Gift sense tv-1

by James Swain

  The Yankees tied it up in the ninth and sent the game into extra innings. In the eleventh, Boggs hit a solo shot into the bleachers, and the Devil Rays chalked up another win. Gerry would be going insane right about now. Going into the bedroom, he dialed Mabel's number.

  "He's gone," his neighbor informed him. "Left on the twelve-o'clock flight. Said he had some business to take care of. He's a wonderful young man, Tony. I can't see why you dislike him so."

  "Someday over a milkshake I'll give you my side of it," Valentine replied, sinking into the bed's soft mattress. In the ceiling mirror he watched himself wiggle around, then said, "You're not going to believe this Mabel, but there's a mirror above my bed."

  "That must be nice, lying there watching yourself shave."

  "Touche," he said. "I appreciate your taking care of him."

  "My pleasure. You know, he eats like you."

  "With his hands?"

  "No! The way he addresses his food. Mealtime was obviously serious business in your house. Are you having a good time out there?"

  "It could be worse."

  "You sound miserable. Are they paying you?"

  "Like a king," he said.

  "Well, then stop complaining."

  "Who's complaining?"

  "You were about to start. I looked at the weather report in the paper. It said it hit a hundred and twelve in Las Vegas yesterday."

  "It's dry heat. You remember to feed the bird?"

  "Feed the-" Mabel's voice got caught on the words. Hesitation, then, "You don't own a bird!"

  "No, but I had you going. Hey, I got your message. Did you come up with a new ad to replace the last one?"

  "I sure did," Mabel said. "I faxed it to your hotel an hour ago."

  "You did?" Valentine glanced at the phone to see if the message light was blinking. Sitting up, he said, "The front desk hasn't called. Look, let me hang up and check. If it didn't come in, I'll call you back, and you can fax it again."

  "Gerry helped me," she informed him.

  He put the receiver back to his ear. As far as he knew, his son hadn't helped anyone in years. "Come again?"

  "He came up with the concept. He's a very clever young man. I think it's my best yet."

  "Better than the 'tattooed man seeks tattooed lady' ad you ran in the religious section of the paper?"

  "It's light-years ahead of that."

  This he had to see. Saying good-bye, Valentine slipped on his loafers while trying to picture Gerry writing an ad. Maybe Mabel was the dose of reality his son needed. She had certainly done him a world of good.

  Going into the living room, Valentine was looking for his plastic room key when a man wearing a cowboy hat stepped out of the kitchen and pointed a.380 Magnum in his face. He was tall and rangy, with yellow hair past his collar and ice-cold eyes.

  "On your knees," the cowboy said.

  Valentine sank to the floor. The icy tiles sent an unpleasant sensation up his legs. He watched the cowboy reach into his breast pocket.

  "Look familiar?"

  In his hand was Valentine's honeymoon snapshot.

  "Yeah," Valentine said.

  Holding a corner of the photo between his teeth, the cowboy ripped the snapshot in half, then in quarters. Valentine watched the pieces float to the floor, remembering that day on the Steel Pier as if it were yesterday.

  "I've got a message from Frank Fontaine," the cowboy said.

  "I'm all ears," Valentine said.

  The cowboy flashed a lopsided grin. "Fontaine wants you to know that he's got a flag in every state. You know what that means, old man?"

  Valentine nodded. It meant that Fontaine had gangsters he could call in every city in the country who'd do a job for him, no questions asked. He watched the cowboy reach into his pocket again.

  "Look familiar?"

  This time, he was holding Valentine's address book.

  "Yeah," Valentine said.

  "Leave town by tomorrow," the cowboy said. "Or Frank will make a call, and someone you love will get hurt. Get it?"

  "Got it," Valentine said.

  The cowboy made him go into the bathroom and shut the door. The bathroom phone had been ripped out of the wall. Valentine dropped his pants and checked his Jockeys. Still dry.

  "Stay in there a while," the cowboy said.

  "You got it," Valentine replied.

  He pulled his pants back on and sat on the toilet. Having nothing better to do, he mulled over Fontaine's threat. Why hadn't Fontaine just whacked him? The only answer he could come up with was because Fontaine didn't want that kind of heat.

