The Midnight Club_ A Novel - James Patterson [51]
Now the Midnight Club was in Atlantic City. The syndicate is meeting inside Trump Plaza, Stefanovitch thought as he approached the boardwalk in a slow-moving stream of late afternoon traffic.
48
STEFANOVITCH DROVE UP in front of the Tropicana. He handed the car-park kid ten bucks, and asked him to keep the van handy. He had no intention of showing his shield to get special attention. No one could know that the New York police and the FBI were in Atlantic City.
“You get this chit validated inside the casino, sir. Then your parking’s free. I’m on until two to get your car, sir.”
“Thanks. Hope this is my lucky night,” Stefanovitch said. He smiled at the hustling kid, who’d already spotted the wheelchair in the back.
“Any help with that, sir?”
“I’m fine. Thanks anyway.”
“You get it in Nam, sir?”
“Nope. Supply store on Fourteenth Street.”
The FBI and the police had taken adjoining suites on the nineteenth floor of the Tropicana. They were registered as business executives at a sales conference for Thomson Electronics, the company that now owned RCA.
David Wilkes of the FBI ambled toward the door as Stefanovitch entered. There must have been forty officers and agents inside already. Telex machines and IBM PCs were working as fast as the slots downstairs.
“Jesus Christ,” Stefanovitch muttered as he rolled inside the crowded hotel suite. “This is worse than the casinos.”
He and Wilkes shook hands. Wilkes was a friend of the New York police, and a real pro. He was buttoned up, very thorough, and basically nonterritorial. Wilkes also had an irreverent sense of humor, which was unusual for an FBI man.
“Do you feel like you’ve got enough help here?” Stefanovitch looked around the packed suite. His smile dripped irony as thick as any syrupy concoction from the boardwalk.
“I don’t have enough of my own men, and too many of everybody else’s.” Wilkes was a Virginian with a soft, easy drawl. “I’ve got lots of Atlantic City P.D., which is like getting help from a police auxiliary unit,” he went on. “There are New Jersey state troopers, which would be fine and dandy if this were a Bruce Springsteen concert.”
John Stefanovitch was already peering out of a row of glazed picture windows that faced Trump Plaza.
“What about our friends staying over at Trump’s? Who’ve you seen go in there so far? Nice crowd?”
“Oh, sure. About a dozen of the dream-teamers so far. There are maybe three times that number in soldiers. We’re keeping a log, running the list through the mainframe down in Washington. Computer connectivity, Stef, nothing like it. A ton of pretty women are cruising in and out of the penthouse. Some very pretty ladies over there.”
“Yeah, there’s been some kind of connection to the ladies from the start. I doubt it’s coincidence that this all started at Allure.”
“Sex still makes the world go round. You know, I used to fantasize about a bust like this. You ever?”
Stefanovitch continued to stare down the Atlantic City boardwalk—at Trump Plaza, at something off in the distance.
“Not since about two years ago,” he finally answered. “A place called Long Beach. That was my big fantasy bust. It’s not everything it’s cracked up to be.”
“We don’t believe the official meetings have actually begun yet. The dons, some of the bosses, are still arriving. It’s pretty sobering—to watch all of the big guys roll in, to see them all together in one place.”
“Yeah. And it’s only going to get better. All of them over there. All of us over here. Reminds me of Catholic school dances I used to go to.”
49
Isiah Parker; Atlantic City
ISIAH PARKER HAD registered under a false name at Trump Plaza. Detectives Jimmy Burke and Aurelio Rodriquez were at separate hotels along the boardwalk: Burke was at Bally’s; Rodriquez was up at Resorts International. They were waiting for the final assignment; for a name, or names.
Inside his ocean-view room at Trump’s, Parker unpacked a black leather duffel bag, which held his work clothes and supplies. He checked and cleaned his .22,