Valentine put the money back into his wallet.
"I'm still leaving," he told his employer.
"But-"
"You hired me to finger Fontaine, and I did, and now it's time to go."
"But you haven't found Nola…"
Valentine shrugged. His son needed him more than Nola Briggs did, and so did Mabel, and they mattered more to him than all the tea in China. He'd started entertaining the thought of taking a cruise with them and found it oddly appealing.
"She'll turn up," Valentine said.
A tired look spread across Nick's face. His waterbed had not been touched by the flames, and he plopped down on the mattress. Streams of water shot up all around him, soaking the ceiling.
"That little bitch!" he roared.
Valentine got some towels from the bathroom and helped Nick dry off. By the time they were done, Nick was cracking jokes and reminiscing about an old flame who'd tried to run him over with her car. When it came to bad relationships, he had no equal, and Valentine couldn't help but like him, even though he liked practically nothing about him.
"Look," Nick said a few minutes later, residing on the heart-shaped couch, "how about we strike a deal?"
"What kind of deal?"
"If Fontaine is going to rip me off, he'll probably do it tonight-you told me so yourself."
"That's right."
"Without Sammy around, I'm vulnerable. Hang around and I'll pay you five grand."
"I've got to leave, Nick."
"I'm talking about a night's work."
"Sorry," Valentine said.
Nick chewed his unlit stogie, thinking. "You got a seat on a plane?"
Valentine hadn't thought that far ahead; he shook his head no. Pulling out his cell phone, Nick said, "A hundred bucks says you can't find one."
Using Nick's phone book, Valentine called the various airlines. The first plane out was tomorrow night. He'd forgotten that Las Vegas drew the crowds like no other city in the world.
"I lease a private jet," Nick told him. "You want it-it's yours."
"What's the catch?" Valentine said.
"They require twelve hours' notice."
Valentine looked at his watch. It was nearly three. If Nick's jet was the fastest way out of town, then he owed it to Gerry and Mabel to take it. Even if he was ready to pack it in.
Nick poked him in the arm. "So what do you say? Deal?"
"Okay," he mumbled.
Nick punched him in the biceps, sealing the agreement.
Walking through the hole in the wall in Nick's suite, they stood in the backyard and inspected the damage. By the pool, a statue of Michelangelo's David had been castrated with a blunt object. Finding the stone penis in the grass, Nick pocketed it.
"I think you ought to consider putting some special security measures into play at your casino tonight," Valentine said.
Nick eyed him. "What kind of measures?"
"Add more security but tell Wily not to let them on the floor until the casino is packed. That way they'll blend in."
"Okay," Nick said.
"You should also stagger your shifts in the surveillance control room," Valentine said. "Let the team that knocks off at midnight leave an hour early and replace them with fresh people."
"How come?"
"Most scams in casinos go down during shift changes. People are going home; others are coming in. It's easy to get distracted and not watch the monitors for a few minutes. Fontaine knows this."
"You've got this all figured out, haven't you?"
Valentine nodded solemnly. He knew exactly how Frank Fontaine thought-not that it had ever done him any good.
"What about Nola?" Nick said.
"Nick, she's as guilty as the day is long."
Nick winced, his face turning sour. "You're sure?"
"One hundred percent positive sure," Valentine said.
Nick took the stone penis out of his pocket and examined it. His face had a faraway look, the memory of her still haunting him. The penis seemed the perfect metaphor for the life he'd led. He took a running start before pitching it over the hedges.
23
Leaving Hoss and Tiny to guard his smoldering domicile, Nick drove Valentine down the block to a neighbor's gated driveway, buzzed himself in, and parked in the shadows of an elegant Tudor mansion. Behind the house sat a gleaming Sikorsky on a helipad, a blond pilot wearing Ray-Bans posed smartly by the door.
"We'll never reach the Strip by car," Nick explained. "Too many tourists. This is the only way to go."
They crossed the lawn, and Valentine spotted a bald, heavyset man lying on a towel by the pool. A curvaceous miss with red floss riding up the crack in her behind knelt beside him, giving him a rubdown. Nick whistled wolfishly and the woman looked up. The bald man turned his head, ignoring them.
"Who's he?" Valentine asked.
"Some hotshot surgeon," Nick replied. "Dropped a hundred grand playing craps in my casino one night. Turned out he was in debt and couldn't pay his marker. I could've foreclosed on his place, but I figured he's a neighbor, so I let him work it off. His yard man does my lawn, I use his chopper when I want, and I bang his wife when he's out of town."
"You're kidding me," Valentine said.
"Thousand bucks' credit a whack," Nick said, winking at him.
"Hope you didn't give her a house key."
"Stop picking on me."
Nick exchanged high-fives with the grinning pilot. His name was Ken, and when they were strapped in and had headsets on, Ken took the chopper up and made a beeline for the Strip, the colorful casinos spread out before them like an overturned pirate's chest. Valentine had ridden in plenty of choppers and knew the pitfalls of staring at stationary objects for more than a few seconds at a time. You threw up. So he kept his eyes shut and held on to the door.
"I want to show my friend something," Nick told Ken. "Think your boss will mind if we take a side trip?"
Ken laughed loudly.
A minute later, Ken dropped down near a desolate trailer park on the north end of town. Climbing out, Valentine followed Nick down a dusty dirt road that dissected a honeycomb of dilapidated trailers. A shirtless migrant and his snarling dog emerged to stare at them.
After a half mile, the trailer park ended and so did the road. A sea of numbered graves lay before them. It was a pauper's field. The plots were laid out haphazardly, the final punishment for dying broke. Nick zigzagged down a narrow path, walking quickly between graves. Valentine did a tightrope walk behind him as he tried to avoid stepping on the dead.
In the corner of the cemetery sat a manicured plot with a decorative headstone. Kneeling at the grave site, Nick crossed himself and mumbled a prayer. Valentine crossed himself as well, squinting to read the tombstone. James Dandalos "The Greek"
6/4/10-9/12/94
"If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing."
"My mentor," Nick explained, getting up and fishing a black hundred-dollar chip from his pocket. "I came out here in sixty-five and the Greek took me under his wing. He was a real gambler, maybe the best who's ever lived. One night we went out and won forty grand playing craps. We bought a car and decided to press our luck at the tables. We lost all our dough, then went out and wrecked the car. It was the best lesson I ever learned."
Nick dug a hole and buried the chip, patting the ground smooth when he was done. "I told the Greek that gambling full time was a losing proposition. The house was always going to win. He laughed and said the only way to make money in a casino is to own one."
"So you went and bought one."
"As soon as I could scrape the money together."
"He must have died pretty broke to end up here."
"Four million in the hole, not counting what he owed me," Nick said, wiping the sand off his knees. "He died a John Doe. I didn't find out he was gone until he was already in the ground."