Grift Sense (13 page)

“Who told you where I was?” Valentine asked.

“A little bird,” Higgins said, hitting the signal arm as the exit appeared. “Don't act so pissed off.”

“I'm curious—that's all.”

“I have a snitch on my payroll.”

“You want me to figure it out?”

“Go ahead.”

“How much?”

“How much what?”

“How much says I can't figure out who your snitch is?”

“Ten bucks,” Higgins said.

“Make it fifty.”

“Fifty? That's pretty steep.”

“We're talking about my reputation here, Bill.”

“How many guesses?”

“Just one.”

“Fifty it is.”

“Roxanne,” Valentine said.

At the light, Higgins threw the Volvo into park and dug out his wallet. He extracted one of the new fifties that looked like Monopoly money and handed it over. Valentine stuffed the bill into his pocket, no longer broke.

“Remind me never to gamble with you.”

They drove through a borderline slum on the northern tip of the Strip. Valentine did not think he'd been in a more depressing place on a Sunday morning in a long time. The streets were run-down and littered with trash, the people on them dragging their asses as if strung out, pulses barely registering.

“Why Roxanne?” Valentine wanted to know.

“She's smart and dependable. Her dad was a cop.”

“So she told me.”

“She called me last night after you got the fax from your son. At first I couldn't believe it was Sonny Fontana. But the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. I was always suspicious about his dying in Tahoe. No autopsy. So I decided to do a little snooping. I had my records department pull up Sonny's Social Security number; then I went online to the Social Security Web site. They keep a death index of all deceased Americans, and Sonny wasn't on it. That means his Social Security number is still being used. I contacted the IRS, and guess what? They had a record. Last known address was three months ago. He's been living in Vegas.”

“Scoping out the Acropolis,” Valentine said.

“That would be my guess.”

“Why would he use his old Social Security number?”

“It's his way of having fun.”

They turned onto Las Vegas Boulevard. The Acropolis stuck out like a dwarf standing among giants. Maybe that was it; just like any other bully, Sonny had chosen to rob the littlest kid on the block.

“I heard some disturbing news,” Higgins said as they waited at a light. “Someone in town put a contract out on your life.”

Valentine turned sideways in his seat.

“No one wanted to take it. Whacking tourists is a no-no. I put the word out on the street that you were an ex-cop, and if anyone even tried, I'd make them pay.”

“Thanks, Bill.”

“So here's my question,” Higgins said. “Is there someone in town who hates you that much, or is this Sonny's doing?”

“It's Sonny,” Valentine said.

“You guys got something personal going on?”

“Yeah.”

“Mind filling me in?”

“Back in '84, a mob Sonny was running ripped off Resorts International in Atlantic City. There was a detective on duty who got wise and chased them outside. Sonny and his boys beat the detective to death. I got there too late.”

“This detective a friend of yours?” Higgins asked.

“My brother-in-law,” Valentine replied.

The light changed and Higgins drove a hundred yards to the next red light. Throwing the car into park, he said, “So this is personal.”

“You bet.”

“Mind telling me what you plan to do if you catch Fontana?”

“That all depends.”

“On what?”

“Where and when I catch him.”

“You're saying you'll kill him.”

“It could happen.”

The light turned green, but Higgins wasn't going anywhere. Eyeing Valentine, he said, “Do that, and I'll arrest you, Tony.”

“I'm sure you will, Bill,” Valentine said.

Nola Briggs's injuries were not as serious as first believed. Her wrist was only sprained and her ribs were badly bruised; she was back in the city jail cooling her heels when Underman finally got to her.

A plate of two-inch Plexiglas separated Underman from his shell-shocked client. It was obvious she'd been through a war, and he found it hard to imagine someone so small and helpless taking down four of Las Vegas's finest. He'd completely underestimated her, which he supposed had been his first mistake.

“I'm afraid I've got some bad news,” Underman said, knowing no other way to put it. “The police would like to give you their own polygraph test.”

“Can they do that?”

“No. But if you don't, Judge Burke won't release you.”

