Loaded Dice

by James Swain

  “Can they do that?”

  Nick threw his arms in the air. “That’s a good fucking question. FBI says that the U.S. Patriot Act gives them the right to shut me down if I don’t cooperate.”

  “You going to do it?”

  “I don’t have any other choice,” Nick said. “I talked them into waiting until Monday, so I don’t lose my weekend business.”

  “You the only casino in town they called?”

  “They’re threatening a bunch of us. And all over the same thing. Chocolate chips.”

  “So she was laundering them.”

  “That would be my guess,” Nick said.

  Valentine looked at the baseball bat lying on the floor. Then he looked at Nick. “Why did you threaten me, anyway?”

  “You once told me you were tight with the FBI. I figured they sent you to check up on me.”

  It was funny how people interpreted things. Valentine had never been tight with the FBI. He’d known Peter Fuller, the bureau’s director, since his early days in Atlantic City. He couldn’t utter Fuller’s name without cursing, and he guessed Nick had misconstrued that to mean they were tight.

  “I’d never spy on you,” Valentine said.

  Nick leaned back in his chair. “Want to do a job for me?”

  “Not really.” His host grimaced, and Valentine said, “I need to find my son.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Bart Calhoun’s card-counting school. Wherever that is.”

  Nick scratched his chin. “Calhoun is a hard man to pin down. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll find Calhoun if you figure out how Lucy Price ripped me off.”

  “You think she’s a cheater?”

  “She’s a slot queen and has a history of losing. This is the first time she’s played blackjack, and she won twenty-five grand. Those don’t go together.”

  Valentine thought back to his encounter with Lucy Price. He would not have pegged her a cheater. He said, “I’ll look at the surveillance tapes, if you think it will do any good.”

  “So we have a deal?”

  He nodded, then said, “I could also use a room in your hotel.”

  “Done,” Nick said.

  They sealed the deal with a handshake. There was a light tapping on the bedroom door. Nick said, “Do you mind, we’re having sex?” and a giggling Wanda entered balancing a tray of food on her upturned palm.

  “Here you go, Nicky,” she said proudly. “Campbell’s chicken noodle soup, and baloney sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Your favorite lunch.”

  She placed the tray on the coffee table, and Valentine noticed that her breasts, which were barely contained by her low-slung top, had several bread crumbs sprinkled on them. Nick pointed at the crumbs and said, “Is that dessert, baby?”

  A harsh look clouded Wanda’s face. Leaning over, she gave him a resounding slap in the puss, then marched out. Nick blushed as he picked up one of the soup bowls.

  “She doesn’t like it when I talk crude around company. Pass the salt, will you?”

  9

  At one o’clock that afternoon, Pete Longo was released under his own recognizance by the Metro Las Vegas Police Department, having been suspended without pay from the force, and having been advised that he was considered a prime suspect in the murder of Kris Blake, the stripper he’d been having an affair with.

  Being named a suspect didn’t surprise Longo. His alibi from the previous night had yet to check out. It would, since it involved two other cops he’d been drinking with. They would corroborate that he hadn’t been at Kris’s townhouse at the time of her killing. And then he’d be clean.

  Only clean was a relative term. The shame would be still there. From that, he knew there was no escape.

  He lived halfway between Las Vegas and Henderson, in a new development a stone’s throw off the Boulder Highway. It was a decent neighborhood, with monthly block parties and friendly dogs that didn’t need to be tied to chains. And the schools were good. Both his daughters had seen their grades go up.

  He lived at the end of a cul-de-sac. Pulling up the driveway, he felt his face go flush. He’d called Cindi from the station house and spilled his guts to her. Better for him to tell her than some newspaper reporter, he’d thought at the time.

  Now he wasn’t so sure. His clothes were piled in the middle of the front yard. Next to them was an open suitcase. The message was clear. Leave.

  He got out and started to pack his things. At the bottom of the pile he found his one good suit all balled up. Cindi was really pissed.

