Until today. The slot player had been Doyle, wearing a wig. Now the lads were sitting in a juvenile detention center, waiting to face their parents.

The kitchen of Valentine’s house was cold and empty. Taking off his jacket, he went to the oven and pulled down the creaky door. Nothing cooking. After his parents had split up, his mother had stopped cooking, and it had taken the warmth out of their house. They were memories that he’d just as soon forget.

He checked a pot sitting on the stove. It was half-filled with water. Pasta? His hopes rose. He stuck his finger in the water. Ice cold.

“We’re in here,” Lois said from the dining room.

He poured himself a glass of cold water and took a long swallow. Gerry’s school bag sat on the kitchen table next to his wife’s purse. He sensed something was not right, and walked into the dining room. Gerry sat at the head of the dining room table with his head bowed. Lois stood behind him, breathing fire.

“Stand up when your father comes into the room.”

Gerry sat motionless at the dining room table.

“What’s going on?” Valentine asked.

“The school principal called me,” Lois said. “Gerry is hanging around with a group of older kids accused of gambling andselling pot.”

“ What?”

“We’re not selling pot,” his son declared.

“I said, stand up.”

“We’re not. I swear —”

“ Stand up.”

Gerry rose guiltily from his chair, and Valentine stared in disbelief at his son’s wardrobe. A black leather jacket, white tee shirt, jeans, and a pair of pointy-toed boots that locals called fence-climbers. He looked like a punk.

“Where are your school clothes?” Valentine asked.

“These arehis school clothes,” Lois answered. “He’s been changing them every day in the gym. Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde.”

“All the kids do it,” his son said.

“And if all the other kids jumped off a bridge, would you follow them?”

Gerry smirked. “Probably.”

Valentine wanted to start yelling. Or take off his belt and whip the bejeeus out of him. Things that his own father had done that he’d never forgotten. But he was not about to follow in his father’s footsteps. Going into the kitchen, he grabbed his son’s school bag and brought it into the dining room, dumping its contents on the table. Out fell a pack of cigarettes, candy bars, a glossy hot-rod magazine, and a gold necklace.

“How much allowance do we give you a week?” Valentine asked.

“Fifty cents,” Gerry mumbled.

“Let me guess, you took a job bagging groceries at the A & P and forgot to tell us.”

“Hey,” his son said, “it’s just some stuff.”

“Stuff costs money.”

Gerry swallowed hard. “It’s not what you think.”

“You weren’t selling pot?”

“No, sir,” his son replied.

“We have a meeting with the school principal first thing tomorrow morning,” Lois said.

“You’d better not be lying to me,” Valentine said.

“I swear Pop, I’m not.”

“And those clothes are gone.”

“Yes, sir.”

His son looked truly remorseful. Valentine glanced at his wife. Lois nodded her head, satisfied. He started dropping his son’s loot into his school bag when a bulge in a side pocket caught his eye. It was the paperback novel he’d seen Gerry reading the night before, The Catcher in the Rye. The book’s cover was coming off, and he flipped it open, and read a few lines. Looking up, he caught his son’s fearful gaze.

“When did J.D. Salinger start writing porno?” he said.

Chapter 14

Izzie missed Betty.

He missed her soft cooing voice, and the taste of her cheap lipstick mingling with the smell of her hair and her sticky skin. He missed her throaty laugh, and the liquid heart-stopping sensation of having sex with her. Having sex with Betty, Izzie had come to the conclusion that no movie or book had ever gotten it right.

Izzie missed her so much, he decided to call her one night during a poker game in the house he and his brothers had rented in Ventnor, a fancy suburb just south of Atlantic City. Excusing himself, he’d gone upstairs, and used the phone in the extra bedroom to call her apartment. Betty answered on the fifth ring, still sound asleep.

“Hey baby,” he said.

“Who the hell is this?”

“It’s me, Izzie.”

“You crummy bastard!”

“Hey, I’m sorry.”

“Fuck you’re sorry! Do you have any idea what time it is?”

Izzie glanced at the clock on the bedside table. It was two A.M. They’d been bringing suckers to the house every night from Resorts’ casino, and he’d forgotten what normal hours were. “I’m sorry. I missed you so much, I had to call.”

“You leftme at that convenience store,” she shouted into the phone.

The receiver was jammed into the crook of Izzie’s neck, leaving his hands free to stack the cards he would soon switch into the game. “It was my brothers’ idea —”

“I thought you loved me!”

“I do.”

“Then why didn’t you make them come back?”

He finished stacking the deck and tucked it into his back pocket. “How was I going to do that?” he said without thinking.

Betty screamed like he’d stabbed her. “I’ll get you for this,” she declared.

Izzie went downstairs in a funk. His brothers had always said women were not cut out to be grifters. They did not understand the rackets, and held grudges when theygot cheated. Cheat a guy, and eventually he’ll forget it. Cheat a woman, and she’ll carry a grudge for the rest of her life.

Izzie found the game the way he’d left it. Three rug merchants sat around the felt-covered card table in the den along with Josh and Seymour. The rug merchants were in town for a convention. They were all named Patel. A deck of cards sat at Izzie’s spot. Sitting down, he pointed at them. “These shuffled?” he asked.

The Patel to his right said yes. Izzie asked him to cut the cards. The Patel obliged him. Picking the deck up, Izzie dropped his hands below the table to adjust his chair. When his hands came up, he was holding the deck he’d stacked in the bedroom.

As Izzie dealt the round, he looked around the den. He and his brothers had spent days making it look presentable. They had built a bookcase and filled it with second-hand books, then hung photographs that looked like someone’s family, but wasn’t theirs.

“What are we playing?” one of the Patels asked.

“Draw poker,” Izzie said.

“Anything wild?”

“Betty.”

“Who’s Betty?” the Patel asked.

“I mean deuces,” Izzie said. “Deuces are wild.”

The deck played out the way he’d stacked it, with the Patels losing their shirts. They paid up without a beef, and Izzie hid a smile. Their scheme to beat Resorts was simple enough. Every night, he and his brothers scoured the casino, looking for suckers who’d won big, and convince them to come to the house. Then, they’d beat them out of their winnings, but never their stake. It was Resorts’ money they wanted. So far, it had worked like a charm.

When the Patels were gone, Seymour got the strongbox and counted their winnings. Minus expenses, they were ahead twenty thousand bucks. It was the most money they’d ever made.

“I need some fresh air,” Izzie declared.

Izzie went outside. Josh and Seymour followed their older brother into the front yard, where Izzie stood smoking a cigarette. Izzie pointed north, in Resorts’ direction. “For every sucker we bring back, we’re leaving ten inside the casino. I think we should add more games, turn this into a real show.”

“How about craps?” Seymour said.

“Craps would be a winner,” Izzie said. “So would roulette.”

“I’m game,” Seymour said.

“What about the mob?” Josh asked. “We don’t want them finding out.”