Grift Sense (19 page)

“Take care of my friend,” he whispered.

Sherry Solomon lived in a futuristic development built on the rocky plains leading up to Red Rock Canyon. Turning the car off the highway, Valentine stared at the endless repetition of yellow stucco homes, their terra-cotta roofs framed by an angry copper sky, the color so vibrant it made his eyes hurt. A cheerful billboard welcomed him to Rainbow Valley, home to future country clubs, Pete Dye golf courses, schools, a hospital, police and fire departments, and, he imagined, lots of ugly strip malls.

He drove for miles, the rows of identical homes nearly putting him to sleep. As habitats went, it was about as inviting as the surface of the moon. Sherry lived in the last cluster, the remnants of a yard sale littering her front lawn.

He parked and strolled up the walk. On a card table sat mismatched dishes, plastic coffee mugs, and assorted knickknacks, twenty-five cents each. Also for sale was an assortment of furniture, a deflated waterbed, a ThighMaster, and a box of Cindy Crawford workout tapes. Post-its had been stuck to each with the words
Best Offer.

The front door was ajar. Sticking his head in, Valentine said, “Anybody home?” and heard a shrill voice bid him entrance. It did not sound at all like the young woman he remembered from Nick's office.

“Is this Sherry Solomon's house?” he inquired.

“Damn straight.
I said come on in!”

So much for first impressions. Shutting the door behind him, he was greeted by a miniature canine with a pink ribbon in its hair. It was a cockapoo, normally a docile breed. This one was all teeth, and Valentine kicked it in the mouth.

“Scram,” he said.

He found Sherry in the dining room yakking on a cell phone. She wore ultratight gym shorts and a sleeveless UNLV jersey, her bronzed skin looking radioactive in the bright sunlight that poured through the curtainless windows. She gave him a puzzled look.

“You the real estate guy?”

“Tony Valentine,” he said. “We met in Nick's office.”

“Oh yeah. What can I do for you, Tony?”

“I'm helping the police look for Nola,” he lied.

“I gotta run,” she said into the phone, and killed the power. She eyed him suspiciously. “You're helping the police? I thought you were working for Nick.”

Valentine swallowed hard. There was no dumber lie than the one he'd just told. All Sherry had to do was call Longo and his goose was cooked. In answer to his prayers, the dog staggered in looking as drunk as a sailor and peed on the salmon-colored carpet.

“Aw, for the love of Christ,” Sherry screeched, running to the kitchen to grab a roll of paper towels. Sponging up the mess, she said, “Look, Tony, I don't know what you're up to, and I don't care. Personally, I don't give a rat's ass what happens to Nola. She had her chance to grab the brass ring and she blew it.”

The brass ring. Valentine had to think hard about that one.

“Any idea where she might be hiding out?”

“In the arms of Frank Fontaine.”

“You think so? The police don't think she had anything to do with it. Neither does Sammy Mann.”

“Screw Sammy and screw the police,” Sherry swore. “She's guilty as sin.”

The cockapoo was peeing again. Bending down, she cleaned the mess up, then stuck the wet paper towel in the dog's face. “See this, you stupid little mutt? Keep it up and you can live at the pound.”

“Maybe there's something wrong with its bladder,” Valentine said, not wanting to see the dog punished on his account.

“It's always something,” Sherry replied, without a hint of sympathy. “Look, I need to run.”

“One more question,” he said.

“You're a real pain in the ass, you know that?”

He'd been called a lot worse over the years, but never by someone as downright mean as this snake. In a measured tone, he said, “You and Nola were living together when she and Nick had their fling, right?”

“Yeah, so?”

“The night Nick took Nola on the catwalk and they had sex, Nola told you she saw something that wasn't kosher with the casino's security.”

“That's right. She said there was a fight or something.”

“A fight?”

“Some drunk broad took a swing at a dealer and all hell broke loose. Broad's husband went ballistic, started beating people up. Guy was a professional wrestler or something.”

“And during the commotion, Nola saw the flaw.”

“I guess.”

“She never elaborated?”

“She said that she could close Nick down if she wanted to. I tried to pump her, but she wouldn't tell. I think it made her feel powerful, knowing she had Nick by the balls.”

The cockapoo was clawing her leg, feeling better, and Sherry scooped him up and let him lick her face.

“That's momma's little boy,” she cooed, trading kisses. “Nasty man got you all upset, didn't he? Coming in here and pissing Mommy off. We won't let that happen again, will we?”

To her visitor she said, “Anything else?”

“You moving in with Nick?”

“What business is that of yours?”

