“Here? Give me a break. You have the fucking humidity. We don’t.”
“No, you just step outside and burst into flames.”
The albino’s face cracked. Almost a smile, but not quite there.
“Drink your beer,” he said.
The albino walked down the bar to take care of a female customer. The woman didn’t have any money but wanted another drink. The albino showed her to the door, then returned.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“I’m looking for a couple of brothers who came into town yesterday,” Gerry said, a frosty beer moustache painting his upper lip. “Their names are Nunzie and Vinny Fountain. There’s a third guy with them, a gorilla named Frank.”
“Tush hog?” the albino asked.
Gerry had never heard anyone use that expression except his father. A tush hog was a muscleman employed by mobsters who enjoyed putting the hurt on people. Usually, their presence was enough to settle things.
“Wouldn’t know. I’ve never seen him fight,” Gerry said.
“Let me make a phone call, see what I can find out,” the albino said.
Gerry reached into his wallet and folded the C-note. He handed the money to the albino along with his empty mug. The albino walked down the bar, picked up the house phone, and made a call. Gerry lifted his gaze and stared at the TV. The hockey players were still fighting, their masks and gloves lying on the ice. He remembered going to a hockey game at Madison Square Garden with Jack Donovan, and Jack saying that hockey games had to have fights. Otherwise, they would last only about fifteen minutes.
The albino came back. “Your friends are staying at the Riviera.”
“Thanks,” Gerry said.
Going out, Gerry stopped to watch two guys at the pool table playing one-pocket. One-pocket was the favorite game among skilled players. Both players were too drunk to make any decent shots, and he left before the game ended.
He stepped outside into a blast of heat coming off the desert. The sunlight was fading, and the casinos’ feverishly pulsing neon was beginning to define the skyline. Standing in the parking lot, he stared northward at the brilliant sphere of light coming out of the Luxor’s towering green glass pyramid. The light had attracted thousands of moths, which in turn attracted hundreds of bats, and their wings beat furiously against the sky. He tried to remember the last time he’d seen a bat in the desert. Behind him, a car pulled into the lot, and two guys jumped out.
“Is that supposed to be a disguise?” one said sarcastically.
Gerry spun around. It was Vinny and the tush hog. He glanced into the idling car, and saw Nunzie behind the wheel.
“How did you find me?” Gerry asked.
“The albino called me,” Vinny said. “We’ve got an arrangement.”
“You sleeping with him?”
The tush hog laughed under his breath. Vinny threw an elbow into the bigger man’s ribs. Then Vinny stared at Gerry for what seemed like an eternity.
“Is your father with you?” Vinny asked.
“No, I came alone,” Gerry said.
Vinny rubbed his jaw. It was still swollen from where his father had popped him. Vinny’s eyes were burning, the ignominy of the punch slow to fade.
“Let’s go for a drive,” Vinny said.
11
Valentine said good-bye to Bill and hung up the phone, then went to his bedroom and started packing for Las Vegas. Into his hanging bag went two pairs of black slacks, two white button-down cotton shirts, and two black sports jackets that dated back to his days policing Atlantic City’s casinos. He threw in a gold necktie his wife had given him and zippered the bag closed. The clothes were the same ones he always wore when he was working — his uniform.
The phone rang while he was eating supper. He’d recently gotten Caller ID, and saw that it was Bill. He answered with a bite of sandwich still in his mouth.
“What would you say to appearing on TV when you come out here?” Bill asked.
He swallowed the food in his mouth and nearly choked.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Afraid not. Gloria Curtis won’t let this story die, and neither will the network she works for. They’re hounding me about Rufus Steele’s allegations of being cheated. I told Gloria that I’d hired an outsider to investigate. Now she’s wants an interview with you.”
“You know how I feel about going on TV,” Valentine said.
“Yes, that it’s stupid and has ruined more investigations than it’s helped,” Bill said. “But here’s my problem. Gloria broke this story. If you don’t talk to her, she’ll go on air, and start speculating about why the Nevada Gaming Control Board hired you. That would hurt your investigation and the tournament.”
He put his dirty plate in the sink and ran warm water over it. He’d appeared on television a handful of times while working on cases, and always regretted it. His statements had been distorted, and he’d been challenged by nitwits who knew nothing about the gaming industry or cheating. Worse, his mug had gotten put out there for everyone to see, something that was unhealthy in his line of work.
“Sounds like you’ve gotten yourself painted into a corner,” Valentine said. “How about we offer her a compromise?”
“Name it.”
“I’ll talk to Gloria, but not on the air, because showing my face would compromise the investigation. She can ask me questions, and I’ll answer them to the best of my ability. Then she can tell her viewers what’s going on.”
“You’d be willing to do that?”
“Sure.”
“Will you tell her anything?”
“Of course not,” Valentine said. “It’s none of her flipping business. Can I make another suggestion?”
“Of course.”
“Get ahold of Rufus Steele, and tell him to keep his mouth shut until I get out there and get to the bottom of what’s going on. If he gives you any lip, tell him I’ll expose his sorry ass.”
“Expose him how?”
“Rufus got arrested when he was a teenager. He rescued stray dogs from the pound, paid a groomer to make them look like an exotic breed, then went into wealthy neighborhoods, and sold them to widows with a sob story about needing money. At his trial, he told the judge he was doing the town a favor, because the women became attached to the dogs, and kept them after their coats grew out. The judge gave him ninety days.”
He dried the plate with a towel and heard Bill laughing.
“That’s wonderful,” his friend said.
Valentine went into his study and printed his flight itinerary off the computer. His flight left Tampa at seven A.M., which meant he needed to get up by four thirty in order to drive to the airport and deal with security. It made him tired just thinking about it, and he folded the itinerary into a square and stuck it into his wallet.
He shuffled into his bedroom and set the alarm clock, then undressed and lay naked on his bed. Nighttime was the most difficult time, and sometimes he imagined that everything that had happened since Lois’s death was a dream, and that she would walk into the room, and his life would return to normal. A stupid dream, but one he still held on to.
An hour later the phone rang. He answered it with a groggy “Hello.”
“Hey, Tony, hope I didn’t wake you,” Eddie Davis’s voice rang out.
“You did, but that’s okay.”
“I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you,” his friend from the Atlantic City Police Department said, “but it’s been a long day. I did a background check on those three names you gave me. I also took it upon myself to ask my pal over at the New Jersey Gambling Commission if they had a file on those boys.”