by James Swain
The chief nodded. “Long time ago.”
“But it seems like yesterday,” Mira said.
Again he nodded. “Yes.”
“You like to protect things, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Yet, you also like to hunt. How do you explain the contradiction?”
“It was how I fed myself when I was a boy,” Running Bear said.
“What you got for me?” she said to Mabel.
Mabel handed her the envelope containing the photographs of the seven gaming agents she’d printed off Tony’s computer. “One of these people is stealing slot machine jackpots in Nevada. I was hoping you could figure out which one.”
“You want me to find the thief?”
“Please.”
“Where’s Tony?”
“He’s out in Nevada, trying to catch this guy.”
“Tell him to call me when he comes home.”
“I will, Mira.”
Mira opened the envelope and removed the seven photographs. Paper-clipped to them was a smaller envelope with her fee. She removed the stack of hundred dollar bills and counted the money. Satisfied, she stuffed the bills into the pocket of her sarong, then said, “You got these photographs off the Internet. That makes my job harder. I need to look at them in seclusion. I’ll be back in a little while.”
Mira walked away. Not to the house, but down to the edge of the lake where tiny schools of fish were doing a flawless ballet just above the water’s surface. Stopping, she fitted on a pair of reading glasses, and carefully studied the photographs.
“What was that about?” Running Bear asked.
“She’s got a crush on Tony.”
“I sensed that. She’s half his age.”
“I know. Tony is a magnet for — how should I say it? — problem women. I think it has something to do with him being an ex-policeman.”
“It must make his life difficult. Would you like to have dinner with me?”
“That was some segue, chief.”
Running Bear gestured awkwardly with his hands. “Sorry. It’s been a long time since I asked a woman on a date.”
“Of course I’ll have dinner with you.”
“You will? I mean, that’s wonderful. How about tonight?”
“That would be splendid. Pick me up at seven.”
The chief smiled like he’d just won the lottery. Mabel had no idea where this was going, but she was looking forward to the ride. She glanced down at the lake, and saw Mira slip the photographs back into the envelope, and start walking toward the pickup.
The expression on her face was best described as hostile.
“What’s wrong?” Mabel asked when Mira reached the car.
“These are all cops, aren’t they?” Mira said.
“They’re in law enforcement, yes.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Why do you say that?”
Mira tossed the envelope through the window into Mabel’s lap.
“They’re all thieves,” she said.
Part 3
Jackpot
Chapter 47
McCarren International Airport in Las Vegas had a special area reserved for private planes. It was one of the busiest areas of the airport, with hundreds of private planes and jets landing at all hours of the day and night. Many of these planes had wealthy gamblers coming to town for a few days of fun, and a long line of chauffeur-driven limousines sent by the casinos were parked just outside the gates, waiting to whisk these gamblers away. Governor Smoltz’s private jet landed at seven-thirty in the morning with Valentine, his son, and Bill Higgins on board. As the three men disembarked onto the windy tarmac, Valentine’s cell phone rang. Caller ID said Mabel. He told Gerry and Bill that he’d meet them inside the terminal, and moved into the shade before answering the call.
“How’s it going?” he said by way of greeting.
“I just met with Mira,” Mabel replied. “You’re not going to believe what she told me.”
“Try me.”
“Mira is convinced that all seven GCB agents are involved in a massive conspiracy. Mira said it was apparent from the downturn of the triangularis — that’s the muscle that depresses the corner of the lips — that they were involved. Tony, it was so amazing. The moment she pointed it out to me, I could see it! Their mouths had a distasteful look, like they’d just bitten into a sour piece of fruit.”
Valentine felt something drop in the pit of his stomach. His earlier suspicion that Bill was holding back was taking on new meaning. Something had happened to those seven agents that had turned them into crooks. Their jobs, or something related to their jobs, had pushed them to the dark side.
“I need to run,” he said. “Thanks for doing this.”
“One more thing,” Mabel said. “I looked at these seven agents’ files again. They all report directly to your friend Bill Higgins. It occurred to me that they may not be the only people involved in this conspiracy.”
“Come again?”
“Your friend Bill. I checked him out as well.”
“How did you do that?”
“I pulled up his photograph on my cell phone, and showed it to Mira. It wasn’t a good photo, but Mira was able to read Bill’s face.”
Valentine felt an icy finger run down the length of his spine. Was Bill involved? It was a jump he’d been unwilling to make. He’d known Bill for twenty-five years, and considered him more than just a friend. But it was possible. When it came to money, just about anything was possible.
“And?”
“She said that Bill was filled with dark secrets.”
Valentine found himself nodding. Bill did have his secrets. He’d been sent away from the Navajo reservation by his parents at an early age, something he’d never gotten over. Valentine guessed there were plenty of things hidden beneath Bill’s calm exterior, and said, “Did she think Bill was involved?”
“Mira said it was possible. She said you should be very careful.”
“Will do. Talk to you later.”
Valentine went inside the terminal and found his garment bag waiting for him in the baggage claim. His son was at the car rental counter, getting them a set of wheels. He tapped Gerry on the shoulder and said, “Where’s Bill?”
