Jackpot (Tony Valentine series)

by James Swain

  Sunlight flooded the unit’s interior and the Reno cops swarmed in. The unit was rectangular in shape and contained Valentine’s rental car. Gerry sat in the front seat and got out of the car while shielding his eyes from the sudden flood of light. Valentine went and put a bear hug on him.

  “Thanks for saving my life,” Valentine said.

  “I owed you one,” his son replied.

  They held each other. Valentine’s late wife had gotten him addicted to hugs, and it felt really good. Then they walked onto the grass where Bill’s car was parked, and Gerry took out his cigarettes and lit up. They shared a smoke without saying anything.

  “You’re going to be proud of me,” Gerry said.

  “I’m already proud of you.”

  “I narrowed down your slot cheater to seven suspects.”

  “Show me.”

  Gerry went back to the rental, and returned holding a handful of paper, which he handed to his father. Valentine counted seven files of gaming agents who worked for the Electronic Systems Division. He looked at his son expectantly.

  “I once had a woman who worked for me as a bartender who was stealing money,” Gerry explained. “She also took a lot of personnel days and sick days. The two go hand-in-hand.”

  “Stealing money and stealing time,” Valentine said.

  “That’s right. The woman who was stealing from me did it out of spite. Well, that fits the profile of your slot cheater, don’t you think?”

  Valentine took a drag off the cigarette. “You think this agent has a vendetta?”

  “Why else would he steal hundreds of jackpots? Why not just steal one big one?”

  Gerry pointed at the files in his father’s hands. “Those seven agents have all taken lots of time off in the past two years for “personal” reasons. I’d bet the rent one of them is your slot cheater.”

  The cigarette was down to nothing, and Valentine burned his fingers getting a final drag. Last one, he told himself, knowing it was a lie. Then, he looked through the seven files. The agents were some of the most senior people in ESD, and included Fred Friendly, the man running the show. It seemed inconceivable that one of them might be a slot cheater, yet all the evidence was pointing that way.

  “I think you’re right. Good job. ” Valentine put the files down and squeezed his son’s arm. Then he noticed that Gerry was trembling. “What’s wrong?”

  “Bronco tried to kill me earlier,” his son said.

  “Jesus, Gerry. What happened?”

  “I talked him out of it.”

  “How the hell did you do that?”

  “Right before he was going to pull the trigger, I pissed in my pants. Bronco saw it, got real upset. I think it reminded him of that night on the Boardwalk when he murdered Uncle Sal.”

  “You think that’s why he didn’t shoot you?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  Neither of them spoke for a while. Gerry lit up another cigarette and Valentine broke another promise to himself and took a drag. His son broke the silence.

  “I know this is going to sound strange…”

  “What’s that?”

  “I think Bronco regretted doing that to me. You know, terrorizing a kid.”

  “You’re saying the guy’s human.”

  “Yeah,” his son said.

  “And that he has a heart.”

  “Yeah.”

  Valentine filled his lungs with the rich-tasting smoke. If he’d learned anything as a cop, it was that there was a fine line between sinners and saints. Even the best people went bad, and sometimes the worst people surprised you. When it came to human behavior, there was no real black and white. It was all a hazy shade of gray.

  “I’m still going to nail his ass,” Valentine said.

  Part 2

  Cheats

  Chapter 32

  Not shooting Gerry Valentine had to be the stupidest thing Bronco had ever done. Gerry had seen the car in the storage facility, probably memorized the license plate. The fact that Bronco had spared him didn’t mean Gerry wasn’t going to tell the police what he’d seen once they rescued him. Bronco had killed plenty of men in his life, and had a feeling he was going to regret not killing this one.

  He pulled into a McDonald’s parking lot and went through the side entrance into the Men’s Room. Standing before the mirror, he applied the nail polish Gerry had bought for him to his cheeks and forehead, then scrunched his face up while the nail polish dried. Within a few minutes he looked ten years older.

  He bought himself a couple of burgers, and was surprised when the cashier handed him a Styrofoam cup. “Free coffee for older folks,” she said brightly.

  He went outside with his coffee and his burgers. Opening the trunk of the Taurus, he inspected the items he’d put there years ago in case of an emergency. There was a high-powered hunting rifle with a long-range scope, a .25 Beretta, several boxes of ammo, two changes of clothes, and a cardboard box filled with disguises. From the box he removed a baseball cap that said ‘Reno, Biggest Little City in the World’ — and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. Getting into the car, he put the cap and glasses on, then appraised himself in the mirror. He looked like a retiree, and fired up the car’s engine. If he drove real slow, he’d look like every other old geezer who tooled around Reno.

  A police cruiser entered the parking lot. A pair of cops were checking out the cars, and Bronco unwrapped one of the burgers sitting on the seat, and shoved it into his mouth. He drove past the cruiser and rolled his window down.