  Which could only mean one thing: Fontaine planned to rip off the Acropolis one more time.

  Five minutes later, Valentine emerged from the bathroom. His honeymoon snapshot was still on the floor. Retrieving it, he slipped the pieces into his breast pocket. Two pieces of Scotch tape and it would be as good as new.

  He cased the suite, just to be sure the cowboy was gone. Then he sat down on the bed and came to a decision.

  He wasn't going to run. If he did, he might as well quit the consulting racket and learn to play shuffleboard or bingo or whatever it was retired people did in Florida. He couldn't be in Fontaine's back pocket and be any good at what he did.

  No, he was going to stay and track Fontaine down. Most of his friends, he was not worried about; many were cops and could take care of themselves. Two people who weren't cops-Mabel and Gerry-he was sure he could keep out of harm's way until Fontaine was in the arms of the law. There could be only one reason why Fontaine was threatening him-because he was scared. Not just of getting caught, but of losing. His pride was at stake, and his reputation.

  And so was Valentine's.

  17

  Roxanne was busier than a one-armed paperhanger, the line of guests waiting to check in twenty deep. Valentine had forgotten that Tuesday night was the Holyfield title fight, and he grabbed a table in Nick's Place and waited for her to go on break.

  His heart was still pounding from having a gun shoved in his face. There was no worse experience, unless the gun happened to go off. Roxanne appeared and joined him at the table.

  "I heard you did a Chuck Norris out at the airport," she said when their drinks came. She sipped her Chardonnay and made a face. "I didn't peg you as a martial arts expert."

  "I spent nearly twenty years working inside casinos," he said, sipping his tap water. "Guns don't work with that many people around."

  "Is that why you took it up?"

  "Yes."

  "Let me guess: You're really the quiet type."

  Valentine smiled. His heart had finally stopped racing and he felt himself starting to relax.

  "That's me. You want something else to drink?"

  "That's okay."

  Roxanne gave him a dreamy, faraway look. She looked older than the other day, the wrinkles showing through when she was tired, and for some reason it made him like her even more, the chasm between them not as big as he'd first thought.

  "How long you've been working for Bill?" he asked.

  "About a year. Bill told me you figured it out."

  "Does anyone else know?"

  "No. Unless you decide to tell Nick."

  "I wasn't planning on it."

  She laid her hand on top of his and flashed a weary smile. Her cigarette had died without her taking two puffs. "Does it bother you that I like you as much as I do?"

  "I'm getting used to it," he admitted.

  "Any other women in your life?"

  "Just Mabel. She's my neighbor back in Florida."

  "The same Mabel who sent you the funny fax?"

  "That's her. Speaking of which, did you happen to see a fax for me in the past hour or so?"

  "God, Tony, I've been so busy, the casino could have caught on fire and I probably wouldn't have noticed."

  "Holyfield really draws the crowds, huh?"

  "It's like Fourth of July and New Year's rolled into one."

  Valentine motioned to the waitress
for another round.

  "So," Roxanne said, "are you serious about Mabel?"

  Serious about Mabel? He'd never looked at their friendship in that light. With a smile he said, "It's not that kind of relationship."

  "Oh." She twirled the rim of her wineglass with her manicured fingernail. "What kind of relationship is it?"

  "We tread water together."

  "No other girlfriends?"

  "No."

  Their drinks came. The waitress said, "This one's on the house," and nodded at the bar. Valentine caught the eye of his favorite bartender and lifted his glass to him.

  "You know," Roxanne said, "I'm older than you think I am."

  Valentine almost said "I know" and wisely stopped himself. "How old are you, twenty-eight?"

  "Very funny. How old are you?"

  "I'm sixty-two," he confessed.

  She didn't blink. "I'm thirty-eight."

  Sixty-two plus thirty-eight was one hundred-divided by two was fifty, the prime of life. He could live with that.

  "So what's holding you back from dating," she said. "Your health?"

  "Everything worked the last time I checked."

  She cracked a smile. "Then what?"

  "You ever been married?"

  "Stop avoiding the question."

  "I'm not. Have you ever taken the plunge?"

  "Yeah. It lasted a couple of years."

