Loaded Dice tv-4

by James Swain

The valet stand at the Acropolis was deserted, and he parked his rental by the front door and ventured inside. A velvet rope had been run across the entrance to the casino, and a sign announced that the place was closed. He stuck his head into One-Armed Billy’s alcove. Even Big Joe Smith was gone.

  He went to the front desk and rang the bell. A reservationist with a familiar face emerged from the back room. Seeing him, she broke into a smile.

  “Hi, Mister Valentine. I hear you kicked some ass this afternoon.”

  Her name tag said LOU ANN. “It wasn’t that big a deal,” he said.

  “Tell that to Albert Moss. I hear every bone in his face is busted.”

  “Where is everybody, Lou Ann?”

  “Our guests checked out when they heard the casino was closed,” she said sadly. “Kind of a glum day. I hear Nick’s going down.”

  “You work here a long time?”

  “Since I got out of college.”

  “What’s that? Five years?”

  Her smile returned. “Try twenty. You checking out, too?”

  “No, I’m here for the duration. I’m looking for my son. His name’s Gerry. He hasn’t been in asking for me, has he?”

  “I’ve been on duty since this afternoon, and I haven’t seen him,” Lou Ann said.

  He’d promised Fuller he’d bring Gerry in by midnight. Henderson was a twenty-minute drive, and he decided to head out there to track his son down. He hadn’t done that since Gerry was in high school, running with the wrong crowd. The more things change, the more they remain the same, he thought.

  He stepped away from the desk. “Thanks anyway, Lou Ann.”

  “You want something to eat?” she asked. “The cook’s trying to get rid of the food. No reason to let it spoil.”

  “Thanks for the offer, but I need to run,” he said.

  “It won’t take five minutes. Give the staff some hope, knowing we have a guest.”

  He didn’t know how to refuse a request like that. Lou Ann pointed at Nick’s Bar, and he crossed the casino and went in. A dozen employees were sitting at tables, eating. He sat down, and the hostess took his order.

  While he waited for his food, he realized that Lou Ann and the other hotel staffers knew that Nick was heading toward bankruptcy and wouldn’t have the funds to meet their next paychecks. They’d stayed out of loyalty, a quality that was hard to find these days. Nick had always bragged that he had the best employees; now he understood why.

  His cheeseburger arrived with a monster helping of french fries and an onion slice as big as the bun. He asked the hostess to thank the cook. The TV above the bar was on, and as he ate, he stared at the mute images on the screen.

  He realized the images looked familiar. It was the same gang of FBI agents he’d met in Lucy’s condo. They were standing in the desert beneath the blazing sun. Behind them, a building was burning out of control. He found the bartender and persuaded him to jack up the volume with the remote.

  The picture on the screen changed to a blond newswoman clutching a sheet of paper. “Reports differ as to what happened at a deserted auto shop off the Boulder Highway this afternoon,” she intoned gravely. “The highway was closed in both directions for several hours, with both the police and FBI manning the roadblocks. At the scene is Action News reporter Lance Peters.”

  The picture changed to a Hollywood-handsome reporter standing in the desert. Grasping the mike with both hands, he said, “Thanks, Mary. Earlier, I talked with a Henderson Police Department spokesman and learned that there was a gun battle at the auto shop, which left one man dead. His partner, a Mexican illegal, was arrested in town driving a vehicle with an expired license.”

  The picture jumped back to the female newscaster. “Lance, is it true that the FBI appeared on the scene with dogs and helicopters, and refused to let traffic pass in either direction?”

  Back to Lance. “Yes, Mary. There are dozens of FBI agents out here. If I didn’t know better, I’d think we had a major catastrophe on our hands.”

  The picture returned to Mary. “Did you get the opportunity to talk to any of them, Lance?”

  Lance’s face lit up the screen. “That’s when things got hairy, Mary. The FBI refused to answer my questions, and threatened to seize our cameras and recording equipment if we filmed them. I do know that the FBI has taken the Mexican to an undisclosed location and is interrogating him.”

