Sucker bet - James Swain [28]
“He’s on a cruise.”
“To . . . where?”
Mabel turned, showing her best game face. “He didn’t say.”
“Do you know which line?”
“He told me he was driving to Miami and was going to book himself on the next cruise he could find. I don’t think he had a destination in mind. He just wanted to—”
“Climb into a hole?” Kat’s face was flushed, yet her voice did not change. “I wish you’d told me sooner, Mabel. I’ve had enough surprises the past few days.”
Kat’s gaze had turned cold and unfriendly. Mabel stood her ground. May God strike me dead for lying, she thought. She loved Tony in a way this woman could not understand—loved his principles and his values and his big, wonderful heart—and was not going to let Kat hurt him again.
“I’m sorry,” Mabel said.
The uniformed valet at the Loews was a pissant Cuban who acted like he’d never seen a car with a hundred sixty thousand miles. Valentine tossed him the keys, hitting him squarely in the chest. The valet’s face puffed up in a confrontational snarl.
“You speak English?” Valentine asked.
The valet’s look turned homicidal. Valentine’s question was obviously not politically correct in this corner of the world.
“You a cop?” the valet asked.
“Show me your green card, and I’ll show you my badge.”
The valet jumped into the Honda and gunned it. Valentine laughed for the first time that day, and it made him feel good. He went inside.
The Loews was a mammoth hotel and as cold as a meat locker. It was stupid. Up and down the beach, they were building monoliths, with fancy carpeting and fine paintings, instead of what Miami needed, which was beachfront joints with bamboo furniture and cool tile floors. That was what Miami Beach used to be, and it had been great. This wasn’t.
He stopped at the hotel’s restaurant. He was always hungry when he was working, and he read the menu on the door. Sixteen bucks for a dozen shrimp buried in cocktail sauce. With tax and tip, twenty bucks easy. He’d starve first, and went searching for the house phones.
They were by the elevators. He dialed zero and an operator came on.
“Room of Jason Black, please.”
“My pleasure, sir.”
It sounded like something a coolie would say. It wasn’t her pleasure at all. It was her fricking job. The call rang through and Bill picked up.
“Guess who,” Valentine said.
“Tony?”
Valentine thought about playing Bill along, seeing how many more lies he could trick him into saying. Only, Bill was a friend, and he wanted to give him another chance to keep their friendship alive. “Very good,” he said.
Bill’s voice changed. “How did you know I was here?”
“I was a detective for thirty years, remember?”
“Are you nearby?”
“In the lobby,” Valentine said.
Bill’s suite looked lived-in. Chinese take-out cartons on the table, empty bottles, the muted TV turned to CNN. Like he was on a stakeout. They shook hands a little too formally. Valentine sat on the couch, Bill in the room’s only chair.
Bill hadn’t changed much over the years. Full head of black hair, his body lean. Facially, he wore an expression that Valentine likened to that of a cigar-store Indian, but had never said so, fearful of offending him. That expression was now gone, replaced by one of apprehension and worry.
“I’ve done something really bad,” Bill said.
“Can it be fixed?”
Bill clasped his hands together. “I don’t know. Probably not.”
“You gonna tell me what happened, or do we have to arm wrestle?”
Bill flashed a rare smile. From the minibar he removed two Diet Cokes, pouring one for Valentine without asking. “I got a call from the Justice Department a month ago,” he said, “asking me to help them investigate the mob’s infiltration of Florida’s Indian casinos. Specifically, they wanted me to look at the Micanopys.”
“Why you?”
“Five years ago, I went undercover for Justice and infiltrated the Indian casinos in northern California, then wrote a report citing where I thought organized crime was operating.”
“So you have a history with them.”
“Right.