Wild Card (Tony Valentine Series)

by James Swain

  Doyle handed him the camera, and Valentine stared through its lens at the suspected counter. The guy fit right in with the other players: gold chains, white leisure suit, red silk shirt. A true polyester prince. What stuck out was his bronze skin when everyone else in the casino was pasty white. They’d been seeing a lot of counters from Las Vegas, and Valentine pegged this guy as one of them.

  Handing the camera back, he walked to the end of the catwalk, found the phone, and called down to the floor. He spoke to a pit boss, then rejoined Doyle.

  “Bill Higgins taught me this trick,” he said. “Watch.”

  Down below, a pit boss approached table 46. A velvet rope hung behind the table. Reaching over the rope, the pit boss took his thumb, and drew an X on the card counter’s back. The counter scooped up his chips and left the table.

  “What’s that called?” Doyle said.

  “The brush,” Valentine replied. “They use it out in Vegas. It tells the card counter they’ve been spotted, and it’s time to leave.”

  “I like it.”

  They started to leave the catwalk. Something caught Doyle’s eye, and he pointed down at the cage. “What’s Mickey Wright think he’s doing?”

  Valentine grasped the catwalk railing and looked down. Mickey was standing by the cage in his signature maroon jacket. He was talking to a customer, an Italian with a thick mane of slick-backed hair. The customer looked like a mobster, but so did half the guys inside the casino. As they watched, a cashier slid two racks of purple chips under the glass. Mickey signed for them, then presented the racks to the customer, who shook Mickey’s hand and sauntered off to the blackjack pit.

  “How much money do you think that is?” Doyle asked.

  Purples were worth a thousand dollars apiece.

  “A hundred grand, easy,” Valentine said.

  Doyle whistled through his teeth. “What do you think Mickey’s up to?”

  Valentine had no idea. The casino occasionally offered lines of credit to high-rollers, letting them sign for chips they were legally responsible for paying back to the casino. If the high-roller didn’t pay, the state went after him.

  The problem was, Mickey Wright didn’t have the authority to approve credit lines. And, he wasn’t supposed to be on the casino floor. Resort discouraged surveillance employees from entering the casino, and fraternizing with employees, or customers.

  Maybe Mickey had slipped. Maybe the guy was from the old neighborhood, and Mickey had seen him on a camera, and run downstairs to say hello. Or, maybe something else was going on.

  “Get a picture of this guy,” Valentine said. “We’d better find out who he is.”

  Chapter 21

  Leaving work that night, Valentine remembered that he was supposed to bring food home for dinner. It was Wednesday, which meant Chinese take-out. To stay within their budget, he picked up a quart of wonton soup and three egg rolls to go with the chow mein Lois made at home. It made dinner special, and didn’t cost a lot of money.

  He drove to a strip mall in Margate and parked in front of Lo’s Imperial Palace. He’d been coming here every Wednesday for years, and was not surprised when Sam Lo met him at the door with his order. He started to make small-talk, only Sam cut him off.

  “You wife call five minutes ago,” Sam Lo said. “Go home now. Pay me later.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Your wife crying,” Sam Lo said.

  “What happened?”

  “Somebody break into your house. Sound real bad. You’d better hurry.”

  Valentine drove down Margate’s quiet streets faster than he should have. Pulling onto his block, he saw a pair of police cruisers parked in his driveway, and was relieved to see there wasn’t an ambulance with them. He parked on the street and ran inside. A uniformed cop named D’Amato met him in the foyer.

  “Is my family okay?”

  “Yes,” D’Amato said.“Your wife’s in the kitchen and your son’s with a neighbor.”

  “Is the house wrecked?”

  “Pretty much, I’m afraid.”

  Valentine didn’t want D’Amato telling him any more. He had to see for himself, and walked through the foyer into the dining room, and stared at the wreckage. His house was a disaster area. Everything of value had been turned upside-down, and smashed with some type of blunt instrument. The credenza his mother had given them as a wedding present lay on the floor, its sides battered, with every piece of his china removed and shattered. The dining room table, another wedding present, had been chopped up with an axe, and lay on the floor like discarded pieces of kindling.

  He entered the living room. Paintings and family photographs had been pulled off the walls, their frames fractured; tables and chairs split in half. Then, he checked the other downstairs rooms. They were also ruined, and he wondered if a small tornado had somehow ripped through his house. He walked back to the foyer where D’Amato stood.

  “How about the basement and the upstairs?”

  “The same,” D’Amato said.

  “Anything not destroyed?”

  “They spared the breakfast table,” D’Amato said.

  Valentine found Lois sitting at the breakfast table, her face buried in her hands. He touched her shoulder, and she jumped up and stuck her head against his chest and began to sob. They had never had much money, and she treasured the few things of value they had. “I brought Gerry home from school, and found the place like this,” she said. “He was so upset, I sent him next door. They destroyed his record collection and his phonograph.”

