“I miss you, too, Tony boy.”
Sprinting up the stairwell, Valentine hurried across the dojo to the locker room. Chances were, the cops would ask Yun to let them inside the dojo, just to poke around. He retrieved the .38 from the locker. Opening a window, he climbed out and jumped.
His knees did not approve. Soon he was hobbling down a deserted street. The sirens had awoken every stray dog in town. Their howling was spooky, like a chorus of lost souls that had decided to have a sing-along. A car snuck up from behind, its headlights capturing him in two perfect spheres of light. It was a checkered cab. He got in.
The driver was one of the legion of old-timers that served Atlantic City's streets with class and distinction. Flipping the meter on, he said, “Your wish is my command.”
“Blue Dolphin motel.”
“A fine establishment.”
The driver drove two blocks north, then started to make a left off Atlantic. Valentine barked his displeasure. “Hey buddy, I grew up here. Where you going?”
“There was a shooting on Atlantic. The police have the block closed off. My dispatcher told me to avoid the spot.”
“Where on Atlantic?”
“Right outside the Burger King.”
The Burger King was across the street from the Drake. He'd told Anna to stay on the beach, and remembered all the junk food wrappers he'd seen in their apartment. He brought his face up to the bullet-proof glass. “Did your dispatcher say what happened?”
The driver looked at him in his mirror. “You a cop?”
“Ex.”
“I thought you looked familiar. Dispatcher said some foreign guy walking out of the Burger King got shot by someone in a van.”
“How did your dispatcher know it was a foreign guy?”
“That's what the dispatcher heard over the police dispatch. You want me to take you there?”
“I thought you said the street was blocked off.”
“I know a back way,” the driver said.
Valentine found the Croatian's white van parked on a side street next to the Drake. He walked up the path to the motel's front office. Inside, he saw the manager reading the paper and smoking a cigarette. He went in.
Atlantic City being a gambling town, everyone had a price. For the manager at the Drake, all it took was a fifty dollar bill to reveal the Croatians' room number. They were staying in number 33, second room from the very end.
Valentine walked down the unlit path to the room. Knocking, he stepped to one side and drew his gun. Juraj Havelka cracked the door an inch. With bloodshot eyes he stared down the .38's barrel, then backed into the room.
“We have company,” Juraj said.
Valentine shut the door behind him. Anna sat on the floor, watching the news on the TV. She slowly rose.
“They killed Alex,” she said.
Valentine looked at Juraj. “Your brother?”
“Yes,” Juraj said.
Anna put her arms around Juraj's shoulders. She'd been crying so hard that her eyes looked like busted panes of glass. “Alex and I went to get dinner. He was crossing the street with the food. A car pulled up with two men inside. There was a shot and Alex sank to the ground.” She stared at the carpet. “I ran.”
“That was a smart thing to do,” Valentine said.
Her eyes met his. “Yes?”
“Yes.”
“Please shut up,” Juraj said angrily.
On the TV, a reporter appeared. He was standing on a street corner talking to Yun. Valentine moved closer to the set. The reporter said, “Can you tell us what happened here tonight?”
The camera panned to show the smoldering remains of Archie Tanner's Mercedes, the twelve-cylinder engine a molten mass. Big Tony and his brothers were covered in yellow tarps. Valentine pointed at the screen.
“That used to be my car,” he said.
“They are after you, too?” Anna asked.
“Yes.”
Juraj was unmoved by the pictures on the TV.
“Too bad my brother was not so lucky,” he said.
34
The Last Time
Anna and Juraj were hungry, and they were broke. Valentine found an all-night convenience store, bought groceries, and delivered them to the Croatians' room a short while later. With the food came a stiff warning: Don't go out unless someone's dying, and leave the Do Not Disturb sign on the door.
Anna followed him outside. She was upset, and beneath the starless sky she explained why. “Juraj is convinced you are part of The Bombay gang.”
Valentine lit up one of his last cigarettes and filled his lungs with the great-tasting smoke. Did being dead mean he could smoke and eat tons of fatty food, and not worry about it killing him? It seemed only fair, considering what he'd been through.
“Why's that?”
“When Juraj told you it was Alex who had been murdered, you did not act surprised.”
“I wasn't.”
She seemed confused, as if Juraj's accusations were suddenly hitting home. He wagged a finger in her face, the words spilling out in a mouthful of smoke. “What the hell is wrong with you and Juraj? You told me yourself you thought you were being set up by The Bombay. And now you're surprised that you're getting killed? You should have left town when you had the chance.”
She stared at the frozen ground. Then her eyes rose to meet his. “Are you always so . . . I don't know the expression. Self-righteous?”
“If that's what you want to call it, yeah, I usually am.”
“What gives you that privilege?” she demanded.
Valentine had to think about it.
“I guess because I'm usually right.”
Anna marched down the path to her motel room. He finished his cigarette, then took a walk on the beach.
His whole life, he'd been taking walks on the beach. After school, after work, and now, in retirement, whenever it suited him, which translated into almost every day. By the shoreline he found a dozen empty beer bottles, and he dug a plastic bag out of a trash can and gathered them up. He'd lived on this beach as a kid, and it made him sick to see the amount of cans and bottles and other trash strewn around. Was it his imagination, or did people not love things as much as they used to?
He walked down to the Blue Dolphin. Going to the fence that separated it from the beach, he stood on tiptoe and peered over. Coleman and Marconi were standing in front of the motel talking to the night manager. Dangling from Marconi's hand was a large plastic bag. Cops were genetically incapable of hurrying, and he grew cold watching them grill the manager.
He thought about his conversation with Kat the day before. The drug dealer killings Marconi had boasted about had happened three years earlier when he was still on the force. Five coke dealers had been shot in the head and robbed over a period of six months. One shooting had occurred in the parking lot of a casino where Valentine had been working.
