Funny Money tv-2

by James Swain

  “Woman was a real character. Chain-smoking, drinking whiskey, calling the pit boss and the dealer ‘Honey' and ‘Sweetie.' Everyone loved her, until she started winning.”

  “How much did she win?”

  “After an hour, she had all the dealer's chips.”

  “How much was that?”

  “Around twenty grand.”

  “Was she cheating?”

  “Well, I thought she was.”

  “How come?”

  “It didn't pass the smell test. If she'd only played one hand, I would have said beginner's luck. But she played all seven. It felt like a hustle.”

  Kat giggled. “The smell test. I like that.”

  He touched his nose. “Still works pretty good.”

  “So what happened?”

  “The dealer gets more chips, and Justine goes back to work, bam, bam, bam, and just beats him silly. And then she innocently asks, ‘Can I bet more?'

  “She's already betting the table limit, so the pit boss asks the shift manager. The shift manager wants to win his money back, so he says sure. Then he turns to me and says, ‘You agree?' Well, I didn't agree. So I grabbed a drink girl—”

  “Cocktail waitress.”

  “—sorry, and I took a glass of water off her tray. I'd come up with a theory of what Justine was doing, and I decided to test it.”

  Their bodies had finally cooled down, and Kat covered them with a blanket. “Which was what?”

  “Blackjack is hard to play, especially if you're talking. And Justine was talking to everybody. I couldn't figure out how she was keeping track of all her cards. And then it hit me. She wasn't playing her hands.”

  “Who was?”

  “The wheelchair. There was a computer hidden in the motor. Justine was entering the cards on a keypad, then looking at a digital readout. So I went and spilled my water on her. The next thing you know, the wheelchair starts smoking.”

  “Is having a computer illegal?”

  “It sure is.”

  “Then why did you let her go?”

  “It was strange. I looked at her, and she looked at me. She was scared. I had a feeling it was the first time she'd ever broken the law. I said, ‘Learned your lesson?' And she nodded. So I looked away, and she ran out of the casino.”

  “Did you get in trouble?”

  “No. The computer melted, so all the evidence was destroyed. I later got grilled by my captain, but I got out of it.”

  “How?”

  “I told him I'd doused her with holy water.”

  Kat punched him in the arm. “You're horrible,” she said.

  35

  Tattoos

  Valentine did not want to start their relationship with a lie, so he asked Kat to get dressed, then told her everything that had taken place in the past twenty-four hours, including how the Mollo brothers had been turned into cinders the night before. Brushing out her hair, she said, “Well, I guess they got what was coming to them.”

  He sat on the bed buttoning his shirt. Nothing he'd said had fazed her, and he guessed the great sex had something to do with it. It had certainly bolstered his own spirits.

  The Saturn's engine was slow to turn over. Kat gunned the accelerator and the car rose from its slumber. “Normally, I don't bring guys I've just met to my house,” she said, “but with you I'll make an exception.”

  Valentine thought she was joking. Then he remembered that Kat had a twelve-year-old daughter she was raising by herself.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  She lived in a rented bungalow in Stargate, a sleepy burg five miles south of Atlantic City. The town was still reeling from the last recession, the hundreds of millions being skimmed off the casinos by the state not filling a single pothole or planting a much-needed tree. The promise of a better tomorrow had never been kept, and probably never would.

  Her house sat on a dreary street with tiny, fenced-in yards. She eased the Saturn up the concrete slab that served as her driveway and killed the engine.

  “It's not much, but I call it home.”

  Valentine touched her arm.

  “Let's get one thing straight,” he said.

  “What's that?”

  “You don't ever have to apologize about your life to me.”

  She leaned over and kissed him. It felt just as good as the first time, and it didn't wear off until they were standing on the porch and she let out a shriek.

  The front door had been kicked in and leaned precariously against the door jamb. Making her stand back, he drew his .38 and entered the house.

