Loaded Dice

by James Swain

  “Have Nick call the hospital.”

  “And take Moss out on a stretcher?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Afraid I left my cell phone in my car.”

  “There’s one on the table,” Fontaine said. “I’m going to have Lucy pick it up and slide it across the floor to you.”

  “Albert Moss isn’t going anywhere.”

  “Do it.”

  Valentine hesitated. If Moss skipped town, Fontaine was off the hook. As if reading his mind, Fontaine shoved the .22 deeper into Lucy’s face.

  “All right, I’ll call the hospital,” Valentine said.

  “Give him the phone,” Fontaine told Lucy.

  Lucy’s eyes had filled with tears, but she wasn’t letting them come out. She picked up the cordless phone off the coffee table. Her arm tensed.

  Valentine had been involved in two hostage negotiations as a cop. In both, an X factor had upset the balance of the situation. In the first, it had been a flock of seagulls flying over a schoolyard. In the second, a pizza boy coming to the door. This time, it was Lucy slamming the cordless phone into Fontaine’s face. With her other hand, she grabbed the .22 and raised the barrel to the ceiling. The gun discharged, the bullet causing an explosion of sparks as it hit something metallic.

  Valentine did not remember physically moving across the condo and jumping on Fontaine. It just happened. Knocking Fontaine to the floor, he began raining blows onto his shaved head. Lucy stood beside him, holding the .22 by her side while bellowing at the top of her lungs.

  “Beat the shit out of him! Do it! He deserves it!”

  What a woman, he thought.

  Moments later, he heard someone yell “Freeze!” and looked up to see the condo become filled with armed men.

  Not cops, Valentine realized as they pulled him off Fontaine and got the .22 away from Lucy. And not Gaming Control Board agents. Both of those groups had to identify themselves upon entering someone’s home. These guys didn’t.

  There were a dozen, each identically dressed in black pants and black sweaters that were hiding bulletproof vests. All had short hair, and looked to be in their thirties. Six were white, the others black. All looked real strong. He guessed FBI.

  One of the agents made him stand against the wall and frisked him. Valentine heard a bunch of surprised grunts as the arsenal he was carrying got dumped onto the couch.

  “He’s clean,” the agent finally announced.

  “No, he’s not,” another man said, and grabbed Valentine from behind by the balls. It was a sensation like no other, and Valentine yelped as the man took him by the collar with the other hand, and dragged him across the room. Glancing over his shoulder, he stared into the eyes of Director Peter Fuller.

  Fuller pulled him into the spare bedroom and slammed the door. Dressed in black like the others, he looked like an action figure from a comic strip, with bulging muscles in his arms and chest. He hadn’t changed much over the years, except for his hair. Once light blond, it had recently turned snow white.

  “How would you like to spend the rest of your life in jail?” Fuller said.

  “What for? I didn’t break any laws.”

  “Oh, no? Tell that to the guy you shot in the next room.”

  “That guy is a wanted criminal,” Valentine said. “He and Fontaine were holding Lucy Price hostage. Why the hell are you reading me the riot act?”

  “Because I know you have a blood feud with Fontaine. Frank told me you were gunning for him.”

  Valentine stared at Fuller in disbelief. “Frank told you? Don’t tell me you sprang him out of prison and have him working for the FBI.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Did you know that while he’s been working for you, he bankrupted the Acropolis?”

  “Can you prove that?”

  Valentine thought about Albert Moss lying in the hospital. He was the key, and was probably not going to say anything for a while.

  “Eventually, yes.”

  “Eventually?” Fuller jabbed him in the chest. “Fontaine’s been working with the FBI for a month. He hasn’t had time to scam the Acropolis.” Fuller jabbed him again. “You lied to me this afternoon. The gym bag we found in the stripper’s townhouse is yours. Your son brought it to Las Vegas. His airline confirmed it.”

  Valentine’s face burned from where Albert Moss had slashed him, but it didn’t burn as much as the shame he was feeling. He should have called Fuller back and told him the truth. Only he hadn’t.

