“Three months later, a judge in Newark bestows legal guardianship of Chris DeMarco to Lydia Scalzo, and the boy is transferred from his foster home to Lydia’s house. Within a few days, he is living with his ‘Uncle George’ next door. And... that’s where the e-mail ends.”
“Well, that explains a lot,” he said.
Mabel saved the e-mail message, then turned away from the computer. “You need to be careful with this one, Tony.”
“I’m always careful,” he replied.
“I know that. But this isn’t your ordinary hoodlum.”
“It isn’t?”
“No, it’s a psychotic who had a woman killed, and stole her child.”
“That’s one way to look at it. I’ll be doubly careful.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Here’s my exit. Oh, by the way, lunch is on me today.”
“Why, that’s awfully nice of you,” she said.
“You broke a case, you deserve it. Talk to you soon.”
Mabel said good-bye and hung up the phone. Reading about George Scalzo getting custody of Chris DeMarco had an unsettling effect on her, and she realized she wasn’t hungry anymore. Men could be such monsters when they wanted things. She decided to take a walk instead, and slipped on her shoes. It was a beautiful day, and she felt certain that a leisurely stroll around the neighborhood was just the thing to lift her spirits.
42
Gardunos served the best Mexican food in Las Vegas, with a terrific waitstaff and homemade dishes you couldn’t find anywhere else. It was ten o’clock when Valentine slid into the booth across from Bill Higgins. The restaurant had just opened it doors, and they were its only customers. The look on Bill’s face said he did not feel well.
“What’s wrong?” Valentine asked.
“I’ve got some bad news this morning,” his friend said.
“Concerning me?”
“Yes, concerning you.”
Since getting into the consulting racket, Valentine had discovered that he wasn’t doing his job if he wasn’t regularly pissing someone off.
“I’m a big boy, I can take it,” he replied.
Bill removed an envelope from his pocket, and handed it to him.
“It isn’t pretty,” Bill said.
A waiter delivered bowls of homemade chips and salsa, and Valentine stuffed a chip into his mouth. He’d tried to call Gerry several times during the ride over, and now nearly choked as he pulled a photograph of his son bound to a chair from the envelope. The lower half of Gerry’s face was sheeted in blood, and there was a cornered look in his eyes, like he knew he’d reached the end of his rope. Paper-clipped to the photograph was a note that had been banged out on an old-fashioned typewriter.
Bill Higgins: There is a nonstop Delta flight to Tampa this afternoon at 5:25. Tell Tony Valentine to be on it, or he’ll never see his son alive again.
He put the note down, and looked across the table at Bill.
“They delivered this to you?”
“A kid on a bike brought it to my office an hour ago,” Bill said.
“It was nice of them to check out flight arrangements for me.”
Bill drummed the table with his fingertips. Their waitress took that as a cue, and scurried over. Bill tried to wave her away, and a hurt look crossed her face. Valentine intervened and ordered the homemade guacamole, a house specialty. She smiled and disappeared through swinging doors into the kitchen.
Valentine stared at his friend’s face. Bill was in a tough spot. The kidnappers had put Gerry’s fate in Bill’s hands. Bill continued to drum the table and the waitress reappeared. Valentine ordered two iced teas.
“You’re going to have to order the whole menu if you keep that up,” he said when she was gone.
“You’re not making this any easier,” Bill said.
“I’m not leaving town, if that’s what you want to know,” Valentine said.
“You’re not?”
“No. I step on that plane, and they’ll put a bullet in Gerry’s head.”
“How can you be sure?”
Valentine picked up the photograph and pointed at his son’s face. “He’s not wearing a mask. My guess is, neither are the guys who abducted him. Gerry saw their faces, which is as good as a death sentence.”
“Who do you think is behind this?”
It was Valentine’s turn to drum the table. Skip DeMarco’s cheating, Jinky Harris’s wanting to kill Gerry and his friends, and the strange things taking place at the World Poker Showdown were all connected, even if he didn’t know exactly how. Their iced teas came, and he took a long swallow of his unsweetened drink.
“I have a good idea,” he said.
“Then let’s go to the police,” Bill said.
Their booth looked onto the parking lot, and Valentine paused to stare at the dusty bumper of his own rental. “My son said he thought a cop was tailing them yesterday. If that’s true, then the police are the last people we should contact.”
Bill poured enough artificial sweetener into his tea to kill a horse. “Dirty cops or not, the police need to be involved. If they find out Gerry’s been abducted and we didn’t tell them, they’ll haul us in. We need to do this by the book, Tony.”
Valentine felt himself slowly exhale. The memory of Gerry’s first car had popped into his head, and how Gerry had wrapped the vehicle around a telephone pole within forty-eight hours of owning it. It was always something, and he looked at Bill.
“Let’s call Pete Longo,” he said.
Twenty-five minutes later, Longo slipped into their booth at Gardunos. He wore old jeans and a polo shirt and hadn’t shaved, and Valentine guessed it was his day off.
“How’s your son doing?” Longo asked.
Valentine slipped the photograph of Gerry across the table. The detective’s eyes grew wide, and he put down the chip dripping with salsa he was about to stuff into his mouth. He read the note accompanying the photo.
“When did you get this?” he asked Bill.
“Nine o’clock this morning.”
Longo shifted his gaze to Valentine. “I walked your son out of the station house this morning at three A.M.”
“I know,” Valentine said. “He called and left me a voice mail.”
Longo turned the photograph face down on the glistening table. The loss of weight had given his face gravity beyond his years, and he shook his head sadly. “I was talking to your son about Jinky Harris, and the problems I’ve been having nailing him. I told your son it’s like my phones are being tapped.”
“Maybe they are,” Valentine said.
Longo picked up the chip he’d been meaning to eat. “That’s why you asked me to come here, isn’t it? You think I have a dirty cop in my department, and he’d find out we were meeting.”
“That’s right.”
The salsa had made the chip soggy, and it split in half before it reached Longo’s mouth, and landed with a plop on his place setting. He stared at it, then at them.
“Shit,” the detective said.
Cops held grudges. It came with the job. You worked the streets long enough, and you ended up hating people. Longo had a grudge with Jinky Harris, and he made it clear he would break as many rules as necessary to help them find Gerry. It was a good start, and Valentine leaned across the table and dropped his voice.
“I once nabbed a gang of dice cheaters in Atlantic City. They took the casino’s dice, and switched them in plain view for shaved dice. There was no subtlety. These guys had been around for a while, and I finally got one of them to open up. He told me it was all about distraction. Right before they did the switch, a drunk started arguing at a blackjack table, while a pretty girl started peeling off her clothes at the roulette table, while a couple staged a fight in the aisle. They were all part of the gang.”