Wild Card

Chapter 18

Valentine felt a gentle tug on the lapel of his bathrobe and opened his eyes. Lois stood over the couch, all dressed for work, the living room awash in sunlight.

“Hey, sleepyhead, rise and shine,” she said.

She took his half-finished glass of milk into the kitchen, and came out a minute later with a steaming cup of coffee. Valentine sat up on the couch, and let the coffee bring him back to the real world. His wife sat down beside him.

“Any luck with the surveillance tapes?” she asked.

Valentine stared at the video monitor’s blank screen. He’d stayed up until three A.M. watching Crowe, Brown, Mickey Wright and the Prince standing by Resorts’ entrance. He still wasn’t sure what the four men had been doing together.

“I need you to do me a favor, and take Gerry with you to work,” he said.

Gerry was still on suspension from school, and since Valentine was at home, it made sense that he should watch him. His wife made a face.

“Would you mind telling me why?” she asked.

“Doyle’s coming over to discuss a case. I don’t want Gerry overhearing us.”

Lois frowned. She was a special ed instructor at the Atlantic City School for the Deaf. The last time she’d taken Gerry to work, his inability to sign had made for a long day.

“Must be a serious case,” she said.

“Real serious,” he said.

Doyle came to the house at lunch time, and brought corned beef rye sandwiches. While they ate, Valentine played the surveillance tape he’d watched the night before. Doyle’s eyes were sharp, and he immediately made Crowe, Brown, Mickey Wright and the Prince standing at the front door.

“For the love of Christ, what are they doing together?” his partner asked.

“I don’t know. I want to make a copy of it. Did you bring the VCR?”

“Yeah. It’s in my car.”

Doyle went to his car, and got a VCR he’d borrowed from the casino. He hitched it up to the back of the video monitor, and made a copy of the tape.

“What are you going to do with it?” Doyle asked.

“Bury it in the backyard with the Prince’s address book.”

“But it’s evidence. You need to show it to Banko, or we could get screwed.”

Valentine understood what Doyle was saying. If someone in the department found out they were withholding the tape, they were finished as cops.

“But what’s it evidence of? We still can’t prove anything. We need to figure out what’s going on before we start shooting our mouths off to Banko.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“We need to start watching Mickey Wright.”

Doyle ran his fingers through his thinning hair. One of the annoying aspects of working in a casino was that everyone was watched, even people in surveillance. If they spied on Mickey Wright, the other people they worked with soon notice it.

“I think we’re risking our careers,” his partner said.

Valentine gave him a no-nonsense stare. “Four men died at the Rainbow Arms, and three of them were hanging out with Mickey Wright. I want to know why. Don’t you?”

Doyle shook his head in resignation. His conscience had been eating at him since day one. “I think this thing is bigger than us, Tony. That address book was filled with the names of New York mobsters. Do you really want to tango with those guys? We could end up with horse heads in our beds. Or worse.”

Valentine had already thought it through. They were in too deep to quit. He had killed a man over that stupid address book, and he wanted to know why.

“I’m not afraid. Are you?”

Doyle shot him an exasperated look. “All right, already. We’ll spy on Mickey Wright.”

Sparks steakhouse on New York’s tony upper east side was where you went to talk business, and eat a good steak. It was a mob joint, and had no windows on its bottom floor. Every day, the owners checked the dining room tables for bugs and hidden microphones before opening their doors. And, the food was good.

Sparks had a number of rules. Women were not welcome, unless they were draped on the arm of a local hoodlum. Men were required to wear jackets and ties, no exceptions. And, you were not supposed to raise your voice in anger, although it sometimes happened.

It was noon, the restaurant packed with hoodlums from each of the five boroughs. At his usual corner table sat Paul “The Lobster” Spinelli with two of his soldiers, Gino Caputo and Frankie Musserelli. Gino had elephant ears, Frankie six fingers on his left hand. Someday, these would be the two men’s nicknames, if they lived that long.

The Lobster was wrestling with a five pound monster flown in that morning from Maine. His bib was splattered with melted butter and tiny bits of white meat. He ate like a man going to the electric chair. The Lobster knew he was a spectacle, and he didn’t care. “These Philly fucks are messing with the wrong people,” he said through a mouthful of food. “I’ll whack every one of them if they don’t stay out of Atlantic City.”

The Lobster snapped open a claw, and a piece of shell flew onto a nearby table.

“Hey,” he called to the adjacent diners. “Any meat in that?”

The claw was dutifully examined.

“No,” the man at the table said.