  He put his knee to the suitcase to shut it and realized he was shaking. Except for the time he’d puked in the punch bowl at his high school prom, he’d never been more humiliated in his life. The curtains over the living room window were fluttering, and he glanced up. Were his daughters inside spying on him? He tried to imagine what they were thinking. Dad’s a real piece of shit was all that came to mind.

  Back on the highway, he started to calm down. His daughters would eventually come around. They’d forgiven Clinton, hadn’t they? Cindi was a different story. He couldn’t see them mending this bridge.

  He drove into Henderson. It was one of Las Vegas’s bedroom communities, with shopping malls and subdivisions sprouting out of the desert every week. It also had casinos, but they didn’t make much money. The locals knew better.

  He pulled into a fast-food drive-through. Ahead of him, two punks in a BMW were razzing an employee inside the restaurant. He punched his horn, and the driver sauntered over. A sixteen-year-old wearing designer clothes. “What’s eating you?” he snarled.

  Longo showed his badge. “You are. Leave.”

  “But we haven’t gotten our food.”

  “That’s the price for being assholes.”

  Longo ate lunch in the parking lot. He loved Vegas, couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. But it could happen. Somehow it had never occurred to him that by having an affair, he could lose everything in his life that mattered.

  His cell phone went off. He pulled it out of his pocket and stared at its face. It was Jimmy Burns, his former partner.

  “Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in?” Jimmy asked.

  “Yeah,” he said wearily. “I sure do.”

  They met up in the men’s room of Main Street Station, an old-time casino on Fremont Street.

  The men’s room had two unique features. The first was the urinals, which were set against a graffiti-covered piece of the Berlin Wall and had been sprayed by every drunk who’d ever set foot in the place. The second was the hidden entrance that only a few people knew of. He pumped Jimmy’s hand.

  “Hey, shrimp.”

  “Hey, fat boy.”

  “Thanks for coming.”

  “It’s been a slow day.”

  Jimmy ran the city’s elite Homicide Division, wore tailored suits, and got his hair cut every few weeks. For a town into image, Jimmy projected a good one, and it was no secret that he was being groomed to one day run the show.

  The hidden entrance was covered by a large mirror. Jimmy pushed the mirror inward and stepped through the space. Longo followed him down a darkened hallway and out the casino’s back door.

  As they neared Fremont Street, both men instinctively glanced over their shoulders. No one was following them, and they crossed under a gigantic steel canopy called the Fremont Street Experience.

  The Experience was a seventy-million-dollar gamble designed to draw tourists to old downtown. Every hour, the canopy was transformed into a ballet of mesmerizing images created by two million multicolored synchronized lights. It was a blast to watch, yet the only people who ever came were kids.

  “How about Fitzgerald’s,” Jimmy suggested.

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  Fitzgerald’s was a smoky, low-ceilinged joint with penny slot machines, nickel roulette, and sixteen-ounce margaritas for a buck. Locals went to Fitzgerald’s when they found themselves longing for the good old days. An escalator took them upstairs, and th
ey grabbed the last table at a bar called Lucky’s Lookout.

  A waitress appeared before their asses hit their seats. A big gal, with monster arms. Jimmy ordered two drafts. She left, and Longo put his elbows on the table.

  “What are you hearing?”

  “Bad stuff. How well did you know this stripper?”

  “I met her six weeks ago.”

  “She was under investigation by the FBI.”

  Longo felt an invisible weight press down on his shoulders. FBI meant wiretaps and tails. How many pictures of them did they have? And phone calls?

  “What’s she suspected of doing?”

  Jimmy lowered his eyes to the water-marked table, then lifted them slightly so there was no mistaking his seriousness. “Money laundering. They searched your girlfriend’s townhouse, and the grounds. They found a gym bag with casino chips in a Dumpster.”

  Longo shifted uncomfortably. The waitress brought their beers and saved him, but only for a minute. Had he wiped the gym bag clean of prints? No, he hadn’t.

  “I found the bag under the kitchen table,” he said.

