Wild card, p.14
Wild Card, page 14
Valentine motioned to the waitress for the check. Izzie rubbed his stomach like he was still hungry. Valentine took the hint, and said, “Want something else to eat?”
“Depends how much more you want to hear,” Izzie replied.
Chapter 30
An hour later, Valentine’s head was swimming. Izzie had devoured six bowls of peanuts, three draft beers, and two orders of shrimp cocktail while explaining how to scam every casino game in the world. He was an encyclopedia of grift and cons.
“Well, I think that’s it,” Izzie said.
“You tapped out?” Valentine asked.
“I’m sure there’s a few things I’ve forgotten.”
“What about sports betting?”
“That isn’t legal in Atlantic City,” Izzie reminded him.
No, Valentine thought, but it was legal in Las Vegas, and he owed Bill Higgins a huge favor for all the advice he’d passed along. “Tell me anyway,” he said.
“Sports betting is cheaters heaven. A player can beat them by being a better handicapper, or fixing the game, or by past-posting.”
“You mean placing a bet after the fact?”
“Yeah. It’s not as hard as it sounds. Especially with the ponies.”
A diner at another table had ordered nachos dripping with melted cheese, and Izzie stared at the mess while rubbing his stomach. Valentine got the waitress to bring them a plate, then pressed Izzie while he shoveled food into his mouth.
“Past-posting a sports book is easy,” Izzie said. “ Just bribe a guy who works for the power company.”
“What does he do?”
“He reduces the amount of electricity going to the sports book. He slows the clock down gradually, until twenty seconds are shaved off. That’s all you need to find out a race’s outcome, and get a bet placed before the betting is halted. Later the electricity is increased, so the clocks are kosher the next day.”
“You ever try this?”
“Yeah. Did it on a bookie in New York. Cleaned him out.”
Izzie was smiling. Over the years, Valentine had learned a lot from talking to criminals, but none had ever pulled back the curtain, and shown him the inner workings like Izzie was now doing. It wasn’t normal, and he guessed it had something to do with them knowing each other as kids. Izzie wanted to show him how smart he was, even if he was under arrest. His pride was at stake, so he’d let it all hang out.
Valentine drove his prisoner back to the station house without bothering to turn the car’s heater on. It was freezing outside, and Izzie began to shiver, his sports jacket and slacks offering scant protection from the cold.
“You want me to put the heater on?”
“Yeah,” Izzie said emphatically.
“Tell me Vinny’s last name.”
“I told you, he didn’t tell us.”
Instead of turning the heater on, Valentine rolled his window down, and the car’s interior dropped another ten degrees. Izzie protested loudly.
“You knock a guy out, you’re going to look through his wallet,” Valentine said. “Give me his name, and I’ll let you go.”
“First get me warm.”
Valentine rolled up his window and turned the heater on.
“His name’s Vinny Acosta,” Izzie said.
“What do you think his deal is?”
Izzie didn’t hesitate with his answer this time. “There’s a scam going on in Las Vegas right now, Cleveland mob is behind it. My guess is, Vinny’s got something similar going on here.”
“What’s the Vegas scam?”
“It’s pretty cool. Some hotel employees are skimming quarters from slot machines. Instead of trying to get the coins out of the casino, they’re converting them into bills at the cage. Every time a little old lady buys a bucket of coins, they put the bill into a briefcase. The briefcase gets taken out each night.”
“How much they stealing?”
“Millions.”
Valentine reached the station house, found an empty spot in the lot and parked. Izzie had set off a light bulb in his head. Every dollar in a casino went through the cage. If someone was going to scam Resorts in a big way, the money had to come from there.
Izzie started to get out, and Valentine grabbed him by the sleeve. “I want you to promise me that you and your brothers will never step foot in Atlantic City again.”
“Are you really going to let me and my brothers go?”
“I gave you my word, didn’t I?”
Their eyes met. Izzie believed Valentine was cutting him a deal, and he beamed.
