Grift Sense (21 page)

“Yeah?” Valentine said.

He put his hand on Valentine's face and pressed it into the wall. Valentine kissed the condom dispenser above the urinal, his nose pressing the button for a ribbed Black Mambo.

“Let me see your hands,” he said.

“I'm pissing, for Christ's sake.”

“You heard what I said.”

“What are you trying to do,” Valentine said belligerently, “make me wet my pants?”

Valentine's head banged the condom dispenser. Hugging the urinal, he said, “Look, pal, I'm sixty-two years old and wearing a pacemaker. Unless you came in here to kill me, how about cutting out the rough stuff?”

“I heard you asking the bartender about Fontaine,” the big guy said. “Tell me what you know.”

“Sure,” Valentine said. “But first let me breathe.”

“Stick your hands out.”

Valentine obeyed and the big guy frisked him like he knew what he was doing. Then he reached around and grabbed Valentine's dick, shook it, and shoved it into his trousers and yanked up the zipper. Valentine had never had a guy handle his balls before, and once he got over the initial revulsion, he decided it wasn't the worst thing that had ever happened to him. Close, but definitely not the worst.

Valentine felt the guy relax. Dropping his arms, Valentine grabbed his assailant's fingers and pushed the guy's thumb back at an unnatural angle. His attacker corkscrewed to the floor, the pain ripping through him. Valentine stepped away from the urinal.

“What's your name?”

“Al,” his attacker gasped, gnashing his teeth.

“Why are you looking for Frank Fontaine, Al?”

“Because . . .”

“You want to kill him?”

“Let go of my thumb!”

Valentine did the opposite. The bigger they were, the harder they screamed. Al was no exception.

“You the guy who squeezed his head in a door in Tahoe?”

Al nodded that he was.

“Who're you working for, Al?”

“I can't tell you that.”

Valentine bent his thumb back a little more. As thumbs went, it was awfully small, and he noticed how freakishly small Al's other fingers were as well, the tiny appendages attached to an even smaller hand. The rest of him looked normal, at least what was visible.

Al screamed some more. The bathroom door swung open and Mike stuck his head in. The bartender blinked, then blinked again. Valentine shot him a murderous glance.

“Where've you been hiding?”

“I was on the phone. Jesus, I thought
he
was killing
you.”

“Thanks for the concern,” Valentine said.

“You want me to call the police?”

Valentine looked at Al. “How about it? You want to have a chat with the boys in blue?”

Al shook his head. He was clutching his wrist with his other hand, trying to stop the pain from spreading to other parts of his body. Judging by the agonized look on his face, it wasn't working.

“I'll take that as a no.” To Mike he said, “I'll try to keep the screaming down to a minimum.”

“Sure,” Mike said.

He left, and Valentine said, “Who're you working for?”

“I can't tell you,” Al said. “They'll kill me.”

“Like this is better?”

When Al didn't respond, he gave the thumb a little more juice. Al's face turned crimson and his eyes popped out like a comic-book character.

“How about their initials?” Valentine said. “Tell me their initials, and I'll figure it out.”

“F. U.,” Al whispered.

“What's that?”

“F. U.! F. U.!”

“You saying ‘fuck you' to me? Why, you stupid punk . . .”

Valentine's anger rose to the surface like the lava in a volcano. Why someone cursing him bothered him more than having his balls squeezed, he didn't know. He brought his knee up into Al's jaw and sent him into dreamland.

Valentine laid him out in a stall, then rifled his pockets. A few hundred bucks and an empty inhaler. Typical.

Back in the bar, he found Mike standing stiffly at his post. Al's screaming had put the fear of God into him, and his upper lip was sweating BBs. Valentine slipped onto his former stool, pleased to see a fresh Diet Coke awaiting him, sans a frothy head. He raised the plastic mug to his lips and took a healthy swallow.

“Where's Muscles?” Mike asked.

“Napping,” Valentine said.

He finished the soda and reached for his wallet.

“On the house,” Mike said.

“I knew there was a reason I liked you,” Valentine said.

22

S
o when are they going to let you out of here?” Valentine asked, pulling a chair up to Sammy Mann's hospital bed.

“Not anytime soon,” the patient said gloomily.

