by James Swain
“We’re talking about hundreds of hours.”
“So what are you suggesting?”
“I work in Resorts’ surveillance control room. I’ll show the composite to the techs who watch the monitors, and have them review the tapes. If those guys are good at anything, it’s picking a face out of a crowd.”
Fuller looked at his partner. It was an angle they’d missed. They climbed out of the car, shook his hand, and thanked him one more time.
Chapter 12
The sky had opened up like a busted feather pillow, and Romero stared gloomily at the falling snow while Fuller drove back to their motel. Stopping at a traffic light, Fuller threw the car into park and glared at him.
“What’s eating you?”
“Nothing,” Romero said.
“It’s written all over your god damn face.”
Romero blew out his lungs. He’d stopped playing cards with Fuller because his partner always knew what he was holding. “We should have talked to the rank-and-file cops the moment we got here.”
Fuller continued to glare at him. “We agreed that we wouldn’t talk to the cops until we were sure the Dresser wasn’t one of them. Remember?”
“I remember.”
“Then why bring it up now?”
“I didn’t.”
“Well, stop thinking it.”
The light changed and Fuller put the car into drive. They had arrived in Atlantic City several days ago, and with Banko’s help, started their investigation. The Dresser had contacted the FBI twice with letters — the first after he’d abducted Mary Ann Crawford, the second after Connie Hastings, both times sending pieces of jewelry as proof — and declared he could kill woman at will, and the FBI would never capture him. The FBI’s profilers had latched onto this, and decided the killer was someone the public implicitly trusted. A doctor, perhaps, or a fireman. Or even a cop.
So they’d done background checks on every doctor, every fireman, and every cop on the island. Atlantic City had less than fifty thousand full-time residents, and it had only taken a few days. To their surprise, the FBI’s profilers were wrong. None of the town’s doctors, firemen or cops matched the profile. The Dresser had fooled them.
Fuller turned into the beach front motel they were staying in. It was called The Lucky Boy, and was a dive. Both men got out of the car.
“I’m going to check for messages at the desk,” Romero said. “See you in a few.”
The Lucky Boy’s check-in was a tiny building with a neon sign in its window. Every afternoon, the clerk got married to a gin bottle, and getting information out of him was never easy. Romero tapped on the door before entering.
“Why didn’t you tell me the rug smelled,” the clerk said.
“What are you talking about?” Romero asked.
“The rug in your room. Did you puke on it?”
“You’re not making any sense.”
The clerk drew back in his chair. “Listen, you stinking wet back, you can’t come in here, and talk to me like that. I’ll throw you and that partner of yours out of here —” He snapped his fingers for effect “ — just like that!”
Romero’s open wallet hit the counter, exposing his gold badge. It was a move he’d practiced for situations like this. The clerk’s jaw became unhinged.
“You a cop?”
“FBI.”
“Oh, man, I’m sorry,” the clerk said.
Romero tucked his wallet away. “I’m listening.”
“A deliveryman came by earlier, carrying a rug over his shoulder. Said he’d been told to replace the one in your room. I thought you’d called him. Jesus, I’m sorry. ”
“Why are you sorry? What did you do?”
“I left him alone in your room. Sure hope he didn’t steal anything.”
Romero felt his radar go up. Leaving the office, he hurried down the winding brick path to his room. The motel had a pool in its center, and as he walked around it, he saw the door to their room was open. Fuller came out, holding his automatic limply by his side. Romero drew his own gun, then approached him.
“What happened?”
Fuller slipped his gun into its shoulder harness. Then he took out a pack of cigarettes, and banged one out. Sticking it between his lips, he said, “See for yourself.”
Romero went to the doorway and looked in. A dead girl hung by her wrists from a light fixture in the ceiling. She was wearing a go-go dancer’s outfit, complete with knee-high Nancy Sinatra boots, and a piece symbol around her neck. Mexicans believed that the dead’s spirits hung around earth for a while. Not acknowledging them was a mistake, and Romero mumbled a prayer before going in.
The dead girl’s face was covered with hair. Romero got close to her, then blew it away. It was Maria Sanchez, the beautiful Puerto Rican hooker that Tony Valentine had seen the Dresser pick up inside the casino. He walked outside, and bummed a cigarette off his partner.
“I think we’d better change motels,” Fuller said.
Chapter 13
Valentine was exhausted when he walked into the kitchen of his house at seven o’clock that night. It had been a long afternoon at the casino.
First, he’d busted a man for putting a coin into a slot machine with a string attached to it, and jerking the coin out. A silly crime, only the man played the machine so many times he won a jackpot. Jackpots could not be paid until the videotape was reviewed, and now the man was sitting in a holding cell, facing three-to-five.
