He strode past the entrance, the sun’s harsh rays showing every crack and paint chip. Behind the dreams there was always a harsh reality. Lucy’s reality was that someone had staked her to play blackjack and pointed to a specific table. That same someone gave her a Basic Strategy card and told her to follow it. Wily had polygraphed the dealers who’d worked Lucy’s table. But that didn’t mean someone else wasn’t involved in the scam. Perhaps it was one of the other players. Or someone standing behind the table, out of the surveillance camera’s range. That person had engineered the scam and later stolen Lucy’s winnings from the safe in her room. It was the only possible explanation for what had happened.
He walked up the Acropolis’s winding entrance. A workman was scrubbing Nick’s ex-wives with a soggy mop, the soapsuds clinging to all the wrong places. Nowhere else in America could someone get away with this, he thought.
Going inside, Big Joe Smith pulled him into One-Armed Billy’s alcove, and he got his picture taken with a gang of tourists, autographed their visors and T-shirts, then left.
“Hey, Mister Celebrity,” Wily said when he entered the surveillance control room a minute later. He’d been watching on the monitors, and was laughing.
“I need to ask you some questions,” Valentine said.
“Your wish is my command.”
“The night you taped Lucy Price, did you film her from any other angles?”
“We filmed her from every angle but up her skirt,” Wily said.
“Was anyone standing around the table, watching her play?”
“There were a couple of people watching her, now that you mention it,” Wily said. “Think they might be involved?”
Valentine wanted to smack Wily in the head. Fifteen years working for Nick, and Wily was lucky he found his way to work every day. Lucy Price was an amateur. Other players never watched amateurs play.
“Yeah, I think they’re involved. Let me see the tapes.”
“No problem, Kemosabe.”
Wily went to the raised console that sat in the room’s center. The console was the casino’s version of central command. Sitting in front of a computer, he pecked a command into the console’s keyboard, then leaned back in his chair and waited for a response.
Since nearly being ripped off by Frank Fontaine, Nick had bought an advanced surveillance system called Loronix. Loronix recorded digitally and could hold seven days’ worth of film. The picture had a special watermark that showed any foul play or image altering after the fact. That way, the tapes would always stand up in court.
Wily pointed at the wall of video monitors. “Lucy’s on monitors one through four.”
Valentine crossed the room and stared. On the monitors, he saw two spectators watching Lucy play. A plump woman clutching a plastic coin bucket, and a skinny guy wearing a baseball cap and cheap shades. Wily edged up beside him.
“Recognize either of them?” Valentine asked.
“The woman’s a local,” Wily said. “She comes in and blows her Social Security check playing video poker.”
“Ever have any problems with her?”
“Naw. Wait. There was one time... she found a gold coin on the casino floor, thought it was Nick’s lost treasure. Got real upset when she discovered it was a piece of candy wrapped in tinfoil.”
Nick’s lost treasure was a part of Vegas lore. During one of his divorces, Nick had told a trusted employee to hide a cache of gold coins he’d bought from a treasure hunter. The coins were from a sunken Spanish ship called the Atocha, and worth a fortune. Nick’s employee had hidden the coins, then dropped dead from a heart attack. No map had been left, nor any clues leading to the coins’ whereabouts.
Valentine resumed staring at the monitors. The woman with the coin bucket left, leaving the man with the baseball cap. He was scruffy and hadn’t shaved in several days.
“Recognize him?”
Wily brought his face next to the screen. “No. Hard to see his face beneath the cap and the whiskers and the shades.”
“No kidding.”
“Think he has something to do with it?”
“Yes.”
They watched the scruffy guy for ten minutes. The man shifted his position and once walked away, but then came back. He was definitely watching Lucy play.
“See anything that doesn’t look right?” Valentine asked.
Wily was smart enough to know when he was being baited. He stared for another minute, then said, “I give up.”
“Take a look at his shoes.”
Wily did, and spotted the discrepancy immediately. “Cowboy boots made out of alligator or snake. Doesn’t go with the cheap sunglasses, does it?”
“No, sir.”
Wily trotted over to the master console and began typing. The picture on the monitor froze, and the man’s reptilian cowboy boots became enlarged. Valentine walked behind Wily, trying to figure out what the head of security was doing.
“What are you doing?” Valentine asked him.
A surprised look crossed Wily’s face. In a loud voice, he said, “Ladies and gentlemen, can I have your attention, please. Something historic has just happened.” Ten technicians in the room collectively lifted their heads. “I just did something that Tony Valentine — the Tony Valentine — hasn’t seen before. Please mark down the date and time for future reference. Thank you.” Turning to his guest, he said, “Hope I didn’t embarrass you.”
“Just answer the question.”
“Loronix has this great feature. I can freeze an image — like this guy’s cowboy boots — and compare it to the last seven days’ worth of film on the computer’s hard drive. Loronix will find all the matches and pull them up. It’s a great way to gather evidence on someone.”
Valentine was stunned. He’d been given a demonstration of Loronix, and this feature had never been mentioned. He patted Wily on the shoulder and saw him smile.
“Good work,” he said.
A yellow light on the console began to flash. Wily punched in a command. The console had a small screen, and a bunch of gibberish appeared. Wily spent a moment deciphering it, then said, “Looks like our friend with the cowboy boots was in the casino twelve times in the last week. Want to look at him some more?”
“I sure do.”
Valentine returned to the wall of monitors. The retrieved films of the guy with the cowboy boots appeared on twelve separate screens. The guy was a stroller, and the films showed him walking around the casino, pausing occasionally to watch the action at roulette, blackjack, the craps table, and the Asian domino game called Pai Gow. Not once did he stop and actually play.
On one screen, he was standing at a pay phone. As he brought the receiver to his mouth, he lifted his face. The surveillance camera caught his profile, and Valentine felt a knot tighten in his stomach.
“For the love of Christ,” he said under his breath.
He stared across the room at Wily. Wily had been there the night the Acropolis had nearly gone down. “It’s Frank Fontaine,” he said.
“Fontaine’s in the slammer, doing thirty,” Wily replied.
“Look at him.”
Wily came over and put his face up to the monitor. “There’s a resemblance, but that’s it. Besides, this guy has a scar on his face.”
Frank Fontaine was the greatest casino cheater of the past twenty-five years. His scams were works of art, and always involved employee collusion. There was no doubt in Valentine’s mind it was him.
“You think I’m wrong?” Wily said.