The stereo played its last song and the house became silent. After a long moment, Sean spoke. “Yesterday, I met with a detective named Davis who's working on the case. I asked him if he had any leads, and he told me that nine out of ten murders are committed by people the victim personally knew, or were friends with. I said, ‘Detective, you obviously didn't know my father.' He didn't get it.”
“No one who was Doyle's friend would have killed him,” Liddy said, wiping her eyes.
“Amen,” Valentine said.
3
Sparky
It was dark enough for the street lights to have come on. Walking to his rental, Valentine saw a black mini-Mercedes pass by, a familiar face behind the wheel. It was Frank Porter, head of The Bombay's surveillance department. Porter got out of his car, and the two men shook hands.
“You look good,” Porter told him.
“So do you. Still telling jokes?”
“Yeah. Now I just need to find an audience.”
Atlantic City was filled with busted dreams. Porter's was in show business. When he wasn't catching cheats at The Bombay, he told jokes at open mike nights in comedy clubs. He was an overweight, jovial guy who looked like he should be as funny as hell. The only problem was, he wasn't.
“That was a nice thing you did at the cemetery,” Porter said. “What story are you going to tell when I kick the bucket?”
Valentine had to think. “How about Superman?”
That made Porter smile. Right after gambling had come to Atlantic City, a wacky guy in a Superman costume had appeared in several casinos. Jumping on a chair, he'd shouted, “I can fly!” and started flapping his arms until security escorted him out. One day, the guy had appeared at the casino Porter was working in. Smelling a rat, Porter had detained him. Under interrogation, the guy had broken down and admitted that while he was “flying,” his partners were switching a blackjack shoe on an unwitting dealer. The case had drawn a lot of attention and led to all blackjack shoes in Atlantic City being chained to their tables.
“Listen,” Porter said, “I shouldn't be telling you this, but Doyle was doing a job for me before he got killed.”
Valentine started to say “I know,” and bit his tongue.
“We've had this European guy ripping us off at blackjack,” Porter said. “Bleeding us for months.”
“How much?”
Porter stared at the ground. “Six million bucks.”
Valentine whistled. “You tell the police?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“We didn't have any proof.”
“You think the European killed Doyle?”
“He sure had a motive.”
“Want me to get involved?”
“You're not going back to Florida?”
“Not right away.”
“Yeah, I'd love for you to get involved,” Porter said. “You were always the champ when it came to doping out scams.”
Valentine realized his toes were freezing. He agreed to come by The Bombay the following morning and have a look at their surveillance tapes. He shook Porter's hand and started to walk away. Then he came back and said, “Is Sparky Rhodes still in town?”
“Sure,” Porter said.
“Does he still live over on Jefferson?”
“Yeah. You thinking of paying him a visit?”
“I sure am,” Valentine said.
A knowing look spread across Porter's face. They shook hands again. Then Porter said, “Do you know why marriage changes passion?”
Valentine told him he didn't.
“Because you're suddenly in bed with a relative.”
“See you tomorrow,” Valentine said.
Valentine drove back to the beach in his rental. Atlantic City is laid out in a grid, with hardly a bend or curved road, and soon he was cruising down streets named after the first twenty-six states. New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island. He wondered how many kids had learned their geography in the backseats of their parents' car, like he had.
He passed a two-story brick house on Fairmont Avenue where the local mafioso had once hung out. Being Italian, the “boys” had never hidden their faces. They'd gone about their business in the open, their ethnic pride getting in the way of good old-fashioned common sense. By the mid-seventies most of them had gone to prison or were mulch. Then the casinos had opened, and a whole new breed of criminal had descended upon his hometown.
He parked in an alley next to Sparky's house and got out. Sparky lived in a slum, the block lined with tenement houses, the fences that surrounded them all chain link. Sparky's own house hadn't changed. Peeling paint, a dead lawn, shades darkening every window. He rapped three times on the front door. Moments later, the dead bolt was thrown and the door swung in. Sparky Rhodes sat in a wheelchair in the foyer, his long silver hair tied in a ponytail, a .38 Smith and Wesson tucked into the folds of his camouflage vest.
“Hey, Sparky. How's it going?”
“Having the time of my fucking life. How's life in sunny Florida?”
“Fine. Can I come in?”
“Sure.” Sparky turned his wheelchair on a dime and started rolling down the hall. “I had a feeling you'd be coming by.”
“Why's that?” Valentine said.
Sparky wheeled himself through the poorly lit house and beckoned for him to follow. There were piles of fast- food wrappers in every corner and stacks of yellowing newspapers. On the walls, photographs of Sparky as a cop, before a juvenile delinquent's bullet had taken him down. The pictures of his wife were long gone.
“You and Doyle were partners,” Sparky said. “Partners get close. Sometimes, they promise each other things.”
“Sometimes they do.”
Twenty years ago, Doyle had taken a bullet so Valentine could shoot a murder suspect. In the hospital he'd told Doyle he'd repay him the favor one day. Groggy from pain killers, Doyle had said, “I should hope so.”
“You have anything particular in mind?” Sparky asked.
“Something with some bark,” Valentine said.
Going into the hall, Sparky threw open a yellow door. A ramp descended into the basement. The rubber wheels of his chair hit it with surprising force. Valentine followed him down, holding the railing for support.
A naked bulb hanging from the ceiling came to life. Sparky went to a padlocked door and used a small key hanging from a chain around his neck to open the lock. They went in.
The room was a perfect square and housed Sparky's vast collection of firearms. On the floor sat a footlocker. Sparky flipped open the lid. “These are all clean. No serial numbers, no history. Something for every man's taste.”
Valentine knelt down and examined Sparky's wares. There was a silver-plated Mac II, a Cobray M-11, a Tec- 9, a Colt .45 with a Buck Rogers laser scope, a .25 caliber Raven, and on the bottom of the footlocker, an Uzi nine, a shorter and easier to handle version of the Uzi submachine gun, with a magazine capacity of twenty rounds.
“That's my favorite,” Sparky said.
Valentine stood up. “I was looking for something I could keep in the pocket of my jacket. Small, but with a