“On my mother’s grave,” he said.
The first thing Valentine did upon returning to Resorts was check the cage for hidden suitcases. The cage was the most tightly watched area in the casino, and he called upstairs to the surveillance control room, and spoke to Mickey Wright.
“I need to do a search. We just got word that there might be some counterfeit money in our tills,” he said. “I’ll wave to you through the camera when I’m done.”
Mickey grunted into the phone and hung up.
Valentine did a thorough search of the cage. There were no suitcases lying around, and he checked each teller’s drawer for hidden sleeves to drop bills, or other secret places that money might be squirreled away.
The cage was clean. He thanked everyone for their patience, then went upstairs to the surveillance control room. Mickey was waiting for him as he walked through the door, his eyes filled with panic.
“You find anything?” Mickey asked.
“False alarm,” Valentine said. “The cage was clean.”
Mickey put his hand over his heart. “Don’t do that to me, Tony. You know I got a bad ticker.”
“Sorry, Mickey.”
Mickey walked away, and Valentine went into his office and shut the door. From his desk he removed the casino’s weekly financial statement. Every week, the Casino Control Commission conducted an independent audit of Resorts’ operation. Each game was financially dissected, with the “holds” carefully scrutinized. He looked at these statements religiously; they were usually the first evidence there was cheating on the floor.
He opened the report to the section on slot machines. The slots were Resorts’ biggest money-maker. The casino kept 8% of every dollar put into a slot. And that was exactly what the report showed. Which meant Izzie was wrong. Vinny Acosta’s scam wasn’t at the cage, or with slots. That left BJ, craps and roulette.
You’re getting warmer, he thought.
He put the report back in his desk, picked up the phone, and dialed Bill Higgins’ work number from memory. His friend answered on the first ring.
“What if I told you the Cleveland mob is ripping off one of your casinos for millions of dollars,” Valentine said.
There was dead silence on the other end.
“You still there?”
“Who told you the Cleveland mob was out here?” Higgins said stiffly.
“A little bird with a pointed head. You know about this?”
“Sure do. The teamsters union loaned the Stardust money for a renovation. The teamsters have ties to the Cleveland mob. We’ve been watching the casino for a year, but haven’t caught anything. What have you got?”
“They’re stealing quarters,” Valentine said. “Lots and lots of quarters.”
Chapter 31
Sears had delivered their new furniture that afternoon, and Lois was the happiest person on her street. It didn’t replace the memories, but it was all new, and it gave the house a feel that it hadn’t possessed since they’d first moved in.
That night, while Gerry sat in the living room watching Mork & Mindy on their new TV, Valentine helped his wife do the dishes. While he dried, he made a point of sucking on his swollen knuckle, and she took his hand and examined his injury.
“Were you in a fight?”
“I punched a suspect in the face,” he said.
Lois eyed him cooly. “I hope he was doing something really awful.”
“Just sitting in a chair.”
The indignation rose in her face. “Tony, that’s barbaric. You should be ashamed of yourself. I’m ashamed of you.”
“It was Izzie Hirsch.”
“Oh. Why did you punch him?”
“He told me he took your bra off in a sand trap on a golf course.”
Lois dropped the plate she was holding into the sink. “That little bastard ripped my bra off, and my blouse. He practically raped me. I hope you knocked every tooth down his throat.”
Valentine tried to reply, only he was choking on his own laughter. Lois backed him into a corner, and began to playfully pummel his arms with her fists. “Tony Valentine, how dare you set me up like that!”
At a few minutes past nine, the front doorbell rang. Lois was upstairs reading a book. Valentine was still in the kitchen, and heard Gerry answer the door. When his son came into the kitchen a few moments later, his face was white as a sheet.
“There’s a man outside to see you. Says he’s with the FBI.”
Valentine couldn’t let the opportunity pass, and said, “What did you do now?”
“Me? I didn’t do anything.”
