by James Swain
He was serenaded by Dwight Yoakam's nasal baritone while riding an elevator to the second floor where the surveillance control room was headquartered. It was three-fifteen. He'd called Benny Roselli from the car, told him he needed to talk. Benny had agreed, saying things were pretty slow.
“Howdy, pardner,” he said as Benny opened the surveillance control room's unmarked door.
“Up yours,” Benny replied.
Benny locked the door behind him. The room's light was muted, and Valentine waited for his eyes to adjust. Sitting at a row of desks were two dozen surveillance personnel. For eight hours a day, they stared at a wall of video monitors, the screens flickering with black-and-white images of the action taking place in the casino below.
Benny crossed the room and stepped onto a podium, which housed the room's master console. The console was a recent technological marvel and contained a giant screen divided into a matrix of multiple camera angles. Like a king sitting on his throne, Benny could simultaneously monitor his crew and watch the action downstairs.
There was no chair for Valentine to sit on, nor was one offered, so he leaned against the console.
“Believe it or not, I'm glad you called,” Benny said.
“Why's that?”
“Because we're getting ripped off, that's why.”
Benny touched a joystick on the console, and a white arrow shot across the screen. Then a picture appeared. It was a live shot of a blackjack table, six players, and a chatty dealer.
“The suspect is playing third base,” Benny said.
Third base was the last spot on the table. Surveillance cameras were not kind to hair pieces, and the suspect, a male in his early fifties, appeared to be wearing a skunk.
“I spotted him last week,” Benny said. “He won five grand, came back a day later, won five more. I'm positive he's hustling us.”
Valentine stared at the screen. Within a minute he'd made the scam, but he let several more pass before saying anything. Benny had lost his job as a New Jersey highway patrolman because he couldn't handle a radar gun. Benny knew he was stupid, but that didn't mean Valentine could rub his face in it.
“He's slipping the gitt,” Valentine said.
“Great,” Benny said. “Now tell me in fucking English.”
“The guy wearing the rug is palming a dozen prearranged cards. It's called a slug. He's using sleight of hand to slip the slug to the dealer when the dealer picks up the discards. Watch him.”
Benny stared intently at the screen. Then grimaced.
“So the dealer's involved?”
Valentine nodded. “Watch the dealer as he shuffles. He controls the slug during the shuffle, then marks its position in the deck by shuffling one card above it, and moving this card back a fraction of an inch. It's called an injog.”
“How's he do that?”
“Practice.”
“Up yours.”
They watched the dealer offer the cards to be cut. The guy wearing the rug cut at the injogged card, and brought the slug to the top. The dealer dealt the round.
“Look,” Valentine said, “The first, third, and sixth hands are blackjacks. All the others are losers.”
Benny's mouth dropped open. “You're telling me the dealer and three other players are involved?”
Valentine nodded. “The slug is stacked for three winners and three losers. This helps offset the money that's being stolen. Later, the dealer palms the slug out.”
“Let me ask you a question.”
“Go ahead.”
“What do you charge to be an expert witness?”
“A grand a day, plus expenses.”
Benny leaned back in his chair. In order to prosecute, he needed to give the DA enough evidence to make the charges stick. Since the scam was invisible to the cameras, an expert witness's testimony would be crucial to his case.
“How about a little barter,” he suggested.
“Such as?”
“Your testimony in return for whatever you want to ask me.”
“Deal,” Valentine said.
Benny picked up a house phone and called the floor. Twenty seconds later, a swarm of security in blue blazers descended upon the table. Cheating was a felony in New Jersey, and the gang did not go quietly. Before it was over, several chairs were broken, and a guard was sporting a welt on his lip that looked like a blood sausage.
“I changed my mind,” Valentine said as the hustlers were led away.
Benny shot him a murderous look. “That's not funny.”
“Sorry.”
“Your turn.”
“What is sin?” Valentine asked him.
Benny scratched his chin. “It's when people do things that in the eyes of God aren't right. Is that what you came up here to ask me?”
“I think the expression has another meaning.”
“Call the guys who run Jeopardy!,” Benny said. “Maybe they know.”
“You don't know what I'm talking about?”
“Sorry.”
Valentine lowered his voice. “Three, four weeks ago, you had a phone conversation with Doyle Flanagan. Doyle asked you ‘What is sin?' This ringing any bells?”
Benny's face got serious in a hurry.
“Is this about Doyle's murder?”
“It sure is.”
The director of surveillance stood up, grabbing his overcoat off the chair. “Not in here,” he told Valentine.
They took a stairwell down to the first floor and went outside to a loading dock. The sun had burned away the clouds but it didn't feel any warmer. Delivery trucks came and went; food, linens, cutlery, liquor, all the basics to feed the monster. Beneath the bright sunlight Benny looked older than his years, his gray hair luminous, the lines in his face deep and hard. He fired up a butt and stood on the edge of the dock, looking down at a crew unloading a beer truck.
“You like Florida?”
“Can't beat the weather.”
Benny made Valentine hold up his hand and compared his own against it. His skin was zombie-white, Valentine's tan and healthy.
