by James Swain
The detectives lay bleeding in the street. Lights went on up and down the block. Davis went over and disarmed them, then pulled back both mens' pant legs. A white bandage was taped to the side of Marconi's left ankle. A spot of blood had seeped through the dressing.
“Figures,” Davis said.
Valentine awoke as the jet started to land, his ears popping. He saw Archie sitting across from him, talking on a cell phone. Why was it only in dreams that he did the things he wanted to?
They landed at Bader Field, the snow-covered landscape a grim reminder of winter's presence. The jet taxied to the runway's end where three unmarked police cars waited.
As Archie stepped off the plane, a detective offered him a coat. Davis, dressed in blue jeans and a North Carolina University sweatshirt, approached with his credentials in hand. “We raided The Bombay twenty minutes ago and started arresting your employees. The TV reporters showed up not long after. I figured you'd want to speak to them first.”
“Couldn't you have arrested them at home,” Archie said, stamping his feet on the frozen ground. “Did you have to turn it into a fucking three-ring circus?”
“I'm sorry, Mr. Tanner, but I'm not in public relations.”
“Don't get cute with me,” Archie said. “Where the hell is the attorney general, anyway? Did the governor send any of his people? Where is everybody?”
Valentine glanced at the men sent out to meet Archie. All cops. The governor and the attorney general hadn't sent anyone because being associated with Archie was about as wise as shaking hands with a leper, a fact that everyone on the tarmac seemed to appreciate except Archie.
“I made the governor of this fucking state,” he spouted indignantly. “Did any of you know that? I bankrolled his last campaign and put him into office, the ungrateful rat bastard.”
There was not enough ground for the cops to stare at. Only Davis seemed unmoved by Archie's tirade, his broad shoulders holding firm against the punishing wind.
“I'm sure you did,” the detective allowed.
“You dissing me, detective?”
“Just telling you the way things are,” Davis replied. He pointed to the three cars parked beside the runway. “Let's go.”
Had Valentine not known better, he would have thought the president was in town. Hundreds of police sawhorses surrounded The Bombay, choking traffic for blocks. Behind the blockade, Atlantic City's finest were conducting the largest single bust in their history, with hundreds of handcuffed prisoners waiting in line to be carted off to jail.
The local media had set up camp, the talking heads basking in artificial light as they told their stories. Seeing Archie step out of a car, they converged like sharks, only to be repelled by Davis and the other detectives. Archie ducked into The Bombay with Valentine by his side.
The casino was a shambles, with chairs and gaming tables smashed to bits. Slot machines had been destroyed, roulette wheels cracked in half, the legs taken off craps tables and used to bash in the casino's expensive decorations. Instead of going quietly, Archie's employees had wrecked the joint.
A gang of dealers and pit bosses had barricaded themselves in the Hard Count room. The police had tried to talk them out, and when that hadn't worked, brought in a battering ram to knock down the door. Valentine watched the police do their thing. Had he missed something when he'd looked at the Hard Count room through Porter's computer? He tried to imagine what.
Then the door came down.
“Kill them,” Archie shouted.
The police nearly did just that. Using their billy clubs, they beat the dealers and pit bosses senseless.
When the employees were subdued, Valentine went into the room. The scales and coin-counting machines had been smashed. Buckets of coins had been dumped on the floor. He knelt down and picked up a handful. It was both Funny Money and the real stuff.
Then he noticed a sign on the wall. It read This Scale, Funny Money Only. How simple, he thought.
Then he heard someone say his name.
Davis stood in the doorway, grim-faced. Valentine followed him out of the Hard Count room. In the casino, the dealers and pit bosses had been handcuffed and were being led away in a line. Archie was with them, kicking his employees and cursing.
Outside, it had started to snow, the flakes swirling around Davis's Thunderbird in miniature cyclones. The detective drove away with his windshield wipers on their highest setting.