“Glad to hear it.” Valentine hung up his apron and went to the front of the house, opened the door, and stepped outside without his coat. Special Agent Romero was on the stoop, and wasn’t wearing a coat either. They shook hands, and Valentine glanced at the Chevy parked in the driveway. Fuller was nowhere to be seen.
“Let me guess,” Valentine said. “You caught the bastard.”
“I wish. Fuller and I are leaving Atlantic City tonight.”
“What? Why?”
Romero lowered his voice. “This conversation goes no further, understood?”
It had started to snow, with flakes the size of half dollars coming down. Valentine sensed that Romero was walking a tightrope, and simply nodded.
“Fuller came to me this afternoon, and said that he’d gone to an apartment where one of the suspects on our list lived,” Romero said. “The suspect had moved, and Fuller got the landlord to let him look at a box of things the suspect had left behind. In the box Fuller found bell bottoms, flower dresses and love beads. The landlord told Fuller the suspect had gone to New York. Fuller called our boss at the bureau. Our boss told Fuller to follow the suspect, which is why we’re leaving.”
“What’s the suspect’s name?”
“It doesn’t matter. Fuller’s lying.”
The snow had intensified along with Valentine’s sense of unease. “Why do you say that?”
“I asked him if I could see the clothes, and he gave me the box. When I looked through them, I found a sales tag. It was dated today. Fuller bought the clothes at a consignment shop.”
“Did you confront him?”
Romero shook his head. “No,” he added for emphasis.
“Why are you letting him get away with this?”
“It’s like this, Tony. Fuller is on probation for slapping around his ex-wife, and if I expose him, he’ll lose his job. We’ve been partners for five years. He took a bullet for me once. I can’t betray him.”
Valentine felt bile rising in his throat. He had always held the FBI to a higher standard than other law enforcement agencies, and he supposed it had something to do with their history of never having an agent in the field go bad. Romero knew better than to go along with this; saving Fuller wasn’t worth sacrificing his integrity.
“What about the four dead girls?” Valentine said. “Do you just kiss them goodbye? Or is leaving made easier by the fact that they were hookers?”
Just off the porch, everything had turned a magnificent white. Romero made a conciliatory gesture with his hands, then looked away. When he spoke, it was barely a whisper. “Do you know why I became an FBI agent?” he asked.
“You like long hours and crummy pay,” Valentine said sarcastically.
“I got a girl pregnant in high school. I played football and she was a cheerleader. I took her to a back alley abortionist, and he botched it and killed her.” Romero turned his head and gave Valentine a hard stare. “I became an FBI agent because I wanted to save a life. I wanted to save a life in redemption for the one I lost.”
“How does leaving town accomplish that?”
“I didn’t say I was giving up on the case.”
“I’m not reading you.”
“Your name is on the flyer with the killer’s composite. If a hooker spots the Dresser, you’re going to get a call. If you do, call me, and I’ll tell my boss the Dresser is in Atlantic City. Fuller and I will be back the same day.”
Romero was trying to protect his partner, and keep his integrity. He wasn’t a bad guy, just misguided, and Valentine said, “You shouldn’t be helping Fuller do this.”
“What’s the alternative? Ratting him out?”
“Try following your conscience. It’s always worked for me.”
“Would you rat out your partner? Tell me the truth.”
“My partner isn’t dirty.”
“But what if you found out he was? Would you rat him out and destroy his career?”
It was Valentine’s turn to look away. He and Doyle went back a long way. It was wrong for him to assume that Fuller and Romero’s bond didn’t run as deep. Put in Romero’s shoes, he’d probably do the same thing.
“No, I wouldn’t rat him out,” Valentine said.
The snow had stopped as quickly as it had started, and it suddenly didn’t feel as cold. Romero removed a pen from his pocket and scribbled a telephone number on a pack of matches, then handed the matches to Valentine. “That’s the number of the hotel where we’re staying in New York. Call me if you hear anything.”
