Free Deadman's Bluff by James Swain Page A

pavement that put a gash in his back. He’ll be good to go once we stitch him up.”
    Gerry wanted to give the doctor a hug but instead just nodded. She was a fiftyish woman with steel gray hair and sunken eyes that had seen their share of heartache. She gently touched Gerry’s sleeve. “You look pale. Are you going to be okay?”
    “Just a little shook up,” Gerry admitted.
    “Here. Come with me.”
    She led him to a visitors’ area where they sat on a small couch. An ambulance had shown up outside Bally’s before any police cruisers, and Gerry had ridden to the hospital with Davis. Watching Davis bleed all over the back of the ambulance, Gerry had realized that he was partially responsible for what had happened. Davis had picked him up at the airport as a favor to his father. Davis should have been home, and not on the street.
    “Did the sight of all that blood bother you?” the doctor asked.
    “Yeah, how did you know?” Gerry said.
    “It’s a common reaction. The human body has a hundred quarts of blood. Eddie lost a tiny fraction of that. He’ll be fine. Trust me.”
    Gerry gazed into her kind face, and found it in him to smile.
    “You’re a Valentine, aren’t you?” she asked.
    His smile grew. “That’s right. Gerry Valentine.”
    “Faith Toperoff. I knew your parents. How are they doing?”
    “My mom passed away two years ago,” Gerry said. “My dad runs a consulting business out of Florida.”
    “I’m sorry for your loss. I always admired your parents for staying on the island after the casinos came,” she said. “Not many people had the stomach for it, especially those first few years.”
    “How long have you been here?” Gerry asked.
    “All my life.”
    There weren’t many like her left on the island, and he said, “My folks talked about packing up and leaving, but my father couldn’t do it. He said he’d be a traitor.”
    “It was especially hard on the local cops,” she said. “The crime rate shot up every time a casino opened, and it was already the highest in the nation. I remember the night your father shot to death the man who’d shot his partner. Your father took it hard, even though he’d done the right thing. New Jersey struck a devil’s bargain the day it decided to let casinos take over this island.”
    Gerry stared at the scuffed tile floor. He got depressed when locals talked about the old days. Atlantic City had been a decent place to live until the casinos had appeared. He’d been a teenager, and remembered hundreds of restaurants and retail stores closing down, while neighborhoods like South Inlet and Ducktown had disappeared altogether. A voice came over a public address, looking for Dr. Toperoff. She rose and slapped Gerry on the leg the way his mother used to do.
    “Tell your father I said hello,” she said.
     
    Gerry stayed in the visitors’ area until he saw the sun come up. He decided he was thirsty, and went downstairs to the basement and bought an iced tea from a humming soda machine. It tasted like the best thing he’d ever drunk.
    He walked around, trying to collect his thoughts. Once the police found out he was responsible for sending Abruzzi to the big poker game in the sky, he was going to be put through endless questioning. He was in for a long day.
    He came to the hospital cafeteria. It didn’t open for another half hour, and he stared through the doorway into the darkness. Two weeks ago, while visiting Jack Donovan, he’d come downstairs to this same cafeteria to get sodas, then returned to Jack’s room to find his friend’s oxygen tubes ripped out. Jack had died trying to tell him about the amazing poker scam he’d invented.
    Gerry continued to stare into the darkness. His father believed the secret to Jack’s scam was hidden inside the hospital, and that if Gerry looked hard enough, he’d discover what it was. Jack had invented the scam while getting chemotherapy, and Gerry decided that would be the best place to start