The man holding the quarter started to shake. “What’s the date?”
“It’s 1947.”
Dr. Robinson took the quarter out of the man’s hand and, in a loud voice, verified the date. It was indeed 1947. The doctor handed the quarter back to the man, who passed it to his partners. The other men examined the coin while shaking their heads in disbelief.
No one was more despondent than the Greek, who hurriedly came around Rufus’s chair, and examined the coin. The Greek began to dab at his eyes, and Valentine realized he was crying, never a pretty sight inside a casino.
“Hey, Tony, help me out, will you?” Rufus asked.
Valentine went to where Rufus sat, and untied the drawstring of the leather bag around the old cowboy’s head. He pulled the bag off, then untied the twine holding the steel glasses to Rufus’s face. To his surprise, the glasses hadn’t moved, and he wondered how Rufus had managed to see through them.
Rufus rubbed at his eyes, and then patted down his hair. Standing, he faced Gloria Curtis’s microphone and the camera, and raised his arms triumphantly into the air.
“I win,” he declared.
39
“We’re not going to kill you,” Jinky Harris said.
Gerry Valentine stared at his captor, the rhythmic pounding of flesh reverberating across the dusty warehouse. He was sitting bound to a chair and sweat was pouring off his body. Jinky’s men hadn’t driven very far after abducting them, and Gerry had seen the casinos’ blazing neon in the distance as he’d been pulled from the trunk.
“You could have fooled me,” Gerry said.
The warehouse was shaped like a small airplane hangar. On the other end, Vinny and Nunzie and Frank also sat bound in chairs. Jinky’s henchmen had been slapping them around for a while, then decided to gang up on Frank, their punches sounding like sledgehammers hitting a side of beef.
“You want me to stop it?” Jinky asked.
“Of course I want you to stop it,” Gerry replied.
Jinky played with the automatic controls on the arm of his wheelchair, and pulled around so he was facing Gerry. He’d been eating nonstop since their arrival, and crumbs of food peppered his beard. He pointed across the warehouse.
“Which one of them shot Russ Watson in the parking lot yesterday?” Jinky asked. “That’s all I want to know.”
“Who’s Russ Watson?”
Jinky pulled a candy bar from the pocket of his purple velour tracksuit and tore off the wrapper. “You’re making this hard on your friends.”
Gerry stared across the warehouse at the guy punching Frank in the face. The guy was a gorilla, yet Frank kept smiling at him in between getting hit. Frank had boxed as a pro for six years, and won all his fights except a couple of hometown decisions. His fight philosophy had been simple: he’d been willing to take punishment in order to deliver punishment. They’d picked the wrong guy to beat up.
Gerry’s eyes returned to Jinky. “Let me guess. Russ Watson is the dead guy that turned up in my motel room yesterday.”
“That’s right,” Jinky said. “I want to know who shot him.”
On the other side of the warehouse, Frank let out a sickening grunt. It echoed across the room, and made Gerry’s stomach do a flip-flop.
“Will you tell me something if I tell you?” Gerry asked.
Jinky bit into the candy bar like he had a grudge with it. “Depends.”
“We came to you in good faith, and told you what we were doing in Las Vegas,” Gerry said. “You got in touch with the Tuna, and ratted us out. The Tuna sent a hitman, who killed my best friend, to kill us. When that went south, you tried to have us killed. Why did you do that?”
The candy bar was a memory. Jinky fingered the control on the armrest of his chair, like he was considering taking off. The question obviously made him uncomfortable. Gerry, tied to a chair, had just called him a piece of shit.
“You don’t know how things work in Las Vegas,” Jinky said.
“I don’t?”
“Nope.”
“Then why don’t you educate me?”
Jinky snorted under his breath. “This town is run on juice.”
“It is?”
“Absolutely. The Tuna has juice with people in town, so it was in my best interest to strike a deal with him. Your father has juice with people in town, so it’s in my best interest not to kill you. Get it?”
Gerry gazed across the warehouse. “What about my friends?”
“Your friends are fucked,” Jinky said. “Nobody knows them from Adam. They could die and it would be like they never existed. That’s what happens when you don’t have any juice in Las Vegas.”
“Can I ask you something else?”
“What’s that?”
“Who does the Tuna have juice with?”
Jinky’s laughter filled the warehouse. “You don’t know anything, do you?”
“I guess not,” Gerry said.
“Now, it’s your turn to answer a question. Who shot Russ Watson yesterday?”
“Why do you care?”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Jinky said angrily.
“He was a hitman,” Gerry said.
Jinky’s face went blank. “So?”
“One of the job dangers of being a hitman is that sometimes people fight back.”
“You think Russ got what was coming to him?”
“You sent Russ into battle and he lost.”
A look of rage flashed over Jinky’s face, and it occurred to Gerry that he wasn’t used to back talk. The big man touched the arm control on his wheelchair and crashed into him, sending Gerry’s chair scraping several feet across the concrete floor.
“Don’t give me any of that philosophy shit,” Jinky roared. “Which one of you shot Russ Watson?”
Gerry studied Jinky’s face. Every time Jinky mentioned Russ Watson, his eyes went soft, and Gerry guessed they’d had a relationship like the one he’d had with Jack Donovan. Telling Jinky the truth would only lead to Frank getting killed.
“It was the security guard,” Gerry said.
“Which one?”
“The guard in the parking lot.”
Jinky had to think. “The old geezer with the hearing aids?”
“Yeah. Your friend got fresh, and the guard shot him. It wasn’t pretty.”
Jinky crashed into him again. Seeing it coming lessened the impact, and Gerry felt his chair tip dangerously to one side, then right itself like a tightrope walker.
“If your father wasn’t tight with Bill Higgins, I’d put a bullet in your head,” Jinky said.
A harsh cry went up across the warehouse. Jinky stared, and Gerry followed his gaze. The man who’d been punishing Frank was clutching his hand while cursing up a storm.
“What happened?” Jinky yelled to him.
“I broke my hand against his face,” the man called back.
“I told you to wrap a towel around your hand, didn’t I?”
“I did wrap a towel around it,” the man said.
“So, walk it off.”
Easy for you to say, Gerry nearly said. He watched the man walk a serpentine pattern across the warehouse. If the look on his face was any indication, he was going to need a doctor. Frank had beaten the guy without ever laying a finger on him. Gerry caught Frank’s eye, and Frank winked. His friend’s face looked like a pepperoni pizza that had been left out for too long in the sun. Gerry winked back.
“Who’s got the digital camera?” Jinky called out.
“I do,” the man with the broken hand said.
“Bring it over here.”
The man came over and handed Jinky a digital camera. Jinky monkeyed with it for a little bit, then aimed at Gerry and snapped a picture. Jinky held the camera away from his face and stared at the picture, then showed it to the man with the broken hand.