by James Swain
It was the theme of Mayor Oscar Goodman’s speech during a news conference that afternoon. Standing before a room packed with reporters, he had called Las Vegas the luckiest city on earth, and praised the military, police and firemen who’d responded to the emergency so quickly. Then, he’d taken off his glasses, and thanked a retired cop named Tony Valentine.
“I’ve been told that this man has single-handedly saved the city’s casinos millions of dollars over the years from cheaters and thieves,” the mayor said. “And now, he’s saved the city itself. How do we thank him? I don’t honestly know. Maybe we should all go out and place a bet in his name.”
Valentine had listened to the mayor’s speech in Gerry’s hospital room at University Medical Center, and had wanted to throw something at the television. Placing a bet in his name was the last thing he wanted people to do. Gerry, who had just woken up, stared at the TV and started laughing.
“Maybe they’ll name a street after you,” he said. “Or a slot machine.”
“Very funny,” Valentine replied.
A pair of stern-faced uniformed cops stood outside the door. Once Gerry was feeling better, they were going to formally arrest him. He was tied to everything Amin had done in the past week, and was facing multiple criminal charges that could put him in prison for the next thirty years of his life.
In desperation, Valentine had called everyone he knew in Las Vegas. So far, only one person had offered to help him.
“You talk to Mabel?” Gerry asked expectantly.
“Ten minutes ago,” he said.
“Any news?”
“Yolanda’s still in labor. It’s going to be a girl.”
“How does she know?”
“Yolanda had a dream with red apples in it.”
They sat in silence for a while and stared out the window at the beautiful afternoon. It was not hard to imagine what might have been, and more than once, Valentine saw his son wipe a tear away from his eye.
“I always wanted a girl,” he said quietly.
51
Nick did not believe in wasting time. He had his lost treasure appraised that afternoon, showed the appraisal to his bank, and was granted a line of credit that allowed him to open the Acropolis that night. Then he called Chance Newman and demanded a meeting with him, Shelly Michael, and Rags Richardson for the next day.
“Your office, ten sharp,” Nick said. “No lawyers.”
“Why should I meet with you?” Chance replied.
“I’ve got something that belongs to you,” Nick said.
Nick appeared in Chance’s office the next morning with Wanda draped on his arm. He wore basic hoodlum attire: black slacks and shirt, silver necktie, and a black sports jacket with silver buttons. Wanda wore a Nancy Sinatra–vintage pink jumpsuit. As she was introduced, Chance, Shelly, and Rags rose from their chairs. Each wore a pin-striped suit and carried a sullen expression on his face.
“My pleasure,” she purred.
The men returned to their chairs. Nick reached into his pocket and removed the Deadlock cheating device Valentine had given him over breakfast that morning. It hit Chance’s desk with a loud thud.
“Being our casinos are next door to each other, it’s not surprising that I sometimes get deliveries for you,” Nick said. “I got that little baby in a package from Japan. I believe it’s called Deadlock.”
The three casino executives looked stricken. Each had gone through a rigorous examination when applying for his casino license. No criminal activity of any kind was allowed. Owning a sophisticated cheating device could get their licenses taken away.
“Now, I suppose you could argue that you purchased Deadlock in order to educate your surveillance techs,” Nick went on. “Only there’s this little problem called Frank Fontaine. The FBI picked him up this morning and threw him back in jail. If I tell the FBI about Deadlock, and they ask Fontaine what he knows, well, you boys could be royally screwed.”
“Nick!” Wanda said disapprovingly.
“Sorry, baby.”
“I should hope so,” she said.
Nick smiled at his bride. He’d promised Wanda to stop swearing. Wanda believed the baby could hear him, and would develop bad habits.
Shelly Michael cleared his throat. “Let me guess. You want to make a deal.”
Nick’s smile grew. “Let’s call it a business arrangement.”
Rags shook his head. To his partners, he said, “I’d rather take my chances in court than get fucked by this clown.”
Nick wanted to belt him. Hadn’t Rags seen how sensitive Wanda was to vulgarity? He decided to hit him where it hurt, and said, “What’s the name of your company? BE BOP SHABAM Records?”
“That’s right,” Rags said.
“Or is it BE BOP SCAM Records?”
Rags glared menacingly at him. “What did you say?”
“You heard me,” Nick said, puffing out his chest. “You got this great thing going, don’t you? You take these ghetto rappers, release their CDs to other ghetto kids, and they go gold in two weeks. You go to the chains, show them the sales figures, and they order a million copies for their stores. That’s the game, isn’t it?”
Rags said, “Yeah, so what’s your point?”
“The point is, those kids aren’t buying music CDs. They’re buying Hershey bars with altered bar codes. The sales numbers are faked. You’re a fake. You want to take me to court? Do you?”
Rags shrank in his chair, his bluster gone. “No.”
“I didn’t think so. Maybe while I’m at it, I’ll tell everybody how Chance bankrupted his software company in Silicon Valley, and how Shelly’s law firm struck a secret deal with the feds so none of the partners had to go to jail.”
Shelly and Chance both closed their eyes.
“You boys think I lasted thirty-nine years in this town by being a dummy?” Nick said, his voice rising. “I know everything about everybody. So we can deal, or we can fight. It’s up to you.”
Chance opened his eyes. “What do you want?”
Nick held up two fingers. “Two things,” he said.
“Name them.”
Nick clicked his fingers, and Wanda removed a rolled sheet of paper from her handbag with the aplomb of a game show hostess. Nick unfurled the paper. It was a crude rendering of a pedestrian walkway connecting the Acropolis to the three men’s casinos. The sketch included stick people and a smiling sun. Wanda had even signed it.
