by James Swain
The Greek teed up his first ball and hit his drive. Instead of flying straight and true, the ball shanked left and flew over a stand of trees, landing on the fairway of the third hole, which ran parallel to the thirteenth. Cursing, he teed up his second ball, and again shanked it left. In disgust he teed up his third ball and smacked it. The result was exactly the same.
“Those balls are out of bounds. That’s a two-stroke penalty,” Rufus said.
“I know the rules,” the Greek said testily.
The Greek pulled three more balls from his bag, teed up the first, and drove it. The ball again shanked left. Moments later, they heard a golfer on the third hole let out an angry yell.
“Sounds like you hit someone,” Rufus said.
The Greek shanked his second ball left, and his third. The yelling from the third hole became a bellowing rage.
“That’s another two-stroke penalty,” Rufus said.
“Shut up!” the Greek roared.
“He’s playing like he couldn’t hit the side of a barn,” Gloria said under her breath.
Valentine leaned back in his seat, seeing the trick that Rufus had played on the Greek. Driving a golf ball required a lot of arm strength, and the Greek had exhausted his muscles by driving the ball three times each hole. The Greek could have beaten Rufus without the extra strokes, but had let his desire to win cloud his judgment.
The Greek continued to shank balls, ignoring calls from Marcy Baldwin and the suckers to take a break and rest his weary arms. Then a man wearing loud golf clothes appeared with a sheriff in tow. The man had a sizeable welt on his forehead, and angrily pointed at the Greek. “That’s him! He’s the one who hit me.”
The sheriff told the Greek to stop what he was doing. The Greek ignored him, and continued to shank his drives like a man possessed. The sheriff waited until he’d run out of balls, then arrested him. As the sheriff escorted him away from the hole, Rufus came up from behind, and tapped the Greek’s shoulder.
“I win,” Rufus said.
42
Valentine drove Gloria back to the clubhouse in a golf cart. Rufus was ahead of them in a separate cart, having collected his winnings from a sobbing Marcy Baldwin. Seeing Rufus win had ignited a spark in him, and Valentine was eager for the tournament to end so that Rufus could play DeMarco in a winner-take-all showdown.
“Can I ask you a question?” Gloria asked.
He glanced sideways at her. “What’s that?”
“Will you let me film you when you expose DeMarco?”
Valentine thought about it. It would be an ugly black eye for the tournament, and the governor of Nevada.
“Sure,” he said.
She smiled at him. He’d come to the realization that Gloria was about to become a part of his life. He couldn’t have asked for a more perfect ending to his trip.
Up ahead, Rufus’s cart had disappeared around a curve, and they were alone on the course. It was a flawless morning, the air crisp and clean, and he slowed down so they could stare at the mountains. The sound of an electric horn ripped through the stillness.
He glanced in his mirror. “What’s this jackass doing?”
“Who?” Gloria asked.
“The guy behind me. He’s driving like a suicide bomber.”
She turned around. A cart had come up behind them, and was hugging their tail. She waved for the cart to come around, which it started to do. The trail narrowed, and the cart’s driver needed to punch it to pass them.
Only the driver didn’t punch it. Instead, he turned his cart into theirs, and pushed them off the trail and down into a steep sand trap. Moments later, their cart hit bottom and slammed onto its side, the wheels still turning.
“Ohhh,” Gloria moaned.
She’d eaten the dashboard, and Valentine jumped out of the cart, came around to her side, and pulled her out. He heard footsteps and looked up at the top of the trap. The guy who’d forced them off the road was coming down.
“Can you run?” he asked her.
“I think so.”
He gently pushed her forward. “Go get help.”
The other side of the trap was not as steep. Gloria ran up it, her hand pressed to her face. She stopped at the top of the trap.
“Tony!”
“Run,” Valentine told her.
“But…”
“Do as I tell you. Please.”
Valentine spun around to face their attacker.
