Deadman's Poker: A Novel (Tony Valentine)

by James Swain

  “Two weeks,” his father said.

  “And the cards came up clean,” Gerry said. “Then they sent them to you, and what did you find? The cheaters used an X-acto knife to draw tiny lines on the faces of all the high cards. The dealer felt when high cards were going to Major Riddle, and he signaled the other players.”

  “What does that have to do with this case, Gerry?”

  “I’m saying that stuff gets missed. If Jack said that card was marked, then it was marked. You have to ask the Atlantic City police to start over.”

  Valentine blew out his cheeks. He’d already called in a bunch of favors with the police in his hometown; any more and he might start losing friends. It didn’t help matters that Jack Donovan had been a scammer and had been run in many times.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Valentine said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that I’m running out of options, Gerry.”

  “Come on, Pop. I’m begging you.”

  Valentine stared at the videotapes stacked next to his VCR/DVD player. He was on monthly retainer for dozens of casinos, and every day got a videotape from a client who thought his casino had been ripped off. He’d been neglecting his work to help Gerry, and couldn’t continue to ignore his customers without it affecting his income.

  “I’m trying, Gerry,” he said.

  His son pushed himself off the couch and walked out of the house.

  Valentine believed that food was the antidote for most things that ailed you. Fixing two ham-and-Swiss-cheese sandwiches, he poured some potato chips onto the plates, stuck two cans of soda into his pockets, and went out the back door to where Gerry stood, smoking a cigarette in his postage-size backyard.

  “You hungry?”

  “No,” his son said.

  “I made you a sandwich.”

  “Pop, it’s four o’clock in the afternoon.”

  “Eat something anyway. It will make you feel better.”

  Valentine put the food on the plastic table in his yard, and pulled up two plastic chairs. His son begrudgingly sat down and they began to eat. A few minutes later, Gerry pushed his empty plate to the center of the table, and stared at his father.

  “Did I ever tell you that Jack came to Mom’s funeral?”

  Valentine was still eating his sandwich, and glanced at his son. His wife had died two weeks after they’d moved to Florida to retire. He’d taken her body back to Atlantic City, and buried her beside her parents. The ceremony was for friends and family, and Valentine was sure Jack Donovan had not been present.

  “You could have fooled me.”

  “He was in a tree,” Gerry said.

  “Hanging out with his friends?”

  “I’m being serious, Pop.”

  “Why was he doing that?”

  “Because cops were there, and Jack was wanted at the time.”

  Valentine put his half-eaten sandwich onto his plate. “Why was he at your mother’s funeral, is what I meant.”

  “Jack loved Mom, and he loved you.”

  Valentine put his elbows on the table, and gave his son a hard look. He’d always considered Jack something of a public menace as well as a bad influence on his son, and had never hidden those feelings. Now he waited for Gerry to explain himself.

  “Remember when I was a kid, and the Donovans lived on our block?” his son asked.

  “Sure,” Valentine said.

  “Mom used to ask Jack down on Christmas day to open presents, and have breakfast with us. Then, around noon, Jack would go back to his house, and open presents with his parents. We did that until the Donovans moved. Remember?”

  Valentine nodded.

  “When I got older, Jack explained to me that his parents were both drunks, and used to fight in the morning. Christmas day was always bad. He realized that you and Mom invited him down so his Christmas wasn’t spoiled by his parents’ fighting. He loved you guys for that.”

  Valentine sipped his soda. His own father had been a drunk, and he’d always felt bad for kids whose parents abused the sauce. He picked up his sandwich, and noticed that an almost invisible line of ants had crawled onto the table, and they were attacking his food. He dropped his sandwich on his plate.

  “You know that when Jack got older, he was involved in a lot of bad stuff,” Gerry said. “But what you didn’t know was that Jack protected you, Pop. None of the things he was involved with ever happened when you were on duty. And none of the gangs he ran with ever robbed anybody when you were on duty, either. That was the deal if someone worked with Jack, and he always stuck by it.”

