“Who the hell told you that?”
“Nobody. I figured it out myself.”
“You’re pretty damn smart for a cop.”
Valentine had heard that for most of his adult life. Cops were supposed to be dumb. When people ran into a smart one, it tended to surprise them.
“Thanks a lot.”
“You’re welcome,” Rufus said. “Like I was saying, I decided to give the Greek and his cronies a chance to win their money back, and bet them I could beat a racehorse in the hundred-yard dash. They were skeptical at first, but when I told them that they could pick the horse and the jockey and the field to run on, they took me up on the wager.”
“You’re going to do what?”
“You heard me. I was the state champion runner in high school, and still can burn rubber when I have to.”
Rufus was seventy years old if he was a day, and he still chain-smoked cigarettes, drank whiskey, and played cards all night long. He did all the things you weren’t supposed to do when you got old, and Valentine couldn’t envision him beating a ten-year-old kid in a footrace, much less a racehorse.
“You’re serious about this?”
Rufus took out a pack of smokes and banged one out. “Dead serious.”
“When’s this going to happen?”
“Around nine o’clock tonight. The Greek is keeping the field location a secret. He’ll call me right before, and we’ll meet there and run the race.”
“Where’s he getting the horse from?”
“Wayne Newton has a bunch of horses out at his place. I hear he’s going to pull the fastest one.”
“How much are you betting?”
The old cowboy indicated the stacks of money lying on the floor, then spread his arms as wide as possible.
“You’re betting all of it?”
“Yes, sir. That DeMarco kid says he’ll play me for a cool million bucks. Well, right now I’ve got about half that much. It’s time to shoot the pickle.”
“Shoot the what?”
“The pickle. It means to go for it.”
Had the situation been different — and Gerry’s life hadn’t been hanging in the balance — Valentine would have tried to talk some sense into Rufus. The Greek and his cronies weren’t going to let the same dog bite them twice, and would make sure that the racehorse Rufus ran against was lightning fast. But every man had his poison, and he guessed Rufus’s was making outlandish wagers.
“What time do you want me downstairs, stirring up the pot?” Rufus asked.
Valentine checked the time. It was twelve forty. Something had been nagging at him, and he realized what it was. His lunch date with Gloria Curtis had been for twelve thirty, and he said, “I’ll call you once I’ve got everything in place.”
Rufus picked up a stack of hundreds lying at his feet. He licked his thumb, and began counting them. “I’ll be waiting,” he said.
Valentine found Gloria sitting by herself at a corner table in the lobby restaurant, and she shot him a dagger as he pulled up a chair. Relationships between men and women were defined by how they fought, and he guessed theirs was about to be tested.
“I’m sorry I’m so late,” he said. “Something came up, and I had to deal with it.”
Gloria’s cell phone was sitting on the table beside her plate. She fixed him reproachfully with her green eyes. “Did you forget how to dial a phone?”
He swallowed hard. The polite thing would have been to call, and tell her he was running late and not to wait for him. But he hadn’t done that. He considered taking out the photograph of his bloodied son and showing it to her, only that was what a kid in the sixth grade would do, beg forgiveness and ask for sympathy at the same time. He needed to take his medicine like a man, and said, “No, I just forgot about our lunch date. It was wrong of me, and it won’t happen again. Scout’s honor.”
The look on her face said she wasn’t buying it. She looked incredibly sexy when she was angry, and he guessed if he told her so, she’d slap him right across the face.
“Look, Tony,” she said, “you’re my life support system right now. Every story I’ve gotten in the past two days has come from you. Understand?”
He wasn’t sure that he did, but nodded anyway.
“My job and my career are on the line,” she went on. “I’m depending upon you to come through. On top of that, I’ve decided that I really like you.”
“I like you, too,” he said.
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea. I can’t turn into your shadow, or be a puppy dog that waits for its master to come along and toss it a bone when he feels like it. I’ve got too much pride for that.”
He stared down at the white tablecloth. If anything good had come out of this job, it was meeting her, and now that was going up in flames. He looked up into her eyes.
“Let me make it up to you.”
“I don’t think that’s possible.”
“Let me try, anyway,” he said. “I feel very bad about this. I don’t mean to lead you and Zack around. I’m not that kind of guy.”
“You’re not?”
“No. I just...”
“Suffer from short-term memory loss?”
No matter how old he got, Valentine was never going to use his age as an excuse for bad behavior.
“I get preoccupied sometimes,” he explained. “It drove my late wife crazy. She used to make me write appointments on my hand so I wouldn’t forget them.”
“On your hand? I used to do that as a little kid.”
“Hey,” he said, “it works.”
Gloria leaned forward, and gave him another hard look. Her own look was neither friendly nor unfriendly, and he sensed that she wanted to believe him, and get things back on track, only she wasn’t going to let him wound her a second time.
“All right,” she said, “I’ll give you another chance.”
Valentine took his hand, and placed it upon her hand resting on the table.
“I won’t let you down,” he said.
45
Gerry Valentine had decided that people who couldn’t fit in anywhere else, fit in just fine in Las Vegas.
Take the four goons working for Jinky who’d been beating the daylights out of Frank, Vinny, and Nunzie for the past two hours. As enforcers went they were laughable, and did not know the first thing about getting someone to talk. Rule number one was that you never used your bare fists to hit someone, because knuckles usually broke before jaws did. Rule number two was that if you started out by hitting someone hard, they’d never cooperate with you. But these guys had never been to that school, and after two hours of abuse, two of them had broken hands, and no one had spoken a word.
“How’s your face feel?” Gerry asked Vinny, who’d been dragged in his chair to where Gerry was sitting, his face a bloody pulp.
“My nose is broken, my teeth are broken, and I can’t see out of my left eye,” Vinny said through horribly swollen lips. “But you know me, I can’t complain.”
Gerry forced himself to smile. Even in the worst of times, you had to find reasons to smile. He looked across the warehouse at Nunzie and Frank. The goons were beating up Nunzie, and making Frank watch. They still were asking the same question — “Which one of you shot Russ Watson in the parking lot?” — and neither Nunzie nor Frank had uttered a peep in response.
“You think Nunzie will crack?” Gerry whispered.
Vinny shook his head. “Not the Nunz. He’s solid as a rock.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“So, what’s the plan?” Vinny asked.
Gerry stared at the steel door across from where they sat. Sunlight seeped through the bottom and had formed a small puddle of light. Twenty minutes ago, Jinky Harris had driven his wheelchair through that door, and moments later they’d heard a car drive away. Not having Jinky around had bothered Gerry. He could talk with Jinky, maybe strike some kind of bargain. He couldn’t do that with the guys he’d left behind.