  "Mine lasted thirty-five. My wife died in November. Part of me is still married to her. Letting go isn't easy."

  "Ever thought about seeing a therapist?" she said quietly.

  "It hasn't been a problem until now," he admitted.

  There were a stack of faxes in the tray when Roxanne checked a few minutes later. Mabel's latest parody was on the bottom of the pile, and Roxanne brought it to the front desk and handed it to him.

  "I need another favor," Valentine said. "Can you make it look like I've checked out of the hotel?"

  "Sure," she said. "You feuding with your son again?"

  "No, no, just trying to send up a smoke screen."

  "Consider it done."

  "Thanks a lot."

  "I'm off tomorrow," she said as he started to walk away.

  Valentine came back to the desk. "Any plans?"

  She shrugged. "Sleep in, watch the soaps. Maybe rent a movie. I've been wanting to see The Full Monty."

  The Full Monty? Did she really want to watch a bunch of pasty-skinned Limeys get naked? Women had sure changed since he'd last checked in. It was his turn to say something, but he was not sure what. Should he ask her to grab a cheeseburger, go see a movie, get an ice cream cone? None of those activities sounded with it anymore.

  "Can I call you?" he asked timidly.

  "Sure." She jotted her number on a blank receipt. "I know a great little vegetarian burger place on the south side of town."

  Vegetarian burger? Wasn't that an oxymoron? And who'd said anything about dinner? A phone call was all he was promising-only, she was beaming like a lantern and he was not about to shut her off.

  "Sounds great," he said.

  There was a mob at the elevators. Valentine got behind two African-American couples wearing EVANDER HOLYFIELD-PEOPLE'S CHAMPION T-shirts who seemed to be part of a tour group. They chatted excitedly, their voices filled with the kind of electricity that only a heavyweight contest can produce. Unfolding Mabel's fax, his eyes quickly skimmed the page. She'd gone back to what she did best, parodying the classifieds. Attention, internet sex junkies. Tired of the same old porn? Young naked girls in voyeur dorms no longer turn you on? Pamela Lee starting to look like someone's old coat? Grandma Mabel has got just the solution. That's right, naked pictures of old ladies. Don't laugh-they turned your old man on! Send $5.00 to P.O. Box 1005, Palm Harbor, Florida, 34682.

  "Mabel, Mabel, Mabel," he was saying into the phone a minute later, staring at himself in the mirror over the bed. "This has nothing to do with Gerry and me. You can't run this ad."

  "Of course I can," she insisted.

  "I'm not saying it isn't funny," he said. "It's very funny, and it will probably make a lot of people laugh."

  "So what's your gripe?" she snapped irritably. When he didn't call back right away, she had gone outside to feed the birds and now answered the phone breathless and out of sorts. "Afraid your little boy is starting to usurp you?"

  Valentine stared at the receiver clutched in his hand. Suddenly Roxanne's question about the nature of their relationship was taking on new meaning. "Are you angry at me?" he asked.

  "Yes."

  "A thousand apologies," he said from his heart.

  "Thank you. Now, what's wrong with my little parody?"

  "You're breaking the law, that's all."

  She let out a gasp. "Are you going to explain," she said after a lengthy pause, "or is this your version of Chinese water torture?"

  "You put your real P.O. box in the ad. The post office will have a problem with that. They'll probably fine you."

  "I can live with that."

  "If some idiot sends you a check, then it's mail fraud, which is a felony. You don't have a previous record, so they'd probably go easy on you. Six months' probation and a few hundred hours' community work down at the library. And you'll get your picture in the paper-or should I say your mug shot."

  "You're serious about this," she said.

  "Dead serious. You can commit a crime without having intent to commit a crime. You understand what I'm saying? The law doesn't cut you much slack in that regard. I tried to explain this to Gerry a few years ago when he was running a mail-order business out of his basement. He didn't listen."

  "What was he selling?"

  "Edible condoms. He called it A Taste of Paris. He shipped a few boxes to some state like Utah where everything is illegal and he got nailed. I had to bail him out of jail."

  "Oh, Tony, I hope I can get this ad out of the paper."

  Valentine sat up on the bed. "You already faxed it in?"

  "This afternoon. They have a twenty-four-hour line."

