by James Swain
“Oh, Jesus,” he cried.
Valentine walked around the desk. Hidden behind the books was a .357 Magnum. He made Porter sit on the couch, then pulled up a chair. Porter buried his face in his hands.
While Valentine waited, he stared at the wall behind them. It was covered with autographed sports junk: footballs, baseballs, group pictures of every Super Bowl winner of the past ten years. The last time he'd been in Frank's house, none of it had been there.
“Tell me why you did it,” Valentine said.
Porter reached for the box of Kleenex sitting on a side table. He stopped when he saw the .38's barrel move.
“Real slow,” Valentine said.
He tugged a Kleenex out of the box and blew his nose. “That's a good question. The money, I guess. That, and it was a sure thing.”
“How is stealing a sure thing?”
“It is when you're stealing from a crook.”
“You mean Archie?”
Porter nodded. “Brandi approached me last summer. She said Archie was skimming money off The Bombay. I said, ‘So what?' and she said, ‘He's vulnerable. We can rip him off, and he won't call the cops.' So I said, ‘Who's we?' and she said, ‘Everybody on the graveyard shift.' ”
“So you were the last in.”
Porter blew his nose again. “Yes. I don't know if I would have gone along if so many people weren't involved. But I did.”
“How does the Desert Storm gang fit into this?”
Porter looked surprised. “You did your homework.”
“Answer me.”
“The Desert Storm gang is the core of the group. It includes Sparky, Brandi, Gigi, and Monique. They do the legwork, like getting the money out of The Bombay and laundering it. They also keep everyone else in line.”
“And they're the ones making the bombs.”
“Yes.”
“Whose idea was it to make the Croatians into patsies?”
“Mine. Just in case something went wrong, we could point the finger at them.”
“Was it your idea to buy a white van that looked like theirs?”
Porter nodded. “But then they started bleeding us, so I had a bright idea. I wanted to see if Archie really was scared of the police, so I hired Doyle, knowing he'd sniff out the Croatians right away. Doyle did, and I told Archie.”
“And Archie told you to keep the cops out of it.”
“Uh-huh.”
Valentine rose. “Get up.”
“Where are we going?”
“To have a talk with the district attorney.”
Porter remained sitting. “You're not going to help me out?”
“No.”
“I thought we were friends . . .”
“Get up,” Valentine repeated.
A funny look flickered across Porter's face. Like he was adding up his options. Then his hand dove under the cushion. Valentine shot him in the chest.
Porter flew over the chair, his legs going straight up into the air. An automatic pistol fell out of the cushion and onto the floor. Valentine crossed himself, then walked around the chair. Kneeling, he pulled back Porter's sweatshirt. He was wearing a Kevlar vest, the slug lodged in the indestructible material.
There was a bottle of Evian in the drink holder on the bike. He poured it on Porter's face. His friend blinked awake.
“Two guns. You expecting someone?”
Lying on his back, Porter nodded.
“Double-cross your partners?”
His friend didn't say anything.
“I'd like to meet them.”
“No, you wouldn't,” Porter said.
He marched Porter downstairs to the basement and tied him to a support beam with a piece of rope. “I want to know how Archie's skimming The Bombay.”
Porter was sweating profusely. “You and everybody else.”
“You don't know?”
He shook his head. “It's Brandi's ace in the hole. If the gang gets busted, she'll turn state's evidence and use it as leverage.”
“She tell you that?”
“Fuck, no,” Porter said, “I figured it out myself.”
“One more question.”
“What.”
“Who killed Doyle?”
Porter looked at the concrete basement floor.
“Don't ask me that,” he said.
Valentine considered pistol-whipping him. Or beating him up. Only this was Porter, a guy he'd known for over twenty years.
Instead, he went upstairs and searched the house. In the master bedroom he found a suitcase packed with tropical clothes. On the dresser, a ticket to Guatemala and a passport.
He dumped out the suitcase and ripped open its walls. Stacks of hundred dollar bills spilled out. He marched down the basement stairs clutching the money to his chest. Opening the furnace, he fed a stack to the flames.
“Tony, please don't do that,” Porter begged him.
“Who killed Doyle?”
Porter stared at the money, then back at him.
“I want the name of the person who detonated the bomb that killed my partner,” Valentine said.
“They wouldn't tell me who did it.”
Valentine fed the rest of the money to the flames.
Porter's driveway was over a quarter-mile long, most of it on an incline. Valentine walked to where his rental was parked and slipped into the forest. Finding a stump, he sat down, then laid the double-barreled shotgun he'd found in Frank's closet on the ground.
Twenty minutes later when the white van appeared at the bottom of Porter's driveway, he was deep in thought.
Of the scores of hustlers he'd busted over the years, only a handful had ever tried to kill him, and that was to avoid going back to prison. But the majority hadn't put up a fight. He supposed it had to do with the fact that they were professional criminals, a group that, for the most part, had few illusions about life. Amateurs were different when it came to crime. They had dreams, and were often willing to kill to keep those dreams alive.
The van came up the hill at a fast clip, its occupants hidden behind the tinted windshield. When it was a hundred yards away, he picked up the shotgun, and stepped into its path.