“What do they want to ask me that I haven't already told them?” she said, massaging her bandaged arm. “How many times can I say I didn't do anything?”

“Nola, listen to me—”

“No, you listen,” she said, her eyes burning a hole through the protective glass. “I didn't do anything, and they know it.”

Underman paused as a burly female guard escorted a prisoner into the adjacent booth. When the guard was gone, he brought his face to the plastic and placed his mouth against the oval wire mesh that allowed them to talk.

“Nola, I had a very unpleasant thing happen to me in the courtroom this morning,” he whispered. “I stepped on a land mine. I discovered I wasn't really representing an innocent blackjack dealer. I was representing an accomplice of Sonny Fontana, probably the single most hated individual in the state of Nevada. No attorney in his right mind would do that, at least not one who had his practice based here. You set me up, you little bitch.”

Nola began to speak, then stopped, her mouth moving silently up and down. “Sonny Fontana? Why are you bringing him up?”

So she knew him. Underman forged ahead. “The money you used to pay me. Was it yours?”

“No,” she mumbled.

“Damn you,” he swore angrily. “That's the Acropolis's money, isn't it? I know how the casinos work. The numbers on those bills are in consecutive order so the GCB can trace whose bank account it ends up in. It's tainted, and you knew it.”

“No,” Nola sputtered, beginning to tear up. “I swear—”

“I'm going to the judge and tell him I want off this case unless you come clean with me,” Underman said, his eyes spitting venom. “You understand what I'm saying? I'm going to tell the judge that you paid me with the casino's money, stolen money, and that will be that.”

“You can't do that,” she cried. “You're my attorney.”

“Not for much longer.”

“Mr. Underman—”

“Come clean, or I'm going to walk. The choice is yours.”

Nola drew closer, the tip of her freckled nose touching the plastic, desperately trying to win him back.
“I didn't do anything.
Everything I said to you before was true.”

“That's a clever play on words,” he said. “‘Didn't do anything.' That's what the examiner asked when you were polygraphed. ‘Did you
do anything,
Nola?' Well, maybe you didn't do anything, but that still doesn't mean that you didn't participate. Here's a question. Have you ever known a man named Sonny Fontana?”

“What if I have?”

Underman pushed his chair out of the booth and motioned for the guard.

“Please,”
Nola hissed through the wire mesh. “Don't leave me high and dry, Mr. Underman.”

Her attorney glared at her. “The truth, Nola. What does it take for me to hear the truth? Do you know him or not?”

“I did know him. He's dead.”

“No, he's not. He got a face-lift, and now goes by the name
Frank Fontaine.”

“What?!”

Nola's hand went to her mouth, the shock on her face all too real. The female guard waddled over. She weighed two hundred pounds and was shaped like a bowling pin. Underman said, “Please. I need another minute with my client.”

The guard scowled. “Don't use me as leverage, mister.”

“No, ma'am,” Underman replied.

The guard waddled back to her high chair and sat down.

“That bastard,”
Nola swore under her breath. “He used me.”

Underman dragged his chair back into the booth.

“You're saying Fontana set you up,” he whispered.

Nola nodded her head savagely.

“And you never saw it coming.”

“Not until you just told me.”

“How long have you known him?”

“Too long.”

“How long is that?”

“Since we were kids.”

“Were you involved?”

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, were you in love with him?”

Nola let out a bitter laugh, the sound shaped by a lifetime of hurt and betrayal. She dug a nasty-looking hankie from her pocket and honked her nose into it.

“Was I ‘involved'?” she said, mocking him. “Hell, Mr. Underman, I was married to the son of a bitch.”

14

B
arely seventeen, Nola Briggs was married on a rainy Saturday morning in a Catholic church on the south side of the Bronx. The priest, Father Murphy, had at first said no—he did not marry children—then changed his mind when Sonny slipped him a C note, and he forever bonded them in holy matrimony.

“I wish I didn't have to leave,” Sonny said as they stood on the church steps. “You know that, don't you?”

“Yes,” Nola replied. “I know that.”

“I'm sorry it has to be like this,” he said.

“So am I.”

“I'll come back for you. I promise. I will come back.”

