by James Swain
Moments later, Gerry was helping him stand up. The chief had twisted his ankle and had to lean on him to remain upright. Gerry stared at the bloody knife in his hand.
“He won’t go far,” Running Bear said.
44
Slash had torn the house apart.
Bound and gagged, Mabel watched him destroy the study, then listened as he moved through the house. Shelves were pulled out, glassware broken, the heirlooms and sentimental bric-a-brac that Tony and Lois had brought from Atlantic City tossed around like so much junk. Seeing him destroy things was hard. Hearing it was somehow worse.
When he returned, he was holding a sandwich. He untied her hands and removed the gag. “You want this?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Where did he hide the gun?”
“Tony must have taken it with him.”
“You better not be lying.”
The sandwich was baloney with mayo and tasted as good as anything she’d ever put into her mouth. Slash pulled up a chair and attached the David to his waist, then fitted the special boots on his feet.
“One more time,” he said.
The playing cards were on the desk, and Mabel picked them up. She shuffled, then dealt two hands. Slash’s cards were a six and a three. He wiggled his toes in his boots.
“The David just gave me two clicks,” he said.
“That means double-down on your bet,” Mabel said.
“Okay. Deal me another.”
Mabel dealt him a ten, making his total nineteen. Mabel’s hand was a seventeen, which the rules did not allow her to draw on. Slash had won.
They played another round.
“The David gave me a long buzz,” he said.
Mabel had written the David’s code on the pad. A long buzz meant stand, a short click meant take a hit, a double click meant double-down, and a short buzz meant split your hand. Slash hadn’t consulted the pad once, preferring to lean on her.
“Stand,” Mabel said.
He won again. He let out a whoop that sent a shiver down Mabel’s spine.
“I’m going to be rich,” he declared.
Yes, Mabel thought, you are. He was going to succeed, not because he was skilled at operating the David, but because he did not fit the profile of the cheaters who did. Those people were usually white males between the ages of thirty and fifty who spoke articulately and dressed well. Slash was none of those things, and would fly right by even the most seasoned surveillance personnel.
Only one thing was standing in his way. Her.
Rico’s arm was bleeding all over the seat. He’d looked at the wound and not seen any bone and decided that was a good thing. Driving north on I-95, he’d settled into the right lane and hit the cruise control, then used his knees to steer while making a makeshift bandage out of some paper napkins and rubber bands he found in the armrest. He glanced in his mirror at Valentine sitting in the backseat.
“Show me your hands,” Rico said.
Valentine turned sideways and lifted his arms. His wrists were tied together with twine, his hands clean.
“I’m going to make an example of you,” Rico said.
“Why’s that?”
“You fucked up the greatest score I’ve ever had.”
“I did?”
“You killed Bobby’s Cubans and stole my money.”
“Those Cubans were dead when I walked in.”
“Don’t play stupid with me. You and Gerry ripped off Bobby Jewel. The money you stole was going to net me four million bucks. Think about it when I gouge your eyes out.”
“You don’t have the guts,” his passenger said.
Rico started to draw his .45, and the limo swerved into the left lane. Horns blared and tires screeched. Rico realized that was exactly what Valentine wanted—to draw attention, and get someone to punch 911 on a cell phone. He straightened the wheel, and the exertion sent a burning sensation through his arm that made him want to scream.
“You’re history,” he said through clenched teeth.
Ray Hicks had given up trying to find Rico’s limo.
There was too much traffic on I-95 and not enough horsepower in his engine to race around in the blind hope of spotting him. Better to come back another day and settle this, he decided. He headed north toward Davie.
Crossing the Broward County line, Hicks saw smoke coming off the highway. A quarter mile ahead, a black limo was weaving drunkenly between lanes. Hicks floored his accelerator, and soon passed signs for Hallandale, Pembroke Pines, and Hollywood. Just north of Hollywood, the limo headed west on 595. Mr. Beauregard, who’d been aimlessly plucking chords, broke into the William Tell Overture. The music sent an icy chill down Hicks’s back.
Soon they were in the last undeveloped area of Broward County and heading toward the Everglades. Hicks saw the limo’s indicator come on. Rico was going onto the Micanopy Indian reservation.
Hicks followed him.
Mr. Beauregard continued to play chase music. It made Hicks’s heart race, and he had almost convinced himself the chimp was psychic, when he realized how foolish that was. Mr. Beauregard’s gift was sensing human emotions—like anger and fear—and picking the appropriate music to accompany those feelings. Had Mr. Beauregard truly been psychic, Hicks would have sold his carnival and put him on television.
45
Slash had graduated from Mabel’s school of blackjack cheating.
He had gone through an entire deck of cards without once having to ask Mabel a single question, the codes and computer signals now second nature.
“Well,” he said, “I guess that’s it.”
Mabel felt his eyes burning her face. She was holding the cards in her hands.
“Let’s play another round,” she suggested.
“I’m done,” he said. “You’re a good teacher.”
Her throat went dry. Slash’s face had taken on a visceral quality. She tossed the cards onto Tony’s desk. They scattered, and she found herself staring at a book lying next to the phone. Tony was an avid reader—westerns, mysteries, anything by Elmore Leonard—only, she’d never seen him reading this book. She stared at the spine. It was Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment.
