The Night Monster (9 page)

“Did you leave him something to chew on?” I asked.

“No, was I supposed to?”

Buster was a herding dog, not a house dog, and would gnaw clean through a table leg if locked up for too long. I said, “How serious are the damages?”

“Catastrophic.”

The bad feeling returned to my stomach.

“Throw him a bone. I’ll be right there,” I said.

I took the Sawgrass Expressway south, then got onto 595, and raced east toward the ocean. Of all the dogs I could have rescued from the pound, Buster hadn’t been the nicest, nor the prettiest dog sitting on death row. But he’d tugged at my heartstrings, so I’d adopted him. The fact that he occasionally gnawed on a bad person didn’t bother me, but when he started destroying furniture, I got concerned. My room at the Sunset had come furnished, and I wasn’t looking forward to replacing the things he’d ruined.

I pulled into the Sunset’s parking lot with a rubbery squeal and hopped out of my car. I ran up the staircase beside the bar to my room.

I opened the door expecting the worst. Buster sat in the center of the floor, surrounded by fluffy white mattress stuffing. He had pulled the mattress off the bed, eaten a hole through its center, and distributed the stuffing across the room. He’d also attacked the dresser and night table, and chewed on the legs so viciously that they now resembled toothpicks. Seeing me, he howled happily, and ran into my arms.

“You stupid dog,” I said.

“Holy shit,” a voice said.

I glanced over my shoulder. Sonny stood in the doorway, wearing his trademark Guns & Roses T-shirt with holes in the armpits. His face was white.

“I thought I asked you to give him a bone,” I said.

“I gave him a knuckle bone. He must have eaten it.”

I quickly assessed the damage. Had I still been a cop, I would have strung yellow crime-scene tape across the door, the place was such a disaster. Along with ruining my bed, plus the dresser and night table,
Buster had chewed a hole in the wall through which the ocean air was now blowing. All of the furniture would have to be replaced, the wall fixed, and the room repainted.

“How much do you think this is going to cost?” I asked.

“A couple of grand, easy,” Sonny replied.

“I’ve got nine hundred bucks to my name. Can you lend me the rest? I’ll pay you back. You know I’m good for it.”

Sonny shook his head from side to side. “I’d give you the money if I thought it would do any good.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s over, Jack.”

“What’s over?”

“Ralph’s in town for his monthly visit. He’s coming by later to check up on things. He’s going to see this and go ape shit.”

Ralph was the Sunset’s long-distance owner, a nasty New York banker who enjoyed yanking Sonny’s chain. Ralph had not wanted to rent me the room because of Buster, but had decided that having an ex-cop living above the bar was a good insurance policy.

“Can’t you hide the damage from him?” I asked.

“How am I going to do that?”

“I don’t know, say you’re having the room fumigated.”

“Ralph always checks the building, Jack. He’s going to see this, and then he’ll explode. You know how he is.”

“There must be something we can do.”

“Like what? Join the Foreign Legion?”

My cell phone chimed. It was Black Cloud calling me back. I answered.

“I’ve gotten clearance for you to visit the Hard Rock’s surveillance control room,” Black Cloud said. “The surveillance director said you can come in, and he’ll help you find the guy who was stalking the college students. How soon can you get over here?”

I hesitated. I needed to clean up Buster’s mess, and salvage my situation with the Sunset. But at the same time, if I didn’t get over to the Hard Rock, I’d lose my chance to learn the identity of one of Sara Long’s abductors.

“I’m on my way,” I said.

“Call me when you’re near, and I’ll come downstairs to greet you.”

“I will. Thanks, Chief.”

I said good-bye and folded my phone. Sonny had grabbed the mattress and was struggling to pull it back onto the bed. I went to the doorway and saw him glare at me.

“Don’t tell me you’re leaving,” Sonny said.

“I have to. I’m on a case.”

“You’re not going to help me clean this place up?”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

Sonny pulled the mattress onto the bed and began shoving the stuffing back into it.

“Take your stuff,” he said.

I froze in the doorway. “Are you evicting me?”

“No, but Ralph will, and then you’ll have to come back and get your things. Take them now, Jack. It will be easier.”

“You don’t know what Ralph will do. He might just laugh it off.”

“Fat chance. Take your stuff, or Ralph will throw it in the Dumpster.”

The finality in his voice was unmistakable, and I realized that this was the end. I had lived above the Sunset for over a year. Sonny and the good-natured drunks who supported the bar had always been there for me. The Sunset was my home, and they were my friends, and it had just gone up in flames. I grabbed my clothes out of the closet along with a cardboard box that contained my old cop stuff and headed for the stairwell.

“Wait,” Sonny said.

From the night table he picked up the stack of missing person files that had been my bedtime reading. Then he went into the bathroom and grabbed my shaving kit.

“Don’t forget these,” he said.

Sonny crossed the room and handed the items to me. His eyes mirrored the pain that I was feeling. I wasn’t just losing a friend; I was losing one of my best friends. Sonny patted Buster, then gave me a bear hug.

“Good luck, man,” he said.

threw my worldly possessions into my car and drove to the Hard Rock. Traffic on 595 was the usual madness, and I darted between lanes while trying to focus on the task at hand. My wife believed that everything happened for a reason, and I wondered what was the reason behind this sudden turn of events in my life.

Exiting on 441, I headed south into Hollywood, the massive casino looming in the distance. Back when I was a kid, the Seminoles had made money giving airboat rides to tourists and putting on rinky-dink rodeos with the headlights of their pickups used to light up the ring. Now they were on top of the world and worth billions.

Entering the casino grounds, I called Black Cloud on my cell. He was there to greet me when my car was taken by the valet. He was a big man, with jet-black hair that cascaded onto his shoulders and a chiseled face that looked like something you’d see on a statue in a park. He’d done two tours of duty in Vietnam and come home with shrapnel in one of his legs. He walked with a limp but refused to carry a cane.

