James Swain - Gift sense

Leaving Hoss and Tiny to guard his smoldering domicile, Nick drove Valentine down the block to a neighbor's gated driveway, buzzed himself in, and parked in the shadows of an elegant Tudor mansion. Behind the house sat a gleaming Sikorsky on a helipad, a blond pilot wearing Ray-Bans posed smartly by the door.

"We'll never reach the Strip by car," Nick explained. "Too many tourists. This is the only way to go."

They crossed the lawn, and Valentine spotted a bald, heavyset man lying on a towel by the pool. A curvaceous miss with red floss riding up the crack in her behind knelt beside him, giving him a rubdown. Nick whistled wolfishly and the woman looked up. The bald man turned his head, ignoring them.

"Who's he?" Valentine asked.

"Some hotshot surgeon," Nick replied. "Dropped a hundred grand playing craps in my casino one night. Turned out he was in debt and couldn't pay his marker. I could've foreclosed on his place, but I figured he's a neighbor, so I let him work it off. His yard man does my lawn, I use his chopper when I want, and I bang his wife when he's out of town."

"You're kidding me," Valentine said.

"Thousand bucks' credit a whack," Nick said, winking at him.

"Hope you didn't give her a house key."

"Stop picking on me."

Nick exchanged high-fives with the grinning pilot. His name was Ken, and when they were strapped in and had headsets on, Ken took the chopper up and made a beeline for the Strip, the colorful casinos spread out before them like an overturned pirate's chest. Valentine had ridden in plenty of choppers and knew the pitfalls of staring at stationary objects for more than a few seconds at a time. You threw up. So he kept his eyes shut and held on to the door.

"I want to show my friend something," Nick told Ken. "Think your boss will mind if we take a side trip?"

Ken laughed loudly.

A minute later, Ken dropped down near a desolate trailer park on the north end of town. Climbing out, Valentine followed Nick down a dusty dirt road that dissected a honeycomb of dilapidated trailers. A shirtless migrant and his snarling dog emerged to stare at them.

After a half mile, the trailer park ended and so did the road. A sea of numbered graves lay before them. It was a pauper's field. The plots were laid out haphazardly, the final punishment for dying broke. Nick zigzagged down a narrow path, walking quickly between graves. Valentine did a tightrope walk behind him as he tried to avoid stepping on the dead.

In the corner of the cemetery sat a manicured plot with a decorative headstone. Kneeling at the grave site, Nick crossed himself and mumbled a prayer. Valentine crossed himself as well, squinting to read the tombstone. James Dandalos "The Greek"

"If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing."

"My mentor," Nick explained, getting up and fishing a black hundred-dollar chip from his pocket. "I came out here in sixty-five and the Greek took me under his wing. He was a real gambler, maybe the best who's ever lived. One night we went out and won forty grand playing craps. We bought a car and decided to press our luck at the tables. We lost all our dough, then went out and wrecked the car. It was the best lesson I ever learned."

Nick dug a hole and buried the chip, patting the ground smooth when he was done. "I told the Greek that gambling full time was a losing proposition. The house was always going to win. He laughed and said the only way to make money in a casino is to own one."

"So you went and bought one."

"As soon as I could scrape the money together."

"He must have died pretty broke to end up here."

"Four million in the hole, not counting what he owed me," Nick said, wiping the sand off his knees. "He died a John Doe. I didn't find out he was gone until he was already in the ground."

"How much do you think he lost over the years?"

Nick laughed. "Thirty million, forty, maybe more."

"You'd think someone could have given him a proper burial."

"The Greek lived large and died small," Nick said fondly. "He wouldn't have wanted it any other way."

Ten minutes later, the Sikorsky dropped them off at the Mirage's helipad, which was jointly used by several casinos on the Strip. Out of principle, Nick would not step foot in his competitor's establishment, so they walked clear around the mammoth hotel. It was a good hike, and by the time they reached the Acropolis's front doors, they were both dripping with perspiration.

"Look at all these people," Nick said gleefully.

The front doors were propped open, and a long line of tourists waiting to play One-Armed Billy snaked past the valet stand. Like a politician, Nick began pumping the flesh and handing out comps for free meals. Two minutes later, everyone in line was beaming, and Nick and Valentine entered the casino to a round of applause.

The casino floor was a madhouse of noise and blinking lights and people yelling at the roll of the dice or the turn of a single card. There was the sound of a hundred silver dollars hitting a metal tray, of a man in a baseball cap having won twenty grand bluffing at poker, of fortunes won and bankrolls lost. By the time they reached the elevators, Nick was walking on air.

"You see that action?" he said when the doors had closed and they were rising. "Nothing like a prizefight to get people to open their wallets. We'll gross two, maybe three million, easy."

Which was what Fontaine was counting on, Valentine thought as the elevator raced to the twelfth floor. So much money coming in at once that it blinded you-the perfect misdirection for a heist.

Nick called Wily once he reached his suite. The disheveled pit boss came upstairs in a suit so wrinkled it looked slept in. In an exhausted voice, he read the numbers off a spreadsheet.

"Since noon, we've done five hundred big ones on blackjack, three eighty on the slots, eighty-five on the wheel, sixty on pai gow, and fifty on craps."

"What's the take on Billy?" Nick asked. He'd parked himself in a recliner in the living room and was sucking on an O'Doul's.

"We've emptied him out twice already," Wily said.

"Beautiful," Nick said. "Listen. Tony wants to put some special security measures into play tonight. Just in case Fontaine shows his face."

Valentine explained to Wily what he wanted done. The pit boss brightened, sensing a trap being set.

"You think we'll nail him?" Wily asked.

"Only if you stay on your toes," Nick told him.

Wily's shoulders sagged, as if the weight of what he was being asked to handle was too great. He excused himself to the john. When he returned, his hair was parted and his tie had a fresh knot.

"No one's going to rip us off while I'm on duty," he announced.

Nick ushered him to the door. "Tony and I are going to the fights. Call me on my cell phone if anything comes up."

"Yes, sir."

"I'm depending on you."

"I won't let you down," the pit boss said resolutely.

"Go make my money grow," Nick said.

The orange message light on his phone was blinking when Valentine returned to his suite a few minutes later.

There was only one message. Gerry.

"Hey, Pop-just wanted to give you a status report. I'm still in New York. Those goons rammed my car on the FDR Drive; I got off in Midtown and left the car in a garage by the UN. I thought about calling the cops, but since I've got a record, well, you know…"

"Hang tough," his father said into the phone.

"I got ahold of Pee Wee, told him to shut down the bar, so I guess you're getting your wish-no more bookmaking for me. Ha-ha. Anyway, Yolanda is going to pick me up in about twenty minutes and we're going to hit the Jersey shore. I'll call you when I get settled in, let you know where I'm staying. And Pop, I'm sorry about Mabel. I keep thinking about her down there in jail… It's eating at me, you know?"