  The picture went back to Mary. “Sounds like our tax dollars hard at work. In other news, six members of UNLV’s baseball team were suspended today for allowing imposters to attend classes for them. The team’s coach is appealing the suspension. All six players are hoping to play in next week’s College World Series . . .”

  Valentine stuffed the last of his french fries into his mouth and rose from the table. Maybe the FBI could get involved with that case as well. They sure had gotten involved with everything else going on in Las Vegas.

  He threw down ten bucks for the hostess, then remembered his cell phone. As he powered it up, it started to ring. He stared at its face and felt his heart skip a beat.

  His son had finally decided to call him back.

  33

  Lying on the bed in his motel room with the lights out, Gerry spilled his guts to his father. He told him everything—from the moment he’d hooked up with Pash and Amin five days ago to the shootout at the gas station that afternoon. His father, God bless him, didn’t rush to pass judgment. He just listened, his breathing calm and measured.

  “That’s all of it,” Gerry said, glancing at the clock on the bedside table. Twelve minutes had passed. It hadn’t been nearly as bad as he’d thought it would be.

  “My gym bag was found in the townhouse of a dead stripper,” his father said. “You think Amin killed her?”

  “Must have,” Gerry replied, keeping his voice below the TV, which he’d turned on to a baseball game, the running commentary a perfect cover. “Pash told me Amin was using strippers to launder chips into cash.”

  “There’s nothing to tie you to this girl?” his father asked.

  “No, Pop. I haven’t dated or slept with or even kissed another woman since I met Yolanda. I’m clean.”

  “Good for you,” his father said.

  The remark made Gerry feel good all over. His father didn’t hand out compliments very often, not that he’d done anything to deserve any. But they were nice to hear, and he added them to the mental checklist of things he wanted to do when his own kid grew up.

  “So, you want me to go to the FBI,” Gerry said.

  “Yes,” his father replied. “You need to let them hear your side of it, pronto.”

  “What if they don’t believe me? What if they think I bought the gun and shot this girl?”

  “I can prove you didn’t,” his father said.

  “You can?”

  There was a click on the line, indicating his father had another call.

  “Hold on, Wonder Boy, I’ll be right back.”

  His father put him on hold. Wonder Boy. His father hadn’t called him that in a long time. One summer when he was a kid, they’d vacationed at a resort in the Catskill Mountains, and his father had taught him a mind-reading trick called Second Sight. His father would stand on one side of the room, holding a coin given to him by a spectator in his fist. He’d say, “I want you to think hard. Please . . . be quick.”

  “You’re holding a quarter,” Gerry would say. “The date is nineteen sixty-five.”

  The trick was a real fooler. It was based on a simple code. I stood for the number 1. Am for the number 2. Can for the number 3. Other simple words stood for the numbers 4 through 9, and 0. By stringing the right words together, his father could relay the coin’s value, and date, in a single sentence.

  They had done the trick for every guest at the resort. One of the older guests had christened him Wonder Boy, and the name had stuck. He heard his father come back on the line.

  “Was that Mabel? How’s Yolanda doing?”

  “I wasn’t talk
ing to Mabel,” his father replied. “It was a woman I met.”

  Gerry perked up. “She got a name?”

  “Lucy Price.”

  “You like her?”

  “I met her yesterday.”

  “Does she like you?”

  “It seems that way.”

  Gerry threw his legs over the side of the bed. He’d been hoping his father would start courting again. He’d hung out with a female wrestler for a while, but that had been a grief thing. “Good for you, Pop,” he said.

  He heard his father breathing into the phone, and guessed he didn’t want to talk about it. Gerry said, “So how can you prove that I didn’t kill this stripper?”

  “Easy,” his father said. “Nevada requires its gun stores to have surveillance cameras in case of robbery. That means there’s a picture of whoever bought the three fifty-seven with your credit card.”

  Gerry smiled into the receiver. Leave it to his old man to save the day. He glanced at his watch. It was a few minutes past eight. “I’m going to pack my stuff and check out. I’ll meet you at nine-thirty.”

  “Why so long?” his father asked suspiciously.