  "Call them and cancel. Better yet, drive down and cancel it. Mabel, you've got to kill this thing."

  "All right, all right. I'll do it."

  She sounded hurt and defeated. Leave it to Gerry to screw up the one thing that made her happy. How long had it taken him, two whole days? That had to be a record, even for his son.

  "I've got some more bad news for you," Valentine said.

  "What?"

  "You need to get out of town for a couple of days."

  "Why on earth…?"

  "A guy in Vegas is threatening to kill one of my friends."

  "How does he know I'm your friend?"

  "He's got my address book."

  "Oh, Tony…"

  "I'm sorry, Mabel. Look, there's a Carnival Cruise sailing out of Tampa every day. Go to Mexico for a week. My treat."

  "Sure," she said, "if I'm not in jail."

  Valentine felt his neck burn.

  "Good-bye, Tony."

  Valentine stared at the dead receiver in his hand. Then he dialed his son's apartment in New York. The answering machine picked up. After the beep, he said, "Gerry, it's Pop. Listen up. Some thugs got ahold of my address book and may come looking for you. You'd better lay low for a while. I know this is a real pain in the ass, but these guys are serious. I hear Bermuda is nice this time of year. And Gerry, this is on me."

  He started to hang up, then thought better of it and said, "You take care of yourself, kid."

  The words sounded wooden. He and Gerry had been in so many wars over the years it was hard to be civil. He dropped the receiver into its cradle, wondering who was the bigger jerk, him or his son.

  18

  Wearing a floppy I LOVE LAS VEGAS hat and a pair of Terminator shades, Felix Underman crawled across the broiling desert in a rented Dodge Intrepid. Doing the speed limit was annoying, especially on a quiet Sunday afternoon, but he didn't want to risk getting pulled over.

  Soon he crossed the county line.
A garish billboard welcomed him to Armagosa Valley, soon-to-be-home of a U.S. Army MX missile site. Underman smiled at the ingenuity of the local boosters. This was Nye County, birthplace of bordello-style prostitution in Nevada, its founder the legendary Bugsy Siegel. The only business here was whoredom, and building an army base would insure huge profits for years to come.

  A green exit sign shimmered in the distance. Seeing empty road in his mirror, Underman flicked on his indicator.

  Soon he was on a two-lane service road. Signage was sparse. A man had to know where he was going out here. Turning down a rural road, he glanced in his mirror. If there was anything he had learned over the years, it was that you could never be too careful.

  Five minutes later, the Pleasuredome appeared in front of him. The original building had been razed in 1984 during the Nye County brothel wars, and in its place stood a two-story Victorian with sloped roofs and minarets, the windows stained glass. As whorehouses went, it had an ounce of class. He pulled up, popped open his door, and stepped onto the baking macadam. Desert heat was different from city heat, and sweat poured down his face as he hiked the short distance to the entrance.

  A sleepy-eyed bouncer held the door for him. The interior was dark and cool, and Underman sat on a red leather couch and looked for a hostess. The parlor had been designed with a Roaring '20s theme and had red carpet, red velvet drapes, and a white baby grand on a raised stage with a sparkling Tiffany chandelier hanging above it. The pianist, a chalky-complexioned woman in her fifties, sang Cole Porter. He didn't look important, so they weren't hurrying. He twiddled his thumbs, waiting.

  The truth be known, Underman was against prostitution, especially the way it was practiced in Nevada. Legally, the whole issue was a disaster. There was not a general law specifically allowing prostitution, nor was there one prohibiting it. Since 1949, brothels had existed in nearly all of the state's seventeen counties. Only Clark County, which comprised all of Las Vegas, specifically prohibited it. Everywhere else the law was vague.

  But that wasn't the only issue. There was the problem in how the women were treated. Their regimen was extreme: one week off, three weeks on. Being on meant on call twenty-four hours a day, just an intercom away from crawling out of bed and standing in a lineup before a potential customer. Conditions were harsh, alcohol and drug abuse rampant. The women came from all walks of life-rich, poor, middle class, and all ethnic backgrounds-but one thing was always the same. They lasted a year or two, then left damaged beyond repair, their self-esteem destroyed.