“You crummy piece of shit,” Bill said to Jinky. “You’re running a bust-out joint!”
Jinky sunk low in his chair. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,”
“This shoe is short twenty high-valued cards,” Bill said, throwing down a handful of cards in disgust. “You were cheating the players.”
“I swear to God, it must have been one of the dealers,” Jinky said.
Bill approached Jinky with a look of rage distorting his face. It was bad enough that Jinky had been running an illegal casino in his own club, but it was worse that he’d been running a casino that cheated. Las Vegas had spent twenty-five years trying to convince people it was a safe place to gamble, and the stain from this would hurt every casino in town, and make Bill Higgins look bad. Bill put his hands on Jinky’s shoulders and shook him.
“You’re lying,” Bill said.
“I swear on my mother’s grave, I’m not,” Jinky said. “We just ran the casino to keep the patrons happy. I didn’t know there was cheating going on.”
Valentine found himself staring at the craps table. It was shaped like a tub, and reminded him of a table he’d seen during a raid of an illegal casino in Atlantic City years ago. That table had been manufactured by a crooked gambling supply house out of Miami. Crossing the room, he went to where the stickman stood at the table, and felt around the polished wood. His fingers found an indentation and he tapped it, and heard a hollow sound.
“Hey, Bill,” he called across the room.
Bill turned his head. “What?”
“Look at this.”
Valentine pressed the indentation and a hidden compartment in the table popped open, revealing a small shelf containing six pairs of dice. He removed a pair and threw them on the table. They came up a two, or snake eyes. A loser.
“They’re loaded,” Valentine called out.
Bill turned, and smacked Jinky in the face with the palm of his hand.
“That was for your mother,” Bill said.
48
Jinky Harris wouldn’t talk.
Bill had hauled Jinky into one of the VIP rooms, and was giving him the third degree. There were only so many things Bill Higgins could do to make Jinky talk, and none of them were working. Being a law enforcement officer, Bill had to follow the rules, even when someone’s life was at stake. It was one of the job’s great drawbacks.
Being retired, Valentine didn’t have to follow the rules, and he went back to Jinky’s office and retrieved his walking stick from the floor. Finesse was sitting on the couch and nursing a large purple welt on the bridge of his nose. Valentine removed the photograph of Gerry from his pocket, and tossed it on the coffee table. Then he pointed at it.
“That’s my son. Know where he is?”
Finesse looked at him blankly. Valentine was sure he knew something, and raised the stick like he was going to take his head off. The giant cowered in fear.
“I don’t know anything!”
“You’re a sorry excuse for a bodyguard, you know that?”
Finesse didn’t take the bait.
“I just do as I’m told.”
Valentine got behind Jinky’s desk and started looking for a scrap of paper with an address or some other clue that would lead him to Gerry. The blotter was splattered with drops of blood, as was the phone receiver. He stared at the giant.
“You made a phone call, didn’t you?”
Finesse did not reply. Valentine whacked the cane against his palm.
“I’m prepared to beat it out of you, buddy.”
Finesse jumped off the couch and bolted out the door. He was dragging his bad knee but still moved pretty fast. Valentine followed him down the hall, and saw Finesse raise his arms over his head as he entered the strip club. He was going to let himself be arrested, rather than let Valentine work him over.
Valentine returned to Jinky’s office and slammed the door behind him. In anger he raised the cane and smashed a framed photograph of Jinky with a naked stripper hanging on the wall. He had blown it. If he’d handled Finesse right, he could have made him talk, instead of letting his temper take over.
He checked Jinky’s desk a second time, just to be sure he hadn’t missed anything. He picked up the phone, and hit the redial button. He got a frantic busy signal and let out a curse. He decided to go back to the club, and see if Bill had gotten Jinky to open up. Gerry’s photograph was lying on the coffee table. As he picked it up, he noticed something he hadn’t seen before. A red smudge on Gerry’s right cheek.
It was too bright to be blood. On Jinky’s desk was a magnifying glass used for reading. Valentine picked up the magnifying glass, and examined the smudge.
It was a woman’s lipstick. A kiss.
Now he had a clue, only he didn’t know what it meant. He went to the minibar behind Jinky’s desk and stole a Diet Coke. He always thought better with caffeine rushing through his bloodstream, and he sucked it down while staring at the photograph. Gerry had called him right after he’d been released from the police station, and said he was going straight to the motel. If Valentine remembered correctly, the motel’s name was the Casablanca. On a hunch he got the motel’s phone number from information, and called it.
“Haven’t seen your son since yesterday,” the manager said after Valentine identified himself.
“He didn’t come around early this morning with his friends?”
“Nope.”
“Mind answering a question for me?”
“Go ahead,” the manager said.
“How far are you from the Metro Las Vegas police station?”
“Two point three miles.”
“Thanks. I really appreciate it.”
Valentine hung up. Gerry and his friends had never reached their motel. Chances were, they’d been nabbed right as they’d left the police station. A pretty girl had talked them into driving her someplace, and given Gerry a kiss for his trouble. His son had always been a sucker for a pretty face.
He finished his soda still looking at his son’s face. Pete Longo had practically admitted that he had a dirty cop in his department. That cop must have orchestrated this. There was no other way it could have worked so well. He tossed his empty bottle into the trash, then picked up the phone, and dialed the Las Vegas Metro Police Department’s phone number from memory. An operator answered on the fifth ring.
“Let me speak to Detective Longo,” he said.
Pete Longo was having the day from hell. Besides being asked by Bill Higgins to stay out of a major bust, he’d just learned that Jinky Harris had been operating a bust-out joint right under their noses. It was a big black eye for the city, and no one was going to get more heat over it than the police department. His secretary stuck her head into his office.
“Some guy named Tony Valentine is holding on line two,” she said. “Want me to get rid of him?”
“No, I’ll take it.”
The door closed and Longo picked up the mug of coffee that had been sitting on his desk since early that morning and slurped it down. Then he picked up his phone and punched in line two. “This is Detective Longo. Can I help you?”
“This is Tony Valentine,” the caller said. “How would you like to do a horse trade?”
Longo pulled himself closer to his desk. “What are you offering?”
“I think I’ve nailed your dirty cop.”
The words were slow to register. Maybe the day from hell was about to show its silver lining. Longo removed a fresh legal pad from his drawer along with a pen.
“What do you want in return?”