  The rooms were small but clean. He saw no pulled-out drawers, or upturned furniture, or anything that might suggest vandals. A strange odor lingered in the air, the smell reminding him of burnt marshmallows.

  Coming onto the porch, he said, “Looks okay,” and she ran past him and headed for the bedroom, emerging moments later with a strongbox in her arms. She dumped its contents onto a couch. Money, most of it twenties, poured out.

  Valentine helped her count it. Twelve hundred and forty bucks. He saw the anxiety vanish from her face.

  “It's all here,” she said.

  “How about your jewelry?”

  “I wear it,” she said, “but the TV's still here, and the VCR and my computer.” She started to stuff the twenties back into the strongbox. “I don't get it. Why didn't they take anything?”

  “Beats me. What the heck is that smell, anyway?”

  “I thought it was you.”

  “Me?”

  “You didn't light a cigarette?”

  Valentine shook his head. He had two cigarettes left and had decided that when they were gone, there would be no more. He cased the place again.

  Kat's house was filled with old-fashioned bric-a-brac, just like his place in Florida, and he went around sniffing pots of flowers and other things known to occasionally produce a bad odor. The smell was strongest in the kitchen, so he checked the various appliances capable of starting a fire.

  The stove was off, as was the coffee maker and toaster. Stymied, he rifled through the garbage can. Kat entered the room. “Why'd you turn off the radio?”

  “I didn't,” he said.

  The radio, a white retro Sony, sat on the counter beside a Betty Crocker recipe box. He pulled it away from the wall, and found a dime-size hole in one its speakers. Squinting, he saw where the bullet had gone through the wall and made a peephole onto the backyard.

  “I leave it on all the time,” she said, peering over his shoulder. “There's a jazz station I like.”

  “WQRX?”

  “That's the one.”

  “You dig Sinatra?”

  “Doesn't everybody?”

  Now he was truly in love. He put the radio back in its spot.

  “Okay, Mr. Detective,” she said. “Why would a burglar shoot my radio out?”

  A burglar wouldn't shoot your radio out, he thought. Burglars came through windows, or back doors, and if they didn't find something worth stealing, left their mark in some way—like stealing a beer from the fridge, or pissing on a woman's underwear. That was the mentality of people who robbed houses, their patterns as predictable as the weather.

  And burglars didn't enter houses with their guns drawn, as the intruders who'd entered Kat's house had done. Entering the kitchen, they'd been startled by a voice on the radio and had mistakenly shot it out.

  “Wait a minute,” she said, sitting behind the wheel of her car a minute later. “You're telling me these burglars were planning to kill me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  He could think of only one logical answer.

  “Because you know me,” he said.

  “Jesus, Tony.”

  He thought of the other people in his life who might be targets. Taking out his cell phone, he hit Power, and found that the battery had gone dead.

  “Where's the closest pay phone?”

  She drove to a 7-Eleven on the next block. The pay phone was in the back of
the store by the bathrooms. Feeding quarters into the slot, he dialed Davis's cell number.

  “Hello?” the detective said.

  “Hey, Eddie,” he said.

  With horns blaring in the background, Davis pulled off the road. “Who the hell is this?”

  “Tony Valentine,” he said.

  There was an uneasy silence. Then Valentine remembered: He was supposed to be dead.

  “This is Richard Roundtree, isn't it?”

  “Valentine! You're not dead?”

  “Never felt better.”

  “There are three bodies down at the morgue . . .”

  “It's a long story. Look, I need to ask you a question. Have you been home recently?”

  “What?” the detective said.

  “Yes or no?”

  “No, not that it's any of your—”

  “Go home right now and see if you weren't broken into.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.” He read Davis the number printed on the pay phone. “Call me back and see if I wasn't right.”

  The phone went dead in his hand.

  Kat came into the store, bought a bottled water, and struck up a conversation with the weirdo manning the register. The guy was downright scary-looking, his face pierced with black pins, his hair a mix of lollipop colors. She didn't seem bothered and happily chatted away.