  “I figured it out after we talked,” he said quietly.

  “Did you know about the gun?” Fuller asked him.

  “I knew he purchased one.”

  “Your son bought a three fifty-seven Smith and Wesson at a Las Vegas gun store. A three fifty-seven was used in the murder of the stripper who had your gym bag. I need to talk to your son immediately. Do you understand?”

  Valentine found himself looking into Fuller’s face. He hadn’t called Gerry a murderer. There was a pleading look in Fuller’s eyes, tinged by desperation.

  “I’ll bring Gerry in. You can grill him all you want.”

  “Do I have your word on this?” Fuller said.

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve got until midnight. Then all bets are off.”

  “I’ll bring him. Then will you tell me what this is about?”

  Fuller shook his head. “No,” he added for emphasis.

  Then the director of the FBI marched out of the bedroom.

  31

  Valentine walked back into the living room and saw Fontaine standing with a group of FBI agents, shooting the shit. He wasn’t handcuffed, and Valentine felt his head start to spin. Fontaine was a career criminal, yet the agents were talking to him like an old pal.

  Two agents walked past, carrying the cowboy in a black body bag. The guy whose face Valentine had broken with the door was sitting up, and being given smelling salts by one of the FBI agents. He wasn’t wearing handcuffs, either.

  Valentine realized Fontaine was staring at him. He returned the look and saw Fontaine smile like a guy who knows he’s Teflon-coated. One of the FBI agents said, “Let’s go,” and Fontaine walked up to Valentine, said, “My scar’s bigger than yours,” and followed the agent outside.

  Valentine went to the window. Parting the blinds with a finger, he watched Fontaine hop into a car waiting by the curb. He had to imagine his feet were nailed to the floor to force himself not to go after him.

  The remaining FBI agents cleared out of Lucy’s condo a few minutes later. Fuller got in Valentine’s face one more time and told him not to get any stupid ideas.

  Valentine shook his head. He had run out of those.

  Standing by the living room window, he watched the FBI agents pull away from the curb in three black sedans. Fontaine sat in the passenger’s seat of one car, being treated like a VIP. He let the blind drop and shook his head. The world had gone crazy and no one had bothered to tell him.

  In the kitchen he found Lucy pouring herself a glass of wine. She got a Coke out of the fridge and said, “I know you like the artificial stuff, but is this okay?”

  He said sure and took a seat at the kitchen table. She served him the can, then sat down across from him. Hoisting the wineglass to her lips, she took a long pull. The drink brought instant relaxation to her face. She lowered her glass and looked at him long and hard. The white in her eyes had turned pink.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Not really,” she said. “What happened to your face?”

  “The head of finance at the Acropolis cut me.”

  “Let me guess. He works with Fontaine.”

  “Yeah. He seems to be the brains behind the operation. He also had tremendous clout within the Acropolis. My guess is, he had the twenty-five grand you won stolen from your room.”

  Lucy’s eyes narrowed. “I hope you beat the shit out of him.”

  “Come to mention it, I did.”

  They went back to their drinks. Lu
cy polished off her wine, then went to the counter and refilled her glass. Watching people drink booze was one of his least favorite things, yet Lucy wasn’t bothering him. She deserved it.

  She sat back down, this time taking the chair next to his.

  “The way you shot the cowboy.”

  Her words hung in the air like a puff of smoke. He let her finish.

  “You’ve shot people before.”

  “Yeah. I was a cop.”

  “How many?” she asked.

  “This is the fifth.”

  “Does it bother you?”

  “It will stay with me, if that’s what you mean.”

  “How long?”

  He drained his can of Coke and felt the buzz he got whenever he mixed sugar with caffeine. The look in her eyes said she really wanted to know.

  “The rest of my life,” he said quietly.

  She drew her chair closer and put her arms around him in an embrace, drawing his head close to her bosom, holding it there and kissing his crown.

