by James Swain
“I don’t like you going in there alone,” Davis said.
“You want to check the place out first?” Gerry asked. “Be my guest.”
Davis climbed out and went inside. The way he was moving, you wouldn’t know he’d gotten his back sliced open while dodging a bullet a few hours ago. It was the one characteristic about cops that Gerry had always admired. Davis reappeared moments later. “Your friend’s in a booth in the back.”
Gerry got out of the car, wondering how Davis had made Vinny. The answer became obvious as he entered the restaurant. The girls were out in force, and Vinny was the only male in the place. Prostitution was a part of Atlantic City’s culture, and had only gotten worse with the casinos. He slid into Vinny’s booth.
“That cop with you?” Vinny asked.
“My bodyguard, courtesy of my father,” Gerry said.
“Your old man still watches out for you, doesn’t he?”
Gerry nodded.
“That’s nice. My old man hardly talks to me any more. You said over the phone you wanted me to look at some photographs.”
Gerry removed an envelope from his jacket pocket, slid it across the table. “Some mobsters are running a blackjack scam in town. They’re working for our friend, George Scalzo. I was hoping you’d look at these photos, and see if you know any of them.”
Vinny took a cigarette out of the ashtray, and blew a monster cloud of smoke in the air. You weren’t supposed to smoke in Harold’s, but people did anyway.
Two hookers at the next table started hacking their lungs out. Vinny ignored them.
“You trying to take Scalzo down?”
“I’m working on it,” Gerry said.
“You going to pay him back for what he did to us in Vegas?”
“Yeah, and for killing Jack Donovan.”
Vinny flashed a crooked smile. He was a skinny guy, with pocked skin and bad teeth. What set him apart was his ability to talk. Opening the envelope up, he said, “Walk up to the cash register, and see if it doesn’t send you down memory lane.”
“What am I looking for?”
Vinny laughed through a mouthful of smoke. “Our first scam together,” he said.
Gerry slid out of the booth and went up to the register. He kept his eyes to the floor, avoiding the working girls’ sideways glances. The first pretty girl he’d ever seen was a hooker trolling the Atlantic City Boardwalk. He’d been eight, and his mother had told him this was not the type of girl he wanted to know.
The cashier was a wizened old man with half-dead eyes. He had a tic in his neck that didn’t quit. It was the only way you could tell he was alive.
“Need something?” the cashier asked.
Gerry spotted the ultraviolet light sitting next to the register and nearly burst into laughter. He’d done a lot of dumb things as a teenager, and selling ultraviolet lights to every store owner on the island had been one of them.
“I need a menu,” Gerry said.
Gerry returned to the booth with a menu and a smile on his face.
“Pretty funny, huh?” Vinny said.
“We should tell the guy,” Gerry said.
“No, we shouldn’t,” Vinny said.
Back during their senior year in high school, Vinny had purchased several boxes of ultraviolet lights from a merchant on Canal Street in New York. Then he and Gerry had pooled their money together, which had amounted to eight hundred bucks, and Vinny had gone to the bank and exchanged it for eight new hundred-dollar bills.
Vinny had painted the hundred-dollar bills with ultraviolet paint, which when dry was invisible to the naked eye. Gerry’s job had been to go to different restaurants on the island, and spend the hundred-dollar bill on a meal. A few hours later, Vinny would come in, posing as a salesman. He’d tell the owner that a lot of counterfeit hundreds were floating around, and that the special light he was selling could detect them. He always offered to give a demonstration.
The owner would take the hundred-dollar bills from his register, and run them beneath the light. The doctored bill would light up like it was radioactive. Vinny would tell the owner that by federal law, he had to confiscate the counterfeit and turn it over to the FBI. He’d pretend to feel bad for the owner’s situation, and offer to sell him the ultraviolet light at cost, which he claimed was fifty bucks. The owner always said yes.
“That was some summer,” Gerry said.
