“I’ll be right back,” he said, sliding out of the booth.
He powered up his cell phone in the parking lot. He could taste the salt air coming off the ocean, could remember all the summers he’d spent playing on the beach. Growing up, he’d assumed that he’d raise a family here, but the arrival of casinos had changed that. Now, he could no more imagine living in Atlantic City than in Baghdad.
His phone’s message icon was blinking, and he went into voice mail. Detective Pete Longo, head of homicide for the Metro Las Vegas Police Department, had called two hours ago. Saying he needed to talk to Gerry urgently, he left his number. Gerry had met Longo in Vegas and considered him a stand-up guy. He punched in Longo’s number.
Longo picked up after two rings. His voice was all business.
“Your father tells me you’re in Atlantic City,” Longo said.
“That’s right. I arrived a couple of hours ago,” Gerry said.
“Can you prove that?”
“Why should I?”
“Because you’re a suspect in a double homicide, that’s why,” Longo snapped.
Gerry felt the hair on his neck stand up. He’d been crosswise with the law many times, and knew that cooperation was the key to staying out of trouble. He asked Longo to hold, then went back into Sacco’s, and found Davis working on his gums with a toothpick.
“I need a favor,” he said, sliding into the booth.
“Name it,” Davis said.
Gerry handed Davis his cell phone.
“Talk to this guy,” he said.
6
“Your son’s alibi checks out,” Longo said, folding his cell phone.
“I told you he was in Atlantic City doing a job,” Valentine said.
“Never hurts to check.”
Longo and Valentine sat on stiff-backed chairs in a stuffy detention room behind Celebrity’s casino. Longo had given him a paraffin test to check for gunshot residue. Finding Valentine clean, he then peppered him with questions about the two men who’d attacked him and Rufus in the suite.
Valentine answered the questions, feeling sorry for Longo. The detective had a thankless job. The clearance rate for homicides in Las Vegas was the worst of any major U.S. city—with less than one in four murders ever being solved. If the cops didn’t catch the criminals right away, chances were, they never would.
“Which brings us right back to you,” Longo said.
“It does?” Valentine said.
“Yes. Right now, you’re my main suspect in the murders, Tony.”
Valentine stared into space. Hotel security had furnished Longo with a surveillance tape taken in the hallway near the emergency stairwell during the time of the attack. It showed his two attackers running into the stairwell, followed by Valentine clutching a metal flower vase. Valentine reappeared a minute later, and went back to his room.
“What happened in that stairwell?” Longo asked.
“Nothing,” Valentine said.
“You didn’t run downstairs and shoot those guys?”
“I didn’t have a gun.”
“Maybe you disarmed them. You were a judo champ, weren’t you?”
“That was a long time ago.”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
Valentine took a deep breath. Longo was getting on his nerves, the way good cops were supposed to. “I didn’t shoot them. I stood at the top of the stairwell, decided it was too risky, and went back to my suite to lick my wounds.”
Something resembling a smile crossed Longo’s face. “The Tony Valentine I know would have run those ass- holes down, and made them pay for their transgressions.”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” Valentine said.
“Any idea who gave them the head ornaments?”
“If I knew, I’d tell you.”
Longo crossed his arms in front of his chest. He’d gone through personal hell during the past twelve months because of an affair he’d had with a stripper. He’d done the smart thing, falling on his sword and confessing. It had made a better man out of him, and when he spoke again, his voice was softer. “I have enough circumstantial evidence to book you for manslaughter, only I’m not going to do that,” he said.
Shifting his gaze, Valentine looked at the detective.
“You’re a brother cop, and someone I respect,” Longo went on. “I’m going to let you go, with the understanding that if I need to talk to you again, you’ll drop whatever you’re doing and cooperate.”
Valentine rose from the chair. “Of course. Thanks, Pete.”
“I want to tell you something else. There are seven bodies in the Las Vegas morgue connected to you and this fricking poker tournament. If I find out you’re holding back in any way, I’ll nail your ass to a board. Understood?”
He nodded stiffly.
“Have a nice night,” Longo said.
He returned to his suite to find Rufus lying on the couch, staring at the mute TV.
“That detective finally come to his senses?” Rufus asked him.
“Sort of. I’ll see you in the morning,” Valentine said.
In his bedroom the phone’s message light was blinking. He went into voice mail, heard Gloria Curtis request the pleasure of his company over breakfast, nine sharp in the hotel restaurant. He’d been late the last two times they’d gotten together, and heard an edge to her voice that said she wouldn’t tolerate another infraction.
He brushed his teeth, threw on his pajamas, and realized he wasn’t tired anymore. In the living room he got a soda from the minibar, asked Rufus if he wanted anything.
“Just some company,” the old cowboy said.
Valentine pulled a chair next to the couch. On the TV was Skip DeMarco’s heroics at the tournament. Poker was a boring game, with most hands decided by everyone dropping out, and one player stealing the pot. But the people running the WPS had figured something out. They focused on a handful of players, filmed them exclusively, then edited their play down to the exciting footage. The magic of television was turning DeMarco into a star.
Rufus killed the power with the remote. “Watching this kid reminds me of the time I got cheated in jolly old England.”
“You got cheated?”
Rufus nodded. Valentine had learned that hustlers didn’t like to talk about scams they’d pulled, but loved to talk about the times they’d gotten swindled. He supposed it was their way of explaining their own behavior.
“What happened?”
“One day I got a phone call asking me to fly to London to play cards with some British aristocrats, Sir This and Lord That. They sounded like suckers, so I hopped on a plane.
“When I arrived, they rolled out the red carpet. I stayed at a four-star hotel with a uniformed doorman and a suite with all the trimmings. Everyone I bumped into knew my name. Let me tell you, Tony, they buttered me up real good.
“That night, I went across the street to play cards. It was a private club, lots of polished brass and mahogany. I met my opponents, and we retired to the card room for a little action.
“There’s three of them, and one of me. One of them says, ‘How about a game of Texas Hold ‘Em, Mr. Steele?’ Right then, I knew I was in trouble.”
“Why?”
“At the time, I was the best Texas Hold ‘Em player in the world. When some hoity-toity aristocrat says he
