Loaded Dice (3 page)

At the penthouse floor he got out. He knew which suite the jumper was staying in: It was the same suite Nick had put him in two years ago.

The door was locked. He raised his right leg, put all his weight and momentum into his heel, and kicked it above the knob. Thirty years ago, he could take a door down with one good kick. Now it took several. He went in.

“Don’t come in here,” a woman wailed from the balcony.

He looked around the suite and tried to imagine where she was. He decided she was right behind the wall he was staring at.

“I’m not the police,” he called out.

“I don’t care,” she shrieked.

He searched the living room for something with her name on it. The room was still furnished in loud LeRoy Neiman paintings and chrome furniture, the color scheme painful to the eye. On the coffee table he spied a suicide note, her name at the bottom of the page. Lucy Price.

He stepped into the dining room, and through the slider saw her sitting on the balcony railing. She’d closed the slider behind her when she’d gone out, another bad sign.

“Lucy Price,” he said.

She swung her head around. Early fifties, Italian, with a slender nose, high cheekbones, and dark, penetrating eyes. Not his wife, but from the same tree.

“Stay away from me!” she shouted.

He crossed the room and opened the slider. Sticking his head out, he said, “I need to talk to you.”

“Didn’t you hear what I just said?”

She was glued to the railing, the wind whipping her skirt up into her face. Embarrassed, she tried to flatten her skirt out, lost her balance, and started to scream.

He stepped onto the balcony and stuck his hand out. He’d known a cop in Atlantic City who’d grabbed a jumper, and they’d both ended up falling to their deaths. He braced himself. “Take my hand,” he said.

She regained her balance and glared at him. “They stole my money! I finally got my life sorted out, and they stole my
money
.”

“Who?”

“The bastards that run this place!”

He didn’t believe it. Nick was a lot of things—womanizer, foulmouthed thug, Neanderthal—but not a crook. Down below, he saw six firemen inflate a giant mattress and position it directly beneath where Lucy stood. He stepped forward.

“Take my hand. You don’t want to die.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t.”

“But they ruined my life . . . ,” she sobbed.

He was close enough to grab her. Their eyes met, and he saw an emptiness where her soul had once been. The desire to kill herself was real, and he realized that if he didn’t act right now, she was going to jump. He reached out and took her arm.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” he said.

He made her face him. The railing was waist-high, and he pointed at it. “I want you to swing your legs over, one at a time. I’ll hold you steady.”

She started to say something. A helicopter came around the building, and drowned her out. It sounded lighter than a police chopper, and Valentine guessed it was from a local TV station. Lucy shook her fist at it.

“Leave me alone!”

She lost her balance and let out another scream. Shooting her hand through the railing’s bars, she grabbed the waist of his pants. They fell down, and a cool breeze shot through his jockeys.

He envisioned them both going over. Grabbing her by the shoulders, he lifted her clean over the railing. She was crying, and looked terribly ashamed.

He pulled up his pants. The TV helicopter came around the building again. He lifted his head and saw a grinning cameraman in the copter’s open doorway give him a thumbs-up.

Valentine flipped him the bird.

4

C
hance Newman stepped away from the window as the TV helicopter flew by. The last thing he needed was to be seen on the news, leering at a suicide.

In the window’s reflection he saw Rags and Shelly standing behind him, their faces set in stone. Sal, the blackjack dealer, remained at his post on the other side of the room.

“You can leave now,” Chance told him.

Sal departed. Moments later, the door to Chance’s study opened, and a shaven-headed man in his late forties emerged. Dressed entirely in black, he was thin to the point of being unhealthy, his once handsome face marred by a zipper scar running from cheek to jowl. He approached the three casino executives.

“This is Frank Fontaine,” Chance said.

Shelly and Rags nodded stiffly. Fontaine sized each man up, then crossed the suite and picked up the Deadlock equipment sitting on the blackjack table. He shook his head.

“Shit,” he said.

“Shit is right,” Shelly practically shouted. Coming over to the blackjack table, he wagged his finger in Fontaine’s face. “You told us that nobody in North America knew anything about Deadlock. You said it was a cinch. So we invest a million bucks to buy ten of these fucking things, only to find out that you were wrong.”

