Wild Card

The cage was clean. He thanked everyone for their patience, then went upstairs to the surveillance control room. Mickey was waiting for him as he walked through the door, his eyes filled with panic.

“You find anything?” Mickey asked.

“False alarm,” Valentine said. “The cage was clean.”

Mickey put his hand over his heart. “Don’t do that to me, Tony. You know I got a bad ticker.”

“Sorry, Mickey.”

Mickey walked away, and Valentine went into his office and shut the door. From his desk he removed the casino’s weekly financial statement. Every week, the Casino Control Commission conducted an independent audit of Resorts’ operation. Each game was financially dissected, with the “holds” carefully scrutinized. He looked at these statements religiously; they were usually the first evidence there was cheating on the floor.

He opened the report to the section on slot machines. The slots were Resorts’ biggest money-maker. The casino kept 8% of every dollar put into a slot. And that was exactly what the report showed. Which meant Izzie was wrong. Vinny Acosta’s scam wasn’t at the cage, or with slots. That left BJ, craps and roulette.

You’re getting warmer, he thought.

He put the report back in his desk, picked up the phone, and dialed Bill Higgins’ work number from memory. His friend answered on the first ring.

“What if I told you the Cleveland mob is ripping off one of your casinos for millions of dollars,” Valentine said.

There was dead silence on the other end.

“You still there?”

“Who told you the Cleveland mob was out here?” Higgins said stiffly.

“A little bird with a pointed head. You know about this?”

“Sure do. The teamsters union loaned the Stardust money for a renovation. The teamsters have ties to the Cleveland mob. We’ve been watching the casino for a year, but haven’t caught anything. What have you got?”

“They’re stealing quarters,” Valentine said. “Lots and lots of quarters.”

Chapter 31

Sears had delivered their new furniture that afternoon, and Lois was the happiest person on her street. It didn’t replace the memories, but it was all new, and it gave the house a feel that it hadn’t possessed since they’d first moved in.

That night, while Gerry sat in the living room watching Mork & Mindy on their new TV, Valentine helped his wife do the dishes. While he dried, he made a point of sucking on his swollen knuckle, and she took his hand and examined his injury.

“Were you in a fight?”

“I punched a suspect in the face,” he said.

Lois eyed him cooly. “I hope he was doing something really awful.”

“Just sitting in a chair.”

The indignation rose in her face. “Tony, that’s barbaric. You should be ashamed of yourself. I’m ashamed of you.”

“It was Izzie Hirsch.”

“Oh. Why did you punch him?”

“He told me he took your bra off in a sand trap on a golf course.”

Lois dropped the plate she was holding into the sink. “That little bastard ripped my bra off, and my blouse. He practically raped me. I hope you knocked every tooth down his throat.”

Valentine tried to reply, only he was choking on his own laughter. Lois backed him into a corner, and began to playfully pummel his arms with her fists. “Tony Valentine, how dare you set me up like that!”

At a few minutes past nine, the front doorbell rang. Lois was upstairs reading a book. Valentine was still in the kitchen, and heard Gerry answer the door. When his son came into the kitchen a few moments later, his face was white as a sheet.

“There’s a man outside to see you. Says he’s with the FBI.”

Valentine couldn’t let the opportunity pass, and said, “What did you do now?”

“Me? I didn’t do anything.”

“Glad to hear it.” Valentine hung up his apron and went to the front of the house, opened the door, and stepped outside without his coat. Special Agent Romero was on the stoop, and wasn’t wearing a coat either. They shook hands, and Valentine glanced at the Chevy parked in the driveway. Fuller was nowhere to be seen.

“Let me guess,” Valentine said. “You caught the bastard.”

“I wish. Fuller and I are leaving Atlantic City tonight.”

“What? Why?”

Romero lowered his voice. “This conversation goes no further, understood?”

It had started to snow, with flakes the size of half dollars coming down. Valentine sensed that Romero was walking a tightrope, and simply nodded.

“Fuller came to me this afternoon, and said that he’d gone to an apartment where one of the suspects on our list lived,” Romero said. “The suspect had moved, and Fuller got the landlord to let him look at a box of things the suspect had left behind. In the box Fuller found bell bottoms, flower dresses and love beads. The landlord told Fuller the suspect had gone to New York. Fuller called our boss at the bureau. Our boss told Fuller to follow the suspect, which is why we’re leaving.”

“What’s the suspect’s name?”

“It doesn’t matter. Fuller’s lying.”

The snow had intensified along with Valentine’s sense of unease. “Why do you say that?”