Page 101 of Twice
“Any news on our guy?”
Sampson shook his head. “Still in the hospital. Can’t move. Can’t speak.”
LaPorta had found Alfie Logan lying in the grass by an old shack near the fort, not far from the top of the staircase. He was unconscious. The doctors at Princess Margaret Hospital said he’d suffered a stroke, just as Alfie had predicted in his notebook. Every time he thought about that, it made LaPorta shiver.
“My officers found this,” Sampson said.
He handed over a crumpled envelope. LaPorta blinked at the handwritten words on the outside.
“For Detective LaPorta, to be read upon my death.”
“What the hell?” he mumbled.
“Yeah, Vincent,” Sampson said. “What the hell?”
LaPorta took a deep breath. He moved the ice pack off his knee.
“Aren’t you gonna read it?”
“Yeah, yeah. Give me a second.”
LaPorta held still, staring at the envelope, trying to absorb the tumultuous rush of the last two days, the arrest, the hours with Alfie, the crazy notebook reading, the dealer, the croupier, interrogating Mike Kurtz, and the two million dollars sent to the mysterious Gianna Rule, who, as of this morning, still could not be found.
He ripped open the envelope and flattened the handwritten contents on his desk. He recognized the paper from a familiar notebook.
Dear Vincent–
I’m sorry to have to finish our conversation this way. By the time you read this, speech will not be an option. I pray this confession gets to you.
You will likely have spoken with Mike Kurtz by now, and if you are as good as I think, you will have learned about his plan to rig the roulette results. As you now know, he was not successful. Not in this
existence.
But in a previous one, he was. In fact, he won a great deal of money on two straight bets. He might have gotten away with it, except the croupier got nervous with all the chips Mike was accumulating and tried to switch the ball back. Security noticed. They approached, and Mike ran from the table.
They chased him to the parking lot. They saw him speed away in a rental car. They pursued him in their van, weaving through traffic, until a half mile away, he spun out at a light and crashed into another vehicle, crushing the legs of the driver, an innocent casino employee who was heading into work.
I had to jump back in time to stop all of this. For one thing, Mike is a louse, but Gianna once loved him, at least in a fashion. I didn’t want her heart broken by him rotting in a Bahamian prison. And, as he owns a part of her photography operation, his criminality would surely reflect on her business. She doesn’t deserve that.
But there is a second reason I went back, one you might be more interested in:
That employee, the one who had his legs crushed in Mike’s futile escape, was an important member of the casino security team. An American.
Detective Vincent LaPorta.
I didn’t want you to suffer that way.
?
This leaves only my part in the roulette scam to explain. After all that you have gone through on this case—what you remember and what you cannot—you deserve answers.
Here is what happened. Having seen what numbers Mike bet the first time around, I used one of my second chances to go back a day, then gathered all the money I could. I went to the table just before Mike and his men were about to make their move. Mike saw me and snapped, “What the hell are you doing here, Alfie?” That was good. I had him nervous.
Then I slapped my chips on the first number before his man could. I saw them looking at each other. Mike shook his head no and his man never made his bet.
I won, then immediately placed all my winnings on their second number. I could see Mike fuming. His guys were confused.
When I won again, he motioned them to walk away.