  Valentine drummed the table. It would have been a Hallmark moment had Gerry told him that Jack had avoided a life of crime because of the Christmas mornings he’d spent at their house. This revelation was anything but.

  “I’m touched,” he said.

  “Jack looked out for you, Pop. You should be grateful.”

  Valentine found himself wishing he’d arrested the kid and hauled him in front of a judge. That was the type of treatment that usually straightened out the Jack Donovan’s of the world. He walked over to the garbage pails behind his house, and tossed the paper plate with his sandwich. Returning to the table, he said, “I’ll continue to ride the Atlantic City detectives working the case and I’ll continue to examine the evidence. But I can’t promise you anything, Gerry.”

  Gerry rose from the table. From his pocket he removed a piece of paper and unfolded it. It was a composite that Gerry had paid a courthouse artist in Atlantic City to draw of the man he’d seen in the hospital stairwell. He handed the drawing to his father.

  “Just look at the case some more, Pop, that’s all I’m asking.”

  Valentine patted his son on the back. It was tough to lose a childhood friend, harder still when you thought the friend had been murdered.

  “I’ll do what I can,” Valentine said.

  3

  Gerry left, and Valentine went inside and back to work. As he walked through the rooms to his office, he paused to dust off a stack of videotapes. Along with his collection of crooked gambling equipment and books, the house contained his massive library of casino surveillance tapes and DVDs. Twenty-five years of cases were shoved into the dwelling, and every inch of storage space was filled with boxes.

  He hadn’t intended for the house to be that way. When he’d retired from the Atlantic City Police Department and moved to Florida two years before, he’d been ready to turn his back on the gambling world. But then his wife had died, and his social life had vanished. His days had turned into treading water. Out of necessity he’d gone back to work and started his consulting business.

  His office was in the rear of his house. Normally his office manager, Mabel Struck, was manning the phones, but she had taken a much-deserved vacation, and was cruising the Caribbean. The room felt lonely without her, and he sat at his desk and sorted through the mail.

  Today’s batch contained several letters from frantic casino bosses. Every day somewhere a casino got ripped off. Sometimes, an old-fashioned grifter was responsible. In other cases, high-tech whiz kids were using a new gadget to beat the house. In this game of cat-and-mouse, the mouse sometimes won.

  As he tore open each envelope, he checked to see if the sender had enclosed a check. That meant they were serious, and not shopping for free advice. Today’s mail had two checks. The first was from a French casino that was losing a few grand a night at baccarat. The second from a Houston oil man who believed he’d been ripped off in a private poker game. Each check was accompanied by a CD on which the sender had recorded the suspected cheater’s play. As Valentine popped the oil man’s CD into his computer, the office phone rang.

  “Grift Sense,” he answered.

  “This is Mark Perrier, general manager at Celebrity Casino in Las Vegas,” a man’s voice said. “Is Tony Valentine available?”

  Celebrity was one of the newer casino chains. Instead of hiring gamers to run their casinos, Celebrity
employed stuffed suits from the corporate world.

  “For a price,” Valentine said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “He’s available for a price,” Valentine said, then added, “It’s a joke.”

  There was a short silence on the line.

  “I’d like to speak to him,” Perrier said.

  “He’s busy right now, making a living. Can I tell him what this is about?”

  “No, you cannot.”

  Valentine had never consulted for Celebrity’s casinos, and didn’t think this conversation would change that. He dropped the receiver loudly on the desk, then noisily ruffled some papers. After a few moments, he picked the phone back up.

  “Valentine here.”

  “Wasn’t I just speaking to you?” Perrier asked angrily.

  “That was my associate, Mr. Lipschitz,” Valentine said. “People tell us we sound a lot alike. What can I do for you?”

  “Mr. Valentine, I’ll get right to the point. My owner has asked me to contact you regarding a homicide investigation taking place in Atlantic City. It involves a known cheater named Jack Donovan.”

