“That’s right,” Rags said.
Fontaine eyes shifted to the dumpy Acropolis and he felt himself smile. Nick’s casino was directly between Sin and two casinos owned by Shelly Michael and Rags Richardson. He’d always been good at figuring out puzzles. It was what had gotten him out of the joint. And now he’d figured out why these greedy pricks wanted Nick Nicocropolis gone.
“Isn’t that something,” Fontaine said. “I just noticed how Nick’s casino stands between your casinos. Did you guys ever notice that?” He turned from the window and gave them his best prison-yard stare. “You want to build a walkway between your casinos, don’t you? Keep the suckers all to yourselves. That way, you can’t lose them to a competitor.”
“Stay out of our business,” Rags said.
Rags’s tone had a real threat behind it. Fontaine looked him over. A big black guy dressed like an African prince, his clothes all shiny. Rags wouldn’t last a week in the place he’d just come from.
Fontaine removed a square of paper from his pocket and unfolded it. It had been torn from the infamous Nevada Black Book. The book contained mug shots of individuals who’d cheated Vegas’s casinos, and were barred from entering any gaming establishment. He raised the paper to eye level, letting them see his picture.
“So?” Rags said.
“I’m not allowed in any Nevada casino, yet here I am. Know why?”
The three men shook their heads.
“Because the FBI wants me here, that’s why.” He paused to look each man in the eye. “I’ve got the tiger by the balls, boys. Welch on this deal, and I’ll fuck you permanently. Understand?”
Fontaine saw the fight leave their faces. Mentioning the FBI had done the trick. They had become Nevada’s casinos worse nightmare, and had every owner in town shitting in his pants. He went to the door. “I’ll call you in a few days.”
“What about Valentine?” Shelly said.
“What about him?”
“You two have a history. He’s not going to ignore you if you run into each other at the Acropolis.”
A history. That was a nice way to put it. He’d killed Valentine’s brother-in-law twenty years ago, and Valentine had paid him back by getting Nola sent to prison, where she’d gotten sick and died. No, he and Valentine had a lifetime together.
“I’ll take care of him,” Fontaine said.
“Will we be funding that as well?” Shelly asked.
The question was on each man’s face. That was the beauty of Las Vegas. No matter what it was about, it was always about money.
“On the house,” he replied.
5
Valentine felt like he was dancing.
Lucy Price was as light as a feather in his arms. As she pulled away from him, her chin grazed his. Their eyes met, and she said, “You’re not a cop?”
“No.”
“Then why did you save me?”
Because you remind me of her, he nearly said. Through the slider, he saw that the suite had filled with security people. He escorted Lucy inside and let Wily, the casino’s head of security, take over. Wily couldn’t connect life’s dots if he had a blueprint, yet had managed to stay in Nick’s employ for fifteen years. He wore a sharkskin suit — the norm for casino management these days — and had spiked his hair with mousse. Lucy tried to scratch his eyes out.
Wily wrestled with her briefly, then handed her over to a pair of security guards. She left the suite kicking and screaming. Wily brushed himself off, then shot Valentine a loopy grin.
“For an old guy, you sure attract the dames.”
“Shut up,” Valentine said, tucking in his shirt.
“What’s wrong with your pants?”
“They don’t fit. The airline lost my luggage.”
“Why did you buy a pair that doesn’t fit?”
“I like wasting money.”
“I guess so.”
Valentine tried tightening his belt, only it made him look like a circus clown. Out in the hallway, he could hear Lucy putting up a fuss as she was dragged into an elevator.
“What’s her beef, anyway?” he asked.
“That’s a good question,” Wily said. “Little Miss Lucy won twenty-five thousand bucks playing blackjack, so we comped her into a suite. She woke up this morning, and the money was gone from the room safe. She went ballistic, claimed we stole it.”
“Did you?”
“Very funny,” Wily said.
Wily offered to buy him coffee, and they took an elevator to the first floor. The Acropolis was not responsible for money left in room safes, he explained on the way down. Insurance didn’t permit it, and there was a sign in every guest room.
“Lucy Price’s money isn’t our problem,” Wily said.
They walked through the bustling casino. It was designed like the hub of a wagon wheel, with table games and slot and video poker machines in the center, and all other destinations flowing from that center. Once, all casinos had been designed this way, the idea being that people would drop a few dollars each time they passed by.
They entered Nick’s Bar. Wily grabbed a table with a RESERVED tent and motioned to the hostess, a pretty woman in a toga. “Coffee for two. And make it fast, okay?”
The hostess left. At the next table, a group of intoxicated men were whooping it up. Behind the bar, two backlit screens contained shadows of topless dancers gyrating to blaring music. Valentine glanced at his watch. Ten in the morning.
“I saw Nola Briggs’s statue in the fountains,” Valentine said. “Is Nick still pining after her?”
“Yeah,” Wily said. “He really loved that chick.”
“When does she get out of prison?”
Wily gave him a somber look. “You didn’t hear?”
“No. What?”
“Nola died in prison. Some sort of female thing. Bled to death internally. The doctors thought she had food poisoning.”
Their coffee came. Valentine stared at the reflection in his cup. Nola hadn’t been a bad person, just wounded, and he’d imagined her getting her life back together once she got out of prison. It made him feel bad to know that would never happen.
“So, what brings you to town?” Wily asked.
“Checking up on my son,” he said. “He just started working for me. I wanted him to learn card-counting at blackjack, so I paid for him to attend Bart Calhoun’s school.”
“So you’re spying on him,” Wily said.
Valentine didn’t answer him.
“I hope your son’s not tempted too easily,” Wily said.
“Why’s that?”
“A lot of newbies form teams. Being new, we don’t have their faces in our computers. A new team took Harrah’s for two hundred grand last month.”
Valentine sipped his coffee. It sounded exactly like something Gerry might try. His son had been on the wrong side of the law since he was a teenager. Now thirty-six, he’d recently decided to go legit, mainly because he was married to a wonderful woman named Yolanda, and there was a baby on the way. Only legit had a different meaning to Gerry than it did to most people.
Valentine stared at the drunks whooping it up at the next table and realized he’d made a big mistake. Vegas was Sin City. He should never have sent Gerry here.
He glanced across the table at Wily. “Any idea where Calhoun’s school is? The phone number I’ve got is answered by a service.”
“Calhoun is a hard guy to pin down. I’ll put some feelers out for you, if you want.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
Wily gulped down his coffee. “Remember those Asian cheaters I e-mailed you about? The ones beating us silly at baccarat?”
Valentine dredged his memory. He was on a monthly retainer for several dozen casinos and received distress calls constantly. Then he remembered. “Three males, early thirties, playing a thousand bucks a hand. Winning way too much.”