Authors: James Swain
34
“T
his had better be good,” Detective Joey Marconi said, driving south on Atlantic Avenue.
“Yeah,” Detective Eddie Davis said, sitting beside his partner. “You keep us waiting in the parking lot for an hour, this had better be
real
good.”
Gerry Valentine sat in the backseat of Marconi’s car. He’d started reminiscing with Vinny Fountain inside Harold’s House of Pancakes and not only forgotten the time, but also the two detectives outside, neither of whom had slept in the past two days.
Marconi followed Vinny Fountain’s car on Atlantic Avenue. Vinny drove a souped-up Pontiac Firebird with racing stripes down both sides. Vinny had told Gerry that he could find out who’d made the gaffed Yankees cap found in Bally’s casino. Gerry had told Davis and Marconi, and the detectives had agreed to follow Vinny, but not without letting him know how pissed off they were.
“You have a good breakfast?” Davis asked.
“Just some coffee,” Gerry lied.
“How did you get that jelly stain on your chin?” Marconi wanted to know.
Gerry appraised his reflection in the window. The stain was on the point of his chin.
Busted,
he thought.
“It’s a birthmark,” Gerry said.
“You’re something else,” Marconi told him.
They drove to Margate City on the southernmost tip of the island. At Huntington Avenue, Vinny hung a left. Marconi followed him, and when Vinny parked on the street, Marconi pulled his vehicle directly behind him. It was a residential neighborhood of two-story shingled houses and small, well-kept yards. Across the street, a dog strained against its chain, barking at them.
“Any idea where we are?” Davis asked.
“This is where Vinny’s father lives,” Gerry said, checking the numbers on the doors. He’d known Vinny since junior high school and had come over here many times. The house looked smaller than he remembered, but so did most things on the island.
“Would you gentlemen mind staying here?” Gerry asked.
Davis and Marconi turned around and shot him wicked stares.
“Better not keep us waiting,” Marconi said, his lips hardly moving.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Gerry said.
Vinny’s father, Angelo Fountain, was a professional tailor and ran his business out of the living room of his house, his customers getting fitted in front of a display case filled with black-and-white wedding pictures of Angelo and his late wife, Marie. In the case was also a sign:
CHEAP CLOTHES ARE MADE, GARMENTS ARE BUILT.
The TV set was on when they came in, Jerry Springer reading off a card. Angelo was a small, delicate man, and balanced himself on the edge of the couch, a yellow tape measure hanging around his neck. He looked up in surprise.
“Get the hell out of my house,” he said.
Vinny stood in the foyer, unbuttoning his jacket. Gerry hung behind him.
“Didn’t you hear what I just told you?” his father asked.
“I’ve got a visitor with me,” his son said.
“Like that makes a difference? Who did you bring this time, John Gotti?”
“He’s dead, Pop.”
“Then I’m sure it’s someone just like him,” his father retorted. “Every time I turn around, the police are wanting to talk to me about you, or something you’ve done. My son, the professional crook.”
Gerry glanced at Vinny’s profile, wondering what effect this old man’s words were having on him. If the verbal assault bothered Vinny, he didn’t show it. Tugging his jacket off, Vinny tossed it on a chair and entered the living room.
“I brought an old friend with me,” Vinny said. “You remember Gerry Valentine, don’t you, Pop?”
Angelo Fountain had come to the United States on a boat from Italy, and had brought with him manners and class. He killed the TV with a remote, stood up, and graciously stuck out his hand. “Of course I remember. Tony Valentine’s boy.”
Gerry shook his hand. “It’s good to see you, sir.”
“And you as well. Are you still running an illegal bookmaking operation?” Angelo Fountain asked.
There was an edge to his voice that made Gerry hesitate. He took out a business card, and handed it to the older man. “I gave up the rackets, Mr. Fountain. I’m working with my father now.”
Angelo Fountain removed his bifocals to study the card. In his late seventies, he wore a navy blue suit overlaid with a faint windowpane check. His spread-collar shirt was light blue, his necktie a soft red, as was his matching pocket foulard. He’d always dressed like a head of state, even though he rarely left the neighborhood.
“I thought your father retired,” Angelo said.
“He did,” Gerry said. “My mom passed away, and he went back to work as a consultant.”
