by James Swain
Off to Geneva for a lecture. Take it easy.
Mabel printed the message on the laser printer. Tony corresponded with many world-class blackjack hustlers who held down legitimate jobs, like movie producers and college professors. They cheated for the thrill more than the money itself, and she guessed mathwizard belonged to this strange group.
She called the Fontainebleau, asked for the front desk, and got the hotel’s fax number. Then she made up a cover page with Tony’s name on it. She was glad she’d talked him into going to south Florida and taking the job. He sounded so much more alive when he was working on a case.
Moments later, the fax went through the machine.
Growing up, there were a lot of things that Gerry hadn’t done with his father. Like going to baseball games or the movies, or just hanging out and doing father-and-son stuff. It had a lot to do with his father’s long hours as a cop, and also Gerry’s unhappiness at his father being a cop. They didn’t know each other very well, which was why taking his father to Club Hedo on Saturday morning was no treat.
Disco music rocked the club. Up on the stage, three girls in G-strings were playing with hula hoops. One of them was a cutie, and Gerry could not help but stare. Knowing a sucker when she saw one, the girl motioned him over. Embarrassed, Gerry bellied up to the bar.
“Tell Rico the Valentines are here to see him,” he told the bartender, then ordered a couple of sodas.
“You dated a topless dancer, didn’t you?” his father said.
“A couple of them. Why?”
“I was wondering what you saw in them.”
“They were fun in bed,” he admitted.
“I bet you had an exit line before you started taking them out,” his father said.
Gerry felt his neck burn. It was the truth, although why it shamed him now, he had no idea. In the back bar mirror he saw the cute dancer standing on the edge of the stage, waiting for him to come over. That’s it, he thought. Shame me in front of my old man. The bartender returned with their drinks.
“Rico will be right out,” he said.
Gerry sipped his drink. In the mirror he saw the stripper sticking her tongue out at him. “So how do you want me to handle this?” he asked his father.
“Handle what?”
“What should I do when Rico comes out?”
“Introduce us.”
His neck burned some more. “And then what?”
“Watch the fun.”
Rico strolled out of his office. He’d replaced his New York hoodlum attire with a pair of pleated pants, a silk shirt, and a thick gold chain. A million-dollar suntan rounded out the reformation. He came over and slapped Gerry’s shoulder.
“Gerry-o, how’s it hanging?”
“Same as you left it,” Gerry said.
“So this must be your famous father. I’ve heard a lot about you, Mr. Valentine.”
“Same here,” Valentine said.
Rico pointed to a corner table in the back, and they crossed the room in a blinding snowstorm of strobe lights. Rico pulled back two chairs, showing some manners. Valentine cased the room, then sat down. Rico sat next to him, then got in his face.
“So, Mr. Valentine, or should I call you Tony?”
“Call me Mr. Valentine,” Valentine said.
Rico cleared his throat. “Okay, Mr. Valentine. You and I have a little bit of a history, but I’m willing to consider that water under the bridge.”
“Same here.”
“Gerry tells me you’re connected in Atlantic City.”
Valentine felt his son kick him beneath the table.
“That’s right,” he said.
“Matter of fact, Gerry says you’re the most connected guy in AC.”
Another kick.
“So what if I am?” Valentine said.
Rico leaned back in his chair and gave him a hard look. From his jacket he removed a deck of playing cards. They hit Valentine squarely in the chest.
“Prove it,” Rico said.
Valentine squinted at the cards in the crummy bar light. They were from the Riverboat Casino in Atlantic City. Every hood from Maine to Miami had heard about the scam going on there. A gang of Riverboat employees was getting marked decks onto the blackjack tables. They weren’t stealing a lot of money, but a computer analysis done by the casino had picked up the fluctuation. The problem was, no one could figure out how the scam was working. Valentine had a theory, which was that someone with juice—maybe a pit boss—had found a weak link in the system.