  She bandaged his face in the bathroom. Then, arm in arm, they walked to her bedroom, the movement of their bodies pressed against each other as natural as anything Valentine had ever felt. Like they were floating a few inches off the ground.

  In the bedroom, she found a candle, propped it on her dresser, and lit it. It was perfect, he thought. She unbuttoned his shirt, and he stared at the bed, imagined them making love, then him jumping out of bed to go search for his son.

  She had his shirt open to his navel, her fingers sifting through his mat of chest hair. In her kiss he felt a smile. He put his arms around her waist and held her.

  “I have to go look for my son,” he said.

  “You’re not going to stay?”

  “No. I’m sorry.”

  She heard the hesitation in his voice, and said, “Can’t your son wait?”

  He shook his head. “He’s involved with this.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Lucy said.

  She buttoned his shirt back up, gave him another kiss. They walked into the living room, and Lucy opened the front door for him. The dog that had barked when he’d shot out her light was still barking. No one in the neighborhood seemed to give a damn. He didn’t like that, and said, “Maybe you should stay in a hotel tonight.”

  “Believe it or not, we have a neighborhood watch group,” she said.

  “Right,” he said.

  They both found it in them to laugh.

  “I’ve got friends I can stay with, if it will make you feel better,” she said.

  “Please. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  She kissed him again, and Valentine said good night.

  Pete Longo lifted his head off the steering wheel. He’d fallen sound asleep, and stared now at the luminous clock on his dashboard. Seven twenty-five. Rolling down his window, he sucked down the cool night air, then glanced upward at the blinking stars that were slowly filling the evening sky.

  Taking the infrared binoculars off his lap, he found the house he’d seen Valentine go into. Valentine’s car was still parked in the driveway, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t let him slip away. The front door opened, and a couple became silhouetted in the doorway.

  Longo stared at them. It was Valentine and an attractive-looking woman. The problem with infrared binoculars was that they didn’t allow you to actually see in the dark. They needed light to work, but Valentine and his lady friend were giving him plenty of that.

  He watched the woman kiss Valentine good night. She was real passionate about it. He tried to remember the way Kris used to kiss him. Had it been that good?

  He decided that it had.

  He’d had a lousy time of it since Valentine had broken his nose yesterday. He’d stuffed cotton up his nostrils, taken some aspirin, and figured he’d be okay. Only he hadn’t, and had woken up this morning with a splitting headache. He decided he needed a doctor and killed the day running around town, trying to find one willing to see him. The emergency rooms were all jammed with pregnant women and kids that had fallen off bikes, and it wasn’t until four that he’d found a two-year intern willing to shine a penlight up his nose.

  “Your septum is deviated,” the intern said.

  “Is that why I can’t breathe?” Longo asked.

  The intern had taped a butterfly bandage to the bridge of his nose, and nodded. “You need to get your nose fixed by a surgeon. Otherwise, you’ll be breathing through your mouth the rest of your life.”

  Valentine’s car was backing down the driveway. Longo reached down to start up his own car, and cursed. The keys weren’t in the ignition. He frantically ran his hand across the seat. Valentine’s car came down the street, and he lay sideways on the seat and watched the car’s headlights pass.

  Sitting up, he dropped his hands to the floor. According to Murphy’s Law, the keys would have fallen to the most inconvenient spot. Sure enough, he found them lodged beneath the accelerator and the floor mat.

  He jammed the keys in the ignition and fired up the engine. He was thinking about taking a shortcut to catch Valentine and did not see the fist come through his open window.

  It caught him flush on the jaw. Pools of black appeared before his eyes. His door was jerked open, and a pair of hands pulled him roughly from the car. He rolled out and landed on the macadam. A thing began to crawl out of his stomach. Dinner.

  “Aw shit, he’s puking,” a voice said. “You shouldn’t have punched him so hard.”

  “He deserves it, fucking Peeping Tom,” another voice said.

  “How can you be sure he’s the Peeping Tom?”

  “I just am.”

  “Look, here’s his binoculars,” a third voice said.

