Finishing his exercises, he sat on his haunches in front of the window, watching the sun rise. Dawn was the best part of the day, the first rays of sun filled with promise and hope. His mother had taught him that, and he had never forgotten it.

He shaved, then took a hot shower. His exercises consumed twenty minutes of every day. That, his walking, and his judo classes kept him sharp. He wasn’t the man he used to be, but he was a hell of a lot closer than most guys his age.

He took his time dressing, and was ready to go downstairs to have breakfast with Gloria Curtis at eight. His cell phone was on his night table, and he powered it up and found a message from Gerry. He listened to it, his son’s overapologizing making him smile. If only his wife were alive to hear this. He walked out of his bedroom with the cell phone in his hand. As he passed the couch, Rufus spoke up.

“You ain’t running out on me, are you?”

Valentine reached over and removed the Stetson from Rufus’s face. The old cowboy was wide awake and twirling a wooden toothpick between his gums.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Valentine said, tossing the hat into Rufus’s lap. “I’m meeting Gloria Curtis for breakfast, and then we’ll both come over to the poker room to film you and your X-ray eyes. I sure hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Well, there is one thing I failed to mention, come to think of it.”

The words had a serious tone to them, and Valentine stared at him. “What’s that?”

“The boys who fleeced me last night—the ones I’m about to fleece back?”

“What about them?”

“I told them they could invite their friends to the demonstration this morning, and that if their friends wanted in on the action, they could have some.”

Valentine felt something drop in his stomach. He’d reluctantly agreed to front Rufus the hundred grand he was going to need to fleece the boys who’d cheated him at poker. Now, Rufus was telling him that there was going to be more action, and that he was going to have to cover it, since Rufus was flat broke. He pulled up a chair and sat in it so he was facing his guest.

“Their friends?”

“You know, some of the boys.”

“In other words, more suckers.”

“Now, I didn’t say that, but I wouldn’t call these boys the most knowledgeable gamblers who’ve ever lived, just some of the greediest.”

“How much additional action will I have to cover?”

Rufus scratched the steel-gray stubble on his chin. His posture on the couch reminded Valentine of the uneasy sleepers he used to have to run off from the public places in Atlantic City when he was a street cop. “That’s hard to say,” Rufus said.

“Take a wild guess.”

“Okay. Another hundred and fifty grand. Maybe two hundred, if we’re lucky.”

Valentine blew out his cheeks and stared at the carpet. He’d retired on his pension and social security and a little money squirreled away in the bank. Opening Grift Sense had been a windfall, and the last time he’d checked his bank statement, the account was hovering at three hundred thousand dollars. The notion that he might lose all of it covering Rufus Steele’s bet did not seem real, and he forced himself to his feet.

“You look slightly perturbed,” Rufus said.

“I am,” Valentine said. “This is my life savings we’re talking about.”

“Stop worrying, pardner. This is a sure thing.”

If there was any lesson Valentine had learned from the gambling business, it was that you didn’t mail in the results, and there was no such thing as a sure thing. People who believed otherwise ended up in the poorhouse, and he left the suite without saying another word to his guest.

Talking to Rufus had made him late for his breakfast with Gloria Curtis, and he found her sitting at a secluded table in the hotel restaurant, the simmering look in her eyes suggesting she was ready to walk out. He slid into the seat across from her.

“Oversleep?” she asked.

Her question had a bite to it, like a guy as old as him might need to get his rest.

“Actually, I was up with the sunrise,” he said. “My roommate dropped a bombshell on me, and I needed to have a chat with him. I’m sorry I’m late.”

“Care to share?”

A waitress filled their cups with coffee, then glanced into their faces, and said she’d come back. She was the first competent person Valentine had encountered in the hotel.

“Rufus has bet some guys that he has X-ray vision,” he said.

“So I’ve heard.”

“Well, it appears I’ll be fading the action on his wager. Since we’re talking about several hundred thousand dollars, I wanted to talk it over with him.”

“Fading the action?”

Valentine sipped his coffee and nodded. “It’s one of gambling’s little secrets. A gambler will use another gambler’s money to play with, only he doesn’t tell anyone. The problem with this wager is that Rufus didn’t bother to tell me.”

His words slowly registered across Gloria’s face, and her anger was replaced by a look of concern. Her hand came across the table and encircled his wrist.

“How much money are we talking about?”

“Three hundred thousand dollars.”

“Are you serious?”

“I’m always serious.”

“Can you cover it?”

He was tempted to say just barely, but nodded instead. Her fingers felt comforting against his skin, and he suddenly knew exactly what she was thinking. Before the words could come out of her mouth, he said, “I know, he’s wrong, and I shouldn’t be backing him, but these guys cheated him in a poker game, so Rufus is going to cheat them right back.”

“What if he loses the bet?” Gloria said. “Then what?”

Her hand was still on top of his wrist. She’d done that the night before at dinner to gain his confidence, and Valentine decided he liked it. The world of gambling was new to her, and she wanted to learn, so long as the person teaching her was someone she could trust. He decided he liked that, too.

“Then I pay up,” Valentine said.

“You would?”

“Every last cent.”

“But these men that Rufus is gambling with, they don’t know he’s using your money,” she said, lowering her voice. “What if you told Rufus to forget it, that he’d have to find the money someplace else. What then?”

“Then Rufus would have to tell them he didn’t have the money, and give the men IOUs. The gamblers would be angry, and they’d sell the IOUs to wise guys, who’d show up on Rufus’s doorstep in a few days, looking for payment.”

“What if Rufus refused, or was flat broke? What then?”

Valentine looked into Gloria’s eyes while considering the best way to answer her. He’d lived in a violent world for the better part of his life, and had done a good job of shielding the people he cared about from that world. His role was that of a filter, and it was not a responsibility he took lightly. He said, “There used to be this famous gambler in New York City named Arnold Rothstein. Supposedly, Rothstein was responsible for fixing the 1919 baseball World Series.”

“The infamous Black Sox scandal,” Gloria said.

“That’s right. One night in New York, Rothstein got in a poker game with a gambler named Titanic Thompson, and ended up losing half a million bucks. Rothstein gave Thompson an IOU, and Thompson sold the IOU to some hoodlums. They tried to collect, and Rothstein welshed. Guess what happened.”

“That was the end of Arnold Rothstein.”

“Exactly.”

“Would you do that to Rufus?”

Valentine’s coffee cup had mysteriously emptied itself, and he stared at the grounds in its bottom. He was angry with Rufus for putting him in such a bad spot, and also afraid of losing his life savings. But deep down, he wanted to believe that Rufus had one last trick up his sleeve, and was still capable of pulling the wool over the eyes of any gambler in the world. Belief was the only thing a person had in this world, and he realized he was willing to put every cent he had behind Rufus pulling this off.