Valentine retrieved Nick's.38 and aimed it at Little Hands. The giant man rolled over, his face sheeted with blood, and pointed at the TV just as the guy with the sombrero started to climax.
"Turn the TV off," he cried. "Please, turn it off!"
Valentine had never seen a guy lose his marbles over dirty movies. Maybe in prison, the state could get a psychiatrist to drill a hole in Little Hand's head and find out what was wrong with him.
"How did you find us?" Valentine said.
"Turn it off!"
Nola, who'd been lying motionless on the bed, rose and went to the TV. Finding no knobs, she said, "I can't turn it off."
"Kick it," Valentine told her.
She did and the screen slowly faded, the sombrero vanishing like a sunset. Valentine turned to Little Hands and said, "You got your wish."
"Mr. Underman called me," he whimpered, a disturbed little man lurking beneath his tough-guy surface slowly emerging. "I went to Caesars and saw you leave. I took a chance you were on to Fontaine and I followed you here."
"Anybody with you?"
Little Hands shook his head. "I work solo."
The TV came back on. Same woman, new guy, real small, almost a midget except for his organ. Little Hands covered his face, screaming like he was being stuck with a knife.
"Jesus Christ," Nick muttered. "What should we do?"
Valentine backed out of the room. As long as the porno was on, he didn't think Little Hands was a threat to anyone.
"Call 911," Valentine said. "Let the cops deal with him."
The longer Valentine was retired, the more he understood why people hated the police. All of the sterotypes were unfortunately true, especially the one about a cop never being there when you needed one. Nick, sitting in the back of the Caddy with Nola, dialed 911 on his cell phone for the third time.
"The dispatcher says every cop on duty is at Caesars," Nick said, cupping his hand over the mouthpiece. "Some kind of riot."
"Any idea how long it's going to take?"
Nick asked the dispatcher, then reported, "She says a half hour, maybe longer."
"What happened?"
"She doesn't know."
Valentine turned on the radio. The loudmouthed announcer was back, talking by phone to a reporter at Caesars. Loudmouth said, "Can you tell us what happened that led to the melee between corners?"
The other reporter said, "In round five, Holyfield got his act together and started to use his jab. He opened up a cut over the Animal's left eye. The Animal got frustrated and took a shot at Holyfield after the bell. Holyfield retaliated with a short uppercut. I was a few rows back and heard the punch land. The Animal had been warned for fouling, and I think the last one got Holyfield really angry."
Loudmouth said, "Did the melee start then?"
The other reporter replied, "No, it happened when the Animal couldn't continue and the ref declared Holyfield the winner. Then the corners started to tango."
Loudmouth said, "And the fight spilled into the crowd." To which the other man said, "Like a brush fire."
"Holyfield won," Nick said gleefully. "We win!"
Valentine groaned. He'd torn up a ticket worth three grand. That would teach him to gamble.
Nick's cell phone rang. It was Wily. Nick listened intently, then killed the power.
"Wily's shitting in his pants," the little Greek said. "He's got three big hitters doing a number on us, and he thinks one is Fontaine. I gotta get back to my casino."
"We can't leave Little Hands," Valentine said.
"Then do whatever you gotta do," Nick said.
Valentine went back to 66-A and poked his head in the door. Little Hands was on the bed. The porno was still on and every moan of pleasure was driving him that much closer to insanity. Valentine silently shut the door. Then he had an idea.
His eyes swept the near-empty lot and settled on a bloodred Mustang with a souped-up engine, the bumpers adorned with stickers from Gold's Gym. He smashed the driver's window with a rock, then got in behind the wheel. The ashtray was filled with inhalers. This was definitely the right car.
Intent on disabling the engine, Valentine pulled the lever that popped the hood, then noticed a suitcase sitting on the passenger's seat. He popped the clasps and let out a whistle. It was full of the stuff dreams are made of.
Back in the Caddy, Valentine tossed Nick his fifty grand.
"Merry Christmas," he said.
Nola didn't say much during the ride back to the Acropolis. Laying her head on Nick's lap, she cried softly most of the way, the perfect image of the damsel in distress. She was pretty in a way that none of Nick's other wives were pretty, her looks pure and clean. Valentine wanted to ask her which of the three guys beating the Acropolis was Fontaine, but he decided to wait until they got inside, where he could get her under a bright light and look into her eyes while she answered his questions.
Valentine pulled up to the Acropolis's entrance and a valet ran out to assist them. Nick made him get a wheelchair, and they rolled Nola inside.
The casino was jammed, the action at the tables out of control. Guys in T-shirts and rundown Nikes were betting like high rollers. Tens of thousands of dollars were flowing back and forth on every roll of the dice. It was pure madness, and every single player was involved. Holyfield beat the odds, the collective reasoning seemed to be saying, so why can't we?
They took the service elevator to the surveillance control room, where a different brand of insanity was going on. Five men were working the master console, each talking frantically into a walkie-talkie in an effort to track the frantic play below.
They found Wily standing in front of the wall of monitors. He'd removed his tie and was nervously gulping coffee.
"Hey, boss," he muttered.
"Who's ripping me off?" Nick demanded.
Wily pointed at a screen to his left. "Suspect number one. Australian named Martini. Was staying at the Mirage. He somehow got thirty hookers into his suite. He made them strip and do a lineup, three hundred apiece. The ones he liked, he asked to stay. Management tossed him."
"And you took him in," Nick said.
"His money's as green as anyone else's."
Valentine stared at the black-and-white monitor. Martini had a shaved head and rings in each ear. He also had a big nose and an overbite. He was playing blackjack and winning big.
"How much we into him for?" Nick asked.
"Sixty grand." Wily pointed at a screen to his right. "Suspect number two, Joey Joseph, calls himself the pizza king of L.A. He demanded we lift the table limit and then started beating us into the ground."
Grimacing, Nick said, "How much?"
"He just hit a hundred grand," Wily said. "He's a wild man. I tried to talk to him, and he told me to get lost."
Valentine went and stared at Joey Joseph. The pizza king wore Coke-bottle glasses and a cheap wig. He had a cleft in his chin like Fontaine, and there was something familiar about the way he banged his fist on the table.
"Suspect number three doesn't have a name. Says he's a Texas oilman," Wily said, pointing at a man wearing cowboy clothes and a string tie. "He strolled in an hour ago."
"How much?" Nick bellowed.
"Eighty."
"You're killing me," Nick said.
"What do you want me to do? All three of them can't be Fontaine."
Valentine watched the Texan play. He was the same age as the other two and played the same game, blackjack. He was betting big and winning big, just like the others. Then he noticed something else. The dealers at all three tables were women, all attractive, and all chatting up a storm with the three guys who were beating them silly.
It was beautiful, absolutely beautiful, the kind of scam that bordered on true genius. He knelt next to Nola's wheelchair.