by James Swain
“Good evening.”
The driver stuck his head out and grunted like a caveman.
“Are you looking for someone?” Valentine inquired.
“Just enjoying the beautiful outdoors,” the driver said.
Valentine walked to the end of the block, then turned around and walked back to the car. The driver was looking at him in a way meant to inspire fear. A famous criminologist had once claimed that career criminals could be typed by hostile attitudes. The guy parked in front of Gerry’s house could have been the poster boy for that study. Valentine walked up to the driver’s window.
“What’s up?” the driver said.
“I lost my dog. You didn’t happen to see him, did you?”
“What kinda dog?”
Valentine put his hands together. “He’s about this big, black hair, a mutt.”
“Can’t say I’ve seen him.” The driver lit the cigarette dangling from his lips and blew a cloud of smoke Valentine’s way. “Sorry.”
Valentine gave the guy a hard look. His gut told him the guy was up to no good. His gut also told him that the guy hadn’t come here by himself, and that his friends were inside Gerry’s house, and were also up to no good.
“Oh, look, for God’s sake, he’s under your car,” Valentine said.
The driver sat up straight. “He is?”
“Yes. Come on, boy, come here.”
Valentine knelt down, then grabbed his back in mock pain. “Oh, Christ, my sciatic nerve is acting up. Would you mind helping me?”
The driver snuffed his cigarette in the ashtray and opened his door. As he climbed out from behind the wheel, Valentine leaned his body against the door, and pinned him. The driver let out a yelp like he’d been kicked. Valentine continued to press the door.
“You carrying a gun, buddy?”
“No.”
He didn’t look like the trustworthy type. Valentine stuck his free hand through the open window, frisked him, then opened the door, and yanked the guy out. Holding the guy’s arm, he gave it a twist, and the guy started to corkscrew into the ground.
“You claustrophobic?” Valentine asked.
“What’s that?” he gasped.
“Didn’t think so.”
There were several buttons on the driver’s open door. Valentine found one to open the trunk, and punched it. Then he led the driver around the vehicle, and made him climb in. To his credit, he didn’t complain as Valentine slammed the trunk down.
Valentine climbed into the car. He liked to know who he was dealing with; he opened the glove compartment, and pulled out the rental agreement. The car had been rented that afternoon at Tampa International Airport to Vincent Fountain, whose driver’s license was from Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Valentine ran home, got his loaded Sig Sauer from the hollowed out copy of Crime and Punishment on his desk, then ran back to Gerry’s house. His heart was pounding as he opened Gerry’s front door with a spare key, and slipped into the foyer.
The house was a New England–style clapboard with original wood floors, and it was hard to walk on them without making noise. He could hear talking from the kitchen and moved toward it, his feet telegraphing every step. He stopped at the swinging door, and tried to imagine the people he was dealing with.
He decided they weren’t Mafia. He’d grown up around the mob, dealt with them plenty as a cop. The Mafia had a code of ethics, as hard as that was to imagine. One of those codes was never to mess with a guy’s family. That told him that Vincent Fountain and company weren’t connected.
He pushed the door gently and peeked inside the kitchen. Gerry and Yolanda sat at the kitchen table, his granddaughter asleep in Yolanda’s lap. They looked remarkably calm. There was a mirror behind them, in its reflection two smarmy Italian guys. One was tall and thin and talked too much. The other was about six three and had the proud, damaged face of a boxer. The boxer stood behind the swinging door, his arms crossed in front of his chest.
Valentine put his foot to the door and gave it a healthy kick. He’d been the New Jersey state heavyweight judo champ five years running, and still took class three times a week. He wasn’t the man he used to be, but could still deal with a couple of two-bit punks, and that was exactly what he had here.
Valentine entered the kitchen to find the boxer now lying on the tile floor with blood pooling around his mouth. The guy doing the talking stopped.
“You Vinny?” Valentine asked him.
“Yeah. Who the hell are you?”
The Sig Sauer was in Valentine’s right hand. He tossed it into his left, then used his right to punch Vinny in the jaw. It was a move straight out of the Keystone Cops, and Vinny’s head snapped. Then he fell backward and hit the floor. Valentine looked at his son.
“Get your wife and daughter out of here,” he said. “Right now.”
5
Gerry and Yolanda left the kitchen without saying a word. Valentine glanced into his granddaughter’s face as her mother carried her out. Lois hadn’t stirred throughout the whole commotion.
Hearing the front door close, Valentine frisked Vinny and the boxer while they lay on the floor. They were both clean, and he threw cold water on their faces and made them get up. With the Sig Sauer, he pointed at the sink.
“Get the blood off your face,” he told the boxer.
The boxer splashed his face with cold water. When he was finished he pulled on his front teeth and seemed pleased that none were broken. Valentine picked up a dishrag and tossed it to him.
“Now clean up the floor.”
The boxer got on his knees, and cleaned up the bloodstain. As a cop, Valentine had learned that there were two ways to deal with lowlifes. The first was through brute force, the second intimidation. He told Vinny and the boxer to take our their wallets and hand him their driver’s licenses. The two men obeyed.