Little Hands saw Valentine kick off his shoes and square off to face him. For an older guy, he had guts, and Little Hands remembered Billy Jack doing that in a movie instead of running away from a fight with about a dozen guys. On the other side of the sand trap, the blond woman had taken off. The golf course was quiet, and it would be a few minutes before she’d find any help. He came to the bottom of the trap and stopped.
“Remember me?”
Valentine squinted at him in the bright sunlight. “Al Scarpi.”
“That’s right.”
“Thanks for the postcards. You made my Christmas.”
“I’ve been waiting a long time for this.”
Valentine threw a handful of sand in his face. Little Hands ducked it, but not the kick that followed. It caught him squarely in the groin. Little Hands went down on one knee, and as Valentine tried to deliver an other kick, grabbed his foot out of the air, gave it a twist, and shoved him away. Valentine flew back but managed to stay on his feet. The blonde reappeared at the top of the sand trap.
“I called the police on my cell phone,” she called down. “They’re coming.”
“Run!” Valentine yelled back at her.
“I can’t leave you here,” she said.
“Do as I say.”
Little Hands got to his feet. Valentine went into a crouch, putting himself between the woman and Little Hands.
“They ever figure out what’s wrong with you?” Valentine asked him.
Little Hands flexed his arms. “I’m going to mutilate you.”
“It was something to do with your mother, wasn’t it?”
“Shut up!” Little Hands said.
“Now, I remember. When you were a little kid, you saw her screwing a guy wearing a fireman’s hat, and never got over it.”
Little Hands charged him. Valentine adroitly stepped to one side and kicked him in the knee. Little Hands went down again. Valentine kept his distance, still crouching.
“I always have sex wearing a fireman’s hat,” Valentine said.
Little Hands tried to shake the image from his head. His mother on all fours on the bed, the fireman doing her from behind with the red hat perched on his head. Like his mother wasn’t worth hanging around for. In the distance, he heard a siren.
He slowly stood up. It occurred to him that he might kill Valentine, but wouldn’t get away with it. The police were already too close. He thought of the ninety-seven hundred in the bag, and the new life that awaited him south of the border. Pointing his finger at Valentine, he said, “I swear to God I’ll get you one day. And your girl friend. I’ll get both of you. That’s a promise you can take to the bank.”
Little Hands turned around, and scampered out of the sand trap.
Gloria ran to Valentine’s side, and threw her arms around him. “Oh my God, Tony, that’s the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Valentine held her while watching Little Hands run. The siren that had driven him away was starting to fade, and wasn’t coming their way. He thought about Little Hands’s threat and looked at Gloria. “If I ask you to do something, will you do it?”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Stay here until I call you.”
“Of course.”
He went to the toppled golf cart. There was a driver lying across the backseat, which Rufus had loaned him. He clutched the driver between his hands.
As Valentine came out of the sand trap, he saw Little Hands climbing into his golf cart. The guy had more muscle than anyone he’d ever seen. So much so, that he probabl
y thought nothing could harm him. He imagined Little Hands showing up on his doorstep someday, or worse, on Gloria’s doorstep. Showing up and ruining their lives. That wasn’t going to happen if he could have a say in the matter.
He ran up to Little Hands’s cart just as it started to pull away. Swung the driver like it was a baseball bat and he was trying to knock one clean out of the park. Little Hands glanced sideways at him with a look of disbelief on his face. Like he hadn’t expected an old guy to move so fast.
The driver hit Little Hands a few inches above his nose. It snapped his head straight back, and Little Hands jerked the wheel to his right, going off the trail and directly into a palm tree. Little Hands flew out of the cart and hit the tree as well.
Valentine approached him, the driver still clutched in his hands. Little Hands lay on his back, blood pouring out of his ears and nose and mouth. Beside him was a paper bag filled with money. The wind had picked it up, and hundred-dollar bills blew across the golf course. Little Hands’s eyelids fluttered; he looked up at Valentine and weakly shook his head.
“I should have quit when I was ahead,” he whispered.
Then he shut his eyes and died.