  Valentine loitered around the pay phone. Ten minutes later, the phone rang. Lifting the receiver, he said, “Was I right?”

  “They shot my goddamned dog,” Davis seethed.

  “What?”

  “Had this dog since I was in college. They busted down the back door, and Bruno must have attacked them.”

  “Any of your neighbors see them?”

  “Yeah. They fit the description of Coleman and Marconi.” Davis paused. “But you knew that, didn't you?”

  “They were at the top of my list. Did your neighbors call 911?”

  “Call 911? I live in a black neighborhood, Tony. Whatever Coleman and Marconi say happened, that's what the police are going to believe.” He paused again. “You haven't explained why they're after me.”

  “Because they think I made the scam at The Bombay and then told you.”

  “You're saying I'm fucked,” the detective said.

  “Yes, I'd say you're fucked.”

  He could almost hear Davis thinking. “Maybe I'd better call in sick, and go hang at my girlfriend's.”

  “I would,” Valentine said.

  Davis recited his girlfriend's phone number. Valentine wrote it down on the palm of his hand, then hung up.

  Behind the register, the weirdo had taken off his shirt and was displaying the colorful array of tattoos adorning his upper torso. Each was of a famous wrestler—the Hulkster, the Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin—and the weirdo did tricks with his muscles that made them come to life, with Kat ohhing and ahhing at the appropriate moments. Valentine hooked his arm into hers and bolted from the store.

  “Let me guess,” she said when they were on the road. “You don't like body art.”

  “You didn't see me sporting any tattoos, did you?”

  “Can't say I looked that hard.”

  “They're crude. Some religions think they're blasphemous.”

  “Name one.”

  “Okay. The Jews. I knew a Jewish guy who had a tattoo. He died, and his wife wanted him buried in a Jewish cemetery. So they cut his arm off.”

  She made a face. “I was thinking of getting one. Lots of women wrestlers have them.”

  He gave her a look that said this conversation would go no further. She stared at the road.

  “So what did they do with the arm?” she asked a few minutes later.

  “I guess they buried it in a Gentile cemetery.”

  “Very funny,” she said, punching him in the shoulder.

  36

  The Four Kings Approach

  Valentine needed a car.

  Kat drove him to the Hertz lot at Bader Airport, and he rented a Mustang. As he turned the car on, Van Morrison's “Tupelo Honey” came blaring out of the radio's speakers.

  He parked next to Kat's Saturn and got into her car. Kat was on her cell phone telling the principal at her daughter's school why she was pulling Zoe out. She hung up.

  “What a pencil dick. Zoe's already missed so many classes, what difference will another day make?”

  He took out his cigarettes. “Mind if I smoke?”

  “Is that a little question or a big question?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do I mind if you smoke in my car, as in right now, or do I mind if you happen to smoke, as in all the time?”

  He showed her the two remaining cigarettes in his pack. “I've got these to go, then I'm back on the wagon.”

  “Go ahead.”

  He lit up, then exhaled a dark plume. When the cigarette was nearly gone, Kat spoke.

  “You haven't told me what you're going to do.”

  No, he hadn't. He'd told Kat what he wanted her to do, which was fly to Florida with Zoe and hole up in his house until this thing played itself out. It was the best he could offer, and he'd been relieved when she'd said yes.

  “You don't want to know,” he said.

  “Tony . . .”

  He filled his lungs with smoke. Knowing it was one of his last cigarettes made it taste that much better. He stared across the lot into the rental car office. “I need to find out how The Bombay's getting ripped off. Frank Porter knows, so I'm going to make him tell me.”

  “Make him how?”

  “I'm going to use the Four Kings approach.”

  “It sounds ugly.”

  “You ever been to Fremont Street in Las Vegas?”

  “I've never been west of the Mississippi.”

