Stacked Deck

by Tracy Watkins

  He got her a bottle of Perrier, then lit a cigar and filled his glass with whiskey as he turned and leveled an open look at her. Then he stared out at the night, finally turning back to Beth. “You’re one of the finest young women I’ve ever met. Time and circumstance, as has been said, spare no man. You can’t understand the regrets of an old man like me. Unlike Sinatra, I’ve had many. I wish I’d met you under different circumstances.”

  “I’m sure you would have swept me off my feet.”

  “That’s nice of you to say.”

  “I’m serious. You’re very charming now. I tremble to think of what you must have been like as a young man.”

  He smiled, and grimaced at the same time. “Yes, I guess I was a handful. But the thing is, most of the women I met were in my world. Casinos here and in Vegas. I met some good women, but you, you’re a cut or two above, believe me. Or maybe it’s just how much things have changed in the world. When I was young they didn’t have many young women like you running around kicking butt and taking names.”

  “You better stop now or I’m going to forget how old you are and where you’re headed.”

  He smiled, yet he looked deeply sad. Then, with a hint of anger, he said, “JD’s made a deal with the Greek. Maybe he’s been making deals all along.”

  “You say that like you meant to say he’s making a deal with the devil. But I don’t think so.”

  “Don’t let him fool you. He comes off as this simple Tennessee mountain boy, but he’s a very shrewd operator. He fools people. Maybe he’s got you fooled a little. Maybe he’s got us all fooled.”

  Maybe he does, Beth thought. She faced the balmy breeze coming off the Mediterranean, the waters ruffled by the wind. It was a magnificent evening. “I make mistakes. I don’t think so this time.”

  But it did cause her to rethink her relationship with JD. Their affair may have compromised and clouded her judgment. Still, she defended him. “No, I don’t think you have to worry about JD. I’m sure he’s looking out for his own interests once he realized what kind of trouble you were in. He was going to get on that chopper and I stopped him. And somebody tried to kill him at the shop. If he’s playing a game, he’s on the wrong side.”

  “You’re probably right,” Giambi said. “I hope you are.” After a long pause, he said, “Your father must have been quite a guy to have a daughter like you. This world just isn’t fair. It really isn’t.”

  “All he wanted was to have a more normal life. One without the addictions. He wanted to be a better father. Hard drinking and heavy gambling are lethal to family. He used to say that cocktail waitresses were like leukocyte, white blood cells. They float around the casino with trays full of infection fighters. Alcohol wears down resistance, encourages excess and stupidity. It keeps the blood of the casino flowing, the cash coming in. He knew it and he couldn’t escape it. When he finally had the courage to walk away, they didn’t let him.”

  Giambi wanted to know little details about her life with her father and she told him because she knew he had missed that in his life with his daughter. She told him about when they were living with a lady friend of her father’s, a dancer, after getting kicked out of a hotel for nonpayment of rent. It was one of the worst times for her because she’d heard her father talking to the lady friend about what to do with Beth because he had no money and couldn’t take care of her.

  She told him how, when her father knew he’d gone past the point of no return, and was on the verge of running away, he used his last dollars to rent the movie Paper Moon, with Ryan O’Neal and Tatum O’Neal.

  “It was, for me, like watching a movie about my father and me. The only difference was what he did for a living. He said that’s how it would be with us. He’d get his act together and change some things. That we’d stay together no matter what. ‘I won’t give you away. I won’t leave you. I’m your father and I’m going to be your father.’ He tried. But they wouldn’t let him. And in the end, they took him away from me.”

  “What happened after that?”

  “I was discovered by the woman who ran an academy for girls. She saved me.”

  “My daughter’s not much older than you,” Giambi said wistfully. “Strong like you are. I wish I could say I had something to do with that. It’s one of my big regrets.”

  “Just help her now. That won’t change the past, but all we have is now and the future.”

  “If she’ll let me help her. You two are both independent types. Maybe you can talk to her.”

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  They fell silent, a red glow on the horizon and the sailboats swarming, nightlife starting. He said he loved this view, that he’d miss it terribly.

  She felt sorry for Salvatore Giambi. He might be a bad man on some levels, but he wasn’t evil. He was what he grew up to be in the tough streets of Boston. And she was pretty sure the men he’d killed in his life were men who’d earned it one way or another. She wasn’t going to judge the man who was going to give up her father’s killer.

  She knew she more than liked Salvatore Giambi. She felt she understood him on some deep level. That she had a connection with him.

  “Now that we’ve gotten to know each other,” she said, “I’m going to be sorry to lose you as a friend.”

  He nodded. “Me, as well,” he said. He squeezed her hand. “Me, as well.”

  When JD returned, she met him out in the great room. “The van?”

  “It’s ready to go.”

  “Good. Let me make the call.”

  “How soon we leaving?”

  “Couple hours.”

  She made the call to Nice to let them know they’d be ready sometime tomorrow.

  Then she sat down with JD and told him as much as she could about herself, her real name, the operation and her father. None of it seemed to shock him as much as the news had shocked him that Giambi had a daughter.