“How long you work for him?”
“It’s going on six months.”
The older man’s face softened. “You like it?”
That was a loaded question if Gerry had ever heard one. His father could be a bear, and sometimes drove Gerry nuts. But it was an honest business, and he could tuck his daughter in at night knowing he wasn’t doing things she might someday be ashamed of.
“Love it,” Gerry said.
Angelo Fountain brewed a fresh pot of coffee and served his guests. Gerry had the foresight to ask him to make two extra cups, and took them outside to the two detectives parked by the curb.
“Service’s improving,” Marconi said.
Gerry grabbed the Yankees cap off the backseat. He hadn’t wanted to bring the cap into the house and just stick it under Mr. Fountain’s nose. Going back inside, he found Vinny and his father practically at blows.
“You’re a bum,” his father said.
“Says who?” Vinny replied.
“Every single person on this island.”
“I’ve never been convicted of a single crime,” his son protested.
“You and O.J. Simpson,” his father said.
Gerry made Vinny squinch over and sat down between father and son on the couch. They stopped arguing, with Angelo glaring at his son.
“Mr. Fountain, I need your help,” Gerry said, handing him the cap. “This baseball cap turned up during a case. Vinny thinks you might be able to tell me who stitched it.”
Angelo Fountain examined the receiver and LEDs sewn into the cap’s rim. His hands were small and fine-boned, the skin almost translucent. A minute passed. He was taking too long, and Gerry guessed it was someone he knew and didn’t want to snitch on. The locals were famous for closing ranks when it came to protecting one another.
“I wouldn’t have come here, and put this imposition on you, if there wasn’t a good reason,” Gerry said.
Angelo Fountain looked into his visitor’s face. “And what might that be?”
“The man who had this cap made has a contract on my father’s life.”
“Ahh,” Angelo Fountain said.
Another minute went by. The older man put his hand on Gerry’s knee, gave it a friendly squeeze. “I like your father. He’s a good man. I’ll help you out.”
“Thank you, Mr. Fountain.”
“A tailor on the island made this baseball cap. I recognize the stitching,” Angelo Fountain said. “This tailor was in prison, made friends with some bad people. When he got out of prison, he started taking jobs from these people.”
“What kind of jobs?” Gerry asked.
“Tailoring jobs. To help them steal from the casinos.”
“Steal how?”
“I’ll show you.” Angelo Fountain went to the other side of the living room, pulled open a drawer on a cabinet, and returned holding a paper bag that he dropped on Gerry’s lap. “This tailor gets a lot of work from these people. Sometimes, he asks me to help out. I always say no, but he still comes by.”
Gerry removed the bag’s contents. There were several cloth bags made of dark material, and a metal contraption tied up with wire that looked like a kid’s toy. Gerry untied the wire, and realized he was holding a Kepplinger holdout, a device used by card cheaters to invisibly switch cards during a game. The Kepplinger was worn beneath a sports jacket, and secretly delivered cards into a cheater’s hand through his sleeve, the mechanism powered by a wire stretched between the cheater’s knees. In order for the Kepplinger to work properly, it had to be fitted to the jacket, and Gerry remembered his father saying that only a handful of people in the country knew how to do this.
Gerry examined the cloth bags. They were subs, a device used by crooked employees to steal chips. The mouth of each sub had a flexible steel blade sewn into it, with an elastic strap attached to both ends. The sub was worn in the pants, between the underwear and belt line. The crooked employee would palm a chip off the table, and by sucking in his gut, drop the chip into the mouth of the sub. The move took a second, and was invisible if done properly.
Gerry put the Kepplinger and the subs back into the paper bag. Angelo Fountain had just told him some thing important. This tailor had so much work, he couldn’t handle it all. A one-man factory.
“The police would like to talk to this tailor,” Gerry said.
“They going to send him back to prison?” Angelo Fountain asked.
Gerry shook his head. “Making cheating equipment isn’t against the law. They just want to ask him who ordered the baseball cap.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all, Mr. Fountain. They just want the name.”
Angelo Fountain got a pad of paper and a pencil from the kitchen. He wrote the tailor’s name and address on the pad, his handwriting painstakingly slow. Then he tore off the slip and gave it to Gerry. They shook hands in the foyer.