Because the scam had been going on for so long, it had grown into the stuff of legend, with the Riverboat’s losses reputed to be in the millions, and the thieves actually a group of well-connected insiders that included local politicians, the police, and the casino’s flamboyant owner.
The cute stripper appeared and sat in Gerry’s lap. Her blond dye job, fake tits, and rhinestone G-string clashed with her schoolgirl innocence. Nibbling on Gerry’s ear, she said, “Give me some money.”
Stone-faced, Gerry shook his head. “We’re here on business.”
Valentine tossed the Riverboat’s cards back to Rico. “How long you had these?”
“About a year,” Rico replied.
“And you couldn’t find the marks?”
Rico shook his head.
“Shuffle them.”
Rico took the deck out of the box. He gave the cards a riffle shuffle. Valentine took them, shuffled, then held the top card away from the deck with his forefinger and thumb.
“Nine of clubs,” he said.
Rico snatched the card out of his hand and turned it over. “Do it again.”
Valentine did it three more times. The playing card’s logo was the paddlewheel to a riverboat, and he pointed at the spokes on the wheel, and said, “It’s called juice. It’s a combination of clear nail polish and ink. When it dries, it’s invisible to the naked eye. But if you train yourself to throw your eye out, you can just see it.”
“That’s how it works?” Rico said.
No, it wasn’t, but Valentine took pleasure in imagining Rico giving himself headaches for a while. He handed the cards back, then spoke to the stripper.
“Get lost,” he said.
Rico put the cards away. He had lost his bluster, and Valentine leaned over and gave him a hard poke in the chest. A big guy, but totally out of shape.
“You’re stepping on my toes,” Valentine said.
“I am?”
“This is my turf.”
“Hey, I didn’t—”
“How long you been down here?” Valentine said. “A couple months? And already you’ve scammed the Micanopy Indians and put a bullet in one of their dealers. Now I hear you’re planning to take a bookie for a few million. You’ve got a lot of fucking nerve, son.”
The bartender came over. Valentine ordered a round of sodas. Once the bartender was gone, Valentine continued. “Normally, I’d toss you in the ocean, only my son says you’re someone who can be talked to. So, here’s the deal. You take us on as partners, or you get lost.”
“Partners?” Rico said.
“That’s right.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Valentine gave an exaggerated shake of the head. “You don’t?”
“No,” Rico said.
Valentine leaned over and lowered his voice. “Nigel Moon, asshole.”
Rico acted like he’d been kicked. He drew back in his chair and stared at the floor. Valentine would have given anything to know what Rico’s pulse was at that moment. A hundred fifty? Two hundred? He loved making punks sweat, especially lowlifes like this who gave Italians a bad name.
Their sodas came. The bartender could sense the tension, and placed the glasses on the table without a word. Rico picked up his glass and held it a few inches off the table. Valentine and his son did the same. Rico clinked their glasses with his.
“Partners it is,” he said.
27
Climbing into his father’s
Honda, Gerry said, “Pop, no offense, but your car smells like something died in it. It’s time.”
Valentine pulled away from Club Hedo’s valet stand, got onto Collins Avenue, and headed north in heavy traffic. “For what?”
“A new set of wheels. You’ve got the dough. What about a Beamer, or a Lexus?”
That was the thing about his son’s generation; they assumed that if you had money, you were dying to spend it. Valentine’s generation was exactly the opposite. If you had it, you wanted to keep it. “I like this car,” he said.
They drove in silence. Then his son popped the question.
“So, are you going to tell me, or what?”
“Tell you what?”
“How you know all that stuff about Rico.”
“No,” he said.
“At least tell me how you read the backs of those cards.”
“You didn’t believe what I told him?”
“About throwing your eyes out of focus?” Gerry pointed at his left eye. “This eye is out of focus. There was no writing on the back of those cards.”
“So why don’t you get glasses?”
“Pop, stop beating around the bush, would you?”
“Why do you care?”
“Because it’s important,” his son said.