  Lying on Valentine’s desk was the playing card that Jack Donovan had given Gerry. He picked the card up, and stared at the garish Celebrity logo on the back.

  “What about it?” Valentine asked.

  “Celebrity would like the case to go away.”

  “Is that so?”

  “The Atlantic City police have informed us that you are the primary reason the case is still open. Celebrity is presently hosting the World Poker Showdown, the largest poker tournament in the world. Having our casino associated with a murder investigation of a known cheater could be a public relations nightmare. I don’t want to threaten you, Mr. Valentine, but if this case were to hit the newspapers and damage our reputation, we would seek punitive damages against your company.”

  “That sounds like a threat to me,” Valentine said.

  “I hope you’ll strongly consider what I’ve said.”

  “Jack Donovan had a Celebrity playing card in his possession when he died. Were you aware of that?”

  There was another silence on the line, this one a little longer.

  “Mr. Valentine, I don’t like the course this conversation is taking,” Perrier said. “I’d appreciate an answer to my question. Will you drop this case or won’t you?”

  “Get lost,” Valentine said, and hung up the phone.

  Valentine scratched his chin while staring at the Celebrity playing card lying on his blotter. Where there was smoke, there was usually fire. If Celebrity wanted the case to go away, it was not just because of the bad publicity. Casinos received bad publicity every day, and it didn’t stop people from gambling in them.

  He had an idea, and he went on his computer, opening the database of his friends who worked in the gaming industry. Information on close to a thousand people was kept on this database. He pulled up all the names of people he knew who’d gone to work for Celebrity. There were thirty files. Scanning through the names, one jumped out at him: Paul Cummins, an old crony from Atlantic City, and one of the top security men in the business. Paul had recently gone to work for Celebrity’s casino in Detroit, and Valentine called him on his cell phone.

  “Paul here,” Cummins answered through a mouthful of food.

  “Quit eating on the job.”

  “As I live and breathe, if it isn’t Atlantic City’s gift to the world.”

  “I miss you, too. Look, Paul, I need your help.”

  “Name it.”

  “A Celebrity playing card has turned up in a murder investigation,” Valentine said. “The card is clean, but something tells me it’s still a valuable clue, only I’m not seeing what it is.”

  “Well, for starters, our playing cards aren’t in general circulation,” Cummins said. “Whoever had our card shouldn’t have, because they’re not supposed to leave the casinos.”

  “They’re not?”

  “No, sir. Ever since we got scammed by our own cards last year, we stopped selling them to the general public.”

  Valentine felt like a bucket of ice water had been poured down his back. Years ago, casinos had sold used playing cards in their gift shops. But then the used cards had started turning up on the tables, mucked in by skilled sleight-of-hand artists. Some casinos had started “canceling” the used cards before they sold them by punching a hole in them, while others had stopped the practice altogether.

  “So how would someone get a card out of one of your casinos?” Valentine asked.

  “They wouldn’t,” Cummins said. “Not legally, anyway. Our cards are printed by the U.S. Playing Card Company in Cincinnati, and shipped by armored truck to each casino. When the cards reach the casino, they’re kept under lock and key until they’re delivered to the tables. The cards are used for an eight-hour shift, then collected, inspected, and destroyed.”

  “How could someone get one of your cards?” Valentine asked.

  “They’d have to bribe an employee. If that happened in Detroit, I’d find out about it, because every card is accounted for before it’s destroyed.”

  Valentine picked up the card lying on his desk. “What would you do?”

  “I’d have the employee arrested,” Cummins said. “I’d also notify management, and we’d probably do something drastic, like have all our playing cards changed. Now, if you don’t mind, I want to ask you a question. A Celebrity playing card has obviously been taken from one of our casinos. I’d like to know, which one?”

  “Why?”

  “Job security.”

  Valentine examined the card in his hand. Celebrity’s name was printed in bold colors on its back, but not the casino’s location.

