Bronco started laughing. The great thinker was stumped. “Just one thing?”
“Okay, maybe there’s a bunch of things. But there’s one thing about this case.”
“Gimme a cigarette first,” Bronco said.
Valentine banged out a cigarette, put it between his busted lips, and lit it. Bronco took a drag, and blew a purple plume of smoke into Valentine’s face.
“What do you want to know?”
“Why did you kill Bo Farmer in Reno? You knew it would screw things up. Why didn’t you just beat him up?”
Bronco stared through the windshield at the cemetery. He’d asked himself the same question many times. The answer came out slowly. “He was a good-looking kid, had a pretty young wife. I’d lost my wife, and my son. I looked at Bo, and just hated him.”
“So, you killed him.”
“Yeah.”
“Any regrets.”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“But you had all that money from that jackpot you stole. You could have gone to Mexico or South America, and started over. Why didn’t you?”
Bronco gave Valentine a murderous stare. It was easy to dream about building a new life, easy to dream about a lot of things. But it wasn’t real. He could tell that Valentine didn’t get it, so he explained it to him.
“There’s no such thing as starting over,” he said.
Gerry climbed into the passenger seat of the rental. “I checked his car. It’s not there. He must have hidden it someplace else.”
Bronco twisted uncomfortably. The handcuffs were tight, and starting to cut off the circulation to his hands. Looking into the mirror, he saw Valentine staring at him.
“Want to do a deal?” Valentine asked.
“I ain’t got nothing you want.”
“Yes, you do. I want the tape you secretly made of Fred Friendly talking about all the jackpots he and his gang stole.”
“Who said I had a tape?”
“I did. You told the D.A. in Reno you had evidence that a gaming agent was stealing jackpots. What else could it have been?”
“You’re pretty smart, for a dumb ass cop.”
“Yes or no?”
Bronco’s hands had gone numb. He wanted to ask Valentine to loosen the cuffs, only he knew Valentine wouldn’t do it. Cops liked to treat criminals badly. He knew it would only get worse when he went to prison.
“Yeah, I’ll do a deal.”
Valentine turned in his seat and faced him. “What do you want in return?”
“Put a bullet in my head, and bury me in the desert.”
“You serious?”
“Dead serious.” He laughed at his own joke.
“You’ve got a deal. Where’s the tape?”
“Crawl under my car. It’s stuck to the bottom with a magnet.”
Gerry hopped out and went to fetch the tape. A minute later he returned covered in grime, holding the tape triumphantly in his hand.
“Just don’t make me suffer,” Bronco said.
Leaving the cemetery parking lot, Valentine hung a left on Las Vegas Boulevard, and drove a mile before turning right on Stewart Avenue. The streets were deserted except for a city bus spitting black exhaust a few blocks away. Bronco felt his heart catch in his chest as Valentine pulled into the Las Vegas Metropolitan Sheriff’s Department headquarters, and parked near the gleaming front doors.
“You’re turning me in?”
“That’s right,” Valentine said.
“But we had a deal. I want to die.”
“You are going to die. But first, you’re going to spend the rest of your life in prison, thinking about all the rotten things you’ve done.”
Bronco stared at the ugly stucco that defined the building. Like a monster hidden beneath the surface, the fear welled up inside of him, knowing what his life was about to become.
“You bastard,” he swore.
Chapter 62
When Governor Smoltz was not in the state capital in Carson City conducting business, he could be found in his luxurious suite at the Grant Sawyer State Office Building in North Las Vegas, an attractive five-story structure painted in natural earth tones. Valentine entered the building a short while after turning Bronco over to the police, and asked for Smoltz at the reception area. The uniformed security guard, a ham-faced man with no neck, raised a suspicious eyebrow.
“Who are you? What do you want?” the guard said.
Valentine dropped a business card on the desk in front of the guard. “My name’s Tony Valentine. Tell the governor it’s urgent that he speak with me.”
“Is this a joke?”
“Do I look like the kind of guy who jokes?”
The guard studied him like he was in a line-up. “Have a seat.”
Valentine sat on a leather couch facing the window. Out in the parking lot, he could see Gerry sitting in the car, nervously waiting for his return. He had weighed having Gerry with him when he talked with Smoltz, but had decided against it. If Smoltz pitched a fit and threatened him, it would be better if his son wasn’t around.
He had done some stupid things in his life, no question about it. What he was about to do now would get added to the list. But he didn’t see that he had a choice. When he had first gone to work policing the casinos in Atlantic City, he’d discovered how the gambling business preyed on human weakness. It had bothered him to no end. Eventually, he’d decided the only way he could justify his work was to make sure the games were clean and honest. To accept anything else would have made him a hypocrite.
A minute later, the guard called him back to the desk, and handed him a plastic ID tag. “Clip that to your jacket. The governor’s office is on the top floor.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ve been working here for a long time, and the governor’s never seen anyone who’s come in off the street. Who are you?”
Valentine hesitated. He could have given the guard several answers. He was a gaming consultant, and also an ex-cop. But that wasn’t why he was here now.
“A concerned citizen,” Valentine said.
Smoltz’s office was befitting the most powerful politician in the state. Wood floors covered with thick Persian rugs, fine antiques, the walls decorated with restored photographs of the city back when it had been run by gangsters and murderers.
Smoltz was on the phone when Valentine came in. His desk was covered with newspapers, and Valentine glanced at the headlines. The media had dubbed yesterday’s fiasco “The Afternoon the Lights Went Out,” and