Visiting hours did not start for several hours, and Valentine had taken the service elevator up to the third floor and stolen down a hallway to Sammy's room, the nurses at the station too busy watching monitors to see him slip past. The hospital ran a tight ship, and he felt bad about breaking the rules, but he needed to talk to Sammy in private and this was the best way to do it.

Valentine noticed an uneaten breakfast on a tray sitting beside Sammy's bed, the scrambled eggs cold and runny. He felt a lump form in his throat. “You sick?”

“You got that right.”

“What's wrong?”

“Big guy's getting the range.”

“Cancer?”

“Prostate.”

“What stage?”

“Stage two,” Sammy said. “Doctor said it was lucky I got my knee whacked; a few more weeks, and it might have started spreading.”

“When can you start chemo?”

“Two weeks,” Sammy said, using the remote to kill the picture on the silent TV. “They've got to put a pin in my leg first, let it heal, then start in with the rough stuff. Tell you the truth, I'm scared. I'm not in the best of shape, you know.”

Valentine didn't know what to say, so he didn't say anything. He looked around the room and didn't see the faintest evidence that Sammy had received any visitors other than himself. Sammy wasn't much older than him, which made it easy to put himself in the sick man's shoes. One day you feel fine; the next, a doctor is giving you a death sentence. Life was like that; the shame was suffering through it alone.

“Can I make a suggestion?” Valentine said. When Sammy nodded, he continued. “My wife had breast cancer, pretty advanced. She had this great doctor at Sloan-Kettering. He convinced her that her mental outlook in dealing with her disease was critical to her getting well. So Lois started planning things to do once the chemo treatment was over. Like going to school and taking a trip.”

“You're saying I should start planning a new life?”

“Why not?”

“Doing what? Flipping burgers? I've seen those retired people working at McD's. No thanks.”

“I can get you a job working on gambling ships in Florida,” Valentine offered. “You go out at noon, come back at night; they feed you a buffet and everything. Two hundred a day to watch some drunk tourists squander their money.”

“Sounds sweet. Why don't you do it?”

“I get seasick.”

“I'll think about it. Thanks.”

“I need to ask you a couple of questions.” Pulling his chair close to the metal bed, Valentine dropped his voice. “There's a guy on the prowl for Fontaine. Real nutcase. He's got the tiniest hands I've ever seen.”

“That's Little Hands Scarpi,” Sammy said. “Whatever you do, don't get in the same room with him. Rumor has it the casino bosses threw him a party after he murdered Fontana.”

“You think they might have rehired him once word got out that Sonny wasn't dead?”

“It's possible.”

“Is Nick one of those bosses?”

“No,” Sammy said. “The worst Nick's ever done is have somebody's legs broken. Nick respects human life.”

Valentine said, “Here's my next question. How trustworthy is Wily?”

Sammy gave him a hard look. “Wily? Why?”

“Fontaine has someone inside the Acropolis helping him. If I'm going to catch Fontaine, I'll need someone on the inside helping me.”

“And you don't want that someone to be the same person who's working with Fontaine.”

“Precisely.”

“Well,” Sammy said, “you can trust Wily. He may be as dumb as a bucket of nails, but he's square. Just don't tell him too much. You'll only confuse him.”

Valentine rose to leave. “Thanks. I've got to run.”

“You said they served a buffet. What kind of food?”

“Mostly seafood. Lobster, shrimp, stone crab when it's in season. You ever have stone crab? It's the greatest; they tear only one claw off the crab, then throw it back in. They also have a carving board with roast beef. And a dessert table. Éclairs, ice cream, chocolate cake.”

“They have a bar?”

“The ship
is
a bar,” Valentine replied.

“They let you smoke cigars?”

“All night long. Cigars are the in thing. Everybody on the ship smokes them—even the ladies.”

“That's too bad,” Sammy said sadly. “You didn't happen to remember to bring one along, did you?”

Valentine wanted to slap himself in the head. He'd been too distracted to remember half the promises he'd made in the past two days. He apologized profusely to Sammy.

“Bring one next time,” Sammy told him.

Valentine stopped in the doorway. “You want me to make a call? I know the guy who owns the ship.”

