Wild Card, page 6
“So I’m right.”
“Perhaps. You said there was a surveillance tape,” Fuller said.
“Mickey Wright has it. He runs Resorts’ surveillance department.”
Fuller rose from his chair. “I’d like to see him immediately,” he told Banko. He approached Valentine, and stuck his hand out.
“You’re a hell of a detective,” the FBI agent said.
Valentine shook his hand while looking at Banko. His superior snarled at him before leaving the room.
Valentine started to leave the station house, then realized he hadn’t picked up his messages in several days. He went to his desk, and found a message from Bill Higgins thumb-tacked to the bulletin board. Bill had left his home number, said it was urgent. He checked the time. It was nearly ten, which made it seven in Las Vegas. He picked up the phone, and punched in the number. A man that was not Bill answered.
“This is Tony Valentine. Is Bill around?”
The man put the phone down. When Higgins came on, he was out of breath.
“I was in the garage working out. I wanted to alert you to a gang of blackjack cheaters that are ripping off your casino.”
Valentine grabbed a pen and pad off the desk. “I’m all ears.”
“We have a wiretap on a group of cheaters working the Sands. We caught a conversation that leads us to believe half the gang is working here, the other half in Atlantic City.”
“Any idea what they’re doing?”
“Yeah, and it’s pretty clever. They’ve constructed beer cans to hold mirrors in the base. If a player sits at one end of the table and puts his can down, he can glimpse the dealer’s hole card during the deal. He signals the card to another player at the table, the BP. The BP then plays his hand accordingly.”
BP was casino slang for Big Player. Hustlers had learned that casinos were more inclined to pay off a BP than an average player. And, BPs got complimentary suites and free meals and a lot of other free stuff. They lived large, and when they were part of a gang of cheaters, they lived even larger.
“Anything else I should look for?”
“The guy with the beer can signals the BP by blowing cigarette smoke through his nostrils,” Higgins said. “One puff means the hole card is a ten. Two puffs, an ace. If he breathes through his mouth, the dealer has a stiff. One more thing. They always use Budweiser cans.”
“Why’s that?”
“It’s their favorite drink.”
“I really appreciate your giving me the heads-up,” Valentine said.
“Any time,” Higgins said.
Valentine heard someone cough and glanced up from his writing. Banko was standing a few yards away from his cubicle along with Fuller and Romero. The three men did not look happy.
“I’ve got to beat it. Thanks again.”
He hung up the phone, then looked expectantly into the three men’s faces.
“Mickey Wright erased the tape,” Banko said dejectedly.
Chapter 11
Valentine had inherited two things from his father. The first was his mouth, which had gotten him into more trouble than anything he’d ever done. The second was his photographic memory.
His father’s memory was phenomenal. Dominic Valentine could remember just about anything that had ever been said to him, or anything significant he’d ever seen. It was a gift wasted on a drunk, but that was how life went sometimes. Valentine’s memory was just as good, and it hadn’t gone to waste.
Banko made a phone call. Twenty minutes later, an artist from the Camden Union Register was setting up an easel in Banko’s office. The artist’s name was Ernie Roe, and he had a goatee and wore his stringy blond hair on his shoulders. Valentine knew him from the court house, where Ernie often covered important trials. Ernie removed a charcoal pencil from his breast pocket.
“Ready when you are,” Ernie said.
Valentine leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and described the john he’d seen inside Resorts picking up the beautiful Puerto Rican hooker the week before. He saw the john clearly: Five-eight, one hundred and sixty-pounds, with a paunch, stooped shoulders and thinning hair that he parted on the left side of his head. The face was hard to remember, but that was only because the video tape had been poor. Had he seen the john in person, he was sure he’d remember him perfectly.
Valentine opened his eyes when he was done. Ernie was facing him, and he guessed by the wide motions of Ernie’s hand that he was doing the john’s hair. Finished, Ernie turned the easel around.
