“You say you know this kid?”
“That’s right.”
“He involved in anything? You know, like drugs.”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“What are the people at the casino saying?”
“Head of security is a guy named Harry Smooth Stone. The Micanopys aren’t the most communicative bunch. Harry isn’t saying much of anything.”
Valentine finished his drink and tossed it into a trash receptacle. Jack Lightfoot didn’t sound like the kind of kid who would become a cheater, yet Harry Smooth Stone had said a player at Lightfoot’s table had won eighty-four hands in a row. Something wasn’t adding up. “Maybe I should pay the Micanopys a visit,” he said.
“You don’t mind?”
“For you? Never.”
Higgins thanked him. He was not prone to dramatics, and Valentine was surprised when Higgins offered to get him a comped suite at the Bellagio the next time he was in Las Vegas.
“Sounds great,” Valentine said.
5
Valentine got back on the Alley. A sign said, MICANOPY CASINO, 20 MILES. He’d told Smooth Stone he’d meet him at seven. Which gave him plenty of time to sniff around the casino unobserved.
The best way to walk around a casino was as a tourist. Tourists were considered suckers by casino people and rarely aroused suspicion. Only, looking like a tourist wasn’t easy. People were always pegging him for a cop, which he supposed had something to do with his penchant for black sports jackets and thick-soled shoes. It was his persona, retired or not.
He came to the Alley’s only gas station. It contained a small convenience store, and he was soon inspecting a rack of cheap clothes. A gaudy floral shirt and floppy hat set him back fourteen bucks. He changed in a lavatory stall, then appraised himself in a mirror. He looked like a schmuck. Great.
At six he pulled into the Micanopy casino’s parking lot. The public’s appetite for losing money knew no bounds, and the lot was filled with out-of-state plates. He found a space behind the main building and killed the engine. It bothered him that he still hadn’t talked to Kat, and he powered up his cell phone and punched in her number. It rang for a while, and he was about to hang up when a man’s voice said, “Yeah?”
“This is Tony. Is Kat there?”
“Kat’s busy right now,” the voice said.
Valentine could hear Zoe yelling at her father in the background.
“When’s a good time for me to get back to her?”
“Never,” the voice said.
The line went dead, and for a long minute Valentine stared at the phone clutched in his hand. It’s over, he thought. So get over it.
Parked by the casino’s entrance were six orange tour buses. Bingo junkies. It was a time killer for people who’d just about run out of time. Yet more people played bingo than all the state lotteries combined.
Inside, he was hit by a blast of arctic cold air. The casino was rectangular and high-ceilinged, with raised floors that broke up the monotony of the layout. The acoustics were unfriendly, the sounds of people gambling painfully loud. He went to the cage and bought a twenty-dollar bucket of quarters.
Casinos watched everyone who came through the front door, at least for a minute or two. Normally, people immediately started gambling or got a drink. If a person didn’t do one of those things, the folks manning the eye-in-the-sky cameras would follow them for a while. He found a slot machine and quickly lost his money.
Then he strolled over to the blackjack pit. The game was two-deck, handheld. That was rare to find in a casino that had only recently introduced blackjack. Usually, the cards were dealt from a shoe, which prevented dealer manipulation.
He studied the various dealers at the twelve tables. They were all men, and they wore loose-fitting blue jeans, denim shirts with wide cuffs, and string ties. In a casino in Las Vegas or Atlantic City, these items of clothing were forbidden. Running table games was different from operating slot machines or a bingo hall, and it was obvious the Micanopys had decided to write their own rules when it came to blackjack. The problem was, they were doing it all wrong.
He switched shirts in the parking lot, then met up with Smooth Stone outside the bingo hall. Smooth Stone was one of those rare individuals who perfectly matched his voice on the phone. Mid-fifties, gaunt, his copper face without cheer. He wore his silver hair in a ponytail, his black shirt buttoned to the neck.
“Running Bear speaks highly of you,” Smooth Stone said. “I appreciate your taking the job on such short notice.”
Valentine remembered Running Bear from a seminar he’d given in Las Vegas, the chief sitting in the first row, towering over the other casino owners. An impressive guy, tall and broad-shouldered, with a face you’d put on a statue in a park.
A commotion started inside the bingo hall. Valentine and Smooth Stone stuck their heads in. Up on the stage, Bingo Bob, the caller, was hugging a tiny woman who’d just won a hundred grand. The tiny woman was bawling, Bingo Bob was bawling, and most of the crowd was bawling. Smooth Stone said, “She plays every day. Her daughter needs a kidney transplant.”
Sometimes beautiful things happened inside casinos. Not often, but sometimes. Gamblers called it dumb luck. Valentine happened to think it was God’s way of putting money into a deserving soul’s hands, and he enjoyed being there when it happened.
“So what do you think of our casino?” Smooth Stone asked when things calmed down.
Valentine hesitated. He was going to create an enemy if he didn’t handle this right. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to answer your question with a question.”
“Okay.”
“How much did Running Bear tell you about me?”
“He said you helped nab hustlers who rob casinos.”
“That’s part of what I do.”
“What’s the other part?”
“The other part involves me finding the flaw that allowed you to get ripped off in the first place.”
Valentine liked the way his words had come out. Straightforward, yet to the point. Smooth Stone didn’t, and his face had turned an angry color.
“You’re saying we have problems?”
“Yes.”
“And this was why we got ripped off?”
Valentine lowered his voice. “This casino is not being run properly. Any smart hustler would take advantage of you. It’s like hanging out a sign.”
Smooth Stone looked away. Valentine knew little about Micanopy customs, but he did know Navajo customs through Bill Higgins, and Navajos didn’t look you in the eye when they spoke to you. Smooth Stone had been looking him in the eye, and now seemed ready to explode. “And you want to tell Running Bear,” he said.
“That’s right.”
“I could lose my job.”
“I’ll sugarcoat it.”
“Why will you do that?”
“Nobody pays me to assign the blame.”
The head of security took a deep breath. He had no choice, and he knew it.
“All right,” he said.
They walked out the back exit and across the macadam lot. The casino was a ramshackle structure, with parts tacked on as the business had grown, and in the dark it resembled a winding snake with several meals in its belly. There was a science to the architecture of casinos, a method to the madness of the moron catchers of Las Vegas and Atlantic City. There was no science to the Micanopy casino, yet it still made money.
Running Bear’s trailer looked like something you’d find on a construction site, with tacky aluminum siding and a window air conditioner. Walking up the ramp to the front door, Valentine said, “Have you talked to Jack Lightfoot recently?”