by James Swain
He found a radio station that wasn’t country, and jacked the volume up. He was tired, but it was a good tired. His father had bailed him out, given him fresh wings. He’d never been in prison, so he didn’t know what it was like to get sprung. But he had a feeling that the euphoria he was feeling right now was something real close.
He looked at himself in the mirror. That morning, at Yolanda’s suggestion, he’d gotten his hair cut. He liked to wear it longer than most, and his wife had reminded him that he was heading into Dixie, where Yankees were not always welcome. So he’d gotten his ears lowered, and decided he liked the way it made him look.
He turned his attention back to the highway. It ran north-south, with a fifty-foot median planted with hundred-year-old pines. The night seemed very big, the stars illuminating the farthest corners of the universe. It was too good not to share, and he flipped open his cell phone and called his wife.
An hour later, he passed a junior college, then a milling operation where acres of forty-foot-long trees stood adjacent to the highway. Next was a large store that sold nothing but Bibles. Then he passed a town that consisted of one building that housed two restaurants, and a state trooper’s car hiding in the shadows looking for speeders.
The highway eventually dead-ended at a beachfront marina and amusement park. Beneath the glare of a full moon, the park had a ghoulish, otherworld quality that reminded him of a horror film called Carnival of Souls. Hanging a right, he drove to a brightly lit casino named Dixie Magic and found a space in the crowded lot.
He was about a quarter mile from the front doors, but that was okay. His legs were stiff, and he stretched his hamstrings as he walked. He’d never been to Mississippi, and his father had explained the deal to him. By law, casinos couldn’t be on Mississippi soil, so several local businessmen had dug out huge craters of beachfront, flooded them with water you wouldn’t swim in, and floated barges whose interiors were giant casinos. To lessen the cheesy effect, the barges were covered in blinking lights and garish neon.
He crossed the metal gangplank with a bounce in his step. Find Tex, have a chat, and go home to his wife and beautiful baby. It didn’t get any easier than that.
At the front door, a security guard counted him with a clicker. The barge could hold only a certain number of passengers, and a running count was kept of everyone inside.
“Busy night?” Gerry asked.
“Every night’s busy,” the guard said.
Gerry pushed open the glass door, and the smell almost knocked him over. Adrenaline and cheap after-shave, a thousand cigarettes, free booze. The smell of a few thousand people compressed in a tiny space, gambling. For years, people swore that the casinos pumped extra oxygen through the air vents to keep players going, but it wasn’t true. The games kept people going.
He caught the eye of a cute change girl, and learned the poker tournament was on the second floor. He made his way to a bank of elevators. Down in Key West, his father had given him a videotape of Ricky Smith’s winning streak, and he’d watched it with Yolanda. Ricky Smith had played poker with Tex Snyder for twenty minutes and won two hundred grand. He’d made Snyder look like a chump. Surely Snyder would have some interesting thoughts on what happened. The challenge would be making him open up.
Gerry got on a crowded elevator. On the way up, he found himself checking out the other haircuts. He fit right in. Great.
The poker tournament was in the casino’s card room and was being filmed by a cable station for a later showing. Tournament poker was the rage on TV and, according to his father, was creating a whole new legion of suckers. Anyone could enter, and as Gerry started to walk in, he noticed the guy by the entrance. Black, six-two, a soul patch on his chin, his black shirt hanging outside his pants, disguising his massive girth. Stepping forward, he placed his forefinger on Gerry’s shoulder. It was as big as a blood sausage.
“Your name Gerry Valentine?” he asked.
“That’s me,” Gerry said.
“My name’s Lamar Biggs. I run the casino’s security. You’re not wanted here. I’m going to show you out. If you try to resist, I’ll hurt you.”
Gerry flashed Lamar his best smile. “Au contraire. That’s been cleared up. If you call Bill Higgins at the Nevada Gaming Control—”
“Au what?”
“Au contraire. It’s French. It means, on the contrary.”
