by James Swain
Unwrapping a candy bar, Bobby bit off an end. “What’s it do?”
“This is sweet. The program analyzes point spreads on college basketball games. Moon bought it from some scammer in Las Vegas. This scammer convinced Moon that each week, there are one or two games where the point spread is wrong. Some statistical-error mumbo jumbo.”
Bobby laughed so hard that he started to choke. Reaching into a cooler, he extracted a bottle of Pepsi and unscrewed the top with his teeth. Everyone had heard about scams out in Las Vegas where con artists sold devices that predicted the outcome of sporting events. The devices were always junk. The scam worked by predicting games that had already been played, then convincing the sucker otherwise. Rico watched the soda in Bobby’s bottle disappear. He wished Bobby would offer him a drink, but Bobby wasn’t like that. He hadn’t reached four hundred pounds by sharing his food.
“What a sucker,” Bobby said.
“Here’s the good part. Nigel told me this computer program has given him an incredible tip, and he wants to place a big bet.”
“How big?”
“Two hundred grand.”
“You’re shitting me. On which game?”
“Miami College against Duke. He thinks Miami has a chance.”
“Of beating the spread?”
“No, of winning.”
Bobby slapped the counter and roared with laughter. The exertion caused him to belch, the sound so loud that it hurt Rico’s ears. He was easily the most disgusting human being that Rico had ever known, and Rico was looking forward to taking him to the cleaners.
“Is that what his computer program tells him? That stinky Miami College is going to beat the number three team in the nation? I can cover that two hundred grand. What’s your take?”
Rico smiled to himself. It had gone exactly the way Victor had said it would.
“Twenty percent,” he said.
“Deal,” the bookie replied.
Taking the Chinese leftovers out of the minibar, Valentine and Gerry ate out of the white cartons. Mealtime had been a no-nonsense affair in their house, and silence ruled. When the food was gone, Gerry said, “I need to talk to you about something.”
Valentine arched his eyebrows. “What’s that?”
“The bar.”
Gerry’s bar in Brooklyn had been a constant source of friction. Valentine had put up the seed money, and the liquor license was in his name. The problem was the office in back, where Gerry ran his bookmaking operation.
“What about it?”
“I’m thinking of selling it.”
There was a rap on the door. Valentine got up and stuck his eye to the peephole. It was Gladys Soft Wings. He glanced at his son, who was in his Jockeys, and said, “Company,” then cracked the door, and said, “Good morning.”
“I got the tribal police to search the dealers’ lockers.” She held up several typed sheets of paper. “Here’s what they found.”
“Come on in.” He heard his son scoot into the bathroom, then opened the door fully. Gladys walked in and tossed her handbag on the bed. Valentine took the typed sheets out of her hand and scanned the list, paying careful attention to the items owned by Karl Blackhorn. Being the most inexperienced member of the gang, he was the most likely candidate to have left something incriminating in his locker.
Fifteen items were listed beneath Blackhorn’s name. Most of it was ordinary stuff like aftershave and hairbrushes. There was an envelope from an Eckerd drug store, and in parentheses it said Pictures. He pointed at the word, and said, “Did the tribal police let you see what the pictures were?”
“Yes,” she said. “They were taken at a restaurant, and showed some men sitting at a table, pigging out on barbecue.”
“Know any of them?”
“Oh, sure,” she said after a few seconds. “Karl, Smooth Stone, and the other three dealers we arrested. And there’s a dealer who left the casino.”
“Who’s that?”
“Jack Lightfoot.”
It made all the sense in the world, and Valentine was surprised he hadn’t seen it sooner. Jack Lightfoot had come to the Micanopy reservation to do a job for Bill Higgins. But because he was a criminal, he had immediately taken up with other criminals and taught them his special method of cheating at blackjack. Gerry emerged from the bathroom, smelling like a barber shop. Valentine introduced him to the Indian lawyer.
“The apple didn’t fall far from the tree, did it,” Gladys said.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” his son said.
Valentine again looked at the list of Blackhorn’s things. The second-to-last item was a bottle of Bayer aspirin, and in parentheses it said Expired. He said, “Did anyone look inside the aspirin bottle?”