Valentine wrote their names, social security numbers, addresses, and driver ID numbers on a piece of paper. They were both residents of Atlantic City, and the boxer’s name was Frank DeCesar. Valentine told him to pick up the digital camera on the windowsill above the sink.
“Toss it here.”
Frank tossed him the camera, and Valentine pointed it at them.
“Say cheese,” he said, and snapped a picture.
The picture came out just fine. Valentine placed the camera on the kitchen table, then pointed at the door with his Sig Sauer.
“Let’s go.”
“You’re Gerry’s father, aren’t you?” Vinny said as they walked through the house.
“No, we just look alike,” Valentine said.
“Look, Mr. Valentine, this isn’t what you think. Frank and I came here to present Gerry with a business proposition, that’s all.”
“Let me guess. You want to open a pizza parlor together.”
The two hoodlums stopped at the front door. Vinny was dumb enough to think he was being serious. “It’s a little more involved than that, not that I want to bore you with the financial stuff. But our call is strictly business. We did not come here to harm your son or daughter-in-law, or granddaughter, who I must say is a beautiful little child.”
Vinny had a face that only a mother could love—sallow eyes, crooked nose, and two rows of teeth that looked like a rotted picket fence. His strength seemed to be his ability to string words together. Valentine pointed the Sig Sauer at Vinny’s chest.
“Don’t ever mention her again.”
“Her?”
“My granddaughter,” Valentine said.
“No, sir, I won’t.”
They walked out the front door of Gerry’s house. It had grown dark, and a lone streetlight illuminated the block that Valentine called home. He watched Vinny and the boxer get into the rental. Vinny looked around in a panic.
“Where’s Nunzie?”
“Taking a siesta in the trunk,” Valentine said.
The rear end of the car started to rock. Nunzie was banging around like a bear. Vinny turned and yelled at him to calm
down.
“He your brother?” Valentine asked.
“Yeah, how did you know?”
“Inflection.”
Valentine was standing by the driver’s window, and he tucked his weapon behind his belt, then knelt down so he and Vinny were eyeball to eyeball.
“How much do you boys know about me?”
“You’re an ex-cop from Atlantic City.”
“Anything else?”
Vinny scratched the stubble on his chin. He knew he was getting off easy, yet seemed unwilling to acknowledge it. “You do work for the casinos, catch cheaters.”
“That it?”
Frank leaned over, and whispered in his ear. Vinny’s face turned dead serious.
“You whacked the Mollo brothers,” Vinny said.
Valentine gave him his best, no-nonsense stare. The year before, some throwbacks in Atlantic City who’d been threatening Gerry had gotten blown up in a car. Even though Valentine had nothing to do with their murder, everyone on the island believed that he had. Sometimes, those things worked to your advantage, and he banged the rental loudly with his hand, then stood up.
“Don’t ever come back here again,” he said.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Vinny said.
Valentine watched the rental drive to the next block, then stop. Vinny hopped out, and let his brother out of the trunk. As Nunzie climbed into the backseat, they all started yelling at one another, and he found himself smiling. Three guys in their prime had gotten outfoxed by a retired sixty-three-year-old. It didn’t get any better than that. He walked down the street to his house and was met by Gerry at the front door.
“What happened?”
“I let them go with a warning,” Valentine said.
“You beat them up any more?”
“Just their egos.”
Valentine went to his study and put the Sig Sauer back in the book, and then it hit him. While the suit from Celebrity had been threatening him, three punks had been threatening Gerry. Were the two events linked? He found Gerry waiting in the hall.
“Pop, I know those guys, for Christ’s sake.”
“Friends?”
“No, but I know them, from the old days.”
“They have an invitation?”
“No, but—”
“No buts. They were up to no good. A man’s house is off-limits, especially when his wife and daughter are there.”
Gerry rolled his eyes and looked at the ceiling. Valentine went into the living room, and found his granddaughter playing on the rug with Yolanda. His late wife had hooked the rug out of his old police uniforms and Yolanda was always trying to clean up the messes that the baby left on it. Valentine had told her not to worry about it. He’d been spit on, pissed on, and puked on plenty of times as a cop; what harm would a little more do? He sat on the couch, and the baby crawled toward him. She’d be walking soon, and he clapped his hands and saw her smile.
“What’s the weather like in Puerto Rico this time of year?” he asked.
Yolanda lifted her head. Her parents lived in a bucolic town outside of San Juan, and she’d been talking about paying them a visit.
“It’s beautiful,” she said.
“I’d like the three of you to go down there. I’ll spring for the airline tickets and rental car.”
“Oh, Dad, that’s awfully nice of you,” Yolanda said. “I’ve got time off coming from the hospital, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”
Valentine picked up his squealing granddaughter while looking at his son. Gerry had a strange look on his face. He took his daughter from Valentine’s arms and handed the child to her mother.
“I need to talk to my father,” he said.
Yolanda started to speak, then thought better of it. She pushed herself off the floor and walked out of Valentine’s house with the baby in her arms. The front door made a loud click as it shut behind her.
