by James Swain
“Let me have a try,” Larry said.
Ten minutes later, Valentine and Rufus left the bar with most of Larry’s and Earl’s money. The suckers had not gone quietly, and were demanding a rematch on the golf course. Rufus had politely declined and bid them good night.
“I thought you were good at golf,” Valentine said.
“Only when the price is right,” Rufus replied.
On the elevator ride to their room, Valentine finally broke down and asked Rufus to explain how he’d managed the dart trick.
“Ain’t no trick,” Rufus said, smothering a yawn.
“You didn’t put something in their drinks?”
“Naw.”
“Then how does it work?”
“Throwing a dart is harder than you think,” Rufus explained. “Even the best players have to take a few practice throws before they play. The arm’s muscles have a memory, and it takes a while for the memory to kick in. By changing the distance for each throw, the muscles in the thrower’s arm get confused, and the darts miss the target.”
“You made it look easy when you threw the darts.”
“That comes from years of practice and self-denial.”
The elevator reached their floor and they got out. Valentine took the Silly Putty and paper clip from his pocket, and stared at them while walking down the hallway to his suite.
“That bug’s still bothering you, huh?” Rufus said.
“It sure is,” Valentine said.
“Sort of makes you wonder what kind of tournament they’re running.”
“How do you mean?”
“First DeMarco cheats me, and now this.”
Valentine was tired, and the old cowboy’s words were slow to sink in. The World Poker Showdown had already had one allegation of cheating, and the tournament should have gone out of its way to ensure that no more took place. Yet more cheating was taking place, and he had the evidence right in his hand. He stopped at the door to his suite and fitted the plastic key into the lock. Then he looked Rufus square in the eye.
“You think the people running the tournament are crooked, don’t you?”
Rufus nodded grimly. “Cheaters don’t like to expose other cheaters. It makes them uneasy.”
“It that why the tournament isn’t regulating itself?”
“That would be my guess.”
The light on the lock flashed green. Valentine removed the key and pushed the door open. He could hear his bed calling to him, but it wasn’t as loud as his conscience.
“Then I guess I’ll just have to shut the tournament down,” he said.
10
As Kenny “the Clown” Abruzzi walked up to the car, Davis reached into his sports jacket and drew a .40 mini-Glock, the same gun Gerry’s father had carried up until the day he’d retired from the Atlantic City Police Department.
“Get ready to hit the floor,” Davis said.
Gerry stiffened. Bally’s unfriendly neon sign offered enough light to let him see Abruzzi’s face. The guy looked lost.
“I think he wants to ask us something,” Gerry said.
“With a gun in his hand?”
“I think it’s a flashlight.”
“Your vision that good?”
“Twenty/twenty.”
The flashlight in Abruzzi’s hand came on, proving Gerry right. It shone a sharp beam of light onto a piece of paper in his other hand that looked like directions. Davis slipped the Glock back into his shoulder harness, then rolled down his window.
Abruzzi flashed a sheepish grin. For a big guy, his face was small, with a hawk nose, smallish eyes, and dark hair slicked back on both sides. He held the instructions up to Davis’s open window, the familiar MapQuest symbol at the top of the page.
“Hey buddy, can you help me?” Abruzzi asked. “I think I’m lost. I’m looking for a Days Inn.”
Davis looked at the instructions while watching Abruzzi, then pointed out his window. “The Days Inn is five-and-a-half miles south on Atlantic Avenue. Hang a left, and go straight. You can’t miss it.”
Abruzzi said thanks, then hustled back to the Audi and climbed in. Gerry sensed he had made Davis as an undercover cop, and was going to run. Davis guessed the same thing, and redrew his Glock while opening his car door.
“You going to arrest him?” Gerry asked.
“I will if I find a police scanner in his car,” Davis replied.
“What can I do, besides stay out of your way?”
Davis had one foot on the macadam, and he turned to look at him. “Get behind the wheel. When I go up to Abruzzi’s car, I’ll give you a sign. Turn the headlights on so I can see what I’m dealing with.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Gerry said.