“My wife wants to buy a condo in St. Pete. That's near you, isn't it?”
“Twenty minutes. Why don't you?”
“Because it costs money.” Inhaling deeply on his cigarette, Benny struck a defiant pose, like the world owed him something. He was lucky he'd gotten as far as he had, but didn't see it that way.
“Why were you talking to Doyle?” Valentine asked.
“That's a good question.” Benny glanced nervously at two deliverymen who'd walked up, then lowered his voice. “I know you and Doyle were buddies. Doyle and I weren't tight, but I owed him a huge favor, something I won't get into. Anyway, Doyle calls about a month ago, tells me he needs help. I say sure.
“He wanted to know if the Wild Wild West had been ripped off by a European at blackjack. I said, yeah, we had, and I told him the dates and so on. We lost fifty grand to that bastard and I lost my bonus and got reamed out. Doyle asked if any other casinos had gotten ripped off, and I said, ‘Where you been, boy? Of course no one else got ripped off.' He didn't understand until I explained to him that every casino in Atlantic City is connected to a warning system to stop cheats. You familiar with this?”
“No.”
“It started about a year ago.”
“Must have been after I retired,” Valentine said.
“Right,” Benny said. “Time marches on, huh?”
“It sure does.”
“Anyway, all the casinos are connected by the Internet. If a casino thinks its been cheated, it spreads the word about the suspect or situation at lightning speed, before the suspect can rip off another casino. The computers let us send pictures of suspects taken directly off the surveillance cameras, plus descriptions of what went down. It's called S.I.N.”
“Sin?” Valentine said.
“No, no, that's what people on the outside call it. Casino people call it S.I.N., stands for Secure Internal Network.”
“And Doyle di
dn't know about S.I.N.”
“Not until I told him,” Benny said. “When Doyle said, ‘What is sin?' it told me he really didn't know what I was talking about.”
Benny tossed his dying cigarette over the loading dock, nearly beaning a worker below. He took out a fresh pack of Marlboros and fired one up. “Want one?”
Valentine started to reach for the pack, his lungs begging for another rush of nicotine. Then found the willpower to stop himself. “No thanks. Is The Bombay part of S.I.N.?”
“It sure is.”
“So they let the European play on purpose.”
“Someone over there did,” Benny replied.
“You're positive about this.”
“Tony, look, I sent up a red flag. I even made the fucking van.”
“What van?”
“The van the European was driving,” Benny said. “I caught it on a surveillance camera that watches our parking lot. It was a real piece of junk. I sent that picture out along with pictures of him.”
Valentine found himself wishing he'd taken Benny up on his offer of a cigarette. Benny glanced at his watch.
“Gotta get back to the salt mines. Been nice catching up.”
They went back inside. Standing in the stairwell, Valentine took out a business card and handed it to him. Benny stared at the card, then him, not understanding.
“You want me to be an expert witness, right?”
“What if you're back in Florida?”
“Then I'll fly up.”
“Whose nickel?”
“Mine.”
“That's awful nice of you,” Benny said, pocketing the card.
“I gave you my word,” Valentine said, “didn't I?”
He drove away from the Wild Wild West trying to sort out everything Benny had told him. The Bombay had known about Juraj, yet still let him play. He could pass that off to a lot of things, but the one that seemed most logical was revenge. Archie Tanner's employees were mad at him, and letting a known cheat play was a great way to screw the boss. But that didn't explain the missing money. Doyle had said six million bucks had been stolen, and Porter had confirmed it. If the Croatians had only stolen a million, where was the rest?
There were a lot of possibilities. Archie was one. Casino owners skimmed money off the top all the time. Another was that someone else had stolen it. And the third was, he just didn't know.
A fire truck came down the street, its siren wailing. An ambulance accompanied it, then a screaming police cruiser. All three vehicles were headed south on Atlantic Avenue, toward motel row. Punching the accelerator, he followed them.
29
Epiphany
The Mollo brothers had set Gerry's BMW on fire.
His knucklehead son had not bothered to move his car off Atlantic Avenue like his father had told him. So the Mollos had stuck a gas-soaked rag in the tank and lit a match. A fire truck was hosing the BMW down when Valentine got to the scene, the air thick with black smoke.
“No, I didn't actually see them,” his son was telling the uniform writing up the report. “We were inside, watching TV.”
“Did anyone see them?” the uniform wanted to know.
Gerry glanced at the Blue Dolphin's manager, who stood nearby, shivering without his coat. The manager looked at the ground, then off in the distance.
“No,” his son said.
“I can't help you, then,” the cop said. “Your insurance should cover this, if that's any consolation.”
“I don't have insurance,” Gerry replied.
Back inside their motel room, it was all Valentine could do to not strangle his son. Gerry was a gambler—horses, sports, cards—but when it came to intelligent gambling, like having insurance, he was out to lunch.
“They're gonna kill us,” Gerry said, sitting on the bed. He looked up at his father. “Aren't they?”
Yolanda sat beside him, stroking his hair. “No, they're not.”