Gladys shook her head. “I didn’t think—”
“Was it plastic or see-through?”
“Plastic. Should I call the tribal police and ask them?”
“You bet.”
She called on her cell phone. It took five minutes for the captain on duty to get the items out of storage, find the aspirin bottle, and unscrew the childproof lid.
“Huh,” Gladys said. “The chief found a tiny square of paper. He says it’s no bigger than a quarter.”
“Ask him if it’s sandpaper.”
She did. “He wants to know how you knew that.”
Valentine felt the burn of calling it right. One piece of the puzzle had been solved. “Practice,” he said.
29
Billy Tiger had given airboat tours in the Everglades since he was a teenager, and had met no resistance when he’d asked the man who managed the marina to lend him a boat for the afternoon.
The man had tried to give him a powerboat with a fan engine, thinking Tiger wanted to raise hell for a few hours, but Tiger had taken a johnboat instead. The fan boats could be heard for miles, while the electric johnboats were not heard at all.
The Micanopys had inhabited Florida for three hundred years, but only since the early 1900s had the tribe lived in the Everglades. This shift had been caused by a pair of ruthless robber barons named J. P. Morgan and Henry Flagler, who had descended upon the state and laid claim to the Micanopy tribal lands—all of it beachfront—then hired soldiers and policemen to drive the Micanopys out.
Tiger piloted the johnboat down a brackish waterway choked by mangroves and rotting willows. His ancestors had done a smart thing coming here. There was so much swamp—over five thousand square miles—that a man could get lost whenever he chose, and stay lost for as long as it suited him.
A small body of land loomed ahead. It was bright green and covered in dahoon holly. Tiger slowed the engine, and the johnboat bumped the ragged shoreline. He splashed his hand in the water to dispel any water moccasins, then cautiously stepped out of the vessel.
His feet began to sink. He was standing on a tree island. The Everglades were home to hundreds of such islands. He heard a sarcastic quacking and glanced at a flock of roseate spoonbills nesting in a tree, their pink plumage and clownish faces a sharp contrast to the swamp’s greens and browns. Pollution from sugar plantations had nearly wiped out the spoonbills, and only recently had politicians attempted to correct the problem.
He took Harry Smooth Stone’s instructions from his pocket and read them again. Then he checked the time. Four o’clock.
To kill time, he counted the spoonbills. A dozen filled the trees, half of them babies. A few years ago, there had been less than five hundred in all of Florida. Seeing such a big family made Tiger happy in a way that he could not put into words.
He sprayed himself with Cutter. It was the strongest insect repellent on the market, yet he was still getting chewed alive. Finally he got in the johnboat and pushed himself away from the shore. With swamp people, there was no accounting for missed appointments. Sometimes they showed up, and sometimes they didn’t.
He headed back the way he’d come. Flies hopscotched across the water, only to disappear beneath the surface. He considered dropping a line
, then imagined Smooth Stone sitting in his cell, wondering what the hell had happened to him.
A two-foot bass sprang out of the water. Forgive me, Harry, Tiger thought. Killing the engine, he removed a fishing line from his slicker, then looked over the boat’s edge. Tiny shiners lurked below. Plucking one from the water, he kissed it for luck, then impaled it on the hook and threw it in. The water exploded beside the boat.
Tiger nearly jumped overboard, believing a hungry gator had snuck up on him. Only, what came out of the water was human, but no less dangerous. He watched the familiar figure climb aboard and flop down across from him.
“You scared me, man. What if I had a gun?”
“Then I would have had to take it away from you.”
“Like hell you would,” Tiger said.
His name was Joe Deerslayer, but everyone called him Slash. In and out of trouble his whole life, he’d hidden in the swamps rather than go to prison for robbing a 7-Eleven and shooting the owner in the face. He wore nothing but ratty underwear, his body covered in red sores.
“I’ve got a job for you,” Tiger said.
“Not interested.”
“Smooth Stone sent me.”
