by James Swain
“Why did you pull the gun on them?” he asked when she was done.
“Because they barged in here and practically called you a traitor,” she hissed. “You always told me you had a good relationship with the FBI, and these men acted like they’d never heard of you.”
“They called me a what?”
“Well, they said you were unpatriotic.”
Valentine felt his face burn. He hung his flag out on Veterans Day, paid his taxes, and believed in truth, justice, and the American Way.
“Are they within earshot?”
“You bet they are,” his neighbor seethed.
“Put one of them on.”
He heard Mabel cross his kitchen, and the sound of the cell phone being placed beneath someone’s mouth. Mabel had said she’d handcuffed the agents to his chin-up bar, and he wondered how they felt about being outwitted by a sixty-five-year-old woman. He said, “This is Tony Valentine. Who is this?”
“FBI Special Agent Reynolds,” a man’s voice replied.
“Sounds like you and your partner are in a pickle,” Valentine said.
There was a long pause. Reynolds cleared his throat. “Your friend Mabel is in a lot of trouble, if you hadn’t already figured that out.”
“So are you,” Valentine replied. “I want you to call off your dogs.”
“Excuse me?”
“The guys who’ve surrounded my house, and the guy on the roof with the rifle. I want you to call them off.”
“What are you offering in return?”
“The opportunity to end this peacefully, without anyone getting hurt.”
Another pause. Reynolds said something to his hanging partner. Valentine made out the words It’s worth a shot and heard Reynolds agree.
“Mind telling me how?” Reynolds asked him.
“Easy,” Valentine replied. “I’m going to have a chat with Peter Fuller, your boss. You wouldn’t have a number where I might reach him, would you?”
Reynolds gave him Peter Fuller’s private number, then promised to keep the agents surrounding the house at bay. Valentine hung up and walked out of Nick’s office.
He took the elevator to the penthouse floor, which was one floor below. From his suite he got the laptop computer he’d bought when he’d opened Grift Sense and went back upstairs.
Sitting at Nick’s desk, he ran a wire from the laptop to the phone jack in the wall, and within a minute was connected to the Internet. He picked up the phone and punched in Peter Fuller’s number at the FBI. A woman answered with a curt, “May I help you?”
“This is Tony Valentine for Director Fuller.”
“Director Fuller is unavailable. May I help you?”
“Get him anyway. And while you’re at it, give me his e-mail address.”
“That’s out of the question.”
“Tell him I have the pictures.”
“Excuse me?”
“The pictures. Tell him I still have the pictures from Atlantic City.”
The woman hesitated. How much did she know about Fuller? Plenty, he guessed; most personal secretaries knew more about their bosses’ habits than their wives.
“Please hold,” she said.
While Valentine waited, he entered his e-mail account and went into the SAVED MESSAGES folder. Retrieving a message titled FULLER, he opened it. On the laptop’s blue screen appeared ten pictures of Fuller screwing a hooker in Atlantic City in 1979. The hooker was tied to the headboard of a bed, and did not look happy with the arrangement. Valentine had gotten the pictures from a serial killer who’d blackmailed Fuller into leaving Atlantic City with his partner. By leaving, Fuller had allowed the serial killer to claim one final victim, an injustice that Valentine had never forgiven him for.
Fuller was a bad apple. Law enforcement had its share of bad apples. The system was supposed to weed them out the higher you rose, but occasionally one slipped through the cracks like Fuller had.
He and Fuller spoke a couple of times a year, usually when Fuller needed help on a gambling-related case that had the bureau stumped. Fuller was always quick to remind him that he’d patched things up with his wife, whom he’d abused, and his partner, whom he’d lied to. He liked to say that he’d found the good life. When he wasn’t working, he was driving his daughter to soccer practice, or leading his son’s Boy Scout troop.
Valentine didn’t believe a word of it.
Fuller liked sex, and he liked it rough. To get it, he hired prostitutes to service him. The patterns he’d shown in Atlantic City were of a man who lived in two worlds—the real one, and the one behind the curtain of his conscience. Hurting women during sex turned him on. It was what psychologists called his erotic mold, something he couldn’t change.
“Valentine?” a man’s voice said.
“That you, Fuller,” he said.
“Yes. Go ahead.”
“I’m calling about a situation at my house. Two of your agents are being held at gunpoint by my office manager. You aware of this?”
“What did you tell my secretary about the pictures?”
“What pictures?”
“Don’t pull that horseshit with me,” Fuller thundered at him. “What did you say to her?”
“I said I still had the pictures from Atlantic City.”
“You told me you destroyed them.”
“I did. But first, I burned them onto the hard drive on my computer. I’m looking at them on my laptop. You know, you’ve hardly aged.”
Fuller cursed like he’d hit his thumb with a hammer.
“What do you want,” he seethed.
“An explanation,” Valentine said. “I don’t deserve to have my house searched without the decency of a phone call. Your agents inferred that I was some kind of traitor. I resent that.”
“Your name came up in conjunction with a case involving national security. It was decided that your house should be searched.”
“Decided by who?”
“By me,” Fuller said.
“You couldn’t call me? You didn’t think I’d help you?”
