She closed her eyes, and Valentine realized she wanted to be kissed. Smooching the same woman for forty- five years had taken some of the thrill out of it, and he let his lips linger longer than he should have. She didn't seem to mind. Standing, he watched the vehicle head north until it had been swallowed up by the city, then headed back to Gerry and Yolanda's room.
His son was putting a hole in the carpet. Valentine shut the door and dead-bolted it, then said, “Something wrong?”
“You're not funny,” Gerry said belligerently. “I asked you to help me, and look what happened. Those bastards are going to kill us. It's just a matter of time.”
“They haven't killed you yet,” Valentine said.
“Aw, for the love of Christ,” his son said, throwing his arms into the air. “I wish I'd never come to you with my problems. You get pleasure seeing me suffer, don't you?”
“No,” his father lied.
Gerry sat down on the bed beside Yolanda. “You could have fooled me,” his son moaned.
“Someday you'll have kids, and you'll understand.”
Gerry looked at Yolanda and both of their faces seemed to melt at the same time.
“No,” Valentine said.
Gerry kissed the top of Yolanda's forehead.
“Yes,” she whispered.
They both nodded that it was so.
“How far along?”
“Twelve weeks,” his son said.
“Oh, boy,” Valentine said.
In their faces he saw a pair of lovesick pups, happy about the mistake they'd made. He put his hands on their shoulders and drew them close to him, kissing Yolanda's forehead, then his son's. Gerry looked at his father, smiling.
“Oh, boy,” Valentine said again.
“You've sure been good for business,” Dottie said, refilling their coffee cups.
“It's the service,” Valentine told her.
She cackled like a mother hen and walked away. Gerry resumed telling his father how he'd taken Yolanda for a stroll on the Brooklyn Bridge the previous week. It had started raining cats and dogs, so he'd taken his jacket off and held it over their heads, then popped the big question.
“It was so beautiful,” his fiancee cooed.
Valentine was so damn happy he didn't know what to say. She was a smart, lovely girl with morals and a solid work ethic. What more could he ask for?
“We want to get married soon,” Gerry told him.
“I'll cover it,” his father replied. To Yolanda he said, “You want a big wedding?”
Yolanda wrapped her hand into his son's. “We should talk about this later, when things calm down.”
“Okay,” Valentine said. “Whatever you'd like.”
Out on the street, a low-slung car drove past the restaurant and Valentine watched it pass. He didn't think the Mollos had gone far, and turned to his son. “Not to spoil the party, but would you mind telling me how those guys found you so fast?”
“I screwed up,” Gerry said uncharacteristically.
“No,
“The Mollos were there and spotted us,” Gerry explained. “It was all my fault.”
“No, mine,” she said.
They were already sounding like a married couple. Their dinners came. His son had ordered pancakes and sausages. Down south, they came wrapped and were called pigs in blankets. A strange concept to northerners, but one that Valentine found oddly appealing. He watched his son smother his pancakes with maple syrup. He was going to be as big as a house one day if he didn't start watching what he ate. When he had a dripping forkful inches from his mouth, Valentine said, “I know it's been a rough couple of days, but how would you and Yolanda like to do a little detective work for me tomorrow?”
His son put his fork down. “You're kidding, right?”
“Not at all,” Valentine said.
“After what we've just been through?”
“I'm just talking a couple of hours,” he said.
“That's not the point.”
Yolanda put her fork down, and placed her hand on Gerry's arm and gave it a gentle squeeze. His son looked at her. Yolanda whispered something under her breath. Gerry grimaced, trapped.
“Sure,” his son said.
Valentine sipped his coffee, enjoying himself probably more than he should have. Since the day he'd started talking, Gerry had been defying him. With Yolanda in the picture, that was all going to change.
“We'd love to, Mr. Valentine,” Yolanda added.
“Call me Dad,” he told her.
26
Single's Day at
Waldbaum's
The next day was Saturday, and Valentine got up at seven-fifteen, did his exercises, then walked down the block to Burger King and bought coffee and juice and biscuits. Back in the precasino days, there had been a dozen good breakfast spots in this part of town, but now there were only fast-food franchises that pretended to serve breakfast.
He stopped by the manager's office and talked him into lending out the yellow pages, then went to his son's room and tapped on the door. Gerry answered, his eyes half shut, his face puffed up from yesterday's encounter with the Mollo brothers.
“You're serious about this, aren't you?” his son said.
“Yes,” Valentine replied.
“We'll be ready in ten minutes,” Yolanda called from the bathroom.
“She's a wonderful girl,” he told his son.
They ate breakfast while sitting on the bed in Valentine's room. “There's a group of hustlers I'm looking for,” he explained to his son and Yolanda. “I think they've been wiring their winnings out of the country to a crime boss. I want to visit all the Western Union offices in town and see if anyone can identify them.”
“And you want us along for company,” Gerry said sarcastically.
Valentine found the ad for Western Union in the yellow pages and jotted down the addresses of all six branches in Atlantic City. Finished, he looked his son square in the eye. “All my life, people have been pegging me for a cop. Sometimes it helps with investigations, sometimes it doesn't.”
“I still don't understand where we fit in,” Gerry said.
“Your father wants us to help him with the people that it doesn't,” Yolanda explained.
“Boy, she's smart,” Valentine told his son.
With his windshield wipers beating back the snow, Gerry pulled his BMW in front of the Western Union office on the seven hundred block of Indiana and killed the engine. Through the storefront window they could see an ornery-looking woman sitting behind the bullet-proof glass. Gerry said, “I'm not dealing with that one.”
“She looks hostile,” Yolanda said.
“Okay, okay,” Valentine said from the backseat.
Three people were in line inside the store. Valentine waited for them to clear out, then went in. He'd once known a cop who went into bars, struck up a conversation with strange women, and after five minutes of chitchat,