  “Pop, it’s Saturday night. Traffic is going to be horrible. I’ll meet you at the Jokers Wild casino on Boulder Highway. There’s a small theater inside the lobby.”

  “Why that dump?”

  “There’s an act playing there you have to see.”

  “This is no time to be seeing acts,” his father scolded him. “The FBI wants to talk to you.”

  “You said we have until midnight.”

  “Why push it?”

  “Pop, this will take ten minutes. You won’t regret it. Trust me.”

  He heard his father breathing into the phone.

  “The Jokers Wild it is,” his father said.

  Gerry hung up feeling good about things. There wasn’t that much in his life except Yolanda to feel good about, but his father could do that to him. Sometimes, his father could be the best person in the whole world.

  He got his suitcase from the closet and opened it on the bed. He put his dirty clothes on one side, his clean on the other. Sandwiched between them, he put the Gucci loafers he’d bought in a casino gift shop. He’d seen them in the store’s window, and even though he was broke he knew he had to have them. From the bathroom he got his toilet kit, and he was done.

  He went to the door and stopped. Should he say good-bye to Pash? Deep down, he still liked the guy—even if he was a chip off his brother’s block in the lying department. Better not, he decided. There was no telling how Amin might react.

  He put his ear to the wall that separated their rooms. Pash and Amin were on the other side, engaged in a heated conversation. Their TV set was on, and he realized they were watching the same baseball game.

  He had an idea, and turned up the volume of the set in his room. It would blend in with their set; he could leave without anyone being the wiser.

  He opened his door. A gust of night air blew into his room and made him shiver. A highway ran parallel to the inn, and he saw globes of yellow light float mysteriously by, the headlights disembodied from their vehicles. He could hear boom boxes and people trash-talking in cars.

  He took a deep breath. It was time for him to face the music. He crossed the gravel lot, his shoes crunching loudly. His suitcase was heavy, and halfway to his car he started to drag it. Popping the rental’s trunk, he hoisted the suitcase off the ground and threw it into the back.

  He heard footsteps. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Amin coming up behind him wearing a grim look on his face. He didn’t think Amin was stupid enough to try something out in the open, and he started to walk around to the front of the car.

  Amin called his name.

  “Not interested,” Gerry said.

  Amin yelled at him. Gerry slowly spun around and saw Amin standing ten feet away. Amin had stuck the .357 behind his belt buckle. Gerry glanced over his shoulder at the hundreds of cars passing by. Whoever had said there was strength in numbers hadn’t been kidding. He looked Amin in the eye.

  “Go ahead and try something,” he said.

  34

  Valentine had taken Gerry’s call standing outside Nick’s Bar. Hanging up, he tried to remember where the Jokers Wild was situated on the Boulder Highway. He thought it was halfway to Henderson, on a deserted stretch of desert. A real down-and-dirty kind of place. He could only imagine what his son wanted to show him.

  His cell phone was ringing, and he stared at the caller ID. It was Bill Higgins. He felt his jaw tighten. Bill had betrayed him. There was no other explanation for the FBI appearing at Lucy’s house. The bad part was, Bill knew that he and Fuller hated each other.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “We need to talk,” Bill said.

  “I’m busy.”

  “This is about your son. How soon can you get to my house?”

  Valentine frowned into the phone. He had no intention of driving to Bill’s house tonight, and started to tell him so. Bill cut him short.

  “You need to hear this, Tony. I don’t want to see your boy getting hurt.”

  Valentine heard the warning in Bill’s voice. Bill’s house was due south, Jokers Wild southwest. Fifteen minutes max from one to the other. “I’ll be right over,” he said.

  Bill’s partner, Alex, greeted him at the front door. Alex was a veteran ATF agent, a tall, gravel-voiced outdoorsman who spent his weekends rappelling in the mountains.

  “What happened to your face?” Alex asked.

  “A cheater over at the Acropolis cut me.”

  “Pay him back?”

  “In spades.”

