Grift Sense

by James Swain

  “This is going to make a great lawsuit,” he announced.

  Nola swallowed hard. Now Fontaine's voice was starting to sound familiar. It was spooky; she knew him, yet she didn't know him. Perhaps their paths had crossed back in Queens. That's it, she thought, when we were kids.

  “You're real cute,” Sammy said, eyeing him cooly. “Sooner or later, I'm going to remember where I know you from. If you're smart, you'll get out of my casino while you still can.”

  “I won this money fair and square,” Fontaine shouted indignantly, still holding the chair. “Pay up, or I'll call the police and have you arrested.”

  “You'll do what?”

  “You heard me. For stealing.”

  “Get him, boys!” Sammy bellowed.

  The security guards' names were Hoss and Tiny. In their formative years, they had played football at Michigan State, both all-American. Fontaine was a lot smaller than the quarterbacks they'd run over during their heyday, and they brusquely wrestled him to the floor and emptied his pockets.

  “Count those chips,” Sammy ordered.

  A mob had formed around the blackjack pit and Nola combed the familiar faces of her coworkers. It happened every time: one little fracas and everyone but the crippled change girl came running. She watched Fontaine being pulled to his feet, his pockets hanging inside out. He flashed her a funny grin, and Nola flipped him the bird.

  Then Hoss and Tiny dragged Fontaine across the casino and out the sliding front door, tossing him harshly onto the pavement like the sack of human garbage that he was.

  Wily let her go home early.

  Nola changed into jeans and a faded polo shirt in the employee lounge, then exited through the casino, waving to a couple of dealers she knew on her way out. Passing the sea of slots, she stopped at an alcove near the front entrance that housed the most famous slot machine in Las Vegas. Its name was One-Armed Billy and its progressive jackpot currently stood at a cool twenty-six million. Billy stood nine feet tall and took only five-dollar tokens, and Nola had seen countless little old ladies hang monkeylike on Billy's arm to set the reels in motion.

  “There you are,” Nola said.

  Joe Smith sat on a high stool beside Billy, looking bored out of his mind. Proportionately, Joe was the right person to be guarding Billy, as he was easily the largest casino employee in the world, standing seven feet tall and weighing three hundred pounds. Nola planted a kiss on his ebony cheek.

  “Heard you had trouble earlier,” Joe said.

  “Man, did I ever,” Nola replied. “I thought the guy was going to break a chair over Sammy Mann's head.”

  Joe said, “Sounds like it got pretty wild.”

  “You should have come running. Everybody else did.”

  “I'm sure Surveillance got it on video.”

  “Maybe they'll let you check it out for the night.”

  “You mean like Blockbuster?” he asked.

  “Yeah, like Blockbuster.”

  Joe found this amusing and his whole body shook with laughter. He'd played hoops at University of Nevada, Las Vegas for three seasons before his inability to read and write was noticed by an English professor not in tune with the university's athletic program. The Acropolis had hired him the day he'd been kicked out of school, and he'd been married to One-Armed Billy ever since.

  “So what was this guy doing that got him bounced?” Joe asked.

  Nola shook her head. “I've never seen anything like it. He must've won eighty percent of his hands.”

  “Wow,” Joe said.

  “But Sammy said he was cheating, and he should know.”

  “You're right about that,” Joe said. “Sammy can smell a hustle a mile away. How's biz?”

  “Crummy. Got any ideas?”

  Joe scratched his chin. “Well, maybe Nick should put new greeters in the fountains.”

  “Try telling Nick that,” Nola said.

  The greeters were the brainchild of the Acropolis's flamboyant owner, Nick Nicocropolis. Originally, Nick had wanted to put ancient statues from Athens in the fountains that lined the Acropolis's entrance. The Greek government, which had to approve the deal, had howled. Undaunted, Nick had commissioned a famous sculptor to carve toga-clad statues of his ex-wives—two beauty queens, two showgirls, a stripper, and a retired hooker who'd run for mayor and gotten six votes—and had put them out front instead. At night, colored water sprayed them in orgasmic bursts, raising the ire of women's groups across the nation.

