“So what are we doing here, anyway?” his friend asked.

“I had an epiphany during the drive over,” Valentine said. “Somebody I spoke with the other day lied to me, and I want to talk to him with you present.”

Bill’s face hardened. “Someone working in Celebrity’s surveillance department?”

“Yes.”

“Am I going to have to arrest him?”

“You might.”

The door opened and a lanky shift supervisor greeted them.

“We need to talk to one of your people,” Bill said.

The shift supervisor blinked. “Is there something wrong?”

“That’s what we’re here to find out.”

“Who do you want to talk to?” the shift supervisor asked.

Bill looked at Valentine.

“Sammy Mann,” Valentine said.

The shift supervisor led them through the surveillance control room to the offices that lined the back wall. He knocked on a door, then cracked it open. “You’ve got visitors,” he announced.

The shift supervisor left, and Bill and Valentine entered. The office was hardly big enough for them to squeeze in, and Valentine sucked in his breath as he shut the door. Sammy Mann sat behind the desk, staring at computer screen containing a live feed from a surveillance camera on the casino floor. Seeing them, he smiled. Sammy was a man of sartorial splendor, and wore a silk sports jackets with mother-of-pearl buttons, a baby blue shirt with French cuffs, and a gold tie with a perfect Windsor knot. He was the classiest cheater Valentine had ever known. Now retired, he hired himself out to Las Vegas casinos as a consultant.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” Sammy said pleasantly. “Welcome to my humble abode. Make yourselves at home.”

“I’ve got a bone to pick with you,” Valentine said.

The smile left Sammy’s face. “You’re here on business?”

“That’s right,” Bill said.

“What’s wrong?” Sammy asked.

Valentine dug out of his pocket the Silly Putty and paper clip that Rufus had found in Celebrity’s poker room, and placed them on the desk. He deliberately shoved the paper clip into the putty, and saw Sammy wince.

“We’ve got a mucker cheating the World Poker Showdown, and I think you might know who it is,” Valentine said.

Smart crooks never lied; they just kept their mouths shut. Sammy’s lips closed and he continued to stare at the bug. Sammy’s speciality had been switching decks of cards at casino blackjack tables. Because of him and his well-trained gangs, every casino in the world now chained their dealing shoes to their tables.

“Start talking,” Bill said.

Sammy wore a perpetual tan, and it was unsettling to see the color drain from his cheeks. “Are you going to arrest me?” he asked.

“I might if you don’t give us some straight answers,” Bill said.

“On what grounds?”

“Collusion,” Bill said.

“With who?”

“You know every mucker in the country,” Valentine jumped in. “Hell, you trained most of them. The question is, did you see one working the tournament?”

Sammy reached into the pocket of his sports jacket and removed a medicine bottle. He spilled a few dozen tiny pills onto the table, then stuck one on the tip of his tongue. He washed it down with a glass of water sitting on the desk.

“For my heart,” he said, taking a deep breath.

They waited him out. Las Vegas’s casinos liked to boast that they didn’t use ex-cheaters in surveillance, but it wasn’t true. Nearly every casino used them, and for good reason. There was no other way to learn how grifters worked.

“To answer your question,” Sammy finally said, “no, I have not seen anyone I know from the past scamming the poker tournament.”

Valentine slammed his hand on the desk, making Sammy jump.

“That wasn’t the question.”

“It wasn’t?” Sammy asked meekly.

“No. I asked you if you’d spotted any muckers you know, not if you saw them switching cards. My guess is, if you recognized someone, you wouldn’twatch them, just so you couldn’t be pinned down later.”

Sammy was breathing hard. Not reporting a scam was a felony, punishable by up to three years in state prison. Sammy had visited the crossbar motel before, and knew how harsh prison life was for cheaters.

“If you’re asking me if I spotted anyone in the tournament who I know from the past, the answer is yes,” Sammy said. “There are many guys playing here who cheated at one time or another. But that doesn’t mean they’re cheating here.”

“Did you watchthem to make sure they weren’t cheating?” Valentine asked.

A sweat moustache appeared above Sammy’s upper lip.

“No,” he said.

“You’re in serious trouble,” Bill informed him.

The best thing a cop could do to a crook was make him sweat. Leaving Sammy in the office, they went into the surveillance control room to have a little chat.

“What a crummy prick,” Bill said. “He’s sitting there collecting a paycheck to catch cheaters, yet isn’t reporting cheaters he knows are playing in the tournament. When I’m finished with him, he won’t be able to get another job in town.”

“Actually, I was hoping you’d let him skate,” Valentine said.

Bill’s mouth opened a few centimeters. “You were?”

“Yes. I want him working for us.”

“You sound like you’ve got a soft spot for the guy.”

Bill wasn’t far off the mark. Sammy had class. Like Rufus, he could charm the pants off a person while stealing their money. “I wanted to scare him, and we have,” Valentine said. “If you give Sammy another chance, I feel certain he’ll lead us to the mucker. When he does, you can call the governor, and tell him you want to raid the tournament. That way, we’ll kill two birds with one stone.”

“We will?”

“Yes. I watched DeMarco play earlier, and I’d be willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that the dealer at his table is involved in the scam.”

“Which dealer are you talking about?”

“Heavyset guy with a walrus moustache. He’s doing something fishy when he deals. His movements are too slow.”

“Is he reading the cards and somehow signaling DeMarco?”

The air-conditioning never stopped blowing in a surveillance control room, and Valentine shivered and said, “No. The dealer hardly looked at the deck when he dealt. But I’m certain he’s involved.”

“So the mucker is an excuse to raid the game,” Bill said.

Valentine nodded. He had been studying DeMarco’s scam for a week, and was no closer to the solution than the day he’d started. The proverbial sand was slipping from the hourglass. If he didn’t solve this puzzle soon, DeMarco would be crowned the champion, and he and Bill would look like chumps.

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Bill said.

28

Mabel was on the computer when she heard the front door slam. Not long ago a man had entered the house under false pretenses, and held her hostage. She’d learned a valuable lesson from the experience, and reaching across the desk, she grabbed a copy of Crime and Punishmentnestled between a pair of bookends, and removed a loaded Sig Sauer that Tony kept in the hollowed-out interior. She rose from her chair.

“I’m armed,” she called out.

“Don’t shoot,” a familiar woman’s voice called back.

“Yolanda, is that you?”

“Yes.”

“How did you get here so fast?”

“I flew Southwest.”

Mabel returned the gun to its hiding place and went to the foyer. Tony and his late wife had bought the house to retire to, and it was a charming relic that represented the way Florida houses used to be made, with hardwood floors, crown molding, and jalousie windows. Yolanda stood by the front door, the baby cradled in her arms.

“I’ve missed you,” Mabel said, hugging her.

“I missed you, too,” Yolanda said. “The baby’s diaper needs changing. Talk to me in the kitchen.”

The kitchen was in the back of the house, and faced a postage-stamp-size backyard. Yolanda put the baby on the kitchen table and said, “So tell me why Tony and Gerry are in trouble.”