“I'd better deal with my cancer first.”

“It's never too late to plan for the future.”

Sammy smiled, his teeth stained by years of smoking and neglect, his eyes dancing with the possibility of what might be.

“Let me think about it,” he said.

Down in the lobby, Valentine dropped a quarter in the pay phone and dialed the main number of the Acropolis.

“Ten cents, please. Please deposit an additional ten cents.”

He searched his pockets for more coinage. Since when did local calls cost thirty-five cents? How much did they
really
cost, with fibers optics and all the satellites circling the earth? Probably a nickel, the same as when he was a kid. The rest went for advertising. He reluctantly fed another dime into the slot.

The hotel operator connected him to his room and he dialed into his voice mail. Although he was not officially registered in the hotel, he'd asked Roxanne to alert the operators to take any calls from Mabel, knowing she'd probably try to reach him again. Three messages awaited him, so he punched in the code to retrieve them.

“Hi, Tony,” Mabel said. “Well, I guess you didn't get my first message, because I'm still here in the pokey with a hooker with AIDS and some Mexican girl that stabbed her boyfriend to death.”

Valentine bowed his head, his forehead touching the cold hospital wall. The captain of the Clearwater police had
promised
him he'd move Mabel into a decent cell. Wasn't a man's word worth anything anymore?

“The good news is, the judge looks like he's going to make a full recovery,” she said. “Not that I wish the man harm, but he had no right to treat me the way he did. Anyway, he's not paralyzed or drooling, so I suppose my prayers were answered.”

Mabel had prayed for the judge. Valentine found himself smiling in spite of everything.

“Well, I figure I can take another couple of days of this, and then I'm going to break out of here, ha-ha. Seriously, I'm starting to feel pretty bad. Food is just lousy and I can't sleep. I guess that's why they call it jail. Well, hope all is well with you. Good-bye, Tony, wherever you are.”

A dial tone filled his ear. He glanced at his watch. Gerry would be in Florida soon and Mabel would be saved. He played the next message.

“Pop . . . it's me . . . Gerry. Listen—I've got trouble.”

Valentine cupped his free hand over his ear. He could hardly hear his son, a jukebox in the background spitting out the Stones' “Honky Tonk Woman.”

“The operator said you checked out, but when I called back and talked to Roxanne, she said you were still there. Anyway, I hope you get this, because there are two Mafia guys looking for me.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Valentine said into the phone.

“I went to the saloon to get some cash, and they were waiting for me,” his son went on. “I asked them what they wanted, and they said this had to do with you. I threw a table at them and then hightailed it out the back, and I've been running ever since. These guys are acting like they want to kill me, Pop.”

Valentine gripped the phone, his heart racing out of control.

“Anyway, I missed my flight. I'm sorry about Mabel, but I've got to watch out for my own rear end. I'm sure you understand. I'm going down to Atlantic City to hide out. I'll call you from there.”

Valentine played the message again, this time listening to his son's voice. Gerry was scared. Valentine closed his eyes and said a prayer for his son's safety, then played the final message.

“Hey, Tony!” Nick shouted over the wail of sirens. “Get your butt over to my place. Somebody tried to burn my house down!”

The fire trucks were long gone by the time Valentine arrived at the smoldering palace that Nick called home. Muddy tire tracks crisscrossed the front lawn, the shrubbery trampled beyond recognition. He parked behind Nick's Caddy, got out of his car, and surveyed the damage. Whatever ugly charm the grounds had once was now gone.

A shroud of soot covered the portico and he wiped his feet on the mat before entering. Inside the foyer, he found Nick engaged in a heated discussion with a claims adjustor who was lamely trying to explain why State Farm wouldn't issue a check until the fire marshal had issued a report and ruled out arson.

“Of course it was arson,” Nick bellowed at him. “She tried to burn the place down. Hoss and Tiny saw her. Didn't she, boys?”

The two gridiron stars sat at the phallic bar in the living room. Hoss sported a wounded hand, Tiny a line of scratches across his cheek. Both nodded, then stared shamefully at the floor.

“What more proof do you want?” Nick asked.

