'You the guy who squeezed his head in a door in Tahoe?'
Al nodded that he was.
'Who're you working for, Al?'
'I can't tell you that.'
Valentine bent his thumb back a little more. As thumbs went, it was awfully small, and he noticed how freakishly small Al's other fingers were as well, the tiny appendages attached to an even smaller hand. The rest of him looked normal, at least what was visible.
Al screamed some more. The bathroom door swung open and Mike stuck his head in. The bartender blinked, then blinked again. Valentine shot him a murderous glance.
'Where've you been hiding?'
'I was on the phone. Jesus, I thought he was killing you.'
'Thanks for the concern,' Valentine said.
'You want me to call the police?'
Valentine looked at Al. 'How about it? You want to have a chat with the boys in blue?'
Al shook his head. He was clutching his wrist with his other hand, trying to stop the pain from spreading to other parts of his body. Judging by the agonized look on his face, it wasn't working.
'I'll take that as a no.' To Mike he said, 'I'll try to keep the screaming down to a minimum.'
'Sure,' Mike said.
He left, and Valentine said, 'Who're you working for?'
'I can't tell you,' Al said. 'They'll kill me.'
'Like this is better?'
When Al didn't respond, he gave the thumb a little more juice. Al's face turned crimson and his eyes popped out like a comic-book character.
'How about their initials?' Valentine said. 'Tell me their initials, and I'll figure it out.'
'F. U.,' Al whispered.
'What's that?'
'F. U.! F. U.!'
'You saying 'fuck you' to me? Why, you stupid punk…'
Valentine's anger rose to the surface like the lava in a volcano. Why someone cursing him bothered him more than having his balls squeezed, he didn't know. He brought his knee up into Al's jaw and sent him into dreamland.
Valentine laid him out in a stall, then rifled his pockets. A few hundred bucks and an empty inhaler. Typical.
Back in the bar, he found Mike standing stiffly at his post. Al's screaming had put the fear of God into him, and his upper lip was sweating BBs. Valentine slipped onto his former stool, pleased to see a fresh Diet Coke awaiting him, sans a frothy head. He raised the plastic mug to his lips and took a healthy swallow.
'Where's Muscles?' Mike asked.
'Napping,' Valentine said.
He finished the soda and reached for his wallet.
'On the house,' Mike said.
'I knew there was a reason I liked you,' Valentine said.
22
So when are they going to let you out of here?' Valentine asked, pulling a chair up to Sammy Mann's hospital bed.
'Not anytime soon,' the patient said gloomily.
Visiting hours did not start for several hours, and Valentine had taken the service elevator up to the third floor and stolen down a hallway to Sammy's room, the nurses at the station too busy watching monitors to see him slip past. The hospital ran a tight ship, and he felt bad about breaking the rules, but he needed to talk to Sammy in private and this was the best way to do it.
Valentine noticed an uneaten breakfast on a tray sitting beside Sammy's bed, the scrambled eggs cold and runny. He felt a lump form in his throat. 'You sick?'
'You got that right.'
'What's wrong?'
'Big guy's getting the range.'
'Cancer?'
'Prostate.'
'What stage?'
'Stage two,' Sammy said. 'Doctor said it was lucky I got my knee whacked; a few more weeks, and it might have started spreading.'
'When can you start chemo?'
'Two weeks,' Sammy said, using the remote to kill the picture on the silent TV. 'They've got to put a pin in my leg first, let it heal, then start in with the rough stuff. Tell you the truth, I'm scared. I'm not in the best of shape, you know.'
Valentine didn't know what to say, so he didn't say anything. He looked around the room and didn't see the faintest evidence that Sammy had received any visitors other than himself. Sammy wasn't much older than him, which made it easy to put himself in the sick man's shoes. One day you feel fine; the next, a doctor is giving you a death sentence. Life was like that; the shame was suffering through it alone.
'Can I make a suggestion?' Valentine said. When Sammy nodded, he continued. 'My wife had breast cancer, pretty advanced. She had this great doctor at Sloan-Kettering. He convinced her that her mental outlook in dealing with her disease was critical to her getting well. So Lois started planning things to do once the chemo treatment was over. Like going to school and taking a trip.'
'You're saying I should start planning a new life?'
'Why not?'
'Doing what? Flipping burgers? I've seen those retired people working at McD's. No thanks.'
'I can get you a job working on gambling ships in Florida,' Valentine offered. 'You go out at noon, come back at night; they feed you a buffet and everything. Two hundred a day to watch some drunk tourists squander their money.'
'Sounds sweet. Why don't you do it?'
'I get seasick.'
'I'll think about it. Thanks.'
'I need to ask you a couple of questions.' Pulling his chair close to the metal bed, Valentine dropped his voice. 'There's a guy on the prowl for Fontaine. Real nutcase. He's got the tiniest hands I've ever seen.'
'That's Little Hands Scarpi,' Sammy said. 'Whatever you do, don't get in the same room with him. Rumor has it the casino bosses threw him a party after he murdered Fontana.'
'You think they might have rehired him once word got out that Sonny wasn't dead?'
'It's possible.'
'Is Nick one of those bosses?'
'No,' Sammy said. 'The worst Nick's ever done is have somebody's legs broken. Nick respects human life.'
Valentine said, 'Here's my next question. How trustworthy is Wily?'
Sammy gave him a hard look. 'Wily? Why?'