“Just curious.”

“Yeah, I'm moving in with Nick.”

“Does he know, or were you going to make it a surprise?”

Sherry marched him to the front door. Stepping outside into the desert inferno, Valentine spied a three-hundred-pound whale of a woman lugging the ThighMaster down the street. On the card table, she'd left three dollars as payment.

“Can I give you some advice?” he asked.

“Get lost,” Sherry replied, slamming the door.

“Don't sell your house,” he said anyway, then traipsed across the lawn to his baking car.

On the way back into town, Valentine stopped by Bill Higgins's office on Clark Street and talked his friend into going off campus for a cup of coffee and a chat. Higgins chose a greasy spoon within spitting distance of Glitter Gulch, a four-block galaxy of neon and twinkling lights that defined the original downtown of Las Vegas. The Gulch was the epitome of Old West boomtown decadence, the smaller hotels and casinos still clinging to their seedy homespun ways.

“Coffee's okay, but the food will kill you,” Higgins cautioned as a sullen waitress approached their booth. “I once saw a guy nearly choke to death on a jelly doughnut.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

The waitress took their order and sauntered off. Higgins pointed out the window at a row of dilapidated buildings across the street. “See that gym on the second floor? The toughest guys in Vegas hang out in that gym, guys who used boxing to climb out of the ghetto. When Marvin Hagler fought Tommy Hearns, that was where he worked out. No air-conditioned tent at Caesars for him.”

Valentine remembered the bout well, nine minutes of glorious mayhem that ended with Hagler's arm raised in triumph and Hearns on his back counting stars. Hearns had been younger, taller, and the superior ring technician. Hagler's only advantage had been his heart.

“You get to see Hagler train?”

“I went one day at lunch. The gym was like an oven. I lasted twenty minutes.”

“How long was Hagler there?”

“Three weeks.”

Their coffee came, a witch's brew that Higgins tempered with two packets of cream and plenty of sugar. Valentine drank his black.

“Any luck finding Nola?” Higgins asked, blowing on his cup.

“Not yet. How about you?”

“Nothing. We're kind of strapped right now with all the big hitters rolling into town for the Holyfield fight.”

“Wouldn't be too hard for Fontaine to go out to the airport and come back in as a tourist, would it?”

Higgins put his cup down. “That's an interesting idea. You really think he'd try something as brazen as that?”

“He did it in Atlantic City once,” Valentine said. “We missed him completely.”

“You think Nola's with him?”

“I do. In disguise, of course.”

“Where's he staying?”

“Hard to say. Someplace large and impersonal that's in walking distance to the Acropolis. He's probably checking out the new security measures as we speak.”

“What's his identity this time?”

“Something ordinary, like a lightbulb salesman from Minnesota with two-point-four kids and a doting wife. His hair is a different color and he's wearing elevators in his shoes. He probably has some new facial hair and a really ugly wardrobe.”

“You know this guy pretty well.”

“Not well enough to catch him.”

“When's he going to take another stab at Nick's?”

“Soon. He'll wait until the casino is packed. The day after the fight might be an opportune time. Lots of noise and adrenaline.”

“Any idea how he'll do it?”

“No. But I think someone inside the casino will be helping him.”

Higgins winced like he'd been kicked in the solar plexus. Inventory was impossible to track on a casino floor, and if an employee was involved in a scam, millions of dollars could walk out the front door.

“You're giving me an ulcer, you know that?”

“There's still time,” Valentine said.

“To do what? Update my résumé? Look Tony, every time a casino gets whacked in this town, I get my tit put in a wringer. I'm going to be out of work if this thing comes down.”

“I can stop him.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“I'm not a cop anymore. I don't have to stay within the letter of the law, if you know what I mean.” Valentine leaned back from the table as their waitress rudely slapped down a check. Only when she was out of earshot did he speak again. “Give me the information you have, including the wiretaps of Nola's phone.”

“No,” Higgins said.

“Why not?”

“Let's say you hunt Fontana down and you end up killing him. That makes me an accessory to murder.”

Valentine saw where he was going. “So I won't kill him.”

“Is that a promise?”

Valentine nodded.

“Come again?”

“Yes, it's a promise.”

Higgins finished his coffee, grimacing until the very last drop. He tossed a few dollars on the table and wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “I'm off at six. I'll come by the Acropolis and drop off what I have. I'll bring a tape recorder so you can listen to the wiretaps.”

“I really appreciate it, Bill.”

“Hey, look,” Higgins said.

