by James Swain
“Fuck my client. I want you to tell me.”
“I don’t know what it means. I’m just the messenger. Do you have the slot machine secret? That was our deal.”
The waitress brought the bread to the table, then left. The champagne had gone to Garrow’s head, and the club was starting to spin. His dreams were going up in flames. Without thinking, he said, “I’m not giving you the slot machine secret until you explain how the Pai Gow scam works.”
“I just told you — I don’t know what it means.”
“Then call your boss in Macau, and ask him.”
“That would not be wise.”
“Call him anyway. Otherwise, I’m not giving you the slot secret, pal.”
Xing’s face hardened. Taking out his cell phone, he punched in a long number, and spoke rapidly in Chinese to his boss in Macau while looking menacingly across the table at the lawyer. Garrow found the courage to smile.
“My boss wants to talk to you.”
“Put him on,” Garrow said.
Xing rose from his chair and handed Garrow the cell phone. The lawyer put the phone to his ear, and heard a dial tone. It was a trick, and he stared at the small bread knife clutched in Xing’s other hand.
Valentine blew past the bouncer of the Pink Pony with Bill on his heels. Traffic had been heavy, and it had taken ten minutes to drive to the club. His eyes canvassed the darkened interior. A lone figure sat at a table in the VIP lounge.
“Is that Garrow?” Valentine asked.
“That’s him,” Bill said.
“Where’s the Asian?”
“I don’t see him.”
“Where your guy?”
“I don’t see him, either.”
They crossed the noisy club and entered the VIP lounge. Bill had clipped his badge to his lapel, and patrons were getting out of their way as fast as they could. Valentine stiffened as they reached the lawyer’s table. Garrow was trying to remove a small knife stuck in his shoulder, and was a bloody mess.
“Help me,” the lawyer gasped.
Valentine pulled out the knife, and Garrow screamed. Folding a napkin, he made the lawyer hold it against the gaping wound.
“What happened? Where’s the Asian?” Valentine asked.
“Who told you—”
“Answer the damn question.”
“The Asian double-crossed me.”
“Did he get the slot secret from you?”
“Yeah.”
Valentine checked Garrow’s pockets, just to be sure. His wallet and cell phone were gone. The Asian had stabbed and robbed him, and no one inside the club had bothered to jump in. A waitress appeared, and tapped Valentine on the shoulder.
“His tab’s still open. You going to settle for him?”
“In your dreams,” Valentine said.
He looked around the lounge for Bill. His friend stood in the corner, shaking his head. Hurrying over, he saw a man lying on the floor next to a broken Heineken bottle. His throat was slit from ear-to-ear.
“That your guy?” Valentine asked.
“Afraid so,” Bill replied.
Chapter 19
Mabel could not believe her ears. She was at Tony’s desk, talking on the phone to Joe Silverfoot, head of surveillance for the Micanopy casino in Tampa. Joe had caught the cheating dealer that Mabel had spotted —and videotaped it too boot — yet was telling Mabel he wasn’t going to do anything. It was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard.
“But he dealt off the bottom of the deck,” Mabel said.
“You’re right, he did,” Silverfoot said. “But, it was an honest mistake.”
Mabel shook her head. There were no such things as honest mistakes when it came to gambling. “The man’s a thief. You need to fire him, and alert the police.”
“We don’t have a case,” Silverfoot said.
“But —
“Hear me out. The player who got the bottom card was not involved. We pulled him into a back room, and grilled him. He’s in town for a convention, and this was his first visit to the casino. He’s never met the dealer. He agreed to take a polygraph in case we didn’t believe him.”
“Did you?” Mabel asked.
“Yes,” Silverfoot said. “I was a tribal policeman for twenty-five years, and I know when someone’s lying to me. This gentleman wasn’t lying. He wasn’t working with the dealer in any way. He was in the casino having a good time.”
“The dealer was still cheating,” Mabel said.