“You leaving tonight?”
“Yes. I need to pick up Fuller, and then we’re gone.”
“Thanks for the heads up.”
Romero trudged down the path and climbed into the Chevy. As he backed down the drive, his eyes found Valentine’s face. He looked upset with himself, and Valentine sensed that his conscience was eating a hole in him. Life was filled with choices, and Romero had made a choice that he would forever regret.
Going inside, Valentine found his son lurking behind the door.
“Am I in trouble?” Gerry asked.
He tousled his son’s hair. “You will be if you don’t go upstairs, and start doing your homework.”
Chapter 32
The Dresser watched Fuller and Romero check out of their motel. Each man threw a single suitcase into the back of the Chevy, then climbed into the car, and drove north toward the causeway that would take them back to the mainland. The weather had sent everyone indoors, and the Dresser tailed their vehicle while singing along to the moronic song on the radio, Bachman Turner Overdrive’s Let it Ride.
The Dresser worked for AT&T, which had its advantages. He got a company van, a spiffy uniform, and the ability to tap phone lines. He had tapped the FBI agents’ motel room, and listened to the two men’s conversations. Romero had impressed him as being morally strong, Fuller spiritually weak. Blackmailing Fuller had been a piece of cake, and now the two FBI agents were out of his life.
The Chevy drove onto the causeway and soon disappeared. The Dresser slapped the wheel in glee, did a U-turn, and headed south.
He drove to Chelsea Heights and parked in the driveway of his house, a single-story ranch with crummy heating and a leaky roof. He’d inherited the place after his parents had died, and kept living with the loud pipes and leaks he’d been putting up with his entire life, his bedroom the same he’d had as a boy. He was a native, and like most people on the island, his upbringing had been uneventful, until he’d turned seventeen.
His parents had gone to Philadelphia one weekend, gotten caught in a blizzard, and been forced to stay overnight. It had been his first time home alone. Feeling brave, he’d called a girl he’d met the previous summer. In his closet were the clothes he’d stolen from her, which he liked to look at while imagining he was making love to her.
“Hey, my folks are out of town — want to come over?” he’d asked.
“I don’t think so,” she’d said.
“But I really like you,” he blurted out, instantly sorry he’d exposed his feelings.
“Sorry, but I already have a boyfriend,” she’d said in a condescending tone.
Her words had crushed him. I’m your boyfriend, you fucking tramp, he almost shouted. Hanging up, he’d gone to the liquor cabinet, grabbed his father’s prized fifty-year-old bottle of Scotch, and gotten drunk. The liquor had brought out the monster in him, and he’d taken his parent’s car, and driven to the Greyhound bus station on the north end of the island. It was a seedy place, and he found a hooker sitting on a bench, showing plenty of skin. He paid her a hundred dollars to get into the car.
Driving to the beach, he climbed into the back seat with the hooker, his head swimming from the booze. As they started to have sex, he began to strangle her. She struggled and screamed, then fell limp in his arms.
He’d taken the hooker home with him, and dressed her in the tramp’s clothes. Seeing her in those clothes had aroused him, and set a fire deep in his soul.
He’d been killing hookers ever since. For twenty years, he’d traveled to Philly and New York on the weekends, and gone on his prowls. He would lure a girl into his car, knock her out, and bring her home with him, keeping her as a slave until she died. The traveling had been a drag, but he’d seen no other way to keep killing, and not get caught by the police.
Then Resorts’ casino had opened. That had changed things. Overnight, the island had become filled with hookers, and he’d had his pick of victims.
As the locals liked to say, it had been a beautiful thing.
He showered and shaved and made himself look presentable. He dressed well when he went to the casino, and made sure to have plenty of cash. That was all the hookers cared about.
He went to his closet. Hanging from the bar were the clothes he’d stolen from the tramp twenty years ago. He’d never liked hippie clothes until he’d seen her wearing them. On her, they’d looked incredible.