  Alex smiled and led him to Bill’s study. Tapping on the door, he said, “Tony’s here,” then walked away. Valentine went in. The room’s light was muted, the shades drawn. Bill sat behind his desk, wearing the same clothes from the day before. His TV was on, the image frozen. It was a surveillance tape, and showed an Ivy League guy in a Brooks Brothers suit playing blackjack. His stacks of chips reached just below his chin. If Bill was watching him, he was either a card-counter or a cheater.

  “Have a seat,” Bill said.

  Valentine sat across from the desk and watched Bill rub his face with his hands. He hadn’t shaved, and his stubble was predominantly gray. He was up for retirement in a few years, and Valentine guessed he’d take the same route as most Gaming Control Board directors—to the private sector, where he’d make three times the salary and deal with half the headaches. He lowered his hands, and Valentine saw that his eyes were bloodshot.

  “You and I go back a long time,” Bill said. He let the statement hang for a few seconds. Then he said, “I’m about to tell you some things that could get me fired.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  Bill put his weight on his elbows and leaned forward. “Remember that letter you wrote two years ago, criticizing the FBI for demanding that every casino in the country start profiling Middle Eastern gamblers?”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you remember why the FBI asked the casinos to do that?”

  Valentine dredged his memory. “There were two reasons. The first was that the FBI had information about a Middle Eastern gambler in the U.S. with ties to the 9/11 attackers. The second was that a Middle Eastern man was seen the morning of 9/11 about a mile from the White House. He showed a gas station manager a five-thousand-dollar casino chip. The manager thought it was suspicious, and reported it.

  “The FBI thought the two stories might be linked. They asked the casinos to play Big Brother, and scrutinize every Middle Eastern gambler. I heard about it, wrote the FBI a letter, and reminded them there are five million Middle Easterners in the U.S. Profiling every one who plays in a casino is a waste of time.”

  “You’re aware the FBI dropped the idea.”

  “Yes. What does this have to do with my son?”

  “The FBI found the guy,” Bill said. “Your son’s been seen with him.”

  Valentine thoug
ht back to Gerry’s description of Amin and Pash.

  “Jesus,” he said aloud.

  There was a stack of photographs lying on Bill’s desk. Bill flipped the top one over. It was a surveillance shot of a Middle Eastern man, early thirties, playing blackjack. “This guy popped up in a homicide investigation in Biloxi last month. He befriended a gambler he met in a casino, used the guy’s credit card to buy stuff, then skipped town when things got hot. Before he ran, he murdered the guy and tried to make it look like a suicide.

  “A homicide detective saw similarities in the case to another gambler suicide in Biloxi. Thinking he might have a serial killer on his hands, he sent the information to the FBI’s Behavioral Science Division. The FBI matched the case to four other gambler suicides they’d been investigating in Reno, Atlantic City, New Orleans, and Detroit.

  “The FBI showed the photograph to the gas station manager in Washington. He confirmed that it was the same guy he’d seen the morning of 9/11. The FBI sent the photograph to every casino in the country, asked them to be on the lookout.”

  Bill flipped over a second photograph. It showed two people standing outside a Strip casino called Excalibur. One was the Middle Eastern man, wearing shades and a baseball cap. Beside him was a pretty blond woman.

  “Last week, a casino here spotted the guy and alerted the FBI,” Bill said.

  Valentine pointed at the blonde. “That the stripper who was murdered?”

  “Yes.”

  Bill flipped over the last photograph on the desk. Valentine stared at it, and felt his face grow flush. It was the same man, this time wearing an elaborate disguise. He was sitting at a blackjack table. In the seat next to him was Gerry.

  “This photograph was taken last night at the MGM Grand. The FBI believes your son is in mortal danger. They also think you’re protecting him. Fuller called me a little while ago. I told him that if you promised you’d bring Gerry in, you would.”

  Valentine struggled for something to say.

  “No need to thank me,” Bill said. “This can’t be easy for you.”

  “How does Fontaine figure into this?”

  Bill frowned. “The FBI got a hold of this guy’s phone bills and discovered he has a network of associates around the country. They listened to some calls and realized he was talking in a complicated code. Fontaine is a master at cracking ciphers, so the FBI sprang him out of prison. I was against the idea.”