Wild Card

I’ll wear steel-toed shoes, he thought. “Great,” he said.

“What’s your favorite Elvis Presley song?”

“Why?”

“Come on, just tell me.”

“A Big Hunk ‘O Love,” he said.

“Oh, you’re such a boy! A Big Hunk ‘O Love it is.”

She flew back upstairs. Nucky escorted him into the den, and shut the slider behind them. “You should really come around more often,” he said.

Valentine let the remark pass. From upstairs he heard horrendously loud music being played on a stereo, accompanied by Zelda’s awful rendition of A Big Hunk of Love. “I got something I thought you’d want to see,” Nucky said.

Nucky crossed the den to the bar, and opened a small refrigerator in the corner. From the freezer section he removed a large plastic bag, which brought around the bar and handed to his guest. It contained a gaping, frozen mackerel.

“That showed up on my doorstep this morning, wrapped in newspaper,” Nucky explained. “Then I got a phone call. Guy says, ‘You need to take a walk on the beach.’ He gives me an address. So I sent a couple of my men.”

“What did they find?”

“Luther. About a hundred yards from Resorts.”

“Drowned?”

“Uh-huh. Luther was strong — you ever see him play for the Giants? Guy was a monster in his prime. Must of taken four, five men to hold him down.” Nucky stared into space. “He was always good with Zelda, you know? Used to bring her little gifts and food.”

“You tell her?”

“No. Can’t risk it. She’s too fragile.”

Luther had been like family to Nucky, and Valentine realized how upset the old gangster was. “Who do you think killed him?”

Nucky filled his chest with air, then exhaled slowly. “The family.”

“Why? You piss them off?”

“Yeah. They told me to pressure you.”

“This is about me?”

“Sure is. They don’t like all the things you’re doing at the casino. It’s making them nervous, so they told me to put the squeeze on you.”

“And you said no, and they killed Luther.”

“That’s right.”

Upstairs, Zelda had launched into Hound Dog, and was rocking the house. Valentine tried to make sense of what Nucky was telling him. If his work at Resorts was scaring the family, then the family had a stake in the casino. Only he and Doyle scrutinized the casino’s financials every day: Resorts was making more money than the three largest casinos in Las Vegas combined, and every penny could be accounted for.

“Who are they?” Valentine asked.

“I can’t tell you that,” Nucky replied.

The dead mackerel had started to melt, and he followed Nucky into the kitchen and tossed it into the rubbish. Nucky offered him a glass of lemonade. Valentine took a glass of water instead, and drank it in one long swallow. Then he put his hand on Nucky’s shoulder. The old gangster was pushing seventy and was still hard as a rock.

“Vinny Acosta is running things, isn’t he?” he said.

“That’s right,” Nucky said.

“Can’t have two bosses in town, can we?”

“I’d worry about your own problems, I was you.”

“Your problems and my problems are the same.”

Nucky was working on a pink lemonade. He held the glass to his lips and stared out the window onto his spacious back yard. There was a swimming pool and a bocce court and a big piece of cement from the old 500 Club that contained hand prints and signatures from all the famous celebrities who’d ever worked there. The club had been Atlantic City’s last good time until burning to the ground six years ago.

“You got something in mind?” Nucky asked.

“Yes.”

“Spit it out.”

“Tell me how Vinny Acosta is ripping off Resorts’ casino. I want to nail this son-of-a-bitch, and I think you do as well.”

Nucky put his glass down and laughed under his breath.