'Stupid me,' Sammy said.
'What is that supposed to mean?'
'It means I didn't think it through. If I'd known this broad was holding a grudge against Nick, I never would have had her arrested. I would have watched her, figured out what she was up to. The scam with Fontaine was a smoke screen; something else was going down, a big con, and we didn't see it.'
They were back at the Acropolis. Sammy lapsed into silence as he passed the busty statuary that illustrated Nick's checkered marital history. He thought about Nola driving past the fountains each day, her hatred ignited by the sculpted mountains of silicone. No wonder she had it in for the boss.
Sammy pulled his car up to the front doors and threw it into park. The casino was dead, the uniformed valet nowhere to be seen. Letting the engine idle, he said, 'What the hell is Valentine doing anyway?'
'I talked to him a few hours ago,' Wily said. 'He's holed up in his suite on his computer.'
'Did he make Fontaine?'
'Not yet.'
'Who put him in the suite, anyway?'
'I sure as hell didn't.'
Sammy drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. 'What's he charging us, anyway?'
'Thousand bucks a day, plus expenses.'
'Jesus Christ,' Sammy muttered, getting out as the valet came running. 'What a thief.'
Sammy found Nick alone on the catwalk, hunched over the railing, his attention consumed by the torrid action on a craps table below. Shadows danced on his face, tiny angels of light coming off a big-chested woman dripping with cubic zirconias. She was trying to make eight the hard way and kissed the dice like she was planning to make love to them if they pulled through.
'Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night,' Nick said after she crapped out, 'and I lie in the dark and think about all the crummy things I've done in my life. At least the ones I can remember. They gnaw at you, especially the ones that ended up being worse than you had in mind.'
'Like Nola,' Sammy said quietly.
'I swear to God I don't remember her,' Nick said, breathing heavily. 'Now, with her clothes off, it might be a different story.'
Sammy was in no mood to laugh. If Nick was trying to make a confession, it certainly wasn't coming across that way.
'Anyway,' Nick went on, 'Nola is a good example. Sherry said we dated for ten days. My guess is we fucked like bunnies for nine, then finally got down to talking. Maybe I did ask her to get her tits blown up; stupider things have come out of my mouth. But the truth is, I was being honest with her. I like my women a certain way. There isn't a crime against that, is there?'
'Not that I know of,' Sammy said.
'So look where my honesty got me,' Nick said, glancing briefly at Sammy before returning his attention to the tables. 'I've got a real enemy in this broad.'
'You think Sherry's leveling with us?'
'She's not clever enough to make something like that up,' Nick said. 'Nola definitely has it in for me.'
Sensing Nick's reflective mood, Sammy gently broke the bad news to him. 'The police want to drop charges. Seems she passed a polygraph with flying colors.'
'Beautiful,' Nick said.
Nick began to take a walk. Sammy followed, their footsteps echoing in the cavernous space. They stopped at the blackjack pit and both men put their elbows on the railing. The tables were half full, the action light.
'I do know one thing,' Sammy said after a minute.
'Only one?' Nick said.
'It's a figure of speech.'
'I know what it is,' Nick snapped. 'So what's this one thing you know?'
'I know there isn't a flaw in our security system,' Sammy replied. 'Nobody can waltz in here and start robbing us without the alarms going off. No one's going to ruin you, boss.'
Down below, a dealer had busted and was paying off the table. Several players had doubled down on their bets and the two men silently added up the house's losses: over twelve hundred on the turn of a single card.
Nick said, 'It won't take much. Fifty grand here, a hundred grand there. It all adds up. You hear what I'm saying?'
Sammy swallowed hard: It was the first time Nick had come out and admitted his financial shape was nothing to write home about. If the Acropolis had to shut down because of losses at the tables, he and Wily would never find work anywhere ever again.
'I won't let you down,' Sammy promised him.
Nick thumped him fondly on the back.
'Glad to hear it,' he said.
11
It was past nine o'clock when Valentine scrolled up the last profile in Creep File. He stared at the computer screen, his eyes aching. Outside, the neon city had come alive, and he was itching to go downstairs and take a walk, his brain fried by his notebook's little blue screen.
Staring him in the face was Chan Zing, a notorious card marker from Taiwan. Using the finely sharpened nail on his left pinky, Zing would edge-nick all the high cards in a blackjack game, allowing him to know if the dealer's hole card was high or low. Zing was a crafty guy capable of many things, but turning himself into a sweet-talking Italian was not one of them.
Valentine exited the program and shut down the notebook. This was turning into a nightmare. Frank Fontaine was hiding in his computer and he couldn't find the guy. Was old age robbing him of his powers of deduction, or was Fontaine a hell of a lot more clever than he'd originally thought?
Neither thought made him feel particularly comfortable. Rising, he stretched his legs while staring at the madcap carnival down below. Hordes of skimpily dressed tourists jammed the narrow sidewalks, giving him second thoughts about his walk. He needed some fresh air, and the Strip was probably the last place he was going to find it.
Moving into the living room, he hit the couch like a dead man and punched the remote. A black monolith rose from the floor, its doors parting as if by magic. A split-second later, CNN filled the thirty-six inch screen. It was just the balm he needed.
It was a slow news day. He watched the sports ticker on the bottom of the screen. The Devil Rays had clobbered the Bronx Bombers, with Boggs picking up five ribbies. Oh, to have been in the stands, watching Gerry eat crow each time a Devil Rays player crossed home plate. His son was not a good loser and would have taken the Yankees' loss to an expansion team particularly hard.
The phone rang for a while, then went silent. Moments later, the message light started blinking. He dialed into the hotel's voice mail and retrieved the call.
'Wily here. Just wanted to see if you hit pay dirt. I'm working the floor. You know, I was thinking about Fontaine-' A commotion erupted on the casino floor. 'Gotta run,' Wily said excitedly.
Valentine replayed the message. The commotion sounded like a big payout at roulette. Every game attracted different players who made different sounds when the action got hot. He'd always assumed it was something tribal that dated back to the beginning of time. His own tribe, he'd assumed, were the guys who'd sat around the campfire drinking coffee and talking. He listened to the crowd erupt a second time. Definitely roulette.
He called down to the floor and paged Wily.
'You make him?' Wily asked breathlessly when he came on.
'Still digging,' Valentine replied. 'So what were you thinking about Fontaine?'
'I don't know. Maybe it's nothing.'
'Try me.'
