along with a special 24-hour FBI hot line to call, and asked Mona if she would distribute them to other working girls on the island. Mona read the flyer and shook her head.
“This will never work,” she said.
“Why, what’s wrong with it?” Valentine asked.
“It says, ‘If you think you recognize this person, please call Special Agent Fuller or Special Agent Romero of the FBI at this number.” She snorted with laughter. “Come on. You really think a whore is gonna call the Hardy Boys?”
Valentine hid a smile. “Probably not.”
“Have them call you,” Mona said.
“Me?” Valentine said.
“Yeah. The whores trust you. Your word means something.”
Fuller turned sideways to looked at Valentine. “Do you mind if we do that?”
Valentine hesitated. He had enough on his plate, only he knew Mona was right. The hookers in the town would call him if they thought their lives were in danger.
“All right,” he said.
Romero got pens from the waiter, and he and Fuller crossed out the last line on each flyer, and substituted Valentine’s name and station house phone number. Mona took one of the flyers, and appraised it with a skilled eye.
“This will work,” she said.
Chapter 20
Two days after Christmas, Valentine tossed his crutches, and decided to go back to work. Hanging around the house was starting to feel like a prison sentence, and he found himself looking forward to returning to Resorts, and making some cheater’s life miserable.
But first, he had some business to take care of. Driving to the Margate mall, he found a jewelry store with a sign in the window that said Christmas sale, all items 30% off. He had a female clerk help him pick out an appropriate gift, then had her wrap it. He drove to the Rainbow Arms apartment with the gift in his lap, and parked on the street.
The building’s elevator was on the blink, and he climbed the stairs to the top floor. He was puffing hard as he knocked on the door to Sampson’s apartment, and told himself he needed to start exercising again. In two years he’d turn forty. He’d never had to regularly exercise, but suddenly it seemed like a good idea.
He heard chains being drawn. The door opened, and ten-year-old Bernard stood before him, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt with the face of a toothless Leon Spinks, the former heavyweight champion of the world. He stared at the gift in Valentine’s hand.
“Thought you were coming by last week,” Bernard said accusingly.
Valentine had called and said he was coming by. Then he’d gotten beat up.
“I was out of commission,” Valentine said.
“What does that mean?”
“I got hurt. I called your grandfather from the hospital. Didn’t he tell you?”
“Hurt how?”
“Guy punched my lights out.”
“You get any licks in?”
“A couple.”
A smile spread across Bernard’s face. Yes, Valentine thought, his grandfather had told him. But Bernard wanted to hear him say it, and judge for himself if it was true. Valentine handed him the gift.
“Merry Christmas.”
They went down the shotgun hallway to the kitchen with the naked bulb danging from the ceiling. The grandfather sat at the table, the newspaper spread before him.
“I was getting worried about you,” Sampson said.
“I hurt my foot and couldn’t walk,” Valentine said. “It’s fine now.”
“Glad to hear it. Would you mind making some coffee? I’m dying for a cup.”
There was a cannister of ground coffee on the counter, and Valentine doled several teaspoons into the Mr. Coffee maker sitting beside it. He heard Bernard open his present, but did not turn around until he knew it was out of the box.
Bernard stared at the Timex watch. “This really for me?”
“Yes, it’s for you.”
“Let me see it,” his grandfather said.
Bernard held the watch a foot in front of his grandfather’s face and let him visually appraise it. “A fine looking time piece,” Sampson said. “Tell Mr Valentine thank you.”
“Thanks,” the boy said.
Bernard was good at keeping his feelings hidden, and Valentine didn’t realize until he’d put the watch on how much he liked it. Valentine had chosen a snappy-looking black leather wrist band, and it looked just right on him. Bernard knew it, too.
“Better hurry before you miss the school bus,” his grandfather said.
“Yeah,” Bernard said.
He was gone in a flash, the front door slamming behind him. Soon the coffee was ready. Valentine poured two mugs and brought them to the table. He held Sampson’s cup to his lips, and let the old man drink first. Then he took a sip from his own mug.
“I have some bad news,” Sampson said.
“What’s that?”
“I’m dying,” he said.
Sampson said he had less than a month to live. He spoke about it matter-of-factly, like you would the weather, and did not say what was killing him. So much of his dignity had been stripped away by his paralysis that Valentine did not feel it was right to ask him.
“I am not afraid of death,” Sampson said. “But I fear for the boy. There are few good influences around here.”
“What about his mother? Can’t she watch out for him?”
Sampson shook his head ruefully. “My daughter is not a good influence.”
“Is she here?”
“No.”
Valentine drank his coffee in silence. He’d figured out that Bernard’s mother was a street walker, and had considered sitting her down, and reading the riot act to her. But he didn’t think it would do any good. She had a son to feed, and the old man.
“Perhaps you could do something,” Sampson suggested.
Valentine stared at the grains in the bottom of his mug. He knew what Sampson wanted: If he came around the apartment more often, perhaps he could exert a positive influence on Bernard.
“I’ll do what I can,” he said.
“Thank you.”
Valentine drove to work feeling rotten. Bernard had practically saved his life. That was worth something. But how much was it worth? He would come around and check up on him, but it wouldn’t be as much as the grandfather wanted.
He parked on the street, and entered Resorts’ casino from the Boardwalk entrance. The casino was packed, with customers standing five deep at every table, waiting to place a bet. Most of the customers looked like working Joes, gambling with their paychecks. Out in Las Vegas, the casinos depended upon wealthy gamblers, called whales, to make their nut. In Atlantic City, a whale was a sanitation worker with a hundred bucks to burn in his pocket. He felt a tug on his sleeve and stared into the face of a security guard.
“You’ve got a call,” the guard said, pointing at a house phone by the elevators.
“Thanks.” Valentine went and picked the phone up. “Valentine here.”
“I’m up in the catwalk,” Doyle said.
“What have you got?”
“A card-counter,” his partner replied.
Valentine took an elevator to the second floor, walked down a long, windowless hallway, and punched a code into the combination lock of a steel door. The door swung in, and he entered a dark, cavernous space.
“Over here,” Doyle said.
Valentine found his partner hanging over a metal railing, staring at the blackjack pit through a camera with a wide telephoto lens. Located in the ceiling above the casino, the catwalk let security personnel watch the games through two-way mirrors, and gave a feel for the action that surveillance cameras could not provide.
“Where is he?” Valentine asked.
“Table number 46, guy at third base,” Doyle replied.
Resorts had seventy-two blackjack tables. At any given time, a handful of card-counters were scattered around those tables. Card-counting altered the house edge by two percent. It didn’t sound like much, but if enough peop
le did it, it could bankrupt a casino.
Counters were intense people, and often wore baseball caps to hide their faces from the eye-in-the-sky cameras. What gave them away was the way they bet. For hours, they would bet the table minimum. Then, the shoe would get rich in high-valued cards, and their bets would grow twenty times. Casinos called it bet fluctuation.