Valentine assumed they were going to the police station. Davis would want to sit him down in front of a tape recorder and explain what had happened so the prosecutors would be clear on exactly what crimes had been committed. It was a common procedure, something he did all the time.
Only the exit for the police station came and went. When Davis put on his indicator five miles later, Valentine didn't have a clue where they were headed.
The Thunderbird skidded down an icy road. Through the whirl of snow, Valentine saw a pair of familiar golden arches. It was the McDonald's where Doyle had bought the farm. A pair of police cruisers were parked in front, their bubbles acting like strobe lights in the storm.
“The manager called it in twenty minutes ago,” Davis explained. “He asked that we keep it quiet, seeing that Doyle got murdered here last week.”
Davis pulled into the lot and waved at one of the cops. The uniform walked over, blowing steam off his coffee. He had the face of a fifteen-year-old. Lowering his window, Davis said, “Tell me you didn't touch anything.”
“No, sir,” the uniform said. “We left it just like we found it.”
Davis edged the Thunderbird around back and parked. He removed a flashlight from the glove compartment and led Valentine across the lot to where Frank Porter's mini-Mercedes was parked.
The flashlight's beam found Porter sitting behind the wheel. On his lap sat a cardboard tray. In it, a Big Mac, large fries, and a thick shake. Still clutched in Frank's hand was the gun he'd eaten for dessert, the slug having passed through the back of his skull and painted the rear window. The burger was half-eaten, and Valentine wondered what had caused Frank to lose his appetite and decide to end things. What sudden insight had made him wake up and realize the horrible things he'd done?
He went to the bushes and threw up.
“Jesus!” Davis exclaimed.
“What?” he gasped.
“He moved.”
Valentine took the flashlight from Davis's hand. Opening the driver's door, he shone the beam onto the dead man's face. Porter had fallen onto the wheel and appeared to be grinning. Valentine closed his eyes with his fingertips. The flashlight caught a piece of paper sticking out of Porter's pocket.
“Go ahead,” Davis said.
Valentine held the paper so they could both read it.
To Whoever finds this note:
Please tell my friends that I know what I did was wrong. I just didn't know how to stop it.
F. P.
Valentine put the note back into Porter's pocket. Then whispered in his friend's ear.
“You stupid bastard,” he said.
41
Balzac
Sitting in front of the Blue Dolphin in Davis's Thunderbird, Valentine counted the dead on the fingers of both hands. Doyle. Sparky. Rolf. Juraj's brother, Alex. The fun-loving Mollos. The Mod Squad. And now Frank. He shook his head in disgust. They were all dead, and over what? A few million bucks? It was chickenshit when you cut it up among a hundred people. Prison was no picnic, but murdering so many people to avoid it? That seemed like a crime all by itself.
“What happened to Coleman and Marconi?” he asked Davis.
“I shot them,” the detective said. Then added, “They're both expected to live.”
“Make you feel any better?”
The detective gave it some serious thought, then shook his head. Valentine started to get out of the car and felt the cold rip through his overcoat like a knife. Davis touched his sleeve.
“How long are you going to be?”
“Give me a
half hour.”
“How about ten minutes?”
It was 3 A.M. and Valentine was ready to collapse.
“What's the rush?”
“I've got the district attorney waiting, Tony. He's got a hundred people in jail and he doesn't have a case. That's the rush.”
Certain things never changed. Taking the fax from Bally's Gaming out of his pocket, Valentine tossed it onto Davis's lap. “Okay, here's your case. Last summer, some Bombay employees talked Archie into running a promotion called Funny Money. There was only one catch. Archie would have to rearrange the casino.
“Arch bought the idea. He let everything get turned upside down. What Arch didn't know was that the employees put fifty slot machines on the floor that he didn't own. They owned the machines, and that's the bill for them.
“In the act of rearranging the casino, a number of surveillance cameras were put on double-duty. When the employees wanted to empty their slot machines, Frank Porter switched the double-duty camera so those machines weren't filmed.