Then, he’d nailed a card mucker. The guy could invisibly switch cards while playing blackjack. What had tripped him up was his face. It was in a book of mug shots of known cheaters Bill Higgins had sent him. Valentine had made the match, and now the mucker was in the same cell with the yo-yo man.
The icing had been nailing a gang of teenage boys who’d been ripping off slot players. The boys would enter the casino from the Boardwalk, and approach a woman playing a slot machine. One boy would toss coins beneath the woman’s chair. A second would tap her shoulder, and point at the coins on the floor. While the woman was retrieving the coins, the third would snatch her purse. And out the door they’d go.
Until today. The slot player had been Doyle, wearing a wig. Now the lads were sitting in a juvenile detention center, waiting to face their parents.
The kitchen of Valentine’s house was cold and empty. Taking off his jacket, he went to the oven and pulled down the creaky door. Nothing cooking. After his parents had split up, his mother had stopped cooking, and it had taken the warmth out of their house. They were memories that he’d just as soon forget.
He checked a pot sitting on the stove. It was half-filled with water. Pasta? His hopes rose. He stuck his finger in the water. Ice cold.
“We’re in here,” Lois said from the dining room.
He poured himself a glass of cold water and took a long swallow. Gerry’s school bag sat on the kitchen table next to his wife’s purse. He sensed something was not right, and walked into the dining room. Gerry sat at the head of the dining room table with his head bowed. Lois stood behind him, breathing fire.
“Stand up when your father comes into the room.”
Gerry sat motionless at the dining room table.
“What’s going on?” Valentine asked.
“The school principal called me,” Lois said. “Gerry is hanging around with a group of older kids accused of gambling and selling pot.”
“What?”
“We’re not selling pot,” his son declared.
“I said, stand up.”
“We’re not. I swear —”
“Stand up.”
Gerry rose guiltily from his chair, and Valentine stared in disbelief at his son’s wardrobe. A black leather jacket, white tee shirt, jeans, and a pair of pointy-toed boots that locals called fence-climbers. He looked like a punk.
“Where are your school clothes?” Valentine asked.
“These are his school clothes,” Lois answered. “He’s been changing them every day in the gym. Doctor Jekyll
and Mister Hyde.”
“All the kids do it,” his son said.
“And if all the other kids jumped off a bridge, would you follow them?”
Gerry smirked. “Probably.”
Valentine wanted to start yelling. Or take off his belt and whip the bejeeus out of him. Things that his own father had done that he’d never forgotten. But he was not about to follow in his father’s footsteps. Going into the kitchen, he grabbed his son’s school bag and brought it into the dining room, dumping its contents on the table. Out fell a pack of cigarettes, candy bars, a glossy hot-rod magazine, and a gold necklace.
“How much allowance do we give you a week?” Valentine asked.
“Fifty cents,” Gerry mumbled.
“Let me guess, you took a job bagging groceries at the A & P and forgot to tell us.”
“Hey,” his son said, “it’s just some stuff.”
“Stuff costs money.”
Gerry swallowed hard. “It’s not what you think.”
“You weren’t selling pot?”
“No, sir,” his son replied.
“We have a meeting with the school principal first thing tomorrow morning,” Lois said.
“You’d better not be lying to me,” Valentine said.
“I swear Pop, I’m not.”
“And those clothes are gone.”
“Yes, sir.”
His son looked truly remorseful. Valentine glanced at his wife. Lois nodded her head, satisfied. He started dropping his son’s loot into his school bag when a bulge in a side pocket caught his eye. It was the paperback novel he’d seen Gerry reading the night before, The Catcher in the Rye. The book’s cover was coming off, and he flipped it open, and read a few lines. Looking up, he caught his son’s fearful gaze.
“When did J.D. Salinger start writing porno?” he said.
Chapter 14
Izzie missed Betty.
He missed her soft cooing voice, and the taste of her cheap lipstick mingling with the smell of her hair and her sticky skin. He missed her throaty laugh, and the liquid heart-stopping sensation of having sex with her. Having sex with Betty, Izzie had come to the conclusion that no movie or book had ever gotten it right.
Izzie missed her so much, he decided to call her one night during a poker game in the house he and his brothers had rented in Ventnor, a fancy suburb just south of Atlantic City. Excusing himself, he’d gone upstairs, and used the phone in the extra bedroom to call her apartment. Betty answered on the fifth ring, still sound asleep.
“Hey baby,” he said.
“Who the hell is this?”
“It’s me, Izzie.”
“You crummy bastard!”
“Hey, I’m sorry.”
“Fuck you’re sorry! Do you have any idea what time it is?”
Izzie glanced at the clock on the bedside table. It was two A.M. They’d been bringing suckers to the house every night from Resorts’ casino, and he’d forgotten what normal hours were. “I’m sorry. I missed you so much, I had to call.”