Slash helped himself to Tiger’s water bottle. “What’s he want me to do?”
“Pressure a guy.”
A powerfully bad smell was coming off Slash’s body. He shook out his stringy black hair, which fell well past his shoulders, and said, “Who?”
“Name’s Tony Valentine. There’s a woman who works for him. She’s old. Smooth Stone wants you to scare this old woman and make Valentine go home.”
“Where’s that?”
“Palm Harbor. It’s on the west coat, near St. Petersburg.”
“I know where it is. What’s Smooth Stone paying?”
Tiger reached under his seat and removed a bundle of bills wrapped in Saran Wrap. He tossed the bundle to Slash. “Thirty-five hundred. There’s a red Chevy Impala waiting for you in the casino parking lot. The keys are under the mat. In the trunk there are clothes and a map to Valentine’s house. The old woman works there.”
“Make it five,” Slash said.
“Come on. It’s an easy job.”
“Old women bite as hard as anyone else. It’s gonna cost you five.”
Tiger swallowed hard. Five grand was what it cost to have someone killed. He’d seen it in the newspaper a hundred times. Irate spouses or jealous girlfriends would hire hit men to kill their mates. The hit men always charged five grand.
“Harry just wants you to scare her.”
“Don’t tell me what to fucking do,” Slash said.
The swamp grew deathly still, and Tiger heard the sound of his own breathing.
“Put the rest of the money in the trunk of the car,” Slash said, as if the matter were already settled.
“I’ll . . . have to ask Smooth Stone.”
“And a gun. Something small and light.”
“Right.”
“With ammo.”
“Right . . .”
“And give Smooth Stone a message for me.”
“What’s that?”
“Tell him next time, don’t send a boy to do a man’s job.”
Tiger did not know what stung more, the mosquito chewing his face, or the insult. He watched Slash dive over the side of the johnboat and disappear in the brown-black water, then started up the engine and headed back toward civilization.
The town clown’s name was Russell Popjoy. He was a sergeant with the Broward County police, assigned to the Davie area. A week ago, he had paid Ray Hicks a visit and shaken him down for forty-two hundred dollars so Hicks could run his carnival without fear of being harassed or shut down.
Hicks had not expected him to show up at the hospital. But Popjoy had, walking into Mr. Beauregard’s room Saturday night, right as visiting hours were ending. He was an inch shy of being a giant, with bulging weight-lifter muscles and red freckled skin. He stared at Mr. Beauregard strapped to the hospital bed, then at the monitor taking his heartbeat. Then he’d shaken his head.
“Is he—”
“Going to be okay,” Hicks said.
Mr. Beauregard had passed the critical stage the night before. He’d lost a lot of blood, but chimps could do that and still survive, their hearts big and strong.
“I saw him once in Louisiana,” Popjoy said. “I’m from there. Saw him in a pet shop. I was a kid.” The sergeant rotated his hat in his hands, holding back, then said it anyway. “The owner was a crazy old coot. He said, ‘Gimme a dollar and he’ll play a song for you.’ So I gave him a dollar. Then I walked over to his cage.”
Mr. Beauregard’s eyelids fluttered, and he made a gurgling sound. Hicks found the water bottle with the flexible straw and stuck it into his mouth. The chimp took a short drink and fell back asleep.
“He looks just like a kid,” Popjoy said. “But I guess you know that.”
Hicks put the bottle on the table and said that he did.
“Where was I?” Popjoy asked. “Oh, yeah. It was the strangest thing. I stood in front of his cage, and he picked up a ukulele and played an old Cajun song. How Come My Dog Don’t Bark (When You Come Around). I mean, I didn’t say a damn thing.”
“You like this song?”
“It’s my favorite,” Popjoy said. “It was like he read my mind.”
Many people had said this about Mr. Beauregard, and Hicks guessed it was because they weren’t used to being around an animal as smart as them. A nurse appeared and told Popjoy he had to leave.
Hicks walked his visitor into the hall. The sergeant took a notepad from his hip pocket and flipped it open. “I have a lead on the person who shot him. A young boy sitting on the Ferris wheel saw a black limousine pull up to your trailer. A man got out and went inside. When he came out, the boy thought he saw an object in his hand that looked like a gun.”
