Wild Card

Lois shot her a look. Liddy avoided confrontation whenever possible, and Lois guessed it came with being part of a large family. She pointed out the window at the ugly concrete birdbath in the backyard. “Tony buried something out there. I want you to tell me what it is.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Liddy said.

Lois put her drink on the counter, and pinched her friend’s arm. “Remember the promise we made to each other when we first became friends?”

“The one about not keeping secrets?”

“That’s right.”

Liddy swallowed hard. She and Lois had met in high school during their senior year. Tony and Doyle, their boyfriends, were already best friends, so it had made sense for them to be as well. They were both practical that way.

“I remember,” she said.

“I know Doyle confides in you — you told me so a hundred times,” Lois went on. “He tells you things he can’t keep bottled up. Tony buried something out there, and I think you know what it is.”

Liddy looked at the floor, feeling trapped. “Doyle made me promise —”

“No secrets,” Lois said.

Liddy started to protest, then caved in.

“All right,” she said.

They sat at the breakfast table. Liddy played with a paper napkin as she spoke. “There’s something rotten going on at Resorts’ casino. Doyle said the three cops who got killed at the Rainbow Arms were part of it. Tony buried an address book and a videotape he thinks is evidence. Doyle said that’s why your house was ransacked.”

“Evidence of what?”

“Some kind of stealing. Tony got his hands on the casino’s financial statements, and sent them to that guy in Las Vegas, only he said the numbers were okay.”

“You mean Bill Higgins?” Lois said.

“Yes. Bill compared the financials to the casinos he polices in Las Vegas. He said the percentages were correct, and nothing was wrong.”

“Which means no one at Resorts casino is stealing anything.”

“Right. Doyle and Tony think the money is coming from someplace else.”

“Where?”

“They don’t know.”

“Who’s behind it? The mob?”

“I don’t know.”

“No secrets.”

“Yes, it’s the mob.”

Lois suddenly felt afraid. She put her hand on Liddy’s wrist and squeezed it.

“Is Tony scared?” she asked.

Liddy stared at the floor.

“They’re both scared,” she whispered.

That night, Lois and Tony slept on the floor of their bedroom on a mattress borrowed from a neighbor, while Gerry stayed down the street with friends. Lying beneath the bare window, Lois stared at the smiling face of the moon while remembering the night fifteen years ago when they’d moved in and had no furniture. Their lives had just been starting, the future filled with promise and unfulfilled dreams. Turning on her side, she propped her head on her hand. Tony’s eyes were closed. She licked his ear, and his eyes snapped open.

“We need to talk,” she said. “Liddy told me everything. Were you trying to protect us by not telling me what’s going on?”

He stared at the ceiling, as if considering the request.

“Yes,” he said.

“It didn’t work.”

Lois ran her fingers through her husband’s thick head of hair. He hadn’t been much to look at when he was a teenager, just a gangly kid with a thin face and a long Roman nose. As he’d gotten older, his face had taken on character, and he’d turned downright handsome. It had been like watching him grow into himself.

“I paid Nucky Balducci a visit last night,” he said, breaking the silence. “I confronted him, told him I wanted to know who’d robbed us.”

“What did he say?”

“He said it was the New York mob.”

For a moment, Lois couldn’t speak. “Is that who Nucky works for?”

“Yes. The mob has somehow gotten their fingers into Resorts’ operation. I have an address book they want. It has some names in it, all hoods. They’re tied to whatever’s going on. The trouble is, I can’t prove a damn thing.”

“Then why should Nucky or anyone else care?”

“Because I’ve been seen around town with the FBI. I told Nucky I was helping them find a serial killer, but he didn’t believe it.”

“What are you going to do?”

He took a deep breath. “Two things. I’m going to figure out what the mob is doing. And, I’m going to stay away from the FBI.”

“You’re not going to help them catch the killer?”

“Being connected to the FBI right now isn’t healthy,” he said. “I need to back away from it. It’s not worth jeopardizing our lives over. Nothing is worth that.”

“Oh,” she said.

Soon, her husband was asleep. Lois fell back on her pillow and stared into the darkest corner of the room. She had never heard Tony say he wasn’t willing to help someone. It was the thing she loved about him most, the quality that drawn her to him when they were teenagers, and made him so special in her heart. It saddened her to think that his job had changed him, and only after he had started to lightly snore did she let herself cry.

Chapter 24

Someone once said, the heart is a lonely hunter.