  “You think it was other kids?”

  “I don’t think kids would use knives to rip out the stuffing in the mattresses in our beds, do you?”

  Valentine blinked. In the living room he’d seen where the burglars had kicked a wall in, and the significance of the act hadn’t registered. Holding his wife’s shoulders, he said, “No one was hurt. We can always replace this stuff. Remember that.”

  Lois looked up into his face.

  “With what money?” she said.

  They heard the back door open. D’Amato’s partner stepped into the kitchen. Valentine had seen him down at the station house before. His name was Dolce, and he had a friendly face and an easy-going manner. Seeing them, Dolce took his hat off.

  “I’m really sorry about this,” Dolce said.

  Valentine mumbled the word thanks.

  “I walked the property and had a talk with your neighbors on both sides,” Dolce said. “No one appears to have seen anything.”

  “How about in the alleyway behind the house?”

  “Nothing,” Dolce said.

  “So these burglars waltzed in during the middle of the afternoon, destroyed my house, and no one saw a thing,” Valentine said.

  “One of your neighbors was in the basement doing laundry. The other is sick, and was sleeping.”

  Valentine lived on a busy street. Someone had seen something. Only no one was coming forward. It confirmed his suspicions, and he said, “Do you mind leaving us alone for a few minutes?”

  “I’ll be with my partner if you need me,” Dolce said.

  Valentine took a glass from the cupboard, filled it with cold water, and handed it to his wife. “Drink this. It’ll make you feel better.”

  Lois held the glass with trembling hands and took a long swallow. “Is that what you tell people who’ve been burglarized?”

  “No. I tell them I’m going to find the people who did it, and make them pay.”

  “You have to know who they are first.”

  “I know who did this,” he said.

  Lois put the glass onto the table. “You do?”

  “Yes. Now promise me you won’t repeat that to these officers.”

  A look of uncertainty crept into her face. “Okay,” she said.

  “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

  He went to the kitchen door and opened it. Stepping outside, he shut the door behind him. The weather had turned bitter, yet he did not feel the col
d, nor hear the howling wind, the bam bam bam of his heart blocking it out. He hurried across the backyard, tripping over Gerry’s outdoor toys — stuff he and Lois planned to give away once they accepted that Gerry was no longer a little boy — and stopped at the fence.

  In the corner of his yard sat an ugly concrete bird bath. The previous owner had left it because it was too heavy to move. He stared at the spot in the ground where he’d buried the Prince’s address book, and, just a few nights ago, the surveillance tape from Resorts. The ground around the bird bath was undisturbed. He felt his heart beat return to normal, and turned back toward the house. He had to deal with this right now, or he had to walk away. There was simply no other choice.

  He crossed the yard and saw Lois step onto the back porch.

  “I want to know who did this to us,” she said.

  “Nucky Balducci,” he replied.

  Chapter 22

  Every town in the state of New Jersey had at least one fancy restaurant that was run by the mob. Hoodlums had to eat somewhere.

  The restaurant in Atlantic City which bore this distinction was called Lou Sonken’s. Although the cuisine was northern Italian, the interior resembled a French bordello, with naked statuary and red carpeted walls hung with paintings of plump nudes. No cop Valentine knew had ever eaten there.

  He parked in a vacant lot across the street, then jogged over in the shadows, trying to avoid the valets, most of them were thugs just out of prison who needed work. He slipped inside the front door, and was spotted by the maitre d’, a weasel in an ill-fitting tux. As he tried to enter the restaurant, the maitre d’ blocked his way.

  “I’m sorry, but we’re booked solid,” the maitre d’ said.

  “Go back to your little stand,” Valentine said.

  “But —”

  “Or I’ll arrest you.”

  The maitre d’ retreated, and Valentine walked down a foyer covered with photos of Lou Sonken shaking hands with every mafia kingpin who’d ever stepped foot in Atlantic City. Entering the restaurant, his eyes canvassed the dimly lit room. Nucky Balducci’s bald head popped up like a buoy in a sea of slime. He sat at a corner table, inhaling a plate of clam linguine. Luther sat beside him, gnawing on a pork chop. As Valentine approached, Luther rose up in his chair. Valentine put his hand on the bodyguard’s shoulder, and drove him into his seat.

  “One word out of you, and I’ll cuff you,” Valentine said.

  Luther’s mouth clamped shut. Nucky continued to twirl linguini on his fork. “Why don’t you pull up a chair, and join us,” the old gangster said.

  Valentine borrowed a chair from a nearby table without asking the diners if they minded. As he sat down, his legs hit the table, disturbing the two men’s drinks. Luther reached out and stilled both glasses.