Davis got out and silently shut the door.
Gerry climbed across the front seats. Growing up a cop’s son, he knew that there was a science to handling a bust. If the bust was to go right, the first few seconds of the suspect learning his freedom was about to be taken away were critical. Anything could happen if the arresting officer didn’t handle the suspect properly. Gerry got behind the wheel and found the switch for the headlights.
Then he watched Abruzzi. The mobster had fired up a cigarette and was blowing smoke out his window. Davis came up to the window and identified himself as a police officer, then ordered Abruzzi to step out of the car while keeping his hands visible. Stepping back, Davis made the okay sign to Gerry.
Gerry hit the headlights and flooded the Audi in light.
Abruzzi didn’t get out. Instead, he stuck his head through the open window and started talking. He was playing dumb, and Gerry guessed this was where he’d gotten the nickname the Clown. Davis again ordered him out of the car.
Abruzzi kept up the idiot routine, and Gerry found himself thinking how Abruzzi had approached them with the instructions. It had allowed him to see what he was up against, and Gerry sensed Abruzzi was going to put up a fight. Gerry flashed the car’s brights, and Davis glanced in his direction.
“What?” Davis said loudly.
“Signal 30,” Gerry called out.
A Signal 30 was used by the Atlantic City police dispatchers when there was trouble and they needed to round up officers.
“I won’t say it again,” Davis said to Abruzzi. “Out of the car.”
“All right already,” Abruzzi said.
Quickly drawing a gun from a hiding place in his door, Abruzzi fired it at Davis, a sharp bang! ripping the night air. Davis instinctively went backward, the bullet from Abruzzi’s gun taking out the headlight of a car parked across the street. Twisting his ankle, Davis fell to the pavement, and lay on his side with a dazed look in his eyes.
“Throw your gun away,” Abruzzi said.
“You’re under arrest.”
“Like hell I am. Throw it away or I’ll clip you.”
Davis reluctantly tossed his Glock across the macadam.
“You’re real smart for a spade,” Abruzzi said sarcastically.
Gerry sensed that Abruzzi was going to shoot Davis in cold blood, then drive away. Abruzzi had sized them up. Davis was the threat, and Gerry wasn’t.
Gerry twisted the key in the ignition and heard the Mustang’s engine roar. Abruzzi jerked his head and stared just as Gerry threw the Mustang into drive.
Big mistake, Gerry thought.
Gerry hit the rear of the Audi doing forty-five mph, throwing it into the street. The impact, making a horrible crunching sound, buckled the Mustang’s hood, and a mushroom cloud of black smoke hung ominously above the vehicle. Getting out, Gerry went to where Davis lay, saw a dark pool of blood swelling around the detective, and gagged.
“Jesus Christ, you’re shot,” Gerry said.
“I don’t feel shot.” Davis touched his back, then brought his hand to his face. It was covered with red, and he grimaced.
“Go make sure Abruzzi’s disarmed,” he said.
“But you’re bleeding, Eddie.”
“Just do as I say,” Davis said.
Gerry
ran over to the Audi. It no longer looked like a fancy forty-thousand-dollar sports car. The driver’s seat was empty, the windshield disintegrated. Twenty feet up the street Abruzzi lay on the pavement with his head twisted at an unnatural angle. He’d killed a mobster. A mobster. Gerry staggered backward.
“Gerry!” Davis yelled at the top of his lungs.
“What…?”
“Don’t pass out on me, man.”
“He’s dead….”
“Stop looking at him.”
Gerry turned his gaze from the dead man and filled his lungs with air.
“Was there a police scanner inside the car?” Davis asked.
Gerry took a deep breath, tried to collect his wits, then went to the Audi, looked inside the crumpled car. An upside-down police scanner sat on the passenger seat, the multicolored lights on its control panel flashing wildly. Frantic voices came out of its speaker. The guy’s partners inside the casino had heard the collision.
Gerry went back to where Davis lay on the pavement.
