“How much is it going to cost me?”

“That’s the good part,” Juan said. “It won’t cost you nothing.”

Little Hands put the dumbbells on a rack, then walked over to a weight bench. There was a barbell across the bench with three hundred pounds in weights fitted on it. He always ended his sessions doing bench presses with the barbell.

“Keep talking,” he said.

Everything cost something in the joint, especially a favor. Little Hands suspected that Big Juan was playing him for a fool. He didn’t like that.

He asked Big Juan if he lifted. It was a dumb question, but Little Hands liked to play stupid sometimes, just to see where it would get him.

Big Juan said yes, and Little Hands asked him to spot for him.

“Sure,” Big Juan said.

Little Hands lay down on the weight bench. The bench was made of steel, and had uprights to hold the barbell in place. He lifted the barbell off the uprights, and pressed it five times over his head. Finished, he asked Big Juan to help him, and the bigger man lifted the barbell off Little Hand’s chest and fitted it into the uprights.

“Your turn,” Little Hands said, rising from the bench.

Big Juan hesitated. Three hundred pounds was a lot of weight, even for someone who lifted every day. But Big Juan was a macho man. He wasn’t going to take weight off the barbell and humiliate himself in front of Little Hands. He was the biggerman, so he lay on the bench and lifted the barbell off the uprights.

Big Juan pressed the barbell above his chest, and the effort made his face change color. Little Hands stood over him.

“Come on, you can do it. Four more.”

Big Juan blew out his cheeks and strained to press the barbell again. His arms began to tremble, and Little Hands put his hands on the bar to help him.

“Thanks, man,” Big Juan said.

Little Hands continued to hold the bar and let Big Juan catch his breath.

“How are you going to get me out of this fucking place?”

Big Juan looked up at him. “You know the conservation camp?”

Ely Conservation Camp was part of the prison and was run in conjunction with the Nevada Division of Forestry. The warden assigned camp operation support activities to model inmates. Working at the camp was the dream of every Ely inmate.

“What about it?” Little Hands asked.

“You’re being assigned to it.”

“When?”

“Today. This morning.”

Little Hands released his grip on the barbell, and it sunk down to Big Juan’s chest.

“Come on. Do another.”

Big Juan strained with the barbell, barely lifting it a foot above his chest. When he could lift it no farther, panic set into his eyes. Little Hands picked up the barbell and held it a few inches above him.

“Then what happens?”

Big Juan was blowing out his cheeks, regretting every bad thing he’d ever done to his body. In a whisper he said, “You’ll take a truck over to the conservation camp and check in. Another truck will take you out to a forest to do a clean-up job. You’ll walk away from the job into a waiting car.”

“Where am I going?”

“Las Vegas.”

“Who’s behind this? Someone in Las Vegas?”

“Yeah,” Big Juan wheezed.

Little Hands was getting the picture. He’d lived in Las Vegas and knew how that town worked. When one of the casino bosses wanted something done, palms got greased, phone calls got made, and it got done. He made Big Juan do another press. The effort nearly killed him.

“Who does this person in Las Vegas want me to kill?”

Big Juan was opening and shutting his eyes while sucking down air. Each time he inhaled, cherry-sized lumps formed where his jaw met his sideburns.

“Who said this was a hit?” Big Juan asked.

Little Hands leaned down and breathed in Big Juan’s face. “I was a hitman. Ain’t no other reason someone is going to go to the trouble to spring me out of here.”

“Some retired cop,” Big Juan said.

“That’s the hit?”

“Yeah. He’s in Las Vegas.”

Little Hands felt his brow tighten the way it did when his blood pressure rose. A retired cop was responsible for putting him in the slammer.

“What’s his name?”

“Valentine.”

“Tony Valentine?”

“Yeah. You know him?”

Little Hands lowered the barbell and forced Big Juan to do another press. He’d dreamed about snuffing Valentine ever since being locked up. Valentine had sucker-punched him in a Vegas motel while Little Hands was staring at a porno movie playing on the TV. The movie had reminded Little Hands of something he’d seen his mother doing when he was a little kid. It had messed Little Hands up real good.

Big Juan was shaking his head in defeat. He’d had enough. Little Hands lifted the bar off his chest, and Big Juan shut his eyes.

Little Hands crossed the weight room with a towel in his hands. He looked out the barred window that faced the yard. Ely housed over a thousand prisoners along with the state’s Death Row inmates. Security was tight, with armed guards sitting in turrets on the two main buildings, watching the yard twenty-four hours a day. He’d heard lifers talk about “escaping” by running between the two main buildings, and going out in a blaze of gunfire. No one hadever escaped, and he imagined the glory of being the first.

“Get your hands off the bars,” the guard called out.

Little Hands released the bars and turned to face the guard.

“Sorry.”

Comic book in his lap, the guard fingered his double-barreled shotgun. He was a round kid with a moon face and flour-sack arms.

“Get away from the window,” the guard said.

“I was just looking.”

“You heard me, Hercules.”

Little Hands walked back to the weight bench. Big Juan was still panting like he’d just run a four-minute mile. The guard picked up his comic book and emitted a loud belch as he flipped back to his spot.

“I want the job,” Little Hands said.

Big Juan nodded, then tried to get up. He fell back hard on the bench and closed his eyes. When he reopened them, there was a new appreciation in his face.

“Doesn’t all that weight make you hurt?” Big Juan asked.

“Sure,” Little Hands said.

“Why do you do it?”

Little Hands smiled to himself. Big Juan’s muscles would be burning, his body going into shock. He would hurt for days, had maybe even damaged his joints or his heart. He did not understand pain the way Little Hands understood pain. Few people did.

“Because I like it,” Little Hands said.

16

“Have you ever seen one of these before?” Detective Joey Marconi asked.

Gerry Valentine tiredly shook his head. Late morning, and he was sitting in the hospital visitors’ area with Eddie Davis’s partner, having spent several hours going over what had happened outside Bally’s.

Marconi was holding a New York Yankees baseball cap. He’d found the cap on the floor of Bally’s while chasing the other members of Abruzzi’s gang, who’d escaped out the casino’s rear exit. The cap had a miniature receiver and three light-emitting diodes sewn into its rim, and had been used to rip Bally’s off at blackjack.

Gerry had seen some sophisticated cheating equipment since going to work for his father, but the cap was unique. By looking upward into the cap’s rim, a cheater could read signals being sent by another member of the crew. Like looking at a tiny movie screen,Gerry thought.

“Do you know how the cap works?” Marconi asked.

“I think so,” Gerry said.

Marconi was on his sixth cup of coffee, and as animated as a five-year-old with a sugar buzz. He was small and wiry and so Italian he looked Greek. He wore the standard undercover detective’s uniform: blue jeans and a sweatshirt with a pullover hood. Across the front of the sweatshirt were the words I’M BLIND, I’M DEAF, I WANT TO BE A REF!

“You have to do better than that, Gerry,” Marconi said.

“I do?”