  “I don’t know,” Valentine said.

  “Just tell me the back color,” Cummins said.

  “Purple.”

  “Be still my beating heart.”

  “Not yours?”

  “No,” Cummins said. “Purple is from our new casino in Las Vegas that opened last week. They’re hosting the World Poker Showdown.”

  “When last week?”

  “The grand opening was Friday night. They didn’t invite you?”

  Valentine counted backward on his fingers. Last Friday was six days ago, and Jack Donovan had died eight days ago. Another bucket of water came splashing down his back, this one even colder than the first.

  “Thanks, Paul,” he said. “Thanks a lot.”

  4

  Valentine said good-bye to Cummins and hung up, then weighed calling Gerry. He wanted to tell his son what he’d learned, and also to apologize. He hadn’t believed that Jack Donovan was murdered. Now, he knew better.

  He’d let it wait. Confirming what Gerry already knew wasn’t going to make his son feel better. In fact, it would only get him more worked up. Better to let Gerry spend a peaceful night with his wife and baby, and tell him tomorrow.

  His size twelves made the wooden floors creak as he padded through the house to his kitchen. He poured himself a glass of water from the tap, and had it halfway to his lips when he remembered how awful the water tasted in Florida. Like a science experiment, as Gerry was fond of saying. He took a long swallow anyway.

  The kitchen window looked onto his backyard, and he watched a mother cardinal deliver an insect to a nest of babies. The babies’ mouths were visible above the nest’s branches, each screaming Me! The mother dropped the insect and flew away.

  He poured the rest of the water down the drain. Jack Donovan had been in the hospital for several months. That meant the cards from Celebrity’s Las Vegas casino had been delivered to him. Jack had doctored them in some fashion, and given them back. Being a smart crook, he’d kept one for himself, just in case he ever needed to blackmail his partners. That was the card he’d given to Gerry. The blackmail card.

  But why had his partners killed him? The poor guy didn’t have much time left. His partners must have been afraid of something.

  Valentine went outside and s
at on the back stoop. The sun was setting, its dying rays turning the sky a burnt orange. Some nights, he crossed the bridge to Clearwater Beach, and watched the sun set over the Gulf of Mexico. It was painful without his wife, but he did it anyway, knowing that time was the only thing that could heal his wounds.

  His stomach was making funny sounds, and he realized he didn’t feel well. He went inside and opened the pantry in search of the Pepto. As he started to pour out a spoonful, he realized what was bothering him. Jack Donovan had been murdered while Gerry was visiting him. The murderer could have waited, but had obviously wanted to shut Jack up. Was the murderer afraid of Jack revealing the poker scam to Gerry?

  He put the Pepto back on the shelf. It made all the sense in the world. No wonder Gerry was so upset. His visit to Atlantic City was why Jack Donovan had died.

  Valentine took a turkey-and-cheese Subway sandwich out of the refrigerator, and ate half while standing at the kitchen sink. One of the great shortcomings of the male species was its unwillingness to cook food for one person, and Valentine had started buying sandwiches from Subway and storing them in the fridge. He ate an apple for dessert, then decided it was time to go across the street and have a talk with his son.

  Gerry and his beautiful wife and baby lived on the same block, only across the street and at the other end. The distance kept things healthy, and he tossed the core of his apple into the bushes before crossing.

  The burg they lived in was called Palm Harbor. It was sandwiched between several other burgs, and the residential streets saw little traffic. He and his late wife had bought their house right before real estate prices had gone through the stratosphere. These days, it seemed everyone wanted to live in a small town.

  Parked in front of Gerry’s house was a car with a Z license plate. A Z meant it was a rental. Exhaust was coming out of its tailpipe, music blaring out of its radio. As Valentine got closer, he glanced at the driver. An Italian guy around his son’s age, with a drooping moustache and sunken eyes. Valentine slapped his hand on the sill of the open window.