It had sounded like the kind of money-making opportunity that Garrow had been looking for. He had told the Triad boss yes, knowing that Bronco would agree. The Triad boss had said he’d send his man immediately.
Garrow had hung up the phone with dollar signs in his eyes. He had always been an opportunist, and he decided that he would turn the tables on Bronco the first opportunity he got, and go out on his own with the Pai Gow scam.
Garrow was feeling the champagne when Xing entered the strip club. Xing was a shade under six foot, thin as a rail, with dark bangs that hung lifelessly on his forehead. He wore a sullen expression on his unshaven face, and looked like a punk. Garrow waved him over to his table.
“Have a seat.”
Xing pulled up a chair. A topless waitress hit the table like a shark, and explained the two drink cover. Xing ordered a Heineken, while Garrow got another glass of bubbly. Xing gave him a hard look when she was gone.
“What’s wrong?” Garrow asked.
“You’re drunk,” Xing said.
“Mind your own fucking business.”
Xing grew silent. His face was a blank, and it was hard to get a read on him. They watched a couple of girls get naked on the stage beneath a strobe light. The waitress returned with their drinks. Xing asked her if they served food.
“What are you in the mood for?” she asked.
“Steak. Rare.”
“Coming right up.”
“I’d like some bread.”
The waitress left. Xing took a long swallow of his beer. He acted like he had ice cubes running through his veins. Garrow downed his champagne and slapped the empty glass on the table. The moment of truth had arrived. He was ready to stop being a five-hundred dollar an hour hired mouth, and start being a player.
“Do you have the Pai Gow secret?” Garrow asked.
“Yes. Do you have the slot machine secret?”
“It’s in my wallet. You go first.”
Xing removed two Pai Gow dominos from his shirt pocket, and handed them to the lawyer. The dominos looked perfectly normal. Pai Gow was a simple game where the player attempted to beat the house using the values of the dominos he was dealt.
“What’s the secret?” Garrow asked.
Xing said something in Chinese, then started laughing.
“Say it in English,” Garrow snapped.
“Red, not black,” Xing replied.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Your client will know.”
“Fuck my client. I want you to tell me.”
“I don’t know what it means. I’m just the messenger. Do you have the slot machine secret? That was our deal.”
The waitress brought the bread to the table, then left. The champagne had gone to Garrow’s head, and the club was starting to spin. His dreams were going up in flames. Without thinking, he said, “I’m not giving you the slot machine secret until you explain how the Pai Gow scam works.”
“I just told you — I don’t know what it means.”
“Then call your boss in Macau, and ask him.”
“That would not be wise.”
“Call him anyway. Otherwise, I’m not giving you the slot secret, pal.”
Xing’s face hardened. Taking out his cell phone, he punched in a long number, and spoke rapidly in Chinese to his boss in Macau while looking menacingly across the table at the lawyer. Garrow found the courage to smile.
“My boss wants to talk to you.”
“Put him on,” Garrow said.
Xing rose from his chair and handed Garrow the cell phone. The lawyer put the phone to his ear, and heard a dial tone. It was a trick, and he stared at the small bread knife clutched in Xing’s other hand.
Valentine blew past the bouncer of the Pink Pony with Bill on his heels. Traffic had been heavy, and it had taken ten minutes to drive to the club. His eyes canvassed the darkened interior. A lone figure sat at a table in the VIP lounge.
“Is that Garrow?” Valentine asked.
“That’s him,” Bill said.
“Where’s the Asian?”
“I don’t see him.”
“Where your guy?”
“I don’t see him, either.”
They crossed the noisy club and entered the VIP lounge. Bill had clipped his badge to his lapel, and patrons were getting out of their way as fast as they could. Valentine stiffened as they reached the lawyer’s table. Garrow was trying to remove a small knife stuck in his shoulder, and was a bloody mess.
“Help me,” the lawyer gasped.
Valentine pulled out the knife, and Garrow screamed. Folding a napkin, he made the lawyer hold it against the gaping wound.
“What happened? Where’s the Asian?” Valentine asked.
“Who told you—”
“Answer the damn question.”
“The Asian double-crossed me.”
“Did he get the slot secret from you?”
“Yeah.”
Valentine checked Garrow’s pockets, just to be sure. His wallet and cell phone were gone. The Asian had stabbed and robbed him, and no one inside the club had bothered to jump in. A waitress appeared, and tapped Valentine on the shoulder.
“His tab’s still open. You going to settle for him?”
“In your dreams,” Valentine said.
He looked around the lounge for Bill. His friend stood in the corner, shaking his head. Hurrying over, he saw a man lying on the floor next to a broken Heineken bottle. His throat was slit from ear-to-ear.
“That your guy?” Valentine asked.
“Afraid so,” Bill replied.
Chapter 19
Mabel could not believe her ears. She was at Tony’s desk, talking on the phone to Joe Silverfoot, head of surveillance for the Micanopy casino in Tampa. Joe had caught the cheating dealer that Mabel had spotted —and videotaped it too boot — yet was telling Mabel he wasn’t going to do anything. It was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard.
“But he dealt off the bottom of the deck,” Mabel said.
“You’re right, he did,” Silverfoot said. “But, it was an honest mistake.”
Mabel shook her head. There were no such things as honest mistakes when it came to gambling. “The man’s a thief. You need to fire him, and alert the police.”
“We don’t have a case,” Silverfoot said.
“But —
“Hear me out. The player who got the bottom card was not involved. We pulled him into a back room, and grilled him. He’s in town for a convention, and this was his first visit to the casino. He’s never met the dealer. He agreed to take a polygraph in case we didn’t believe him.”
“Did you?” Mabel asked.
“Yes,” Silverfoot said. “I was a tribal policeman for twenty-five years, and I know when someone’s lying to me. This gentleman wasn’t lying. He wasn’t working with the dealer in any way. He was in the casino having a good time.”
“The dealer was still cheating,” Mabel said.
“Afraid not. I personally grilled the dealer, and told him we had a tape of him dealing off the bottom. He said the humidity inside the casino made the cards stick, and that he probably pulled one off the bottom by mistake.”
It was the worst alibi Mabel had ever heard, and she closed her eyes.
“And you believed him?”
“What choice did I have?” Silverfoot said. “There was no crime. How can I arrest someone if there’s no crime?”
Mabel shook her head. Dealing off the bottom was the card cheater’s most prized skill, and took hundreds of hours of practice. It didn’t happen by accident, despite what Silverfoot wanted to believe, and Mabel said goodbye and hung up the phone before she had a chance to tell him what a nincompoop he was.
She took a walk around the block to cool down. When that didn’t work, she returned to Tony’s study and watched the tape of the crooked dealer that she’d made on Tony’s computer. The dealer was big and tough-looking, and not someone she’d want to meet in a dark alley. His nose was crooked, and looked like it had been broken a few times. If that wasn’t the profile of a crook, she didn’t know what was. The idea that he still had his job irritated her to no end.