by James Swain
Johnny Norton had killed a girl named Sandy the day before he’d been arrested. He’d met her in a roadside bar and seen she wasn’t all right in the head. That and she was all liquored up had told her she’d be easy pickings. He’d taken her out to his car and screwed her in the backseat. When they were done and Sandy asked for the fifty dollars he’d promised her, Johnny strangled her. There had been no reason to kill her, only a repulsed look in her eyes he wanted to extinguish. All his life, Johnny had been seeing that look in other’s people’s faces. Like he wasn’t clean or something.
The cops were going to find out he’d killed Sandy. He’d left his prints on her clothes and done a crummy job of dumping her body in a deserted lot. The other times he’d killed girls, he’d dumped them in bodies of water, only those were hard to find in the desert. He’d left too many clues, and it was just a matter of time before the police connected him to the crime.
These were the thoughts going through Johnny’s mind as he swung the billy club at the cop closest to him. He was a goner, so he was going to go out in style. It didn’t bother him that Bronco had betrayed him, just that he hadn’t seen it coming. Given the chance, Johnny would have done the same.
The cop shielded his head with his arms, and the club bounced off his forearms. People in the room were yelling, the noise so loud that Johnny couldn’t hear himself think. The cop who’d arrested him, a Pollock named Turkowski, rose from his desk with his gun drawn, and shot Johnny in the stomach.
Johnny flew backwards into a wall, then sank to the floor. He stared down at himself. The hole in his stomach was as big as his fist, his blood gushing out. The baton slipped out of his hand and pools of black appeared before his eyes. He saw Bronco slip out the door with the shotgun cradled to his chest.
As he died, Johnny closed his eyes, and wished it was him going out that door.
“You’re not yelling at me,” Gerry said.
Valentine saw the Washoe County Detention center a block ahead. “Is that a statement or a question?”
“You’re not mad?”
Valentine shook his head. He’d had his pocket picked several times when he was a cop. There was nothing you could do except be more careful the next time.
“Hopefully, the guard that led Bronco back to his cell kept him handcuffed,” Valentine said.
“You think Bronco would use my pen to attack him?”
He nodded. The gambling world was replete with stories of Bronco wrestling with security guards and jumping through plate glass windows rather than allow himself to be captured by the police. He pulled into the visitor parking lot. It backed up on the employee lot, and he saw a cop wearing a baggy uniform running up and down the aisle of cars, pointing his key chain at the vehicle.
“What's that guy doing?”
“Looks like he's using the unlock mechanism in his key chain to find his car,” Valentine replied.
“How does that work?”
“You forget where your car is parked, you point the key chain, and press the unlock button until your car lights up. I do it all the time.”
“Holy shit — he's got a shotgun.”
The cop in the baggy uniform was running directly toward them. It was Bronco, and he raised the shotgun hanging by his side, and aimed at their windshield.
“Sweet Jesus,” Valentine said.
Chapter 24
Mabel was examining a double-sided chip when the phone rang. The chip had been sent by a grateful casino boss, along with a thank-you card. Tony had spotted the gaff while watching a surveillance tape, and alerted the casino to the theft.
The double-sided chip was a marvel of ingenuity. On one side was a $5.00 red chip; on the other, a $25.00 dollar green chip. The scam used two people — a crooked blackjack dealer, and a dishonest player. The player would make a bet with his double-sided chip, with the $25.00 side showing. If the player won, the dealer paid him even money. If the player lost, the dealer would pick the losing bet up, flip it over secretly in his hand, and place it in his tray with the $5.00 dollar chips. The player would toss twenty-five dollars in bills on the table, and ask for chips. The dealer would give him five $5.00 chips, including the double-sided chip. What made the scam so deadly was no matter what happened, the player always came out ahead.
“Grift Sense,” she answered.
“Good afternoon,” a man said. “May I please speak to Mabel Stuck.”
Mabel Stuck? It sounded like some pesky telemarketer.
“The name’s Struck, not Stuck, and this number is on the national Do-Not-Call-Registry,” she informed her caller. “Please remove us from your list, or we will contact the Florida attorney general.”
“Ms. Struck, I’m terribly sorry. Please accept my apology.”
“Who is this?”
“Chief Running Bear of the Micanopy nation,” the man said.
Mabel brought her hand up to her mouth. Running Bear ran the show at the Micanopy Indian Reservation casino. Because of a court fight he’d waged twenty-five years ago, casino gambling was now legal on over four hundred Indian reservations. All Mabel could think was he’d read the e-mail she’d sent, and had called to fire her.
“Hello, chief,” she said.
“Please call me Running Bear.”
“Sure. Please call me Mabel.”
“I’m calling in response to the e-mail which you sent my director of surveillance. You were rather blunt in your assessment of how we are handling this situation.”