“Stop saying it, then.”

Nola twirled the gold band encircling the third finger on her left hand. Rain spit on their heads. She had wanted her wedding day to be the
Sound of Music;
instead, it was
On the Waterfront.
Sonny took his leather jacket off and covered her shoulders. She shut her eyes as he kissed her on the lips, wishing the moment would last forever.

The shrill blast of a car's horn ruined the moment. Sonny's father, Elvis Fontana, owner of Elvis's House of Billiards, sat in a rusted-out Lincoln across the street, looking homicidal. He pointed at his wristwatch and mouthed the words
Hurry up.

“I'll call you every day—and write letters,” Sonny promised, holding Nola in his arms. “I swear. Every day.”

“Sure you will.”

“Don't make it sound like that. I wouldn't have asked you to marry me if I didn't mean it, would I?”

“Why doesn't your father just work it out?” Nola said, her eyes brimming with tears. “Why doesn't he just say he's sorry and give the money back?”

“You don't understand,” Sonny said. “He didn't just take their money—he cheated them.”

“So?” Nola said. “That doesn't give them the right to kill him.”

“To these men, it does,” Sonny told her.

Elvis Fontana did a U-turn and pulled the Lincoln up to the curb. He hit the horn again. Nola got the feeling that if she stalled long enough, he might have a heart attack and die right there.

“Good-bye,” Sonny said. “I'll call you in a few days.”

They kissed a final time, his mouth warm and sweet. Then Sonny ran down the church steps and jumped into the car, his father peeling out before the passenger door was shut.

“I love you,” his voice trailed down the empty street.

Nola hugged herself, trying to fight off the cold. She thought about what Father Murphy had said about love and friendship and patience and all the other things that made up a true marriage. Then she began to cry, knowing it was all lies.

“I had a miscarriage the following week,” Nola said, crushing out her cigarette and ending her story.

“Did you ever hear from Sonny again?”

“No,” she said.

The airless interrogation room in the basement of Metro LVPD headquarters fell silent. Nola shifted uncomfortably in her chair. Underman lit up a fresh cigarette and placed it between his client's trembling lips. Longo, who was doing the questioning, glanced across the room at his standing-room only crowd, which included Valentine, a freshly shaved Bill Higgins, Sammy Mann, and, on the other side of the two-way mirror, Wily and Nick Nicocropolis.

“That's not true,” Nola suddenly said. “I got a couple of postcards. He bounced around for a while. Miami, Atlanta, Myrtle Beach. Then the postcards stopped. Not a peep for twenty years.”

She inhaled pleasurably, then crushed the cigarette out in a tin ashtray—and kept crushing after the flame was long dead. It was something a crazy person might do, and Valentine stared at her, then her attorney. Underman had his best poker face on and had not uttered a syllable during her entire confession.

“How did Sonny find you?” Longo said.

“He didn't,” Nola said. “I found him.”

“Explain yourself.”

Suddenly, Sammy Mann broke in. “You had it in for Nick, so you went looking for Sonny Fontana.”

Nola flipped the butt out of the ashtray and hit Sammy square in the chest with it. “Who asked you here, you stupid cretin?”

“I did,” Longo snapped, sliding the ashtray off the table. “Do that again, and I'll cuff you to the chair. Answer the question.”

“I never had it in for Nick,” Nola insisted. “I worked for him for ten years. I was loyal. Doesn't that count for something?”

“He dumped you,” Sammy said. “He asked you to get your tits blown up, and you said no. He hurt you.”

Nola stared at Sammy in bewilderment, then at Longo. “Who fed you that line of crap?”

“Your old friend Sherry Solomon,” Sammy said.

“Sherry's lying,” she shot back. “Nick never said that to me. It had nothing to do with my tits, you dried up pencil-dick!”

“It's the truth,” Sammy swore.

“No, it's not! Ask Nick.”

“Nick doesn't remember—”

Longo looked ready to erupt. “Shut up, Sammy!”