“Afraid not. I personally grilled the dealer, and told him we had a tape of him dealing off the bottom. He said the humidity inside the casino made the cards stick, and that he probably pulled one off the bottom by mistake.”
It was the worst alibi Mabel had ever heard, and she closed her eyes.
“And you believed him?”
“What choice did I have?” Silverfoot said. “There was no crime. How can I arrest someone if there’s no crime?”
Mabel shook her head. Dealing off the bottom was the card cheater’s most prized skill, and took hundreds of hours of practice. It didn’t happen by accident, despite what Silverfoot wanted to believe, and Mabel said goodbye and hung up the phone before she had a chance to tell him what a nincompoop he was.
She took a walk around the block to cool down. When that didn’t work, she returned to Tony’s study and watched the tape of the crooked dealer that she’d made on Tony’s computer. The dealer was big and tough-looking, and not someone she’d want to meet in a dark alley. His nose was crooked, and looked like it had been broken a few times. If that wasn’t the profile of a crook, she didn’t know what was. The idea that he still had his job irritated her to no end.
She didn’t like it. The man was obviously a thief. She remembered Tony’s comments about casinos that let crooked dealers work for them. Tony called these casinos bust-out joints, and said that they were popping up everywhere — on cruises ships, dishonest Indian reservations, and little towns that weren’t properly regulated by local or state government. Some bust-out joints used shaved dice on their craps tables, slot machines that didn’t pay out, and blackjack shoes missing high cards. Others employed crooked dealers adept in sleight-of-hand. The end result was always the same. The customers got skinned alive.
She decided she had to do something. She composed an email to Joe Silverfoot, and spelled out her feelings in plain English. Dear Joe: I was shocked to hear that the crooked poker dealer we caught is still in your employ. Having reviewed the situation, I believe this dealer compromises the integrity of your casino. If this situation is not rectified, I will no longer be able to do business with you.
She positioned the mouse on the Send button, then realized what she was doing. This was her only account. If she ran the Micanopys off, she would lose all the fun she’d been having, and also lose the firm money. She didn’t like either of those options, and stared at the computer screen. There’s a price for integrity, she thought, then sent her message through cyberspace.
Chapter 20
Bronco lay on the cot in his cell, staring at the three crosses on the walls that the shadows had made from the bars. He’d heard about criminals who’d found Jesus in the slammer, and wondered if this optical illusion had anything to do with it.
He heard stirring above him. Johnny Norton, his cell mate, had turned downright friendly when he realized Bronco was serious about escaping. Johnny had switched cots, taking the less desirable upper bunk and letting Bronco have the lower. He saw Johnny’s upside-down head appear over the side of his bunk.
“You awake?”
“No, I sleep with my eyes open.”
“That’s a good one. Think it will be this morning?”
Bronco put his fingers to his lips. Out in the hallway, he heard feet approaching the cell, and wondered if it was the guard Klinghoffer. In a whisper he said, “Yes. What’s the secret password?”
“What secret password?” Johnny asked.
“The password I’m going to give you when we break out of here.”
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Johnny hesitated. “Sword swallower?”
“Wrong.”
Johnny scrunched up his face. Last night, he’d told Bronco how he’d been shoved through school, and could barely read and write. Johnny’s brain didn’t have enough folds in it. The more you read and learned, the more folds your brain got. Bronco had figured out long ago that this was the secret to success.
“Come on,” Bronco goaded him.
“I’m trying.”
“It’s from the Marx Brothers movie, remember?
Johnny continued to struggle. Bronco had told him about the famous scene in the Marx Brothers movie, where the three brothers enter a speakeasy, and Groucho and Chico give the man at the door a secret password. Harpo came last, and because he couldn’t speak, removed a sword from the belt of his pants, and a large fish from his pocket, and shoved the sword down the fish’s throat, gaining him entry into the bar.
“Swordfish?” Johnny asked.
“There you go.”
Bronco saw Klinghoffer standing at the cell door, pointing his baton at him.
“You’ve got visitors, ” the guard said.