Valentine sat on the bed and put his hand on Gerry's knee. “How would you two kids like to take a trip? Go away for a while, until this thing blows over?”
His son and fiancée looked up at him expectantly.
“You're serious?” his son said.
Valentine nodded. Yolanda squealed with delight and hugged his son. Gerry was not so sure, and kept looking at his father.
“On me,” Valentine reassured him.
Outside, the last of the emergency vehicles peeled away, leaving an eerie silence. For a brief moment no one spoke.
“I hear Mexico's great this time of year,” his son said.
“I had someplace else in mind,” Valentine said.
“Where's that?”
“Croatia.”
If there was one thing that impressed Valentine about living in the modern world, it was what you could do over the telephone with a credit card. Just about any service could be arranged, any item bought, any mountain moved.
In less than ten minutes he'd reserved two business class tickets to Zagreb, Croatia, on TWA. Why this made him giddy, he had no earthly idea, and he went outside to share his good news. His son and Yolanda were standing by the covered pool, kissing. She was the greatest girl in the world, he'd decided.
“Here's the deal,” he said when they came up for air. “Your flight's at eleven tonight out of Newark with a stopover in Paris. TWA has a special lounge for business class, so you can hang out there until the flight leaves, have a drink, or something to eat.”
“You really want us to go to Croatia?” his son said.
“Just for a few days. I need you to check something out. Then you can go wherever you want: Italy, Spain—you name it.” Valentine slapped his hand against his forehead. “For the love of Christ. It just occurred to me, you're both going to need passports to get out of the country.”
“Got 'em,” his son replied.
Valentine lifted an eyebrow.
“If you didn't help us out, Yolanda and I were planning to go to Mexico.”
“Haven't I always helped you out?”
His son hemmed and hawed. “Yeah, I guess so.”
And then Gerry surprised him. He put his arms around his father and hugged him like a son hugs his old man. Valentine hugged him back, his eyes tightly shut. His relationship with Gerry had been like a record stuck on skip for twenty years. Now, finally, the music was starting to play through.
“So what do you want us to do in Croatia?”
Digging into his pocket, Valentine removed the crumbled Western Union receipt he'd palmed out of Anna's backpack in front of her nose, and handed it to him.
“You'll be flying into a town called Zagreb. I want you to look up the name on that receipt without drawing attention to yourself. Find out who that person is. I have a feeling it's a local crime boss, so be careful.”
“So what do you want me to do once I find this guy?”
“Call me.”
“That's it?”
“That's it.”
“You gonna leave your cell phone on?”
“Yeah, I'll leave it on.”
To his fiancée, Gerry said, “My father just stepped out of a cave, and you were there to see it happen.”
“Wise ass,” Valentine said.
Valentine drove them to Newark Airport. He pulled into short-term parking and they got out and exchanged good-byes. Digging into the pocket of her jeans, Yolanda removed a silver coin and handed it to him. Valentine stared at the piece of Funny Money in his hand. “You want me to play this for you?”
“Please.”
“Any particular machine?”
She thought about it, then shook her head. “You decide.”
That wasn't going to be easy. The last time he'd walked through The Bombay's casino, he'd needed instructions to find his way around. “And if I win the Suburban?”
“I'll let you drive it on Sundays,” she said.
God, he liked this girl. Extracting his ATM card from his wallet, he handed it to her and said, “The PIN number is 4273. The
account has twenty grand in it. Take what you need.”
“Number 4273,” she repeated, putting the card in her purse. Then said, “What are you going to do for money?”
He showed her the wad of cash in his wallet. Gerry, who'd been standing idly by her side, could not hide his indignation.
“Why did you give the card to her?”
“Come on,” Valentine said. “You think I was born yesterday?”
The drive back to Atlantic City was long and boring, and he glued his eyes to the endless stretch of highway. Each year, thirty-seven million visitors made similar journeys, hoping to have a little fun, maybe catch a dream. Personally, he didn't see the attraction, but his perspective was different. He could remember when the Jersey shore hadn't needed the lure of false promises to pay its bills. He caught himself yawning and got off at the next exit.
Circle K had the best coffee for the money; ask any retired person. Paying with the change in his pocket, he got back into the car. Soon the coffee was gone and he was wide awake.
He took out his cell phone. He hadn't talked to Mabel all day. He started to punch in the numbers, then realized his phone wasn't turned on. Gerry was right about one thing. He did not embrace all the technological crap being shoved down people's throats. With the Internet came a flood of porn. With cell phones, more traffic wrecks. And laptop computers were great. Now, no one talked on airplanes. He turned the phone on, and a few moments later it began to ring. He had a feeling it was his son, and answered it.
“I changed my mind,” Yolanda said.
“Which machine?”
“The one near the front entrance. That's where my sister won the car. Play that machine.”
Valentine tried to envision where that particular machine was. And couldn't. He found himself remembering back two days ago, when he'd been standing in The Bombay with Porter directing him through his baseball cap.
“Give me a landmark,” he said.
“There are only twelve Funny Money machines,” Yolanda said. “It's by the front entrance. You can't miss it.”