“Getting the money out was simple. The coins were put into buckets, with Funny Money coins going on top, just in case a DGE agent happened to be around. They were dumped on a tray in the Hard Count room that was for Funny Money only. Then they were wrapped and taken out of the casino.” He paused. “Think you can remember all that?”
The detective nodded his head.
“Good-bye, Eddie,” he said.
He entered the motel office, wallet in hand. The manager was asleep in his chair. He slipped two hundred-dollar bills into the sleeping man's pocket, then went to his room and threw his things into his suitcase.
Out of habit he checked under the bed and found Kat's red lace Victoria's Secret underwear. Just holding the garment in his hand made his heart race. The phone on the night table rang. He answered it.
“Oh Tony, how could you?”
It was Mabel. “How did you find me?”
“I called the Atlantic City police, who called Detective Davis in his car, who told me where you were,” his neighbor replied.
She was turning into one hell of a detective.
“How could I what?” he asked.
“Get into a relationship with a woman with a twelve-year-old.”
He stared at the undergarment clutched in his hand.
“Beats me,” he confessed.
“Gerry called while I was at the airport picking you up. I saved his message on voice mail.”
“Is he okay?”
“Listen to the message yourself. Oh, and one more thing.”
“What's that?”
“You owe me,” his neighbor said.
A dial tone filled his ear. Dialing voice mail, he punched in his seven-digit code and heard his son's voice ring out.
“Hey, Pop. I figured I'd better touch base, give you an update. We arrived in Zagreb last night. You wouldn't believe the mess the city's in. Yolanda convinced me to go to the U.S. Embassy, and ask about this person you wanted us to find. Which is what I did.
“Well, you really struck out, Pop. This person isn't some big crime boss like you thought. It's a Catholic nun running a mission. She's the local Mother Teresa. Yolanda and I visited her this morning. She feeds half the town's poor people. Said her brothers in the United States send her money.
“We couldn't get a flight out until tomorrow, so Yolanda offered our services to the mission. They've got a small hospital, and Yolanda is treating a bunch of sick kids.” His son paused. “Guess what they've got me doing.”
“Try me,” Valentine said.
“Cleaning bed pans. Yeeech!!! Okay, it's not that bad, and the patients are really appreciative, even if I can't understand a word they're saying. So, that's the story. I'll call you when we reach Spain. Oh, yeah, Yolanda says ‘Hi.' ”
Valentine replayed the message, letting the words form a picture in his head that he hoped to take with him to his grave. Which was of his son helping people.
Then he put on his overcoat and took a walk.
His first stop was the pay phone on the corner next to his motel. He'd been thinking a lot about Sparky Rhodes, wondering if anyone had discovered his body. He doubted it, and he started to dial 911, then decided he'd better not. All 911 calls were recorded, and he didn't need someone recognizing his voice and dragging him into another investigation.
Dropping fifty cents into the machine, he called information instead. The line rang ten times before a female operator answered.
“What number please?”
“I need you to call the police.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard what I said. Tell them there's a dead man lying in a basement.” He gave her Sparky's address, then said, “Please tell the police there's a cat in the house.”
“A cat,” the operator said.
“Yes. An old black cat. She'll need a home.”
“I'll be sure to tell them,” the operator said.
“Thank you,” he said.
His next stop was the Drake. He found Juraj and Anna standing by the empty swimming pool, the orange tips of their cigarettes glowing mysteriously in the dark. Anna came toward him.
“Don't you ever sleep?” Valentine asked.
“We were lying in bed when we saw the news on TV,” she said. “There was a film of you and Archie Tanner going into The Bombay. It took us a while, but then we realized what you had done.”
Valentine waited. Anna threw her arms around him.
“Thank you. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.”
That was more like it.
“You're welcome, Anna,” he said.
