Loaded Dice

“This is Tony Valentine for Director Fuller.”

“Director Fuller is unavailable. May I help you?”

“Get him anyway. And while you’re at it, give me his e-mail address.”

“That’s out of the question.”

“Tell him I have the pictures.”

“Excuse me?”

“The pictures. Tell him I still have the pictures from Atlantic City.”

The woman hesitated. How much did she know about Fuller? Plenty, he guessed; most personal secretaries knew more about their bosses’ habits than their wives.

“Please hold,” she said.

While Valentine waited, he entered his e-mail account and went into the SAVED MESSAGES folder. Retrieving a message titled FULLER, he opened it. On the laptop’s blue screen appeared ten pictures of Fuller screwing a hooker in Atlantic City in 1979. The hooker was tied to the headboard of a bed, and did not look happy with the arrangement. Valentine had gotten the pictures from a serial killer who’d blackmailed Fuller into leaving Atlantic City with his partner. By leaving, Fuller had allowed the serial killer to claim one final victim, an injustice that Valentine had never forgiven him for.

Fuller was a bad apple. Law enforcement had its share of bad apples. The system was supposed to weed them out the higher you rose, but occasionally one slipped through the cracks like Fuller had.

He and Fuller spoke a couple of times a year, usually when Fuller needed help on a gambling-related case that had the bureau stumped. Fuller was always quick to remind him that he’d patched things up with his wife, whom he’d abused, and his partner, whom he’d lied to. He liked to say that he’d found the good life. When he wasn’t working, he was driving his daughter to soccer practice, or leading his son’s Boy Scout troop.

Valentine didn’t believe a word of it.

Fuller liked sex, and he liked it rough. To get it, he hired prostitutes to service him. The patterns he’d shown in Atlantic City were of a man who lived in two worlds—the real one, and the one behind the curtain of his conscience. Hurting women during sex turned him on. It was what psychologists called his erotic mold, something he couldn’t change.

“Valentine?” a man’s voice said.

“That you, Fuller,” he said.

“Yes. Go ahead.”

“I’m calling about a situation at my house. Two of your agents are being held at gunpoint by my office manager. You aware of this?”

“What did you tell my secretary about the pictures?”

“What pictures?”

“Don’t pull that horseshit with me,” Fuller thundered at him. “What did you say to her?”

“I said I still had the pictures from Atlantic City.”

“You told me you destroyed them.”

“I did. But first, I burned them onto the hard drive on my computer. I’m looking at them on my laptop. You know, you’ve hardly aged.”

Fuller cursed like he’d hit his thumb with a hammer.

“What do you want,” he seethed.

“An explanation,” Valentine said. “I don’t deserve to have my house searched without the decency of a phone call. Your agents inferred that I was some kind of traitor. I resent that.”

“Your name came up in conjunction with a case involving national security. It was decided that your house should be searched.”

“Decided by who?”

“By me,” Fuller said.

“You couldn’t call me? You didn’t think I’d help you?”

“I couldn’t call you because you’re a suspect in a murder investigation. Your business card, and a Nike gym bag identical to one you purchased six months ago, were found at the crime scene.”

“I got here yesterday,” Valentine said. “You want to hear my itinerary? I didn’t have time to kill anybody, for Christ’s sake.”

“Your flight landed the day before yesterday,” Fuller corrected him, “a few hours before the victim was killed. Your things were found at the scene.”

“My flight was delayed in Dallas,” Valentine replied. “I arrived yesterday morning at one A.M. The airline lost my bag, and I killed two hours at the airport, filling out a claim sheet. If you don’t believe me, call Delta.”

“How do you explain your card and gym bag, “ Fuller said.

“I’ve given out plenty of business cards in Las Vegas,” he replied. “And the Nike gym bag is back in my closet at home. I don’t travel with it.”

“You landed when?”

“One A.M. I checked into Sin at three. There’s records of all this stuff. And plenty of eyewitnesses.”

There was silence. Then Fuller cursed under his breath.

“My sentiments, exactly,” Valentine said. “Now are you going to call your dogs off my house, or should we keep talking until somebody gets killed?”

25

Negotiating with people with guns was a tricky proposition. One party had to give in and put their weapons down first. That was the hard part. Since Mabel had drawn first, Valentine knew it would put the FBI at ease if she relinquished first. And since the FBI had his house surrounded, he talked her into it.

“Are they going to arrest me?” his neighbor asked.

“Absolutely not,” he assured her.

“But I pulled a gun on them.”

“They’re going to call it a big misunderstanding.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“So you’re not a traitor?”

Valentine’s face burned at the mention of the word. Fuller had never explained that. Someday he was going to pin the man down and find out why his agents had said that.

“No, I’m not a traitor.”

“So his men won’t be searching your house, then?” she said.

Valentine smiled into the receiver. Searching the house was the last thing Fuller wanted his agents to do. He’d told Fuller the photographs of him and the hooker were on the hard drive of his computer. His agents would certainly look there, and the cat would be out of the bag.

“Absolutely not,” he said.

“All right,” Mabel said. “I’m putting the Sig Sauer back in the refrigerator. Now I’m closing the refrigerator door. I suppose my next step is to release these two young men.”

“Not yet. I’m going to hang up, and then you’re going to get a call from Director Fuller. He’s going to want to speak to Reynolds. Put the cell phone next to Reynolds’s ear, and listen in. I’ll be listening in as well.”

“How will you do that?”

“I’ve got Fuller on the other line.”

His neighbor’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Oh, Tony, I’m so sorry this happened.”

“There’s no need to apologize,” he said. “You did what you thought was right.”

As Mabel hung up, she tried to hide the smile on her face.

“Looks like our bosses have reached an agreement,” she announced.

Reynolds and Fisher said nothing. Yolanda let out a sigh of relief, and sat down at the kitchen table. The chair was old and creaky. A startled expression crossed her face. She glanced at the back door as if expecting it to come crashing down and a SWAT team to enter the house.