  Nick had loved the bad publicity. Soon the greeters became the casino's motif and popped up on doorways, matchbook covers, cocktail napkins, even gaming chips.

  That had been eight years earlier. Las Vegas catered to families these days, and Nick's big-titted harem was a big no-no. The Acropolis needed a new gimmick, in a hurry.

  “Well, I'd better run,” Nola said. “You take care.”

  “Drive safe,” Joe said.

  Home sweet home was a development on the north end of town called the Meadows. Never buy a new house in Las Vegas, someone once told her. Nola hadn't listened, and now she regretted it, her place worth less than what she'd originally paid for it.

  She pulled up her driveway and hit the automatic door opener. Over the years, boyfriends had left punching bags and barbells and other testosterone-producing equipment in her garage, leaving barely enough room for her car. She squeezed in and rested her head on the steering wheel as the door fell and her garage grew dark. Please God, she prayed, no more days like this.

  Her first stop was the refrigerator. Her choices for lunch were endless: cold pizza, cold spaghetti, cold Chinese, half a turkey sub, and Schlitz beer. The sub had the most potential, and she took it out of the fridge along with the mustard.

  The answering machine was blinking. Either Sherry Solomon, her best buddy and fellow dealer, had heard the news and wanted to know the gory details, or her boyfriend had called to talk dirty. She hit the replay button and the melodious sound of Frank Fontaine's voice sent a shiver down her spine.

  “Hey, Nola,” he said. “I forgot to say good-bye. Hope you don't get into any trouble. See you.”

  See you? Picking up the phone, Nola punched in *69, a service that allowed her to track the source of the last call. An automated voice spit out a number and Nola dialed it.

  “Brother's Lounge,” a gruff voice answered.

  Nola knew the place. It was a stone's throw from the Acropolis and was a real dump. “Lemme speak to Frank,” she said.

  “Lots of guys named Frank here, lady.”

  “Frank Fontaine.”

  “Describe him,” the bartender said.

  Nola did. The bartender seemed to know exactly who she was talking about.

  “Hey, Frank, you still here?” he bellowed across the bar. Coming back on the line, he said, “Sorry, lady—he's gone. I can take a message if you like.”

  “No, thanks.”

  Nola ate her sub and watched Road Runner cartoons with the sound muted. She couldn't stop thinking about the call. It was so crazy, yet typical. A real guy thing. Women apologized when they won big at her table; men liked to rub her face in it. She made a mental note to call the phone company and get her number changed.

  Soon the sub was nothing but a pleasant memory and she was sprawled facedown on the couch, counting sheep.

  Nola awoke to the sound of a battering ram taking down her front door. She rubbed her eyes, thinking this was TV mayhem, but it was a real SWAT team that burst into her living room. Before she could sit up, a half dozen automatic weapons were pointed in her face.

  “On your stomach,” one of the SWAT team shouted. He was big and had the letters LVPD stenciled in blazing white letters across his Kevlar vest. Nola hit the floor.

  “You've got the wrong house,” she protested. “The crack lady lives three doors down.”

  “Shut up,” the officer replied angrily.

  Nola kissed the carpet as her wrists were hog-tied behind her back with a set of plastic cuffs. While her r
ights were being read, her house was torn apart. More police poured through her open front door while the precious air-conditioning escaped into the stifling afternoon.

  Soon she was sitting on the couch, dripping perspiration. She watched an officer come into the living room and drop a bag of pot, some prescription medicine, the message pad that sat beside the phone, and a stack of unopened mail onto her coffee table. She finally found her voice when her diaphragm hit the growing pile of her belongings.

  “I want a fucking lawyer!”

  When she didn't shut up and her protests became too loud, she was hoisted to her feet and led outside past a crowd of gawking neighbors, including the mail carrier. Then she was shoved into the back of a cruiser, where she began to sob uncontrollably.

  A dark sedan pulled up her driveway. Through her tears, she saw Wily and Sammy Mann get out and walk across the lawn, still joined at the hip. They stopped to stare at her, before entering her house. Their faces, normally warm and friendly, were openly hostile.