“So you just told me in French that I’m an idiot,” Lamar said, his eyes narrowing.
“I told you that it’s been cleared up,” Gerry replied stiffly.
Lamar tried to squeeze his shoulder, and Gerry instinctively pulled back. It took all the sting out of whatever nerve Lamar was trying to pinch, and the big man looked surprised. Then his face hardened into a piece of granite, and with his head, he indicated the EMERGENCY EXIT sign. “That way,” he ordered.
Gerry did as told. Walking down the stairway, he felt Lamar’s hot breath on his neck. He’d had onions for dinner. Gerry’s father had told him not to get upset with heads of security who had bad attitudes. Usually, it meant they’d been ripped off and needed to release some anger. At the first-floor landing Gerry stopped and stared straight up. What looked like a water sprinkler hung from the ceiling. It was only a few inches long and covered in tiny hair.
“What’s that?”
“A bat,” Lamar said. “Barge is filled with them. Rats, too. Keep walking.”
“That’s why you have this stairway closed except for emergencies, huh?” Gerry said. “Never show them the inside of the sausage factory.”
“The what?”
“The sausage factory. It’s an old expression. It means, don’t—”
Lamar gave him a push. “I don’t care what it means. Keep walking.”
Gerry had a good idea what was coming next. Outside, Lamar took him to the parking lot to a spot Gerry guessed wasn’t being watched by the cameras. He saw Lamar pull back his sleeves.
“Having a bad day, huh?”
Lamar grunted something under his breath and threw a punch at his face. Gerry wasn’t good at judo like his old man, but he knew a couple of moves. Ducking the big man’s fist, Gerry grabbed his wrist and within seconds spun Lamar around and held his arm firmly behind his back. He hadn’t liked being pushed in the stairwell, and gave Lamar’s arm a little extra twist. Lamar grimaced and muttered, “Okay, okay.”
“We need to get something straight,” Gerry said. Holding Lamar’s wrist with one hand, he dug out his cell phone and said, “What’s the number of your surveillance control room?”
“Why? You want to call them and embarrass me?”
“No. I just want to clear something up.”
Lamar gave him the number. Gerry punched it in, stuck the phone up to Lamar’s face, and said, “Tell whoever answers the phone to go to your desk and look through your mail for a letter from the Nevada Gaming Control Board.”
A woman with a Southern accent answered, and Lamar told her to go to his office. She came back a few moments later.
“Sorry, Lamar, but I can’t find any letter.”
“Tell her to try your e-mail,” Gerry whispered in his ear.
“Try my e-mail,” Lamar said.
“Got it,” the woman said a few moments later.
“Read it to me,” Lamar said.
“It’s from William Higgins, director of the Nevada Gaming Control Board,” the woman said. “It says, ‘It has been brought to my attention that several casinos in Las Vegas recently sent out a warning regarding an individual named Gerry Valentine. This warning was sent in error. Gerry Valentine is not a casino cheater, nor is he a card counter. He is employed by his father, a highly regarded gaming consultant named Tony Valentine. Please disregard this warning. Thank you.’”
“When was this sent?” Lamar asked.
“Yesterday. This is the guy you just pulled off the floor, isn’t it?” the woman said.
Lamar hesitated, clearly at a loss for words. In his ear, Gerry whispered, “Say, ‘That’
s right. Guess I’ll have to let him go.’”
Lamar glanced at him over his shoulder. Something resembling a smile crossed his lips. He repeated the words to the woman, then said good-bye. Gerry killed the connection and released Lamar’s wrist. The big man turned around, shaking his arm.
“Thanks for doing that,” he said.
“Anytime,” Gerry replied.
The problem with running a casino off a barge, Lamar explained when they were sitting in his office, was that there were weight restrictions. To allow more passengers to gamble, the owners had cut down on the amount of surveillance equipment, leaving Lamar and his staff at a disadvantage when it came to catching cheaters and card counters.