Gerry sat down across from his father on the couch. “Pop, Yolanda doesn’t know I used to be a bookie.”
“You ever going to tell her the truth?”
“Sure, someday I’ll tell her.”
“Who the hell is Vinny Fountain?”
“An old business acquaintance. He came here to tell me that a mobster out of Newark named George Scalzo was responsible for Jack Donovan’s murder.”
“George ‘the Tuna’ Scalzo?”
“That’s right. The Tuna stole Jack’s poker scam, and had Jack whacked. The Tuna is out in Las Vegas, backing a player named Skip DeMarco in the World Poker Showdown. DeMarco is going to cheat the tournament using Jack’s scam.”
“What’s Vinny’s connection, besides his undying love for Jack?”
“Vinny agreed to buy the scam from Jack, with the money going to Jack’s mother. She lives on federal assistance.”
“And Vinny wants you to fly with him to Las Vegas, and get the scam back.”
“That’s right,” his son said.
“I hope you weren’t considering going.”
“It crossed my mind.”
“That’s dumb, Gerry.”
His son made a face like he wanted to argue, but knew it wouldn’t get him anywhere. He said, “Jack was my buddy. I owe it to him.”
Friendship had a way of making a person blind to certain realities. George Scalzo was a ruthless criminal who’d killed scores of men over the years. Vinny Fountain and his bumbling buddies were no match for someone like that.
“I’ve got a better idea,” Valentine said.
“What?”
“Take your wife and daughter to Puerto Rico and lie low for a while.”
A wall of resolution rose in his son’s face. “You’re saying I should put my tail between my legs, and run?” Gerry said.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Whenever George Scalzo gets involved with something, dead bodies turn up. I don’t want you to be one of them.”
“I can take care of myself, Pop.”
“What about your family?”
“I can take care of them, too.”
Valentine stared long and hard into his son’s handsome face. Gerry was thirty-six, and still young enough to think that nothing could harm him. Only age was going to teach him otherwise.
“Just do as I say, okay?”
“That doesn’t sound like a partner talking to me,” Gerry said.
Valentine took another deep breath. His son had joined his business with no money, and had been living off his father’s largesse while he learned the ropes.
“No, it’s your father talking,” he said.
His son rose from the couch with a dark look on his face.
“Gee,” he said, “and I thought we were in business together.”
He walked out of the room before Valentine had a chance to reply.
6
Valentine went to his study and shut the door. Gerry had a way of getting under his skin that left him feeling battered, and he wished Mabel was there. His neighbor was good at refereeing when their arguments got heated.
He sat down at his desk. Sticking out of his computer’s hard drive was the CD from the oil man that contained a clip of suspected poker cheating. Normally he didn’t work late, but he felt out of sorts and decided to have a look.
His computer whirred as it accepted the disc. Within seconds he was studying a grainy film of a poker game in the back room of a neighborhood bar. Eight middle-aged guys smoking fat cigars sat around a table with a castle of colored chips in its center. It was not something Valentine normally dealt with, and he found the letter that had accompanied the CD.
A Houston oil man had been invited to join an ongoing high-stakes game at a local watering hole. He had lost his shirt three weeks running. Suspecting foul play, on the fourth week the oil man secretly filmed the game with a video camera hidden in a briefcase.
Valentine put the letter down, and stared at the film playing on his computer. Cheating at private poker games was the largest unchecked crime in America. It cost unsuspecting players mil
lions of dollars a year. He watched the game for a few minutes, then noticed a plastic Budweiser sign behind the table.
The oil man’s cell phone number was given at the bottom of the letter. He punched the number into his phone, and moments later was talking to an older gentleman with a drawl so thick he could have cut it with a knife.
“You work fast, Mr. Valentine. You figure out what’s going on?”
“Maybe,” Valentine said. “Let me ask you a couple of questions first.”
“Be my guest.”
“I’m staring at the CD you sent me. There are eight players at the table. Are you the player wearing the string tie and twirling a toothpick in your mouth?”
“Well, I’ll be darned. How did you know that?”
“It’s because of where you’re sitting at the table,” Valentine said.
“It is?”
“Yes. You’re in what gamblers call the hot seat. You sat in that chair every week, didn’t you?”
“How the heck did you know that?”
“The guy who owns the bar is running a peek joint. The Budweiser sign behind the table is made of Plexiglas. It’s tinted on the front, but not the back, and works like a two-way mirror. Someone standing behind the wall can see through the sign, and spot the cards you’re holding. That information is transmitted to the guy who owns the bar either by radio or by a waitress who delivers it to him on a cocktail napkin.”
“You’re saying this whole thing was a setup designed to fleece me?”
“I’m afraid so. Did you lose much money?”
“Sixty grand, but that’s not the point. The man who owns that bar swore to me that he ran a clean game. He gave me his word.”
“May I make a suggestion?” Valentine said.
“By all means.”
“Show your local sheriff the film. Then have him call me. I’ll explain what’s going on, and he can file charges against the bar owner. If you’d like, I can fly to Texas, and act as an expert witness at a trial.”