“I was down in Florida when he got killed. I would have come to the funeral, but business had me tied up.”
“You buying Disney World?”
Archie took a big fat cigar from his pocket and fired it up. “I'm buying hotels, Tony. Hotels that I'm going to turn into casinos. Florida isn't going to let the Indians have a monopoly forever. Gambling generates taxes, and taxes build roads and schools, two things Florida desperately needs.”
Valentine nearly stood up and walked out of the room. He'd retired to Florida because it didn't have casinos. Biting his tongue, he said, “Okay.”
Archie picked up on his hesitation. He stared at him in the window's reflection. Then said, “How would you like to finish doing Doyle's job?”
“Depends,” Valentine said.
The great one's eyes turned into slits.
“My rate's a thousand bucks a day, plus expenses. I also need access to your surveillance control room. And your library of surveillance tapes.”
Archie turned to look at Porter. New Jersey law strictly forbids outsiders inside a casino's surveillance area, and Archie would be disciplined and fined heavily if Valentine was discovered where he didn't belong.
“We'll have to risk it,” Porter told his boss.
“Okay,” Archie said. To Valentine he said, “Anything else?”
Valentine was about to say no, then saw something sparkling on his shirt. He removed a tiny shard of glass that had been part of his rental's windshield.
“A car,” he said. “My rental's shot.”
Archie went to his desk, picked up a key ring, and tossed it to him. “This is my spare. It's in the basement. I'll call the guard, tell him to let you out.”
Valentine glanced at the keys. They were for a Mercedes. He'd planned to go looking for the European anyway; now he was going to get paid for it, and drive a rich man's car.
He picked up his overcoat from a chair, then went over to the window and stuck his hand out. Archie shook it, the way business had always been done in Atlantic City.
“Nice to have you onboard,” Archie said.
Valentine stared downward. He saw kids sledding on the Boardwalk, just like Gerry had once done. And the two guys walking on the beach, that was him and Doyle just off work, going to get a burger.
“Nice to be onboard,” he replied.
6
Funny Money
You're brutal,” Porter said as they descended in Archie's private elevator.
“Just being honest,” Valentine replied.
“Is this what I have to look forward to when I retire?”
“They say it gets worse.”
The elevator's walls were made of glass, and Archie's vast empire lay below. The Bombay's casino was the length of three football fields, and its Arabian Nights architecture was as gaudy as any neon-soaked building on the Las Vegas strip.
Valentine watched a tour bus pull up to the entrance and disgorge a mob of white-haired geezers. Atlantic City's casinos preyed on the elderly, who squandered their pensions and Social Security checks playing slot and video poker machines. The elevator doors parted and they got out.
“How does Archie think he can get gambling passed in Florida,” Valentine said. “The voters have rejected it twice.”
“Archie's talked Florida's governor into passing special legislation so counties can decide whether or not they want casinos,” Porter said.
“So Archie's trying to rewrite the law.”
“You got it.”
“Good luck.”
“He's already spent a fortune buying up hotels in Miami and St. Petersburg. Trust me, Arch knows what he's doing.”
They walked the casino floor. The Bombay's interior decor was one part faux India, one part Arabian Nights, the rest New Jersey schmaltz. Cocktail waitresses wore skimpy
“I need a cup of coffee,” Valentine said.
“Sinbad's is our best bet,” Porter replied.
Valentine followed Porter through the blackjack pit. Passing a table, he stopped to watch a young female dealer shuffle the cards, then deal a round. Porter edged up beside him.
“Something wrong?”
“She's new, isn't she?”
“Started last week,” Porter mumbled. “How could you tell?”
“Her hole card is a red nine.”
“Don't screw with me.”
“Bet?”
“With you? Never.”
“Then watch.”
The players at the table played their hands. Then the dealer turned over her hole card. It was the nine of hearts. Porter pulled Valentine away from the game.
“How the hell did you know that?”
“She flashed a corner when she slid it under her face card,” Valentine explained. “Inexperienced dealers do that sometimes. Hustlers call it front loading.”
Porter cursed under his breath. Every day, hustlers walked through his casino, looking for flaws in his games, or green dealers who didn't know all the rules. For every problem he didn't fix, he lost thousands of dollars, sometimes more.
“I'll pull her off the floor right now,” he said.
They met up in Sinbad's ten minutes later. A harem girl served them coffee in elephant-shaped mugs. Blowing away the steam, Valentine said, “So, tell me how The Bombay lost six million bucks, and you managed to keep your job.”
Porter spit coffee on himself. “That's not funny.”
“It wasn't meant to be funny.”
Grabbing a handful of paper napkins from a dispenser, Porter wiped his chin. “I didn't get canned because it wasn't my fault.”
“Why's that?”
“I don't know if you noticed it, but The Bombay's changed.”
Valentine had noticed. Walking through the casino, he'd gotten lost several times.
“Back in November, Archie launched a new promotion,” Porter said. “Every customer gets a pail of special coins, called Funny Money. People gamble with it and win prizes.”
Valentine sipped the scalding brew. He'd seen a lot of cockamamie promotions in casinos over the years, and they'd always produced the same results: the casinos lost money.
“Whose idea was this?”
“The Mod Squad's. They run the marketing department. At first I thought it was stupid. Casinos aren't supposed to give stuff away. But it worked, so they obviously know something.”
“Worked how?”
“It changed people's perceptions of us.”