Fontaine realized that Shelly was staring at his scar. Up close, it bordered on hideous. A few months ago, while serving a life sentence in the federal pen, he’d gotten his face slit for dealing off the bottom during a poker game. The doctors who’d sewn him back together had never expected him to walk free, so they’d made him look like Frankenstein.

“I was wrong,” Fontaine said.

“That’s it? You were wrong?” Shelly looked at Rags and Chance in disbelief. “Can you believe this guy? He was
wrong
. He’s gone and wasted our money, and he acts like it doesn’t matter.”

“I think we’re entitled to compensation for our loss,” Rags said. He crossed his arms and puffed up his chest. “Know what I mean?”

Fontaine went to the window and stared next door. He found the statue of Nola Briggs in the fountains and felt a fist go tight in his chest. They had nearly pulled off the heist of the century; then Tony Valentine had stepped in and ruined everything.

“Not really,” Fontaine said.

“We hired you to shut the Acropolis down,” Rags said. “Do that, and we’ll be square.”

“Is that what you want me to do?”

Fontaine saw the three men nod in the glass’s reflection, and laughed silently to himself. He’d heard they wanted Nick to go under, so he’d made them an offer. He’d bankrupt the Acropolis if they’d fund him. All he’d wanted was capital. Not once had he said exactly how much it would cost.

“You’re saying I should work for free,” Fontaine said.

“That’s right,” Rags said.

Fontaine eyes shifted to the dumpy Acropolis and he felt himself smile. Nick’s casino was directly between Sin and two casinos owned by Shelly Michael and Rags Richardson. He’d always been good at figuring out puzzles. It was what had gotten him out of the joint. And now he’d figured out why these greedy pricks wanted Nick Nicocropolis gone.

“Isn’t that something,” Fontaine said. “I just noticed how Nick’s casino stands between your casinos. Did you guys ever notice that?” He turned from the window and gave them his best prison-yard stare. “You want to build a walkway between your casinos, don’t you? Keep the suckers all to yourselves. That way, you can’t lose them to a competitor.”

“Stay out of our business,” Rags said.

Rags’s tone had a real threat behind it. Fontaine looked him over. A big black guy dressed like an African prince, his clothes all shiny. Rags wouldn’t last a week in the place he’d just come from.

Fontaine removed a square of paper from his pocket and unfolded it. It had been torn from the infamous Nevada Black Book. The book contained mug shots of individuals who’d cheated Vegas’s casinos, and were barred from entering any gaming establishment. He raised the paper to eye level, letting them see his picture.

“So?” Rags said.

“I’m not allowed in any Nevada casino, yet here I am. Know why?”

The three men shook their heads.

“Because the FBI wants me here, that’s why.” He paused to look each man in the eye. “I’ve got the tiger by the balls, boys. Welch on this deal, and I’ll
fuck
you permanently. Understand?”

Fontaine saw the fight leave their faces. Mentioning the FBI had done the trick. They had become Nevada’s casinos worse nightmare, and had every owner in town shitting in his pants. He went to the door. “I’ll call you in a few days.”

“What about Valentine?” Shelly said.

“What about him?”

“You two have a history. He’s not going to ignore you if you run into each other at the Acropolis.”

A history. That was a nice way to put it. He’d killed Valentine’s brother-in-law twenty years ago, and Valentine had paid him back by getting Nola sent to prison, where she’d gotten sick and died. No, he and Valentine had a lifetime together.

“I’ll take care of him,” Fontaine said.

“Will we be funding that as well?” Shelly asked.

The question was on each man’s face. That was the beauty of Las Vegas. No matter what it was about, it was
always
about money.

“On the house,” he replied.

5

V
alentine felt like he was dancing.

Lucy Price was as light as a feather in his arms. As she pulled away from him, her chin grazed his. Their eyes met, and she said, “You’re not a cop?”

“No.”

“Then why did you save me?”

Because you remind me of her,
he nearly said. Through the slider, he saw that the suite had filled with security people. He escorted Lucy inside and let Wily, the casino’s head of security, take over. Wily couldn’t connect life’s dots if he had a blueprint, yet had managed to stay in Nick’s employ for fifteen years. He wore a sharkskin suit—the norm for casino management these days—and had spiked his hair with mousse. Lucy tried to scratch his eyes out.

