“And Jinky turned on you.”

“That would be my guess.”

“Think it has something to do with the case you’re investigating?”

Gerry considered the detective’s question. He hadn’t told Longo that Jinky had rigged the ring games at the WPS because he had yet to tell his father, and it would be his father’s call if he chose to pass the information on to the Metro LVPD. But telling Longo that Jinky was up to something had its merits. For one thing, it might lead to getting Jinky thrown in jail, which would suit Gerry just fine.

“Yes,” he said.

Longo raised his coffee cup to his lips, took a sip, and grimaced. “This has to be the worst coffee I’ve ever tasted. You’re some actor.”

“My mother taught me never to be disrespectful to my hosts,” Gerry said.

The detective grinned and put his cup down. “I’ve gone through my life believing that if we all listened to our mothers, the world would be free of problems. I have a proposition for you, which I’d like you to share with your friends.”

“Shoot.”

“I’m going to let you walk. Furthermore, I’m going to write up this case so it will never come back to haunt you, or your friends. Sound good so far?”

“Like a dream,” Gerry said.

Longo nodded. He had put all his cards on the table, something law enforcement people seldom did. Leaning forward, he dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Good. Here’s what I want in return. Jinky Harris has slipped through my fingers more times than I can count. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he was tapping my phone.

“I need to put this piece of garbage away, and not just because he’s a pimp. We have thousands of whores in this town, and always will. Furthermore, a lot of people make money from pimping these girls—cabbies, bartenders, bellhops, concierges, motel managers, even valets get in the act. Where there’s easy money, there are whores, and people making money off them.

“If Jinky was just a pimp, I wouldn’t be asking for your help. But he’s more than that. He caters to teenage runaways and underage girls. He gives them jobs in his club, then gets them freebasing on cocaine until they owe him money. Then he starts pimping them to his clients. The girls can’t escape because there’s nowhere to go, Las Vegas being the kind of hospitable town that it is. When the girls are used up, he gives them a bus ticket, and kicks them out.”

“You’re saying Jinky is in the slave trade,” Gerry said.

“Yes,” Longo said. He took out his wallet and unfolded it, letting Gerry see the snapshot of two beaming high school beauties that he kept next to his heart. “I’ve been a cop in this town for twenty-plus years. I didn’t pay attention to this kind of stuff until my babies hit puberty. Then one day it hit me what a hypocrite I was. I don’t want that happening to my girls, or for that matter, anyone else’s. Jinky Harris needs to be put away for the rest of his life. If you can help me do that, I’ll be eternally grateful.”

A cool breeze blew through the open window, and invisible particles of sand grated against Gerry’s face. Over the years, he’d heard stories from his father about strange alliances that police formed with crooks, and the uneasy trust that these alliances produced. But he sensed that this was something different. By talking about his girls, Longo had confided in him. Gerry hadn’t done anything to deserve that, and he assumed it was because of the respect Longo had for his father. Longo wasn’t treating him like a crook at all. He was treating him like a good cop’s son.

“I’ll do whatever I can to help you,” Gerry said. Then he added, “And so will my friends.”

35

“Iwant to go home,” Skip DeMarco said.

DeMarco sat on the couch with an ice pack pressed to his head, his uncle sitting beside him. It was midnight, and his head had finally cleared from the fall he’d taken. He still wasn’t sure what had happened. One minute he was standing in the doorway, listening to his uncle have a conversation with a visitor, the next he was being given smelling salts. His uncle said he’d been out cold for fifteen minutes.

“Once the tournament is over, we’ll go right home,” his uncle said.

“I want to go home right now,” DeMarco said.

“We can’t do that, Skipper.”

DeMarco snapped his head in his uncle’s direction. “We?”

“You can’t do that, Skipper.”

“Why not, Uncle George? Why not?”

“Because we’re committed, that’s why.”

DeMarco could hear his heart banging in his ears, drowning out the rest of the world. Being the nephew of a Mafia kingpin, he understood exactly what that meant. A lot of people were involved in this. His uncle had struck deals, paid people off, made promises that he was bound to keep. His cojones were on the chopping block.

“I don’t give a rat’s ass,” DeMarco said.

“You sound like you’re twelve when you say that,” his uncle scolded him. “Talk like a man, for Christ’s sake.”

“I want to go home. I don’t feel safe here.”

His uncle didn’t have an answer for that. DeMarco lowered the ice pack and took several deep breaths. The fifteen minutes he’d been unconscious had done a number on his head, and he’d woken up knowing something that had been lurking in his subconscious for a long time. He was in over his head. Way over.

“Skipper, I’m sorry for what happened. It won’t happen again.”

“Twice today I’ve been knocked flat on my ass,” DeMarco said, seeing his opening. “Twice. Once in the lobby by a gang; then tonight, right here in my own suite. How can you make a promise like that, considering what’s happened? I don’t feel safe here. Is this deal more important than my safety?”

His uncle’s breathing grew labored. When DeMarco was younger and his vision better, he’d memorized everything about anybody that mattered to him, his uncle George especially. At this very moment, his uncle was staring at the floor, at a loss for words.

“Nothing means more to me than your safety,” his uncle said.

“Even being committed?”

“I cannot back out of my commitments, Skipper, and neither can you. I’m deeply sorry about what happened. And it won’t happen again. I’ve made sure of that.”

DeMarco didn’t doubt that. He’d heard his uncle on the phone, telling someone named Jinky Harris how he wanted Tony Valentine taken out of the picture. Over a dozen times his uncle had called Jinky either a fat fuck, or a worthless piece of shit, obscenities that his uncle used when he wanted to make a point. But that still didn’t change things. His uncle had decided to stay in Las Vegas without consulting him. He pushed himself off the couch in anger.

“Skipper, sit down.”

“No thanks, Uncle George. You could have asked me, you know?”

“I gave these men my word. You wouldn’t ask me to go back on my word?”

It was his uncle’s argument for everything. That a man’s word was more important than his relationships. It said everything you needed to know about the Mafia.

“Would you put my lifeabove your word?” DeMarco asked, bumping into the coffee table because he’d risen too fast, the sudden pain making him wince. He heard his uncle’s body leave the couch. “Don’t. I’m okay.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“Skipper, I would not put your life above anything.But these men are not trying to kill you. They want to discredit you, so you’ll be thrown out of the tournament. You don’t want that, do you?”

DeMarco’s leg was singing the blues where he’d banged it. He hated pain; it ignited too many memories buried deep in his soul. His uncle came over, and offered his arm. DeMarco pushed it away.

“Put yourself in my shoes for once,” he said.