“He went outside to make a call. He said the reception was better out there.”
Valentine frowned. Bill always seemed to walk away when he needed to make a call. It hadn’t seemed suspicious before, but now it did. He walked outside the terminal and found Bill standing in a remote spot, talking on his cell. He looked at his friend in the bright sunlight, and tried to see what Mira had seen. Bill finished his call.
“That was Sheriff Bolden of the Metro Las Vegas Police Department,” Bill said. “His men tracked down the Asian through Garrow’s cell phone. His name’s Xing Han Wong, and he’s holed up at the Cordova motel on Fremont Street. The police are parked in the room next to Xing’s, listening to his phone calls. Xing talked to Bronco a couple of hours ago. They’re going to meet up this afternoon, and do the exchange. I told Bolden we wanted to be there when the bust went down.”
Valentine studied Bill’s face as he spoke. It was hard to tell what he was thinking. “You’re going to let the police arrest him?”
“Yes. Is that a problem?”
“Bronco stabbed a guard at the Reno jail yesterday. You know how the Vegas cops treat people who attack cops. They shoot them.”
“I’m not going to shed any tears if Bronco gets killed.”
If Bronco got taken down by the Vegas cops, they’d never hear him say who the crooked gaming agent was. And since they didn’t have any real proof that a gaming agent had stolen jackpots, the scam would get swept under the rug, just like every other bad thing that happened in this town.
Bill pulled out his car keys. “My car is parked in the lot. Follow me once you get your rental.”
Now Bill was ordering him around. His friend had forgotten that this was his investigation. Or maybe it
had never been his investigation at all.
“Will do,” Valentine said.
“What did Mabel say?” Gerry asked when they were on the road.
Valentine clutched the wheel of his rental. He was driving down Las Vegas Boulevard into the heart of the strip, the lanes filled with lunatic drivers. Bill’s silver Volvo was a hundred feet ahead with its government-issued plates.
“Mira looked at the photos. She thinks all seven agents are involved in the scam.”
“What? Jeesus.”
“It gets worse.”
“How can it get worse?”
“Bill might be involved, too.”
Gerry fell back in his seat. It was rare for his son to be at a loss for words. This was one of those special occasions.
“I want to get to the bottom of this. It’s going to mean us going rogue, and sticking our noses where they don’t belong. You up for it?”
His son swallowed hard and nodded.
“Good. Hold on.”
They had reached the intersection with Harmon Avenue. The palatial Aladdin Resort and Casino was on their right, the majestic water fountains of the Bellagio on their left. Valentine jammed on his brakes and spun the wheel, taking the corner on two wheels. Within seconds they were heading away from the strip, and had lost Bill.
He drove down several side roads, keeping his eye on his mirror. When he decided that Bill hadn’t followed them, he returned to the strip, and drove to the Acropolis Hotel & Casino. The Acropolis was an old-time joint and a monument to debauchery, with statues of naked women everywhere you looked. The old ad campaign that had touted Las Vegas as a family destination had never mentioned the place.
He drove up the snaking front entrance and braked at the valet stand. “Here’s the deal. I want you to talk with Nick Nicocropolis, the owner of this dump. Nick and I go back a long way. Nick knows all the dirt about this town. Ask Nick what might have caused seven gaming agents to go dirty, and start ripping off the casinos.”
“Where are you going?” his son asked.
“To have a talk with Lucy Price. Lucy was approached several years ago by a man who got her to play a rigged slot machine. I’m sure he’s the gang’s ringleader.”
“Why do you say that?”
“That’s the way it works with gangs. The ringleader is the front man. In this case, he was recruiting claimers while the others rigged the laptops the field agents used. If I can get Lucy to pick his photo out, we can pull in the ringleader, and grill him. Chances are, he’ll give up the rest of them.”
“Pop, she tore your heart out the last time. Let me go talk to her.”
Gerry was right. His last meeting with Lucy had ripped him apart. But a part of him had to see her again, no matter how painful that might be. He patted his son’s arm. “This one’s mine. I’ll be back in a couple hours. Say hi to Nick for me.”
His son got out, and Valentine peeled out of the valet stand.
Chapter 48
Valentine drove to the Jean Correctional Facility with the snapshot of Lucy Price that he kept in his wallet stuck on the steering wheel. She reminded him a lot of his late wife. Same height, same hair color, and a killer smile.
During the drive, he called the warden on his cell phone, and requested that Lucy be brought to the visiting area in the main administration building. The warden had agreed, having remembered him from a few days ago. Valentine appreciated that. Just about every other law enforcement officer in Nevada had challenged him in the past few days, and it was nice not to run into another wall.
He checked in with the receptionist, then passed through a metal detector and made his way to the visiting area. Walking down a hallway, he stared through a window onto a yard, and saw several hundred women inmates talking and puffing on cigarettes. Three months ago, he’d talked Lucy into throwing herself upon the mercy of the court, and now tried to imagine her surviving here, with drug addicts and prostitutes and who knew what else. Had he made a mistake? He sure hoped not.