Had it been Valentine's interrogation, he would have dragged Sammy into the hallway and throttled him. The ex-hustler had just ripped the heart out of the state's case. Because Nick had no recollection of his affair with Nola, whatever Nola said about the relationship had to stick.

“Whatever Sherry Solomon told you is not to be discussed,” Longo said, his cheeks burning. “I don't want you bringing her up again, okay?”

“Sherry Solomon is a lesbian,” Nola told the room. “We slept together once, and she's been trying to get me in the sack ever since.”

“You slept with Sherry Solomon?” Longo asked incredulously.

“That's right. A few weeks after I broke up with Nick.”

“Christ Almighty,” Bill Higgins said under his breath.

Valentine glanced at the room's two-way mirror, wondering if Nick and Wily understood what had just happened. Sherry Solomon had slept with too many of the players to be considered a credible witness. The state's case had just flown out the window. Only Nola and her attorney didn't know it.

Longo was sweating. To Nola, he said, “You said you found Sonny. How?”

Nola stared gloomily at the floor. “Last February, Wily gave the dealers the
Griffin Book.
He told us to memorize the faces of the known blackjack hustlers so we wouldn't get cheated. One day I was looking through it and saw Sonny's picture. It brought back a lot of memories. I still had our marriage papers with Sonny's Social Security number on it, so I hired one of those services to track him down. Eventually they found him in Mexico, living in this walled estate inside a country club.”

“And you contacted him?” Longo said.

“I sent him a postcard with my e-mail address,” she explained. “He e-mailed me a letter; I wrote him back. That went on for a while. I think he wanted to make sure it was really me and not someone else.”

“Were people after him?”

Nola smiled tiredly. “People have always been chasing Sonny. Anyway, he finally called and we talked for a few hours. It was great. Sonny was always so . . . I don't know . . . so easy to be around. Not much to look at, but a real charmer. I hung up feeling like Cinderella at the ball.

“The next day, a FedEx package arrives. One first-class ticket to Mexico City and a dozen roses. I called in sick and took off. I figured, what did I have to lose?”

Nola took a deep breath, suddenly looking about as pissed off as a woman could look. “Looking back, I guess you could say Sonny set me up. He lived in a swanky estate with more security than the Pentagon. We ate and drank and fucked and hung around the pool and played cards all day long.”

“How is that a setup?” Longo wanted to know.

“We always played for money, and it was always competitive. When Sonny and I were kids, we flipped baseball cards and tossed nickels every day. It was just like old times. We must have played five or six hours a day for the whole week.”

“And?” Longo said, not seeing the significance.

Nola shot a weary glance at Sammy. All the talking was wearing her out. “You explain it to him,” she said.

“Fontana was looking for tells,” Sammy told the detective. “Little tics in Nola's personality that would tip him off to the cards she was holding. Until now, it's only been used in poker.”

“So Fontana taught himself to read you,” Longo said.

“Right,” Nola said. “By the end of the trip, I couldn't beat him at anything. It was amazing.”

“Okay. What happened after you left Mexico?”

“Nothing,” Nola said. “He put me on a plane and I didn't hear from him. A month later, I overheard Wily saying that some gorilla had beaten Sonny to death in Reno. I went home, had a good cry, and got on with my life.”

“That's it?” Longo asked.

“That's it,” she said.

At two o'clock, they took a break. The basement was a warren of small rooms, and Valentine got lost looking for the john. Stacks of cardboard boxes stood outside the offices, making each doorway identical. Finally, a sympathetic secretary showed him the way.

It was Higgins who took over the questioning when everyone reappeared in the interrogation room ten minutes later.

“Let's jump to Wednesday night,” he began. “Frank Fontaine sits down at your blackjack table and takes you to the cleaners. You practically couldn't win a hand. He comes back the next night and does the same thing. Didn't you see a connection?”

“No,” Nola said adamantly.

“Come on, Nola,” Higgins said, leaning on the table, getting in her face. “You're a professional dealer. How many times has a player done this to you?”

“Hey,” she protested, “it happens.”

“What are you saying?” Higgins said, the edge creeping into his voice. “You thought this was luck?”

“A blind pig gets an acorn every once in a while.”