The claims adjuster glanced rudely at his watch. In an impatient voice, he said, “I meant deliberate arson, Mr. Nicocropolis. If the fire marshal concludes that it was Ms. Solomon who set the fire, your claim will fall under vandalism, which you're covered for. Until then, I can't do anything except put you up in a hotel.”

“Put me up in a hotel? I own a hotel, nimrod!”

“Mr. Nicocropolis, just give me a little time, okay?”

“How much is a little?”

“Three, four days.”

“That's a little?”

“To get a claim put through, yes.”

“Aw, get out of my face,” Nick said, dismissing him with a wave of the hand. To Valentine, he said, “Where the hell you been?”

The claims adjustor did not move. Slowly, almost mechanically, he removed his glasses and stuffed them in his shirt pocket, and Valentine got the feeling he was about to do something really stupid. He touched the man's arm.

“Don't,” Valentine said under his breath.

The adjustor looked at him out of the corner of his eye, not knowing if Valentine was threatening him or offering advice.

“You work for him?” the adjustor asked.

“Part time.”

“Too bad,” he said. Then he walked out of the house.

Nick went to the bar and put his hands on Hoss's and Tiny's broad shoulders. There was not enough floor for the two men to stare at.

“How much am I paying each of you boys?” Nick asked them.

“Forty grand,” Hoss said.

“The same,” Tiny said.

“For what?”

Pulling an O'Doul's from the bar, Nick said, “Think about it,” and then led Valentine down the hallway to the master suite. The house had suffered little damage, the blaze being isolated to Nick's chambers. The bedroom door had been splintered with a fire axe, and Nick kicked at it upon entering.

“Sherry went nuts when Hoss and Tiny tried to evict her,” he explained. “Locked herself in my bedroom and started destroying my clothes. Real little-girl stuff. Then she came across an album I keep of all the broads I've known. It didn't sit too well.”

Valentine canvassed the bedroom and found the album in a corner. It had been used to start the fire, the flame's path easy to trace. Up the curtains, across the ceiling, and down into Nick's dresser, the collection of sharkskin suits and silk shirts going up in one big nova. The flames had taken out the wall, which now offered a nice view of the bocci court in Nick's backyard.

The album was still warm. That the police hadn't tagged it as evidence spoke volumes. Valentine pulled away the cover and thumbed through dozens of melted glossies of Nick's lady friends posed in the buff. Several faces from the hotel popped up, startling him.

“You shot your girlfriends in the nude?” Valentine asked.

“Sure. With my memory being so lousy, I figured I'd better start keeping records.”

“They didn't mind?”

“They love it.”

“You're kidding me.”

“They always want me to shoot their faces. That way, I'll know it was them later. Ha-ha.”

“You're kidding me.”

“You never took any pictures of your old lady naked?”

Valentine shook his head. If he'd ever tried to photograph Lois without her clothes on, she probably would have shot him.

“You shouldn't be screwing all these women on your staff.”

“Oh, for the love of Christ,” Nick said. “Don't start preaching to me, okay? Next you'll be telling me how to run my life. I don't want to hear it.”

Valentine felt something inside of him snap. The claims adjustor was right: Too bad he had to work for this jerk. Removing his wallet, he extracted Nick's two thousand and threw it at him.

“What are you doing?”

“Quitting,” Valentine said.

“What?!”

“You heard me.”

“You can't run out on me now. I
need
you.”

“You got yourself into this mess,” Valentine said, “and you deserve whatever you get.”

Nick's pug face hardened. He pulled a cigar from his shirt pocket and chewed on it furiously. “You having a bad day or something?”

“It's running neck and neck with yours.”

Nick's expression changed. Misery was something he understood all too well. Scooping the money off the floor, he wiped it on his pants, then handed it back to Valentine.

“You win.”

“Meaning what?” Valentine asked.

“Meaning I'm sorry.”

Valentine put the money back into his wallet.

“I'm still leaving,” he told his employer.

“But—”

“You hired me to finger Fontaine, and I did, and now it's time to go.”

“But you haven't found Nola . . .”

Valentine shrugged. His son needed him more than Nola Briggs did, and so did Mabel, and they mattered more to him than all the tea in China. He'd started entertaining the thought of taking a cruise with them and found it oddly appealing.