Mabel liked the chief’s choice of words. Tony had worked for Running Bear before, and had said the chief was as honest as the day was long. “You have a dealer who has been caught on videotape using known cheating techniques. The fact that this dealer is still working for you is absolutely shocking.”
There was a pause on the other end. Mabel liked how her response had come out. Not too harsh or prickly. And calling their inaction shocking was a nice touch.
“I have shared your e-mail with the elders of our tribe,” Running Bear said. “The elders have final say in these matters. They have asked if you would be willing to come to the casino this evening, and explain your reasoning. You will be compensated for your time, if you choose to accept.”
Something dropped in Mabel’s stomach. Go over to the casino? Talk to the elders? She hadn’t spoken to a roomful of people since highschool.
“Well, I don’t —”
“I should tell you that I am in agreement of your assessment of the situation,” he said, “and would like to see this dealer terminated.”
“You would?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t mean to be rude,” Mabel said, “but if the elders of your tribe won’t listen to you, what makes you think they’ll listen to me?”
“The elders don’t believe a crime has been committed. You make a case in your e-mail that a crime has been committed since the dealer broke the rules of play, which constitutes a breach of trust. I need to hammer this point home, with your help.”
Mabel considered what Running Bear was asking. Because the Micanopys were a sovereign nation, they ran their casinos by their own rules, and not the state’s or the federal government’s. These rules weren’t as strict as other casinos, and as a result, not as good. Running Bear needed help; otherwise, he’d have unscrupulous dealers stealing him blind.
“Our firm charges three thousand dollars for house calls,” she said. “We prefer checks, although we will take cash. Is this agreeable to you?”
“That sounds fine. Will Tony Valentine be coming with you?”
“Tony Valentine is out of town,” Mabel said. “I’ll be coming alone.”
Chapter 25
Bronco was close enough to take both their heads off with his shotgun. Valentine braked the rental and waited. Without a word, Bronco marched over to the car, climbed into the backseat, and shoved the shotgun’s barrel into the seat behind Gerry’s back.
“Drive,” Bronco said.
As Valentine pulled out of the visitor
’s parking lot, he glanced in his mirror, and saw policeman spilling out of the jail and frantically running around the grounds. No doubt Bronco had planned to drive away in one of their cars. If he had, the police would have had little problem finding out which car, and tracking him down. But since he was in Valentine’s rental, there was no way for the police to know where he’d gone. Bronco was home free, and Valentine saw him grinning in the mirror.
“Isn’t this wonderful,” Bronco said. “You came out here to stick me in prison, and you help me get out. There must be a name for that.”
“Irony,” Gerry said, staring straight ahead.
“There you go. That’s a fancy word, isn’t it?”
“Just to you,” Gerry said.
Bronco stuck his head between them. “He’s a smart one, isn’t he, Tony? Knows I won’t shoot him while we’re here in the city around all these people. Now, when we get out in the desert, that’s a different story.” To Gerry, he said, “You punch hard, kid.”
“I had a good teacher,” Gerry said.
“Your old man here?”
“That’s right.”
They came to an intersection. Bronco gave Valentine instructions to get out of town. Valentine drove with his eye in his mirror, hoping for a police cruiser to magically appear behind them. He saw Gerry staring at the road, and guessed his son was hoping for a similar miracle.
Ten miles outside of town, Bronco made Valentine pull down a side road, then after a mile take another road, this one made of crushed gravel. It led to a deserted auto graveyard, the rusted carcasses of vehicles piled high in the air, with families of crows nestled within the metal skeletons. Bronco told him to brake and the car came to a halt.
“Get out,” he said to Valentine. To Gerry, he said, “Take your father’s spot behind the wheel. Do it real slow.”
Valentine got out. Except for the graveyard, there was nothing but scrub brush and flat land, with no real place to hide. His mind was racing for an escape, only none were making themselves apparent. It made his soul ache to know that Bronco had outsmarted him, but no one had ever said life was perfect.
Bronco rolled down the back window, and poked the barrel of the shotgun out the window. The look in his face was stone cold evil.
Valentine looked up at the sky. It was a flawless blue, the sun a perfect hole within that blue. As he’d grown older, his fear of dying had ebbed. He’d been married to a great woman, raised a halfway decent son, and had his share of good times. He’d played by the rules, and had no regrets.
“You want to say anything to your son?” Bronco asked.
Valentine glanced over his shoulder. Gerry’s face was white. He mouthed the words I love you. and looked back up at the sky.
“Anything else?” Bronco asked.
Valentine shook his head. He wasn’t going to look at Bronco, and give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d won this fight. In the auto graveyard he spied a car bumper, and in its shiny reflection Bronco aiming the shotgun at his back.
