by James Swain
The detention center was an enormous facility. During his trips to Nevada, Valentine had heard it referred to as a debtor’s prison because Reno’s judges often extended jail sentences when prisoners couldn’t pay fines. Bill had called the sergeant who ran the center before leaving Las Vegas, and told him they wanted to interview Bronco Marchese.
The sergeant was at the front entrance when they arrived. He was a large, gregarious Irishman named Joe O’Sullivan, and he greeted them with smiles and handshakes. O’Sullivan escorted them to his office on the second floor, and after they were seated, explained why the interview wasn’t going to happen.
“Bronco’s lawyer left town,” the sergeant said, sitting at his desk. “Slime bucket named Kyle Garrow. I called Garrow on his cell phone, told him you wanted a meeting with his client. Garrow said he was in California, and wouldn’t be available until tomorrow morning. Personally, I think he’s lying, and was nearby. That’s why I hate cell phones. You never know where the person you’re talking to really is.”
“You think Garrow is stalling,” Valentine said.
O’Sullivan nodded. Pictures of his four kids filled his desk. Like their father, they were fair-skinned and red-haired. “I had him checked out. Garrow’s hardly spent a day of his life in court. Makes his money giving legal advice to crooks before they get arrested. Basically, he tells his clients how to stay out of jail, which in my book, makes him a piece of garbage.”
Valentine had known lawyers that did this, and agreed with O’Sullivan’s assessment of them. He said, “Governor Smoltz has given me unlimited power in my conducting this case. Is it possible for me to meet with Bronco without his lawyer?”
“Anything’s possible, “O’Sullivan said. “But personally, I’d advise against it.”
“Why’s that?”
“It would land you in hot water with the judge presiding over the case.”
“I can do hot water,” Valentine said.
“It will also compromise our case against Bronco for killing Bo Farmer,” O’Sullivan said. If you want my advice, wait until tomorrow.”
There was a window behind O’Sullivan’s head, and Valentine stared at the garish neon which defined Reno’s skyline. He was itching to get in Bronco’s face, and make him sweat; it was one of the great satisfactions of his work. But he didn’t want to ruin the case in the process. He shifted his gaze back to the sergeant.
“What about the girl? Can I talk to her?”
O’Sullivan’s expression turned blank. “Which girl is that?”
“The bride in the scam. Karen Farmer.”
“That’s not going to be very easy either, I’m afraid.”
“Why? Is Garrow also her lawyer?”
“Karen Farmer tried to commit suicide yesterday. Hanged herself with a bed sheet, only the knot came undone. She’s in the psych ward at the Washoe Medical Center under observation.”
“Can she talk?”
O’Sullivan acted offended. “No offense, Tony, but she’s in a bad way. Grilling her could set her over the edge again.”
“Who told you that?”
“Her doctor at the hospital. I talked to him earlier.”
Valentine’s eyes returned to the window. Then, he glanced back at O’Sullivan. “Here’s what I want you to do, Joe. I want you to pick up the phone, and call the hospital. Tell them I’m coming over to talk to Karen Farmer, and don’t accept any ifs, ands or buts from anyone who says I can’t. I’ll make the determination whether she’s stable enough to talk to me. Understand?”
O’Sullivan looked surprised, then mad. Just as quickly, it all vanished, and he put his professional face on. He picked up the phone on his desk, and punched in a number.
Chapter 15
O’Sullivan drove them to the Washoe Medical Center. While Gerry and Bill waited in the lobby, Valentine went upstairs to interview Karen Farmer.
Psych wards in hospitals were depressing places. Valentine’s mother had ended up in one before she died, his father’s years of abuse having finally taken their toll. Walking down the hall to where Karen Farmer was being kept, a little voice inside his head told him to turn around, and go back to the lobby. Let Bill interrogate her, the voice said.