Bronco slipped out of the bunk, and stood in the center of the cell with his arms out. Klinghoffer entered and cuffed Bronco’s wrists together. Bronco shot Johnny a glance.
“See you later, partner,” he said.
Bronco had learned a lot of tricks over the years. Like learning to write with his left hand when he needed to carp a check. One of his best tricks was speaking without moving his lips. He couldn’t throw his voice like a ventriloquist, but he could communicate without someone watching through a camera knowing it. As Klinghoffer escorted him down a hallway to one of the jail’s interview rooms, Bronco was aware of the camera in the hallway watching them. Without moving his lips, he said, “You play the slot machine like I told you?”
“Uh-huh,” Klinghoffer said.
“You win?”
“Yeah.”
“How much?”
“Ninety seven hundred and change.”
Bronco wished he could see Karl’s face. Klinghoffer’s voice was a monotone, and Bronco couldn’t tell how the experience had affected him. Was he hooked? Bronco decided to go out on a limb, and said, “Buy something nice for your wife?”
“Yeah. Bought her a diamond.”
“I bet she fucked your brains out.”
Klinghoffer shoved the point of his baton into Bronco’s spine. “Move.”
Bronco smiled to himself. They had reached the interview room, and Klinghoffer reached around him, opened the door and told him to go in. Bronco did as told, and the guard shut the door without following him in.
The interview room was a square, with two chairs hex-bolted to the floor, and a mirror on the wall which Bronco assumed was two-way. Garrow sat in one of the chairs, his arm in a sling. His hand-tailored suit was covered in dried blood.
“What happened?”
“I screwed up,” Garrow mumbled.
“What are you talking about?”
“I set up a meeting with the Asian, and he stabbed me.”
“Why did he do that?”
Garrow stared at the floor. “It’s a long story.”
“You tried to double cross me, didn’t you?”
“No, Bronco…”
“I should kill you, you rat bastard.”
Garrow swallowed hard, and said nothing.
“What did you tell the cops?”
“Nothing.”
“Good. Keep it that way.”
Bronco dropped into the other seat, and for a long moment, stared at his attorney. Garrow wasn’t really here to see him at all. He was a prisoner, and the cops had thrown them into the same room just to hear what the two men might say. Rising, Bronco went to the two-way mirror, and brought his face a few inches from the glass.
“I want another lawyer,” he told the cops on the other side.
Valentine stared at Bronco through the glass. Twenty years had passed since that night on the Atlantic City Boardwalk. It was too damn long to be chasing someone, yet he felt himself smile. He’d found the bastard, and that was all that mattered.
“I didn’t hear that remark,” Valentine said. He glanced at Sergeant O’Sullivan, then Bill Higgins, then his son, all of whom stood beside him. “Did you?”
“No,” O’Sullivan said, hiding a grin.
“Me, neither,” Bill said.
Gerry looked at his father. “What are you talking about?”
“I didn’t hear Bronco say he wanted another lawyer. Did you?”
Gerry finally got it. “No.”
Valentine turned to O’Sullivan. “I want to interview Bronco right now, if that’s all right with you.”
“Of course,” O’Sullivan said. “Just give me a minute to get everything ready.”
O’Sullivan left, and Valentine resumed staring at Bronco through the glass. Bronco hadn’t aged well, the excessive drinking and smoking having taken their toll.
“Look at that crummy son-of-a-bitch sitting in there, smirking at us,” Gerry said under his breath.
Valentine glanced at his son. The night of Sal’s murder, he had picked Gerry up from basketball practice, then driven to the Boardwalk. Gerry had stayed in the car, and seen his uncle’s murders run past. Recognizing a family resemblance, Bronco had stopped, and spoken to his son. It had made a lasting impression on Gerry, and not for the better.
“Listen,” Valentine said. “We didn’t come out here to execute this guy. We’re on a job, and we’re going to do everything by the book.”
“But he shot Uncle Sal,” his son whispered.
