Wild Card

The office suddenly went dark. Valentine instinctively reached into his jacket, and drew his .snub-nosed 38 from his shoulder harness. He heard Banko get up and cross the room. The sergeant turned the lights on, then stared at his gun.

“You still using that old thing?” Banko asked.

“I like my .38,” Valentine said.

“You and Jack Webb on Dragnet. You know he upgraded to a .45.”

“You’re kidding. When?”

“Start of the fall season. Someone on the LAPD told him the department was changing, so he did to.”

“What’s with the lights?”

“President Carter’s orders,” Banko explained. “Buildings go dark every night. Don’t want to be too dependant on foreign oil.”

Valentine put his gun back into its harness They didn’t turn the lights off at the casino, he thought. A line on Banko’s phone lit up, and the sergeant snatched up the receiver, then put the caller on speaker phone. It was Romero, calling from a noisy bar. Banko told him about the three magicians with police records.

“We need to haul them in,” Banko said.

“We’ve already spoken to Hollis,” Romero said. “He’s definitely not the one.”

Of the three magician’s with records, Hollis was the only one who’d tried to talk his way out of it. That was what criminals always did.

“Why do you say that?” Valentine said to the box.

“Hollis invited us inside his house, and let us look around,” Romero replied. “He’s a little nutty, but harmless.”

“He let you look around?” Valentine said to the box.

“That’s right. Why?”

“That’s not normal.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s not a normal reaction from a person who’s been arrested before. He’s challenging you.”

“Look. We talked with him. The guy’s harmless.”

Valentine didn’t think so. Their killer knew how to appear harmless; that was why hookers felt so comfortable around him. That was his power. He grabbed Hollis’s record off the desk, and found his address in Chelsea Heights. To Banko, he said, “Hollis is the one.”

“You’re sure about this,” his superior said.

“One hundred percent.”

“We’re leaving right now,” Banko said to the box. “Meet us at Hollis’s house.”

Chapter 56

Banko drove with the siren screaming on the dashboard, then killed the siren two blocks from Hollis’s address, and crept up the street. It was a quiet neighborhood, and as they parked several houses away from Hollis’s, a dog started to bark.

They found Romero and Fuller standing on the sidewalk, shivering from the cold. Both men looked annoyed; Hollis had done a good job convincing them he wasn’t a killer. “You’re making a mistake,” Fuller said. “Hollis isn’t the Dresser.”

“Yes, he is,” Valentine said.

“How can you know? You haven’t even spoken to him.”

Valentine didn’t need to talk to Hollis to know he was right. His gut was telling him that Hollis was the Dresser, and his gut was never wrong. He was not about to back down.

“Bet you a hundred bucks,” Valentine said.

“You’re on,” Fuller said.

The four men started up the path toward Hollis’s residence. The house was a two-story square box that looked like a piece from a Monopoly game, with blinds drawn tightly on the windows, and old newspapers lying on the stoop. Fuller knocked on the screen door with his fist. The porch light came on, and they heard footsteps.

“Be careful. He’s got a grudge against Valentine,” Banko warned.

The front door swung in, and Hollis stood on the other side of the screen. In his late thirties, he was balding, with a pug face and deep, sunken eyes. Dressed in running shorts and a gray sweatshirt, he appeared to have been working out. Valentine stared at him through the FBI agents’ shoulders.

“Sorry to bother you again, Mister Hollis, but we forgot to ask you a couple of things,” Fuller said. “May we come in?”

“Can’t this wait until tomorrow? I’m going to bed,” Hollis said.

“Afraid not.”