Case #10: The Widow
Date: June 20, 2002
Location: Los Angeles, CA and Miami, FL


Getting back in the private detective business is like riding a bicycle. You never forget how to do it. I had stolen enough bikes as a kid, so I knew how to ride.

One thing that took me a while to learn was to place an ad for a secretary in the local paper. Employment agencies would send anybody left on their shelf whether they could type, speak English, or understand they were supposed to show up on time. Using my own judgment seemed to garner better results.

Mornings were the busiest time at the office. Most clients came early, before they got cold feet. It was the chatty Leslie who came into my office that morning around nine to tell me we had a visitor. Leslie was on the plump side, pathologically into horoscopes and numerology, and was pleasantly punctual.

"Your wife is in the outer office, Mr. Casino," she announced, her eyes dancing with excitement.

"I don't have a wife," I said. "I think I would have remembered."

"What do I do with her?" whispered Leslie, a confused look on her face.

"I hope you'll see me, Johnny," said a meek voice behind her.

I looked up and saw a plain woman in her mid-forties staring at me from behind a pair of large glasses. She looked like a spinster secretary or accountant in her gray dress. Her straight brown hair touched her shoulders, but didn't have any style to it.

"What can I do for you?" I asked, standing up.

"Johnny," she said, her eyes wide.

"Yes?"

She studied me for a few seconds. "You're taller than I remember."

"I'm sorry, lady, but I'm not the guy you're looking for."

"Yes you are. I'd know you anywhere, even after all these years."

"I'm still not your husband."

"I have our wedding certificate."

She gently pulled a document out of her large purse and showed it to me. It was a wedding certificate from the Miami Beach District Court dated June 14, 1981, signed by a Deputy Clerk.

"We could only afford a civil ceremony, but we are married, Johnny. It says so right here. Where did you go that night?" she said with a catch in her voice. She stared at me through those glasses and waited for an answer.


I knew exactly where the real Johnny Casino went the night he disappeared. I knew the approximate time and longitude, too. The Atlantic Ocean. I wasn't with him when it happened, but I was on the same gambling ship, The Lucky Lady, as we sailed out of Freeport on Grand Bahama Island at 9 p.m. heading back to Miami.

I was catching the Las Vegas-style show in the lounge, watching girls with legs that could make a Trappist monk want to join Toastmasters.

Johnny 'C' and I bunked in the same cabin with half a dozen other guys who worked on the ship that summer in 1981. I acted as a bouncer whenever my boss, Eddie "Mambo" Fontaine who owned the ship, asked me to lend some muscle. The Lucky Lady catered to clientele who spent big, and lost big, but most of them had a few extra million in the bank so they didn't get upset when a bad card came their way.

Johnny was a dealer at one of the poker tables. He bragged that he could deal off the bottom as easily as off the top. Big Eddie used him as a "bustout" dealer whenever he needed to get rid of a difficult customer on the day trips to Freeport. Big Eddie would slip him a few extra bills when we docked in Miami if the customer had been unusually obnoxious and Johnny 'C' relieved him of substantial bucks.

Come to think of it, the night he went overboard, Johnny 'C' did seem a little distracted. I guess taking on a wife can be hazardous to your health. I don't remember anybody ever saying how he went over the side, but there are sixty-five miles of deep, blue ocean between Miami and Freeport to get lost in. They never found Johnny 'C's body.

That's why when I bolted to California and needed to come up with a new identity, I chose his. We looked similar. I was two inches taller than his six foot frame, but he spent most of his time sitting behind a Black Jack table, so nobody compared our heights.

I latched on to his identification papers that he always kept in his locker before the cops got hold of it. They assumed it went overboard with him. He had a wad of cash, but I was more interested in his I.D. In my old line of work you never knew when you needed to be somebody else. As a matter of fact, in my current line of work, it often helped.


So here was his wife, twenty years after the fact, looking for good old Johnny 'C.'

"I wish I could help you, Mrs. Casino," I said, trying to think of a way to get her out of the office short of pulling the fire alarm. "But I'm not your husband."

