'You don't use your mouse?'
'I can't see that damn little arrow.'
'Suit yourself,' Gerry said. 'What's DCF stand for anyway?'
'Dead Creep File. Your ex-wife convinced me that instead of deleting a file every time a hustler died, I should transfer it to another program, in case I needed to reference it one day.'
'That sounds like Lucille. She never threw anything away.'
What about you? Valentine wanted to ask. He reined in his desire to insult his only child and said, 'Here's the deal. You're going to create a profile with some information I'm going to give you, and then you'll run a match against the other profiles in the DCF file. I want you to print whatever DCF spits out and fax it to my hotel. It shouldn't take more than ten minutes.'
'Hey, I'm happy to help. Can I ask you a question?'
'Shoot.'
'Why are you interested in looking at profiles of a bunch of dead hustlers?'
'It's a long story,' Valentine said. 'I'll fill you in when I get back home.'
His son paused, and Valentine realized what he'd just said. To fill Gerry in, he was going to have to either call or go see him. His son had won this round.
'Sounds great,' Gerry said.
The casino was jumping when Valentine ventured downstairs fifteen minutes later. It was a no-nonsense kind of crowd, guys in torn jeans and stained denim shirts, women in tank tops and Day-Glo shorts, their jewelry bought off the TV. Out of hunger, they'd made their way to this city in the desert with money they could not afford to lose- either begged, borrowed, or stolen-to chase the dreams that radiated from every billboard and storefront in the country. They were the worst class of gamblers, their knowledge so minimal that it made their chances of winning infinitesimal, and because other casinos would not allow them through the door in their blue-collar clothes, they ended up at the Acropolis, the poor man's gateway to heaven.
Roxanne awaited him at the front desk. She'd tied her flowing hair in a bun-pretty no longer described her. She was now in another league of beauty, and his heart did a little pitter-pat.
'Did you and your son kiss and make up?' she asked.
'Sort of. Thanks for the pep talk.'
She slid Gerry's two-page fax across the marble counter. 'You know, deep down, you're a pretty decent guy.'
'I'm just old-fashioned,' he confessed.
'I like old-fashioned,' she said.
Her coal-dark irises looked ready to ignite, and Valentine felt his heart speed up. There was no doubt in his mind what was on her mind. It would be one hell of an experience, only he just wasn't ready. He'd abstained from sex since Lois's death, knowing the next woman he bedded would forever cut the tie to his late wife. It would have to be someone special, not a woman he'd known less than twenty-four hours, so he backed away from the desk.
'I bet you've seen Jurassic Park ten times,' he said.
Roxanne frowned, not getting his drift.
'You like dinosaurs,' he explained.
Back in the elevator, he unfolded Gerry's fax and read the scribbled message on the cover page. Hey, Pop, Only one file came up. Doesn't look like a match, but what do I know? Gerry
Valentine flipped the page. The single profile DCF had pulled up contained a mug shot, the face instantly familiar. Closing his eyes, he mentally compared the face to that of Frank Fontaine.
Facially, the two men were as different as night and day, one handsome and debonair, the other smarmy and uncouth, and it was easy to see why no one was making the connection. The fingerprint that bonded them was Fontaine's play, which was smooth and deliberate and absolutely flawless, the play of a man who could memorize every card dealt in a six-deck game of blackjack or go to a ball game and determine batting averages in his head, the play of a man who knew not only the odds on every game of chance ever invented but also every possible way to turn those odds in his favor, through either deceit, outright trickery, or sheer mathematical genius.
It was the play of a cold-blooded, ruthless individual born with the most terrible of gifts, a perfect brain.
If anyone was capable of rising from the grave, Valentine thought, it would be him-the one, the only Sonny Fontana.
12
Valentine decided to call the Gaming Control Bureau and break the news to Bill Higgins first. Sonny Fontana had been the bane of Bill's existence since the late eighties, when he'd burst onto the Las Vegas scene like a meteor shower. Bill had acted swiftly and gotten Sonny banned from every casino in the state, but Sonny had not gone away. Instead, he'd gone underground and begun training other hustlers who in turn paid him a percentage of their winnings. Along with cheating at blackjack, Sonny's students had learned the latest methods of dice scooting, rigging slot machines, and altering the outcome at roulette. He'd created a small army of clones, and the casinos had been on the defensive ever since.
Higgins's cell phone was on voice mail. Valentine didn't like leaving bad news on tape, so he said, 'Bill, it's Tony. Call me once you get this. It's urgent.'
The next person he called was Sammy Mann. He tried Sammy's home first, and when no one answered, he took a chance and called the casino's surveillance control room. To his surprise, Sammy was at his desk, and Valentine asked if he could come down.
'This must be important,' Sammy said.
Valentine told him it was.
'We're on the third floor,' Sammy told him.
Valentine took the stairs. He made it a point to take a vigorous walk a few times a day and get his heart pumping. It seemed to make him more alert. On the third-floor landing, he found two chambermaids having a smoke. They directed him to the surveillance control room, which was tucked away behind Housekeeping.
The door was unmarked and made of steel. He knocked and took a step back, knowing it was against the law to enter without proper clearance. Moments later, the door swung in and Sammy ushered him into a high-ceilinged, windowless room.
'I'm usually off Saturday nights,' Sammy explained, locking the door behind him. 'I was crashed in front of the TV when Wily called. A little old lady from Pasadena got hot at the craps table and Wily thinks she's past- posting. So I came in.'
'Is she?'
'Hell no,' Sammy said. 'Wily's dreaming.'
Valentine's eyes adjusted to the room's muted light. Every casino in the world had a surveillance control room, and he supposed they all looked something like this one. At one end stood an eight-foot-tall semicircle of video monitors. Each monitor was connected to an eye-in-the-sky downstairs in the casino. The monitors were watched by five security experts, all men, who sat at a master console, their desks covered in maps, telephones, two-way radios, keypad controllers, and dead coffee cups. The people in these jobs usually had law enforcement backgrounds and took great pleasure in busting cheats. Tonight's crew appeared hypnotized by the monitors' ghostly black-and-white images, their faces expressionless.
Sammy's office sat in a partitioned corner. They went in and Sammy shut the door. The call button on his phone lit up. He answered on the squawk box. 'Mann here.'
Wily's voice filled the room. 'So what do you think? Is the old broad past-posting or what?'
'You're seeing things. She's clean.'
'Clean, my ass,' Wily spit back. 'She's taken us for ten grand.'
'Would you like a second opinion? I've got Valentine standing right here.'
'Sure,' Wily said. 'Let him look.'
'Screen six,' Sammy said.