“You left me at that convenience store,” she shouted into the phone.
The receiver was jammed into the crook of Izzie’s neck, leaving his hands free to stack the cards he would soon switch into the game. “It was my brothers’ idea —”
“I thought you loved me!”
“I do.”
“Then why didn’t you make them come back?”
He finished stacking the deck and tucked it into his back pocket. “How was I going to do that?” he said without thinking.
Betty screamed like he’d stabbed her. “I’ll get you for this,” she declared.
Izzie went downstairs in a funk. His brothers had always said women were not cut out to be grifters. They did not understand the rackets, and held grudges when they got cheated. Cheat a guy, and eventually he’ll forget it. Cheat a woman, and she’ll carry a grudge for the rest of her life.
Izzie found the game the way he’d left it. Three rug merchants sat around the felt-covered card table in the den along with Josh and Seymour. The rug merchants were in town for a convention. They were all named Patel. A deck of cards sat at Izzie’s spot. Sitting down, he pointed at them. “These shuffled?” he asked.
The Patel to his right said yes. Izzie asked him to cut the cards. The Patel obliged him. Picking the deck up, Izzie dropped his hands below the table to adjust his chair. When his hands came up, he was holding the deck he’d stacked in the bedroom.
As Izzie dealt the round, he looked around the den. He and his brothers had spent days making it look presentable. They had built a bookcase and filled it with second-hand books, then hung photographs that looked like someone’s family, but wasn’t theirs.
“What are we playing?” one of the Patels asked.
“Draw poker,” Izzie said.
“Anything wild?”
“Betty.”
“Who’s Betty?” the Patel asked.
“I mean deuces,” Izzie said. “Deuces are wild.”
The deck played out the way he’d stacked it, with the Patels losing their shirts. They paid up without a beef, and Izzie hid a smile. Their scheme to beat Resorts was simple enough. Every night, he and his brothers scoured the casino, looking for suckers who’d won big, and convince them to come to the house. Then, they’d beat them out of their winnings, but never their stake. It was Resorts’ money they wanted. So far, it had worked like a charm.
When the Patels were gone, Seymour got the strongbox and counted their winnings. Minus expenses, they were ahead twenty thousand bucks. It was the most money they’d ever made.
“I need some fresh air,” Izzie declared.
Izzie went outside. Josh and Seymour followed their older brother into the front yard, where Izzie stood smoking a cigarette. Izzie pointed north, in Resorts’ direction. “For every sucker we bring back, we’re leaving ten inside the casino. I think we should add more games, turn this into a real show.”
“How about craps?” Seymour said.
“Craps would be a winner,” Izzie said. “So would roulette.”
“I’m game,” Seymour said.
“What about the mob?” Josh asked. “We don’t want them finding out.”
The Hirsch brothers had spotted a number of wise guys hanging around Resorts’ bar and restaurants, and had figured the mob was running a scam inside the casino. Dealing with the mob was like dealing with a mean dog; if you stayed off their turf, the mob left you alone. If you didn’t, they bit you hard.
Izzie finished his cigarette. “We have to tip-toe around the mob, make sure they don’t catch wind of us. I still think we should do it.”
“I agree,” Seymour said.
“Sounds great, except for one thing,” Josh said.
“What’s that?”
“Betty.”
“What about her?”
“You’ve been talking to her, haven’t you?”
Izzie jabbed his forefinger in Josh’s chest. “Don’t talk about Betty.”
“You’ve got to stop sneaking off, and calling her.”
“Why should I?”
“Because Betty’s bad news, that’s why.”
“Don’t talk about Betty like that. Ever.”
“Bad news Betty. It sort of rhymes.”
“I don’t even want you saying her name.”
“Betty, Betty, Betty.”
Izzie tripped Josh, then fell on top of him on the grass. Izzie never fought with his hands. He couldn’t throw a punch without risking breaking a finger, and putting them out of commission for a few months. They grappled and grunted like a pair of Greco-Roman wrestlers. Seymour went inside and got a bottle of pop from the fridge, then sat on the stoop and drank it while watching his brothers hash it out. Ten minutes later, they stopped out of sheer exhaustion. Their clothes were ruined, and Josh’s nose was a bloody mess.
“Promise you won’t say her name again,” Izzie said.
“Betty, Betty, Betty!” Josh said.
Then they starte
d fighting again.
Chapter 15
The principal of Gerry’s high school was a smooth-talking guy named Dick Henry. Lois was active in the PTA, and knew Dick well enough to address him by his first name. It was the first time they’d been called to Dick’s office, and Lois had asked her husband to keep his mouth shut during their meeting. Valentine had reluctantly agreed.