Sucker bet - James Swain [42]
Leaving Saul Hyman’s condo, Valentine called Bill Higgins on his cell phone. Ten minutes later, they were sitting in a corner of the Loews restaurant, sharing a pot of coffee. Valentine spelled out what Saul had told him, then said, “I think Saul knows more than he’s letting on. I want you to tail him for a few days. You still remember what he looks like?”
“I sure do,” Bill said. “I arrested him after he fleeced a Texas oil tycoon in a bridge game. The Texan was a world-class player, too.”
“Let me guess,” Valentine said. “Saul had inside help.”
Bill nodded. “Saul played the Texan at a table by the hotel pool. At the next table was Saul’s plant. The plant was reading a newspaper with a slit in it. He looked at the Texan’s cards, and by breathing through his nose, he signaled to Saul how to bet.”
“The whiff,” Valentine said.
“You’ve heard of it?”
Valentine said yes. He’d seen his grandmother and one of her friends do it at a card game in the Catskills over fifty years ago.
“I didn’t have enough evidence for a conviction,” Bill said. “But I took what I had to the state gaming board, and they barred Saul from ever returning to Nevada.” He picked up the pot and refilled their mugs. “So, why do you think he’s involved?”
The coffee was unusually good, maybe the best cup Valentine had tasted in Miami. He’d be back here again. “I’m pretty good at knowing when people are lying to me. I didn’t think Saul was, but then I got to thinking. Saul says he hasn’t seen Victor Marks in years. That’s bull. He and Victor were friends for forty years. You ever have a buddy like that?”
“Sure,” Bill said.
“I bet you talk to him every few weeks.”
“At least.”
“So Saul’s lying. He should have said, ‘I haven’t heard from him since Thanksgiving.’ That I would have bought. But not in years.”
Valentine wrote down Saul’s address on a napkin, then described the condo building right down to the height of the hedges. “There’s a wall around the property. If Saul tries to leave, he’ll have to go out through the front entrance. I saw his car keys sitting on a table. He drives a Toyota.”
Bill paid for the coffee, and they rose from the table. Everything had seemed fine until that moment, then the facade on Bill’s face cracked and the deep worry lines broke through. Valentine said, “Something wrong?”
“I got a call from the Broward police. A body was found in a Fort Lauderdale Dumpster. They think it’s Jack Lightfoot. They want me at the morgue to make an ID.”
Valentine could tell that Bill was hurting inside. That was where they were different. He hardly ever felt bad for crooks. They walked outside to the valet stand.
“You want company?” Valentine asked.
“If you’re up to it,” his friend said.
Whoever had dumped Jack Lightfoot’s body was not very smart. He had seaweed in his hair and swamp water in his lungs, and both arms and one of his legs had been chewed off. It was obvious that he’d died in a swamp.
Enough of his face remained to make a positive identification, and Bill’s hand had shaken as he signed the coroner’s statement. An hour later, Valentine dropped him off at the Loews, then went back to his hotel. He felt dog-tired, and the king-size bed in his room was calling to him. Walking into the Fontainebleau’s lobby, he spotted an Indian woman in a dark business suit by the elevators. Late twenties, short black hair, flat face, a little stocky. She approached him with an expectant look on her face.
“Mr. Valentine?”
He nodded, and she handed him her card. Gladys Soft Wings. Her title was legal representative for the Micanopy nation. It was a deceiving name. There didn’t appear to be anything soft about her.
“I’m here on behalf