from Crawford’s computer.
“Who’s winning all the money?” Valentine asked.
“Mr. Chan, the gentleman at third base,” Crawford replied.
Third base was the very last seat at the blackjack table. Mr. Chan, a diminutive man in his forties, was standing behind his chair, drinking and smoking and banging his hand on the table on every round. Crawford was right: The casino’s visibility was lousy, and there was no way Mr. Chan was reading the cards. Which meant someone else at the table was reading them and secretly passing the information to Mr. Chan.
Valentine brought his face inches from the computer screen. The table had seven players, and a crowd stood behind the table, clapping and making a lot of noise. One guy stood out. He was thin, wore glasses, and was staring at the dealer. Gambling was part of the Asian culture, and as a group they were passionate about it. Except the thin guy. He was as stiff as a statue.
Valentine relayed his suspicions to Crawford, then said, “See if you can pull the thin guy with glasses off the floor without arousing suspicion.”
“Got it,” Crawford said.
Soon, an attractive hostess appeared by the thin man’s side and spoke to him. The thin man nodded and walked out of the picture with the hostess.
“You were right,” Crawford said a few minutes later. “We took the thin man into a back room and frisked him. He’s wearing a thumper.”
Valentine banged his desk with his fist. He felt just as excited as the men on the screen. He had been catching cheaters for a long time but still got a thrill when he nailed someone. Thumpers were simple electronic transmitters that sent signals to other players at the table. The person on the receiving end—in this case, Mr. Chan—wore a buzzer against his leg, which would vibrate for a second or two each time the thumper was pressed. On the computer screen, Valentine saw Mr. Chan look around, no doubt wondering where the thin man with the thumper had gone. Mr. Chan scooped up his chips, preparing to leave.
“Your suspect is about to run,” Valentine said. “Want to have some fun?”
“What do you have in mind?” Crawford asked.
“I have a trick I used to pull on cheaters in Atlantic City I caught wearing thumpers. Who has the thumper right now?”
“One of my men on the floor.”
“The thumper has a switch to increase or decrease the power of the charge. Tell your guy on the floor to increase the power and start sending signals to Mr. Chan.”
Crawford made the call on another phone. Valentine stared at the screen. So many people were crowded around the blackjack table that Mr. Chan was having a hard time making a hasty getaway. Holding his chips protectively against his chest, he tried to push his way through. No one budged.
“Here goes,” Crawford said.
Suddenly Mr. Chan’s right knee convulsed into the air and nearly hit him in the jaw. Valentine jerked the phone away from his ear as Crawford exploded with laughter. Mr. Chan’s leg flew into the air again. He looked like a marching soldier. A look of panic spread across his face. His leg flew into the air a third time, and he dropped his chips. Sensing something was wrong, the crowd parted, then watched as he convulsed around the floor, his leg flying into the air every few seconds, as if keeping time to a beat that only he could hear. Crawford laughed so hard he sounded like he was crying.
“We call that doing the Funky Chicken,” Valentine said.
“You Americans have the best senses of humor,” Crawford replied. “Thanks for sharing.”
Hanging up, Valentine endorsed Crawford’s check, then added it to the stack sitting on his desk awaiting deposit. It had been a good week, yet it didn’t change how he felt. Money had never made him feel better.
He pushed himself out of his chair. He’d stayed up too long and no longer felt tired. His office phone rang again. He glanced at the caller ID and saw that it was his neighbor Mabel Struck. Mabel was the most important woman in his life. A retired Southern lady, she ran his consulting business, cooked him a hot meal when he needed it, and kept him from killing his son, Gerry, who’d moved across the street with his wife and newborn daughter two months ago.
“I hope I didn’t wake you,” Mabel said.
“I was working on a case,” he replied. “I figured it was time to start tackling this work that’s been piling up.”
“Are you feeling better?”
“A little,” he said.
“Glad to hear it. Do you have your television set on? There’s a special report from Las Vegas. Something terrible has happened.”
“Let me guess. One of the casinos had a losing night.”
“Tony, this isn’t funny. There’s a bad fire at one of the hotels.”
He walked out of his study with the cordless phone cradled in his neck, his bare feet making the hardwood floors creak. He lived on Florida’s laid-back west coast in a New England–style clapboard house. The house was sixty years old and had withstood a dozen hurricanes and tidal surges. Everything about its construction was solid.
He switched on the TV in the living room. He was a news junkie, the set always tuned to CNN. A picture of a burning hotel appeared, the flames dancing fifty feet in the air. The caption said it was the Riverboat. He knew lots of people there. As deadly black smoke poured out of the hotel’s windows, a feeling of helplessness sunk him into his La-Z-Boy.
“You still there?” his neighbor asked.
He’d forgotten the phone was still pressed against his ear. “Yeah.”
“You watching?”
“Uh-huh,” he grunted.
“I’d thought you’d want to see it. I remember you saying you had several friends there.”
The picture switched to one from a helicopter, and Valentine found himself staring at the side of the hotel. The camera zoomed in on a man standing on a balcony. He was balding and overweight, and was climbing over the railing as flames danced around him. He crossed himself, then stared directly into the camera. The camera did a close-up on his face.
“Don’t show it,” Valentine said to the screen.
The man on the balcony hesitated. There was a courage in his eyes that you didn’t see very often. The look of someone who’s accepted his fate. He opened his mouth.
“I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country,” he yelled at the camera.
Then he jumped.
3
Max Duncan, a twenty-eight-year-old blackjack dealer, watched the first fire trucks pull in front of the Riverboat Casino across the street. More trucks followed, along with dozens of wailing police cruisers.
Max wanted to go to the windows and have a look; only, house rules forbid him from leaving his table. There was a famous story about a dealer who left his post to help a man having a stroke and was fired on the spot.
The pit boss hurried past Max’s table. He was a tough nut named Harry. Every day before the shift started, Harry made the dealers assemble in the employee lounge and on an easel wrote a single word in giant letters: WIN.
After a minute Harry returned, his face cast in stone. Max tried to get his attention.
“Harry, what’s going on?”
“Deal your game,” Harry snapped at him.
Harry made it sound like a threat. He made everything sound like a threat. Max looked at the elderly woman sitting at his table. Her name was Helen, and she was a retired bookkeeper. Helen had won the first bet she’d made