  The cigarette was nearly out. He smoked it until he tasted the filter, then snuffed it in the ashtray. “When people think of Las Vegas, they think of the Strip, and all the big casinos. But the original Las Vegas is on Fremont Street. Locals call it old downtown. The casinos here are old-fashioned joints.

  “The Four Kings is one of the better ones, a member of the ‘All Right to Be Bright Club.' The interior is light and tropical. Old- timers dig the food and the lounge shows. There are some high rollers, but mostly it's just the motor coach market.

  “Anyway, the Four Kings has a strict policy about cheating. It's been in force for years, and every crossroader who's ever worked Las Vegas knows about it. If you get caught cheating, they drag you into the back room. And in that back room there's a wall. The wall was originally white, but it hasn't been painted in forever.

  “The wall is covered in crossroaders' blood. By the time you leave that room, some of your blood gets added to that wall. That's the deal. If you're new, it's usually just a punch in the mouth. But if they've seen you before, watch out. The Four Kings approach.”

  “That's brutal,” she said.

  “It is. And you want to know something?”

  “What?”

  “It works. The Four Kings has been ripped off the least of any casino in Nevada, probably any casino in the world. Don't get me wrong: I'm not advocating beating up criminals. I'm just telling you what works with crossroaders. You have to threaten them, and then you have to be willing to back it up.”

  “Is it really necessary?”

  He took her hand with both of his. “They killed my best friend, and they tried to kill me. And now they're after you and Eddie. You're goddamned right it's necessary.”

  He followed Kat to her daughter's school. Soon Zoe came out. A skinny waif, too much makeup, and a boy's haircut made up the package. She got into the Saturn and immediately started arguing with her mother.

  Valentine followed them to the exit for the New Jersey Turnpike. The Saturn went up the long entrance ramp, then stopped. He saw Kat turn and wave good-bye. He waved back.

  How Frank Porter had saved his house in Pheasant Run from his ex-wife was one of the great mysteries of New Jersey.r />
  Frank had bought five acres of wooded paradise twenty years before, then saved his dough and built his dream house, a two-story A-frame with a wood deck sitting off the second story. Designed like a Swiss chalet, the house was a favorite gathering place and had hosted many Sunday afternoon football parties.

  Valentine inched the Mustang up the long, sloping driveway. Halfway up, he pulled off the road and got out. The underbrush was heavy, and the car got swallowed by the forest.

  He knew Frank's schedule about as well as his own. Today, a Friday, was one of Frank's off days. Usually, he stayed at home, tinkering in his shop or working in the yard.

  The climb up the gravel driveway got his heart going. The wind was blowing through the trees, creating a thousand whispers. It was strange, but he did not feel apprehensive. The tip of the A-frame appeared above the treetops. Then the rest of the house took shape. Up in Frank's study a light was on.

  He went around back and entered the two-car garage.

  The door leading into the house was unlocked, and he cracked it an inch. Strains of B.B. King floated through the downstairs. A long time ago, Frank had played a mean blues guitar, then one day upped and quit. New priorities, Valentine remembered him saying.

  He walked through the laundry room and into the kitchen. The kitchen had an island in its center, and on it sat a large coin counting machine, with thousands of dollar coin-wrappers arranged neatly behind it.

  He walked down a hall and entered Frank's study. The TV set was on, Baywatch competing with B.B. Frank was riding a stationary bike while talking into a cell phone. Their eyes met. Valentine made a hurry-up motion with the .38.

  “Got to go,” Porter said into the phone. Then he climbed off the bike. Unshaven, wearing a jogging outfit with sweat pancakes staining both arms, he looked a hundred years old.

  “Put the cell phone down,” Valentine said.

  “You think I'm going to make a move?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Sure. Just don't shoot me.”

  Porter's desk sat next to the bike. He placed the cell phone on a stack of books, and Valentine saw his fingers imperceptibly twitch. The .38's burp was louder than he expected, like a firecracker exploding in his hand. The bullet tore through the books. Porter jerked his hand into the air.