"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?"