Valentine followed Higgins's gaze out the window. Across the street, four black gladiators in skimpy gym clothes emerged, their sinewy bodies dripping perspiration. A playful exchange of punches quickly escalated into warfare. A hooded figure, taller and broader in the shoulders, came out of the stairwell and began to mix it up with them, slapping the combatants with his open palms, sending them reeling into parked cars until they begged uncle.

“Is that who I think it is?” Valentine asked.

“The People's Champ,” Higgins said. “I got two hundred bucks riding on his winning. How about you?”

Valentine shrugged. Holyfield's opponent was a foul-mouthed tattoo-covered ex-con who exemplified everything wrong with sports in America. Valentine wanted to see him lose, but the desire was not great enough to overcome the even greater aversion he had for wagering on sporting events.

“You should,” Higgins said.

Valentine shrugged again.

“I'm serious.”

“Give me one good reason why.”

“Because it's good versus evil, that's why.”

“And betting on Holyfield is good?”

“It most certainly is.”

Valentine had never looked at it that way. Betting tended to bring out the worst in people, and it had never occurred to him that by putting a few bucks down, he'd be striking a blow for the sake of humanity. He slid out of the booth.

“I'll have to think about it,” Valentine said.

20

T
wenty minutes later, Valentine found himself stuck in traffic on the Strip. Thousands of newly arrived tourists had hit the streets and transformed the city's main thoroughfare into a pedestrian walkway. Horns blared, engines overheated, and cabbies stood on the hoods of their cars and shouted in murderous rage.

Where's a cop when you need one?
he wondered. He'd promised to call Roxanne and like an idiot had left her home number on his night table. It hadn't helped that he didn't know her last name and couldn't look her up. He glanced at his watch—nearly five. Flipping the turn indicator on, he maneuvered the Cadillac Nick had loaned him into the front entrance of the Desert Inn. Tossing the valet a twenty, he threw his sports jacket over his shoulder and hit the pavement, the Acropolis shimmering miragelike in the distance.

Florida was never this hot. You could go out at night, walk around, and not be afraid of bursting into flames. He crossed the street in slow motion and caught his breath in the welcome shade of a bus stop. It wasn't any cooler.

By the next block, the heat had risen through his loafers and his feet were burning up. Hundreds of people streamed around him, oblivious to his condition. He looked hopelessly up and down the street. In any other city, there would be someone hawking ice-cold drinks and umbrellas. Not Las Vegas—the only free enterprise here was located inside the casinos.

He heard voices. Women singing, the melodious words floating above his head. No one else seemed to notice. What the hell was going on? Crossing at the light, the voices grew stronger, and he shaded his eyes and stared straight ahead. A block away, he saw Nick's harem of ex-wives standing in the fountains, serenading him.

He was hallucinating, the heat doing tricks with his head. It didn't matter. He'd heard women singing the day before Lois died. God talked to people in strange ways, and there was no doubt in his mind that God was talking to him right now. He started to run.

He was sopping wet by the time he reached Nick's joint, his heart racing out of control. The check-in line was twenty deep, T-shirts flapping over Day-Glo Bermudas, and he went straight to the elevators and bullied his way onto the first available car.

The message light on his bedside phone was flashing. Tearing his shirt off, he placed the receiver to his ear and punched in the code for voice mail.

There was only one message. Mabel.

“Oh, Tony, you were right,” his neighbor said, her voice trembling. “The ad ran this morning and I got a call from the postmaster. The police had called him, asked who owned the box. The next thing I know, one of Palm Harbor's finest is standing on my porch. Oh, Tony, it was so embarrassing. He
arrested
me.”

Valentine sat on the bed. Gerry's brilliant idea had gotten Mabel thrown in the pokey. His son was a bad-news buffet.

“They gave me one phone call. Thank God for my MCI calling card. The judge told me I'd better hire an attorney. Who do I call? I've never broken the law. You think F. Lee Bailey would be interested?”

Mabel's voice was drowned out by a drunk woman mutilating an old Carole King song. She'd called him from a payphone in a holding cell.

“That's Sally. She's a bag lady. Anyway, I got arraigned an hour ago. Judge set bail at one thousand dollars. I laughed in his face, told him it would be a cold day in hell before I'd fork over a thousand bucks to him. You should have seen his face!”

Valentine fell backward on the bed.

“Well, I guess I got him pretty mad. He banged his gavel like Judge Wapner and gave me a lecture about propriety in his court. I tried to keep my mouth shut, but you know me . . . I let him have it right between the eyes. Told him to calm down before he had a stroke. Then I asked him why he was wasting the taxpayers' money arresting me, when every day I drive over to Clearwater Beach and see a hooker on Alternate 19 with her thumb out. Guess what he did then?”