He closed his eyes. His late wife appeared as if my magic. She was standing in a lush forest, holding her arms out, and looked as beautiful as the day they’d met. He imagined himself holding her in his arms and kissing her, and could not think of a more wonderful gift. As Bronco’s shotgun went off, he was actually smiling.
Chapter 26
Valentine heard the shotgun blast and saw his life flash before his eyes. A flock of crows nesting in a car skeleton burst into the air around him. He felt their wings violently brush against his body, and imagined they were taking his soul to the hereafter.
The birds continued to fly upward, leaving him behind. He blinked and realized he was still standing, then heard the sounds of wheels spinning. He spun around and saw the rental race past, it’s rear end fish tailing. The vehicle was halfway across the field before he realized what had happened. Gerry had floored the accelerator just before Bronco had squeezed the shotgun’s trigger.
Valentine watched the rental burn across the field, expecting to hear a shotgun blast at any moment. Bronco would pay Gerry back for doing this. His son was doomed.
But the blast never came, and he guessed Bronco hadn’t shot Gerry because his son was driving too fast. But it was a temporary reprieve from an inevitable situation. Gerry eventually had to slow down, and Bronco would kill him. Valentine took out his cell phone, and powered it up. If he could alert the police, perhaps they could save his son. His cell phone made an unpleasant sound, and he glanced at its face. NO SERVICE. He lifted his eyes, and stared across the field. The rental was a blip on the horizon, his son still driving like he was protecting the Pole at the Indy 500. Tears rolled down his cheeks, and he wiped his eyes with his sleeve.
The back country of Reno was bumpy and uneven. Gerry came to a wide ditch he couldn’t cross, and was forced to slow down. He’d pulled some wild stunts with cars as a teenager, but he’d never driven this fast before without pavement under his wheels. If Bronco was going to kill him, at least he was going to die with adrenalin pumping through his veins.
The ditch was about fifteen feet wide and ten feet deep with brownish water in its bottom. Gerry turned the rental so he was driving parallel with the ditch. As the speedometer fell below fifty, he felt the shotgun’s barrel being scraped across the back of his neck. It felt like a hot wire and he braked the car, then threw it into park. Bronco leaned forward, and put his lips next to Gerry’s ear.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you.”
Gerry thought about it, then shook his head.
“Can’t think of any?” Bronco asked.
“I can think of plenty,” Gerry said. “None of them are any good.”
Bronco let out a mean little laugh. “Get out of the car.”
“You going to shoot me in the back, like my old man?”
Bronco stared back, saying nothing. Gerry realized he was a goner unless he did something. Think, he told himself.
“You’re going to need money,” Gerry said.
Bronco blinked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re on the lam and don’t have any money. Well, neither do I, unless you think you’re going to get far with my credit cards and the forty bucks in my wallet. You’ll be back in jail before you know it.”
“That’s all that’s in your wallet? Forty bucks?”
“That’s right.”
Bronco chewed on his lower lip, thinking.
“I know how you can make a fast buck,” Gerry said.
“How? Flipping burgers at McDonald’s?”
Gerry grinned. His father had liked to say that even Hitler had a sense of humor.
“With a monkey’s paw,” Gerry said.
Bronco lowered the shotgun so it was no longer touching Gerry’s neck.
“Where’d you get a monkey’s paw?”
“From your house in Henderson,” Gerry said. “The Las Vegas Metro Police found the place, and they let me and my father have a look around. We found the monkeys paws in a box in your workshop; my father explained how they worked. I grabbed one when he wasn’t looking, and shoved it into my suitcase.”
“Why?”
“Because I planned to use it.” Gerry turned his head and looked Bronco in the eye. “I used to be a bookie. My wife talked me into quitting the rackets, and going into business with my old man. Only, I can’t quit. It’s something in my blood. So I stole one of your little devices.”
“You’re saying you’re a scammer,” Bronco said.
“All my life.”
“Where’s the monkey’s paw you took from my house?”
“In my suitcase in the trunk.”
“Show me,” Bronco said.
Gerry pushed a button beneath the dashboard that popped the trunk, then climbed out of the rental with his hands stuck on his head like a POW. He’d gotten Bronco to start thinking about his own salvation, and sensed that Bronco wasn’t as intent on killing him as he had been a few minutes ago.
Bro
nco climbed out of the vehicle in his baggy guard’s uniform and cheap prison sandals. He aimed the shotgun at Gerry’s face. Gerry dropped to his knees. Bronco went and flipped open the trunk. There were two suitcases in back.
“Which’s one yours?”
“The black Tumi. The monkey’s paw is on top, wrapped in plastic.”
Bronco unzippered the Tumi. Seeing the monkey’s paw, his eyes lit up like someone who’s found buried treasure. He removed the cheating device along with a shirt and a pair of pants, then slammed the trunk closed. Coming around the rental, he shredded the plastic from the slot-cheating device, then pushed the button that made the strobe light flash on its end.
