Page 2 of Twice
“Look, friend. My job is catching casino cheats. I’ve been doing it a long time. Vegas. Atlantic City. Now here in the Bahamas. What you did, you can’t do without breaking the law.”
“I see.” The man nodded thoughtfully. “May I ask you a question, Detective?”
“Go ahead.”
“Why this kind of work?”
“What are you, a shrink?”
“Just curious.”
LaPorta smirked. “Let’s just say I don’t like people who bend the rules.”
“Ah. Then you wouldn’t like me.”
LaPorta studied his tall, rangy suspect, who wore a small earring on his left lobe and no socks under his weathered loafers. LaPorta guessed he was in his late fifties and notparticularly well-off. In that way, he was like any number of men you’d find placing bets at an island casino. But his attitude under interrogation was unusual. Normally, suspects were jumpy, perspiring, answering too quickly or too slowly. This man almost seemedbored.
“Come on. Tell me how you did it. You got an inside guy?”
“I’ve committed no crime.”
“Three straight roulette numbers? You don’t call thatsuspicious?”
“Suspicion and belief can’t share the same bed.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means if I told you the truth, you’d have to accept something you can’t.”
“Try me.”
The man squinted. “No.”
“You realize cheating a casino can get you sent to jail?”
“Yes.”
“For a long time.”
“Time doesn’t mean much to me.”
“Why not?”
“It’s complicated.”
LaPorta bit down on his hard candy.
“Tell me about a woman named Gianna Rule.”
The man’s expression changed. LaPorta perked up.Here we go. Stay with this.
“You went to a bank after you won that money and you wired it to a Gianna Rule. We can find her. Bring her in. Maybe charge her as a coconspirator. Is that what you want?”
The man blinked. LaPorta leaned across the table.
“Like I said: try me.”
“All right,” the man said, exhaling. “I had a bag when you picked me up.”
