“They do?” she said.
“Yeah, they do. I needed to leave you for a while and help out a friend of mine.”
“Is that why you’re here?” she said.
“Yes.”
“What about our show in Memphis next week?”
“I won’t be there.”
“This job?”
“I’ve decided to hang up the banana suit and retire the hair gel.”
“Why . . .”
“Three days ago in Orlando, I looked in the mirror and didn’t like what I saw.”
“Which was what?”
“A sixty-two-year-old guy dressing up like a cartoon character so he could impress a woman twenty years his junior.”
Valentine heard the scraping sound of a plastic key being put into the door. Kat jumped off the bed and buttoned her blouse. Gerry came in with a greasy bag of Chinese takeout clutched to his chest. He looked at Kat, then his father, said “Whoa,” and started to back out the door. Kat said, “I was just leaving,” and brushed past him with Valentine following her down the hall with his shirt hanging out of his pants.
At the elevator she said, “And I thought we had something wonderful between us.”
A tray of food sat outside one of the rooms. The meal looked the same way he was starting to feel—devoured but not finished.
“We did,” he admitted.
“Then why are you doing this?”
Because I wasn’t put on this earth to play the fool, he thought. The elevator doors parted and she got in, then stood with her arms crossed.
“It’s Memphis or forget it,” she told him.
Then she was gone.
24
Saturday morning found Billy Tiger sitting on an upturned orange crate in Harry Smooth Stone’s cell. Smooth Stone, Tiger’s uncle on his mother’s side, sat on a metal cot, his back to the concrete wall. In the room’s muted light he looked a hundred years old, the bars’ shadows forming a checkerboard on his sunken chest.
“This isn’t good,” Smooth Stone said.
Tiger had just come from the employee lounge. Gladys Soft Wings had obtained the elders’ permission to clean out the lockers of the four dealers accused of cheating. Tiger had seen what was in the lockers, and didn’t think there was anything that could incriminate the dealers. Then again, he didn’t know how the men were cheating.
“It’s not?” he said.
“If Valentine sees what’s in the lockers, we’re screwed.”
Tiger cursed. He knew that Smooth Stone had been rigging the casino’s games for a long time. The slot machines shorted players on jackpots (“Who ever counts the coins?” Smooth Stone said), while others didn’t pay out at all, the EPROM chips that generated the machine’s random numbers having been gaffed. At bingo, when the jackpots got too large, stooges in the crowd sometimes won.
Tiger had known it all along, but he’d never said anything. Smooth Stone had a reason for what he did.
It had all started three years ago, when a group of Las Vegas gamblers had swindled the tribe. Somehow, these gamblers had learned that a particular make of video poker machine had an overlay in its computer. Anyone who played one of these machines continuously for an hour would win seventy-five dollars. It had been the Micanopys’ misfortune to have fifty of these machines in their casino.
The gamblers had hired retired people to work for them. For eight hours a day, the retired people would play these machines. One of the gamblers would sub whenever someone wanted to eat or hit the john.
The scam had lasted a month, then was spotted by the casino’s auditor. Smooth Stone had gone to the Broward County police, convinced the gamblers had ties to the game’s manufacturer in Nevada. When the cops had refused to help, he’d gone to the state’s attorney general, then the FBI. And gotten nowhere.
The injustice had eaten a hole in Smooth Stone. Had the gamblers ripped off a casino in Las Vegas or Atlantic City or Biloxi, the authorities would have thrown them in jail and let them explain their way out. That was how it worked in the white man’s casinos.
Smooth Stone slapped the cot with his hand.
“What?” Tiger said.
“Sit next to me,” Smooth Stone said.
Tiger made the cot sag. When Tiger was a child, Smooth Stone had bounced him on his knee and told him stories. Smooth Stone cupped his hand next to Tiger’s ear.
“I got something I want you to do,” Smooth Stone whispered.
Tiger stared at the scuffed concrete floor. He had come to Smooth Stone out of a sense of loyalty, but now suddenly felt afraid. “What’s that?”
“The key is Valentine. Without him, there isn’t a case.”
“Okay . . .”
“We need to scare him off.”
Tiger gave him a look that said I don’t think so. He’d been in the surveillance control room when Smooth Stone’s gang had stuffed the alligator into the trunk of Valentine’s car, and he’d seen Valentine take the alligator and smash it headfirst on the pavement.
“You’re crazy,” he whispered.
“He has an old woman who works for him,” Smooth Stone said. “We’ll do it through her.”
Tiger buried his head in his hands. Now they were going after old ladies. He wanted to argue, but it was too late for that. He was an accessory to everything that had happened, including murder. If Smooth Stone and the other dealers went to jail, so would he. He stared up into Smooth Stone’s face.
“I hate this,” the younger man said.
25
Saul Hyman did not want trouble.
He’d started the day with a luxurious hot shower, then fixed breakfast and gone onto his balcony. Munching on a bagel, he’d stared through the apartment buildings across the street at the sliver of blue that was the mighty Atlantic. It was a razor-sharp day, the kind that made all the nonsense of living in Miami worthwhile.
And now it had been spoiled by the car parked across the street.
The car was a navy Altima. What had caught his eye was that it was in a no-parking zone. A bicycle cop had pulled up and chatted with the driver. The bicycle cop had left, and the Altima had stayed. Had to be another cop, Saul decided.
Going inside, he found the binoculars Sadie had given him for girl-watching. Whatever turns you on, she’d been fond of saying. Back on the balcony, he quickly found the car. The driver was reading the paper. Saul got in tight on his profile. He looked just like a cigar-store Indian, and Saul’s blood pressure began to rise. The man in the car was Bill Higgins, director of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, one of the most powerful law enforcement agents in the country. What was he doing here?
Looking for me, Saul thought.
He paced the condo, looking out his window at Higgins every few minutes. Saul hadn’t worked Las Vegas in ten years. The last time he’d tried, Higgins had intercepted him at McCarran airport, and Saul had flown out the same day.
So why was he here?
Only one reason came to mind. This Victor Marks thing.
Saul kicked the furniture. Upon retiring, he’d promised Sadie he would never get involved with Victor again. Now he’d broken that promise, and look what had happened.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” he said aloud.
He needed to get out of the condo, to take a walk and think things out. Going into the bedroom, he turned on the light in Sadie’s closet. He’d kept all of her things, and he pulled out a floral dress he’d always liked. Stripping, he slipped it on, then opened a drawer and rummaged through her wigs. He’d always been partial to Sadie as a blond.
He made his mustache invisible with pancake, then appraised himself in the vanity. Saul Hyman, ancient drag queen. A straw hat and a pair of sunglasses lessened the pain, but only a little.