“Not like this,” Higgins said forcefully. “Twenty grand the first day, thirty the second. You must have suspected something.”

“You think I knew it was him? Look at the photos of Fontaine,” she said, a fresh cigarette glowing angrily in her mouth. “Fontaine's chin's chiseled and his hair's thicker than Sonny's. Even his voice was different. I didn't realize it was Sonny until Mr. Underman told me.”

Higgins frowned. “Why didn't you tell the police about Sonny before? It's against the law for a dealer to have a relationship with a hustler. You know that, don't you?”

“The law does not require my client to make her relationship with Sonny Fontana known,” Underman said, speaking for the first time.

“What are you talking about?” Higgins said.

“Nola is still technically married to Sonny and has a certificate to prove it,” the defense attorney said. “By law, spouses are immune from having to implicate their partners.”

“You think that applies here?”

“Well, because they were married before Nola went to work at the Acropolis, yes, I do.”

“Look,” Nola declared, her nostrils flaring angrily. “I loved the guy, okay? But I didn't know it was him. The only reason I got arrested is because Sammy let Sonny fly out the door.”

Sammy Mann erupted. “That's a lie!”

“Keep your mouth shut,” Higgins told the head of security. To Nola, he said, “You're saying the casino is using you as a scapegoat.”

She blew a monster cloud of smoke across the room. “You're goddamned right I am.”

“You spent a week with him,” Sammy said accusingly, ignoring Higgins's command.

“So?” Nola shot back.

“You were in from the start,” Sammy said. “You broke the law, and you know it.”

Nola cast an evil eye at Sammy, then the others. When no one corrected him, she jammed her cigarette into the tin ashtray, fighting to control herself. “Which law is that? The one for being naive? Or maybe there's one for letting your heart be broken by every sweet-talking guy you meet. Yeah, I broke both of those laws. Go ahead, put me in jail and throw away the key. I deserve to be punished.”

“So who you picking?” Wily asked, slurping a Mountain Dew while staring at Nola through the two-way mirror.

“Holyfield,” Nick replied, eating a bag of stale pretzels.

“They're giving two-to-one odds over at the Golden Nugget.”

“They're morons,” Nick snapped.

“You read the paper?” Wily asked. “Guy who writes sports for the
Sun,
Joe Taylor, says the Animal is in the best shape of his life. Running five miles a day, knocking out his sparring partners. Joe Taylor says—”

Nick turned around in his seat and cuffed Wily in the head.

“Holyfield! You hear what I'm saying? Holyfield!”

Wily refused to give in. “But the Animal looks great.”

Nick tossed a handful of pretzels into the air, just to get Wily's attention. “No buts, stupid. The winner is gonna be Evander Holyfield. The casinos in this town have lost more money giving odds against Holyfield than any athlete who's ever lived. Three-to-one underdog against Buster Douglas; five-to-one underdog against Riddick Bowe in the rematch; twenty-to-one against Iron Mike in the first fight, even money the second. Now you're telling me some punk who just got out of prison is gonna win. Holyfield. Let me hear you say it.”

“Jesus,” Wily said. “Can't I have an opinion?”

“A what?”

“An opinion.”

“No. Now say it.”

“All right already. Holyfield.”

Nick patted him on the shoulder. “You're learning, kid.”

Through the glass, they saw Longo escorting Nola and her attorney out of the interrogation room. Something important had happened and they'd missed it. Valentine appeared in the doorway with a disgusted look on his face.

“What's going on?” Nick asked.

“Everyone's going out to Nola's house,” Valentine said. “Nola says she has e-mail letters from Fontaine that will prove she's innocent.”

Nick tossed the pretzels into the wastebasket. The Holyfield fight was two days away. Tomorrow the whales would start rolling into town, deep-pocket guys who knew how to throw money around. All he needed was one to walk into his joint and his financial troubles would be gone. He was sick of Nola, ready to move on to grander things.

“So?” Nick grumbled.

“If the letters are real, Longo will have to let her walk.”

“What about my fifty grand?”

“Kiss it good-bye,” Valentine said.