“Hello, chief,” she said.

“Please call me Running Bear.”

“Sure. Please call me Mabel.”

“I’m calling in response to the e-mail which you sent my director of surveillance. You were rather blunt in your assessment of how we are handling this situation.”

Mabel liked the chief’s choice of words. Tony had worked for Running Bear before, and had said the chief was as honest as the day was long. “You have a dealer who has been caught on videotape using known cheating techniques. The fact that this dealer is still working for you is absolutely shocking.”

There was a pause on the other end. Mabel liked how her response had come out. Not too harsh or prickly. And calling their inaction shocking was a nice touch.

“I have shared your e-mail with the elders of our tribe,” Running Bear said. “The elders have final say in these matters. They have asked if you would be willing to come to the casino this evening, and explain your reasoning. You will be compensated for your time, if you choose to accept.”

Something dropped in Mabel’s stomach. Go over to the casino? Talk to the elders? She hadn’t spoken to a roomful of people since highschool.

“Well, I don’t —”

“I should tell you that I am in agreement of your assessment of the situation,” he said, “and would like to see this dealer terminated.”

“You would?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t mean to be rude,” Mabel said, “but if the elders of your tribe won’t listen to you, what makes you think they’ll listen to me?”

“The elders don’t believe a crime has been committed. You make a case in your e-mail that a crime has been committed since the dealer broke the rules of play, which constitutes a breach of trust. I need to hammer this point home, with your help.”

Mabel considered what Running Bear was asking. Because the Micanopys were a sovereign nation, they ran their casinos by their own rules, and not the state’s or the federal government’s. These rules weren’t as strict as other casinos, and as a result, not as good. Running Bear needed help; otherwise, he’d have unscrupulous dealers stealing him blind.

“Our firm charges three thousand dollars for house calls,” she said. “We prefer checks, although we will take cash. Is this agreeable to you?”

“That sounds fine. Will Tony Valentine be coming with you?”

“Tony Valentine is out of town,” Mabel said. “I’ll be coming alone.”

Chapter 25

Bronco was close enough to take both their heads off with his shotgun. Valentine braked the rental and waited. Without a word, Bronco marched over to the car, climbed into the backseat, and shoved the shotgun’s barrel into the seat behind Gerry’s back.

“Drive,” Bronco said.

As Valentine pulled out of the visitor’s parking lot, he glanced in his mirror, and saw policeman spilling out of the jail and frantically running around the grounds. No doubt Bronco had planned to drive away in one of their cars. If he had, the police would have had little problem finding out which car, and tracking him down. But since he was in Valentine’s rental, there was no way for the police to know where he’d gone. Bronco was home free, and Valentine saw him grinning in the mirror.

“Isn’t this wonderful,” Bronco said. “You came out here to stick me in prison, and you help me get out. There must be a name for that.”

“Irony,” Gerry said, staring straight ahead.

“There you go. That’s a fancy word, isn’t it?”

“Just to you,” Gerry said.

Bronco stuck his head between them. “He’s a smart one, isn’t he, Tony? Knows I won’t shoot him while we’re here in the city around all these people. Now, when we get out in the desert, that’s a different story.” To Gerry, he said, “You punch hard, kid.”

“I had a good teacher,” Gerry said.

“Your old man here?”

“That’s right.”

They came to an intersection. Bronco gave Valentine instructions to get out of town. Valentine drove with his eye in his mirror, hoping for a police cruiser to magically appear behind them. He saw Gerry staring at the road, and guessed his son was hoping for a similar miracle.

Ten miles outside of town, Bronco made Valentine pull down a side road, then after a mile take another road, this one made of crushed gravel. It led to a deserted auto graveyard, the rusted carcasses of vehicles piled high in the air, with families of crows nestled within the metal skeletons. Bronco told him to brake and the car came to a halt.

“Get out,” he said to Valentine. To Gerry, he said, “Take your father’s spot behind the wheel. Do it real slow.”

Valentine got out. Except for the graveyard, there was nothing but scrub brush and flat land, with no real place to hide. His mind was racing for an escape, only none were making themselves apparent. It made his soul ache to know that Bronco had outsmarted him, but no one had ever said life was perfect.

Bronco rolled down the back window, and poked the barrel of the shotgun out the window. The look in his face was stone cold evil.

Valentine looked up at the sky. It was a flawless blue, the sun a perfect hole within that blue. As he’d grown older, his fear of dying had ebbed. He’d been married to a great woman, raised a halfway decent son, and had his share of good times. He’d played by the rules, and had no regrets.

“You want to say anything to your son?” Bronco asked.

Valentine glanced over his shoulder. Gerry’s face was white. He mouthed the words I love you.and looked back up at the sky.

“Anything else?” Bronco asked.

Valentine shook his head. He wasn’t going to look at Bronco, and give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d won this fight. In the auto graveyard he spied a car bumper, and in its shiny reflection Bronco aiming the shotgun at his back.

He closed his eyes. His late wife appeared as if my magic. She was standing in a lush forest, holding her arms out, and looked as beautiful as the day they’d met. He imagined himself holding her in his arms and kissing her, and could not think of a more wonderful gift. As Bronco’s shotgun went off, he was actually smiling.

Chapter 26

Valentine heard the shotgun blast and saw his life flash before his eyes. A flock of crows nesting in a car skeleton burst into the air around him. He felt their wings violently brush against his body, and imagined they were taking his soul to the hereafter.

The birds continued to fly upward, leaving him behind. He blinked and realized he was still standing, then heard the sounds of wheels spinning. He spun around and saw the rental race past, it’s rear end fish tailing. The vehicle was halfway across the field before he realized what had happened. Gerry had floored the accelerator just before Bronco had squeezed the shotgun’s trigger.

Valentine watched the rental burn across the field, expecting to hear a shotgun blast at any moment. Bronco would pay Gerry back for doing this. His son was doomed.

But the blast never came, and he guessed Bronco hadn’t shot Gerry because his son was driving too fast. But it was a temporary reprieve from an inevitable situation. Gerry eventually had to slow down, and Bronco would kill him. Valentine took out his cell phone, and powered it up. If he could alert the police, perhaps they could save his son. His cell phone made an unpleasant sound, and he glanced at its face. NO SERVICE. He lifted his eyes, and stared across the field. The rental was a blip on the horizon, his son still driving like he was protecting the Pole at the Indy 500. Tears rolled down his cheeks, and he wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

The back country of Reno was bumpy and uneven. Gerry came to a wide ditch he couldn’t cross, and was forced to slow down. He’d pulled some wild stunts with cars as a teenager, but he’d never driven this fast before without pavement under his wheels. If Bronco was going to kill him, at least he was going to die with adrenalin pumping through his veins.