The squealing of brakes echoed across Pheasant Run. He raised the shotgun and aimed at the windshield. Then hesitated. The van retreated, its back end swerving first to the left, then to the right. Lowering the barrel, he shot out both front tires.
The driver lost control. Valentine watched the van veer off the drive and go crashing through the forest. Flipping on its side, it started to roll. He entered the forest to the sound of screams.
Two hundred yards off to his left, the van lay upside down, its tires spinning furiously. The windshield had imploded and thousands of silver dollars had spilled out, engulfing the car's occupants.
The coins were so thick he had to clear a path. Seeing a hand, he dug until he was looking at an upside down face. It was Monique. Her mouth was open, her eyes lifeless.
He dug some more and found Gigi behind the wheel, her pretty face sheeted in blood. Her eyelids fluttered.
“Help me,” she whispered.
Valentine checked her pulse. It was good and strong. He was no doctor, but had a feeling she'd make it if an ambulance got to her before the bitter cold did her in. Her eyes opened wide.
“Please,” she whispered.
Kneeling, he brought his lips next to her ear.
“Who killed Doyle Flanagan?”
“I can't . . .”
“Tell me.”
“Will you help . . .”
“Tell me.”
She whispered a name in his ear. Rising, he started to walk out of the forest and back to his rental.
“Please . . .” she called after him.
The wind whistled through the trees, their branches carrying the words to a song. She's as sweet as Tupelo Honey. She's as sweet as honey from a bee. He knew every word by heart, because Doyle had sung that song every day of his life. He felt his hands start to tremble
and realized it had nothing to do with the cold.
37
Bally's
You know what a pack rat Doyle was,” Liddy said.
Valentine stood in the foyer of Liddy's house, staring at a pile of Doyle's stuff in the middle of the living room floor that she was about to throw away. It was stuff he could relate to. Old record albums, bundled copies of Life magazine, and an old wooden tennis racket in a frame.
“I want you to go out of town for a few days.”
Liddy frowned. “I'm not ready for that, Tony.”
“I think you'd better. I found out who's ripping off The Bombay.”
She sat down on the couch, a pained look on her face.
“Is it bad?”
“Yes,” he said.
Liddy had a cousin in Vermont. She wrote the phone number on a piece of paper and gave it to him. Valentine promised to call as soon as he could. She walked him to the door. Then said, “Wait,” and returned a few moments later holding a fax. “The dry cleaner found this in Doyle's jacket.”
He slipped his bifocals on. It was a purchase order for fifty Series E Micro-Processor–Controlled Slot Machines from Bally's Gaming in Nevada, the largest manufacturer of slots in the world.
“Can I keep this?”
“Of course.”
He stuffed the fax into his pocket and gave her a hug.
He drove to the Philadelphia airport and dropped his rental off. He found Kat sitting on a bench next to the Delta ticket counter, her daughter in a nearby arcade playing video games.
“I need a cigarette,” he said.
Next to the arcade was a special glassed-in room for smokers. He'd always looked down his nose at the people who sat in such places, puffing away furiously, and now he found himself sharing a bench with a couple of diehards. Kat sat beside him, holding his hand.
Zoe sauntered in. “Are you my mother's new boyfriend?”
Valentine hemmed and hawed. The French probably had some cute word for his relationship with Kat, but the English language was void of such niceties.
“That's me,” he said.
“Aren't you a little old?”
“Zoe!”
She stared at her mother. “You know what they call these rooms?”
“No, honey, I don't.”
“Nicotine aquariums.”
She kept up the monologue all the way to the Delta ticket counter. Valentine inquired about the next flight to Tampa. The ticket agent said, “How about right now?”
Valentine looked at the big board above the agent's head. The noon flight to Tampa hadn't left. The agent explained the situation.
“The plane needed some repairs. Nothing serious. I can still get all three of you on.”
“I also need to go to Palm Beach,” Valentine said.
“That's the Tampa flight's final destination,” the agent said.
Valentine laid his credit card on the counter.
“How much luggage?” the agent asked.
“None,” he said.
“Why are we going to Florida without any luggage?” Zoe wanted to know when they were seated in the very last row. The plane had been sitting at the gate for hours and was filled with the living dead.
Kat patted her daughter's arm. “Well, honey, Tony asked me so suddenly, I just didn't have time to pack.”
The pilot came over the PA and announced that it would be another ten minutes before they left. A collective groan filled the cabin. Kat and Zoe started to spar, the little girl masterful at pushing her mother's buttons. Borrowing Kat's cell phone, Valentine ducked into the lavatory. He dialed Mabel's number.
“Oh Tony, you're not going to believe what happened,” his neighbor said.
“What?”
“I took your advice and called my neighbor. He came over and rescued me from Cujo. Actually, he just opened the back door, and the dog ran out.
“Well, everything was fine until an hour ago. I was in the kitchen fixing a cup of tea. I was standing at the stove when I heard this sound. Like a rat gnawing at wood. It was coming from the back door, so I ducked down. Then I heard a voice. It was a man and he was swearing under his breath, saying motherf***ing this and motherf***ing that, like it was the first word he'd ever learned. And then it hit me. It was a burglar. Well, you'll never guess what happened next.”