  Only then did Nola have an inkling as to what kind of trouble she was in.

  3

  In his dream, Valentine is a young man and his body still knows how to sprint. It is winter and he is running down the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, his lungs gripped by the wet bronchial cold of the sea. He passes Mel's Famous Foot-Long Dogs and the shuttered cotton candy stand. It is a moonlit night, and down by the shoreline, he sees a gang of men taking turns kicking a fellow police officer, who is lying in the sand. The officer is his brother-in-law, Salvatore, and he jumps the railing and draws his gun, firing in the air. The gang scatters.

  “Oh, Jesus, Sal,” Valentine says.

  His brother-in-law is spitting up blood. Valentine kneels in the sand and cradles Sal's head in his arms. Soon the flow of blood stops and Sal's breathing grows tortured. Valentine gently shakes him, but his brother-in-law does not respond. Something warm seeps from Sal's body, and Valentine realizes it is Sal's soul he has encountered.

  Voices fill the air. The gang has reappeared on the Boardwalk. Their leader, the notorious Sonny Fontana, jumps the railing and approaches him. He is holding a gun and makes Valentine drop his weapon. Then he makes Tony get to his feet.

  Valentine has been hunting Fontana since the day the casinos opened in Atlantic City. Fontana has committed dozens of crimes, and now he can add murder to his résumé.

  Fontana smiles at him, like Sal's passing is no big deal. He puts his hand on Valentine's shoulder.

  “You and I need to come to an understanding,” he says.

  Valentine cannot help himself. He knocks the gun out of Fontana's hand, then puts his hands around Fontana's throat. The gang members jump the railing, drawing their weapons.

  Valentine squeezes hard, Fontana's eyes bugging out of his ugly face. It is suicide, but Valentine cannot stop himself.

  It is a dream in which he has no control.

  “What's up?” Valentine said, rubbing sleep from his eyes as he unlatched the screen door. Embarrassed, the freckle-faced FedEx driver stepped onto the porch and stuck a padded envelope into Valentine's hands.

  “Sorry, Mr. Valentine, but I found this floating around my van,” the driver explained sheepishly. “I rang the bell a few times. When you didn't answer, I got worried.”

  “Why?” Valentine asked crankily.

  “You're the biggest customer on my route. I don't want to lose you, Mr. Valentine.”

  Lose me? The driver's knocking had ruined his nap, and Valentine was too groggy to come up with a clever comeback and fire it off, so he said, “Glad to hear it.”

  The driver handed him a clipboard and said, “If you'll just sign on the bottom line, I'll let you get back to bed.”

  “Won't sign anything I can't see,” Valentine replied, fitting his bifocals on. “And I wasn't in bed. I was in the living room, working. Am I really the biggest customer on your route?”

  “Just about.”

  Signing the form, Valentine asked, “Got a name?”

  “Ralph Gomez,” the driver replied.

  Valentine stared at the driver's milky white arms and checkerboard face. “You don't look like a Gomez. I would have pegged you as a Murphy or an O'Sullivan, not a Gomez.”

  “What's a Gomez supposed to look like?”

  “I don't know. Spanish, maybe Mexican. You've definitely kissed the blarney stone.”

  Gomez realized he was being complimented, and a thin smile creased his face. “My mom. Dad was Cuban—came over in the fifties. So what are you? Italian?”

  Was he Italian? What kind of question was that? Even in his earliest baby pictures, Valentine looked Italian.

  “No,” Valentine snapped, “I'm Mongolian.”

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “Chinese, like the fortune cookie.”

  Gomez's smile disappeared and his freckled face twisted in puzzlement, then outright confusion. The joke had flown right over his head and off the screened porch and was now spinning somewhere high above the stratosphere.

  “Your mom or dad?” he inquired.

  The envelope contained a surveillance tape from a casino in Reno, plus another frantic note from a pit boss. Every day across America, casinos were getting ripped off, the losses totaling millions of dollars. So much work, so little time.