  “Good afternoon, officers,” he said through a mouthful of food.

  The two cops nodded, their faces all business.

  “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?”

  The cops stared right through him. Bronco had been disguising himself as an old man for years, and it never failed to work. It was like being invisible, only he got discounts on food and better service in restaurants.

  “Have a nice day,” he called as he drove away.

  Bronco thought about his situation while driving into the city. He could last a day or two changing his appearance, but not much more. The police would eventually track him down, and he’d end up back in jail. Just two days behind bars had convinced him that he wouldn’t last very long being locked up. He’d heard about ex-cons who’d killed themselves rather than go back to the joint, and always thought the stories were crazy. Now, he didn’t think they were crazy at all.

  He needed money, and lots of it. Money would buy him time, and time was freedom. It was as simple as that. He knew just how to get it.

  The outskirts of Reno had more stores than the city itself, and he pulled into a strip shopping center, and parked by a neighborhood pub called Woody’s. Inside, he found a bunch of armchair quarterbacks sucking beer and watching the local news on a giant screen TV. A breathless newscaster was describing his escape from the police station that morning, and the resulting manhunt which was taking place across the state. He threw a ten dollar bill on the bar, and asked for a glass of tomato juice and quarters to use the pay phone.

  “Phone’s in back,” the bartender said, sliding his drink and change across the bar.

  The phone booth was next to the kitchen. Bronco slid onto the seat while staring at his enlarged mug shot on the TV. The newscaster said, “If there is a happy footnote to this story, it’s that the guard who was attacked at the jail, Karl Klinghoffer, was resuscitated by another guard, and is expected to make a full recovery.”

  Bronco found himself nodding. He’d liked Karl. Like a lot of cops, Karl had larceny in his heart, and had been easy to manipulate. Placing the receiver into the crook of his neck, he dialed from memory the number of the cheating gaming agent at the Nevada Gaming Control Board. Moments later, an automated voice told him to put in three dollars and sixty-five cents. Bronco fed the coins in, and his call went through.

  “Hello?” a man’s voice said.

  “It’s me,” Bronco said. “Go outside, and call me back at this number.”

&nb
sp; “You! How dare you—

  “Just do as I say,” Bronco told him. He recited the number printed on the pay phone, then hung up. Two minutes later, the phone rang.

  “How’s it going,” Bronco said.

  “You crummy bastard,” the cheating agent screamed. “I heard what you did. You offered to sell me down the river if the police let you out of jail. How dare you call me!”

  “Calm down,” Bronco said.

  “Fuck you!”

  “I broke out of jail this morning,” Bronco said. “I’m on the lam.”

  There was a long silence. Then, “You didn’t give me up?”

  “Of course not,” Bronco said, sipping his tomato juice. “That was a bullgarbage story put out by the police. They were trying to smoke you out.”

  “You’re a liar.”

  “Believe what you want.”

  Another silence. “Why did you call me?”

  “I need money.”

  “Like I’m going to wire it to you? Get real.”

  Bronco’s hand tightened around the receiver. The cheating gaming agent was a real head case. He’d gotten pissed off at his employer a few years ago, and decided to pay him back by taking dead aim at the casinos. A revenge thing.

  “Listen to me,” Bronco said. “As long as I’m free, you’re free. Understand?”

  Another silence. “Yes, I understand.”

  “Good. I want you to go back to your office, and find me a slot machine in Reno that’s ready to be ripped off.”

  “I already gave you one of those,” the agent said.

  “It’s been used.”

  “By who?”

  “I gave it to a guard in the jail.”

  “A guard? How stupid is that?”

  Had they been in the same room, Bronco would have strangled him. Fucking civil servant who discovered that the people he worked for were scum and had developed a self-righteous attitude because of it.

  “He helped me get out of jail,” Bronco said.

  The agent let out an exasperated breath. “Give me five minutes.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Bronco said.

  Bronco drank his tomato juice and watched TV while he waited. The pub had several slot machines, and he had to force himself not to play them. Slots in bars were “tight” and rarely paid out, and he’d always enjoyed ripping them off.

  But he didn’t do it. He needed to show restraint if he was going to stay out of jail. That was what tripped most criminals up. They followed certain behavior patterns that were recognizable and allowed the police to track them down. For him, it was playing the slots. If he could just stay away, he’d be okay.

  He got another glass of tomato juice from the bartender. Over the years, he’d devised dozens of ways to cheat the slots, and liked to think of himself as an innovator. He’d been the first cheater to tie a piece of monofilament to a coin, drop it into a machine, and jerk it back out. It let him play for free, always a fun proposition. He had invented that scam and many more, but they didn’t compare to what the cheating agent at the GCB was doing. Every day, sitting in his office in Las Vegas, the agent was rigging slot machines in all corners of the state. The agent had figured out how to rig the machines using his own field agents, all of whom were oblivious to what was going on. It was better than any scam Bronco had ever heard of, and he knew its secret.