Valentine was missing something. He glanced sideways and saw his son’s mouth tighten. “Don’t tell me,” he said.
Gerry stared through the windshield. “Afraid so.”
A few hundred decks of Riverboat playing cards had been sold to small-time hoodlums across New England by enterprising Riverboat employees. Every cop in Atlantic City knew about it, but no one had done anything. It was too damn funny.
“How much did you pay for them?”
“Five hundred bucks,” his son said.
The gift shop inside the Fontainebleau’s main lobby was empty. Taking a deck of cards off a rack, Valentine dropped it on the counter and took out his wallet. A jolt went through his spine as the cashier rang it up.
Gerry had laid claim to a couch in the lobby. As Valentine unwrapped the deck, his son sat at rapt attention, oblivious to the bevy of half-clad young ladies strolling about.
“Shuffle them,” his father said.
Gerry gave the cards a good mix. Valentine took them back, shuffled them some more, then took the top card and held it between his thumb and first finger.
“King of spades,” he announced.
Gerry took the card and turned it over. “Do it again,” he said.
Valentine repeated the trick, expecting his son to catch on.
“Come on, Pop. You’re killing me.”
“It’s called the one-ahead principle. When you handed the deck back to me, I spotted the bottom card, which was the king of spades. I shuffled, and brought the king to the top.” He did an overhand shuffle, showing his son how easy it was to bring the bottom card to the top. “With me so far?”
Gerry nodded, his eyes never leaving the pack.
“Now, when I take the top card off in my right fingers, I already know what it is. I pretend like I’m reading the back of the card, while I’m actually learning the identity of the new top card of the deck.”
“How?”
“It’s called the bubble peek. I squeeze the top card of the deck with my left thumb. The front corner of the card hits my left forefinger, which rests along the top of the deck, and the corner bubbles up.”
Holding the deck as if for dealing, he exposed the move to his son. “Normally, sitting as close as you are, you’d spot this. The reason you don’t is because the card in my right hand hides it from your line of vision. But the card doesn’t hide it from mine.”
Valentine shifted his arms so Gerry could see the cards from his angle. He did the bubble peek again, and said, “See it?”
“It looks like the four of clubs.”
Valentine turned the top card over. “You learn fast,” he said.
“I bet you can do that all night long,” his son said. “Does it take much practice?”
“Couple of hours in front of a mirror.”
“Show me.”
Valentine gave him half the deck and walked him through it. Within a few minutes, his son was “reading” the backs of the cards like a pro. They got onto an elevator filled with giggling young girls in bikinis, and Gerry immediately began to flaunt his newfound skill.
“Wow,” one of the girls gushed, “you’re good!”
Nigel and Candy ate lunch in their bungalow.
Eating the Delano’s food every day had gotten Candy spoiled. Fresh seafood and steaks covered in special sauces, potatoes served a dozen different ways, salads with fruits she’d never heard of and couldn’t pronounce, homemade desserts to die for. So when Nigel had said, “Let’s order a Domino’s pizza,” she hadn’t realized what a letdown it would be, the pie swimming in grease when it arrived, the pudgy pizza boy standing in his goofy uniform in the doorway, staring at the furnishings, then Nigel, then her.
To wash the pizza down, Nigel ordered a bucket of Shiner Bocks from room service. He’d discovered the beer in Texas while touring. After downing four, his drunkenness went to the next level. Soon his eyes were at half-mast, his chin dotted with tomato sauce.
“I want to ask you a question,” she said.
He smothered a belch. “By all means.”
“What’s the deal between you and Rico?”
“We’re partners in a business venture.”
“He’s a scumbag. I don’t like you getting involved with him.”
“I thought he was your friend.”
“You don’t need to be hanging out with swindlers. Or pulling scams.”
“So he’s not your friend anymore.”
She reached out and took his hand. “Not as much as you’re my friend.”
Nigel smiled. “I’ve been hanging out with crooks my whole life. They’re called record producers and concert promoters. And look where it’s gotten me.”