She gave him a kiss as good as any of Kat's, a kiss from the soul. It was great until Juraj decided he wanted to kiss him too, and planted his lips on both of Valentine's cheeks, then gave him an old-fashioned bear hug.
The Croatians walked him down to the shoreline. Valentine wanted to tell them how lucky they were—he was not in the habit of letting hustlers go, even well-meaning ones—but he sensed they already knew that. They said another round of good-byes, with Anna giving him another kiss. Valentine pinched her sleeve as Juraj walked away.
“You're going to keep cheating casinos, aren't you?”
“No,” she said.
“Don't lie to me, Anna.”
She crossed her arms defiantly. “No!”
“Anna . . .”
“All right, yes.”
Taking two crisp twenties from his pocket, Valentine shoved them into her hand.
“What is this for?” she asked.
“If you're going to keep playing the five thousand dollar tables, make him get a decent haircut.”
He walked the beach he'd grown up on. The tide was low, the waves a bare ripple across the black sea. A brightly lit cruise ship was anchored offshore, and he stopped to stare. There was a late-night party going on, everyone having a swell time. He felt himself shudder.
Hindsight being twenty-twenty, it hadn't taken him long to realize what he'd done. He'd solved a crime that hadn't occurred. No one had missed the money. Not Archie, or the Division of Gaming Enforcement or the Casino Control Commission. And if no one missed the money, then who cared?
The money. That was what it always came down to in Atlantic City. The money. It flowed back and forth, changing hands every day, but in the end, it stayed in the casino's coffers, because the casinos set the odds, and the casinos never lost. Somehow, Porter and the rest of The Bombay gang had forgotten that.
He slipped off his shoes and socks and let the waves slap his toes. The water was freezing cold, but that was okay. He wanted to feel connected to something besides here, and the icy waves sure did the trick.
He stared across the ocean, trying to imagine himself cleaning up after sick people. It had to be the worst job in the world, yet Gerry had made it sound okay. Like he was getting something in return.
There was a message there somewhere, he thought.
Back at the motel, he found Davis hanging out by t
he manager's office. He started to walk away. The detective followed him.
“You always so antisocial?”
“I'm done,” he said. “Leave me alone.”
The detective kept following him. “You ever read any Balzac?”
“Who?”
“He was a nineteenth-century French novelist.”
“No, I never read him.”
“I did. In high school. One line in a book stayed with me. Behind every great fortune, there is a crime.”
The cold was making Valentine's ears ring. “So?”
“When we raided The Bombay, you told me to watch where the employees ran to. Well, they ran to two places. The employees in the casino ran to the Hard Count room. But a bunch of employees in the back ran to a storage room.”
Valentine stared at him. “Did you find anything?”
“Yeah. Cases and cases of champagne sitting out in the open. While behind locked doors, a few thousand cartons of cigarettes.”
“So?”
“Case of champagne costs what—a thousand bucks? Carton of cigarettes costs twenty. Why keep the cigarettes locked up, unless they're hot. So I had a check run on them.”
Valentine stuck his hands in his pockets, remembering it like it was yesterday. He'd pulled Archie over for speeding and found the trunk of his car stuffed with bootleg cigarettes.
“And?”
“They're hot,” the detective said.
“Did you jam him?”
“About twenty minutes ago,” Davis said. “You should have seen Archie squawk.”
It had been one of the saddest weeks of Valentine's life, yet he found himself smiling. Selling bootleg cigarettes in New Jersey is a felony: Archie Tanner would do hard time and lose his casino license. Valentine couldn't help himself, and he pinched Davis on the cheek.
“You are one smart kid,” he told him.
42
Three Weeks Later
Valentine stood before a full-length mirror, grimacing.
The dressing room's concrete walls shook. Outside, the Centroplex's standing-room-only crowd was getting ugly. They were not used to waiting, and Valentine could hear calls for blood, the faithful stomping their feet. His own feet felt frozen to the floor.
