“Did you?” Mabel asked.

“Yes,” Silverfoot said. “I was a tribal policeman for twenty-five years, and I know when someone’s lying to me. This gentleman wasn’t lying. He wasn’t working with the dealer in any way. He was in the casino having a good time.”

“The dealer was still cheating,” Mabel said.

“Afraid not. I personally grilled the dealer, and told him we had a tape of him dealing off the bottom. He said the humidity inside the casino made the cards stick, and that he probably pulled one off the bottom by mistake.”

It was the worst alibi Mabel had ever heard, and she closed her eyes.

“And you believed him?”

“What choice did I have?” Silverfoot said. “There was no crime. How can I arrest someone if there’s no crime?”

Mabel shook her head. Dealing off the bottom was the card cheater’s most prized skill, and took hundreds of hours of practice. It didn’t happen by accident, despite what Silverfoot wanted to believe, and Mabel said goodbye and hung up the phone before she had a chance to tell him what a nincompoop he was.

She took a walk around the block to cool down. When that didn’t work, she returned to Tony’s study and watched the tape of the crooked dealer that she’d made on Tony’s computer. The dealer was big and tough-looking, and not someone she’d want to meet in a dark alley. His nose was crooked, and looked like it had been broken a few times. If that wasn’t the profile of a crook, she didn’t know what was. The idea that he still had his job irritated her to no end.

She didn’t like it. The man was obviously a thief. She remembered Tony’s comments about casinos that let crooked dealers work for them. Tony called these casinos bust-out joints, and said that they were popping up everywhere — on cruises ships, dishonest Indian reservations, and little towns that weren’t properly regulated by local or state government. Some bust-out joints used shaved dice on their craps tables, slot machines that didn’t pay out, and blackjack shoes missing high cards. Others employed crooked dealers adept in sleight-of-hand. The end result was always the same. The customers got skinned alive.

She decided she had to do something. She composed an email to Joe Silverfoot, and spelled out her feelings in plain English. Dear Joe: I was shocked to hear that the crooked poker dealer we caught is still in your employ. Having reviewed the situation, I believe this dealer compromises the integrity of your casino. If this situation is not rectified, I will no longer be able to do business with you.

She positioned the mouse on the Send button, then realized what she was doing. This was her only account. If she ran the Micanopys off, she would lose all the fun she’d been having, and also lose the firm money. She didn’t like either of those options, and stared at the computer screen. There’s a price for integrity,she thought, then sent her message through cyberspace.

Chapter 20

Bronco lay on the cot in his cell, staring at the three crosses on the walls that the shadows had made from the bars. He’d heard about criminals who’d found Jesus in the slammer, and wondered if this optical illusion had anything to do with it.

He heard stirring above him. Johnny Norton, his cell mate, had turned downright friendly when he realized Bronco was serious about escaping. Johnny had switched cots, taking the less desirable upper bunk and letting Bronco have the lower. He saw Johnny’s upside-down head appear over the side of his bunk.

“You awake?”

“No, I sleep with my eyes open.”

“That’s a good one. Think it will be this morning?”

Bronco put his fingers to his lips. Out in the hallway, he heard feet approaching the cell, and wondered if it was the guard Klinghoffer. In a whisper he said, “Yes. What’s the secret password?”

“What secret password?” Johnny asked.

“The password I’m going to give you when we break out of here.”

Johnny hesitated. “Sword swallower?”

“Wrong.”

Johnny scrunched up his face. Last night, he’d told Bronco how he’d been shoved through school, and could barely read and write. Johnny’s brain didn’t have enough folds in it. The more you read and learned, the more folds your brain got. Bronco had figured out long ago that this was the secret to success.

“Come on,” Bronco goaded him.

“I’m trying.”

“It’s from the Marx Brothers movie, remember?

Johnny continued to struggle. Bronco had told him about the famous scene in the Marx Brothers movie, where the three brothers enter a speakeasy, and Groucho and Chico give the man at the door a secret password. Harpo came last, and because he couldn’t speak, removed a sword from the belt of his pants, and a large fish from his pocket, and shoved the sword down the fish’s throat, gaining him entry into the bar.

“Swordfish?” Johnny asked.

“There you go.”

Bronco saw Klinghoffer standing at the cell door, pointing his baton at him.

“You’ve got visitors, ” the guard said.

Bronco slipped out of the bunk, and stood in the center of the cell with his arms out. Klinghoffer entered and cuffed Bronco’s wrists together. Bronco shot Johnny a glance.

“See you later, partner,” he said.

Bronco had learned a lot of tricks over the years. Like learning to write with his left hand when he needed to carp a check. One of his best tricks was speaking without moving his lips. He couldn’t throw his voice like a ventriloquist, but he could communicate without someone watching through a camera knowing it. As Klinghoffer escorted him down a hallway to one of the jail’s interview rooms, Bronco was aware of the camera in the hallway watching them. Without moving his lips, he said, “You play the slot machine like I told you?”

“Uh-huh,” Klinghoffer said.

“You win?”

“Yeah.”

“How much?”

“Ninety seven hundred and change.”

Bronco wished he could see Karl’s face. Klinghoffer’s voice was a monotone, and Bronco couldn’t tell how the experience had affected him. Was he hooked? Bronco decided to go out on a limb, and said, “Buy something nice for your wife?”

“Yeah. Bought her a diamond.”

“I bet she fucked your brains out.”

Klinghoffer shoved the point of his baton into Bronco’s spine. “Move.”

Bronco smiled to himself. They had reached the interview room, and Klinghoffer reached around him, opened the door and told him to go in. Bronco did as told, and the guard shut the door without following him in.

The interview room was a square, with two chairs hex-bolted to the floor, and a mirror on the wall which Bronco assumed was two-way. Garrow sat in one of the chairs, his arm in a sling. His hand-tailored suit was covered in dried blood.

“What happened?”

“I screwed up,” Garrow mumbled.

“What are you talking about?”

“I set up a meeting with the Asian, and he stabbed me.”

“Why did he do that?”

Garrow stared at the floor. “It’s a long story.”

“You tried to double cross me, didn’t you?”

“No, Bronco…”

“I should kill you, you rat bastard.”

Garrow swallowed hard, and said nothing.

“What did you tell the cops?”

“Nothing.”

“Good. Keep it that way.”

Bronco dropped into the other seat, and for a long moment, stared at his attorney. Garrow wasn’t really here to see him at all. He was a prisoner, and the cops had thrown them into the same room just to hear what the two men might say. Rising, Bronco went to the two-way mirror, and brought his face a few inches from the glass.

“I want another lawyer,” he told the cops on the other side.

Valentine stared at Bronco through the glass. Twenty years had passed since that night on the Atlantic City Boardwalk. It was too damn long to be chasing someone, yet he felt himself smile. He’d found the bastard, and that was all that mattered.