“Here it comes,” Valentine said, shutting his eyes.

“Well, he starts to talk, only his face is beet red and there's sweat on his brow, and no words come out. So I say, ‘Cat got your tongue, Judge?' and that gets him even madder, and he takes a big gulp of water and looks at me, and I think,
You're screwed, Mabel,
and then I see him start to froth at the mouth and his eyes roll up into his head and he just keels over right there.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Valentine groaned.

“Had a stroke. They carried him out on a stretcher. I can't tell you how horrible I felt. Still, he had no right to treat me like a common criminal.”

The line went silent and he heard Mabel blow her nose. “Well, now the judge's in the hospital and no one in the jail wants to talk to me. I don't know what to do. I'm sorry to be bothering you, but who else am I going to call?”

Why not Gerry?
he thought.
He got you into this.

“I'm sure you're mad at your son, but it's not his fault. I'm an old woman prone to stupid deeds. It's my nature, so don't blame him, okay? Well, I guess I've babbled long enough. Can't wait to see the phone bill when I get out of here. If you do get home in the next few days, I'd appreciate it if you'd come down to the Clearwater jail and bail me out.”

She honked her nose again and he realized she was crying. Tears of sympathy poured down his face, and he rubbed them away with his sleeve. Grow old enough, and Father Time will find a way to rob you of all your dignity.

A dial tone filled his ear. Valentine dropped the receiver on the pillow and covered his face with his hands.

Rising from the bed, he tore off his smelly clothes and took a cold shower, but not before chaining the door and propping a chair up against it. When he came out, he grabbed a Diet Coke from the bar and sat down at the dining-room table, the phone before him, and he began to hunt for his beloved Gerald.

Burned in his memory were five different phone numbers for his son. They included the apartment in Brooklyn, his saloon, his ex-wife, an ex-girlfriend with whom Gerry had cohabited for two years, and his cell phone. It was Pee Wee, Gerry's bartender, who answered the phone at the saloon, his tongue thickened by whiskey.

“Hey, Mr. Valentine, how's it hanging?”

“Longer than yours,” Valentine growled. “Where's my son?”

“Out making the rounds,” Pee Wee said. “Wanna leave a message?”

Valentine swallowed hard. Bar owners didn't make rounds.

“You're telling me Gerry is out collecting money?” Valentine said.

“I didn't say that—”

“Is Gerry still running a bookmaking operation?”

“I don't have to answer that question,” Pee Wee said.

“It's my bar,” Valentine reminded him.

Pee Wee hiccupped into the phone. He was in his early forties and probably wouldn't make it to fifty, the booze taking him down a one-way street with no detours.

“You're on parole, aren't you?” Valentine said. “If I call the cops and they find Gerry's taking bets, they'll put you back in jail, Pee Wee.”

“You'd turn in your own son?”

“Goddamn straight I would.”

“You're something else,” Pee Wee said.

“Answer the question.”

“Yeah, he's still taking bets.”

Valentine slammed down the phone. Seething, he began dialing Gerry's other numbers, working his way through the list until an unfamiliar young miss with a sultry Puerto Rican accent answered Gerry's cell phone, a radio blaring samba music in the background. He sensed that his son was nearby, perhaps lying in bed beside her, and barked louder than he should have.

“Gerry's not here,” she replied timidly. Lowering the radio, she said, “Are you really Gerry's father?”

“That's me. Where is he?”

“I don't know. Why are you such a prick?”

“Is that what Gerry told you? That I'm a prick?”

“He said you were the biggest prick on the planet.”

“He wasn't off by much. Where'd he go?”

“I don't know. Why are you such a prick?”

“Maybe I'm just a prick with Gerry.”

“Gerry's
wonderful,”
she said, the word melting on her tongue. “Nobody else hates him like you.”

That was a lie. Valentine gave her Gerry's ex-wife's and ex-girlfriend's phone numbers and suggested they start a support group. The Puerto Rican woman cursed him and the line went dead.

Valentine sat on the bed and felt his blood pressure rise. As criminal endeavors went, being a bookie required a lot of social skills, and he could see his son being good at many other things, like selling real estate or cars or even stock. It wouldn't be hard to make the switch; it just took desire.

Ten minutes later he called Gerry's saloon again.

“Gerry just came back,” Pee Wee informed him. “You want to talk to him?”

“You're psychic,” Valentine said.

“Hold on.”