“Scanner’s there,” he said.
“Get on my cell phone, and call Joey inside the casino,” Davis said. “Tell him to grab the guy’s partners. Joey’s number is in the phone’s menu.”
The pool of blood around Davis’s body was expanding. The detective’s voice sounded perfectly normal, but Gerry knew that people could get shot and never feel it. He ran back to the Mustang and pulled the car’s radio off the dashboard while praying it still worked. There was a crackle of static and a dispatcher came on.
“Officer down,” Gerry said. “I have an officer down.”
11
Valentine was sound asleep when the phone rang the next morning. He fumbled with the receiver, a word resembling hello spilling out of his mouth.
“You up?” Bill Higgins asked.
“I was writing my memoirs,” Valentine mumbled.
“I heard what happened last night. Are you okay?”
“My neck’s a little sore, but I’ll live.”
“I need to talk to you.”
“I’m all ears.”
“Face to face,” Bill said. “Not over the phone.”
Before going to sleep, Valentine had shut the room’s curtains and turned the air-conditioning down to its coldest setting. Snuggled beneath the blankets was the place to be, and his body was fighting to go back to sleep.
“How about lunch?”
“How about right now?” Bill snapped.
Valentine opened his eyes and stared at the imaginary face of Bill hovering on the ceiling. One of his best friends, Bill was also director of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, and the most powerful law enforcement officer in the state of Nevada. Bill didn’t have to ask nicely if he didn’t want to.
“You’re sure this can’t wait?”
“George Scalzo sent those hitmen last night.”
“Who told you that?”
“The FBI are wiretapping Scalzo’s phones and over heard him putting out the contract. He did it in code, though, so they can’t arrest him.”
The FBI ran a special operation in Las Vegas that did nothing but try to prevent contract killings. Murder-for-hire was prevalent in Sin City, and the bureau paid snitches to keep their ears to the ground to hear when a contract came up.
“Scalzo doesn’t give up easily,” Bill went on. “Mark my words, he’s going to hire someone else to kill you.”
Valentine’s eyes had shut as his head sunk deeper into his pillow. Thirty more minutes of blessed sleep was all he wanted. “I’ll change rooms and grow a moustache.”
“Tony, I want to discuss this with you,” Bill said, growing agitated. “It’s my responsibility to make sure nothing happens to you while you’re in Las Vegas. I hired you for this job, remember?”
His eyes remained shut. Thirty years ago, having two guys try to kill him would have resulted in a sleepless night. He’d had a wife and a kid and a mortgage to worry about. But time had changed his situation: his wife was dead, the house sold, and Gerry a grown man. Being threatened didn’t have the same consequences anymore.
“I get it. This is one of those cover-your-ass phone calls.”
“Eight-fifteen in front of your hotel,” Bill said. “Be there.”
Bill’s shining Volvo C70 convertible was parked by the entrance when Valentine stepped through the hotel’s front doors thirty minutes later. Bill had driven Volvos well before they’d become fashionable, claiming that Swedish engineering and Native American sensibilities shared a lot in common. He sat behind the wheel, his protruding chin marred by random specks of gray. Valentine climbed in and they sped away.
The Volvo raced across the flat, sun-baked desert, the engine starting to breathe around ninety. Valentine tilted his seat back and stared at the endless highway ahead. Years ago, he’d considered retiring out west with his wife, having often heard it referred to as God’s country. Seeing it unfold in this morning light, he understood why.
Fifteen minutes later, they sat in the parking lot of a roadside gas station that sold hot coffee and fresh doughnuts. The woman behind the counter had made them out as law enforcement, and given them freebies. It made their day.
“Listen, I’ve got some bad news,” Bill said.
Valentine stared into his friend’s face while biting his doughnut. Bill was a Navajo, and kept his emotions well below the surface. “I hate to start the day with bad news. Tell me something funny first.”
“Why does it have to be funny?”
“Because you’re about to give me bad news. I’d like a good laugh first.”