  Longo made himself get sick. It was keeping them from hitting him anymore, and that was a good thing. He cracked an eye and saw three pairs of sneakers standing around him. Neighborhood vigilantes, one of them carrying a baseball bat. He flipped his wallet out of his back pocket, let it hit the ground. It contained the last of his money, and it was the only way he could think of to save his ass.

  “Look, he’s trying to bribe us,” the first voice said.

  “Take the money and break his kneecaps,” the second declared.

  “Aren’t you the brave one,” the first said.

  Longo saw the third man pick up the wallet. Seeing Longo’s gold detective badge, he dropped it on the ground.

  “He’s a frigging cop,” the third man declared.

  They did what any smart law-abiding citizen would do and ran like hell. Longo heard the front doors of their houses slam shut.

  Soon the neighborhood grew peaceful, and the barking dog quieted down. He slowly got to his feet. His brain had been rattled; he was seeing two houses across the street where there was only one. The good news was, his jaw didn’t feel like it was broken.

  “Hooray,” he whispered.

  Longo climbed into the car. Turning the engine on, he hit the AC button and positioned the vents to blow in his face. It was an old trick he’d learned in college, the quickest way to cure a night of drinking.

  The cold air felt like invisible ice cubes rubbing on his skin. Sucking up his courage, he dropped the visor above the steering wheel and looked at his face in the lighted vanity mirror.

  “Jesus,” he groaned.

  He had raccoon eyes, a swollen jaw and the undercarriages of his eyes were ringed black. The bad part was, it would look worse in a few hours. A lot worse.

  He needed to find an ice pack and a soft bed. He was clutching his wallet in his left hand, and he opened it. They hadn’t touched his money, and he had enough for a cheap motel room. Making amends with Valentine would have to wait.

  Driving away, Longo noticed a sign: NEIGHBORHOOD WATCHDOG GROUP. He’d always thought neighborhood groups were idiotic. He didn’t feel that way anymore.

  32

  Gerry took a hot shower in his motel room. His conscience would not let him forget that he’d killed a man a few hours earlier, and a poundi
ng sensation filled his head.

  Coming out of the bathroom, he found Pash and Amin in his room, the door that joined their rooms wide open. His hair was still wet, and he flipped it off his forehead the way he used to as a kid. To another Italian, the gesture was as rude as fuck you.

  “I suppose you want to know what’s going on,” Amin said.

  Gerry nearly told them to leave. Only he wanted to hear Amin’s side of things. The room had twin beds. He sat on one while the brothers sat on the other.

  “I have a pretty good idea,” he said.

  “You do?”

  Gerry nodded. Amin had taken off his sweatshirt and was no longer packing a gun behind his belt buckle. Gerry said, “You figured out a way to take the money you were making at blackjack and quadruple it. You bought drugs.”

  “That’s right,” Amin said.

  Pash was looking at the carpet, wanting no part of the conversation. Reading his body language, Gerry guessed that the drugs were Amin’s idea. He felt bad for Pash.

  “What did you buy?”

  Amin seemed confused. “Mexican drugs,” he said.

  “Coke, smack, or meth?”

  “Smack?” Amin said.

  “Heroin.”

  “Cocaine,” Amin said. “We bought cocaine.”

  “How many pounds.”

  “Seventy-five.”

  “Uncut?”

  “It is pure, if that’s what you mean.”

  Back when Gerry had run his bar, he’d heard about a lot of drug deals, and he knew how much seventy-five pounds of coke would fetch on the street. A telephone number, as some of his patrons liked to say. He fell straight back on the bed and for a long moment stared at the cheap popcorn ceiling. Dead flies were embedded in the popcorn, and he imagined them trying to escape the room, flying suicide runs into the ceiling. He pulled himself up into a sitting position and looked at his partners. Pash was still showing him the top of his head, while Amin held his gaze.

  “A third of it is yours, once it’s sold,” Amin said.

  “Not interested,” Gerry said.

  “I will sell it in a few days, and give you your share,” Amin said. “Cold hard cash. If you want to leave then, you can.”