“What do you think?”
The face in the drawing looked a lot like the one stored in his memory. The nose, which Valentine had struggled to remember, was thick, the nostrils slightly flared. It wasn’t perfect, but renditions never were.
“That’s him,” Valentine said.
Banko called his secretary into the office, and got her to take the sketch to the Xerox machine downstairs to make copies. While they waited, Romero said, “You said you recognized the Puerto Rican hooker the john picked up. Can you describe her?”
Valentine started to do, then had a thought. Banko had been running sweeps of hookers every week. As a result, hundreds of girls had been booked in the past few months.
“I’ve got a better idea,” he said.
He led the FBI agents downstairs to the basement where the records were stored, and had the clerk on duty pull out the files of every hooker that had been arrested on the island in the past two months. There were over two hundred. Each girl’s mug shot was stapled to her record, and Valentine put them on a desk, and began sorting through them. Within minutes he was holding the Puerto Rican hooker’s record in his hand.
“You sure this is her,” Romero said.
“She was hard to forget,” Valentine said.
Her name was Maria Sanchez. Twenty-three, dark brown hair, five-foot five, originally from San Juan, she’d come to the U.S. a few years ago and immediately started turning tricks. Unlike a lot of girls, who looked frightening without a coat of make-up, Maria was a beauty.
Fuller took the file, and Valentine walked the agents outside to their car. What had started out as a pretty morning had turned ominous, and dark, muscular clouds filled the sky. Fuller and Romero shook Valentine’s hand again, then glanced at the sky.
“Think it’s going to snow?”
“Sure feels like it,” Valentine said.
“How come it feels so much colder here?”
“It’s the humidity. It cuts to the bone.”
The agents climbed into the Chevy. Valentine started to walk away, then stopped at the entrance to the station house. Sometimes the most obvious things were the easiest to miss. He caught Fuller as he was backing the car out of its space. The driver’s window came down, and Fuller said, “You think of something else?”
Valentine stuck his hands into his pockets. He’d come out without his coat and was freezing. “The Dresser is picking up hookers inside the casino. That’s his MO. Hookers think he’s a tourist, and they let their guards down.”
“So?”
“Chances are, he picked up all these girls inside the casino.”
He paused, and let Fuller think about it. Romero leaned over from the passenger side so his face was visible. “You think he might be on another surveillance tape?”
“I’d bet dollars to doughnuts on it,” Valentine said.
“Never thought of that,” Fuller said. “Can we look at those tapes?”
“We’re talking about hundreds of hours.”
“So what are you suggesting?”
“I work in Resorts’ surveillance control room. I’ll show the composite to the techs who watch the monitors, and have them review the tapes. If those guys are good at anything, it’s picking a face out of a crowd.”
Fuller looked at his partner. It was an angle they’d missed. They climbed out of the car, shook his hand, and thanked him one more time.
Chapter 12
The sky had opened up like a busted feather pillow, and Romero stared gloomily at the falling snow while Fuller drove back to their motel. Stopping at a traffic light, Fuller threw the car into park and glared at him.
“What’s eating you?”
“Nothing,” Romero said.
“It’s written all over your god damn face.”
Romero blew out his lungs. He’d stopped playing cards with Fuller because his partner always knew what he was holding. “We should have talked to the rank-and-file cops the moment we got here.”
Fuller continued to glare at him. “We agreed that we wouldn’t talk to the cops until we were sure the Dresser wasn’t one of them. Remember?”
“I remember.”
“Then why bring it up now?”
“I didn’t.”
“Well, stop thinking it.”
The light changed and Fuller put the car into drive. They had arrived in Atlantic City several days ago, and with Banko’s help, started their investigation. The Dresser had contacted the FBI twice with letters — the first after he’d abducted Mary Ann Crawford, the second after Connie Hastings, both times sending pieces of jewelry as proof — and declared he could kill woman at will, and the FBI would never capture him. The FBI’s profilers had latched onto this, and decided the killer was someone the public implicitly trusted. A doctor, perhaps, or a fireman. Or even a cop.