“Tell your father I said hello,” Angelo Fountain said.
Gerry and Vinny stood on the front porch buttoning their jackets, the wind blowing hard and cold off the nearby ocean. Davis and Marconi were at the curb, the car’s windows steamed up. Gerry guessed they would drive straight to the tailor’s address, and pressure him. That would put them one step closer to stopping George Scalzo’s operation in Atlantic City, and putting a bunch of hoodlums in prison.
“You need to take your father away for a while,” Gerry said.
“Why?”
“Just to be safe.”
Vinny looked back at the house and shuddered from something besides the cold. “My father and I don’t happen to get along, in case you didn’t notice.”
“He still talks to you, doesn’t he?”
“Meaning what? You and your father didn’t talk?”
“Not for a long time,” Gerry admitted.
Vinny lit up a cigarette, blew a cloud that hung over their heads. “So what changed?”
That was a good question. Up until six months ago, his relationship with his father had been no better than Vinny’s and his father’s. But it had done a one-eighty since he’d gone to work with his father. Now they talked in civil tones and ate meals together and even shared a few laughs. It wasn’t perfect, but if he’d learned anything in his thirty-six years on this earth, few things in life ever were.
“Me,” Gerry said. “I changed.”
35
V
alentine folded his cell phone and dropped it in his pocket. He’d been barred from the tournament. It didn’t seem possible, and he tried to guess how many millions of dollars he’d saved Nevada’s casinos since be coming a consultant. Fifty million, and that was a low estimate. And this was how they repaid him. The leper treatment.
“The news wasn’t good, was it?” Gloria asked.
“You’re a mind reader,” he said.
They were still standing beside the cage of noisy parrots in the lobby. Gloria put her hand on his wrist. She was a toucher, something he’d always found attractive in a woman. The lobby noise made it hard to talk, but she tried anyway.
“I hope it wasn’t about your son,” she said.
“No, Gerry’s fine. At least the last time I checked.”
“He’s sort of unpredictable, isn’t he?”
“That’s a nice way to put it.”
“Was it about the job?”
“Yes. The governor has barred me from stepping foot inside Celebrity’s poker room while the tournament is taking place. I’ve also been nicely told to leave town.”
“That’s wrong. I hope you aren’t going to comply.”
There was something in Gloria’s voice that hadn’t been there a few days ago, and he guessed the feeling-out process was over. “I really don’t have much choice.”
“But you haven’t nailed DeMarco.”
“I’m not sure they want me to,” he said.
“You need to stall them.”
“I do?”
“Yes. So you can have more time to solve the case.”
He didn’t have to talk to Gloria very long to be reminded that she was in the entertainment business and liked happy endings. “That’s not a bad idea. How would you suggest I stall them?”
She bit her lower lip, thinking, then snapped her fingers. “Got it. You’re here on a job for the Nevada Gaming Control Board, right?”
“Correct.”
“Make them pay you before you leave. Cash.”
It wasn’t a bad idea, and he could see Bill agreeing to it, knowing exactly what he was up to. He pulled out his cell phone. Moments later, he had Bill on the line and he made his request. His friend chuckled softly into the phone.
“I’ll come by in the morning with your money,” Bill said.
“Not too early,” Valentine said. “You know how I like my beauty rest.”
“Look, Tony, there’s only so far I can push this,” Bill said. “I’ll meet you in the lobby at noon with your cash. I’d suggest you leave town after that.”
Valentine glanced at his watch. It was easy to lose track of time in Las Vegas, and he was surprised to see it was four o’clock in the afternoon. Bill was giving him another twenty hours to crack the case.
“Noon is beautiful,” Valentine said.
He tucked his cell phone into his pocket then took out his wallet and removed the valet stub for his rental car. Gloria shot him a concerned look. “You off again?”
“Yes. You’re coming, too.”
Coins of crimson appeared on each of her cheeks. “I am?”
“I need you to help me crack this case.”
“You do?”
“Yes. There’s something wrong with this picture, and I can’t seem to figure out what it is. My old sergeant used to make his detectives share cases, in the hopes that another pair of eyes might see something that the first detective missed.”
“I’m game. Where are we going?”
“To see an old crook,” Valentine said.
