'Well, excuse me,' she said, licking her finger. 'It is water. You don't look like the type.'
'And what type is that?'
'People who drink water are either alcoholics or Mormons.'
Every interview came with a price. This one was getting a little costly, so he said, 'There's a third category you're forgetting. It's called children of alcoholics. My father was a rummy. I saw what it did to my mother.'
'So you don't drink.'
'That's right,' he said. 'End of story.'
'Hey. Sorry if I stepped out of bounds.'
'Don't mention it.'
He walked her out to her car. The employees parked in a giant macadam lot behind the casino, their cars baking in the desert inferno. Roxanne wrapped her hand in a handkerchief before daring to touch the handle of her gleaming white Grand Prix.
'Well,' she said, 'I guess this is good-bye. I'm sorry for butting into your personal life. But your son just seems like a nice kid.'
'Sometimes he is a nice kid.'
'Then why all the hostility?'
He shrugged his shoulders. 'I spent my life putting people like him behind bars.'
'Oh. Well, I'm sure you'll settle things one day. I can't have kids, so I tend to mother people. I know it's a pain, but that's just me. See you.'
Her lips pecked his cheek and then she slid behind the wheel of her car. Valentine stepped back as she fired up the engine. Being childless was no fun, especially when you wanted them. Had he known her a little better, he would have told Roxanne about the two-year struggle he and Lois had gone through to conceive his beloved Gerry.
The midday sun jumped out from behind the clouds, so he shielded his eyes with his hand to get a good look at Roxanne's license plate as she drove away. She seemed to be a wonderful woman, but who really knew these days? Taking out his pen, he jotted the license plate number down on the palm of his hand, then went back inside before he passed out from the heat.
His suite had been cleaned, and Valentine lay down on the circular bed and shut his eyes. Jet lag had suddenly caught up with him-he was dog-tired. He swam around in the sheets for a while, struggling to get comfortable.
It didn't work, his brain overloaded with all the things he'd learned that morning. The enigma of Frank Fontaine was slowly unraveling, one piece at a time. Opening his eyes, he stared at his reflection in the mirrored ceiling. He was a large man, a shade over six-one, yet he looked puny in comparison to the bed. Lifting his head, he noticed how inordinately large everything was in his suite. Big bed, big bathroom, big murals on the walls, big brass knobs on the doors, a big concrete balcony off the living room. It reminded him of old Miami Beach and its expansive Jackie Gleason architecture. A real time warp.
Rising, he went to the living room and got his notebook computer from its bag and booted it up. The dining- room table had been decorated with fresh-cut flowers and a bowl of fruit. He parked himself at its head and went to work.
During his twenty years working the casinos in Atlantic City, he had kept a profile of every hustler he'd ever come into contact with, jotting down their patterns, habits, vices, and idiosyncracies. A hustler might change his appearance, he reasoned, but he could never change who he was.
By the time he'd retired, he had amassed profiles of over five thousand hustlers, enough to fill up the hard drive on his ancient PC. The same information easily fit onto a Compaq notebook PC, which now accompanied him on every out-of-town job. The profiles, which he collectively referred to as the Creep File, were actually part of a program created by Gerry's first wife, a lovely computer expert named Lucille. Lucille had modeled Creep File after software called ACT, which was a basic database management program.
Booting up Creep File, Valentine hit Search and a blank profile filled the screen. Reading from his notes, he typed in what he'd learned about Frank Fontaine. Name: Fontaine, Frank Sex: Male Height: 5'7'-5'10' Weight: 150- 160 Age: 40-45 Heritage: Italian Hair color: black, weave Facial hair: none Identifying marks/tattoos: none observed Disguises: none observed Right- or left-handed: right Smoke: expensive cigars, cigarettes Drink: club soda Nervous habits: none observed Dress: designer, expensive Attitude: cool, relaxed Game(s) played: blackjack Is dealer involved in scam? yes Are other players involved? none observed Player's betting habits: erratic Range of player's bets: $100.00-$1,000.00 Does player conform to basic rules of game being played? no How is player cheating (list all possible methods)? NA Other known information: far-sighted; likes basketball
Done, Valentine hit the Enter button. Creep File would now take Fontaine's profile and compare it against every hustler in the database. Those who matched Fontaine's description in four or more categories would be pulled up in a separate file.
Within seconds, the program was done. Valentine scrolled through the matches and counted forty-eight profiles. Fontaine was finally going to get his mask ripped off. It was about time, for Valentine had come to the realization that if he didn't make this guy, he would never get to the bottom of what was going on here.
For the next hour, he read each profile while sipping on a Diet Coke. Thirty-six of the hustlers were serving time or deceased. Of the remaining twelve, he omitted nine because of age and one who'd had a sex change. That left two hustlers: Johnny Lonn and Frank 'Bones' Garcia. Valentine knew each man well.
He jumped back and forth between their profiles, which included mug shots from recent arrests. Johnny and Bones were both Italian, were both world-class card counters, and they bore strong physical resemblances to Fontaine. Each man had also run with a gang and knew the ins and outs of orchestrating a major rip-off.
But with each man, there was a problem. In 1993, Johnny had lost his right thumb in a freak car accident; Bones had recently contracted a rare skin condition that had rendered him completely hairless. Neither man could be Fontaine. His hand slapped the dining-room table in frustration.
Pushing his chair back, Valentine went to the suite's picture window and stared down. Like an ugly woman without any makeup, the Strip was all warts and moles in the harsh daylight, and he watched a line of traffic slither snakelike past the hotel. Fontaine's cocky play was his calling card, and Valentine felt certain that he belonged to that elite club responsible not only for ruining casinos but also for fixing major sporting events, even bankrupting a small country or two. Fontaine was somebody special and had gone to a lot of trouble to keep his identity secret.
Calling room service, Valentine ordered a hamburger and a bucket of ice, then sat back down at the dining- room table. The computer had gone to sleep, and he impatiently tapped the Shift key with his finger. Finally, the screen lit up and he scrolled to page one of Creep File.
His eyes fell on the profile of Devon Ames, a Philadelphia-based dice scooter of some renown. Valentine began to read, determined to miss nothing. Like a bloodhound, he was going to sniff Fontaine out, even if meant reading all five thousand profiles in his computer, one at a time.
10
What do you mean, you're dropping charges?' Sammy Mann bellowed, his face a few inches from Pete Longo's.
'You heard me,' the chubby lieutenant replied, parking his butt on his trashed desk and firing up a Marlboro. It was Saturday afternoon, and he wanted to watch some college football; the last thing he needed to hear was this shriveled-up old hustler telling him how to run his investigation. 'I'm dropping charges. If you were smart, you'd hire Nola Briggs back ASAP.'
'Are you crazy?' Sammy howled. 'She ripped us off!'
'That's debatable. Look, Sammy, her defense attorney, the one and only Felix Underman, had Nola take a polygraph test a few hours ago. The man who administered the test is an ex-detective and a pal of mine. He was kind enough to messenger over a transcript of her questioning. Care to hear it?'
'I sure as hell would,' Sammy said, making the springs sag on the lumpy couch in Longo's rat-hole office. Wily, who sat on the other end, rose a few inches.