He stopped outside the ward. There was no shame in walking away. He’d learned that from a book by Ernest Hemingway called Death in the Afternoon. It was about bull-fighting, and Hemingway talked about famous matadors who’d run away from bulls they didn’t like the looks of. He started to walk away when the door opened, and a woman in a starched white nurse’s uniform stepped out.
“Mr. Valentine? We’ve been expecting you. Please come in,” she said.
Valentine followed her through the psych ward with his eyes downcast. Out of the corner of the eye, he appraised the room. Most of the patients were strapped down, like his mother had been. A man wearing a maniacal grin hissed at him.
“We put Karen on anti-depression medication this morning, and she appears to be doing better,” the nurse said. “I told her that she was going to have a visitor, but didn’t say who you were. No point in upsetting her.”
“Thanks.”
His voice was barely a whisper and the nurse shot him a concerned look.
“Are you all right, Mr. Valentine?”
“Fine.”
Karen Farmer’s bed was in the corner of the large sterile room, and had a view of the parking lot. A metal chair had been placed beside her bed. There was an Ace bandage around her neck and a contusion below her left cheekbone. Her eyes looked sore from crying.
“Karen,” the nurse said, “your visitor is here.”
Karen Farmer glanced at the nurse, then at Valentine.
“Oh, boy,” she said hoarsely. “Another cop.”
The nurse left, and Valentine sat down, and placed his elbows on his knees. It was a neutral pose, intended to put a suspect at ease. “Want something to drink?”
“A cigarette,” she said.
“I wish.”
“You trying to quit?”
He nodded that he was.
“Me, too. Bad for my health.”
He fished the nicotine gum out of his pocket, and offered her a piece.
“Have a piece. It’s the next best thing.”
Karen mumbled okay. He leaned forward, and fed her a piece of gum. When she opened her mouth, he saw that one of her lower teeth was busted. She chewed the gum and made a face. “Ugh. You’re not trying to poison me, are you?”
“You don’t chew it for the taste. Give it a minute to work.”
“Whatever you say.”
Valentine tried not stare at her. She had soft blond hair and bedroom eyes, the kind of girl boys fought over in grade school. She didn’t have a criminal record, and he guessed her late husband had talked her into stealing the jackpot. That was how it usually happened: The husband talked the wife into joining the gang. It hardly ever happened the other way around.
“I’m not a cop,” he said. “I used to be, but these days I’m a private consultant. I help casinos catch cheaters. I took this case because I want to nail Bronco Marchese.”
Karen stared at him. “You want to nail him? Like in the movies? Track him down and rub his face in the ground?”
“That’s right.”
Tears rolled down her face and blood rose like a curtain behind her skin. “Well, so do I. Bronco Marchese shot my husband through the heart.” She stifled a sob and brought her head back against her pillow, which was propped against the wall to protect her from hurting herself. She stared at the ceiling like it was a portal that could take her back in time, and everything in her life would be normal again. When she looked back at him, her face had grown hard. “Bo died at ten-fifty eight in the morning. We were married the day before at eleven o’clock. We weren’t married one whole day.”
“I’m —
“Sorry?”
“Yes.”
She shook her head and the tears flew off her face. “I wanted to spend the rest of my lif
e with him. We met in highschool. My first date, my first love. He wasn’t perfect, and neither am I. But, we were perfect together. Know what I mean?”
Valentine stared at the tiled floor. He’d met his own wife over a Bunson burner in an eleventh grade highschool chemistry class. It had lasted forty-five years.
“Yes,” he said.
“Bo was my future. We were going to have a couple of kids. We had it all planned out. You understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Then don’t come in here and tell me how you want to nail Bronco Marchese, you piece of shit cop,” she said, spitting her gum into his face.
Valentine found a sink and washed his face. When he came back to Karen’s bed, he had a pair of soda cans in his hand. He popped them both.
“Promise you won’t do that again, and I’ll let you have one,” he said.
“Fuck you,” Karen said.