Wily wrestled with her briefly, then handed her over to a pair of security guards. She left the suite kicking and screaming. Wily brushed himself off, then shot Valentine a loopy grin.

“For an old guy, you sure attract the dames.”

“Shut up,” Valentine said, tucking in his shirt.

“What’s wrong with your pants?”

“They don’t fit. The airline lost my luggage.”

“Why did you buy a pair that doesn’t fit?”

“I like wasting money.”

“I guess so.”

Valentine tried tightening his belt, only it made him look like a circus clown. Out in the hallway, he could hear Lucy putting up a fuss as she was dragged into an elevator.

“What’s her beef, anyway?” he asked.

“That’s a good question,” Wily said. “Little Miss Lucy won twenty-five thousand bucks playing blackjack, so we comped her into a suite. She woke up this morning, and the money was gone from the room safe. She went ballistic, claimed we stole it.”

“Did you?”

“Very funny,” Wily said.

Wily offered to buy him coffee, and they took an elevator to the first floor. The Acropolis was not responsible for money left in room safes, he explained on the way down. Insurance didn’t permit it, and there was a sign in every guest room.

“Lucy Price’s money isn’t our problem,” Wily said.

They walked through the bustling casino. It was designed like the hub of a wagon wheel, with table games and slot and video poker machines in the center, and all other destinations flowing from that center. Once, all casinos had been designed this way, the idea being that people would drop a few dollars each time they passed by.

They entered Nick’s Bar. Wily grabbed a table with a
RESERVED
tent and motioned to the hostess, a pretty woman in a toga. “Coffee for two. And make it fast, okay?”

The hostess left. At the next table, a group of intoxicated men were whooping it up. Behind the bar, two backlit screens contained shadows of topless dancers gyrating to blaring music. Valentine glanced at his watch. Ten in the morning.

“I saw Nola Briggs’s statue in the fountains,” Valentine said. “Is Nick still pining after her?”

“Yeah,” Wily said. “He really loved that chick.”

“When does she get out of prison?”

Wily gave him a somber look. “You didn’t hear?”

“No. What?”

“Nola died in prison. Some sort of female thing. Bled to death internally. The doctors thought she had food poisoning.”

Their coffee came. Valentine stared at the reflection in his cup. Nola hadn’t been a bad person, just wounded, and he’d imagined her getting her life back together once she got out of prison. It made him feel bad to know that would never happen.

“So, what brings you to town?” Wily asked.

“Checking up on my son,” he said. “He just started working for me. I wanted him to learn card-counting at blackjack, so I paid for him to attend Bart Calhoun’s school.”

“So you’re spying on him,” Wily said.

Valentine didn’t answer him.

“I hope your son’s not tempted too easily,” Wily said.

“Why’s that?”

“A lot of newbies form teams. Being new, we don’t have their faces in our computers. A new team took Harrah’s for two hundred grand last month.”

Valentine sipped his coffee. It sounded exactly like something Gerry might try. His son had been on the wrong side of the law since he was a teenager. Now thirty-six, he’d recently decided to go legit, mainly because he was married to a wonderful woman named Yolanda, and there was a baby on the way. Only
legit
had a different meaning to Gerry than it did to most people.

Valentine stared at the drunks whooping it up at the next table and realized he’d made a big mistake. Vegas was Sin City. He should never have sent Gerry here.

He glanced across the table at Wily. “Any idea where Calhoun’s school is? The phone number I’ve got is answered by a service.”

“Calhoun is a hard guy to pin down. I’ll put some feelers out for you, if you want.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.”

Wily gulped down his coffee. “Remember those Asian cheaters I e-mailed you about? The ones beating us silly at baccarat?”

Valentine dredged his memory. He was on a monthly retainer for several dozen casinos and received distress calls constantly. Then he remembered. “Three males, early thirties, playing a thousand bucks a hand. Winning way too much.”

“That’s them,” Wily said. “You told me they were probably nail-nicking the cards. Said it was an Asian specialty. Well, you were right.”