“I couldn’t call you because you’re a suspect in a murder investigation. Your business card, and a Nike gym bag identical to one you purchased six months ago, were found at the crime scene.”
“I got here yesterday,” Valentine said. “You want to hear my itinerary? I didn’t have time to kill anybody, for Christ’s sake.”
“Your flight landed the day before yesterday,” Fuller corrected him, “a few hours before the victim was killed. Your things were found at the scene.”
“My flight was delayed in Dallas,” Valentine replied. “I arrived yesterday morning at one A.M. The airline lost my bag, and I killed two hours at the airport, filling out a claim sheet. If you don’t believe me, call Delta.”
“How do you explain your card and gym bag, “ Fuller said.
“I’ve given out plenty of business cards in Las Vegas,” he replied. “And the Nike gym bag is back in my closet at home. I don’t travel with it.”
“You landed when?”
“One A.M. I checked into Sin at three. There’s records of all this stuff. And plenty of eyewitnesses.”
There was silence. Then Fuller cursed under his breath.
“My sentiments, exactly,” Valentine said. “Now are you going to call your dogs off my house, or should we keep talking until somebody gets killed?”
25
Negotiating with people with guns was a tricky proposition. One party had to give in and put their weapons down first. That was the hard part. Since Mabel had drawn first, Valentine knew it would put the FBI at ease if she relinquished first. And since the FBI had his house surrounded, he talked her into it.
“Are they going to arrest me?” his neighbor asked.
“Absolutely not,” he assured her.
“But I pulled a gun on them.”
“They’re going to call it a big misunderstanding.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“So
you’re not a traitor?”
Valentine’s face burned at the mention of the word. Fuller had never explained that. Someday he was going to pin the man down and find out why his agents had said that.
“No, I’m not a traitor.”
“So his men won’t be searching your house, then?” she said.
Valentine smiled into the receiver. Searching the house was the last thing Fuller wanted his agents to do. He’d told Fuller the photographs of him and the hooker were on the hard drive of his computer. His agents would certainly look there, and the cat would be out of the bag.
“Absolutely not,” he said.
“All right,” Mabel said. “I’m putting the Sig Sauer back in the refrigerator. Now I’m closing the refrigerator door. I suppose my next step is to release these two young men.”
“Not yet. I’m going to hang up, and then you’re going to get a call from Director Fuller. He’s going to want to speak to Reynolds. Put the cell phone next to Reynolds’s ear, and listen in. I’ll be listening in as well.”
“How will you do that?”
“I’ve got Fuller on the other line.”
His neighbor’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Oh, Tony, I’m so sorry this happened.”
“There’s no need to apologize,” he said. “You did what you thought was right.”
As Mabel hung up, she tried to hide the smile on her face.
“Looks like our bosses have reached an agreement,” she announced.
Reynolds and Fisher said nothing. Yolanda let out a sigh of relief, and sat down at the kitchen table. The chair was old and creaky. A startled expression crossed her face. She glanced at the back door as if expecting it to come crashing down and a SWAT team to enter the house.
“It’s all right,” Mabel said. “They’re leaving. Tony fixed everything.”
Yolanda went to the window over the sink. Parting the curtains, she peered outside at the neighbor’s house and said, “You’re right. He’s climbing down off the roof.” She walked into the living room with Mabel behind her. Through the front window they saw the car with tinted windows that had been parked in the driveway speed away. Yolanda put her arms around Mabel and began to cry.
“There, there,” Mabel said.
Yolanda’s cell phone chirped. Mabel pulled it from her pocket. “Hello?”
The caller identified himself as Director Fuller of the FBI and asked to speak to Special Agent Reynolds. Mabel remembered Fuller from his picture in the newspaper. Blond and handsome, his only flaw was his mouth, which was too thin for his face.
“He’s right here,” she replied.
Going into the kitchen, she put the cell phone next to Reynolds’s ear, then listened as Fuller told Reynolds that the bureau had acted on bad information, and that the job was to be aborted. Reynolds closed his eyes and muttered under his breath.
“Yes, sir,” Reynolds said. “I understand. We’ll leave the premises once Ms. Struck releases us.” Looking at Mabel, Reynolds said, “Director Fuller would like to have a word with you, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course,” Mabel said.
Putting the phone to her ear, Mabel listened as Fuller apologized for what had happened. His voice was flat and unemotional, the way so many law enforcement people were. Taking the handcuff key from her pocket, she released Reynolds and his partner.
Valentine listened to Fuller apologize to Mabel, then hung up. As he pushed himself out of the chair, a strange thought occurred to him. His house had been raided by the FBI.
His house. The FBI was probably the best law enforcement agency in the world. They could be world-class jerks and arrogant as hell, but it didn’t belie the job they did. They were pros, which meant there had been a really good reason for them to raid his house. His business card, and a gym bag that resembled one he’d purchased six months ago, had been found at the murder scene. A coincidence? Someone much smarter than him had once said that there are no coincidences in police work.
His business card, his gym bag.
He picked up the phone and redialed his house. The phone lines had been restored, and he heard Mabel’s cheery voice say, “Grift Sense. Can I help you?”
“Just calling to see how you and Yolanda are doing.”
