Funny Money

When the employees were subdued, Valentine went into the room. The scales and coin-counting machines had been smashed. Buckets of coins had been dumped on the floor. He knelt down and picked up a handful. It was both Funny Money and the real stuff.

Then he noticed a sign on the wall. It read This Scale, Funny Money Only. How simple, he thought.

Then he heard someone say his name.

Davis stood in the doorway, grim-faced. Valentine followed him out of the Hard Count room. In the casino, the dealers and pit bosses had been handcuffed and were being led away in a line. Archie was with them, kicking his employees and cursing.

Outside, it had started to snow, the flakes swirling around Davis's Thunderbird in miniature cyclones. The detective drove away with his windshield wipers on their highest setting.

Valentine assumed they were going to the police station. Davis would want to sit him down in front of a tape recorder and explain what had happened so the prosecutors would be clear on exactly what crimes had been committed. It was a common procedure, something he did all the time.

Only the exit for the police station came and went. When Davis put on his indicator five miles later, Valentine didn't have a clue where they were headed.

The Thunderbird skidded down an icy road. Through the whirl of snow, Valentine saw a pair of familiar golden arches. It was the McDonald's where Doyle had bought the farm. A pair of police cruisers were parked in front, their bubbles acting like strobe lights in the storm.

“The manager called it in twenty minutes ago,” Davis explained. “He asked that we keep it quiet, seeing that Doyle got murdered here last week.”

Davis pulled into the lot and waved at one of the cops. The uniform walked over, blowing steam off his coffee. He had the face of a fifteen-year-old. Lowering his window, Davis said, “Tell me you didn't touch anything.”

“No, sir,” the uniform said. “We left it just like we found it.”

Davis edged the Thunderbird around back and parked. He removed a flashlight from the glove compartment and led Valentine across the lot to where Frank Porter's mini-Mercedes was parked.

The flashlight's beam found Porter sitting behind the wheel. On his lap sat a cardboard tray. In it, a Big Mac, large fries, and a thick shake. Still clutched in Frank's hand was the gun he'd eaten for dessert, the slug having passed through the back of his skull and painted the rear window. The burger was half-eaten, and Valentine wondered what had caused Frank to lose his appetite and decide to end things. What sudden insight had made him wake up and realize the horrible things he'd done?

He went to the bushes and threw up.

“Jesus!” Davis exclaimed.

“What?” he gasped.

“He moved.”

Valentine took the flashlight from Davis's hand. Opening the driver's door, he shone the beam onto the dead man's face. Porter had fallen onto the wheel and appeared to be grinning. Valentine closed his eyes with his fingertips. The flashlight caught a piece of paper sticking out of Porter's pocket.

“Go ahead,” Davis said.

Valentine held the paper so they could both read it.

To Whoever finds this note:

Please tell my friends that I know what I did was wrong. I just didn't know how to stop it.

F. P.

Valentine put the note back into Porter's pocket. Then whispered in his friend's ear.

“You stupid bastard,” he said.

41

Balzac

Sitting in front of the Blue Dolphin in Davis's Thunderbird, Valentine counted the dead on the fingers of both hands. Doyle. Sparky. Rolf. Juraj's brother, Alex. The fun-loving Mollos. The Mod Squad. And now Frank. He shook his head in disgust. They were all dead, and over what? A few million bucks? It was chickenshit when you cut it up among a hundred people. Prison was no picnic, but murdering so many people to avoid it? That seemed like a crime all by itself.

“What happened to Coleman and Marconi?” he asked Davis.

“I shot them,” the detective said. Then added, “They're both expected to live.”

“Make you feel any better?”

The detective gave it some serious thought, then shook his head. Valentine started to get out of the car and felt the cold rip through his overcoat like a knife. Davis touched his sleeve.

“How long are you going to be?”

“Give me a half hour.”

“How about ten minutes?”

It was 3 A.M. and Valentine was ready to collapse.

“What's the rush?”

“I've got the district attorney waiting, Tony. He's got a hundred people in jail and he doesn't have a case. That's the rush.”

Certain things never changed. Taking the fax from Bally's Gaming out of his pocket, Valentine tossed it onto Davis's lap. “Okay, here's your case. Last summer, some Bombay employees talked Archie into running a promotion called Funny Money. There was only one catch. Archie would have to rearrange the casino.

“Arch bought the idea. He let everything get turned upside down. What Arch didn't know was that the employees put fifty slot machines on the floor that he didn't own. They owned the machines, and that's the bill for them.

“In the act of rearranging the casino, a number of surveillance cameras were put on double-duty. When the employees wanted to empty their slot machines, Frank Porter switched the double-duty camera so those machines weren't filmed.

“Getting the money out was simple. The coins were put into buckets, with Funny Money coins going on top, just in case a DGE agent happened to be around. They were dumped on a tray in the Hard Count room that was for Funny Money only. Then they were wrapped and taken out of the casino.” He paused. “Think you can remember all that?”

The detective nodded his head.

“Good-bye, Eddie,” he said.

He entered the motel office, wallet in hand. The manager was asleep in his chair. He slipped two hundred- dollar bills into the sleeping man's pocket, then went to his room and threw his things into his suitcase.

Out of habit he checked under the bed and found Kat's red lace Victoria's Secret underwear. Just holding the garment in his hand made his heart race. The phone on the night table rang. He answered it.

“Oh Tony, how could you?”

It was Mabel. “How did you find me?”

“I called the Atlantic City police, who called Detective Davis in his car, who told me where you were,” his neighbor replied.

She was turning into one hell of a detective.

“How could I what?” he asked.

“Get into a relationship with a woman with a twelve-year-old.”

He stared at the undergarment clutched in his hand.

“Beats me,” he confessed.