“Rico is different.”
The table they were eating at was covered with dead soldiers and pizza crusts. Nigel killed the last Shiner Bock, and Candy found herself wishing she had waited until he was sober to have this conversation. Sensing her displeasure, he took her hand and kissed it.
“No one’s going to get hurt except a bookie,” Nigel said.
“Will you show me?”
He said yes, went into the bedroom, and returned with his laptop computer. It was a paper-thin job with a carbon battery and a screen with better resolution than most TVs. Sitting beside her, he clicked on an icon, and Candy found herself staring at an Excel spreadsheet. In the left-hand columns were the names of hundreds of different colleges. In the right-hand columns, projected point spreads.
“You’re betting on basketball games,” she said.
“That’s right,” he said.
“You could lose.”
“No, I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. There’s no sure thing, unless Rico’s fixing the games.”
“Au contraire,” he said. “There is a system, and it has nothing to do with fixing the games. And it always wins. Want to see how it works?”
Candy felt her skin tingle. The stupidest damn things turned her on, like the smell of buttered popcorn and truck drivers with sweaty chests. Guys speaking in French was at the top of the list. Her hand dropped on Nigel’s crotch.
“You speak French.”
“Yes. I mean, oui.”
Candy squeezed the little dipper, and his drunken eyes lit up. “More,” she purred.
“Of course,” he replied. “But first, let me get out of these clothes.”
28
“Never heard of him,” Bobby Jewel said.
“You sure?” Rico said.
Bobby Jewel was the biggest bookie in south Florida. He worked out of a newspaper store on the Arthur Godfrey Road, which connected Miami Beach to the rest of the world. His operation was as big as two closets sitting side by side. In the back ro
om, two Cuban guys worked the phones, taking bets. Bobby was the face to the operation and sat at the cash register, his four-hundred-pound body pouring out of a helpless chair. Acting perturbed, he yelled into the back room, “Hey, Jesus!”
A window slid back, and Jesus stuck his head out, his mop of black hair partially obscuring his face. Bobby loved Cubans, and used them in his operation whenever he could. He called them the Jews of the Caribbean.
“Yes, Mr. Jewel.”
“You ever hear of some ginzo named Tony Valentine?”
“Ginzo?” Jesus asked.
“A wop. A guinea. You know, an Italian.”
Jesus shook his head. From where Rico was sitting, he could have been a shaggy dog. “Ask Pepe,” Bobby said. “Will you?”
Jesus quizzed the man sitting next to him. “Pepe doesn’t know him, either.” Then his phone rang, and he shut the sliding window.
Bobby slurped the Starbucks Mocha Frappuccino Rico had brought him. He wasn’t very old, maybe thirty-two, but the weight made him look closer to fifty. “Satisfied?”
Rico stared into space. An alarm was going off inside his head. Tony Valentine wasn’t connected; if he was, one of the men in this little store would know it. So how had he known about the murder at the Micanopy casino and that Rico was planning to scam Bobby? Valentine hadn’t heard it over a wiretap because Rico spoke in code whenever he talked business over the phone. Rico took a long, deep breath. Someone had fucking told him.
“Earth to Rico,” Bobby said.
Rico blinked awake. “Sorry.”
“Something the matter?”
Coming out of Bobby’s mouth, the line sounded comical. Rico straightened up in his chair and dropped his voice. “I got this deal I can’t stop thinking about.”
Bobby crushed the empty plastic cup in his massive hand, the sound like a bridge collapsing. “Yeah?”
Rico said, “Nigel Moon, the rock star, came into my club a week ago. We played golf, guy thinks he’s my friend. He’s a real pig, but he’s got money coming out of his ass, so you gotta love him, you know?”
“I’m with you so far.”
“So Nigel and I get drunk. He says, ‘I want to show you something.’ So I let him. It’s a software program on his laptop. Says he paid twenty grand for it.”
