“How did you get away?” Bill asked.
“My son saved my ass,” Valentine said.
The rental was a hundred yards away. Valentine stared at the driver’s side, and saw Gerry manning the wheel. Bronco was in the bucket seat, and had the shotgun stuck against Gerry’s neck. He got a good look at Gerry’s face. His son looked flat-out terrified, and Valentine’s heart did the funny thing it did when he was faced with a situation out of his control. His doctor called it a flutter, but Valentine had always thought it was God’s way of reminding him that life was rarely fair.
The rental flew past, then disappeared down the road. Valentine slowly rose and dusted himself off, the cell phone still to his ear. He started to walk toward the highway.
“You there?” Bill said.
“Barely,” he said.
Chapter 28
“You’re a liar,” Bronco said.
Gerry stared at the dirt road through the rental’s dirty windshield. There was not another car in sight. He had planned to flash his brights at the next car he saw, and alert them so they’d dial 911 on their cell phone. But that option suddenly seemed like a bad idea: Bronco was acting like he was going to kill him the first chance he got.
“What are you talking about,” Gerry said.
“Look at these clothes I’m wearing.” He shoved the shotgun’s barrel into Gerry’s chin. “Look at them!”
Gerry glanced at the clothes Bronco had taken from the trunk and exchanged for Klinghoffer’s uniform. The pants were black, the shirt a white Brooks Brothers with a button-down collar. They were old man’s clothes, and Bronco looked ridiculous in them.
“What about them?” Gerry said.
“These aren’t
“Sure they are.”
“You think I was born yesterday?”
“The day before,” Gerry said.
Bronco cuffed him in the side of the head. The car swerved dangerously over to the side of the road, nearly flipping. Gerry quickly straightened the wheel.
“These are your old man’s clothes,” Bronco said. “The monkey’s paw was in your father’s suitcase. He took the monkey’s paw from my house, didn’t he?”
Gerry resumed staring at the road. Still no sign of another car. If he’d learned anything from the rackets, it was that there was always an angle to exploit. This angle had run its course, and he said, “That’s right. My father said it was the nicest one he’d ever seen. He asked the cops in Las Vegas if he could take it, and add it to his collection of cheating equipment. You had so many of them, the cops said sure.”
“So you made up that stuff about being a scammer to save your neck,” Bronco said.
Gerry glanced at his captor. “That part was true.”
“Bullgarbage.”
“I was a bookie in New York for ten years. I’ve only been clean for a little while.”
“Tell me who the last person was you scammed.”
Gerry told Bronco about scamming the Daily Double at Tampa Bay Downs, while helping his father expose the horse that had been silked. He glanced at Bronco while he spoke, and saw the same surprised look in his captor’s eyes as he’d seen in his father’s two days ago. He guessed Bronco had never heard of silking, either. By the time he’d finished, they’d reached the main highway. Bronco made him hang a left, and a short distance later, another left.
“Where we going?”
“Back to Reno,” Bronco said.
Gerry remembered the route they’d taken from the jail, and this wasn’t it. He watched Bronco reach across the seat, and remove the pack of Marlboros tucked in Gerry’s shirt pocket. Bronco banged one out, then offered Gerry one.
“Sure.”
Bronco lit two cigarettes from the same match, and shoved one into Gerry’s mouth. Bronco smoked his cigarette while studying him. “Let me get this straight. You and your old man were hired by the track to catch some cheaters. While you were there, you saw another scam going on, and you bet money on it, and took the track for six grand.”
“That’s right,” Gerry said.
“Why didn’t you bet more, and make a killing?”
“It’s a small track.”
“And you were afraid it would get noticed.”
“Yeah.”
Bronco blew smoke at him. “How do I know you ain’t bullgarbageting me again?”
“The winning stub’s in my wallet.”
Bronco pulled Gerry’s stolen wallet from his pocket, and extracted the winning stub. Gerry had kept the stub as a memento. In his bar in Brooklyn, he’d framed the first hundred dollars he’d ever made as a bookie, and he’d planned to frame this stub to signify that his days in the rackets had come to an end.
Bronco took his time studying it. Then he removed the money from the wallet, and counted it on the seat. Forty dollars in wilted bills.
“Where’s the rest of it?” Bronco asked.
“What do you mean?
“You won six grand. Where’s the rest of the money?”
Gerry didn’t think Bronco would believe he’d given the money back. He pointed at the photo section of the wallet. “In there.”
“You keep it hidden, huh?”
Bronco opened the photo section and saw a smiling picture of Yolanda taken when she was a third-year medical student at New York University’s School of Medicine. He stared long and hard at the photo.
“She got it,” Gerry said.
Something resembling a smile crossed Bronco’s face, but it didn’t last very long. Still holding the wallet, he said, “You won the money at the track two days ago, but you told me you quit the rackets.”
“I quit the day I ripped off the track. That night, actually,” Gerry said.
“Why?”
That was a hell of a good question. Why had Gerry quit? He could say his old man shamed him into it, but that wasn’t the truth. He’d done it because his life had gone down a different road, and he
“Turn the page,” Gerry said.
Bronco shot him a blank stare.
“Look at the next picture in my wallet.”
Bronco flipped to the next picture. It was of Lois, taken a few days ago, his baby daughter lying on the rug in his father’s house, the same rug Gerry had lain on as a baby.
“I quit because of her,” Gerry said.
Bronco stared long and hard at the photo.
“Didn’t want her growing up thinking her old man was a crook, huh?”
Gerry nodded, surprised Bronco would understand. Then he remembered the woman’s clothes hanging in his
