Wild Card

Izzie whistled through his teeth. “What did you do, rob a bank?”

“None of your fucking business. Deal ‘em.”

Izzie shuffled the deck sitting on the table, and had Vi

Vi

Izzie didn’t like it. If Vi

“Hey Josh,” Izzie said. “Get me a Coke, will you?”

“Sure,” Josh said. “Anyone else want anything?”

“I want a slow gin fizz,” Seymour said.

The brothers laughed. Vi

Josh retreated to the kitchen, and ran cold water over his wrists. They’d made a lot of money since adding the pool table and the second card table. So why did Izzie have to bring this cretin home? They were playing with fire, and were going to get burned. He grabbed a bottle of Coke from the fridge and returned to the den.

Josh approached the table, then froze. Vi

Josh looked at Vi

“Why did you do that?” Izzie shouted.

Josh pointed at the ceiling. Izzie looked up at the butterflies.

“Whoops,” Izzie said.

They laid Vi

“He told me he’s staying in one of the high roller suites in Resorts’ hotel,” Izzie said, calmly smoking a cigarette while Josh and Seymour paced the den. “He must have a key on him. I say we take him back, and lay him out on his bed. Then we pack our stuff, and go find another house.”

“What about the furniture?” Seymour said.

“We leave it.”

“The pool table, too?”

“Yes. We’ve got to move fast. If Vi

Seymour stomped around the room in anger. He’d spent a whole week gaffing the pool table so they could cheat at dice on it. It was a thing of real beauty, and was going to make them rich.

“ We can’t leave it,” Seymour whined.

“Stop acting like a baby,” Izzie said.

Josh got on his knees, and searched Vi

“Oh-oh,” Josh said.

Izzie knelt down; so did Seymour. They had seen the money belt, too.

“Better see what he’s carrying,” Izzie said.

Josh undid Vi

It was a hundred grand.

Josh’s hands began to tremble. He looked into his brothers’ eyes. They were thinking the same thing, and equally terrified.

Vi

Chapter 25

Valentine felt the change in Lois the next morning. His wife was the same, only she wasn’t the same. She fixed his usual breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast, filled his coffee cup, said have a nice day, and kissed him goodbye. But it wasn’t the same. She was going through the motions.

Driving to work, it hit him over the head like a lead pipe what was wrong. Lois didn’t care about the scam at the casino, or the mafia. She wanted him to find the Dresser, just like every other woman in Atlantic City wanted the police to find the Dresser. Lois was scared out of her wits, and somehow he’d failed to notice. Reaching his office inside Resorts’ surveillance control room, he picked up the phone and called his wife at work. And he’d apologized.

“I knew you’d figure it out eventually,” she said. “Does this mean you’re still going to help the FBI find the killer?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’ll just do it without telling anyone.”

“Thank you,” his wife said.

He said goodbye and hung up. Doyle came into his office a few moments later. His partner had a surveillance tape in his hand, and popped it into the VCR on Valentine’s desk. The monitor beside the VCR came to life.

“Take a look at this,” Doyle said.

The tape was of Resorts’ hotel lobby, and showed a drunk being dragged across the lobby by three men. A stack of money fell out of the drunk’s shirt. One of the men picked it up, and shoved it into the drunk’s pocket. Doyle froze the tape.

“So what,” Valentine said.

“The drunk is the same guy we saw Mickey Wright give all those chips yesterday,” Doyle said.

Valentine stared at the screen. “Jesus. You’re right.”

Doyle hit play, and the tape changed to show the hotel’s elevators. The men appeared in the picture, and propped the drunk in the corner of an empty car. Then the doors closed. The elevator had an old-fashioned floor indicator and rose to the penthouse without stopping.

“He must be a guest,” Valentine said.

“That’s what I thought,” Doyle said.

“He isn’t?”

“I called the front desk, tried to find out who he was. The penthouse has ten suites, I figured it would be easy to peg him. Only the girl said the penthouse suites are taken by a junket of Asians from Hong Kong.”

“The guy doesn’t exist?”

“Not according to the hotel.”

Anonymous guests in the hotel’s penthouse was nothing knew. Celebrities had stayed in the hotel’s penthouse anonymously all the time. Only the drunk in the tape wasn’t anybody famous. And he was carrying a lot of money hidden in his shirt.

Valentine rewound the tape, and watched it again. This time, he stared at the three guys escorting the drunk. They looked related, with curly hair and bounces to their walk. They reminded him of the Marx brothers, and he found himself trying to place them.

“I’ve seen those guys before,” he said.

“Really? From where?” Doyle asked.

“The Catskill Mountains.”

“Do you remember their names?”

“No. But my wife will.”

“You’re so sweet,” Lois said.

Valentine had followed up his apology of that morning by delivering lunch to his wife at work. He’d brought a New York Delight — fresh bagels, cream cheese with chives, and thinly sliced lox. They sat at a table in the cafeteria amongst the noiseless students, and he saw the light return to her face. She wasn’t angry with him anymore.

Several students came by the table, and signed the word Hello. As a young woman, his wife had modeled for a while, decided she didn’t like it, and gone to work at the school. The school had been a dumping ground for rich parents with deaf kids, and the curriculum was poor. Over time, Lois and other teachers had changed that, and classes now included signing, lip reading, and dealing with emotional problems.

“Remember when we met in the Catskill Mountains as kids,” Valentine said.