“The last I heard, over twelve million,” the bookie said, a police siren wailing in the background. “And the tournament doesn’t end until next week.”
“Where do you think it will top out?”
“Twenty million, easy.”
“Any idea where it’s coming from?”
“Here, there, and everywhere,” Big Dave said, the siren gradually fading. “There’s a lot of money on that blind guy, DeMarco.”
“How much is a lot?”
“A million, so far. Personally, I don’t think he’s got a snowball’s chance in hell.”
“Why not?”
“He bad-mouthed Rufus Steele. The other players will be gunning for him, mark my words.”
Gerry thanked him and killed the connection. If the tournament ended up taking in twenty million in total wagers, it would be easy for DeMarco’s backers to put a couple million on their boy without drawing suspicion. That would net them a cool eighty million bucks, along with the ten million first prize. It was a hell of a lot of money for a stinking poker tournament.
The waitress appeared with a large Ziplock filled with ice. He placed the ice in the canvas bag with the insulin, then fished out his wallet and tossed a twenty onto her tray. The help got paid dirt in Las Vegas, and she smiled appreciatively.
“Thanks a lot, mister.”
Gerry walked into the blackjack pit, and found Vinny, Nunzie, and Frank sitting at a table with an older woman dealer. Each man had an imposing stack of chips, and was oblivious to the gray-haired pit boss standing nearby, watching them.
Gerry watched his friends read the dealer’s hole card. Nunzie sat to the dealer’s right, and stayed low in his chair. This allowed him to peek at the corner of the dealer’s hole card as it was slipped under her face card. If he saw paint, indicating a king, jack, or queen, he puffed twice on his cigarette. If he saw white, indicating a number card, he puffed once. It was enough information to give everyone at the table an unbeatable edge.
Out of the corner of his eye, Gerry saw the pit boss lift a walkie-talkie to his face. He guessed the pit boss was talking to someone in the surveillance control room about what was happening at the table. It didn’t matter if what was happening was legal, or illegal. The pit boss had a quota to meet for his shift, and if Nunzie, Frank, and Vinny prevented him from achieving that quota, he’d catch hell from his bosses.
Gerry felt the pit boss’s eyes on him, and saw a look of recognition spread across the man’s face. Gerry was sure he’d never laid eyes on the guy in his life. To his surprise, the man came out of the pit like he wanted to shake hands. Then it dawned on Gerry what was going on. The pit boss knew his father.
Gerry bumped Vinny’s chair, and Vinny turned around to stare at him.
“Start losing,” Gerry said under his breath.
“What?”
“Start losing. All of you.”
“But—”
“Do it.”
The pit boss was a few feet away, and had stopped. Gerry turned around.
“I’m sorry,” the pit boss said. “I thought you were someone else.”
“I’m Gerry Valentine. My father’s Tony Valentine.” Gerry removed his business card from his wallet, and handed it to him. The pit boss’s eyesight wasn’t good, and he put his glasses on, read the card, then looked into Gerry’s face.
“You’re the spitting image of your father.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You here on a job?”
“Yes,” Gerry said. “My associates and I are working with my father on a case.”
The pit boss’s expression changed. He looked at Vinny, Frank, and Nunzie, then back at Gerry. “These three guys are with you?” he asked.
Gerry could have cut the suspicion in the pit boss’s voice with a chain saw, and he placed his hand firmly on the back of Vinny’s chair. “Yes. We’re all together.”
“Your friends are taking us to the cleaners,” the pit boss said.
The challenge in his voice was unmistakable. Gerry glanced at the table. Each man’s stack of chips had dwindled to practically nothing. As Gerry watched, the three men drew cards on another hand, and all lost. Gerry looked innocently at the pit boss.
“You could have fooled me,” he said.
“What the hell are you doing?” Vinny asked as they marched out the casino’s front doors. “We were up three grand!”
“Yeah,” Nunzie piped in. “That dealer was a piece of cake. I was thinking of asking her to marry me.”
No one laughed. The late afternoon sun was blinding, and Gerry shielded his eyes and searched the endless rows of cars in the parking lot for their rental.
“The pit boss knows my father,” Gerry said.
“And because of that, you told us to lose?”
“That’s right.”
“I don’t get it,” Vinny said. To Nunzie and Frank he asked, “Do you?”
“No,” they both said.
Gerry could tell they wanted an explanation, only he didn’t feel like giving it to them, and continued to look for their vehicle. He didn’t like giving up a score any more than Vinny or Nunzie or Frank, but some things were more important than money, like his father’s business.
It was strange how things worked out. Growing up, he’d hated that his father was a cop, and been glad when he retired. Then his mother had passed away, and his father had nearly died of a broken heart. One day, a casino in Atlantic City had asked his father to do some consulting work, and in no time his father was back on his feet, busting cheaters. The work had been his salvation, and Gerry wasn’t going to screw that up.
He found the rental car sandwiched between two rusted old junkers that looked ready for the scrap heap. That was one of the bad things about casinos. They attracted people who’d run out of everything but dreams. The space between the cars was narrow, and Gerry was sliding between them to unlock the driver’s door when he saw a long shadow on the asphalt. He turned around slowly, fearing the worst. Sensing his alarm, his friends also turned.
Standing twenty yards away was a man who looked familiar. Tall, lanky, wearing faded blue jeans and a dungaree shirt with a square bulge in the pocket, the man wore his hair straight back, and had a look on his face of pure menace. The handgun that dangled by his side rounded out the picture. Then Gerry recognized him. It was the construction worker from the Voodoo Lounge, the guy that Gerry knew was part of the scheme to kill them. Their eyes met, and the construction worker raised his gun.
24
“Great shirt,” Gloria Curtis said, spearing a shrimp in her shrimp cocktail.
“You like it?” Valentine asked.
“Yes. The color matches your eyes.”
Valentine smiled as he buttered his roll. They were having dinner in Celebrity’s revolving restaurant atop the hotel while watching the desert turn a burnt ochre color.
“I saw you buying it earlier,” she added.
He looked into her face and saw her eyes twinkle. If he’d learned anything from the past two years of taking stabs at dating, it was that women appreciated when a man tried to look nice on their behalf. How this simple fact had escaped him during his forty years of marriage, he had no earthly idea.
“It’s a new color for me,” he said. “I’m glad you like it.”
“New, as in you haven’t worn it in a while?”
He shook his head. “I can’t remember wearing blue as a kid. I wore it as a cop when I was in uniform and had a beat, then switched to jeans and sweatshirts when I went undercover. When I started policing casinos, I wore a black sports jacket and a white shirt.”
“You always wore white shirts? No variations?”
He again shook his head. One year for Christmas, his wife had given him a pink button-down shirt, and he’d worn it to work. Everyone had made so much fun of him, he’d retired it to the closet and never worn it again.