He took a long swallow of his soda. He was glad for the walk. He didn’t like being spit in the face, even by someone who’d just lost her husband.
“You know something, Karen —
“What’s that?” she snapped.
“Everyone has a history.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that everyone has reasons for what they do. Want to hear mine?”
She looked out the window beside her bed, her eyes peeled to a moving car in the parking lot, and said nothing.
“When I became a cop in Atlantic City, I was introduced to an old guy named Johnson. I don’t know if that was his first name, or his last. Everyone just called him Johnson. He was a drunk, used to live in the bars. Eventually he got sick and died.”
“This is real uplifting,” she said.
“Right after his funeral, I heard his story. Johnson was a cop during Prohibition. Part of his job was to stop the bootleggers from landing on the island’s beaches.”
“What’s Prohibition?” she asked, still not looking at him.
“Back in 1919 the government outlawed the manufacture, sale or distribution of liquor,” Valentine said. “The country was dry for thirteen years.”
“What did people do instead, get high?”
He nearly laughed, then realized she wasn’t joking. “Maybe some of them did. But the majority made liquor in bath tubs, or bought it from bootleggers. The bootleggers bought whiskey from Canada, scotch from Scotland, and rum from Cuba. They brought it offshore in ships, and used speedboats to deliver it to the mainland. Because Atlantic City has thirteen miles of beaches, it was a prime unloading area.
“One night, Johnson gets a call. An informant tells him that two Jews and two Italians from New York are coming to Atlantic City to hijack a shipment of whiskey. The informant says that these four guys are responsible for all the major heists in New York, and are running the city’s illegal gambling. Know who those four guys were?”
Karen finally looked at him. She wasn’t beautiful in the traditional sense, but had a sultry look that made you pause. It had gotten her in trouble once, and would probably get her in trouble again. “Not a clue,” she said.
“Lucky Luciano, Frank Costello, Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel.”
“I’ve heard of them. They were gangsters.”
“They were more than gangsters. They were the beginning of organized crime in America. They later joined forces with Al Capone, and became the mafia.”
“I guess Johnson didn’t get them.”
“No, he didn’t. He figured they’d probably kill the bootlegger, and that would be one less bootlegger. So he stayed at home and listened to a ball game on the radio.
“The hijacking went so smoothly, the four boys from New York took over all of the bootlegging on the east coast. That one night made them all very rich men.
“Johnson later realized what he’d done. He talked about it openly with other cops. His conscience ate at him, so he eventually turned to the bottle. Okay, now you’re probably wondering, what the hell does this have to do with me?”
Her eyes were cold and unfriendly. “Come to mention it, yeah.”
“Well, here’s the deal. I had a brother-in-law named Sal. He was a vice cop with the Atlantic City police. I started dating his sister in highschool. After we got married, Sal talked me into joining the force. He was my best friend.
“One night, Sal called me. He was about to arrest four casino cheaters. Sal told me these cheaters were from New York, and had ripped off every casino in the city. Two Jews and two Italians.”
“Sort of like Johnson,” Karen said.
“Yeah, sort of like Johnson. Sal wanted me there as backup. I drove to the Boardwalk right as the arrest went down. They were all there. There was a full moon, and I saw Sal lying in the sand. I fired my gun in the air, and the cheaters ran. When I got to Sal, I saw he was shot. I held him in my arms, and he died.”
“Did you run after the cheaters?”
Valentine crushed the empty soda can in his hand. It made an angry sound, and the ward grew still. “No.”
“Why not?”
“I couldn’t leave him.”
“Was Bronco one of those cheaters?”
“Yeah. After Sal’s funeral, I made a vow to myself. I was going to run every one of them down, and put them in prison.” He picked up the second can of soda, and held it in front of Karen’s face. “I got all of them but Bronco. You want any of this?” She nodded, and he put the can to her lips. When he took the can away, he saw that the hostility had melted from her face, and decided it was now, or never.
“So, are you going to help me, or not?”