“Oh, how thoughtful of you. We’re making out fine. Those two FBI agents turned out to be real gentlemen. They apologized up a storm and actually took the garbage out when they left. It was quite a shock.”
“Glad you didn’t shoot them, huh?”
“Listen to you!”
“Look, I need a favor.”
“Your wish is my command.”
“Go into my bedroom and open up my closet.”
Mabel put him on hold. When she picked up a few moments later, she was talking to him on the speaker phone in the bedroom. “All right, I’m opening up your closet. Oh my, would you look at this mess.”
Valentine had never left a mess a day in his adult life. “What are you talking about?”
“Dirty clothes. They’re shoved in the corner in a pile. There’s a dirty jock strap, a dirty judo uniform, and a T-shirt with holes in the armpits that you must throw away.”
“Is my gym bag there?”
He heard Mabel shuffle some things around.
“Why no,” she said. “It’s gone.”
He sat back down and for a long moment stared at the phone. Only one person would throw his dirty clothes on the floor and take his gym bag without asking.
Gerry.
He glanced up. Nick was standing in the doorway, ready to go downstairs and bang some heads.
“I need to run,” he said. “I’ll call you later.”
26
When Pash and Gerry returned from Pahrump, they found a much different-looking Amin waiting for them at the motel. His beard and mustache were gone, and he’d trimmed his hair. It was short and choppy, and looked like the punk kids you saw walking around. He’d also changed his wardrobe, and now wore chinos and a striped rugby shirt.
“You get laid?” Amin asked his brother.
Pash took off his windbreaker and sat on the bed. “Yes. It was wonderful.”
“I hope you wore a rubber.”
“I did not have a choice. The woman put it on me.”
Amin made a face like he couldn’t imagine anything more disgusting. He was a handsome guy, and Gerry guessed he had no problem getting action when he wanted to. Pash, on the other hand, was always going to have to pay for it.
“They also wash you down,” Pash threw in for good measure.
“You let a strange woman wash your penis?”
Pash flashed a smile. “Oh, yes. With antibacterial scrub. When it starts to tingle, it actually feels quite good. There is one drawback, though.”
“What’s that?”
“Whenever I smell Betadine, I get an erection.”
Amin let out a rare laugh. Pash had promised to soften him up so Gerry could sell his idea of card-counting in “easy” casinos. Seeing his opportunity, Gerry pulled up a chair and launched into his sales pitch.
First, he explained the concept of how he planned to use his father’s information to target casinos, and saw Amin nod in agreement. Then he went into the numbers. Three hundred grand apiece was his first year’s estimate.
“These casinos you describe are small,” Amin said. “Surely they’ll notice such large losses.”
“My father has access to the daily financial sheets of every casino he works for,” Gerry said. “He examines them to see fluctuations in the holds of the various games.”
“How does this help us?”
“Certain times of the day the action is heavy, others it’s not. You’ll only play when the action is heavy and there’s money flying around. That way, your winnings won’t be noticed the way they would if the place was dead.”
Amin steepled his fingers in front of his chin, deep in thought. Then he spoke to Pash in their native tongue. Gerry hated when he did that, and planned to mention it when their rel
ationship got farther along. Amin ended the conversation by standing, and slapping Gerry on the shoulder. “I think we should become partners.”
Gerry looked into his eyes. Amin bought the pitch.
“You’re in?”
Amin nodded approvingly.
Gerry nearly let out a shout. “How about I buy you and Pash a steak? I think this is cause for celebration.”
Amin glanced at his watch. “We can eat later. There are some friends of mine I want you to meet. Do you mind driving?”
Gerry tried not to laugh. Did he mind driving? Amin was about to make him rich. He’d drive Amin wherever he wanted, and even wear a chauffeur’s cap.
“Ready when you are,” he said.
Amin sat in the passenger’s seat and had Gerry drive through Henderson, then get on Highway 93 and head east. The road was long and ruler-straight. Ten miles outside of town, Amin pointed to an unpaved road sitting off the highway.
“Take that,” he said.
Gerry drove down the road in a cloud of dust. Soon a gas station came into view. The building was abandoned and sagged drunkenly to one side. Nailed to its rusted tin roof was a crude, hand-painted sign. BOULDER AUTO RESTORERS. NO JOB TOO SMALL.
Behind the gas station was another tin-roofed structure. Pointing at it, Amin said, “I’m meeting my friends there.”
Gerry spun the wheel, no longer feeling good about things. Friends met at bars and restaurants, not behind abandoned buildings in the desert. Something bad was going down. He drove around back to an auto graveyard filled with car skeletons and pyramids of empty lacquer cans. The air was chemically ripe, and he crushed his cigarette in the ashtray.
A beat-up station wagon was parked in the lot’s center. Two stern-faced Mexican men stood beside it. In their thirties, with jet-black hair and complexions the color of pencil erasers. Gerry glanced sideways at Amin. “These your friends?”
“Yes,” Amin said.
He parked a hundred feet from where the Mexicans stood. Then glanced at the paper bag sitting on the floor between Amin’s feet. He’d assumed it was food that Amin had brought for the trip. Now he knew otherwise.