“I wish,” the nurse said.
Valentine went into the hallway and powered up his cell phone. The pain in his face was making his entire head hurt. He called Gerry’s cell, got voice mail, and left a message. He tried to make his voice sound gentle, and saw Nick grimace as he hung up.
“Be a tough guy,” Nick said, “and tell him to get his ass over here.”
“You obviously never had kids,” Valentine said.
“What do you mean?”
“That approach doesn’t work anymore.”
The nurse’s office was on the first floor of the casino, behind the registration area. They walked out of her office and into the gaming area. At Valentine’s suggestion, Nick had closed the casino down and put a call into the Gaming Control Bureau. At any moment, a team of GCB agents would swarm through the front doors, throw up yellow tape, and turn the place into a crime scene. In Las Vegas, getting cheated was bad, but not telling the authorities about it was worse. Nick let out an exasperated breath.
“Looks like a tomb, doesn’t it? Here lies Nick Nicocropolis. He never gave in.”
“You want that on your tombstone?”
“It’s the only thing I want on it.”
They walked around the empty casino. There was something sad about the hollow feeling the space gave off, and Valentine was reminded of the time he’d seen a half-sunken ship in a harbor as a kid, and how it had made him cry. He saw Nick stop and pick up a piece of trash from the floor.
“Old habits die hard,” he explained.
Valentine wasn’t listening. His eyes had locked on the cage sitting in the center of the casino floor. The cage was where customers turned their chips into cash. Normally, the cage was on the far end of the casino, the thinking being that a customer might stop along the way and place a wager.
But this cage was in the center of the casino. It was small, with brass bars and cutouts for two cashiers. A sign said CHANGE FOR SLOT PLAYERS ONLY. Inside were several hundred plastic buckets filled with quarters and half-dollars.
Valentine found himself smiling. So this was how Fontaine’s gang was getting coins stolen from slot machines out of the casino. They were converting them.
“You got a key for the cage?” he asked Nick.
“Of course I’ve got a key,” Nick said.
“Open it up. I’m about to make you some money.”
Nick fished a key ring from his pocket and opened the cage door. Valentine went in and searched around the cashiers’ chairs. He found two women’s handbags and poured their contents into Nick’s outstretched hands. Both were stuffed with hundred-dollar bills. Nick counted it. Over thirty grand. He grabbed Valentine’s arm and said, “You’re a beautiful human being, you know that?”
“Thanks,” Valentine said.
“Now tell me what was going on here.”
“Fontaine’s gang rigged the scales in the Hard Count room to show less weight,” Valentine said. “Then they stole the difference and brought those coins back into the casino to this cage. The coins were put in buckets and sold to customers, and that money was put in handbags and carried out by the cashiers.”
Nick made a face. “You’re not going to believe this.”
“What’s that?”
“Putting this cage in the center of the casino was Albert Moss’s idea. He said it would make things easier for the little old ladies who played the slots.”
“Little old ladies?”
“Yeah. And I fell for it.”
They shared a good laugh. Hustlers had been using little old ladies in their scams since the beginning of time. And it still worked.
They started to walk out of the casino when Valentine heard his cell phone ring. He pulled it from his pocket and stared at its face. CALLER UNKNOWN. He imagined Gerry calling him from a pay phone, and answered it.
“Tony? This is Lucy Price.”
It was the last person he expected to hear from. Saturday night, and she was home alone. “Can I call you right back?”
“Don’t hang up,” she said.
“Look, I’m in the middle of something important.”
“Please don’t hang up.”
He frowned. Hadn’t she told him off a few hours ago?
“Please.”
“Okay, I’m not hanging up.”
She sniffled into the phone. “I–I have someone here who wants to talk to you.”
“Who’s that?”
“Him.”
“Who’s him?”
“Him, goddamn it.”
Valentine thought back to Albert Moss’s remark just before he’d cut him: Frank’s with your girlfriend.
“Fontaine?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
He looked at Nick and saw the little Greek start to punch the air.
“Put him on,” Valentine said.
30
It was pitch dark when he drove his rental into Lucy Price’s neighborhood in Summerlin. Fontaine had threatened to kill her, and Valentine had believed him. Twenty years ago, Fontaine had killed Valentine’s brother-in-law in Atlantic City. Stomped him to death on the Boardwalk while a group of other hoodlums had watched. He was different from any other cheater Valentine had ever known, and a true sociopath.
“Come alone,” he’d said, “or I’ll put a bullet in her head.”
So Valentine had driven to Lucy’s condo by himself. Nick had offered to send a car of security goons for backup, and he was glad he hadn’t taken Nick up on the offer. A few blocks from Lucy’s house, a car parked on the curb put its headlights on and pulled out. He was being tailed.
Her neighborhood was quiet, everyone inside eating dinner. Taking out his cell phone, he retrieved Bill Higgins’s home number from its memory bank and hit SEND. His friend answered on the third ring. Valentine quickly told Bill what was going on.
“Don’t go in there alone,” Bill said.
Valentine looked at his watch. Six fifty-four. Fontaine had told him to arrive no later than seven o’clock. The smart thing was to wait for backup. But if he waited too long, Lucy would end up lying on a cold slab in a morgue.
“I have to,” he said.
“You know this woman?” Bill asked.
“I met her yesterday.”
“You armed?”
Valentine was more than armed; he was a walking commando, courtesy of the cache of weapons Nick kept in his office safe. Valentine had taken every gun he could shove into his pockets. He’d been waiting a long time to pay Fontaine back.
“To the teeth.”
“Give me the address.”
He told Bill where Lucy lived.
“Stall Fontaine for a few minutes,” Bill said. “I’ll get backup over there pronto.”
It was the closest thing he had to a plan, and Valentine thanked him. Bill raised his voice. “You be careful, hear me?” and then he was gone.
Valentine passed one of the area’s many golf courses and spied a kid hitting drives off a fairway in the dark. At Lucy’s street he flipped his indicator on. The tail did the same. Making no pretense about following him.
He pulled up Lucy’s driveway. The motion-triggered floodlight above the garage door came on. He got out of the car, feeling naked in the bright light. The tail parked a block away, the driver watching him.
He drew a .38 from his jacket and blew the light out. One shot was all it took, and he felt safe again.
The gunshot got a neighbor’s dog barking. He went to Lucy’s front door and glanced at his watch. Seven o’clock on the nose. He pressed the bell and stood to one side.
“It’s open,” a voice inside said.