table with a loud
Marcy did not hesitate. She turned to the Greek. “Put up the money,” she said.
The Greek pulled back in his chair. “But…”
“No buts, unless you don’t want to see mine anymore,” she said. “Put it up. There’s no way on God’s green earth that this broken-down cowboy is getting my cat to do
“I’ll handle your kitty with kid gloves,” Rufus said.
“Take the bet,” Marcy told the Greek.
“But…”
The Greek put up the five thousand.
Rufus reached into his pockets and removed a pair of tan gloves. Slipping them on, he reached into Marcy’s handbag and removed the comatose kitty, putting her elastic body on the table. He grabbed the animal by the base of the tail and lifted her into the air. The cat opened its eyes and emitted a scream horrible enough to wake the dead.
“You said you wouldn’t hurt her!” Marcy screeched.
“I said I’d use kid gloves,” Rufus corrected her.
“These are kid gloves I’m wearing.”
“Do something!” Marcy told the Greek.
The Greek had crossed his arms in front of his chest, and seemed resigned to his fate. “Go ahead,” he told Rufus.
Holding Medusa by the base of the tail, Rufus lifted her clean into the air. The cat twisted its body and tried to scratch him, but couldn’t get through the gloves with its claws. In desperation, Medusa stuck its paws out, and attempted to latch onto the table. Rufus positioned her paws directly over the Coca-Cola bottle, and the cat grabbed the bottle by the cap and lifted it clean into the air. It was truly something to see: a drunk cowboy holding a screaming kitty holding a bottle of pop.
“Which table?” Rufus inquired.
“Make him stop!” Marcy cried.
“That one,” the Greek said, pointing across the room.
Rufus crossed the bar while holding the screaming cat at arm’s length. It was a great way to clear a path, and someone snapped a picture of him. Rufus came to the specified table and stopped. A handsome young guy was sitting there, chatting up a pretty young girl. Introducing himself, Rufus asked the guy to hold out his hands. The guy obliged him, and Rufus loosened his grip on Medusa’s tail. The cat dropped the bottle into the guy’s hands, then slipped out of Rufus’s grasp and ran away.
The guy handed the bottle to his girlfriend.
“Thanks, mister,” the guy said.
Rufus returned to the Greek’s table. Medusa had run to Marcy’s handbag and was shivering in fear. Marcy had turned her back on the Greek and acted like she was never going to speak to him again. The Greek wiped a crocodile-size tear from his eye.
“I win,” Rufus declared.
Part IV
Showdown
39
“You busy?” Gerry Valentine asked. Nurse Susan Gladwell lifted her eyes from the hospital report she was filling out. It was a few minutes past midnight, and she’d just come on her shift at the cancer ward of Atlantic City Medical Center, which was as quiet as a church.
“Yes, I am,” she said.
“Do you know who I am?”
“Yes, you’re Gerry Valentine, Jack Donovan’s friend,” she replied, putting her pencil down. “We spoke yesterday about the poker scam you were investigating. I was going to look into the hospital records to see if anything was stolen from our medicine department while Jack was here. Which I actually did, believe it or not.” Reaching across the cluttered desk, she plucked a blue folder from a stack. “Here’s the report.”
Gerry was standing at the nurse’s station where Gladwell worked. He’d brought a cup of steaming hot coffee for himself, and one for her. He made no attempt to take the file. “Let me guess,” he said, “there was nothing stolen.”
She held the file motionless in the air. “That’s right. How did you know?”
“Because most hospitals don’t report theft of medicines to the police. I learned that from my wife. She’s a doctor.”
Gladwell dropped the file on the desk, made an annoyed face. “If you knew that, then why did you have me go to the trouble of pulling up the records?”
“I didn’t know it when I asked you,” Gerry explained.
“But I know now, along with a bunch of other stuff. You and I need to talk.”
“Is that what the coffee is about?”
“Yes.”
“Not interested. Maybe some other time.”
Her eyes dropped to the form, giving him the ice maiden treatment. He cleared his throat. “See that black dude standing in the hallway behind me?”
“I said I’m not interested,” she said.
“He’s a cop.”
Her head came up very slowly. “I see him. Is he with you?”
“Yes,” Gerry said. “He’s an undercover detective named Eddie Davis. If you don’t talk to me, he’s going to haul you down to the police station and grill you about a conversation you had with George Scalzo the morning after Jack Donovan was murdered. He’s going to want to know why Scalzo brought you flowers and bought you a meal.”
She stiffened. “How did you know about that?”
“Does it matter?”
She stared at Eddie Davis standing in the hallway. She wore little makeup, her face pleasantly plain, with tiny freckles on her nose, and soft amber eyes. Something in her face melted, and suddenly she looked scared. Rising from her chair, she took the steaming cup from Gerry’s outstretched hand.
“I’ll talk, but not here.”
“How about the cafeteria?” Gerry suggested.
“Just so long as no one is around,” she said.
The cafeteria was fairly quiet, with a maintenance man mopping the floor. They took a table in the back of the room, and Gladwell waited for a couple of doctors at the next table to leave, then spoke while staring at the reflection in her drink. “I really liked Jack Donovan. He was fun to be around, even when he was getting chemo. Nurses and doctors aren’t supposed to get involved with patients, but it happens. Take off the white coats, and we’re no different than anyone else.”
Gerry glanced at the rings on her third finger, let out a deep breath.
“I saw Jack on the sly for three months,” she went on.
“He confided in me, told me about scams he pulled on the casinos. There was one I’ll never forget. He had a tiny mirror glued to the bottom of a beer can. He could hold the can on a blackjack table, and see the face of the cards as they were dealt out of the plastic shoe. He’d know what the dealer had before the dealer did. Jack said he only had to see the dealer’s hand once an hour to clean up. I never figured out what he meant.”