“It’s been too long,” Black Cloud said, pumping my hand.

“You look good,” I said.

“You’re lying. I look old and tired. What’s with the dog?”

“He’s my partner. Can I bring him inside?”

“Sure. We don’t have a problem with dogs.”

I followed him into the bustling casino. Everywhere I looked, little old ladies with arms like Popeye were yanking on slot machines, while men chomping on cigars were risking hundreds of dollars on the turn of a card. I couldn’t look at it without remembering the cow pasture that had been here not that long ago.

Once inside an elevator, Black Cloud activated the control panel with a special key, and we were delivered to the fourth floor where the surveillance control room was located.

“Welcome to the inner sanctum,” he said.

We walked down a short hallway to an unmarked steel door with a surveillance camera perched above it. Black Cloud knocked loudly, then faced me.

“We have a small problem,” he said.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“There’s a sting going on inside the casino. Our security team is trying to nab a group of cheaters. You’re going to have to wait until they’re done.”

“Any idea how long?”

“Could be awhile. These people have stolen a lot of money from us. We need to catch them before they do it again.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. I’d already wasted most of the day, and every lost hour increased the chance that I’d never find Sara Long. Before I could reply, the steel door swung in and a short man wearing a black turtleneck greeted us.

“Hey, Chief,” the man in the turtleneck said.

“Hey, Harry,” Black Cloud replied. “Any luck catching those cheaters?”

“Not yet.”

Harry ushered us into the room and shut the door. Dark and chilly, the surveillance control room was crammed with sophisticated surveillance equipment that watched the action in the casino. A gang of technicians sat in front of a row of computers, staring intently at the flickering screens.

“Harry, I want you to meet Jack Carpenter and his dog,” Black
Cloud said. “Jack is an ex-Broward detective and a friend of the casino. He’s also part Seminole, so watch what you say around him.”

The man in the turtleneck pumped my hand. Beads of sweat dotted his brow, and I could tell that something was bothering him.

“Nice to meet you,” Harry said.

“Same here,” I replied.

“I need to run,” Black Cloud said. “Good luck in your search.”

“What can I do for you?” Harry asked when Black Cloud had left.

“I’m looking for a missing college girl that was in your casino two nights ago,” I replied. “There was a man stalking her. I’m hoping one of your surveillance cameras took a photo of him.”

“We’re dealing with a situation inside the casino right now,” Harry said. “Once we’re done, I’ll do what I can to help you.”

I followed Harry to the back of the room. Five men were huddled around a high-resolution monitor showing a blackjack game. The game consisted of seven players, a dealer wearing a tuxedo, and some bystanders watching the action.

“This is Jack Carpenter and his dog,” Harry said to the group.

None of the men took their eyes from the monitor.

“You’ll go blind doing that,” I said.

One man turned his head, a thin smile on his face. He was in his early sixties and Italian, with salt and pepper hair and a nose that had been broken a few times but hadn’t lost its character. His face was best described as intense.

“You a cop?” the man asked.

“Ex-detective,” I replied. “I used to run the Missing Persons Unit of the Broward sheriff’s department.”

“My name’s Tony Valentine,” the man said. “I’m a consultant. I help casinos catch cheaters. Do you know what grift sense is?”

“Never heard of it.”

“It’s the ability to spot a con or someone who’s a crook. Think you can spot a crook in a crowd of people?”

“Sure,” I replied.

Valentine turned to the others. “Want to give him a shot, guys?”

“Why not?” one of the men replied.

Valentine turned back to me. “Here’s the deal, Jack. The guys on the monitor are a gang of professional cheaters. They’ve been swindling the Hard Rock for a month, and have stolen over three hundred thousand bucks.”

I whistled through my teeth. The seven guys at the table wore baseball caps and colorful T-shirts and were swigging bottles of beer. They looked like a bunch of regular Joes, and did not fit the image that I had of professional cheaters.

“What are they doing?” I asked.

“They’re using paper.”

“What’s that?”

“They marked the casino’s cards, and put them back into play.”

“Can I see them?”

Valentine removed a worn deck of playing cards from his pocket and gave it to me. The deck had a red diamond design along with the Hard Rock’s distinctive logo.

“The casino subjects its dealers to polygraph tests every month,” Valentine said. “One of the dealers got tripped up in a lie, and confessed to taking several dozen decks out of the casino, giving them to the gang to be marked, and slipping them back in.”

“Is this one of the decks?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I examined the cards but saw nothing out of the ordinary.

“How are they marked?”

“They’ve been stained with drops of water,” Valentine said. “The gang only stained the high value cards, which are the most important cards in blackjack. The stains let the cheaters know the value of the cards the dealer is holding. That knowledge gives the cheaters a fifteen percent edge over the house.”

I removed the ace of spades from the deck, and held it up to the dim overhead light. When viewed from the right angle, the stain on the card was plainly visible.

“Why don’t you arrest them?” I asked.

The men fell silent, as did Valentine.

“Did I say something wrong?”

“The dealer who snitched was found in the trunk of his car with his throat slit,” Valentine said. “Without his testimony, we don’t have a case.”

“So you’re letting the cheaters play in the hopes of catching them,” I said.

“Exactly.”

“How can I help?”

“One member of the gang is reading the marks, and signaling the information to the others,” Valentine said. “That’s how marked card scams work. We need to figure out who the reader is, arrest him, and make him talk. That’s our best chance of nailing the gang.”

It was common when the police were stymied in a case to bring in a fresh pair of eyes to examine the evidence. I didn’t know anything about gambling or cheating, but I was good at picking slime-bags out of a crowd.