“Bo was playing craps in Reno when he met Bronco,” Karen said, her face lighting up whenever she mentioned her late husband’s name. “Actually, Bo wasn’t playing. He was, well, I’d guess you call it stealing.”
“Stealing how?”
“He’d discovered that people sometimes didn’t pick up their bets after the game was over, so he’d claim them if no one else did. Bo said it wasn’t really stealing, being that the house would take the money otherwise.”
It was stealing — the chips belonged to another player — but, there was no use in soiling Karen’s last memories, so Valentine kept his mouth shut.
“Bronco approached us, and made Bo an offer. Said if we’d claim a jackpot from a rigged slot machine, he’d split the money with us. Bo and I talked it over. We both carry a lot of credit card debt. I figured it was a way to start clean, you know?”
“Sure,” Valentine said.
“Later, when we split the money up, I found out that wasn’t really the deal. Bo had agreed to take less money. It made me mad, so I started yelling at him. Then Bronco said something nasty, and Bo jumped him. Then Bronco shot Bo.”
Her eyes returned to the parking lot. Valentine let a few moments pass before speaking again. “The night before, when you had dinner, what did Bronco talk about?”
“Scams.”
“Did he mention a Nevada gaming agent stealing jackpots?”
Karen thought about it. “Yeah. He said a gaming agent was using laptops to rig slot machines. I didn’t understand what he was talking about.”
“Did he mention the agent’s name?”
“Naw.”
“Did he tell you how the scam worked?”
“He said it was an insider thing, and that he couldn’t use it.”
It was the same thing Gerry had said. Score another one for his son.
“What else do you remember?” Valentine asked.
“Bronco said he had a meeting set up in a few days with a member of the Asian Triads. He was going to exchange the laptop scam for a Pai Gow scam.”
Valentine pulled his chair up closer to her bed. Cheaters didn’t tell you things unless they wanted something in return. There had been a reason why Bronco had told Karen and Bo about the Asian. “Did Bronco want you to get involved?”
Karen blew her cheeks out. “You’re real smart, aren’t you?”
“I kn
ow how these people think.”
“Bo was stationed in the Far East when he was in the army, and knew how to play Pai Gow. Bronco offered to stake Bo. Said we’d make a fortune with this scam.”
Valentine leaned against the bed’s iron railing. Pai Gow was played in many casinos in the United States. Each player received tiles shaped like dominos, and tried to beat the dealer’s score with the score on their tiles. It was a tough game to cheat, and he had a feeling this scam was something really good. He saw Karen studying him, the expression on her face almost wistful.
“What’s next?” she asked.
“I’ll tell the DA you cooperated, and gave me lots of valuable information.”
“Think he’ll cut me some slack?”
“Yes, Karen, I do.”
“I hope you’re right. Things haven’t been going so hot for me lately.”
She said it without bitterness, and a wave of sadness overcame him. Not a bad kid at all, he thought. He thanked her for her help, and put his chair back against the wall. He started to leave, then went back to her bed. “I’ll also tell the governor.”
“You trying to be funny?”
“No. I’m doing this job for him.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes. I’ll ask him to go light on you.”
She thanked him with her eyes. Valentine had no idea what Bo Farmer was like, yet could imagine him wanting to spend the rest of his life with this young woman.
“Sorry about the gum,” she said.
“Don’t worry about it,” he told her.
Chapter 16
Bronco got a cell mate right after dinner. His name was Johnny Norton, and he was a dirty-haired street rat with dark shadows beneath his eyes. Johnny took the bottom bunk bed, said he’d been arrested for passing a couple of worthless checks. The catch in his voice said there was more to his story, and Bronco guessed he was hiding from something. Most guys in jail were.
Bronco was standing against the concrete wall opposite the bunk beds, sizing Johnny up. He was a degenerate, and probably used to getting kicked around. A loner, but also capable of seizing an opportunity when it came his way. He’ll do, Bronco thought.