“We get ripped off a lot,” Lamar said, fingering Gerry’s business card. “Lots of small stuff, but it adds up. So what’s this Grift Sense?”
“It’s my father’s consulting firm.”
“I figured that out,” Lamar said. His office was the size of two phone booths. The woman with the drawl came in without knocking, placed two steaming cups of coffee on the table, then left. “What does it mean?”
“It’s the ability to spot a hustle or a scam. It’s like a sixth sense.”
“That’s what you and your old man do?”
Gerry had never nailed a cheater in his life, but he saw no reason to tell Lamar that. “That’s right. A lot of casinos put us on retainers. We look at videotapes of suspected cheating, and sometimes even live feeds from the casino floor.”
“How’d you learn?”
“My father was an Atlantic City casino cop for twenty-five years.”
Lamar clicked his fingers. “That’s where I heard the name. How long you been working for him? Couple of months?”
There was a twinkle in his eye, but Gerry knew a challenge when he heard one. “Look, friend. My father is the best there is. But I’m no slouch. You’re getting ripped off? Hire us, and if we don’t figure out what’s shaking, we’ll give you your money back.”
Lamar laughed under his breath. “Cut the sales pitch. I’ll give you the business if you can answer a simple question for me.”
“What’s that?”
“I get scammed a lot. But one scam is pissing me off. We’re getting ripped off the same two times a month. We don’t know how, or where. We just know our take is short about four grand twice a month.”
Lamar ripped the tops off a handful of sugar packets and dumped them into his coffee. Gerry sipped his drink while trying to hide the smile on his face. Of all the questions Lamar could have asked him, he had picked one that Gerry actually knew the answer to. Looking his host in the eye, he said, “Based upon what you just told me, I’d say it’s an inside job.”
Lamar glared at him while mixing his coffee with the eraser end of a pencil. “Give me a break. How can you draw that conclusion based upon what I just told you?”
“You’re short the same two times a month?”
“Correct.”
“Every month?”
“Yeah, so?”
“Is it right before payday?”
Lamar leaned back in his chair and gave Gerry the same thoughtful look he’d shown out in the parking lot. “You know something? I think I could learn to like you.”
9
Valentine sat in a rocking chair on the screened porch of his new house and stared at the forest that was his backyard. The night was chilly, and he wore his overcoat buttoned to his neck. He’d downed a gallon of Diet Coke during the drive, and didn’t think he could fall asleep if his life depended on it.
Stevie Ray Vaughan’s music continued to blast out of Ricky Smith’s house. Valentine had decided that he liked it; the music had an earthy quality that struck him as real. And he liked the man’s singing voice. It was raw and powerful.
A few minutes past midnight, Ricky Smith’s stereo stopped playing. Valentine watched the windows in Ricky’s house go dark. He tried to imagine what it had been like for Polly to be married to such a clown. His own marriage had lasted more than forty years. The secret had been compromise and more compromise. Ricky sounded like he didn’t know the meaning of the word.
The forest came alive with hoots and cries that he never heard down in Florida. Back home, it was mostly frogs and crickets and an occasional dog. The sounds he was hearing now were wilder. He leaned forward in his chair, trying to place them.
Then he heard the footsteps and sat up straight in his chair. They were in the forest and coming toward the house. He decided it was kids returning from the woods and felt himself calm down. It was a perfect place to drink beer.
The backyard was a hundred feet wide. Then the forest began. The footsteps were close, and he imagined the kids were directly behind the first stand of trees. He strained his eyes to see them. It was too dark to make out anything but vague shadows.
“This the house?” one of them asked.
“That’s the one,” another replied.
“You positive? I don’t want to hit the wrong one.”
“That’s the one. Fucker’s in there.”
The voices weren’t coming out of kids’ mouths. They were adults, male, and had hints of Spanish accents. They also spoke like tough guys, each syllable laced with a threat. Valentine started to push himself out of his chair and heard it loudly creak.
“What the hell was that?” a third voice said.
“We’ve been made,” a fourth voice said.