“I bought a car,” Vinny said, pouring through the photographs.
“So did I.”
“Mine was nicer.”
A waitress took Gerry’s order. He asked for the whore’s special. She raised a disapproving eyebrow while tapping her pencil on her pad.
“You some kind of comedian?” she asked.
“He’s a native,” Vinny said.
“One whore’s special it is,” she said.
Vinny continued poring over the photographs. Like Gerry, he’d flunked out of college, but had plenty of street smarts and a good memory. Shaking his head, he slipped the photographs back into the envelope. “Don’t know them. They must be from off island. What’s the deal with the baseball caps?”
Gerry lowered his voice. “There’s a receiver and three LEDs sewn into the rim of the cap. The cards at the table are nail-nicked. A member of the gang reads the nicks, and knows what the dealer is holding. He electronically transmits the information to the guy wearing the cap.”
“Wow,” Vinny said. “You got the cap?”
Gerry hesitated. Vinny was, and always would be, a scammer. He didn’t want to be giving him any ideas, especially when it involved a case he was working on.
“It’s outside in the car,” Gerry said.
“Get it,” Vinny said.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“The detectives working the case are in the car.”
“So what? I’m trying to help you bury Scalzo, aren’t I?”
Gerry’s food arrived. Three eggs sunny-side up, a gristly piece of ham, and a mound of hash fries swimming in bubbling grease. The cook hadn’t lost his touch.
“How can you help me bury Scalzo if you can’t identify these guys?” Gerry asked.
Vinny lit a cigarette off the one he was smoking. He blew another cloud at the girls at the next table and got them coughing. “Easy. I’ll find out who made the cap.”
26
I t doesn’t get any better than this, Karl Jasper thought.
Jasper stood at the rear of the crowd in Celebrity’s poker room, chewing an unlit cigar. The scene was absolutely beautiful. Skip DeMarco was beating the pants off the competition and the spectators were cheering his every move. The kid was going to be known in every home in America by the tournament’s end. Every home.
Jasper watched the action while trying to calculate how much money DeMarco would make in endorsements. He’d cut his teeth working for a Madison Avenue ad agency, and could not look at success without equating it with a dollar figure.
Only trying to figure out DeMarco’s worth was tricky. The kid was an overnight sensation, and advertisers tended to be wary of those. But DeMarco appealed to that all-important demographic—males eighteen to forty-nine—which meant he could endorse anything from condoms to cars, and be a hit.
Finally Jasper hit on a number. Twenty million in endorsements the first year, not including any deals from Europe, and that was being conservative. He would have to talk to Scalzo about managing the kid.
The crowd had grown quiet, and Jasper stood on his tiptoes to watch. A monster pot was building, with three players in the hunt. Fred Rea, an amateur player from Vero Beach, Florida, “Skins” Turner, a seasoned pro from Houston, and DeMarco.
Rea was the short stack at the table with four million in chips. It sounded like a lot, only his opponents had more. By declaring himself “all in,” Rea was putting his tournament life at stake.
Skins called him, and shoved four million in chips into the pot as well.
DeMarco immediately called Rea and S
kins. The kid had a special savoir faire that Jasper loved. The five community cards had already been dealt and were lying face up on the table. Each player was allowed to use his two cards plus the community cards to make the best possible hand.
Rea turned over his two cards. He had two pair, fours and sevens.
DeMarco turned over his cards. He also had two pair, kings and sevens. He’d beaten Rea, and the crowd broke into wild applause. Jasper clapped along with them.
When the applause died, Skins Turner cleared his throat. “Afraid I’ve got you beat, son.” Skins turned over his cards. He had three kings, or what gamblers called “a set.” He raked in the pot while laughing under his breath.
The crowd let out a collective groan, and so did Jasper. Even though he didn’t know how Scalzo’s scam worked, he knew that DeMarco couldn’t lose. Yet somehow, DeMarco had lost. Jasper stared at the electronic leader board hanging over the feature table. DeMarco was now in third place.