He sat in the visitor’s room and waited. The room smelled like a tobacco factory, and he found himself craving a smoke. He didn’t think he’d ever really kick the habit until they threw dirt on his face. After a few minutes, a bearded man wearing a navy sports jacket entered the room. His name tag said Dr. R. Bob Smith, III.
“I’m Dr. Bob Smith, the prison psychologist,” he said.
“Where’s Lucy?”
“She asked me to come instead.”
“Is that so. Where’s the warden?”
“Why do you want to see the warden?”
“Because I’m not talking to you.”
The good doctor acted surprised. He was a gentle-looking man, the kind of thoughtful person that Valentine had hoped the prison system would provide to help Lucy get her gambling problem sorted out. Smith said, “Can we first go to the employee cafeteria, and discuss this over a cup of coffee?”
“I didn’t come here to drink coffee. I’m conducting a criminal investigation. Were you aware of that?”
Smith brought his hand up and tugged nervously at his beard. “No, I wasn’t. Is Lucy in some kind of trouble?”
“She could be. She helped a cheater steal a slot machine jackpot a few years ago. She wrote me a letter about it. I need her to identify the cheater from a group of photos so we can apprehend him. If she refuses to help, I might have to haul her in.”
“You can haul her in for that?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Because there are dozens of women in here who’ve done the same thing.”
“What are you talking about?”
“They help cheaters,” Smith said. “I hear about it regularly during my counseling sessions. It’s goes on all the time. ”
Valentine stared into Smith’s eyes. It sounded like a bunch of crap, only there was sincerity in Smith’s voice. Was this how Bronco lured innocent people into being claimers for him?
“I’ll take you up on that cup of coffee.”
The employee cafeteria was a rectangular room with six tables, a refrigerator and a Mr. Coffee machine with a glass jar for donations. Valentine poured two cups and dropped two dollars into the jar. They sat at a corner table, and shared a short silence.
“Have you ever studied the work of Charles Darwin?” Smith asked.
Valentine’s proper education had ended when he’d graduated from highschool.
“I think I was out sick that day.”
Smith blew the steam off his cup. “Darwin said that evolution relentlessly encouraged the survival of the fittest. If that’s true, human beings should be naturally selfish, and only care for themselves. Yet, the fact is, we are not a selfish species, per se. We interact with scores of individuals, sometimes hundreds or even thousands, and we cooperate with them.”
“We do?” Valentine said.
“Of course. We tip waiters in restaurants, give blood, drive on the correct side of the street, obey rules, and cooperate with people we’ll never see again. And we do it for a purely selfish reason. We want to survive.”
“You’ve lost me. How does that lead to survival?”
Smith put his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “Throughout human history, groups of cooperators have been more successful than groups of selfish individuals, and have driven the selfish individuals into extinction. Darwin believed that the desire for survival led to humans’ mutual aid and trust. He called it the evolution of cooperation.”
The coffee tasted like rocket fuel, and Valentine felt it kick his brain into another gear. “Let me see if I can guess where you’re taking this. You think Darwin’s evolution of cooperation is happening inside casinos. People like Lucy Price cooperate with cheaters because they want to beat the casinos, just like every other player. Lucy helps, even though she knows it’s wrong.”
“Wrong in a legal sense, but not in a cooperative one,” the doctor said. “Inside a casino, it’s us vs. them, and them is the casino.”
“If that were the case, lots of pe
ople would be helping cheaters.”
“They are. Lucy told me you work with the casinos. How often do players turn in other players for cheating, or stealing, or not playing by the rules?”
“Hardly ever,” Valentine conceded.
“But those things go on. The casino is the oppressor. The casino never loses. The players know this, and they hate it. As a result, players who see cheating either turn a blind eye, or become accomplices. Make sense?”
Valentine’s coffee suddenly didn’t taste so good. He’d assumed that people like Bo and Karen Farmer had been talked into becoming thieves by promises of lots of money. But Smith was saying that money was only a part of it. The Farmers had turned bad because it was human nature to fight something that was beating you silly.
“You still haven’t told me why Lucy won’t speak to me,” Valentine said.
“Lucy is afraid that by talking to you, she’ll regress,” Smith said. “She believes that by seeing you again, she’ll undo all therapy.”
“I need her help. Doesn’t she know that?”
“She knows, but she has to think about herself.”
Valentine drummed the table. Where was the evolution of cooperation that Smith had just spoken about? Valentine had helped Lucy plenty of times, even given her money when her situation had seemed hopeless. How could she now be so unwilling to help him? He didn’t like it. In fact, it made him mad as hell.
He’d been walking around with an envelope tucked under his arm since he’d entered the prison. Opening it, he laid the photographs of the seven suspected gaming agents on the table. Five men, two women. He removed the photos of the five men, and handed them to Smith.
“One of these five guys is the ringleader of a major casino scam. In the spirit of cooperation that you’re so fond of talking about, I want you to show these photographs to Lucy. Tell her it would be therapeutic for her to turn in a cheater.”
“That’s out of the question.”
“Do it anyway.”