When Pee Wee returned, his voice was subdued. “Gerry's in his office on the other line. He asked me to ask you if you had a conversation with a young lady on his cell phone.”

“I most certainly did,” Valentine said.

“Oh, man,” Pee Wee said. “Why'd you give Yolanda those phone numbers?”

“Because he deserved it.”

“Hold on.”

“Pop, you're killing me,” Gerry said moments later, barely able to control his anger. “I've got this crazy bitch on the other line who wants to castrate me on account of something you said. What the hell's wrong now? I thought we had a truce.”

When did one conversation constitute a truce? His son was going to have to grovel a lot more before things would ever be right between them. Feeling something inside him snap, Valentine lost control of himself.

“Son of mine, you are one useless piece of garbage. What a mistake I made thinking you had changed. You know that crazy ad you helped Mabel write? Well guess what, meatball: She got arrested for mail fraud. She's sitting in a holding cell down in Clearwater not knowing where to turn.”

“Mabel got arrested?” Gerry said. “Geeze, that's too bad.”

Too bad?
He lost it. “Let me tell you what's too bad. Too bad is when I call the police and have them close you down. Too bad is when I stop bailing you out every time you land in jail.”

“Pop, stop it,” Gerry said, the edge leaving his voice. “I was just trying to have fun with the old bird. She's a little off in the head, you know? I mean, she's wasting her money running those ads, thinking people care. She gave me a business card. Mabel, Queen of Spoofs. I mean, come on.”

“People
do
care,” Valentine bellowed at him. “I care! Just because she's retired doesn't mean she can't make a statement. You think Mabel no longer matters? Well, let me tell you something: She matters plenty. She's decent and strong and God-fearing and likes to make people laugh. I can't remember the last time you embraced any of those things, Gerry.”

“Stop it, Pop.”

“You hurt my friend, you little shit.”

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to.”

“You've run out of sorrys.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means I want you to fix the problem.”

“What are you talking about?”

Valentine glanced at his watch. It was nine p.m. East Coast time and probably too late for his son to catch a plane. He hated the thought of Mabel spending the night in jail, but he saw no other solution. He said, “I want you to fly down to Clearwater tomorrow and bail Mabel out of jail. Then the two of you need to get out of town. Go on a cruise or something. I'll pick up the tab.”

“What?” his son said, growing belligerent. “Why don't you help her? She's your friend.”

“Because you messed up her life,” Valentine barked. “It's called cause and effect. You make a mess, you clean it up. That's the way the world works. Irresponsible little pricks like you are what throws everything out of whack.”

“That's right,” Gerry said, “blame me for the world's problems.”

“You'd better do as I tell you.”

“Or what?”

The words left his mouth before he had a chance to catch them. “Or I'll never talk to you for as long as I live.”

Gerry coughed. “You mean that?”

Valentine cleared his throat. He'd stepped over the imaginary line that he and Gerry had drawn in the sand a long time ago. They'd been sparring since his son was a teenager—over twenty years—and they'd always remained somewhat civil, until now.

“Yeah,” Valentine replied. “I do.”

“Jesus Christ,” Gerry said.

There was a long silence. Finally his son spoke.

“All right, Pop. You win.”

Another silence. Again, it was his son who broke it.

“I'm on the next plane.”

“You better be,” his father replied.

Valentine was hanging up when there was a knock at his door. Through the peephole he spied Bill Higgins cradling a cardboard box in his arms. He ushered his friend into the suite.

“Wow,” Higgins said. “This is some setup. Is Nick comping you?”

“Of course he's comping me,” Valentine said.

“You know what they say,” Higgins said. “There are a lot of free things in this town, only nobody can afford them.” Taking the lid off the box, he dumped its contents onto the dining-room table. “I stopped by Longo's office and got the evidence. He asked me to bring everything back tomorrow, the case still being open.”

Higgins pulled up a chair and together they sorted through the evidence. Valentine remained standing, still reeling from his conversation with Gerry. It would be just like his son not to come through. And that would be it, the end of the line. Somehow, he'd always imagined a reconciliation between them, the years of butting heads finally put to rest, the bond between them stronger than it had ever been. Deep down, that was what he had always wanted.

Higgins gave him a funny look. “You okay?”

“I've felt better,” Valentine replied. “What have we got?”

“Usual crap. The wiretaps are worth listening to.”

From the box Higgins removed a cassette tape and popped it into the tape player he'd brought with him. “We caught Fontaine leaving a message on Nola's answering machine. Call came from a joint called Brother's Lounge. What you're about to hear is Nola trying to call him back and having an acrimonious conversation with the bartender.”