Jasper’s cell phone was vibrating in his pocket. He pulled the phone out, and stared at the face. Mark Perrier, the hotel’s general manager, had sent him a text message: COME TO MY OFFICE! Jasper punched in Perrier’s number, heard Perrier pick up on the first ring.
“What’s going on?” Jasper asked.
“I’m going to close down your fucking tournament,” Perrier informed him.
“I’ll be right up,” Jasper said.
Perrier’s office was on the hotel’s top floor, not big, but with a breathtaking view. Jasper took the private elevator up while staring at the bad carpeting job. The hotel was a big white elephant, and once the newness wore off, its bad location was going to catch up with it. Perrier knew this, so he’d agreed to host the World Poker Showdown.
Perrier was standing by the window when Jasper walked in.
“Have a chair,” the general manager said.
Perrier was a drop of water in an Armani suit, and not the kind of guy Jasper took orders from. He joined him by the window.
“Great view. What’s the problem?”
Perrier’s eyes bore into Jasper’s face with an animallike intensity. “Were you aware that I sicced the police on Valentine?”
“No, but it was a good idea,” Jasper said.
“Do you know why I did that?”
“You wanted him out of the way?”
“I wanted to buy time,” Perrier said.
“To do what?”
“Sit down, and I’ll show you,” Perrier said.
The sitting area in Perrier’s office was dwarfed by his desk, and Jasper wedged himself into the stiff-backed chair that sat in front of it. Perrier went to the DVD player that was part of an entertainment unit, and fiddled with the remote. A flat-screen plasma-TV flickered to life.
“Nice picture,” Jasper said. “That high definition?”
Perrier remained standing, his arms crossed in front of his chest. “When you came to me with this tournament, I knew it wasn’t clean, and that I’d probably have to cover your tracks. That’s why I’ve put up with that mobster Scalzo in my hotel, and why I didn’t say anything when I heard you were using dealers with criminal records. I kept my mouth shut, and cleaned up your mess as best I could. But we’ve got a new mess, a real big one, Karl, and I’m not going to clean it up for you.”
“What are you talking about?” Jasper asked.
Perrier jerked his thumb at the TV screen. “Take a look.”
Jasper squinted at the flickering images on the screen. The picture was grainy black-and-white, and taken from above. “What am I looking at?”
“A surveillance tape.”
Jasper took out his glasses, fitted them on, and squinted at the screen. The tape showed two men standing at the bottom of a stairwell, one black, the other white, the camera’s angle revealing the worried looks on their faces. Jasper stared at the bottom right-hand corner of the tape. It contained the date and time the tape had been recorded, which was at a few minutes past midnight. He felt himself growing restless. “Come on, Mark, what am I looking at?”
Perrier continued looking at the screen. “Here we go.”
On the tape, the door to the stairwell burst open, and a silver-haired man rushed in wielding a handgun. He shot each man in the forehead, then ran out of the picture. It was over in a matter of seconds.
Jasper heard himself exhale. On the tape, the two guys lay dead, blood pooling around their heads. He knew who they were. Hitmen, hired to kill Valentine. Scalzo had said that Valentine had shot them in the stairwell, only now Jasper knew otherwise. It was Scalzo who’d shot them. Jasper rose from his chair.
“Give me a drink,” he said.
Perrier poured Jasper a Scotch on the rocks at the bar. The drink was strong and made Jasper’s mouth burn. They stood by the window, staring into the distance.
“The police asked me about the surveillance camera in the stairwell,” Perrier said, sipping water. “I lied, and told them it didn’t exist.”
“Good move,” Jasper said.
“Maybe. I could tell them I was wrong, and turn the tape over to them. Or, I could destroy the tape. What I do depends on you.”
Jasper stared at Perrier’s reflection in the glass. “How so?”
“The tournament is a winner, and everyone wants it to continue. But there’s a hitch. We have a mobster running around killing people in the hotel. I want you to make the mobster go away.”