  Jimmy let out a little shudder. It was a habit he’d picked up after he’d become a homicide detective. “So you knew about it?”

  “No, I didn’t know about it. I found it this morning, right after I discovered her.”

  “Why did you hide it?”

  “I knew it would lead to questions I couldn’t answer.”

  “You don’t know what she was doing?”

  Longo shook his head. He’d been 100 percent right. Nobody cared about Kris’s murder. All they cared about were the casino chips beneath her kitchen table.

  “You didn’t think you were being used?” Jimmy asked him.

  “Used how?”

  “Like a shield she could hide behind.”

  “No.”

  He saw Jimmy gaze out the window and up the street past the El Cortez Hotel, an area filled with psycho panhandlers, porno palaces, pickpockets, and the world’s most depressing strip of cockroach-infested motels. It had been their first beat together and seemed like another lifetime ago. Jimmy’s gaze returned.

  “You want to save your ass?”

  “Of course I want to save my ass.”

  “Then here’s the deal,” Jimmy said. “The department is going to close ranks around you. You had an affair with this chick, and that’s it. The FBI may haul you in, so don’t stray from your story. We’re not offering you up as a sacrificial lamb.”

  Longo stared at the foam cresting the lip of his mug. He was going to keep his job, and some semblance of his old life. He wanted to lean across the table and give Jimmy a bear hug. Instead, he said, “Thanks, man.”

  Jimmy sipped his beer. “There’s something I need to ask you.”

  “What’s that,” Longo said.

  “You looked through the gym bag, didn’t you?”

  Longo nodded that he had.

  “Did you find any chocolate chips?”

  Longo pushed his chair back. “You accusing me of something?”

  Jimmy gave him a mean stare. “Three different cops touched that bag after you put it in the Dumpster. The FBI needs to know, Pete. Did you find any chocolate chips?”

  So that was why Jimmy had called him. The fucking FBI. From his pocket Longo removed the five-thousand-dollar chip he’d pilfered from the bag and tossed it to his ex-partner.

  “Just one,” he said.

  Jimmy pocketed the chip. Then he threw down a five-spot for the beers. The waitress hit the table like a shark, and didn’t ask if he wanted change. Jimmy rose from his chair. “You see who the gym bag belonged to?”

  “Yeah, I saw it,” Longo said.

  “Know him?”

  “A little.”

  “Stay away from him, if you know what’s good for you,” Jimmy said, and then walked out of the bar.

  Longo stayed in his chair and drank his beer. Then he drank Jimmy’s beer. The waitress circled the table, wanting to give it to another couple.

  “No,” he said firmly.

  She gave him a hostile look and left. Out on the street, a man’s recorded voice filled the air. The Fremont Street Experience was about to begin. Longo shifted his chair to watch and heard his cell phone ring. He pulled it out and stared at the face. The caller was Lou Snyder, a guy in town who was wired in the hospitality business.

  “Hey,” Longo said. “Find anything?”

  “Valentine stayed at Sin last night,” Lou said. “He checked out this morning. I think he’s still in town, though.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “I accessed the airlines’ computers, couldn’t find his name on any departing flights,” Lou said. “He also still has his rental car.”

  The Experience’s light show had started and was accompanied by blaring Star Wars music. It was the kind of goofy thing that Kris loved. He thought about calling her, then remembered she was dead. He swiped at his eyes with his sleeve.

  “My guess is, Valentine’s staying at the Acropolis,” Lou went on. “Word on the street is that he and Nick Nicocropolis are tight. If you want, I can call over there, find out what room he’s in.”

  Longo thought about Jimmy’s warning and decided to ignore it. He wanted to know why Valentine had shot her. What had Kris done to deserve that? The police wouldn’t ask him, because the police didn’t give a shit. All they cared about were the chips.

  “Do it,” he said.

  10

  Valentine finished eating lunch with Nick, then rode back to town with Wily. He hadn’t talked to Mabel all day, and he pulled out his cell phone and called her.

