Deadman's Bluff by James Swain

explain itself. To his surprise, she picked up his business card, and slipped it into her breast pocket.
    “And it will go no further than that?” she asked.
    “That’s right. No one will ever hear about it.”
    She pulled out her lower lip and let it snap back, deep in thought. “I liked Jack. He was always cracking jokes, even when he knew what his situation was. I’ll look through the computer, let you know what turns up.”
    “Thanks a lot,” Gerry said.
    The phone on her desk had several buttons. The red one lit up and rang at the same time. She picked it up and said, “Cancer ward nurses’ station, Gladwell here.”
    She listened for a moment, then looked at Gerry a little differently than before. “There are some homicide detectives in ER searching the hospital for you. They want to question you about a dead guy they think you sent through the windshield of a car.”
    It was not the way Gerry had hoped to end their conversation.
    “Tell them I’ll be right down,” he said.

Part II
    George and Tom

13
    S kip DeMarco stood naked at the bedroom window in his suite, imagining the world he could not see. Although his vision was limited to a few inches in front of his face, DeMarco had a keen sense of light and dark, and imagined the sun climbing over the tall, bluish mountains that ringed Las Vegas, a city his uncle had described to him in great detail. His uncle made the casino-lined streets sound like something out of
The Wizard of Oz,
but DeMarco didn’t picture them that way. Vegas was a cutthroat town, designed to separate suckers from their money. That was why his uncle liked it here so much.
    The room’s air-conditioning rose with the intrusion of natural light. Shutting the blinds, he walked to the closet and went through the slow, painstaking process of picking out today’s outfit, holding each garment in front of his face to determine its color. He decided on a flowing black silk shirt, black linen pants, two gold necklaces, and shades. The tiny inner-canal earpiece he’d worn each day of the tournament lay on his bureau. As he fitted it into his ear, he heard his uncle’s soft tapping on the door.
    “Come in, Uncle George.”
    His uncle entered, shutting the door behind him.
    “You sleep good?” the older man asked.
    “Like a rock. How about you?”
    “Fine. Show me what you’re wearing.”
    DeMarco stood in the center of the bedroom, and let his uncle appraise his selection of clothes. It was a routine they’d followed since he’d gone to live with Scalzo as a little boy.
    “You look great, kid,” his uncle said.
    “The black isn’t too ominous?”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “Foreboding. Scary.”
    “You look like a man,” his uncle bristled.
    DeMarco pointed at the dresser. A radio transmitter lay on it, which was used to test the earpiece and make sure it was functioning properly. “Do the test, Uncle George.”
    His uncle picked up the transmitter and flipped the power on. Then he pressed the transmitter’s main button. DeMarco heard a short click in his ear.
    “Do it again,” DeMarco said.
    His uncle pushed the button twice. DeMarco heard two clicks.
    “Perfect,” he said.
    “You’re not leaving this out for the maid to see, are you?” his uncle asked.
    “It goes in the wall safe,” DeMarco said. “Put it away for me, Uncle George, would you?”
    His uncle shuffled across the room and put the transmitter into the wall safe. A diabetic, he suffered from swollen feet. “It’s like walking on marshmallows all the time,” he often said. His uncle carried insulin with him, yet told everyone the insulin was for his nephew, not himself. DeMarco believed that little deception said a lot about his uncle.
    “Now, look in my ear,” DeMarco said.
    “You clean it real good?” his uncle asked. DeMarco smiled. Another standard line.
    “Yes, I cleaned it real good.”
    His uncle examined his nephew’s ear. When properly fitted, the earpiece was impossible