43
Karl Jasper was standing on the balcony of George Scalzo’s suite, sweating through his five-thousand-dollar Armani suit.
He’d woken up that morning and flipped on the TV to CNN like he always did, then found himself staring at stark images of a gigantic bust taking place in Atlantic City. A perky newscaster had identified those being arrested as “known associates of George Scalzo, reputed head of the New Jersey Mafia” and described the bust as the largest in Atlantic City’s history. The newscaster also said that an arrest warrant had been issued for Scalzo. Jasper had run upstairs to Scalzo’s suite and found the old mobster flying around in a rage. Scalzo had also seen the news, and they’d gone onto the balcony, and Jasper had tried to talk Scalzo into turning himself over to the authorities.
“Never!” Scalzo screamed at him.
“Come on,” Jasper begged.
“Go fuck yourself.”
“Do it for the tournament. For me.”
Scalzo grabbed Jasper by the throat and thrust his weight against him, and for a moment it had felt like they were both going over the railing. “For you? You think I care about you or your fucking tournament?”
Jasper pushed him away. Other hotel guests were watching from their balconies, and he straightened his jacket and tie. “If you won’t do it for me, then do it for your nephew. If they arrest you, the police will want to talk to Skip as well. He’ll have to withdraw from the tournament.”
“So what?” Scalzo bellowed at him.
“You don’t care if your nephew goes down?”
“He’s not going down,” Scalzo said. “He’s leaving with me and Guido. We’re getting out of Las Vegas, is what we’re doing.”
“Have you talked with him about this?”
“Why should I?”
“What if he doesn’t want to go? He’s the tournament leader.”
Scalzo pounded his chest with both fists like a cave man. “Skipper does what I tell him. He’s leaving with me. Understand?”
Jasper nodded stiffly. There was no use arguing with a maniac.
“In two hours, I want you to drive me, Skipper, and Guido to a little airport on the outskirts of town,” Scalzo said. “We’re going to take a charter plane to Los Angeles, and from there, a private yacht to Central America. Just give me two hours to make the necessary arrangements. You drive us to the airport, and we’ll disappear.”
“At least let your nephew play before you leave,” Jasper said.
“Why should I?”
“Because he’s a goddamn celebrity, that’s why,” Jasper said. “The more air time he has, the better the tournament does.”
Scalzo stuck his chin out defiantly. “Okay.”
Jasper looked at his watch. “I need to run. I’ll see you downstairs.”
Jasper turned to open the slider. Scalzo’s hand came down hard on his shoulder, and he felt the old mobster’s breath on his ear.
“You’d better not mess this up,” Scalzo said.
Jasper felt himself stiffen. A shift had occurred, and he hadn’t even realized it. He was in charge now, with Scalzo’s fate in his hands.
“You have nothing to worry about,” Jasper said.
At twenty minutes to nine, Skip DeMarco came out of his bedroom. Normally his uncle came to his room before he went downstairs to play, and they went through their little routine. But today his uncle hadn’t shown, leaving DeMarco to dress without his uncle appraising his selection of clothes.
“Hey Skipper,” he heard a voice say.
“That you, Guido?”
His uncle’s bodyguard grunted in the affirmative.
“It doesn’t sound like you,” DeMarco said. “What happened to your voice?”
Guido’s big feet scuffed the carpet as he crossed the suite. “I hurt my nose,” he explained.
Guido had been his uncle’s bodyguard for twenty years; a more loyal employee you’d never find. But that loyalty came with a price. When his uncle lost his temper and flew into a rage, Guido’s role changed, and he became a whipping boy.
“He smack you in the face again?” DeMarco asked.
“Couple of times,” Guido grunted.
“What did you do this time?”
“I woke him up with bad news.”
“It must have been real bad.”
“The Atlantic City operation got busted last night. Everyone went down.”
DeMarco had never heard the full details of the Atlantic City operation from his uncle; all he knew was that it was his uncle’s primary source of income, and paid for his house and vacation house and full-time staff and brand-new cars every year.