  Mabel Struck was the most important woman in his life. An attractive southern lady who’d befriended him after Lois had died, she now ran his business, solved an occasional minor scam, and fed him when she thought he needed a home-cooked meal. Next to his late wife, he’d never known a better person.

  “Grift Sense,” she answered cheerfully.

  “Is this a rare coin shop?”

  “There you are! I was starting to get worried about you.”

  “You holding down the fort without me?”

  “I got a Federal Express package this morning from the Yeslenti Indian tribe in northern California,” Mabel said. “They also sent a certified check with your usual fee.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  Mabel read from a letter included in the package. The Yeslentis had opened a casino twelve months ago. It was nothing more than a giant circus tent in the middle of a parking lot, and had none of the hysterical architecture of Las Vegas or Atlantic City, yet it had already pulled in a hundred million bucks.

  The problem the Yeslentis were having was at their blackjack games. A pair of gamblers had been winning regularly, and the tribe suspected marked cards. Finishing the letter, Mabel said, “They sent six decks of cards from the casino.”

  “Did you look at them?”

  She hesitated. One of the great things about Mabel was that she wasn’t afraid to take the initiative. Admitting it was another matter, and he said, “You did.”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Find anything?”

  “I put the decks under the ultraviolet light on your desk. They haven’t been treated with luminous paint. There aren’t any obvious marks or nicks, either. I know you said there are marked decks that are nearly invisible to the naked eye, but I don’t think these cards are marked like that.”

  “Why not?”

  “I went onto the tribe’s Web site and looked at their setup. The lighting in those tents is horrible. You start squinting at the backs of the cards, people are going to get suspicious. I think the marks are there, but somehow I can’t see them.”

  Valentine closed his eyes and thought for a few moments. “Are the cards Bees?”

  She let out a laugh. “Why yes, how did you know?”

  “It’s an old trick, dates back to the Wild West. The cards aren’t marked, but a cheater can tell what value they are.”
>
  “That’s some trick,” Mabel said.

  “Open up the center drawer on my desk,” he said. “There should be a brand-new deck of Bees. Take it out and put it next to the cards the Yeslentis sent you.”

  He waited while Mabel found the deck. Through the car’s windshield he could see the surreal skyline of the Las Vegas Strip. Wily had been driving for ten minutes, yet didn’t seem any closer to their destination.

  “Done,” Mabel said. “Well, would you look at that! It’s the sides of the cards that are different. Your deck has lines running up the sides that are in perfect alignment. The deck from the reservation casino has irregular lines running up the sides. How clever.”

  “They’re called sorts,” he said. “A deck of cards is cut from a sheet. That way, all the cards have identical markings on the backs and the sides. To construct a deck of sorts, the cheater buys a few cases of Bees and finds decks that are cut off-center. He removes the high-valued cards from an off-center deck, and mixes them with low-valued cards from a regular deck. That’s all he needs to know.”

  “Who should the Yeslentis arrest?”

  “They need to determine who’s bringing the cards to the table. It might be a pit boss, or a shift manager. They should watch him for a few days, see who he’s tight with. For all they know, he may be the ringleader of a gang.”

  Mabel wrote down what he’d said, then read it back to him. It sounded better than anything he could write, and he told her so. Then he said, “How’s Yolanda? How’s the baby?”

  “Yolanda is coming over later. Baby’s still cooking.”

  “Tell her I said hi.”

  They had reached the Strip. He started to say good-bye, then remembered that he’d called Mabel for a reason. Instead of spending a few hours looking at surveillance tapes of Lucy Price, why not have Mabel find out if she was a cheater?

  “I need you to look up a woman in Creep File. She may be a blackjack cheater. I’ll give you her profile.” Closing his eyes, he described the woman he’d talked out of committing suicide that morning.

  “You sound like you got a good look at her,” Mabel said.

  He opened his eyes. He detected a hint of jealousy in his neighbor’s voice. That’s wasn’t like her, and he said, “We were on TV together. Talk to you later.”