Valentine was tired, and the old cowboy’s words were slow to sink in. The World Poker Showdown had already had one allegation of cheating, and the tournament should have gone out of its way to ensure that no more took place. Yet more cheating wastaking place, and he had the evidence right in his hand. He stopped at the door to his suite and fitted the plastic key into the lock. Then he looked Rufus square in the eye.
“You think the people running the tournament are crooked, don’t you?”
Rufus nodded grimly. “Cheaters don’t like to expose other cheaters. It makes them uneasy.”
“It that why the tournament isn’t regulating itself?”
“That would be my guess.”
The light on the lock flashed green. Valentine removed the key and pushed the door open. He could hear his bed calling to him, but it wasn’t as loud as his conscience.
“Then I guess I’ll just have to shut the tournament down,” he said.
10
As Kenny “the Clown” Abruzzi walked up to the car, Davis reached into his sports jacket and drew a .40 mini-Glock, the same gun Gerry’s father had carried up until the day he’d retired from the Atlantic City Police Department.
“Get ready to hit the floor,” Davis said.
Gerry stiffened. Bally’s unfriendly neon sign offered enough light to let him see Abruzzi’s face. The guy looked lost.
“I think he wants to ask us something,” Gerry said.
“With a gun in his hand?”
“I think it’s a flashlight.”
“Your vision that good?”
“Twenty/twenty.”
The flashlight in Abruzzi’s hand came on, proving Gerry right. It shone a sharp beam of light onto a piece of paper in his other hand that looked like directions. Davis slipped the Glock back into his shoulder harness, then rolled down his window.
Abruzzi flashed a sheepish grin. For a big guy, his face was small, with a hawk nose, smallish eyes, and dark hair slicked back on both sides. He held the instructions up to Davis’s open window, the familiar MapQuest symbol at the top of the page.
“Hey buddy, can you help me?” Abruzzi asked. “I think I’m lost. I’m looking for a Days Inn.”
Davis looked at the instructions while watching Abruzzi, then pointed out his window. “The Days Inn is five-and-a-half miles south on Atlantic Avenue. Hang a left, and go straight. You can’t miss it.”
Abruzzi said thanks, then hustled back to the Audi and climbed in. Gerry sensed he had made Davis as an undercover cop, and was going to run. Davis guessed the same thing, and redrew his Glock while opening his car door.
“You going to arrest him?” Gerry asked.
“I will if I find a police scanner in his car,” Davis replied.
“What can I do, besides stay out of your way?”
Davis had one foot on the macadam, and he turned to look at him. “Get behind the wheel. When I go up to Abruzzi’s car, I’ll give you a sign. Turn the headlights on so I can see what I’m dealing with.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Gerry said.
Davis got out and silently shut the door.
Gerry climbed across the front seats. Growing up a cop’s son, he knew that there was a science to handling a bust. If the bust was to go right, the first few seconds of the suspect learning his freedom was about to be taken away were critical. Anything could happen if the arresting officer didn’t handle the suspect properly. Gerry got behind the wheel and found the switch for the headlights.
Then he watched Abruzzi. The mobster had fired up a cigarette and was blowing smoke out his window. Davis came up to the window and identified himself as a police officer, then ordered Abruzzi to step out of the car while keeping his hands visible. Stepping back, Davis made the okay sign to Gerry.
Gerry hit the headlights and flooded the Audi in light.
Abruzzi didn’t get out. Instead, he stuck his head through the open window and started talking. He was playing dumb, and Gerry guessed this was where he’d gotten the nickname the Clown. Davis again ordered him out of the car.
Abruzzi kept up the idiot routine, and Gerry found himself thinking how Abruzzi had approached them with the instructions. It had allowed him to see what he was up against, and Gerry sensed Abruzzi was going to put up a fight. Gerry flashed the car’s brights, and Davis glanced in his direction.
“What?” Davis said loudly.
“Signal 30,” Gerry called out.
A Signal 30 was used by the Atlantic City police dispatchers when there was trouble and they needed to round up officers.
“I won’t say it again,” Davis said to Abruzzi. “Out of the car.”
“All right already,” Abruzzi said.
Quickly drawing a gun from a hiding place in his door, Abruzzi fired it at Davis, a sharp bang!ripping the night air. Davis instinctively went backward, the bullet from Abruzzi’s gun taking out the headlight of a car parked across the street. Twisting his ankle, Davis fell to the pavement, and lay on his side with a dazed look in his eyes.
“Throw your gun away,” Abruzzi said.
“You’re under arrest.”
“Like hell I am. Throw it away or I’ll clip you.”
Davis reluctantly tossed his Glock across the macadam.
“You’re real smart for a spade,” Abruzzi said sarcastically.
Gerry sensed that Abruzzi was going to shoot Davis in cold blood, then drive away. Abruzzi had sized them up. Davis was the threat, and Gerry wasn’t.
Gerry twisted the key in the ignition and heard the Mustang’s engine roar. Abruzzi jerked his head and stared just as Gerry threw the Mustang into drive.
Big mistake,Gerry thought.
Gerry hit the rear of the Audi doing forty-five mph, throwing it into the street. The impact, making a horrible crunching sound, buckled the Mustang’s hood, and a mushroom cloud of black smoke hung ominously above the vehicle. Getting out, Gerry went to where Davis lay, saw a dark pool of blood swelling around the detective, and gagged.
“Jesus Christ, you’re shot,” Gerry said.
“I don’t feel shot.” Davis touched his back, then brought his hand to his face. It was covered with red, and he grimaced.
“Go make sure Abruzzi’s disarmed,” he said.
“But you’re bleeding, Eddie.”
“Just do as I say,” Davis said.
Gerry ran over to the Audi. It no longer looked like a fancy forty-thousand-dollar sports car. The driver’s seat was empty, the windshield disintegrated. Twenty feet up the street Abruzzi lay on the pavement with his head twisted at an unnatural angle. He’d killed a mobster. A mobster.Gerry staggered backward.
“Gerry!” Davis yelled at the top of his lungs.
“What…?”
“Don’t pass out on me, man.”
“He’s dead….”
“Stop looking at him.”
Gerry turned his gaze from the dead man and filled his lungs with air.
“Was there a police scanner inside the car?” Davis asked.
Gerry took a deep breath, tried to collect his wits, then went to the Audi, looked inside the crumpled car. An upside-down police scanner sat on the passenger seat, the multicolored lights on its control panel flashing wildly. Frantic voices came out of its speaker. The guy’s partners inside the casino had heard the collision.
Gerry went back to where Davis lay on the pavement.
“Scanner’s there,” he said.
“Get on my cell phone, and call Joey inside the casino,” Davis said. “Tell him to grab the guy’s partners. Joey’s number is in the phone’s menu.”
The pool of blood around Davis’s body was expanding. The detective’s voice sounded perfectly normal, but Gerry knew that people could get shot and never feel it. He ran back to the Mustang and pulled the car’s radio off the dashboard while praying it still worked. There was a crackle of static and a dispatcher came on.
“Officer down,” Gerry said. “I have an officer down.”
11
Valentine was sound asleep when the phone rang the next morning. He fumbled with the receiver, a word resembling hellospilling out of his mouth.
“You up?” Bill Higgins asked.