Loaded Dice

was a big woman, and looked like she slept in the road. Hicks coaxed her into revealing her name.

“Bitch,” she said.

A chalkboard was wheeled out. Hicks positioned the chalkboard so it was out of Mr. Beauregard’s line of vision, then handed Bitch a piece of chalk.

“Please write the name of a song on the chalkboard,” he said.

Bitch wrote KNOCKING ON HEAVEN’S DOOR.

Mr. Beauregard was playing the song before the last letters were on the board. It had a slow, easy pace, and someone in the audience clapped along.

“Another, please,” Hicks said.

Bitch wrote COCAINE. Mr. Beauregard nailed it again. This time, there was real applause. Ponytail stood up in his seat and said, “Give that woman a sugar cube!”

Bitch jumped off the stage like she was diving into a mosh pit. She ran after her boyfriend with tears streaming down her face and the audience howling. It was an ugly scene, and Valentine heard a voice over the PA announce that the show was over.

“I thought I saw your face in the audience,” Hicks said, ushering Valentine into his dressing room a few minutes later. “Like my dear mother was fond of saying, it ain’t much, but we call it home.”

The dressing room was a pit, the plaster walls so badly pocked it looked like they’d been riddled with a machine gun. Mr. Beauregard sat in a leather director’s chair. He had his skates off and was puffing on a cigarette.

“I’m looking for my son,” Valentine said. “You haven’t seen him, have you?”

“Gerry?” Hicks tossed his porkpie hat on a chair, revealing a few loosely combed strands of white hair across his freckled scalp. “He came by the other day with his two friends. They didn’t stay very long.”

“Something happen?”

“Mr. Beauregard did not like your son’s friends. I believe the feeling was mutual.”

Valentine looked at the chimp. Hicks claimed he had special powers. Valentine didn’t believe that, but he knew that the night Hicks had saved his life, Mr. Beauregard was involved. He’d smelled him standing nearby, only Hicks had later told the police otherwise, and Valentine had gone along with him. He removed the surveillance photo from the Excalibur, and showed it to Hicks. “This one of my son’s friends?”

Hicks squinted. “My vision is not what it used to be.” Taking the photo from Valentine’s hand, he showed it to the chimp. “Mister Beauregard, was this one of them?”

The chimp looked at the photo and hissed.

“Yes,” Hicks said.

Valentine put the photo away and looked at his watch. It was just before ten. Maybe Gerry had gotten stuck in traffic and was out in the lobby. “I need to run. How long you in town for?”

“Until we decide to leave, “ Hicks said. “We’re four-walling.”

“What’s that?”

“We rent the theater, then set our ticket price based upon a certain number of people coming to each show. Unfortunately, I did not factor in the drawing power of Celine Dion. Did I, Mr. Beauregard?”

The chimp removed a rubber knife from his jacket and plunged it into his heart. Falling back on his chair, he let his tongue hang out the side of his mouth. Hicks said, “I have my carnival to return to if we decide show business isn’t to our liking.”

Valentine said good-bye and shook his hand. Mr. Beauregard was still playing dead. Hicks said, “Mr. Valentine is leaving. Let’s not be rude.”

Mr. Beauregard sat up in his chair. Reaching into his jacket, he removed a cigar wrapped in plastic and offered it to Valentine. Valentine had always enjoyed a good smoke, and slipped it into his pocket. He watched the chimp dig out a pack of matches and hand them over as well.

“I guess he wants me to smoke it right away,” Valentine said.

“I believe he does,” Hicks said.

36

Valentine checked the lobby. Then he walked through the casino and got readdicted to smoking without having to light up. He even looked inside the bingo parlor again. His son had pulled a no- show.

He walked outside to the parking lot. It was nothing new. Gerry had been breaking his promises to him for as long as he could remember.

He got into his rental and saw his cell phone lying on the passenger seat. He’d left it on, and the phone was blinking and beeping. He grabbed it off the seat and went into voice mail.

“Hey, Dad, Wonder Boy here,” his son’s voice rang out. “Look, something’s come up. I can’t make it over tonight. I’ll call you later, Dad. Bye.”

Valentine took the cell phone away from his ear and stared at it, his anger clouding his vision. Something’s come up? What the hell was Gerry thinking? His son knew the FBI was looking for him, and that he’d put his ass on the line to help him out. If he’d been sitting beside him, Valentine would have strangled him.

A car’s horn made him jump. The parking lot was packed, and in his mirror he saw a burly guy in a pickup truck, hoping to grab his spot.

“Hey Pop, you leaving?” the guy asked.

Valentine shook his head and watched the pickup drive away. The guy had called him Pop. Gerry called him Pop, just like he’d called his own father Pop. Gerry never called him Dad.

Valentine replayed the message.

“Hey, Dad, Wonder Boy here . . .”

His son was trying to tell him something. He thought back to the code they’d used in the Second Sight act when Gerry was a kid. Then he remembered: Dad had been part of the code. Dad meant Gerry hadn’t understood him, and needed help.

Dad meant trouble.

He burned down the Boulder Highway to Henderson where his son was staying. Digging out his wallet, he extracted the slip of paper with the Red Roost Inn’s phone number and punched it into his cell phone. The night clerk answered. Valentine asked to be transferred to his son’s room.

“He checked out,” the night clerk said. “Actually, his buddy checked out for him.”

“Describe the guy who checked my son out,” Valentine said, standing in the motel’s dingy office ten minutes later, having broken every speed limit and run every red light on the drive over.

The night clerk was walking testimony to the evils of alcohol, his face a mosaic of busted gin blossoms, his eyes runny and dispirited. He scratched his unshaven chin, thinking. Valentine tossed down twenty bucks to prod his memory along.

“Middle Eastern, five-ten, about a hundred and seventy pounds,” the clerk said. “Not a bad-looking guy, except he was always scowling. He and his brother shared a room.”

“How long they been here?”

“Couple of weeks.”

Valentine removed the surveillance photo from the Excalibur and laid it on the desk.

“That him?”

The clerk gave it a hard look. “Yup.”

A ledger sat on the desk. Valentine flipped it open and heard the clerk squawk.

“That could get me fired,” the clerk said.

Valentine tossed him another twenty. Then he scanned the names in the ledger. Two stood out. Amin and Pash Amanni. Pointing, he said, “This them?”

“Sure is.”

“Let me see their credit card imprint.”

“Didn’t use one.” The clerk removed a flask from a drawer. The money had put him in a celebratory mood,