Bill scrunched up his face. “Okay. Here’s a joke I heard. How do you get an eighty-year-old woman to say ‘Shit!’”
Valentine should know this one. He lived in Florida.
“I don’t have a clue.”
“Get another eighty-year-old woman to yell ‘Bingo!’”
He laughed. Definitely a Floridian joke. He washed down his last bite of doughnut with a gulp of coffee. It hit his stomach like a bomb, and he felt himself wake up. “Okay, I’m ready for your bad news.”
“I know this is going to sound harsh, but I’m taking you off the case,” Bill said.
“You’re firing me?”
“Yes,” Bill said.
Valentine didn’t know what to say. He stared out the windshield at the big, cloudless Nevada sky. Bill started the engine and pulled onto the highway, pointing the Volvo back toward town. A long minute passed.
“It’s like this, Tony,” his friend said. “Yesterday, I was given twenty-four hours by the governor of Nevada to produce hard evidence that there was cheating taking place at the World Poker Showdown. If I couldn’t prove there was cheating, I was told in no uncertain terms to leave the tournament alone. That also meant letting you go.”
“The governor told you to end the investigation?”
“That’s right,” Bill said.
“Is he being pressured?”
“Yes. The World Poker Showdown is helping every casino in town get business.”
“So the casino owners asked the governor to squash the investigation.”
“Bingo.”
“Shit.” Valentine’s eyes shifted to the ruler-straight highway. It resembled a tunnel, the desert scenery compressed. If he left Las Vegas, George Scalzo won, and Valentine wasn’t going to let that happen. He had never run away from a fight in his life.
“What if you could prove there was cheating at the tournament? Would the governor let the investigation continue?”
“He’d have to,” Bill said.
“Would you keep me on the job?”
“Of course I’d keep you on the job.”
From his jacket pocket Valentine removed the Silly Putty and paper clip he’d discovered in Celebrity’s poker room the night before. Sticking the Silly Putty on the dashboard, he plunged the paper clip into it like a flag.
“I didn’t know you were into toy figures,” Bill said.
“They help pass the time,” Val
entine said. “Guess what this one is.”
Bill stared at the dashboard. “A bug?”
“That’s right. Rufus Steele found it stuck beneath a table in Celebrity’s poker room last night. There’s a mucker scamming the tournament.”
The Volvo slowed so they were actually doing the speed limit. Bill removed the bug from the dash and held it in his hand.
“Skip DeMarco?” he asked.
“No, it’s someone else. The folks running the World Poker Showdown should be watching for stuff like this, considering there’s already been one allegation of foul play. But they’re not. They’re running a loose ship.”
Bill frowned. He had joined the Nevada Gaming Control Board twenty-five years ago, and had spent much of that time changing Las Vegas’s image from a mob-run town to a family-friendly destination. One bad incident could change that overnight.
“Are you suggesting I ask the governor to stop the tournament?” Bill asked.
“No. Tell him you want him to keep the tournament going so you can nail the mucker, and show everyone that Vegas doesn’t tolerate cheating. It would be good for business, and there will also be another benefit.”
“Which is?”
“While we’re catching the mucker, we can scrutinize DeMarco’s play, and figure out what the hell he’s doing.”
“What about Scalzo? I’d bet my paycheck he’s going to hire another hitman to whack you.”
“I’ve got a bodyguard, remember? Rufus cracks a mean bullwhip.”
“Be serious.”
Valentine was being serious. The truth was, Scalzo was afraid of him. That gave him the upper hand, and he planned to take full advantage of it.
“I’ll deal with Scalzo,” he said.
12
“Detective Davis wasn’t seriously hurt,” the doctor at the Atlantic City Medical Center emergency room told Gerry. “He landed on a piece of glass on the pavement that put a gash in his back. He’ll be good to go once we stitch him up.”
Gerry wanted to give the doctor a hug but instead just nodded. She was a fiftyish woman with steel gray hair and sunken eyes that had seen their share of heartache. She gently touched Gerry’s sleeve. “You look pale. Are you going to be okay?”
