He didn’t want to risk seeing a neighbor, so he took the stairwell to the lobby. At the bottom he opened the fire exit and stuck his head out. Empty. He walked to the front doors and ventured outside.
The fresh salt air invigorated him. He walked down the condo’s driveway toward the sidewalk. Plenty of people were out. He’d blend right in.
He glanced across the street at Higgins in his car. The bastard was staring at him. Higgins’s face, normally as animated as granite, had broken into a sickening sneer.
Saul started to sweat. Known cheaters put on elaborate disguises and tried to steal money from casinos every day. And guys like Bill Higgins saw right through them.
“Oh, no,” he groaned.
Higgins got out of the car and started to cross the street. Did he want to talk about the good old days, or did he want to talk about Victor? Saul beat a trail back to his building and spied Stan and Lizzie, his neighbors, sidling down the drive.
“Saul?” Lizzie asked.
Damn, damn, damn. Saul walked with his eyes downcast.
“Saul, is that you?”
“Morning,” he muttered under his breath.
“Oh, my,” Stan said. They were regulars at the Wednesday night poolside barbecue, and Saul could imagine next week’s banter. Guess what. What? Hyman on four is a little light in the loafers. You don’t say?
The lobby’s crisp air-conditioning hit him like a slap in the face. Sadie’s dress was clinging to his legs. He tried to disengage himself and felt the fabric tear. It had been one of his late wife’s favorites.
The elevator came. He started to board it, then glanced outside. Higgins was gone. So was the Altima. A stupid cop trick, designed to scare the daylights out of him.
It had worked.
Pretending to be asleep, Gerry watched his father do his morning exercises. Jumping jacks, push-ups, deep knee bends, and a crazy judo exercise where he stood on his head in the corner. He did twenty minutes every day, no matter how he felt. Gerry had tried it for a week, and decided he liked being out of shape.
Finished, his father sat on the edge of the sofa bed, and said, “Hey.”
Gerry opened his eyes. “How did you know I wasn’t sleeping?”
“You stopped snoring. You hungry?”
Gerry sat up. “Yeah. You mind my asking you something?”
“Depends what it is.”
“It’s about Kat.” He followed his father to the bathroom and stood in the doorway as his father lathered up to shave. “I realize it’s none of my business, but how come you busted up with her? She seems okay.”
“She is okay,” his father said, running the razor beneath the hot water. “I just couldn’t be the person she wanted me to be.”
“I thought you liked the wrestling.”
“I did. I also like Halloween. But not all the time.”
“You told me yourself, the change was doing you good.”
Valentine shaved, then wiped his face with a washcloth. “I had this case once, a guy who disappeared. He lived in New Jersey, ran an accounting firm. He was a heavy gambler, and he had lines of credit at every casino. One day, he cleaned out his bank accounts and bolted. Left his wife, his kids, even his dog. Boom, gone.
“I got handed the case. I put a professional skip tracer on him, then went on to other things. There were so many places he could have gone, I didn’t see the point of killing myself trying to find him.
“Two years later, the skip tracer calls me, says, ‘You won’t believe this.’ Turns out the guy has reappeared. He’s living in New Jersey, about fifty miles from where he lived before. He belongs to a country club and is married to a woman a lot like his first wife. His life is almost identical to the one he had before. The local cops arrest him, and I arrange to meet with the guy. I was curious, you know?”
“Sure,” Gerry said.
“His name was Stanley. So I say, ‘Stanley, why didn’t you run?’ And Stanley gives me a funny smile, and says, ‘There was nothing to run to.’
“I thought about that remark for a while. And what I figured out was this. Once you reach a certain age, the patterns of your life are set. You may think otherwise, but you’re just lying to yourself. Stanley came back to New Jersey because it was the only life he had. There was nowhere else for him to go.
“I got involved with Kat because I thought I could change who I was. My life was like a suit of clothes that I’d gotten sick of wearing. So I started wearing a different suit. Turns out, it didn’t fit.”
“Can’t stop being a cop, huh?” his son asked.
Valentine shook his head. “Not if my life depended on it.”
26
Saturday mornings were meant for tending to the garden or sleeping in, not for coming to Tony’s house and picking up messages left by panicked casino bosses. Mabel did it for only one reason, and that was because Tony asked her to.
Tony’s voice mail was empty. Booting up his PC, she checked for E-mail. He had one message, the sender someone named mathwizard, its subject matter “Your Problem.” She clicked the mouse on it, and the message filled the screen.
Hey Griftsense,
Interesting BJ problem.
There is no difference between which card is turned over by the dealer, provided the dealer does not know the identity of his cards before he turns them over.
But if the dealer did know the cards’ identities, he could alter the game’s outcome by choosing one card over another. Here is how the players’ odds would be
affected.
Card Shown by Dealer Player’s Advantage (+)
or Disadvantage (-) Deuce +10 Three +14 Four +18 Five +24 Six +24 Seven +14 Eight +5 Nine -4 Any ten, jack, queen, king -17 Ace -36
The strategy, which I call Big Rock/Little Rock, has an enormous impact on the game’s outcome. When a dealer chooses to expose a Big Rock (any ten, jack, queen, king, or ace), instead of a Little Rock (deuce through seven), he’ll win most of the time.
Off to Geneva for a lecture. Take it easy.
Mabel printed the message on the laser printer. Tony corresponded with many world-class blackjack hustlers who held down legitimate jobs, like movie producers and college professors. They cheated for the thrill more than the money itself, and she guessed mathwizard belonged to this strange group.
She called the Fontainebleau, asked for the front desk, and got the hotel’s fax number. Then she made up a cover page with Tony’s name on it. She was glad she’d talked him into going to south Florida and taking the job. He sounded so much more alive when he was working on a case.
Moments later, the fax went through the machine.
Growing up, there were a lot of things that Gerry hadn’t done with his father. Like going to baseball games or the movies, or just hanging out and doing father-and-son stuff. It had a lot to do with his father’s long hours as a cop, and also Gerry’s unhappiness at his father being a cop. They didn’t know each other very well, which was why taking his father to Club Hedo on Saturday morning was no treat.