She thought about how she was going to do this. Thought about it calmly, because that was what Tony had told her to do in tough situations. She remembered the gang of hustlers he’d caught past-posting at roulette. Mabel had watched the tape several times, but had not seen what the gang was doing until Tony had pointed it out. While two members distracted surveillance by yelling and banging the table, a third member—a petite old lady—had surreptitiously placed a late bet. The scam had flown right by everyone, and all because the old lady had slowly put her late bet on the table. So slowly, that no one had noticed.
“And you are a wonderful student,” Mabel said.
“You think so?”
“I’d give you an A.”
Slash grinned, and Mabel calmly reached across the desk and removed Dostoyevsky’s masterpiece from its resting place. Placing the book in her lap, she flipped it open. As she’d expected, it was hollow, and she removed the Sig Sauer resting inside and aimed it at Slash’s hairless chest.
Her abductor stared down the gun’s barrel. He smiled, exposing two crooked rows of teeth. “You got me,” he said.
“Yes, I do,” she said.
“You’re a cagey old broad.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere.”
Slash lifted his arms as if to stretch, and Mabel twitched the gun’s barrel.
“Don’t move,” she said.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said.
Yes, you would, Mabel thought. I’m a sixty-five-year-old woman with lousy vision. If you jump me—and I’m sure that’s exactly what’s going through your deranged mind—I might get a round off. Wounded, you’d still be strong enough to strangle the life out of me.
Mabel aimed the gun directly at her abductor’s heart. It took Slash a few seconds to comprehend.
Forgive me, God.
Slash leapt out of his chair. But by then, Mabel had already squeezed the trigger.
As Rico pulled off 595, Valentine had understood.
Like any other predatory creature, murderers often returned to places they believed safe. Rico was taking him to the swamps, to the place where he’d dumped Jack Lightfoot, and where Splinters had tried to shoot Candy.
Rico drove down the unlit road for a few miles, then pulled over. The shoulder was muck, and the wheels sank a few inches before coming to rest. He got out, then flung open Valentine’s door. “Move,” he barked.
It wasn’t easy to walk with his hands tied behind his back, and Valentine stumbled to find his legs, his body still feeling the effects of having the fat guy in the newspaper store pancake him. There was a full moon, and the swamp was alive with animal sounds.
Rico took out a handkerchief and tied it over Valentine’s eyes.
“Walk,” he said.
Valentine’s feet found the path, and he took a few uncertain steps. He felt a gun barrel press against his left ear, then heard a deafening roar.
The pain was white and traveled through his brain like a hot stake. He fell forward, his head wrenched to one side, away from the burning sensation that consumed the left half of his face. Lying on the ground, he thought about Gerry, and how angry his son was going to be when his will was read.
“Get up,” Rico barked.
Valentine staggered to his feet and stumbled down the path.
Rico shoved him. “This way.”
Valentine went to his right. Soon his feet found a clearing, the swamp sounds more prevalent than before. Rico stuck the .45’s barrel into his spine.
“On your knees,” he said.
Ray Hicks came around a bend in the road and saw Rico’s limo parked on the shoulder. He flashed his brights, then parked behind the limo and shut off the engine. Rolling down his window, he heard a pair of men’s voices coming from one of the trails.
Inside the glove compartment was a pearl-handled revolver he’d won in a poker game, and a Walther PPK. He removed the Walther and checked the chamber to ensure it was loaded. He watched Mr. Beauregard lower his window. Something in the swamps was calling the chimp, and Hicks imagined him running away.
“Mr. Beauregard, I am ordering you to stay here.”
Mr. Beauregard stared out the window, ignoring him.
“You will stay here.”
The chimp sighed. Hicks got out of the car. From the trunk he removed a flashlight, tested it, then cautiously headed down the path.
The swamp was jungle-thick with vegetation, and the flashlight’s beam caught elephant ears and tree vines that reminded him of the Louisiana bayous. As a boy, he’d spent countless hours in the low country with his granddaddy, learning to hunt and fish and all the other things it took to become a man. It had been a special time, and thinking about it had a calming influence on him.
He came to a fork in the path. The men’s voices had stopped, the swamp deathly still. Which way should he go? He was left-handed, so that was the direction he chose.
He walked a quarter mile, then came to a dead end. He kicked at the ground in frustration, then heard a gunshot pierce the still night air.
Hicks retraced his steps, then went down the other path to a clearing. His flashlight found a figure lying on the ground. It was a man with a bloody hole in his back. Beside him was another man, blindfolded and on his knees.
Hicks got closer. The blindfolded man had been shot, and his arms appeared tied behind his back. Hicks circled him, just to be sure.
“Is someone there?” the blindfolded man said.
“Yes,” Hicks said.
“Is he dead?” the blindfolded man asked.
Hicks’s flashlight found Rico’s face. He gave him a good kick. Rico was as dead as a dog lying on the side of the road. Hicks stared at the blindfolded man with blood pouring down his face.
“Yes, he is,” Hicks said.
