Deadman's Bluff - James Swain [33]
“Valentine.”
“Tony Valentine?”
“Yeah. You know him?”
Little Hands lowered the barbell and forced Big Juan to do another press. He’d dreamed about snuffing Valentine ever since being locked up. Valentine had sucker-punched him in a Vegas motel while Little Hands was staring at a porno movie playing on the TV. The movie had reminded Little Hands of something he’d seen his mother doing when he was a little kid. It had messed Little Hands up real good.
Big Juan was shaking his head in defeat. He’d had enough. Little Hands lifted the bar off his chest, and Big Juan shut his eyes.
Little Hands crossed the weight room with a towel in his hands. He looked out the barred window that faced the yard. Ely housed over a thousand prisoners along with the state’s Death Row inmates. Security was tight, with armed guards sitting in turrets on the two main buildings, watching the yard twenty-four hours a day. He’d heard lifers talk about “escaping” by running between the two main buildings, and going out in a blaze of gunfire. No one had ever escaped, and he imagined the glory of being the first.
“Get your hands off the bars,” the guard called out.
Little Hands released the bars and turned to face the guard.
“Sorry.”
Comic book in his lap, the guard fingered his double-barreled shotgun. He was a round kid with a moon face and flour-sack arms.
“Get away from the window,” the guard said.
“I was just looking.”
“You heard me, Hercules.”
Little Hands walked back to the weight bench. Big Juan was still panting like he’d just run a four-minute mile. The guard picked up his comic book and emitted a loud belch as he flipped back to his spot.
“I want the job,” Little Hands said.
Big Juan nodded, then tried to get up. He fell back hard on the bench and closed his eyes. When he reopened them, there was a new appreciation in his face.
“Doesn’t all that weight make you hurt?” Big Juan asked.
“Sure,” Little Hands said.
“Why do you do it?”
Little Hands smiled to himself. Big Juan’s muscles would be burning, his body going into shock. He would hurt for days, had maybe even damaged his joints or his heart. He did not understand pain the way Little Hands understood pain. Few people did.
“Because I like it,” Little Hands said.
16
“Have you ever seen one of these before?” Detective Joey Marconi asked.
Gerry Valentine tiredly shook his head. Late morning, and he was sitting in the hospital visitors’ area with Eddie Davis’s partner, having spent several hours going over what had happened outside Bally’s.
Marconi was holding a New York Yankees baseball cap. He’d found the cap on the floor of Bally’s while chasing the other members of Abruzzi’s gang, who’d escaped out the casino’s rear exit. The cap had a miniature receiver and three light-emitting diodes sewn into its rim, and had been used to rip Bally’s off at blackjack.
Gerry had seen some sophisticated cheating equipment since going to work for his father, but the cap was unique. By looking upward into the cap’s rim, a cheater could read signals being sent by another member of the crew. Like looking at a tiny movie screen, Gerry thought.
“Do you know how the cap works?” Marconi asked.
“I think so,” Gerry said.
Marconi was on his sixth cup of coffee, and as animated as a five-year-old with a sugar buzz. He was small and wiry and so Italian he looked Greek. He wore the standard undercover detective’s uniform: blue jeans and a sweatshirt with a pullover hood. Across the front of the sweatshirt were the words I’M BLIND, I’M DEAF, I WANT TO BE A REF!
“You have to do better than that, Gerry,” Marconi said.
“I do?”
“Yes. Your story will determine how this case is handled.”
“Handled by who?”
“The district attorney.”
Gerry took a deep breath. This wasn’t going right. Marconi was treating him like a suspect, instead of someone who’d saved his partner’s life. He put his elbows on his knees, and gave Marconi a hard look.
“Excuse me, but what am I missing here? Abruzzi was going to shoot Eddie. I did the only thing I could.”
“I believe you, but we have to make sure the district