“Where’s my uncle now?” DeMarco asked.
“He’s on the phone in his bedroom, talking to somebody,” Guido said.
DeMarco asked, “Do you think he can hear us right now?”
“No, the door’s shut.”
“I want to ask you a question, Guido, and I want you to be honest with me.”
“Sure, Skipper.”
DeMarco reached out and touched Guido’s arm. The muscle beneath the silk shirt was rock-hard. “There’s an attorney in Philadelphia named Christopher Russo. He’s tried to contact me a bunch of times over the years. My uncle made you keep him away, didn’t he?”
“That’s right,” Guido said proudly. “That guy claimed to be your father. He was nothing but trouble.”
“Who told you that?”
“Your uncle. He said Russo was trying to blackmail you. I took care of him.”
“What did you do to him?”
“You know, the usual stuff.”
“Did you threaten him?”
“Oh yeah,” Guido said, getting his bluster back. “I drove to Philly one weekend in the limo and cornered him in the covered parking lot of the building where he worked. I slapped him around a bunch, told him I’d introduce him to pain if he kept trying to see you. I made that bastard promise to leave you alone.”
DeMarco felt himself well up and swiped at his eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Guido said. “Did he try to contact you again?”
“Yeah,” DeMarco said. “He’s my father.”
44
Valentine was explaining to Bill Higgins and a homicide detective with the Metro Las Vegas Police Department how he’d sent Little Hands to the big craps game in the sky when the cell phone in his pocket vibrated. Pulling it out, he saw it was his son.
“Would you gentlemen excuse me for a minute?” he asked.
Bill and the detective both nodded solemnly. Before being sent away to prison, Little Hands had earned himself a reputation as the most vicious killer in Nevada, and Bill and the detective seemed to be having a hard time accepting that Valentine had managed to beat him in a fight, even though Little Hands was lying beneath a sheet only a dozen feet awa
y. Stepping into the shade of a palm tree, Valentine answered the call.
“Hey, Pop, it’s me,” his son said.
“You still in Atlantic City?” Valentine asked.
“No, I took a plane out last night and just landed in Las Vegas. I made DeMarco’s scam, and figured I’d better fly out and help you put this to bed.”
Valentine didn’t know what to say. Gerry had beaten him to the finish line. He’d never felt more proud of his son in his entire life.
“You’re a star,” he told his son.
“Yolanda helped, and so did Mabel. And you put me on the scent, so you get credit, too,” Gerry said. “That’s the good news. Now here’s the bad. I think DeMarco is being played for a sucker by his uncle. He’s being used, Pop, and in a real bad way.”
“Used how?”
“This scam is dangerous. Scalzo is putting his nephew’s health in jeopardy, and I don’t think DeMarco knows it. Matter of fact, I’m sure he doesn’t.”
Gerry was jumping to conclusions, a bad thing to do in detective work. The facts were the facts and everything else was air. “How can you be sure, Gerry?”
“Because DeMarco could get sterile,” his son said.
Valentine had investigated plenty of scams where a member of the gang hadn’t been given a complete script of the play. In the end, that person usually got the raw end of the deal, and became a victim.
“Explain this to me,” Valentine said.
Gerry explained what he’d learned from the nurse who’d been having an affair with Jack Donovan. As scams went, it was one of the most ingenious Valentine had ever come across, but did contain a significant health risk. It wasn’t meant to be used in a tournament, where long-term exposure could be dangerous. Gerry was right. DeMarco probably didn’t know the risks he faced.
“That’s one heck of a piece of detective work,” Valentine said when his son was finished. “Maybe I should go to work for you.”
“That would be the day,” Gerry said. “So what do you think we should do?”
That was a good question. Valentine had been thinking about his conversation with Sammy Mann the day before, when Sammy told him that everyone in Vegas knew DeMarco was cheating, but weren’t going to do anything until after the tournament was over. He didn’t agree with that rationale, and now realized that he and his son were in a position to fix things.