Ignoring me, she said, "I used every nickel in my checking account to hire a skip tracer to find you after seeing an article about you in a Los Angeles paper some tourist left on the bus when I was going to work. There it was: 'Johnny Casino Saves Senator' big as life. The tracer checked Social Security numbers and lo and behold, they were the same."

"Here, Mrs. Casino," said Leslie, handing the woman a cup of tea and offering her a chair. I needed Leslie to take a mind reading course since she obviously didn't read the tea leaves and know I wanted this woman to scram.

"Mrs. Casino," I said, sitting down. "I'm not your husband. His records must have gotten mixed up with mine somewhere along the line."

She yanked a flowered hankie out of her purse and started to cry. "But you have to be my Johnny. When I saw your name in the paper, I said to myself: here's the miracle you've been looking for, Theda." She looked up at me through liquid eyes. "You see, it's my mother. She's been doing poorly for several years and needs a hip replacement."

"Won't Medicare pay for it?" blurted Leslie, getting entirely too involved in my business.

"Leslie, why don't you finish those invoices," I said.

She started to say something, but must have finally picked up on my vibes. "If you need anything, just buzz me, Mr. Casino."

Leslie walked to the outer office leaving the door open.

"You can shut the door, Leslie," I said in a louder tone.

She reappeared, gave me a sheepish look and slowly closed the door, but before it completely shut, she said, "I told you Thursday was your lucky day, Mr. Three."

"Who is Mr. Three?" asked Theda Casino.

"My current secretary is into numerology, astrology, and probably phrenology," I explained. Theda gave a slight chuckle. "I'm a three. I'm also a Pisces. She's a Cancer. She said we were water and earth and together we make mud. I figure a fish and a crab makes a really good cioppino. But I can't convince Leslie."

"That's an Italian fish soup, isn't it?

"I'm as Italian as they come," I told Mrs. Casino. "Born and raised in Jersey City. Doctors don't give us blood transfusions, they use marinara sauce."

"You don't look Italian," said Theda, studying me. "Johnny was Italian. I never got to meet his family. They all died before he moved to Miami."

She knew as much about Johnny 'C' as I did. I remember Eddie "Mambo" brought him down from Jersey to work on his ship in 1979, the same year I moved to Miami. Johnny 'C' had worked at one of the new casinos on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City and Eddie made him an offer he couldn't refuse. Our paths crossed a few times before we became cabin mates in 1981.

Johnny told me his parents died close together. I thought his old man croaked and his mother died of a broken heart. He said, no, they were running from a bank they had robbed and were shot within five feet of each other. His father had been a smalltime hood and didn't have a getaway car. That happens.

Eddie "Mambo" knew about Johnny's father, but figured the way the kid could deal cards, he would be an asset. Johnny 'C' was a magician with his hands.

"Johnny would have given my mother money for a new hip," said Theda. "He was always generous."

I didn't remember the other Johnny being anything but a card sharp, but I guess she knew him better than I did.

"My secretary was right. Taxpayers will pay for your mother's hip."

"She's only sixty-two. It will be three more years before she can get it done. She won't last that long."

"What do you do for a living, Mrs. Casino?"

"Call me Theda, under the circumstances, Johnny. I was working in a drugstore when Johnny said he would take care of me, but after you left me… after the other Johnny left me, I needed something with better hours, so I found a job in a car dealership in Homestead, down in Florida. I quit my job when I came looking for you."

"Did Johnny have insurance?"

"A small individual policy. I went through that in two years. Everything would have been okay if mom hadn't got sick. Then I saw that article." Her eyes sparkled. "It was a miracle."

"I'm sorry I'm not the right Johnny, Mrs. Casino."

I stood and was going to escort her out, but she had other ideas.

"The skip tracer said if you weren't the right guy, I should file with the IRS for his Social Security check, since I'm a struggling widow. That wouldn't present a problem for you, would it?"

This time the look on her face wasn't as meek.

......Continued.


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