  “How you been?” Nucky asked.

  “Shitty.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  Valentine took out his wallet, and dropped it on the table so his detective’s badge was showing. Nucky glanced at it.

  “You here on business, huh?”

  “You’re psychic.”

  “Want something to eat?”

  “No. Do you know my partner, Doyle Flanagan?”

  “Can’t say I’ve had the pleasure.”

  “Doyle says he could stop all the break-ins and burglaries in this town by putting four guys in jail. Four guys do all the jobs.”

  “No kidding,” Nucky said.

  “Doyle says it’s easy to tell which burglar is which. One always drinks a beer and leaves the empty. Another’s into lady’s underwear. The third pisses on bathroom floors. I won’t tell you what the fourth does, too disgusting. Problem is, we never have enough evidence to put them away.”

  Nucky put his fork down. “What does this have to do with me?”

  The rest of the diners had started to file out of the restaurant. Valentine glanced up at the smokey mirror hanging behind Nucky’s shaved head. In its reflection, Lou Sonken and two big waiters stood in the doorway, waiting for Nucky to call them in. Valentine turned around in his chair. “Get back in your cages,” he told them.

  Lou and his apes did not move.

  “Do as he says,” Nucky ordered them.

  The three men went away. Nucky leaned into the table and dropped his voice.

  “Explain yourself, will you, Tony? The suspense is killing me.”

  “My house got broken into this afternoon. The guy who did it wasn’t one of those four guys. And he was looking for something.”

  “You think I know?”

  “You run this town, don’t you?”

  Nucky balled up his napkin and tossed it onto his bowel of unfinished pasta. “You’re not wearing a wire, are you?”

  Valentine rose an inch out of his chair.

  “Okay, calm down. Luther, take a powder, will you?”

  The bodyguard excused himself from the table. When he was gone, Nucky explained the situation. “You’ve been seen around town with a couple of feds.”

  “So?”

  “People are getting nervous.”

  “I’m helping the FBI find a guy who’s murdering hookers.”

  “That’s the story everybody’s heard,” Nucky said.

  “You don’t believe it?”

  Nucky snorted contemptuously. “Who gives a shit about dead hookers? Take my advice. Stay away from those FBI guys. It’s making plenty of people nervous.”

  “Did you order someone to break into my house?”

  “No,” Nucky said.

  “Then who did?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Tell me who they are, Nucky, or I’ll run you in.”

  “You’ll do what?”

  “You heard me.”

  Nucky’s bald head turned beet red. He suddenly looked like a pressure cooker ready to explode. “You’re serious.”

  “Damn straight,” Valentine said.

  Nucky rose from the table, and motioned for Valentine to follow him. They walked through the empty restaurant and down the foyer, turned right at the maitre de’ stand, and entered the nightclub. It had been modeled after the Moulin Rouge, with a serpentine bar, a stage that mechanically moved up and down, and bar stools covered in zebra skin, their stripes highlighted by an ultra-violet light. The club was empty, except for the ancient mixologist, an old Sicilian named Arthur who’d been there since the beginning of time. They shouldered up to the bar.

  “A Budweiser, Arthur,” Nucky said.

  “Of course. And for your friend?”

  “Tap water,” Valentine said.

  Arthur smiled like Valentine had made a joke and he thought he was supposed to smile.

  “Turn the TV on,” Nucky instructed.

  “You wanna watch anything in particular?”

  “I want to see the news.”

  A big color TV hung from the ceiling behind the bar. Arthur climbed up on a chair and turned the set on. Then he poured their drinks.

  “Talked to your old man lately?” Nucky asked.

  “Leave him out of this,” Valentine said.

  Nucky shrugged and sipped his beer. “I thought you were gonna drop by, see Zelda.”

  “She still in her room?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You want something for her to do?”

  Nucky perked up. “You got any ideas?”

  “She can help clean up my goddamn house.”

  The news came on. It was from a station out of Newark. One of the newscasters was a woman in her late thirties, the other a man about the same age. They spoke to the camera without acknowledging each other. It was like watching a marriage on the skids. After five minutes, a story about a killing came on. Nucky pointed at the screen.

  “Here we go,” he said.

  “South Philly crime kingpin Giuseppe “The Gip” Scarfone was killed by a car bomb in the God’s Pocket section of Philadelphia this morning,” the woman reporter said, standing on a Philly street corner with a scarf around her neck. �
�The bomb was so powerful that pieces of Scarfone’s sharkskin suit were found on a rooftop a block away. Also in the car were Antonio and Salvatore Andruzzi, known in law enforcement circles as The Twins. According to police, it is believed the killing was in retaliation for the slaying of Paul “The Lobster” Spinelli in New York two days ago.”