Ten minutes later, they were in Valentine’s rental cruising down the strip. Vegas looked different during the day, like a whore without her makeup. Hindsight being 20/20, he now knew that he should have chased Sammy Mann down the moment he’d heard Sammy had run out on them. Sammy was scared, and not because he hadn’t reported the other cheaters he knew to be playing in the tournament. Sammy knew they were close to solving the case, and hadn’t wanted to be around when it happened.
Las Vegas was the fastest-growing city in the country, and pricey condo buildings were starting to sprout up on the strip. Sammy lived on the tenth floor of a building called the Veneto in a nice corner apartment. Valentine had visited him back when Sammy was fighting cancer, and he’d been impressed by the expensive furnishings. Most crooks died penniless. Sammy had saved up for a rainy day.
“Who are we here to see?” Gloria asked as they parked in the condo’s lot. “Or is that a surprise?”
“Sorry,” Valentine said. “His name is Sammy Mann. He’s a retired cheater.”
“How do you know he’s home?”
Valentine glanced up at the towering glass structure. He
didn’t
know for sure. Sammy might have left town, but that seemed unlikely. Most older people felt safest in their homes. They entered the building’s lobby, and Valentine found Sammy’s name on the intercom address book and pushed the button for Sammy’s apartment. Sammy answered with a hoarse “Yes?”
“It’s Tony Valentine. I’m here with a friend. Let us up.”
“I’m sick,” the old cheater replied.
“You’re going to be a lot sicker if you don’t talk to me,” Valentine said.
The front door buzzed open.
Gloria laughed. “You’re something else,” she said.
Sammy answered the door in a threadbare bathrobe and leather slippers. No greetings were exchanged; he simply opened the door, and they followed him into a living room with a leather couch that faced a picture window looking down on the strip. He motioned and they sat. From a pitcher he poured three glasses of ice water and set them on a coffee table. Then he sat in a chair and showed them his profile.
“Let me guess,” Valentine said. “You have a sore throat.”
“Very sore,” Sammy said.
“Probably prevents you from talking.”
Sammy nodded solemnly. Valentine glanced around the room, seeing a lot of upgrades since his last visit, but nothing that would tell you what Sammy did for a living. You had to know him to know what he was.
“You want to hear a funny story?” Valentine asked.
“I love a good laugh,” Sammy said.
“You don’t sound like you have a sore throat.”
Sammy coughed into his hand.
“That’s better. Okay, here it is. I’m a rookie cop in Atlantic City, and as green as they come. One day, I’m walking my beat with my partner, and he tells me that the crooks in Atlantic City are more violent than the crooks in New York. He tells me that in New York, if one crook is trying to steal a truck of furs, and another crook steals the truck first, the first crook won’t take it personally. Not so in Atlantic City. If a crook catches another crook trying to steal the truck away from him, he’ll kill him.
“That didn’t make any sense to me. Why would the crooks in Atlantic City, which has twenty thousand residents, be more violent than crooks in New York, which has six million residents? I was obviously missing something, and finally my partner explained it to me. There were less things to steal in Atlantic City. A lot less. In New York, a crook could go steal something else. But in Atlantic City, big scores were few and far between. That was the piece I was missing.
“So here’s the thing, Sammy. I’m missing something that’s right in front of my face, and it’s bothering the hell out of me. I
have
to know, you know?”
Sammy lifted his arms off the armrests of his chair. Let them hang in the air for a few seconds, then shrugged and dropped them. “You know the answer,” he said.
“I do?”
Sammy nodded. “You just told it to me. Atlantic City is different than New York. Well, Las Vegas is different, too.”
Gloria slipped off the couch and came up beside Sammy’s chair. She knelt down and put her hand onto Sammy’s arm, all the while looking into the old cheater’s eyes, which were dark and unflinching. “How is it different?” she asked.
Sammy laughed under his breath and looked at Valentine. “How long you been a team?”
“You’re our first victim,” Valentine said.
“You’d never know it,” the old cheater said.
Rising, Sammy went to an entertainment center on the opposite side of the room, pulled open a drawer, and rummaged through a collection of videotapes, taking out two. He powered up the TV, then popped a tape into the VCR. Returning to his chair, he picked up a glass of water and took a sip.
