on the TV. “Ralph, my ex, came by after the show and tried to serve me with papers so he could stop paying alimony. I sort of snapped.” The TV had gone mute, and Kat glared at the wall. “Zoe! You know the rules. No channel surfing.” The volume came back on and Kat relaxed. “Where was I? Oh, yeah, beating up Ralph.”
Mabel turned from the stove. “Did you really?”
“Yeah. I got him in a hammerlock and started pulling out his hair. He had these implants put in, looks like tiny cornrows. No more!”
It was a delicious image, and Mabel took a plate into the next room for Zoe, then returned to the kitchen and slid a second plate Kat’s way.
“You’re an angel,” Kat said, smothering the food with maple syrup and digging in. “Ralph had me arrested for battery. Thank God for Zoe.”
“What did she do?”
“She saved my ass,” Kat replied, the syrup dripping off her chin. “Ralph got custody of her while I was in jail. He made her wash her hair out, then threw away all her clothes and bought new stuff at Kmart. Just to get back at me, I guess.
“Zoe’s always been a little snoop, and she looked around Ralph’s apartment and found a batch of summonses in a drawer. Seems Ralph’s bounced checks up and down the East Coast since leaving me. Zoe realized her dad was on the lam, so she called me in jail. I told my lawyer, and this morning, Ralph got hauled in front of the judge.”
“A happy ending,” Mabel said.
Kat wiped her mouth with a napkin. “Not yet.”
“How so?”
“I’ve got to find Tony. We’ve got a show in Memphis next week.”
Mabel picked up Kat’s plate and took it to the sink, rinsing away the remains with warm water. The words that came out of her mouth did so without any conscious thought.
“He’s on a cruise.”
“To . . . where?”
Mabel turned, showing her best game face. “He didn’t say.”
“Do you know which line?”
“He told me he was driving to Miami and was going to book himself on the next cruise he could find. I don’t think he had a destination in mind. He just wanted to—”
“Climb into a hole?” Kat’s face was flushed, yet her voice did not change. “I wish you’d told me sooner, Mabel. I’ve had enough surprises the past few days.”
Kat’s gaze had turned cold and unfriendly. Mabel stood her ground.
“I’m sorry,” Mabel said.
The uniformed valet at the Loews was a pissant Cuban who acted like he’d never seen a car with a hundred sixty thousand miles. Valentine tossed him the keys, hitting him squarely in the chest. The valet’s face puffed up in a confrontational snarl.
“You speak English?” Valentine asked.
The valet’s look turned homicidal. Valentine’s question was obviously not politically correct in this corner of the world.
“You a cop?” the valet asked.
“Show me your green card, and I’ll show you my badge.”
The valet jumped into the Honda and gunned it. Valentine laughed for the first time that day, and it made him feel good. He went inside.
The Loews was a mammoth hotel and as cold as a meat locker. It was stupid. Up and down the beach, they were building monoliths, with fancy carpeting and fine paintings, instead of what Miami needed, which was beachfront joints with bamboo furniture and cool tile floors. That was what Miami Beach used to be, and it had been great. This wasn’t.
He stopped at the hotel’s restaurant. He was always hungry when he was working, and he read the menu on the door. Sixteen bucks for a dozen shrimp buried in cocktail sauce. With tax and tip, twenty bucks easy. He’d starve first, and went searching for the house phones.
They were by the elevators. He dialed zero and an operator came on.
“Room of Jason Black, please.”
“My pleasure, sir.”
It sounded like something a coolie would say. It wasn’t her pleasure at all. It was her fricking job. The call rang through and Bill picked up.
“Guess who,” Valentine said.
“Tony?”
Valentine thought about playing Bill along, seeing how many more lies he could trick him into saying. Only, Bill was a friend, and he wanted to give him another chance to keep their friendship alive. “Very good,” he said.
Bill’s voice changed. “How did you know I was here?”
“I was a detective for thirty years, remember?”
“Are you nearby?”
“In the lobby,” Valentine said.
Bill’s suite looked lived-in. Chinese take-out cartons on the table, empty bottles, the muted TV turned to CNN. Like he was on a stakeout. They shook hands a little too formally. Valentine sat on the couch, Bill in the room’s only chair.
Bill hadn’t changed much over the years. Full head of black hair, his body lean. Facially, he wore an expression that Valentine likened to that of a cigar-store Indian, but had never said so, fearful of offending him. That expression was now gone, replaced by one of apprehension and worry.
“I’ve done something really bad,” Bill said.
“Can it be fixed?”
Bill clasped his hands together. “I don’t know. Probably not.”
“You gonna tell me what happened, or do we have to arm wrestle?”
Bill flashed a rare smile. From the minibar he removed two Diet Cokes, pouring one for Valentine without asking. “I got a call from the Justice Department a month ago,” he said, “asking me to help them investigate the mob’s infiltration of Florida’s Indian casinos. Specifically, they wanted me to look at the Micanopys.”
“Why you?”
“Five years ago, I went undercover for Justice and infiltrated the Indian casinos in northern California, then wrote a report citing where I thought organized crime was operating.”
“So you have a history with them.”
“Right. When they called this time, I said sure.”
“What happened?”
“I stepped onto a land mine. I didn’t know that Florida’s governor and Running Bear squared off two months ago, and the governor got his nose bloodied. Well, the governor wants revenge. He had the state’s attorney general start a rumor that the Micanopys had mob ties. The rumor reached Washington, and Justice called me. I was brought in believing the Micanopys were crooks. I just had to find the evidence.”
“A witch-hunt.”
“Exactly.”
“How does Jack Lightfoot figure into this?”
“Jack was working for me.”
“You’re kidding me.”
Bill stared at the bubbles in his soda. “I saw Jack dealing blackjack at an Indian casino in northern California. He won so many hands, I knew he had to be cheating. I ran a check on him and found he was on parole. I cornered