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t?”
“No.”
Gerry continued to stare, his eyes showing a murderous intensity.
“Comprende?” Valentine said.
His son blew out his cheeks. Whenever Yolanda wanted to get Gerry’s attention, she spoke to him in Spanish. Valentine had found it worked wonders.
“Yeah, Pop,” his son said.
Chapter 21
O’Sullivan went into the interview room first, and cuffed Bronco’ left wrist to the arm of his chair. Not handcuffing him earlier was an old ploy, designed to make Bronco think he was more in control of his fate than he really was.
When Bronco was securely locked down, Valentine and Gerry entered, and stood against the far wall. Garrow looked woefully at the floor, shamed by what he’d done, while Bronco stared right at them, having never felt shame a day in his life.
“You boys are in a lot of trouble,” O’Sullivan said, standing between the two chairs while glaring at his suspects. “If either of you have a lick of common sense, I’d suggest you play ball with these gentlemen. It will make your lives a lot easier.”
“I want another lawyer,” Garrow said loudly.
“What’s that?”
“You heard me.”
Valentine took a step forward. Bronco instinctively brought his legs together like a dog expecting to be kicked.
“Garrow’s your lawyer, so we brought him to you,” Valentine said. “You don’t get any more requests.”
“You’re violating my rights,” Bronco said, looking straight into the video camera that was perched in the corner. “I have the right to counsel. This man next to me is injured. He can’t represent me. I want another lawyer.”
Bronco was as cute as an outhouse rat, delaying things as long as possible. Valentine leaned forward, and put his face a few feet from Bronco’s. Up close, he was really ugly, and Valentine thought of the woman on the tape he’d seen in Bronco’s house. She’d seen something good in that face. She was probably the only one who had.
“You want another lawyer?” Valentine asked.
“That’s right. I know my rights.”
“If you release Mr. Garrow as your attorney, you realize he’ll be free to discuss your dealings with him.”
The blood drained from Bronco’s face. Behind his eyes, Valentine imagined
he saw the gears churning, Bronco’s mind weighing every conceivable angle that he had left. That was what made cheaters so dangerous; they always understood the odds.
Bronco nodded toward Gerry.
“That’s your son standing over there, isn’t it?”
“That’s right.”
“I remember that night on the Boardwalk. As I was running away with my crew, we ran past a car, and I saw your boy in the passenger seat. Looked just like you, even back then. I stuck my face to the glass, told him what a pussy he was. Know what he did?”
Valentine shook his head.
“He pissed in his pants, just like you’re about to piss in your pants.”
“Why am I going to do that?”
The sensation that Valentine felt between his legs was almost indescribable. Looking down, he saw that Bronco had taken his free hand, grabbed Valentine’s testicles, and was squeezing them for all he was worth.
Gerry remembered the night his uncle Sal had died like it was yesterday. He’d just turned fourteen and was already shaving. He was a man, or at least he thought he was. His father had picked him up from basketball practice, then gotten an urgent call from his Uncle Sal. His father had driven over to the beach, parked on Atlantic Avenue, and told Gerry to stay put. Then he’d gotten out, and started running to the Boardwalk. Gerry had climbed behind the wheel, and pretended he was driving. His father had already let him drive in a deserted parking lot. It had been scary, but also exhilarating. Each time he’d pumped the gas, the vroom of the car’s engine had made his heart race. He was spinning the wheel when four men ran past. Gerry had guessed the men had something to do with his father being here. They looked like bad people, and he had locked the car doors. One of the men stopped, and came over to the car. He was scary-looking, and had stuck his face to the driver’s window.
“Hey, pussy, what you afraid of?” he taunted him.
“Go away!” Gerry yelled.
“Want me to go get your daddy, momma’s boy?”
“Go away!”
He had started punching the window with his fists, making Gerry cry. Gerry had felt something warm between his legs, and stared at the growing wet spot in his crotch. The man had seen it as well, and laughed. Then, he’d run away.
