The kitchen window looked onto his backyard, and he watched a mother cardinal deliver an insect to a nest of babies. The babies’ mouths were visible above the nest’s branches, each screaming Me! The mother dropped the insect and flew away.
He poured the rest of the water down the drain. Jack Donovan had been in the hospital for several months. That meant the cards from Celebrity’s Las Vegas casino had been delivered to him. Jack had doctored them in some fashion, and given them back. Being a smart crook, he’d kept one for himself, just in case he ever needed to blackmail his partners. That was the card he’d given to Gerry. The blackmail card.
But why had his partners killed him? The poor guy didn’t have much time left. His partners must have been afraid of something.
Valentine went outside and sat on the back stoop. The sun was setting, its dying rays turning the sky a burnt orange. Some nights, he crossed the bridge to Clearwater Beach, and watched the sun set over the Gulf of Mexico. It was painful without his wife, but he did it anyway, knowing that time was the only thing that could heal his wounds.
His stomach was making funny sounds, and he realized he didn’t feel well. He went inside and opened the pantry in search of the Pepto. As he started to pour out a spoonful, he realized what was bothering him. Jack Donovan had been murdered while Gerry was visiting him. The murderer could have waited, but had obviously wanted to shut Jack up. Was the murderer afraid of Jack revealing the poker scam to Gerry?
He put the Pepto back on the shelf. It made all the sense in the world. No wonder Gerry was so upset. His visit to Atlantic City was why Jack Donovan had died.
Valentine took a turkey-and-cheese Subway sandwich out of the refrigerator, and ate half while standing at the kitchen sink. One of the great shortcomings of the male species was its unwillingness to cook food for one person, and Valentine had started buying sandwiches from Subway and storing them in the fridge. He ate an apple for dessert, then decided it was time to go across the street and have a talk with his son.
Gerry and his beautiful wife and baby lived on the same block, only across the street and at the other end. The distance kept things healthy, and he tossed the core of his apple into the bushes before crossing.
The burg they lived in was called Palm Harbor. It was sandwiched between several other burgs, and the residential streets saw little traffic. He and his late wife had bought their house right before real estate prices had gone through the stratosphere. These days, it seemed everyone wanted to live in a small town.
Parked in front of Gerry’s house was a car with a Z license plate. A Z meant it was a rental. Exhaust was coming out of its tailpipe, music blaring out of its radio. As Valentine got closer, he glanced at the driver. An Italian guy around his son’s age, with a drooping moustache and sunken eyes. Valentine slapped his hand on the sill of the open window.
“Good evening.”
The driver stuck his head out and grunted like a caveman.
“Are you looking for someone?” Valentine inquired.
“Just enjoying the beautiful outdoors,” the driver said.
Valentine walked to the end of the block, then turned around and walked back to the car. The driver was looking at him in a way meant to inspire fear. A famous criminologist had once claimed that career criminals could be typed by hostile attitudes. The guy parked in front of Gerry’s house could have been the poster boy for that study. Valentine walked up to the driver’s window.
“What’s up?” the driver said.
“I lost my dog. You didn’t happen to see him, did you?”
“What kinda dog?”
Valentine put his hands together. “He’s about this big, black hair, a mutt.”
“Can’t say I’ve seen him.” The driver lit the cigarette dangling from his lips and blew a cloud of smoke Valentine’s way. “Sorry.”
Valentine gave the guy a hard look. His gut told him the guy was up to no good. His gut also told him that the guy hadn’t come here by himself, and that his friends were inside Gerry’s house, and were also up to no good.
“Oh, look, for God’s sake, he’s under your car,” Valentine said.
The driver sat up straight. “He is?”
“Yes. Come on, boy, come here.”
Valentine knelt down, then grabbed his back in mock pain. “Oh, Christ, my sciatic nerve is acting up. Would you mind helping me?”
The driver snuffed his cigarette in the ashtray and opened his door. As he climbed out from behind the wheel, Valentine leaned his body against the door, and pinned him. The driver let out a yelp like he’d been kicked. Valentine continued to press the door.
“You carrying a gun, buddy?”
“No.”
He didn’t look like the trustworthy type. Valentine stuck his free hand through the open window, frisked him, then opened the door, and yanked the guy out. Holding the guy’s arm, he gave it a twist, and the guy started to corkscrew into the ground.
“You claustrophobic?” Valentine asked.
“What’s that?” he gasped.
“Didn’t think so.”
There were several buttons on the driver’s open door. Valentine found one to open the trunk, and punched it. Then he led the driver around the vehicle, and made him climb in. To his credit, he didn’t complain as Valentine slammed the trunk down.
Valentine climbed into the car. He liked to know who he was dealing with; he opened the glove compartment, and pulled out the rental agreement. The car had been rented that afternoon at Tampa International Airport to Vincent Fountain, whose driver’s license was from Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Valentine ran home, got his loaded Sig Sauer from the hollowed out copy of Crime and Punishment on his desk, then ran back to Gerry’s house. His heart was pounding as he opened Gerry’s front door with a spare key, and slipped into the foyer.
The house was a New England — style clapboard with original wood floors, and it was hard to walk on them without making noise. He could hear talking from the kitchen and moved toward it, his feet telegraphing every step. He stopped at the swinging door, and tried to imagine the people he was dealing with.
He decided they weren’t Mafia. He’d grown up around the mob, dealt with them plenty as a cop. The Mafia had a code of ethics, as hard as that was to imagine. One of those codes was never to mess with a guy’s family. That told him that Vincent Fountain and company weren’t connected.
He pushed the door gently and peeked inside the kitchen. Gerry and Yolanda sat at the kitchen table, his granddaughter asleep in Yolanda’s lap. They looked remarkably calm. There was a mirror behind them, in its reflection two smarmy Italian guys. One was tall and thin and talked too much. The other was about six three and had the proud, damaged face of a boxer. The boxer stood behind the swinging door, his arms crossed in front of his chest.
Valentine put his foot to the door and gave it a healthy kick. He’d been the New Jersey state heavyweight judo champ five years running, and still took class three times a week. He wasn’t the man he used to be, but could still deal with a couple of two-bit punks, and that was exactly what he had here.
Valentine entered the kitchen to find the boxer now lying on the tile floor with blood pooling around his mouth. The guy doing the talking stopped.
“You Vinny?” Valentine asked him.
“Yeah. Who the hell are you?”
The Sig Sauer was in Valentine’s right hand. He tossed it into his left, then used his right to punch Vinny in the jaw. It was a move straight out of the Keystone Cops, and Vinny’s head snapped. Then he fell backward and hit the floor. Valentine looked at his son.
“Get your wife and daughter out of here,” he said. “Right now.”