who did it were found dead in the stairwell.”
“That’s the
“Were you beat up? Did they damage that beautiful face?”
His cheeks burned. Never before had anyone called his face beautiful. “The face is fine. My neck is sore, but it will heal.”
“Please come up to my room,” Gloria said. “I’m in 842.”
Valentine hesitated. The older he’d gotten, the more important mealtime had become, and he’d been looking forward to eating breakfast.
“Do you still want to eat?” he heard himself ask.
“I ordered breakfast through room service. I hope you like your eggs scrambled with cheese in them.”
“That’s exactly how I like them,” he said.
“You’ve got a neck like a bull,” Gloria said, examining the bruises on the back of Valentine’s neck while he sat on the couch in her living room.
“I should. I stand on my head ten minutes every day.”
“How long have you been doing that?”
“About twenty-five years.”
She sat down beside him with a funny look on her face. She wore a powder blue suit, white blouse, and a Hermes scarf wrapped around her neck. She’d told him a few days ago that her network was putting her out to pasture because she was getting older, but to him, she looked just right.
“It’s one of my judo exercises,” he explained. “I took judo up when I started policing casinos. My boss didn’t want us using our guns on the casino floor, so I got involved in the martial arts.”
“Let me guess. Shootings are bad for business.”
“Yes. It seems gamblers see it as a sign of bad luck, and stay away in droves.”
“So you still practice?”
He stretched his neck and nodded. Normally he went to judo class three times a week, and could still throw around guys half his age. Telling her would only sound like bragging, so he kept quiet. Breakfast sat on a trestle tray in an alcove off the living room and smelled delicious. Gloria saw his eyes drift toward the food, and she brought her hand beneath his chin. She raised his face an inch and held his gaze.
“If I were to ask you a question, would you give me an honest answer?”
“I’d try,” he said.
“Come on. Yes or no?”
“Yes.”
“Did you shoot those two men in the stairwell last night? Everyone says you did.”
“Who’s everyone?”
“Please answer me,” she said.
You couldn’t be a television announcer for as long as Gloria and not have great eyes. Hers were a soft aqua that could melt your heart if you looked into them too long.
“No, I didn’t shoot them,” he said.
“Do you know who did?”
“No idea,” he said.
Gloria stared deeply into his eyes. After a few intense moments, her face softened, and he guessed she believed him. She gave him a soft kiss on the lips, then led him to the food.
He pulled a chair out for her, then sat down to break fast. He’d known Gloria four full days, and their relationship seemed to be forging ahead at warp speed. He liked her, she liked him, and they never ran out of things to talk about.
Below a metal tray a Bunsen burner kept the food warm. Everyday scrambled eggs with cheese, bacon, hash browns. She loaded up his plate, and as he bit into a strip of bacon, she gave him a look.
“Something wrong?”
“I was wondering about your sports jacket,” she said, serving herself half the amount of food she’d served him. “You’ve worn it every day, yet it always looks fresh. No wrinkles or stains. Do you get it dry-cleaned each night?”
“I have several,” he admitted.
“You alternate them?”
“Yes.”
“Are they all black?”
“All black. My late wife used to call them my uniform, I guess because you can only wear a black sports jacket with a white shirt and dark pants.”
“You been wearing them for a long time?”
He thought about it. “Twenty-eight years.”
Her fork landed on her plate with a jarring clang. “You’ve worn the
He suddenly realized the deep hole he’d dug for himself. If he’d learned anything since he’d started dating, it was that women were as interested in a man’s personal habits as they were in his opinions. And he had just told her that he was a neanderthal.
“Maybe I should explain,” he said.
She leaned forward. “Please do.”
“It’s sort of a long story.”
“I like long stories.”
His mouth had become dry, and he sipped ice water.
“In the 1970s, New Jersey was going broke, so the politicians tried to convince the voters to legalize casinos, even though nobody wanted them. Our illustrious governor, a guy named Brendan Byrne, barnstormed the state, and told people that New Jersey’s casinos would be different than Las Vegas, and would feature ‘European-style’ gambling.”
“As in Monte Carlo?”
“Yes, as in Monte Carlo. Byrne made it sound like James Bond was going to be gambling, instead of some poor guy who hauled garbage.”
“How funny.”
“It was. When gambling was legalized, Byrne established a dress code. Men were supposed to wear jackets inside the casinos.”
“Classy. Did it work?”
He smiled, the memory as fresh as the day it had happened. “It was a disaster. The first casino was Resorts International. It opened on Memorial Day weekend, and the line of people was a mile long. When the doors opened, they came in like a stampede. The casino had put five hundred black sports jackets in a cloak room near the entrance, with the idea being that men who didn’t have a jacket would rent one. No one did.
“I was working inside the casino. One day, the floor manager comes up to me, and says, ‘Tony, turn around.’ I did, and I felt him run a tape measure across my back like a tailor in a clothing store. He said, ‘Perfect, you’re a size forty-two,’ and he told me to follow him.
“He led me to the room where the sports jackets were, and pointed at a rack. He said, ‘Tony, these jackets are forty-twos. Take what you want. We’re throwing them out.’ Well, they were all brand new, and my wife and I were barely scraping by, so I loaded up my car, took them home, and stored them in a spare closet. The next day, I loaded up the car again.”
“How many did you take?”
“All of them.”
“How many was that?”
He’d worn through two jackets a year for the past twenty-eight years, and still had a half dozen left.
“Sixty-two,” he said. Then added, “It saved us a lot of money.”
“Did you ever consider retiring the jackets after you left the police force?”
“Yeah, but I decided against it. The jackets were Geoffrey Beene, who’d had a boutique at Resorts. They were the best clothes I’d ever worn.”