“In the spirit of cooperation, and the betterment of mankind, I propose that our casinos be linked,” Nick said. “It will be good for everyone’s business.”
Chance groaned as if confronting his worst nightmare.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Nick said.
“Are you going to get rid of those awful statues?”
“They’re being demolished as we speak,” Nick replied. “I’m replacing them with ones of Wanda.”
Shelly Michael stared at the sketch. “What else do you want?”
Nick went to the window. During breakfast, he’d asked Valentine how he could thank him for saving the city. Tony had only wanted one thing.
“A favor for a friend,” he said.
In the glass, Nick saw the three men exchange looks.
Shelly said, “You going to explain?”
Nick had greased plenty of palms over the years, but he still didn’t have the juice to accomplish what Tony had asked him for. That was going to take help. He tapped his fingers on the glass, then turned to look at the three men.
“It’s a little sticky,” he said.
52
Lois Marie Valentine was a tiny thing, just under six pounds, but she had a voice like the fat lady in the opera, and Yolanda’s doctor said she was perfectly healthy. Gerry could not stop holding her, his wife lying in bed, looking like a truck had run over her, the labor lasting thirty hours.
“I’ll never do natural again,” she’d declared.
Valentine sat in a chair beside Yolanda’s bed, staring at his grand
daughter. Other people’s babies looked like larvae, never your own. Two days had passed since he’d shot Amin, and it was nice to finally be home. He pushed himself out of the chair.
“I’m getting coffee,” he said. “Either of you want anything?”
“No thanks,” Gerry and Yolanda said.
He left, and Gerry put his daughter on the bed so they could both look at her. In her tiny face, he saw traces of his mother, and it made him feel things in his heart he’d never felt before. Yolanda touched his arm.
“Gerry, what’s going to happen?”
“Nothing,” he said, stroking his daughter’s hair.
“But Mabel said you were in trouble. That you might end up going to jail for helping the terrorists win money at the casinos, and for buying explosives. She said the district attorney wanted to throw the book at you.”
“He changed his mind.”
“He did?”
“Yeah. I’m free,” he said quietly.
“You are? Really?”
He met her gaze, hearing the mistrust. He was going to have to win that back, however long it took.
“Really,” he said.
“How did you manage that?”
His daughter let out a scream that lifted the hair on his head. Yolanda lifted her off the sheets, and she instantly went quiet.
“My dad got these three casino bosses to fix it with the DA’s office,” he said. “The charges were thrown out this morning. The judge wasn’t too happy about it.”
“What did he say?”
“He gave me a real tongue-lashing. Told me never to step foot in the state of Nevada again. We went straight from the courthouse to the airport. I think my father was afraid the judge was going to change his mind.”
Yolanda took his hand and squeezed it. “Oh, my God, that is so wonderful.”
“Tell me about it.”
“What about your job? Is your father going to let you stay in the business?”
Gerry looked at the floor. It was tile, and he saw his reflection in it. If the guy looking back at him wasn’t the luckiest guy on the planet, he didn’t know who was.
“He’s going to give me another chance,” he said.
Valentine stood outside the hospital’s rear entranceway, smoking a cigarette. He had picked up a pack two days ago and been puffing away ever since. Mabel came out and stood beside him.
“Sorry to be a party pooper, but that’s bad for your health.”
He raised the cigarette to his lips and inhaled deeply.
“A crew from a local TV station is in the reception area,” she said. “They found out you were in town. They’re very persistent.”
He took another deep drag on his cigarette. His name had gotten splashed across every newspaper and TV news show in the country, and now everyone thought they owned a piece of him.
“You’re going to have to talk to them eventually,” she said.
He watched the cigarette’s smoke curl around his head. He didn’t like the newspeople, and had decided he was going to avoid them for as long as he could. They threw around the word hero too easily. They thought he was one, only he wasn’t. Shooting a man in the back of the head with a high-powered rifle wasn’t what heroes did. Heroes broke down airplane doors and fought armed assassins with their bare hands; heroes were soldiers who went to war, and didn’t come home.
“What would you like me to tell them?” Mabel asked.
His cigarette was almost gone. He dropped it on the ground and crushed it out. He looked across the parking lot and saw there was a rear exit to the street. Great.
“Will I see you later?”
He nodded.
“I called the plastic surgeon who replaced your ear. You have an appointment next week for him to look at your face.”
He nodded again and dug his car keys from his pocket.
“I’ve got your favorite lasagna frozen. I’ll put it in the microwave, get some Cuban bread from the supermarket. Would you like a salad?”
It all sounded great, and he guessed it showed in his face. Mabel smiled, and as she turned to go back inside the hospital, he remembered something.
“Wait,” he said.
His neighbor turned around expectantly. Valentine removed the gold coin Nick had given him from his pocket. He’d bought an elegant eighteen-karat chain for it at an airport kiosk, and now he fitted it around her neck.
“It’s from a sunken treasure,” he explained.
Mabel held the coin up to her face. It was old and worn and absolutely exquisite. She saw Tony walk away, and called after him.
“Will you tell me the story behind this?”
Valentine found his ’92 Honda Accord in the parking lot, unlocked the door, then turned to face her. It had been the longest five days of his life, and he was ready to put them behind him. He would revisit the memories, but not for a very long time.
“Someday,” he said.
By James Swain
Grift Sense
Funny Money
Sucker Bet
Loaded Dice
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Ballantine Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 2004 by James Swain
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
www.ballantinebooks.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request from the publisher.
eISBN: 978-0-345-47836-8
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