'Mr. Valentine, this is Roxanne at the front desk,' a friendly female voice said. 'I have a fax for you.'
'I'll be right down,' he said. 'And Roxanne, I need to be put into a new room.'
'New room?' She sounded offended. 'What's wrong with the room you're in?'
He lowered his voice. 'I found a body under the bed.'
'A body?'
'Yeah. I think it's Jimmy Hoffa.'
'Well,' she said, her fingers tapping a computer keyboard, 'let me see what I can do.'
On the long walk back to the elevator Valentine took stock of the carpet's muted orange and red checkerboard design. He'd read several studies conducted by casinos to quantify the effects of really bad carpet. The goal was to find out which patterns were so upsetting to the human eye that it actually coaxed a customer into looking up from the floor and into the eyes of a dealer or gleaming slot machine. The idea was to trigger impulse play. No one had ever determined if it really worked.
On the way down, he remembered the second message in his pocket, and he unfolded the fax that had been given to him when he'd checked in. Valentine, You old fuck. Take some advice from a friend and stay retired. No job is worth dying over, is it, pal?
'What the hell,' he said aloud.
The elevator doors parted, but Valentine did not get out. Over the years, he'd been threatened by several hustlers, and a couple had actually tried to do him harm. The doors closed and the elevator rose on its own accord.
Soon he was back on the fourth floor. He punched the Lobby button and again descended, then read the fax again. Whoever had sent it knew him well enough to know he was retired. Had Bill's snitch told everyone in town he was visiting? Or had someone he'd once busted in Atlantic City spotted him at the airport and overheard his curbside conversation with Bill? Whatever the answer, he was going to have to stay on his toes or risk going home in cargo instead of first class.
To reach the front desk, Valentine had to pass through the casino, and he stopped briefly to get the lay of the land. The casino floor was designed like a hub of a wheel, with the gaming tables and slots in the center of the wheel, and all other destinations flowing from that center. A person couldn't get anywhere inside the Acropolis without passing through the wheel, and, it was hoped, dropping a few dollars. Twenty-five years earlier, every casino in Las Vegas had been designed this way. He suspected that today, the number was less than a handful.
Roxanne awaited him at the front desk. She was a vivacious gum-chewing redhead with muted brown eyes, his favorite kind of girl. She pegged him right away and said, 'I thought Jimmy Hoffa was buried in Giants Stadium.'
'That's Walt Disney,' he said.
'I thought Walt Disney was being kept in a refrigerator down in Orlando.'
'That's Adolf Hitler.'
She slid the fax across the marble counter.
'You're a real piece of work, you know that?'
Valentine grinned. 'Where're you from?'
'I was raised in New Jersey. I came out here five years ago.'
'I'm a Jersey kid, too. You mind the heat here?'
'It's okay so long as you don't wear any clothes.'
Valentine's eyes grew wide and she grinned. He sensed that she was enjoying this as much as he was. How many years separated them? At least thirty. It was nice to see he could still ignite a spark, however brief.
'You in for a convention?' she asked.
'I'm doing some work for the casino.'
'You don't say.'
'Listen, I need to ask you a favor. If my son calls, could you tell him I checked out?'
Roxanne raised an eyebrow. Her pleasant tone vanished. 'You don't talk to your own son?'
'No,' he said, 'and neither should you.'
'And why's that? He murder someone?'
'It's nothing like that.'
'If he didn't murder someone, why can't you get over it?'
It was Jersey logic if he'd ever heard it. There would be no winning with this young lady, so he retreated from the front desk. Frowning, she went to wait on another customer, casting him an evil eye as he hurried away.
He slipped into the lobby bar for some privacy. It was called Nick's Place and was cozy dark. The bartender stood behind his empty bar polishing a highball glass. He looked about Valentine's age, rail thin and silver-haired, and did not get annoyed when Valentine ordered a glass of water with a twist of lemon.
'Sparkling or Evian?' he inquired politely.
'Tap, if you have it.'
The bartender treated it like any other drink, setting the glass on a coaster and sliding it toward him. It was the first classy thing Valentine had seen anyone in the Acropolis do, so he tipped the man two bucks.
He unfolded Mabel's fax on the bar. Why had Roxanne assumed that he should be civil to Gerry? What gave her that right? Sipping his drink, he perused Mabel's latest assault on the funny bone. Tired of the same old grind? Enroll today in Grandma Mabel's school for begging. Become a pro. Special classes for TV evangelists and career politicians. Learn the pitch and never work again. Mabel Struck President Emeritus
813/PAN-HAND
Valentine grit his teeth. What was Mabel doing? This wasn't funny at all. The ad had Gerry written all over it. In the smoky mirror behind the bar, he saw a meaty-faced palooka sauntering toward him. He was too soft-looking to be a mobster. As he slid onto the adjacent stool, Valentine said, 'You must be Wily.'
'That's me,' the pit boss said, rapping his knuckles on the bar. 'Roxanne said I might find you in here.'
'She's some girl.'
Wily ordered a bourbon and water. Under his breath, he said, 'She's got a thing for older guys, if you hadn't noticed.'
'Now that you mention it,' Valentine said, 'I was wondering what she was doing in my room.'
Wily guffawed like it was the funniest joke he'd ever heard.
'I'll use that one,' the pit boss said.
His drink came. Valentine told him about being picked up by Bill Higgins at the airport and seeing Nola interrogated. Then he explained his theory of why he believed Nola was involved in the scam. Behind Wily's muddy cow eyes, he saw a flicker of something resembling intelligence.
'Sammy Mann said the same thing,' Wily said. 'He thinks she's guilty as hell. To tell you the truth, I didn't spot it right away, and I know this girl very well.'
'Sammy Mann's living out here?' Valentine said, the threatening fax still in his thoughts.
'Sammy Mann is head of the casino's surveillance. He's my boss.'
Valentine nearly spit water through his nose.
'He got religion,' Wily explained. 'He's one of us.'
'Did he tell you I busted him once?'
'Sure did. Said he beat the rap.'
'My ass, he beat the rap. He'd still be in prison if he hadn't paid off the judge.'
That really got Wily laughing. 'Sammy bribed a judge? Oh boy, that's really good.'
Their talk drifted back to work. Wily pounded the bourbons in an attempt to keep up with Valentine's need to quench an insatiable thirst he'd had since stepping off the plane. Soon the pit boss's face resembled a big red blister.
'Sammy thinks this weasel Fontaine set Nola up,' Wily said, his tongue thickened by the booze. 'Sammy thinks it was all a smoke screen. He thinks Fontaine had something else in mind.'