  Going to the kitchen, Valentine fixed his third cup of coffee of the day. Normally, two was his limit, but he'd slept so hard that he didn't think he'd fully wake up if he didn't get some caffeine into his system. Filling his cup from the tap, he poured the contents into the back of the Mr. Coffee maker, then placed his cup directly on the hot pad.

  Thirty-five years married and you still act like a bachelor, Lois would say, watching the ritual each morning as she fried his egg and blackened the bottoms of his English muffins.

  It's effective, he'd reply.

  And frugal, she'd say.

  That, too.

  I bet it saves us, what, fifty cents a month on coffee beans, she'd say. Maybe more.

  It's all I want, he'd say. Why fix more?

  You make being wasteful sound like a crime, she'd say, spooning sugar into his cup, a smile on her face.

  Maybe it is, he'd reply.

  He sat at the kitchen table and sipped the scalding brew. Coffee just didn't taste right if it didn't take the skin off the roof of his mouth. The phone had rung earlier and he stared at the blinking answering machine. One of the great things about being retired was not having to call people back if you didn't want to. And right now, he didn't want to.

  He glanced at his watch. Nearly dinnertime. Yet what he felt like eating was a big breakfast. The diner on Alternate 19 served a good one, twenty-four hours a day, but he didn't like sitting at the counter alone, looking old and pitiful.

  Mabel materialized on his back stoop. He unlocked the door and she strolled in wearing canary yellow slacks and a flowered shirt right out of an old Sears catalogue. Because of the heat, she changed clothes several times a day, each outfit more garish than the last.

  “I'm going grocery shopping and thought you might need a few things.” Opening the refrigerator, she peered at the vacant shelves. “How about some Italian bread to go with your lasagna? Publix has a wonderful bakery.”

  Trying to put mom-and-pop delis out of business, the local supermarket now sold fresh bread and rolls. They almost tasted like the real thing, so he said, “Sounds great. Want a hot drink?”

  “Tea, if you have it.”

  He put the kettle on, then extracted a ten from his wallet and slipped it into Mabel's shirt pocket.

  “What's that for?” she asked.

  “Gas money. How was your afternoon?”

  “I watched the ball game. The Devil Rays won. It was so exciting.”

  Among the locals, it was a source of constant amazement that Tampa Bay's new baseball team was capable of winning a single game. Every time they did, it made the front page of both newspapers, with new heroes being christened every day. Valentine found the whole thi
ng very perplexing. He'd grown up bowing to the Yankees, who were expected not to lose.

  “I also worked on a new ad,” she said. “Want to see it?”

  “I'd be flattered,” he said.

  She produced a square of paper with borders and fancy type, the proud product of a home PC.

  Old? Tired? Forgotten?

  Has retirement got you singing the blues? Want to get even with your kids? And all those pesky credit card companies? Enroll today in Grandma Mabel's school of financial insolvency. You too can live like a millionaire. Remember: Dying broke is the best revenge!

  “It's different,” he said, sliding the ad back.

  “You don't like it.”

  “It doesn't tickle my funny bone. It's . . .”

  “Come on—I can take it.”

  “I don't know. A little extreme.”

  “Jokes are supposed to be extreme.” Her mind was made up, and she tucked the ad away. “It's going to cost more to run, but Social Security is sending me two hundred extra a month, so it won't be a stretch.”

  “Then go for it,” Valentine told her.

  “So what did you do this afternoon?”

  “Believe it or not,” he said, “I watched the tape I showed you earlier today.”

  “Still got you stumped?”

  The kettle was singing. Valentine fixed Mabel's tea, spooning in a half-teaspoon of honey, and served his neighbor.

  “Right now, I've got two theories,” he replied, sitting down again. “The first says the guy's reading the dealer's body language each time she peeks at her hole card. In those situations, his winning percentage is unbelievably high.”

  “Really?” Mabel sounded amused. She sipped her tea. “What does she do—stick her tongue out each time she has blackjack?”

  “It's a little more subtle than that.”

  “Try me.”

  “Well, there are two types of dealers: those who want you to win and those who don't. If a player can peg which type of dealer he's got, he has an advantage.”