  “So this will all be over by tomorrow.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re going back to Vegas to take care of your situation.”

  “Yes.”

  He frowned.

  “Unless you want to take me to Paris for a couple days before we have to go our separate ways. Show me the town.”

  “You’ve never done Paris?”

  “Not with a Formula One driver. But if that’s going to interfere with your schedule—”

  “Paris, it is.”

  She smiled. “Then let’s get Salvatore on his way.”

  At two-thirty in the morning, like three people escaping a prison, they went down to the garage in Giambi’s private elevator. They slipped out through the garage side door, JD leading the way with two suitcases and a dress bag, Beth with her three bags and Giambi with one suitcase and two smaller travel bags.

  JD dropped his bags, went out and brought the van over to the side of the building. He pulled up with the van and they piled their bags and themselves inside.

  Giambi sat in the back, JD drove, Beth was in the front passenger seat. They pulled out of the private back gate and left the Sapphire Star behind.

  Beth turned to Giambi. “It’s not all bad.”

  “How is that?”

  “You get to meet your daughter and, eventually, we’re going to get your nemesis.”

  “Half the intelligence agencies in the world have tried, and failed.”

  “We’re very good and we only have to succeed once.”

  They drove quickly out of Monaco and headed toward Nice, the traffic very light on the French country roads.

  After a half hour or so into the quiet escape, the distinctive lights of a French motorcycle cop flashed behind them.

  “Shit. No, I’m not speeding,” JD said, anticipating her question.

  “Get the hell out of here,” Giambi snapped. “Run the bastard off the road and get moving.”

  “No. Pull over,” Beth said. “Maybe there’s a taillight out or something. We don’t want a major incident.”

  “Maybe it’
s not a cop,” Giambi argued. “Maybe this is a set-up.”

  “Keep it in gear,” Beth said, all too familiar with getting caught in an ambush. “Be ready to move in a hurry if that’s the case.”

  She glanced back at Giambi. He had a gun out. He tucked it alongside his right leg as the cop approached from the driver’s side. This could get ugly in a flash.

  Beth didn’t see any other signs of a set-up. No other vehicles. Just this lone motorcycle cop. And he didn’t look like he was going to make a move.

  The cop took a good look inside the van with his flashlight, then asked JD to turn off the engine and produce his license and the van registration.

  He went back to his bike to make a call.

  “What the hell is this?” Giambi grumbled.

  “Everybody just relax,” Beth said. She glanced at JD. “You said you’ve had some run-ins with the French police before. How bad were they?”

  “He shouldn’t have been driving,” Giambi said.

  Beth decided it was a good time to make another call. The federal contact in Nice. She called the number and after a half-dozen rings a groggy agent answered.

  She gave him her contact code, then told him the situation and that they needed to get hold of the prefecture in Nice in a hurry.

  “Have they arrested you?”

  “No. But we need to avoid that.”

  “Where are you?”

  She told him their location. He said he’d be out to pick up Giambi.

  “No. That has to come later. We have something to do first.”

  “We’re taking him now, before something else goes wrong.”

  “That wasn’t the deal.”

  “It is now.”

  “All right. We’ll talk about it when you get here. Just get this cop off of us.”

  “Just sit tight.”

  They waited while the cop talked to somebody on his radio. When he finished, he walked to the car.

  He gestured for them to get out.

  “We are on a mission that you cannot interfere with,” Beth said. “Nous sommes sur une mission que vous ne pouvez pas interferer.”

  The cop took half a step back and his hand dropped to loosen his sidearm.

  Beth sensed Giambi making a move in the back and she reached back and grabbed him. “No.”

  She leaned over JD so that the cop could see her hands and her face. “We are American agents.”

  He ordered them out. “Sortir! Garder vos mains où je peux les voir!”

  He had one hand on his sidearm, the other working his collar mike.

  “You know what,” Beth said, whispering in JD’s ear. “Maybe we need to get the hell out of here. I’ll call my contacts and see if they can do something about this, but in the meantime, take out his motorcycle and get out of here.”

  “He’s got my license and the van’s registration.”

  “The feds will sort it out and clean it up for you later,” Beth said.

  “I don’t want to end up with Giambi in some witness protection program.”

  “Shut up and get the hell out of here,” Giambi said. “I want to see my daughter.”

  Beth leaned over and apologized to the cop, but they really had to go. “Désolé, gendarme. Nous devons aller.”

  “Maybe the feds are behind this,” Giambi said. “Or the prince. That damn Greek. I’m telling you this is a set-up.”

  JD turned the engine over and took off so fast the cop hardly had time to react.

  He took out the motorcycle and sent it off the road and into the ditch, they swerved violently back up on the main tarmac and screamed off down the road.

  Chapter 29

  “T his is bad,” Beth said, as she turned to see what the cop was doing. He didn’t fire at them, instead he was busy on his radio. She turned to JD. “I think we need to get the hell off the main road and get very lost.”

  “There’ll be a hundred cops and a half-dozen choppers looking for us,” Giambi said. “I’m not letting them take me in. I’d rather die right here than spend one day in a French jail. They’d never let me out.”

