booted it up. The computer was slow, and he banged it several times with his hand, thinking it might speed it along. Finally, the program appeared on the screen. Hitting the CAPS LOCK button, he typed:
AMIN SHOT ME. GOING TO LA. PLANNING SOMETHING HORRIBLE. MUST STOP HIM.
Amin reread the message. Satisfied, he pushed the chair away from the desk. Pash’s passion for the movies had come in handy. Amin had seen enough scenes where dying people wrote notes to believe this one would pass. It was just dramatic enough.
On the bullet-scarred desk sat a cordless phone. He picked it up and punched in 911. The call went through, and an operator said, “Police emergency. Can I help you?”
“Help,” he said hoarsely into the phone.
“Sir? Are you all right?”
“He . . . shot me,” he said.
“Who?”
“Amin. Going to LA. Must stop him . . .”
“Sir? Sir!”
“Going to do . . . something bad.”
He knocked the receiver off the desk, then listened to the operator’s frantic attempts to get him back on the line. He glanced at his watch. It was ten thirty. It would take ten minutes for the cops to arrive, another ten for them to piece things together and alert the FBI. He glanced down at Calhoun’s lifeless body lying beside him.
“Fuck
40
Valentine left Lucy’s condo and, having no place else to go, drove up and down the Strip. It was a depressing place on a Sunday morning, and he listened to the clatter-and-cling of slot machines rattling out the casinos’ open doors while imagining Lucy at a machine, blowing the money he’d given her.
It was depressing to think about. Finding a jazz station on the radio, he prayed for Sinatra or any of the old crooners to lift his spirits. Louis Armstrong came on, asking what did I do, to be so black, and blue? A sad song, but he hummed along anyway.
Someday, when he was lonely and feeling sorry for himself, he would kick himself over this. He could have struck up a long-distance relationship, seen Lucy when he wanted, and gone with the flow. He could have pretended the gambling problem didn’t exist. It was how a lot of couples lived their lives.
Only he couldn’t live that way. He couldn’t live within a lie. It was the way he’d always been, and he was a fool to think he could change it.
At eleven o’clock he called FaceScan.
Wily had said it would take them a few hours to compare Amin’s picture against their database of known counters. Maybe they had found something the FBI had missed.
He got FaceScan’s number from information, called it, and got a recorded message. The message gave the company business hours and their address. They were just off Sahara Boulevard, and only a few miles away.
Five minutes later, he pulled into FaceScan’s parking lot. The company worked out of a five-story steel-and- glass monolith. There were several dozen reserved FaceScan spaces in the parking lot. All of them were taken.
The lobby was filled with surveillance cameras. He picked up the house phone and called the company’s receptionist, the extensions listed on a laminated sheet beside the phone. A recorded message answered. Hanging up, he started calling the extensions on the sheet. The fifth one answered. A friendly-sounding guy named Linville.
“This is Tony Valentine. I was hoping you could help me.”
Linville came into the lobby a minute later. Midforties, glasses, a neat beard, he pumped Valentine’s hand and said, “I used to work surveillance for Bally’s. Your name came up a lot. It’s nice to meet you.”
Linville looked like the kind of guy who’d pull off the highway and help you with a flat. Valentine explained the situation and Linville brought him inside, took him to the second floor, and led him through a warren of cubicles where the company technicians worked. Each technician sat in front of a blue-screened computer fielding requests sent from casinos with suspected card-counters.
They came to an empty cubicle, and Linville pointed at the chair and said, “This is where Monte sits. He handles the Acropolis, so I’m going to guess Wily brought your photograph to him. I just saw him a minute ago.”
Linville stood on his toes and looked over the tops of the cubicles for Monte, then shook his head. “He’s probably helping someone. Sunday mornings are rough. Sometimes we back each other up, especially when a casino is dealing with a team of counters.”
The clock on the wall said eleven twenty. Valentine could feel his opportunity slipping away. Linville sifted through a pile of papers on Monte’s desk and found the picture of Amin near the top of the stack, with a Post-it note attached to it.
“This your guy?” he asked.
Valentine nodded.
“You know how to use a scanner?” Linville asked.
Valentine nodded again. Moments later, he was sitting at Monte’s computer, getting a quick primer from Linville on how to navigate his way through FaceScan’s software program. It had many similarities to ACT, the database management system he used at home, and he quickly felt comfortable with it.
“Yell if you have trouble,” Linville said. “I’m right down the hall.”
Valentine ran Amin’s picture through the scanner, then downloaded it into the computer. For a guy who hated everything electronic, he’d gotten adept at using computers. He typed in the necessary commands and leaned back in Monte’s chair as FaceScan searched its database of card-counters for a match.
The technicians were a noisy bunch, and he listened to them talking to each other. There was a lot of cursing, and it didn’t surprise him. He’d done a lot of cursing on Sunday morning back when he was a cop. Every casino had downtimes in their surveillance department when not enough technicians were working. Most of these downtimes occurred on Sunday mornings.
A message appeared on the screen.
No match found for your selection.
He scratched the stubble on his chin. Bill had said Amin was a known counter. FaceScan had every known counter in the world. It didn’t make sense. He ran Amin’s photo through the program again, and got the same message.
“Huh,” he said.
He found Linville helping a technician on the other side of the room. A minute later, Linville was standing over him, staring at the computer screen.
“You’re sure he’s a known counter?”
“According to the GCB he is.”
“Anything else on his record?”
“He’s murdered five people.”
Linville exited FaceScan’s database and brought up another program. It required him to submit a password, and he typed his name backward, then hit ENTER. On the screen appeared the home page for the FBI. He navigated through the site until he finally reached the bureau’s search engine.
“FaceScan and the FBI share a lot of information,” he explained. “They use our database, and we occasionally use theirs. The guy you’re looking for should be in their database. If not, he’s the invisible man.”
Linville left. Valentine went through the process of scanning Amin’s picture again, then asked the bureau’s search engine to compare it to its database of known criminals. A box came up on the screen with a message.
Be patient. This could take a minute or two.
Leave it to a government agency to tell someone to be patient. He left the cubicle in search of coffee. His lack of sleep was catching up with him, and he felt on the verge of dropping on the nearest couch.
He found a coffee machine in the employee lounge. Thankfully, it took dollar bills. He bought a double