“A cop showed up.”
“Be serious!”
“Your neighbor came to your rescue.”
“Strike two.”
“For Christ's sake, what happened?”
“Cujo rescued me. He was in the backyard and came flying through the bushes. He attached himself to the burglar's butt, and they went dancing down the street.”
There was a knock on the bathroom door. He opened it. Zoe stood outside, her legs crossed.
“You gonna stay in there all day?”
“Sure am.”
Valentine shut the door. Then said, “Mabel, I wanted to tell you something.”
“What's that?” his neighbor said.
“I met a woman, and she's coming home with me. I wanted you to know.”
For a moment he thought Mabel had hung up on him.
“Does that mean I can't work for you anymore?” she asked.
Valentine felt a lump in his throat.
“No, of course not.”
“I need to do something with my life,” Mabel said. “I admire you for doing something with yours. I just hope this situation won't turn into one where I can't work for you anymore.”
“It won't,” he said.
“Is that a promise?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you,” she said. “Should I meet you at the airport?”
Valentine smiled into the phone.
“That would be great.”
The pilot came over the PA and told everyone to get into their seats. Zoe was still outside when he unlatched the lavatory door.
“Asshole,” she muttered, hurtling past him.
He took his seat and buckled up. Kat was looking out the little window at a man on the tarmac waving orange flags at the pilot. She glanced his way. “You were gone awhile.”
“Sorry. You and Zoe patch things up?”
“I missed you,” she said.
She leaned across the empty seat and kissed him like the world was about to end and this one had better mean something. When she pulled away, he was seeing stars.
“I missed you, too,” he said.
38
Palm Beach
Mabel was at the gate when they disembarked. She was wearing Terminator shades, and at her side was one of the scariest-looking dogs Valentine had ever seen. Pure black, about seventy pounds of muscle, with a black tongue that stuck an inch out of its mouth, its hackle sticking straight up.
“How did you get that monster in here?”
“I told the airport people I was legally blind,” she said.
“A dog,” Zoe squealed with delight. She grabbed Valentine's sleeve. “You didn't tell me you owned a dog!”
Before any of them knew what was happening, the child from hell was rolling around on the floor with the dog from hell.
“Zoe, stop this nonsense this instant,” Kat said, leaning over to scold her. “You're embarrassing yourself, and me.”
“I cleaned up your house a little, turned down the beds,” Mabel informed him, angling to get a better look at Kat. “You really do need to get a housekeeper.”
Valentine saw no reason to delay things. He tapped Kat on the shoulder and said, “Kat, I want you to meet Mabel Struck.”
Kat stood up and stuck her hand out. The braid in her hair had come undone, and her black mane lay seductively on her bosom. Valentine heard a loud click as Mabel's jaw came unhinged.
“Tony's told me all about you,” Kat said, pumping Mabel's hand.
“No kidding,” his neighbor said.
“Said he couldn't run his business without you.”
His neighbor was smiling mischievously, taking the whole thing
better than Valentine had expected. Like she was proud of him.
“So how did you two meet?” Mabel asked.
“Well, you're not going to believe this,” Kat said.
“Try me.”
“Tony came to my gym and started a fight.”
“He did what?” Mabel said.
“It's a long story, but we got it worked out.”
“A fight, as in he hit you?”
Kat giggled. “Tony bloodied my nose.”
Mabel stared in horror at him. “You beast!”
The flight to Palm Beach was boarding. Mabel's eyes were burning his face. And Zoe's. And every other person milling around the gate. Which was why Valentine got himself on the plane as fast as humanly possible.
Only in Florida could you rent a sporty BMW with nine hundred miles on the odometer for forty bucks a day.
He crossed the bridge into Palm Beach, his headlights shining on the array of brightly lit yachts and sleek cabin cruisers dotting the Intercoastal waterway. Rich men's toys with names like Uptick and Margin Call, the crews dressed in gleaming white uniforms, mopping down teak decks beneath a gibbous moon.
On the island, traffic was heavy, the road reduced to one lane because of construction. He inched down the main drag looking for County Road. He found it when he thought he was lost, and hung a left that took him into a residential area with Mediterranean-style houses with barrel tile roofs. Expensive, but nothing fancy.
Past the entrance for the Breakers Resort, the scenery changed. Houses grew into mansions with six-foot stucco walls that hugged the narrow beach. The speed limit dropped to twenty-five miles per hour, and he inched past driveways lined with gleaming Rolls-Royces and expensive Italian sports cars.
He remembered Archie's mansion from a magazine article. Archie had built a monstrosity that blocked his neighbors' view of the ocean. He found the place with little trouble, Archie's initials adorning the front gate. He drove into the servant's entrance and parked behind a white caterer's van.
He waited for someone to come out and tell him to beat it. When that didn't happen, he got out of the rental, and stuck his head through the azalea bushes.
Light streamed out of every window of Archie's place. He shifted his gaze to the limo parked by the front door. The plates were government issued, and the driver wore a uniform.