“I can’t do that,” Jasper said.
“No?”
“He’s my partner. He put up the cash.”
“Make him go away, anyway.”
“How? You saw what kind of person he is.”
“That’s your problem. All I’m doing is giving you an out,” Perrier said. “If I turn over the tape to the police, you and Scalzo will go to jail, and the World Poker Showdown will go up in flames. Your career and everything you’ve worked for will be ruined. You don’t want that, do you?”
Jasper took a gulp of his drink. His stomach was empty and the booze went down hard. It made him nauseous, and he felt cold beads of sweat march down his neck. He’d always wondered what his day of reckoning would feel like, and now he knew.
“No,” Jasper heard himself say.
“The tournament is a huge success. Get rid of the mobster.”
Jasper nodded stiffly. The tournament was making money, so he was being given another chance. It was better than the alternative, he supposed.
“Okay,” Jasper said.
27
Leaving police headquarters, Bill Higgins drove Valentine back to Celebrity. The freeway was jammed with traffic, and Valentine sat in the passenger seat with his window cracked, staring at a cloudless sky and leaden sun.
“There’s one part of this case that I can’t figure out,” Valentine said.
“What’s that?” Bill asked.
“Why haven’t you run George Scalzo out of Las Vegas? Nevada has spent twenty-five years cleaning up its image of being controlled by the mob, yet this guy runs around town like he’s Teflon-coated. I don’t get it.”
Eyes glued to the car in front of him, Bill emitted an exasperated breath. “I’ve tried to run him out.”
“Did someone stop you?”
Bill nodded his head almost imperceptibly.
“Mind telling me who?”
“Call them the powers that be,” Bill said.
Valentine knew that the rules were different in Vegas. There were only a handful of ways to make money in the desert, and right and wrong sometimes got a little fuzzy.
“But the guy’s a crook,” Valentine argued.
“Scalzo is a reputed crook,” Bill said. Traffic was moving, and he inched the car ahead. “The fact is, he’s never spent a day in jail, never been convicted of a crime, has paid his income taxes every year, and enjoys all the freedoms and protections of every other law-abiding citizen. He’s just as entitled to come here as you are.”
“But he’s helping his nephew scam the tournament,” Valentine said.
“And?”
“Everyone asks me what the scam is. I say I don’t know, and they change the subject.”
“But you and I both know that they’re cheating. Together, we’ve got over fifty years’ experience catching cheaters. Doesn’t that count for something?”
Traffic again halted and Bill slammed on his brakes. Moments later, a motorcyclist driving on the white line in the highway sped past, mocking them. Bill watched the motorcyclist with a disgusted look on his face, then faced his friend.
“When it comes to Scalzo and DeMarco, it doesn’t mean shit,” Bill said.
“How’s your blood pressure?” Bill asked as they climbed the stairs to Celebrity’s surveillance control room on the third floor.
“A little high,” Valentine admitted.
“So’s mine. My doctor wants me to monitor my blood pressure regularly. I bought one of those machines from CVS. You should think about doing the same thing.”
“You think so?”
“Yeah. It’s a silent killer.”
They had reached the third floor and Valentine was puffing. He walked two miles a day, and kept in good shape. Maybe he was stressed out. Perhaps it had some thing to do with George Scalzo and his nephew robbing the joint blind. Or perhaps it was that this was his fifth day in Vegas, and the town had become transparent. They marched down the hallway to the steel door at the end where the surveillance control room was housed. A security camera was perched above the door, and Bill knocked loudly, then peered up into its lenses.
“So what are we doing here, anyway?” his friend asked.
“I had an epiphany during the drive over,” Valentine said. “Somebody I spoke with the other day lied to me, and I want to talk to him with you present.”
Bill’s face hardened. “Someone working in Celebrity’s surveillance department?”
“Yes.”
“Am I going to have to arrest him?”