The man started to weep. Hicks considered untying him, then decided not to. For all he knew, the man was a criminal and would try to kill him.
“Please,” the man said, “call the police.”
Shaking, Hicks got behind the wheel of his car. He dialed 911 on his cell phone, then smelled sulfur. He looked at Mr. Beauregard, then the open glove compartment. Reaching in, he touched the pearl-handled revolver. It was warm.
A police operator came on the line. Hicks struggled to find his voice. He gave the operator his location and said there had been a killing. The operator said a cruiser was on 595 and would be right there.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said.
Hanging up, Hicks tried to make sense of what had happened. If Mr. Beauregard had been following him, he would surely have picked up Hicks’s scent and followed his owner. Only he hadn’t. He’d gone looking for Rico. Had he somehow known another man’s life hung in the balance?
“I wish you could talk,” Hicks said.
A police cruiser appeared in his mirror, its bubble flashing. Digging a handkerchief from his pocket, he wiped down the pearl-handled revolver and replaced Mr. Beauregard’s prints with his own. The police would want to know exactly what had happened. Keep it simple, he thought. He started to get out.
Mr. Beauregard picked up his ukulele and became lost in his music. Hicks felt his eyes well up with tears, the song instantly familiar.
“I’ll be damned,” he said.
My Old Kentucky Home. It had been his granddaddy’s favorite.
46
“Let me guess,” Saul Hyman said. “You cut your ear off and sent it to a broad.”
It was ten days later, and Valentine stood in the foyer of Saul’s condo, glad to see that the old con man was strong enough to be in a wheelchair, the casts on his arms and legs not slowing him down.
“Can I come in?”
A black male nurse rolled the wheelchair backwards. Valentine entered the condo’s living room and stared at the sliver of ocean view. He felt bad for Saul; from the vantage point of his chair, he probably couldn’t see the water.
He sat on the couch, and the nurse rolled the wheelchair up so Saul was a few feet away. Then the nurse left.
“When I hit eighty, I want one of those,” Valentine said.
“Where’s your son?”
“Up in New York, selling his bar.”
“You going to let him come work for you?”
“One thing at a time,” Valentine said.
Saul smirked. “So how bad is the ear? You going to have a plastic surgeon make you a fake one?”
Valentine hadn’t come to Saul’s condo to talk about the shredded stump on the side of his head. He put a finger on the rubber wheel of Saul’s chair and brought the old con man a few inches closer. “Did you ever have an epiphany?”
“I don’t think Jews have those,” Saul said.
“I did. It happened while I was blindfolded and waiting for Rico to put a bullet in me. I thought I was going to die, and then I had one.”
“An epiphany?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What was it like?”
“Everything suddenly becomes clear.”
“Like Joan of Arc?”
“Did she have them?”
“In the movie, yeah.”
“Yeah, like Joan of Arc.”
“You going to share it?”
Valentine lowered his voice. The nurse, he guessed, hadn’t gone far, and he saw no point in spoiling the relationship. “You’re Victor Marks.”
Saul laughed like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. Valentine placed his hand onto the arm of Saul’s wheelchair. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner. You’re in south Florida, so is Victor. All your scams used the mark’s money, so did Victor’s. And when Rico came here to kill you, you told Bill Higgins that you recognized Rico’s voice, even though he was wearing a stocking, and you’ve never met him before.”
The blood drained from Saul’s sunken che
eks. He began to look remorseful, and Valentine didn’t think it was an act. Almost dying brought out the best in most people.
“Out with it,” Valentine said.
Saul lifted his head. “Six months ago, Victor calls from Palm Beach. He tells me he’s got colon cancer, maybe two weeks to live. He says, ‘I’ve got a major scam going. I want you to take over.’ I said, ‘Why not?’ ”
“Was this the game show scam?”
Saul nodded. “I never made the kind of money Victor did, always got the crumbs. I figured it would be easy. So Victor checks out, and I dye my hair and grow a mustache, and I become him.”
“No one noticed the difference?”
“No one knew what Victor looked like, or his voice. And the staff at the Breakers turns over every few months. It was easy.”
“So you scammed Who Wants to Be Rich? and got hooked up with Rico.”
“Biggest mistake of my life,” Saul said.
“You didn’t know he was a killer.”
“No, no. I thought he just wanted to learn the rackets.”
“So you taught him.”
Saul leaned over and touched Valentine’s hand. “This is going to sound stupid.”
“What’s that?”
“I always wanted a son. A relationship like you have with your boy.”
“And Rico was that to you.”
“Yes.”
Valentine believed him. But it didn’t change the words that came out of his mouth.
“There’s going to be an investigation, and your name is going to come up. I can’t protect you, Saul. I know you’ve suffered, but the truth still has to come out. Other people’s reputations depend upon it.”
Saul took a Kleenex from the pocket of his robe and wiped at his eyes. He was crying, and Valentine took the Kleenex out of his hand. No onion inside. He rose from the couch. “My guess is, you’ve got a week, maybe longer, to hightail it out of the country.”
“In my condition?” Saul said belligerently.
“It’s up to you.”
“What about my condo?” Saul said. “And my clothes, and my car, and all my things? I can’t just leave them, can I?”