the hospital, and Running Bear, Smooth Stone, and the other three dealers had been arrested by tribal police and thrown into the reservation jail.
He stood at the bars in his cell. They were rubbed smooth where other inmates had instinctively held them at chest height. Smooth Stone and the others were a stone’s throw away, whispering frantically. Like mice knowing they were about to be eaten by a cat, he thought. He sat on his cot, leaned against the concrete wall, and shut his eyes.
The last time he’d been incarcerated—over twenty-five years ago—he’d had a vision. In it, he’d seen his people living in nice homes and having enough food to eat and good health care, and all the other things they didn’t have when he was growing up. He’d seen a future where there was no future. And it had changed him.
When he opened his eyes, a Micanopy woman in a business suit was standing in his cell. In her left hand was a briefcase; in her right, a plastic chair. Running Bear motioned for her to sit. “So, Gladys Soft Wings, how are you?”
“I wasn’t sure if you’d remember me,” she said.
“You went to Stetson and got a law degree,” he said. “And now you’re here to represent me before the elders.”
“Yes, and to the Broward police, if you’d like me to.”
Running Bear considered it. It would be up to the tribe’s elders to decide which story to present to the police when they reported the shooting—his, or Smooth Stone’s. The elders were old men set in their ways, and Running Bear had clashed with them many times over how he marketed the casino.
“One thing at a time,” he said.
She did not seem offended. Opening her briefcase, she removed several sheets of paper, then read aloud Smooth Stone’s and the other dealers’ accounts of what had happened. In their story, Running Bear had vandalized Smooth Stone’s trailer, then attacked them when confronted. Running Bear laughed softly when she was done.
“You find this funny?”
“I find their reasoning funny,” he said. “It was five against one. Blackhorn had a knife and a gun. I was unarmed.”
“Blackhorn is dead. And you’re a martial arts expert.”
“They attacked me.”
“So it was self-defense. But why were you in the trailer?”
“I hired a consultant to do a job. This consultant is an expert in catching cheaters. Someone put an alligator in his car. I suspected Smooth Stone, so I went to his trailer. I found a ledger in Smooth Stone’s desk that implicated the men who attacked me.”
Gladys opened her briefcase again and handed him a sheet of paper. It was a list of the items the tribal police had found in Smooth Stone’s trailer after they’d searched it.
“The tribal police didn’t find a ledger,” she said.
Running Bear removed from his shirt pocket the page he’d torn out of the ledger. Unfolding it, he handed it to her. “I took this as a memento.”
Gladys studied the page. Running Bear could vividly remember her as a child. Shoeless, dirty most of the time, hardly ever spoke. And now here she was, wearing nice clothes and talking for a living. He saw Gladys shake her head.
“I don’t know what any of this means,” she said.
“Neither do I,” Running Bear said. “But I know someone who does.”
“Your consultant?”
“Yes,” he said. “My consultant.”
Saul Hyman’s condo was on the fourth floor of a dumpy high-rise in north Miami. Valentine had called and caught Saul riding his stationary bike. Hearing his voice, Saul had acted like he was a long-lost brother and not someone who’d once busted him.
“Of course you can come on over,” Saul said. “Provided it’s a social call.”
“I’m retired,” Valentine had replied.
“How many years has it been?” Saul asked an hour later, ushering Valentine in. He was small and wiry, maybe one-fifty soaking wet, and sported a debonair little mustache, which he dyed along with his hair. Normally, Valentine didn’t like dye jobs. But Saul’s looked okay.
“Twenty.”
“Miss me?”
“Not for a minute.”
“You were my favorite cop.”
“Why’s that?”
“That partner of yours wanted to beat the daylights out of me. You stopped him.”
Valentine vaguely remember the incident. Atlantic City had been a candy store in the early days, and cheaters were often pummeled before reaching the station house. Saul led him into the living room. It was small and had a view of two apartment buildings across the street. Between them, he could see a tiny sliver of ocean.
“Nice view.”
“Thanks,” Saul said, pointing at a chair as he took the couch. “So when did you retire?”
“Last year. I opened a consulting business. I help casinos nail cheats.”
“I hope you’re charging them through the nose.”
“You bet.”
Saul smiled, and the sunlight reflected brightly off his teeth. They’d been artificially whitened and looked like piano keys. “Good for you,” he said.
“Because I went out on my own?”
“Because you’re making money off the fucking casinos.” He slapped his hands on his knees. “So, how about a drink? I can offer you soda or fruit juice. I’ve got this Indian doctor, Deep Pockets Chokya, who made me swear off the hard stuff.”
“That’s his real name?”
“That’s what I call him. Every time I see him, I leave a little lighter.”
“Diet Coke, if you have it.”
“Diet Coke I can do.”
Saul sprang off the couch and disappeared. While he waited, Valentine appraised Saul’s digs. It wasn’t a great place, but it wasn’t a trailer park, either. Saul’s philosophy toward cheating had obviously paid off. “It’s better to gamble with someone else’s money than your own,” he’d said after Valentine had arrested him. “Much better.”
It had happened at the old Resorts International in Atlantic City. The casino had just opened, and security was a shambles. But the owners had done a smart thing. In the basement was a computer that did daily financial analysis of the different games. And the computer said something was wrong at their roulette table. Resorts’ security had called the police. Valentine had been given the assignment, and set up shop in Resorts’ surveillance control room.
Sitting in front of a video monitor, he’d watched the roulette table through an eye-in-the-sky camera called a pan/tilt/zoom. Roulette tended to attract an eccentric mix of people, and it took a while before he’d spotted Saul and sensed that something was not right.
Saul gambled every day. Like most gamblers, he was superstitious and followed a set routine each time he entered the casino. First he went to the coffee shop and smoked a cigarette. Then he went into the casino and played roulette. He would always place even-money bets—red, black, odd-even—and usually leave after fifteen minutes to play craps or blackjack. He was a smart gambler and sometimes won big. But just as often, he lost his stake.
What Valentine hadn’t liked was the sameness of Saul’s routine. It felt rehearsed, so he decided to videotape Saul for a week, then compare the tapes. After reviewing them, he wrote down the four things Saul did every single day.
(1) He always smoked.
(2) He always bet a hundred-dollar black chip.
