scholarship to Notre Dame to do the Lord's work. The priest said, “Mother and I were just looking at an old picture of you and Doyle. Weren't we, Mother?”
The old woman blinked. Valentine swallowed hard.
“I'd like to see it,” he said.
In the middle of the living room, a table had been arranged with old photographs of Doyle. Father Tom removed one and handed it to him. It was a black-and-white snapshot of Valentine and Doyle in their septic cleaner uniforms, their first real jobs.
“I was trying to remember the slogan on your uniform,” the priest said.
“We're number one in number two,” Valentine replied.
That got a smile out of him. Sarah blinked some more. Valentine put the photo back and excused himself.
In the kitchen he found Liddy tending to several guests who sat around the breakfast nook. Putting the coffeepot down, she threw her arms around him.
“Oh, God, Tony,” she cried softly. “When Lois died, I couldn't imagine how you felt. Now I know.”
“How the boys holding up?”
“So, so,” she sniffled. “We celebrated Sean's thirty-fifth birthday last week. You know what he told me? He said, ‘I can't believe it's taken me this long to appreciate my own father.'?”
Valentine thought of his own son, whom he'd been warring with forever, and wondered if those same words would ever leave Gerry's lips. He doubted it.
“Where are they?”
“Out on the patio.”
“I want to talk to you later, if that's okay.”
She smiled bravely. “I'll be right here.”
He found Sean and Guy sharing a cigarette by the brick barbecue. He hugged Guy first and felt the younger boy's heart beating wildly out of control. Guy pulled away and walked to the other side of the yard.
Hugging Sean, Valentine said, “Is he all right?”
“I think it's just sinking in,” Sean said.
Valentine edged up to the younger boy. “Hey.”
Three generations removed from the motherland, Guy looked more Irish than either of his parents. He popped a cigarette into his mouth and offered Valentine one.
“Didn't know you smoked,” Valentine said.
“Seemed like a good day to start.”
It was a good line, and Valentine gave in and took one. He'd quit the day he'd made detective and never found anything to replace the sensation of nicotine. They shared a match, and he filled his lungs with the great- tasting smoke.
“During the funeral, all I could think about was Dad's killer,” Guy said. “How he got up this morning, had breakfast, read the paper, and did all the things that my father will never do again. It made me so . . . angry.”
Guy started to cry. He was going to miss his old man for the rest of his life, and there was nothing that Valentine could tell him that was going to make it any easier to deal with. They finished their cigarettes, and then Valentine's cell phone rang.
It was Mabel. Guy and Sean went inside. Standing on the edge of the patio, Valentine said, “How's it going?”
“I've got a panicked customer on the other line,” she said.
“Who?”
“Nick Nicocropolis in Las Vegas. He called up and yelled in my ear for five minutes. Said he's getting ripped off by some slot cheats. He's rude and
Valentine was paid monthly retainers by a dozen casinos, and in return provided advice when the casino suspected it had been ripped off. Nick, owner of the Acropolis Resort & Casino, was a hardheaded little jerk who'd refused to sell out to the big hotel chains and was struggling to stay alive.
“Did Nick describe the scam?”
“Yes. He said a cleaning lady found thousands of silver dollars in a room and thought it suspicious. A husband and wife were staying in the room, so security watched them. The couple were playing one slot machine exclusively. Security detained them but couldn't find anything. Nick's holding the couple, and they're screaming lawsuit.”
Guilty people usually did. “Call Nick up and have him describe what security found on the couple when they grabbed them. I'll wait.”
Mabel put him on hold. Slot cheats were limited in their methods of stealing coins and rigging jackpots, and he had a feeling Nick's security people were missing something obvious. His neighbor came back a minute later.
“Nick said the couple both had money, credit cards, and their ID. Oh, and both were drinking glasses of iced tea.”
“Nothing hidden up their sleeves?”
“No. And Nick said they frisked them.”
“Huh. Let me call you back.”
Shivering, he walked around the patio a few times. Eighteen months ago, he'd helped Nick nail another gang of cheaters, and the Acropolis's layout slowly came back to him. Nick's joint was ancient and still had many old- fashioned Bally's cast-iron slot machines. Cast-iron slots could be manipulated much easier than the new computer-chip models, and he realized what the couple was doing. Taking out his cell phone, he punched in Nick's number from memory.
Moments later, Nick was on the line. Nick was many things—sex fiend, loudmouth, ex-drunk—and also the squarest casino owner in Las Vegas. Valentine spelled it out to him. “The couple you arrested are a couple of old- time slot cheats. In one of their glasses of iced tea—which I hope you didn't throw out—is an extra-long spoon. When they hit a jackpot, one of them blocks the machine from your surveillance cameras, while the other sticks the spoon up the coin slot so more coins will come out. It's called spooning.”
“How the hell do I prosecute?” Nick growled.
“Check the spoon for marks, and check the inside of the slot machine for similar marks. If they match, that's all the evidence you need to convict.”
“You're sure about this,” Nick said.
“I'd bet my reputation on it.”
“You're a smart guy,” Nick said, “even if you are from New Jersey.”
“Good-bye,” Valentine said.
The crowd thinned out around five; by six, it was just Valentine and Liddy and the boys. Tying on an apron, he filled the kitchen sink with hot water and attacked the dishes, Guy drying and Sean putting away, Liddy fixing another pot of coffee. The stereo played one of Doyle's dixie jazz albums, Jack Maheu's seductive clarinet floating through the house, Doyle's easy laugh haunting every other note. When the dishes were done they sat at the kitchen nook with their cups.
“Tony,” Liddy said, “did you talk to Doyle recently?”
Valentine shook his head. He had not told anyone about his last conversation with Doyle. “No. Why?”
She stared into the depths of her cup. “Something was troubling him. We went out to dinner last week, and Doyle was grumpy and out of sorts. Finally, I asked him what was wrong, and he said, ‘If I told you, I'd have to kill you.' He was trying to make a joke, but it didn't come out that way.”
Valentine had a senior moment and dribbled coffee onto his shirt. He got a sponge from the sink and blotted it out before it turned into a stain. Then he said, “He must have said something . . .”
Liddy shook her head. “I tried. But he wouldn't open up.”
Valentine finished his coffee. When Doyle was a cop, he'd talked to Liddy about the cases he was working on—Liddy had told Lois and Lois had told him—and Valentine had never seen any harm in it, Liddy not being the type to blab. So why hadn't Doyle talked to her about