“A black limousine?”
Popjoy nodded. “The boy didn’t make out the plate, but I was wondering if you might know who owned the vehicle.”
Hicks sure did. It was the punk from New York who’d paid him to rig the games so a drunk Englishman and his hooker could have an hour of fun. He’d kept the punk’s business card, which now resided in his wallet.
And what would Popjoy do with such a piece of information? They couldn’t arrest the punk—not enough evidence. But they could pay him a call and shake him down. Which was why Popjoy had come calling.
“Sorry,” Hicks said.
Popjoy looked disappointed. He shut his notebook and put it away. Then put his hand on Ray Hicks’s shoulder and left it there longer than Hicks would have liked.
“I’m here to help. I want you to remember that.”
“Go to hell,” Hicks said when he was gone.
30
Bill Higgins had stayed in his car Saturday night casing Saul Hyman’s condo. Once or twice he’d dozed, but for the most part, he’d stayed awake. And now he was paying for it. Sunday, seven A.M., and he felt like he’d been run over by a Mack truck. An old guy doing a young guy’s work.
It had been a dull night. At three A.M. he’d called Saul’s private line, having gotten the number from a Miami-Dade cop he knew. As Saul picked up, Higgins hung up. He was willing to bet Saul hadn’t slept since.
Which was why Higgins hadn’t gone anywhere. Let Saul look out his window and see the guy who’d run him out of Las Vegas sitting there, pining for him. That would be enough to make his defibrillator go off.
He played with the radio, trying to find a news station that wasn’t Hispanic. He considered calling Tony, just to see if he’d gotten anywhere, but decided against it. If Tony wanted to tell him something, he’d call. Otherwise, it was best to stay out of his way.
They’d met in Atlantic City in 1978. Higgins was there to give testimony against a blackjack dealer who’d ripped off a casino in Reno a few years earlier. Atlantic City had been overrun by cheaters at the time—what hustlers called a candy store—and Higgins had offered to h
elp the local police learn how to spot problem players. The police had agreed. Tony, then a detective, had been one of his students.
Over time, a friendship had developed, and Higgins had immediately realized that Tony was no ordinary cop. He had great instincts and was damn smart, characteristics that were rare in law enforcement. He also had a huge chip on his shoulder and was not someone you wanted to cross. In that way, he was like most cops, including himself. Higgins’s chip had come from spending his formative years at the Haskell Institute. Where Tony’s had come from, he had no idea.
A Hispanic kid on a flashy bike had braked next to Higgins’s rental. Higgins rolled down his window.
“You Bill Higgins?” the kid asked.
“Who’s asking?”
The kid took a brown envelope from his basket. Higgins’s name was written on it in Magic Marker. He watched the kid pedal away, then tore the envelope open.
Inside was a page taken from the Wall Street Journal, dated last Friday, with a yellow Post-it. Thought you’d like to see this, it read. Higgins scanned the page.
Hackers Scam Internet Casino for $2 Million (Reuters)
100 gamblers got very lucky last Sunday afternoon.
Or did they?
Yesterday, CyberGamble, a Nevada software company that hosts online casino games, revealed that a hacker cracked one of the firm’s servers last Sunday and corrupted the site’s craps, video slots, and poker games so that players couldn’t lose. For a period of approximately two hours, 100 gamblers across the country racked up winnings in excess of $2 million.
Higgins realized he was gritting his teeth. He’d been opposed to Internet gambling for years. Players routinely got screwed by unscrupulous Web sites, while legitimate Web sites routinely got screwed by hackers. But the bad thing was that anyone could play, including kids, and Gamblers Anonymous was reporting hundreds of cases of eight- and nine-year-old addicts. His eyes returned to the page.
CyberGamble, a publicly traded company, is liable for $500,000 of the stolen money, while a $1.5 million insurance claim with Lloyd’s of London will cover the rest. The 100 winners are being allowed to keep their winnings, as there is no proof they were involved in the scam.