Wild Card (Tony Valentine Series) Page 2

  “Excuse me,” a man’s voice said.

  Spinning around, he discovered an elderly black man in a wheelchair. “Where did you come from?”

  “I live here. I pray you’re the police.”

  “That’s right. Why did you let the Prince into your apartment?”

  The elderly man’s arm twitched, and the wheelchair came forward. “He’s my daughter’s boyfriend. She stupidly gave him a key.”

  Through the open window they heard the violent whup-whup of a police helicopter hovering overhead, followed by several rapid bursts of the Prince’s Uzi. Valentine put his face to the window, and watched the helicopter fly away to safety. He turned back to the elderly man. “What’s your name?”

  “Sampson.”

  “Mr. Sampson, I need to reload my gun, only my hand is wounded. Can you —”

  “Help you? Afraid not.”

  Valentine let out an exasperated breath. Staying in the apartment with an empty gun was an invitation to disaster. Only he didn’t feel right leaving Sampson, either.

  “Is there anyone here who can?”

  “Just my grandson.”

  “Please get him.”

  Sampson sent his wheelchair into reverse and went down the hallway. Braking at a bedroom doorway, he said, “Bernard, come here,” and a skinny tyke wearing Batman pajamas emerged. The resemblance to the old man was uncanny, right down to the mud brown eyes. Together, they entered the kitchen.

  “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 B
anko, 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.”

  “What’s he facing here?”

  “Seven-to-ten.”

  “Who explained the scam to you?”

  “Special Agent Bill Higgins of the Nevada Gaming Control Board’s investigation unit. We talked over the phone. The GCB is loaning him as an expert witness to help us prosecute the dealer.”

  Valentine was surprised. After New Jersey voters legalized casino gambling, the state had decided not to talk to anyone who’d ever worked in the Nevada gaming industry. While never publicly stated, the message was clear: New Jersey didn’t want Nevada’s organized crime families invading their little town by the shore. A great idea, except the mob had been in Atlantic City for as long as Valentine could remember.

  “I thought Nevada was having nothing to do with us,” Valentine said.

  “They’re making an exception with this case.” The phone on Banko’s desk lit up. Ignoring it, he went on. “Higgins is flying into town. I want you to meet him, see if you can learn some pointers.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “He’s full of himself. I’m sure you’ll get along fine.”

  Valentine had always enjoyed a challenge, and decided that he’d like to meet Higgins. Then it dawned on him what his boss had just said.

  “Am I working inside Resorts now?”

  Banko leaned back in his chair and nodded. “That’s right. I’m putting you in charge of our new Casino Investigation Division. You’ll work inside the casino with the surveillance department to stop the casino from being swindled. You’ll get to pick another detective to work with you.”

  Valentine felt the blood drain from his head. Fifteen years of busting his hump catching thieves and pimps and murderers and now he was being taken off the street. It wasn’t a demotion, it was a kick in the teeth, and he realized that Banko had finally found a way to pay him back for the orange hair crack. “What if I don’t want the job?” he said.

  “This is a promotion, Tony. More pay, better hours —”

  “I don’t want a desk job. I want to be where the action is.”

  “You’ll see plenty of action inside the casino.”

  A copy of that day’s Camden Union Register lay face-up on the desk. Valentine stabbed his finger at the headline. ATLANTIC CITY KILLER STILL AT LARGE. POLICE BAFFLED. “You’ve got three women raped and murdered in three weeks, no leads, and every woman on the island walking around scared for her life. Come on sarge, let me have this one. You know this is right up my alley.”

  “No,” Banko said.

  “The killer’s got to be local. I’ll use my contacts to track him down, make the department look good. What do you say?”

  “I already put in the paperwork. I have reasons for wanting you inside the casino, Tony. You start tomorrow.”

  “What if I say no?”

  Banko eyed him cooly. “That would be a bad career move.”

  Instead of driving home from work that night, Valentine drove to the Atlantic City Hospital to see Doyle. He drove a Pinto, which necessitated driving with one eye in the mirror. Right after he’d purchased the car, he’d learned that it had a minor defect. If a Pinto got rear-ended by another car, it would explode in a fiery nova. As a joke, Doyle had a special bumper sticker made for him which said KABOOM!

  Valentine found Doyle in the basement doing physical therapy for his leg. Doyle’s therapist was a nurse who his partner had nick-named Hilda-Who-Never-Smiled. Hilda wore her hair pulled back in a steel bun, and was reminiscent of a villainess from a James Bond movie. She was monitoring Doyle’s pulse while he pedaled a stationary bike.

  “Guess what? I nearly got her to laugh,” Doyle said.

  “No, you didn’t,” Hilda said without humor.

  “Well, you were thinking of laughing.”

  “You have no idea what I’m thinking. Keep pedaling.”

  Doyle winked at him. Taking the bait, Valentine said, “I know this is none of my business, but are you Polish?”

  Hilda shot him an icy stare. “You’re right. That’s none of your business.”

  “I know this funny Polish joke.”

  “Spare me.”

  “Don’t I get a shot?”

  “You want a shot? Bend over, I’ll give you a shot.”

  “Come on. I want to see if I can make you laugh.”

  Her face was mirthless, and reminded Valentine of an old European painting. She tossed her clipboard onto a table. “I will do no such thing,” she said, and walked out. Doyle climbed down off the bike and grabbed his crutches.

  “Let’s get something to drink,” he said.

  The hospital’s cafeteria served coffee so strong it could have woken up a dead man. Sitting at a corner table in the back of the room, Valentine removed the chip cup Banko had lent him, and explained the ingenious scam while his partner played with the device. “They caught the dealer, huh?” Doyle said.

  “By accident,” Valentine said. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know how you would catch a dealer using one. But I’m about to learn. I’m running the new Casino Investigation Division.”

  “Banko’s taking you off the street?” Valentine nodded, and Doyle said, “But you’re the best detective on the force. You should fight it.”

  Valentine shook his head. His partner had slid the cup back, and he put it into his pocket. “I talked it over with Lois, and she convinced me to take the job.”

  “Not to second guess your wife, but why?”

  He held up his bandaged hand. “She reminded me that I could have gotten killed last month. She also pointed out that I’ll be running my own show at Resorts.”

  Doyle stared into the depths of his coffee. “Where does that leave us?”

  “Well, like the Army poster says, I’m looking for a few good men. Actually, one good man. Banko said I could recruit a detective to work with me.”

  Doyle lifted his gaze. “Afraid not.”

  “You don’t want to work with me?”

  “I got some bad news today. My leg is permanently messed up. Doctor said no more sparring in the gym, or playing handball. He doesn’t think I’ll be able to run again.”

  “So, this will be perfect.”

  “Don’t paint a silver lining on this, okay?”

  “Come on, it will be fun. Hell, we’ll make it fun.”

  “You want a gimp working with you?”

  Valentine leaned across the cafeteria table and squeezed his partner’s arm. They’d known each other since they were kids, and had been through thick and thin. “This isn’t about chasing pimps in the middle of the night. People who cheat casinos are clever. It’s like a chess match. We have to use our brains, and outwit them.”