Wild Card

Doyle stood a few feet away, listening. He mouthed the words Say yes.

“Okay,” Valentine said.

“Terrific. If it makes you feel better, I’ll have another detective look into this, and see what turns up.” Banko started to walk away, then came back. “We have a meeting with the CCC tomorrow regarding Louis Galloway. Remember?”

Valentine said, “Of course I remember.”

“What time am I picking you up at your house?”

“Uh… seven-thirty?”

Banko walked away muttering under his breath.

Chapter 37

“You’re not going crazy,” Lois said reassuringly that night.

Valentine lay on the couch in the living room with his head in his wife’s lap. He had told her everything that had happened that day, hoping it would make him feel better. So far, it wasn’t working. “No,” he said, “but I’m headed in that direction.”

“Stop talking like that. It’s not like you. Lots of people hear voices.”

“Do say their name, and tell them they hate them?”

“Oh, Tony, it was just…”

“My imagination?” He shook his head. “My imagination isn’t that good. Someone was in that theater besides me and Doyle and the guard. Someone from my past who holds a grudge and who’s also killing hookers on the island.” He looked into her eyes. They were soft and beautiful and had never failed to melt his heart. “I just wish I could figure out who it is.”

“It will come to you eventually,” Lois said.

“You think so?”

“Yes, I do.”

It was nearly ten o’clock and raining cats and dogs outside. That was the crummy thing about living in Atlantic City during the winter; one day it snowed, the next it rained. Gerry came downstairs in his pajamas, and kissed his mother on the forehead. Then, he put his hand on his father’s shoulder. “I hope you feel better, Pop.”

Valentine looked up at his son and smiled. He’d been teaching Gerry magic tricks he’d bought from Uncle Al’s shop, and his son seemed eager to learn more. They’d also received a note from school that said Gerry was showing improvement in his math and English classes. It had thrilled them to no end.

“I will,” Valentine said. “Sleep tight.”

They listened to their son go upstairs to bed. Then Valentine said, “I have a meeting tomorrow morning with the Casino Control Commission. I caught Louis Galloway cheating at blackjack the other day and busted him.”

“The Louis Galloway?”

“Yeah. Galloway is tight with the commission’s chairperson, Nancy Pulaski. She’s going to put my feet to the fire.”

“What are you going to do?”

Valentine stared at the ceiling some more. He’d never backed down from a case before, and had no intention of starting now. “Stand up for myself.”

“That doesn’t sound like the words of a crazy man to me.”

He had a feeling that his wife would support him even if he started running naked down the street with a tomahawk in his hand, and he looked lovingly into her face. “I need you to help me pick out what to wear. Banko wants me in a suit.”

Lois giggled. “Well, you only have one suit, so that should be easy.”

He pushed himself off the couch, then offered his hand to her.

“Yeah, but I have three neckties,” he said.

Banko picked him up the next morning at seven-thirty sharp, and drove to the three-story brick building on Tropicana Avenue where the Casino Control Commission was headquartered “Nice tie,” he said, looking him over.

Like most buildings on the island, the CCC’s headquarters had been a thing of beauty once, but had fallen on hard times, and was badly in need of refurbishing. They identified themselves to a stern-faced female receptionist, then stood in drab lobby while waiting to be called upstairs. Banko eyed the envelope in Valentine’s hand.

“What’s that?”

“I spliced together some surveillance tapes I wanted the commission to see.”

His superior grinned. “A little show-and-tell, eh?”

“I think they’ll like it.”

At seven-fifty-nine, they were summoned upstairs.

The commission’s five members worked in a boardroom with fraying carpet and rattling pipes. They sat at a faded mahogany table with pitchers of ice water in front of each member. Behind them, through a bank of windows, Resorts’ towering casino shone on the otherwise depressing skyline.

Nancy Pulaski, the commission’s chairperson, gave Valentine a no-nonsense stare as Banko introduced him to the group. Pulaski was pushing fifty, with lots of gray hair and wrinkles, yet dressed like a woman twenty years younger. Her haircut was particularly unnerving: A page boy. Picking up some papers from the table, she said, “Detective Valentine, do you know what this is?”

“No, ma’am,” he replied.

“I’m holding in my hand Louis Galloway’s arrest report. It says that you arrested him for spilling a drink on his cards. How can that be a crime?”

“Louis Galloway was exploiting a weakness in one of the casino’s procedures, so I had him arrested,” Valentine said.

“Please explain yourself.”

“ A player can gain an edge by spilling his drinks on low-valued cards, and getting them taken out of play. Louis Galloway did this three times. The last time, we caught it on video tape.”