“Is something wrong?”
“Just do as I say,” her mother said.
Zoe came out of the underground tunnel to the parking lot behind the Arena just in time to see Tony’s ’92 Honda Accord pull out of its spot and drive away.
“Hey, Tony!”
She waved to him, hoping he’d stop, only he didn’t. God, how she hated Tony’s car. It was old and plain and had so many miles on it that the odometer had stopped. Tony had the money to buy something sexy—like a Mercedes or a Lexus—but he wouldn’t take the plunge. Zoe hated him for that. She and her mother deserved better than a smelly ’92 Honda.
Zoe watched him drive to the lot’s exit. His window came down, and he tossed something out. Then the car crossed the street and climbed the ramp to Interstate 4. Tony was a geezer, but he could be a lot of fun sometimes. Especially when hokey magicians were on TV. They never fooled him.
Walking over, she picked up the small box he’d tossed from his car. It was a gift, the wrapping paper bruised and torn. Standing beneath a bright halogen light, she tore away the paper and opened the lid. A cry escaped her lips as she stared at Tony’s gift to her mother.
It was so beautiful, she thought.
2
Palm Harbor sat north of St. Petersburg, on Florida’s laid-back west coast. Back when Valentine and his late wife had considered retiring there, there were five thousand residents. Sleepy and small, it had seemed like another world compared to bustling Atlantic City.
Fifteen years later, the residents numbered fifty thousand, the town’s quaintness run over by a developer’s bulldozer. Every day, the roads got more clogged, the public schools got more overcrowded, and the drinking water tasted a little less like drinking water.
Winter was particularly gruesome. The restaurants were asses-to-elbows with rude northerners, as were the beaches and malls. Valentine had been a rude northerner once, but had shed that skin soon after arriving. Palm Harbor’s lazy cadence suited him just fine, and he looked forward to the sweltering summers, when the snowbirds flew home.
He sat on his screened front porch and read the paper. The stock market had been flip-flopping, and he checked his mutual funds. As a cop, he’d never made much money. Now, in retirement, he had more than he knew what to do with.
Mabel came up his front walk, wearing canary yellow slacks and a blue blouse, her hands clutching a Tupperware container. He rose expectantly from his rocker.
“Good morning,” he said. “How you doing?”
“Who cares?” she replied.
Florida’s elderly took grim delight in discussing their ailments, their deterioration becoming monumental epics of collapse and decay. Mabel was having none of it. Who cares? summed up her attitude nicely.
“You up for breakfast?” she asked.
“Sure.”
They went inside. Mabel had been bringing him meals since Lois had died, nothing fancy, always hot and good. He set two places at the kitchen table, then fixed a pot of coffee while she stuck the container of scrambled eggs, sausage, and home fries in the microwave. The phone rang and he answered it.
“Go to hell,” he said, then hung up.
“Tony, that’s rude,” Mabel said.
“It was a salesman.”
“Salesperson.”
“This one was a guy.”
“You’re being obtuse.”
“I’m sick of the intrusions. I don’t want to change my long-distance carrier, get my carpets cleaned, or buy penny stocks. If I’m abusive long enough, they’ll go away.”
Mabel doled out the steaming food. Valentine sprinkled everything with Tabasco sauce and dug in. He was big on sauces, and guessed it came from years of eating crummy diner food.
“You going to tell me about it?” Mabel asked when they were done.
“What’s that?”
“What happened between you and Kat. I may be losing my vision, but I’m not blind.”
He cleaned his plate with a biscuit while giving her the Reader’s Digest version of the scene in the dressing room. “I drove home realizing what a horse’s ass I’ve been the past two months, dressing up in that ridiculous suit. I’m sorry you had to watch.”
Mabel reached across the table and touched his wrist. “Did you call her?”
“I left a message on her cell phone and at her hotel.”
“She didn’t call back?”
“No.”
“What about the diamond pin you bought for her at Avant Gold?”
“What about it?”
“Did you give it to her?”
“I threw it out of the window of my car.”
“Oh, Tony . . .”
“Zoe picked it up.”
“Do you think she gave it to her mother?”
No, she probably pierced her navel with it, he thought. “I hope so,” he said.
“What are you going to do?”
“Get on with my life, I suppose.”
They heard a car pull up the driveway, and Mabel went to the front door. She returned with a thick Federal Express envelope. “It’s from Jacques. You remember. He sent the five-thousand-dollar check. Luminous readers.”
“Right. The jerk from South Africa.”
“Tony, that’s no way to talk about a client.”
“You’re right. Open up the envelope. Maybe there’s more money.”
She did, and to both their surprise, there was. Another check, this one for two grand, his usual fee. Inside the envelope was a leather pouch filled with casino dice and a note. Mabel read aloud. “Dear Tony Valentine. I realize you are a busy man, but I need your help again. We have arrested the gambler for marking the cards, and he gave a full confession. He was once an employee, and has offered to turn in another employee, who he claims is stealing more money than he was.
“The gambler says the scam is happening at our craps tables, but won’t say who is involved. Last week, we lost five hundred thousand dollars at craps, so the gambler may be telling the truth. I have sent several dice, in the hopes you will examine them. Sincerely, Jacques Dugay.” Mabel looked up. “Wow, a half-million bucks.”
“Wow is right.”
“You think he got ripped off?”
“You bet. What a dope.”
Mabel waved the check in front of his face. “A dope with money.”
He heard it in her voice. Take the job, even if you are in a lousy mood. Mabel had been raised in the same era as him: tail end of the Depression. Money wasn’t their god, but walking away from it was something you just didn’t do.
“Okay,” he said.
In early 1981, a pewter canister had been found by scavengers in the muddy banks of the Thames near London Bridge. Instead of coins or jewelry, the canister had contained twenty-four ornate dice dating back five hundred years. Close examination of the dice had revealed that eighteen were loaded with quicksilver, while the remaining six were misspotted, and marked only with three numbers on each die.
During the same year, a team of archaeologists on a dig in Pompeii had found similar gaffed dice, only their heritage was several thousand years earlier.
Valentine had heard about both discoveries and hadn’t been terribly surprised. While there were hundreds of different ways to cheat at cards, there were only three surefire ways to cheat at dice: loading them, misspotting them, or shaving them.
Sitting at his desk, he used a micrometer to measure the dice Jacques had sent him. Each was a perfect one-inch square. Had one of the sides been short—even by as little as fifteen one-hundredths of an inch—the die would have favored certain combinations and destroyed the house edge.
Then he checked each with a calibrator. In the old days, dice were dropped in a glass of water to see if they were loaded. The calibrator was a little more scientific. He spun each die on its axis. To his surprise, they were clean.