“This man needs our help,” Sampson said.
The boy gave him a hostile stare. “You a cop?”
“That’s right.”
“Screw you.”
Valentine motioned Bernard towards him. The boy held his ground, and Valentine said, “There’s a bad man on the roof. I need to stop him. Will you help me?”
“Prince isn’t bad,” Bernard said.
“Yes, he is. He just shot six policemen.”
“Bet none of them was black.”
The boy was maybe ten, and already had no use for white people. Valentine looked him in the eye. “One of the men was black. His name is Mink, and he has a son named Marcus. He goes to Atlantic City High with my son.”
“And Prince shot him?”
“That’s right.”
Valentine saw the gears shifting in Bernard’s head. He decided to take a chance, and handed the boy the .38., then explained how to open the chamber, and reload the weapon. Bernard stared at the gun like it was a bomb.
“Do it, Bernard,” Valentine said.
Bernard pursed his lips. “You ain’t lying to me?”
“No. Prince is bad.”
Sampson nudged the boy with his chair, and whispered to him.
“Okay,” Bernard said.
Valentine removed six bullets from his pocket and gave them to the boy. When Bernard was finished reloading the .38, Valentine made him and his grandfather go down the hall and hide in a bedroom. Then, Valentine went to the window leading to the fire escape, and started to climb out. Hearing footsteps on the metal stairs, he pulled himself inside and pressed his face to the window.
The Prince was coming down. For some reason, he’d taken off his shoes, and Valentine watched him materialize in pieces — first his dirty feet, then his blood-soaked pant legs, and finally his upper torso — while steadying the .38’s barrel against the window. When their eyes met, Valentine shot him.
The Prince flew backwards onto the fire escape, the bullet entering an inch below his heart. He lay motionless on the steps, and Valentine climbed out the window and pried the Uzi from his grasp. The Prince’s eyes were fading, and Valentine leaned in close.
“Remember me? I was chasing you over at the casino.”
His eyelids flickered. “Sure. You... run fast.”
“What’s the deal with you and Crowe?”
“You dunno?”
Valentine shook his head.
“They sent Crowe and Freed to get their little book back,” the pimp said.
“What little book?”
“In my pocket.”
Valentine rifled the Prince’s pockets, found a wad of cash and put it back, then found a black address book, and thumbed through its pages. It contained the names, addresses and phone numbers of two dozen men. All were Italian and lived in the New York area. Next to each of their names were the dates they’d visited Atlantic City in the past eighteen months.
“Who are these guys?”
“Crowe and Brown work for them,” the pimp whispered.
“Mobsters?”
“Yeah...”
“What were they were doing?”
The Prince’s eyes shifted, and Valentine realized he was staring at something in the distance. Turning, Valentine saw the neon outline of Resorts in the distance, the garish colors fading in the early morning dawn. He looked back at the pimp.
“They got a scam going on?”
“Yeah...”
The Prince grasped Valentine’s sleeve. On his face was a look that Valentine had seen before; of a man about to die, wanting to come clean. In a hoarse whisper he said, “They’re stealing a million bucks a day.”
“What? How?”
“Got an arrangement...”
“Inside the casino?”
“Yeah...”
“With who?”
The Prince stared straight up at the sky. The sun had risen, and a ray of light rested on his face. Valentine waited for him to continue, then saw the life leave his eyes, and realized he was dead. Slipping the address book into his pocket, he closed the Prince’s eyelids with his fingertips, allowing him one final courtesy before his soul went to the place that cop-killers went. Then he climbed off the fire escape, and went outside to help his partner.
Chapter 3
“How’s the hand?” Banko asked.
Valentine held up his bandaged hand. “Almost healed.”
“You lead a charmed life.”
“I wouldn’t go that far, sergeant.”
“What would you call it?”
“I don’t know. You ever been shot?”
Banko shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Four weeks had passed since the shooting at the Rainbow Arms, and it was Valentine’s first day back at work. They were trying to have a civil conversation in Banko’s office, which was never easy. Banko was a round-faced, overweight, fifty-two-year-old cop who ran the precinct with an iron fist. The motto emblazoned on his coffee cup summed up his style to a T. It said FEEL FREE TO SHUT UP.
“Shot at,” Banko said defensively. “Never hit.”
“Then I’d say you lead a charmed life, sergeant.”
Banko snarled at him. It was how most of their conversations ended. Sensing he’d worn out his welcome, Valentine rose from his chair.
“Sit down,” his superior said.
Valentine’s ass hit the seat. He watched Banko pull open his desk drawer and remove an envelope marked EVIDENCE. From it Banko removed a stack of poker chips, and held them in his outstretched hand. “Ever see one of these before?”
He stared at the chips. Five reds, or what gamblers called nickels. He guessed they weren’t normal, and said, “I don’t know. What are they?”
Banko flipped the chips over on his palm. They weren’t chips at all, but a hollow brass cup painted to look like chips. Reaching into his desk, Banko removed four black hundred dollar chips, and handed all of it to Valentine. “It’s called a chip cup. A pit boss at Resorts found it on a blackjack table two days ago. We’re holding the dealer. The four hundred dollar chips were hidden inside the cup.”
Valentine loaded the four hundreds into the cup. They fit perfectly. He didn’t know much about casino games, and tried to guess how the stealing was taking place.
“I give up,” he finally said. “What’s the scam?”
Banko smiled triumphantly. The rift between them had started when another cop had asked Valentine if he thought Banko dyed his hair. Valentine said no, he just thought Banko was going prematurely orange. The remark had gotten back to Banko, and they had been at war ever since. The truth was, Valentine didn’t care that Banko didn’t like him. Banko had risen in the ranks by kissing ass. Valentine had never kissed an ass a day in his life.
“It’s simple,” Banko said. “I’m a crooked blackjack dealer, and you’re my partner. You sit at my table, and make a bet with the chip cup. You purposely make a bad bet, and lose. When I pick up your bet, I use it to cover another bet—”
“The four hundreds,” Valentine said.
“Correct. They disappear inside the cup. I put the cup in my tray, only it goes with the other red chips. The hundreds disappear.”
“Doesn’t the casino notice?”
“There’s no way for them to notice,” Banko said. “That’s the bad part about the casino business. They can’t track how much inventory there is on the floor. It leaves them wide open to employee theft.”
Valentine turned the chip cup over on his palm. Instead of stealing the house’s money, the crooked dealer was stealing a player’s money, which the player had just lost. “What’s going to happen to the dealer?”
“He’s screwed,” Banko said. “He got caught in Reno pulling the same scam. Went to the federal pen to iron out a nickel. Did two and a half to parole.”