  “The FBI would get you out.”

  “To hell with the feds. They’d let the French soften me up first. I’m not getting caught.”

  JD glanced in the rearview mirror. “Maybe we need to change vehicles.”

  “Whatever we do,” Giambi said, “it better be quick.”

  Beth took out her cell phone. “Just get off the main road and into the hills. I’ll see what I can do to take the heat off of us.”

  Getting tangled up with the French police was the worst of all possible situations at this moment. The feds in Nice had better have a solution.

  Beth called her contact and rattled off the predicament and told the man to get the police to back off or they might never see Giambi. “You want what he’s got, you better have some clout with the French police or you can kiss Salvatore Giambi goodbye.”

  When he tried to argue with her, she cut him off. “Look, this is an emergency situation and it’s going downhill very fast. Get the hell out of bed and deal with this or forget you ever even came close to the man who knows everything about who is moving what money in and out of Europe.”

  She didn’t wait for any counterarguments.

  “I hope he comes through,” JD said as they cut up a narrow lane through a grove of poplars. “I’m no more interested in quality time in a French jail than Salvatore is.”

  Beth just sighed and shook her head. She didn’t want to lose this operation when she was so close. “I don’t know who that agent is,” Beth said, “but he better have some juice.”

  Giambi expressed his doubt. “I don’t know of any American agent who has juice with the French police. Unless they have something on a high minister who can pull the plug.”

  “I’m sure they do,” Beth said.

  They tore up a narrow, tree-lined road. There were shrubs every so often cut in the form of giant candy kisses.

  “Take a right at the next road,” Giambi said. “I think it’ll eventually take us to Draguignan.”

  “Runnin’ from the feds is in my bloodline,” JD said in an affected, twangy drawl, maybe trying to lighten things up a little.

  Giambi just scowled. “So, what did you and the Greek have to talk about?”

  “My future. Not that it looks like I have much of one at the moment.”

  In a testy voice, Giambi asked, “And just how long have you been talking about your future with him?”

  “One day,” JD shot back.

  Beth listened to their banter, but her mind was on the federal agents and what it would mean if they whisked Giambi out of the country before he got a chance to see his daughter. He said he wouldn’t give her the name if he didn’t get this opportunity and she had no reason not to believe him.

  For the next hour they wound through the foothills, taking a roundabout way through the French countryside, before turning toward Lorgues.

  Then they pushed northeast toward wine country, swinging along narrow country roads, hiding in the trees for periods of time to see if they were being hunted in the area, coming out again and maneuvering their way toward the rolling hills and old farms in the vicinity of Draguignan.

  The agent finally called Beth and told her that the French police were not in a good mood, but that they had until noon to turn Giambi over to the feds. If that happened, there would be no further action.

  Beth hung up with the agent and told Giambi.

  “Could be a ruse,” he suggested.

  “Not a lot we can do about it if that’s true,” Beth said.

  When they reached the outskirts of Draguignan, Giambi said it was too early to go to her house. “She opens her shop in town around eight-thirty, so we should show up at her house around seven-thirty. She’s only a few minutes from town.”

  They had time and decided to eat breakfast in town.

  Beth thought Giambi looked nervous. It seemed to her that he shouldn’t have any expectations.
Kaya didn’t know him any more than he knew her. They had no personal history. Yet he seemed to have some idea that this was going to be a powerful moment.

  Beth wondered if the fact that he had a daughter of color was the overriding factor. She had no doubt it played some role. Giambi had grown up in a different era when having a black in the family was probably unthinkable. He probably had some other reasons as well. A man with his lifestyle might find kids an interference, although even the ultimate playboy, Hefner, had a daughter who now ran his empire.

  “Your daughter’s half-black. Is that bothering you? A man your age, from your generation…”

  “Maybe it did once. I got past that after a while. But when you don’t know you even have a kid, black or green or whatever, and they’re already older and you show up in their lives…”

  Beth let it drop. The man had never even said hello to his own daughter, and now he was saying goodbye. Not to have known her own father would have been too tragic to imagine. But why should Giambi’s daughter even want to talk to the man who had lived so close by, yet never ventured to introduce himself?

  She said, “You should have let her know who you were. Tried to connect with her.”

  “I know. It was a big mistake.”

  At least he acknowledged it. Not that it would make a bit of difference to his daughter.

  They found a breakfast place on the edge of Draguignan, in a medieval-looking area of town, so old that it was obviously trendy. It was more like eating in someone’s house than in a restaurant.

  While they were waiting for their eggs, sausage and croissants, Giambi, tempting fate and the police, took his coffee and a cigar and went outside to walk around, leaving JD and Beth alone.

  JD, looking out to the street where Giambi stood, said, “I still can’t see him staying in some witness protection program. Maybe he wants the cops to challenge him. Do some O.K. Corral shit right there on Draguignan’s main street.”

  Beth glanced out the window. “Well, he’s at that stage of his life where he might think that is the best way to go. A guy like that spending his last years in hiding or in jail would be tough. But I won’t let him die without telling me what I want to know.”