So they’d done background checks on every doctor, every fireman, and every cop on the island. Atlantic City had less than fifty thousand full-time residents, and it had only taken a few days. To their surprise, the FBI’s profilers were wrong. None of the town’s doctors, firemen or cops matched the profile. The Dresser had fooled them.
Fuller turned into the beach front motel they were staying in. It was called The Lucky Boy, and was a dive. Both men got out of the car.
“I’m going to check for messages at the desk,” Romero said. “See you in a few.”
The Lucky Boy’s check-in was a tiny building with a neon sign in its window. Every afternoon, the clerk got married to a gin bottle, and getting information out of him was never easy. Romero tapped on the door before entering.
“Why didn’t you tell me the rug smelled,” the clerk said.
“What are you talking about?” Romero asked.
“The rug in your room. Did you puke on it?”
“You’re not making any sense.”
The clerk drew back in his chair. “Listen, you stinking wet back, you can’t come in here, and talk to me like that. I’ll throw you and that partner of yours out of here —” He snapped his fingers for effect “ — just like that!”
Romero’s open wallet hit the counter, exposing his gold badge. It was a move he’d practiced for situations like this. The clerk’s jaw became unhinged.
“You a cop?”
“FBI.”
“Oh, man, I’m sorry,” the clerk said.
Romero tucked his wallet away. “I’m listening.”
“A deliveryman came by earlier, carrying a rug over his shoulder. Said he’d been told to replace the one in your room. I thought you’d called him. Jesus, I’m sorry. ”
“Why are you sorry? What did you do?”
“I left him alone in your room. Sure hope he didn’t steal anything.”
Romero felt his radar go up. Leaving the office, he hurried down the winding brick path to his room. The motel had a pool in its center, and as he walked around it, he saw the door to their room was open. Fuller came out, holding his automatic limply by his side. Romero drew his own gun, then approached him.
“What happened?”
Fuller slipped his gun into its shoulder harness. Then he took out a pack of cigarettes, and banged one out. Sticking it between his lips, he said, “See for yourself.”
Romero went to the doorway and looked in. A dead girl hung by her wrists from a light fixture in the ceiling. She was wearing a go-go dancer’s outfit, complete with knee-high Nancy Sinatra boots, and a piece symbol around her neck. Mexicans believed that the dead’s spirits hung around earth for a while. Not acknowledging them was a mistake, and Romero mumbled a prayer before going in.
The dead girl’s face was covered with hair. Romero got close to her, then blew it away. It was Maria Sanchez, the beautiful Puerto Rican hooker that Tony Valentine had seen the Dresser pick up inside the casino. He walked outside, and bummed a cigarette off his partner.
“I think we’d better change motels,” Fuller said.
Chapter 13
Valentine was exhausted when he walked into the kitchen of his house at seven o’clock that night. It had been a long afternoon at the casino.
First, he’d busted a man for putting a coin into a slot machine with a string attached to it, and jerking the coin out. A silly crime, only the man played the machine so many times he won a jackpot. Jackpots could not be paid until the videotape was reviewed, and now the man was sitting in a holding cell, facing three-to-five.
Then, he’d nailed a card mucker. The guy could invisibly switch cards while playing blackjack. What had tripped him up was his face. It was in a book of mug shots of known cheaters Bill Higgins had sent him. Valentine had made the match, and now the mucker was in the same cell with the yo-yo man.
The icing had been nailing a gang of teenage boys who’d been ripping off slot players. The boys would enter the casino from the Boardwalk, and approach a woman playing a slot machine. One boy would toss coins beneath the woman’s chair. A second would tap her shoulder, and point at the coins on the floor. While the woman was retrieving the coins, the third would snatch her purse. And out the door they’d go.