“Just watch,” he said.
The tape was of a heavyweight boxing match, the grainy color showing its age. George Foreman fighting a game German kid named Axel Schultz. Valentine followed boxing and had a vague memory of the fight. Mid-nineties, Las Vegas, with Foreman getting slapped around for twelve unspectacular rounds, yet somehow winning the decision. Schultz had gone back to Germany, never to be heard from again.
Sammy shut the tape off after the decision was read, and Foreman announced the winner. Poor George hadn’t looked like the winner, his face more damaged than Freddy Kruger’s in the
Halloween
movies. Sammy stuck the second tape into the VCR, fast-forwarded it to a spot near the end, then returned to his chair. The tape was of a college football game and looked more recent.
“I recognize this tape,” Gloria said, still kneeling beside Sammy’s chair. “This is a game between the Wisconsin Badgers and the Las Vegas Rebels played here in Vegas a few years ago, isn’t it?”
“That’s right,” Sammy said. “You like college football?”
“I’ve covered it for years,” she said. “This game was a big upset. The Rebels were heavy favorites, but the Badgers ran them all over the field and won by twenty points. If I remember correctly, something odd happened at the very end of the game.”
Sammy raised his eyebrows expectantly. “Yes?”
“The lights in the stadium went out, and the game was awarded to the Badgers,” Gloria said. “I don’t think that’s ever happened in a college football game before.”
“First time it ever happened,” Sammy said. He pointed at the screen. “Watch.”
On the screen, a team of guys in red jerseys were playing a team of guys in white. The white team was getting the worst of it and looked ready for the showers. A healthy-sized crowd was cheering the red team on. Suddenly the stadium lights flickered, then went out altogether, throwing both teams into darkness. The action on the football field stopped, with no one knowing what to do.
The tape ended and the screen went dark. Sammy shifted his gaze to the window, his eyes fixed on the casinos lining the strip. “People think this is a gambling town, but it’s not,” he said. “Las Vegas does not gamble. Never has, and never will. Take the Foreman fight. This city hosts a hundred boxing matches a year. Nobody cares who wins, or loses. Except if there’s a lot of money on the fight. Then
everyone
cares.
“Axel Schultz beat George Foreman silly that night. Every journalist and sports writer who was there said so. But the judges gave the fight to Big George. Why do you think they did that?”
“Because a lot of German tourists came to the fight, and bet heavily on their boy to win,” Valentine said.
“That was one reason,” Sammy said. “There’s another.”
“I know,” Gloria said. “George Foreman was a huge draw, and Axel Schultz wasn’t. If the judges gave the fight to Schultz, he’d take the belt home to Germany, and Las Vegas would lose out.”
Sammy nodded. “Very good. By denying Schultz the title, Las Vegas didn’t lose any big fights.”
“What about the football game,” Valentine said. “What happened there?”
“Seventeen thousand Wisconsin fans were in town for that game, and bet heavily on the Badgers to beat the Rebels,” Sammy said.
“But the Badgers
did
beat the Rebels,” Gloria said.
“Yes, but the Wisconsin fans didn’t collect,” Sammy said. “Las Vegas’s sports books have an unusual rule. If a football game is stopped with more than four minutes left to play, the game is considered no contest, and everyone’s money is returned. When the stadium lights went out, there were more than four minutes left on the clock.”
“So the lights were turned out on purpose,” Gloria said.
Sammy nodded.
“That’s unethical,” Gloria said.
“No one out here saw it that way,” Sammy said. “Just smart business. You’re probably asking yourself, what does this have to do with the World Poker Showdown? The answer is simple. Every casino boss in town knows DeMarco’s cheating. But if he’s exposed, it will hurt their business. So the town is going to let it slide until the tournament is over. After that, it will get cleaned up.”
“But what about the other players in the tournament? Or the fans?” Gloria asked, unable to hide the indignation in her voice. “Don’t they matter?”
Sammy shook his head sadly. Valentine pushed himself off the couch.
Las Vegas doesn’t gamble.
It was another way of saying that Las Vegas wasn’t in the business of losing. He supposed someone had to pay for all those fancy casinos and flashing neon signs. He shook Sammy’s hand and thanked him for his time, then escorted Gloria out of the apartment.