“You think so?”
“Shut up,” the first one said.
Valentine felt his heart doing the funny thing it always did when he got scared out of his wits. His gun was in his suitcase on the other side of the house. He could call the police on his cell phone; only, he hadn’t gotten the house’s address from Polly. His earlier conversation with Mabel suddenly hit home. Stop thinking about Ricky jumping out of the burning hotel. In other words, look at it like any other crime. Only, he hadn’t, and now he was screwed.
His other option was to run out the front door. It would buy him some time, and right now, he needed as much of that as he could get. He pushed himself out of his rocker and heard his cell phone ring. It was sitting on the side table, and he stared at the illuminated caller ID. Gerry, calling from Gulfport. He cursed silently.
From the woods came whispering. It was in Spanish, and he tried to pick up a few words that he knew. They were debating what to do. They outnumbered him, but no one wanted to go first. He’d never met a tough guy with an ounce of courage, and these jokers were no different.
He looked around the porch for something to defend himself with in case they rushed the house. In the corner sat a mop in a bucket. He’d found other cleaning utensils around the house and guessed the last cleaning person had just up and left. He went and picked up the mop. It had an adjustable handle that allowed the user to squeeze the water out without having to bend over. He had an idea.
He waited until his cell phone stopped ringing, then took the mop and jerked the handle down the throat of the mop two times. He did it hard. It sounded similar to a shotgun being pumped. He walked to the edge of the screen and stared at the spot in the darkened forest where he believed the four Spanish men stood.
“I hear you sons-a-bitches out there,” he called out in his best hillbilly accent. “I’ll shoot the first one of yah that steps foot on my property. You hear me?”
The words almost sounded comical; only, he had a feeling that these guys didn’t know the difference. The question was, would they call his bluff, or would they run? More whispering came out of the trees. He thought about easing backward off the porch and making his way toward the front door, when he heard the men start to walk away. They’d bought the act, hook, line, and sinker. He smiled to himself. He couldn’t wait to tell Mabel about this one.
In the forest he heard a small animal running through the brush. One of the guys said something excitedly in Spanish. His words were followed by the bang, bang of a small-caliber firearm. Valentine dropped to the floor.
“Cut t
hat shit out,” the first voice said.
One of the men laughed wickedly.
When they were gone, Valentine ducked inside the house and got his gun from his suitcase. It was a Glock pocket rocket. People who purchased them did so with the intent of carrying them around. He needed to start doing that, or go home and enter the shuffleboard league near his house. He ventured outside the front door and got the flashlight from the trunk of his Honda. It was the kind favored by foot cops, and big enough to double as a weapon.
He walked around the house and into the backyard. It was peaceful again, and he walked to the forest with the gun’s barrel aimed at the shadows. Entering the darkness, he flicked the flashlight on and saw its yellow beam cut a wide swath in the brush. He found the footpath and walked down it, trying to make as little noise as possible.
He found the dead rabbit in the middle of the path. Its body was still warm, and he examined the entry point of the bullet. It had gone through the back of the neck and was small enough to be a .22. Tough guys didn’t carry. 22s. Kids did.
He felt the air trapped in his lungs escape. Had they been planning to rob the house? That was the logical explanation, and he decided to go with it. But it didn’t mean he wasn’t going to be careful. Arming himself was a good start.
The next morning, he awoke at dawn, just like he had every day of his adult life. Splashed water on his face and brushed his teeth, then threw on last night’s clothes and went outside.
It was always coldest before dawn and there was frost on the grass. He went into the garage and found a shovel propped against the wall. Going into the forest, he found the rabbit just as he’d left it. He lifted its limp body with the shovel.
He found a shady spot in the backyard and laid the rabbit down. Then he dug a hole a few feet down. The ground was hard and unforgiving, and sweat dotted his brow. The older he’d gotten, the more he’d come to appreciate the sanctity of life, even that of dumb animals. Stupid damn kids, he thought.