  Fifteen minutes later the phone rang. Bronco snatched it up. “Where you been?”

  “Looking at your mug shot on the department’s web site,” the cheating agent said. “Every cop in the state is hunting you. The casinos are on the alert, too.”

  “Fuck ’em,” Bronco said.

  “Suit yourself. One of the Drew Carey’s Big Balls of Cash machines at the Peppermill is ready to pay off. Jackpot will be ninety-six hundred and change. That enough money for you?”

  Bronco liked most of the slot machines which featured celebrities, but he hated the Drew Carey machines. Every time a person played, a recording came on of the comic berating the player. It was sick, even by his standards.

  “That’s enough,” Bronco said.

  “Good. You’re going to need a claimer for the jackpot,” the agent said.

  “You think so?”

  “I sure do. The governor has ordered every casino to ID anyone who wins a jackpot, regardless of the amount.”

  Bronco clenched his teeth. He would have to find a claimer, and he’d have to find them fast. Another headache.

  “Which machine?” Bronco asked.

  “I want you to promise me something, first.”

  “I don’t make promises,” Bronco said.

  “Well, you’re going to have to make an exception with me. I want you to promise me that this is it. No more phone calls. The partnership is dissolved.”

  Bronco felt the veins in his head popping the skin, his brain twirling the way it did when he grew enraged. No one strong-armed him. No one.

  “Sure,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “I want to hear you say it,” the agent said.

  “I promise,” he grunted.

  The agent was stupid. He believed there was honor among thieves. He told Bronco which Drew Carey machine at the Peppermill was rigged, and Bronco slammed down the phone without saying goodbye.

  Bronco walked through the pub. On the TV, the local news had started over, the lead story his daring escape from jail. He remembered the old Don Henley song about dirty laundry, and felt a tingle knowing that he was giving people their jollies.

  The picture on the TV showed the local hospital. Standing in the parking lot was a male newscaster, beside him a young woman. She was a country girl, with freckles and a flat, unhappy face, with a small boy clutching her dress. The swipe at the bottom of the screen identified her as Rebecca Klinghoffer. Karl’s bride, he thought.

  The newscaster was trying to make Karl Klinghoffer’s survival into a story, but Rebecca Klinghoffer was having none of it. Her face was drained of emotion, and she answered the newscaster’s questions in monosyllabic bursts.

  Bronco started to walk away, then caught sight of the glimmering stone hanging around Rebecca Klinghoffer’s neck. It was a tear-shaped diamond pendant. The rest of her clothes and jewelry were ordinary, but not the pendant. At least two carats, the insetting made of platinum. Bronco had told Karl to buy her wife something pretty, and Karl had bought her that wonderful diamond. That was why she was acting defensive on the television. She was afraid.

  Bronco left the pub with a smile on his face. He had found his claimer.

  Chapter 33

  Mabel was stuck in traffic. Normally, the drive to the Micanopy casino in Tampa took forty minutes, and required crossing the bay over a long bridge, driving past downtown Tampa, and heading east on I-4 toward Orlando. That was on a normal day. Today, the roads were a parking lot, and she weighed calling Running Bear on her cell phone, and telling him she would be late.

  Traffic started to move. People drove at two speeds in Florida — fast, or not at all. Hitting the gas, she remembered a conversation she’d had with Tony about Running Bear. According to her boss, the chief was a true opportunist.

  Five years ago, the city of Tampa had decided to build an ice hockey arena, and floated a hundred and sixty million dollar bond for the project. As construction workers started to dig the foundation, they were shocked to find hundreds of human bones. The bones were tested, and discovered to be several hundred years old.

  A few days later, Running Bear appeared before the Tampa city council, wearing his full tribal regalia. He had produced documentation which showed the Micanopy’s had settled Tampa well before any white man. The chief claimed the bones were his ancestors’, and said that if the city continued to dig, he would sue.

  Tampa’s politicians caved in, and offered Running Bear a piece of land to bury his ancestors’ bones. The site was on the outskirts of town, in driving distance to every other major city outside Tampa. Running Bear accepted the deal, and a week later broke groun
d to build a casino.

  Mabel had reached Malfunction Junction, the infamous spot in Tampa’s highway system where all the major traffic arteries met. It was like something out of a third-world country, the exits appearing too quickly for any sane motorist. Luckily, Tampa’s drivers were kind-hearted, and a car in the next lane flashed its brights, allowing her to merge and take the I-4 exit.