Until today. The slot player had been Doyle, wearing a wig. Now the lads were sitting in a juvenile detention center, waiting to face their parents.
The kitchen of Valentine’s house was cold and empty. Taking off his jacket, he went to the oven and pulled down the creaky door. Nothing cooking. After his parents had split up, his mother had stopped cooking, and it had taken the warmth out of their house. They were memories that he’d just as soon forget.
He checked a pot sitting on the stove. It was half-filled with water. Pasta? His hopes rose. He stuck his finger in the water. Ice cold.
“We’re in here,” Lois said from the dining room.
He poured himself a glass of cold water and took a long swallow. Gerry’s school bag sat on the kitchen table next to his wife’s purse. He sensed something was not right, and walked into the dining room. Gerry sat at the head of the dining room table with his head bowed. Lois stood behind him, breathing fire.
“Stand up when your father comes into the room.”
Gerry sat motionless at the dining room table.
“What’s going on?” Valentine asked.
“The school principal called me,” Lois said. “Gerry is hanging around with a group of older kids accused of gambling and selling pot.”
“What?”
“We’re not selling pot,” his son declared.
“I said, stand up.”
“We’re not. I swear —”
“Stand up.”
Gerry rose guiltily from his chair, and Valentine stared in disbelief at his son’s wardrobe. A black leather jacket, white tee shirt, jeans, and a pair of pointy-toed boots that locals called fence-climbers. He looked like a punk.
“Where are your school clothes?” Valentine asked.
“These are his school clothes,” Lois answered. “He’s been changing them every day in the gym. Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde.”
“All the kids do it,” his son said.
“And if all the other kids jumped off a bridge, would you follow them?”
Gerry smirked. “Probably.”
Valentine wanted to start yelling. Or take off his belt and whip the bejeeus out of him. Things that his own father had done that he’d never forgotten. But he was not about to follow in his father’s footsteps. Going into the kitchen, he grabbed his son’s school bag and brought it into the dining room, dumping its contents on the table. Out fell a pack of cigarettes, candy bars, a glossy hot-rod magazine, and a gold necklace.
“How much allowance do we give you a week?” Valentine asked.
“Fifty cents,” Gerry mumbled.
“Let me guess, you took a job bagging groceries at the A & P and forgot to tell us.”
“Hey,” his son said, “it’s just some stuff.”
“Stuff costs money.”
Gerry swallowed hard. “It’s not what you think.”
“You weren’t selling pot?”
“No, sir,” his son replied.
“We have a meeting with the school principal first thing tomorrow morning,” Lois said.
“You’d better not be lying to me,” Valentine said.
“I swear Pop, I’m not.”
“And those clothes are gone.”
“Yes, sir.”
His son looked truly remorseful. Valentine glanced at his wife. Lois nodded her head, satisfied. He started dropping his son’s loot into his school bag when a bulge in a side pocket caught his eye. It was the paperback novel he’d seen Gerry reading the night before, The Catcher in the Rye. The book’s cover was coming off, and he flipped it open, and read a few lines. Looking up, he caught his son’s fearful gaze.
“When did J.D. Salinger start writing porno?” he said.
Chapter 14
Izzie missed Betty.
He missed her soft cooing voice, and the taste of her cheap lipstick mingling with the smell of her hair and her sticky skin. He missed her throaty laugh, and the liquid heart-stopping sensation of having sex with her. Having sex with Betty, Izzie had come to the conclusion that no movie or book had ever gotten it right.
Izzie missed her so much, he decided to call her one night during a poker game in the house he and his brothers had rented in Ventnor, a fancy suburb just south of Atlantic City. Excusing himself, he’d gone upstairs, and used the phone in the extra bedroom to call her apartment. Betty answered on the fifth ring, still sound asleep.
“Hey baby,” he said.
“Who the hell is this?”
“It’s me, Izzie.”
“You crummy bastard!”
