The door opened. The casino’s head of security, Harry Smooth Stone, stepped in. He was out of breath.
“More problems,” Smooth Stone said.
Running Bear pushed himself out of his chair. Thirty years wrestling alligators had put arthritis in every joint in his body, and he grimaced as his bones sang their painful song. Had he disgraced a dead ancestor recently and not realized it? There had to be some reason for this sudden spate of bad luck.
They drove Smooth Stone’s Jeep across the casino parking lot. Jumping a concrete median, they went down a narrow dirt road through thick mangroves that led into the heart of the Everglades. For centuries, the Micanopys had lived in harmony with the alligators, panthers, and bears that called this land home, and had been rewarded in ways that few humans could appreciate.
Ten minutes later, Smooth Stone pulled into a clearing and parked beside a large pool of water. Running Bear knew the spot well; in the spring, alligators came here to mate and, later, raise their young. A half-dozen tribe members with fishing poles stood by the water’s edge, looking scared.
Running Bear got out of the Jeep. The men stepped aside, revealing a body lying facedown in the water. It was a man, and he’d been shot once in the head. His left forearm had been chewed off, as had both his feet. Someone had hooked him by the collar. Running Bear said, “Flip him over.”
The men obeyed. The dead man was covered with mud, and one of the men filled a bucket out of the lake and dumped it on his face. Running Bear knelt down, just to be sure.
Back in his trailer, Running Bear thumbed through the stack of business cards he kept in his desk. He had decided to dump Jack Lightfoot’s body in nearby Broward County—the men in the limo had been white, so let white men deal with the crime—and Smooth Stone was on the phone making arrangements.
“Done,” his head of security said, hanging up.
Running Bear found the card he was looking for and handed it to Smooth Stone. “Call this guy and hire him. Tell him everything, except our finding the body.”
Smooth Stone stared at the card in his hand.
Grift Sense
International Gaming Consultant
Tony Valentine, President
(727) 591-5115
“He catches people who cheat casinos,” Running Bear
explained.
“You think he can help us?”
Running Bear heard the suspicion in Smooth Stone’s voice. Bringing in an outsider was a risk, but it was a chance he had to take. Jack Lightfoot had cheated them. If word got out that his dealers were crooked, their business would dry up overnight. The casino was the reservation’s main revenue source: It paid for health care, education, and a three-thousand-dollar monthly stipend to every adult. If it fell, so did his people.
“I heard him lecture at a gambling seminar,” Running Bear said.
“Any good?”
Running Bear nodded. He’d learned more about cheating listening to Tony Valentine for a few hours than he’d learned running a casino for ten years.
“The best,” he said.
1
“So what did you do before you got into this racket?” the security guard yelled into his ear.
“I was in the consulting business,” Tony Valentine said.
“What field?”
“Casinos. I caught crossroaders.”
They were standing in the aisle of the Orlando Arena, the seats filled with rabid wrestling fans. Up in the ring, Gladys LaFong was grappling with Valentine’s girlfriend, a knockout named Kat Berman. Their stage names were Vixen and Judo Girl, and it was their act the fans had come to see. Valentine was just a prop, not that it particularly bothered him. Kat was going to be a star one day, and he did not mind standing in her shadow.
“Transvestites?” the guard asked.
“Hustlers who rip off casinos. That’s what we call them.”
“And you caught them?”
“All day long.”
The women’s choreographed mayhem had whipped the crowd into a frenzy. Gladys was losing and not being a good sport about it. Donny, her husband and manager, climbed through the ropes. Grabbing Kat by her hair, he yanked her clean off the canvas.
Valentine felt a tug on his sleeve. It was Zoe, Kat’s smart-mouth twelve-year-old. Her eyes were ringed by black mascara, her lips a menacing brown. Did boys her age really get turned on by fright masks?
“Know what you look like?” Zoe asked.
“No.”
“A giant banana.”
His clothes were the job’s only pitfall. As part of his contract with the promoter, he had to wear a neon yellow suit with padded shoulders that made him look like a comic-book character. Donny’s suit was purple and made him look like a grape. Their audiences drank a lot of beer and needed constant reminding of who was who.
“Hey,” Zoe said, “you’re on!”
Valentine climbed through the ropes into the ring. Donny was bouncing Kat by the hair, and fake blood poured down her chin. After Valentine had lost his wife, he’d wondered if he’d ever be happy again. Then he’d met Kat during a job in Atlantic City. It wasn’t a perfect relationship, but she made him feel good, and that was all he cared about these days. He tapped Donny on the shoulder.
“Let her go,” he roared into the overhead mike.
“Get lost, old man,” Donny roared back.
“Yeah,” someone in the crowd yelled, “get lost, you old geezer!”
Valentine wasn’t getting lost. He twisted Donny’s free arm behind his back, and Donny released Kat. She ran across the ring and jumped on Gladys, who’d been standing in the corner, egging the crowd on. The script now called for Valentine to flip Donny over his shoulder. It was a move they’d practiced a thousand times. The big man stomped his foot on the canvas, signaling he was ready to be thrown.
“Go easy, okay?” Donny mumbled.
“You bet,” Valentine said.
The promoter was all smiles in the dressing room after the show. His name was Rick Honey, and he was a shaven-headed sanctimonious prick. Rick handed out their checks along with plane tickets to their next gig, a sold-out show in Memphis the following week. As Valentine peeked inside his envelope, Rick cast him a disapproving eye.
“What’s the matter, Tony, you don’t trust me?”
“You, I trust,” Valentine said. “Not your accountant.”
Zoe came into the dressing room. “For you,” she said, and handed Valentine her mother’s cell phone.
He took the call in the hall. Out of principle, he never left his cell phone on, and people were always tracking him down through Kat’s.
“It’s me,” Mabel Struck, his neighbor, said. Mabel was the other woman in his life. She ran his consulting business when he was out of town, which had been a lot lately. “I got a package earlier from a casino in South Africa. I just read the letter from the head of security and figured I’d better call you.”
Valentine glanced at his watch. Tuesday night, nine-thirty, and Mabel was still working. “Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”
“He’s desperate.”
“Mabel—”
“Tony, he sent you a check for five grand!”
“Certified?”
“Yes! I’m sorry, young man, but I grew up knowing the value of a dollar—”
“So did I.”
“And I’m not about to let you walk away from a small fortune, so listen up.”
Valentine was standing in a tunnel, the manufactured air cool on his face, and he shut his eyes while Mabel read the letter to him. The casino was called Jungle Kingdom, and the head of security spelled out the situation pretty clearly. The casino’s blackjack tables were bleeding money, and the casino suspected a high-rolling customer was ripping them off. The problem was, the casino didn’t have any proof and couldn’t have the man apprehended without fear of a lawsuit.