Another wave came in. Nigel held Candy’s hand so she was not dragged backwards. They were big hands, yet also soft and gentle. “The band was born that night,” he said. “Flash knew it, the crowd knew it, and we knew it. We cut our first album the next week.”
“Who played the drums?”
“A studio musician they hired.”
Candy stared out at the endless stretch of blue. She had seen Nigel play, remembered it as clearly as what she’d had for breakfast. The AIDS concert in New York’s Central Park. She’d watched it on TV, Nigel’s maniacal solo piercing the still night air. That couldn’t have been a recording.
“But I saw you play,” she insisted.
“Where?”
“On television, from New York.”
He took the empty beer bottle from her hand, replaced it with a fresh one. “Another hoax, I’m afraid. After the album went platinum, we were expected to tour. Flash knew we couldn’t do concerts with a tape and survive, so he put this drummer in a hollowed-out amplifier directly behind me. He would play, and I’d fake it.”
“In an amplifier?”
“He was a dwarf. Flash found him in the Tom Thumb circus.”
Candy put her hand over her mouth. “Cut it out.”
“I’m serious,” he said. “Guy could play any instrument. Sing, too. He’s out in Vegas now.”
“Doing what?”
“A mean Elvis Presley impersonation. He wears one of those white leather outfits with all the lace. Calls himself Elfis.”
Candy didn’t see the monster wave roll in. As laughter poured out of her mouth, it hit her in the face, and she went under.
“I want to ask you something,” she said after they burned up the sheets with their lovemaking.
“No,” he mumbled, his face buried in the pillows.
She shoved him playfully. “Come on.”
He rolled over on his side. “What?”
“Why do you hang out with guys like Rico? What is it going to get you, except in trouble?”
He thought about it for a while, his finger tracing a heart in her bare midsection.
“Do you know what it’s like to have everything handed to you, and you didn’t do anything to deserve it?”
Candy shook her head no.
“It
He touched her chin, then managed a faint smile. “I hang out with guys like Rico for the same reason that I gamble. It makes me feel alive.”
33
Valentine and his son spent the afternoon in their hotel room watching the surveillance tape of Jack Lightfoot.
Valentine had enjoyed the company. Normally, Gerry would have been poolside, talking a pretty girl into slathering tanning lotion on his back. Only, he seemed more interested in figuring out how Lightfoot was cheating, and asking lots of questions.
Valentine’s cell phone rang. He retrieved it from the night table and glanced at the caller ID. It was Mabel, calling from his house.
“You shouldn’t be working on a Sunday,” he said by way of greeting.
“Don’t worry, I’m putting in for overtime,” she replied. “I called to see if you got my fax.”
“What fax?”
“The one I sent to your hotel. It was an E-mail from a person named mathwizard. I think he figured out your blackjack scam.”
“You sent it to the hotel’s main desk?”
“Yes. Yesterday morning. When I didn’t hear from you, I figured I’d better call.”
“Thanks for the heads-up.”
He said good-bye, then called the front desk on the house phone. Two minutes later an apologetic bellman was standing at the door with his fax. Valentine gave him a buck and slipped his bifocals on.
Mathwizard was the alias of a prominent southern California college professor, and one of the top blackjack cheaters in the world. With his son looking over his shoulder, Valentine read the E-mail several times, then found himself staring at the passage at the bottom of the page.
Valentine put the E-mail down, then thought back to the piece of sandpaper in the aspirin bottle in Karl Blackhorn’s locker. And then it hit him. This was something
His skin tingled. In all his years policing Atlantic City’s casinos, he’d uncovered only a handful of new ways to cheat the house—things that had never been done before—and each time, he’d walked on air for a few days. It was a unique feeling, and he’d had to consult a thesaurus to find a word that accurately described it.
Only one had. Aggrandizement.
He called Gladys Soft Wings. “How soon can you get the Micanopy elders together?”
His son said, “You nailed it?”
Valentine nodded that he had.
“
“How about tomorrow morning?” Gladys suggested.
“How about right now?” he replied.
Mabel hung up the phone and glanced at her watch. The movie started at three. If she hurried, she’d still get a good seat. She heard the computer on Tony’s desk make a doorbell sound, indicating new E-mail had arrived. She hesitated, then let her curiosity get the better of her.
It was from Jacques, informing her that he’d been fired from his job. Too many cheaters had been caught in the past few days for management to have any faith in him. So they’d sacked him.
Mabel erased the message and pushed herself out of her chair. That was the thing that people never understood about cheaters: They often cost security people and pit bosses and dealers their jobs. When the losses were really bad, whole shifts were often fired.
Someone was knocking at the front door. It was a loud, impatient sound. Annoyed, she hurried down the hall into the living room. Through the front window she spied a young man standing on the stoop. His right hand held a padded envelope. He was lean and darkly tanned, his long hair tucked beneath a baseball cap. Mabel didn’t like the looks of him, but she didn’t like the looks of most young people. She cracked the door an inch.
“Yes?”
“Special delivery for Tony Valentine.”
It was not uncommon for Tony to get Sunday deliveries. “Who’s the sender?”
“Caesars Palace, Las Vegas.”
Caesars was a good client and kept Tony on a monthly retainer. She unchained the door and took the envelope out of his hand.
“Do you have a pen?” he asked. “I left mine at my last stop.”
“Wait here,” she said.
