Deadman's Poker: A Novel (Tony Valentine)

by James Swain

  “That’s awful generous of you, Mr. Valentine, but I have a better idea.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’ll just go and shoot the son-of-a-bitch.”

  Valentine hung up the phone, then picked up the oil man’s check and endorsed it. He hadn’t made much money as a cop, and felt a certain satisfaction each time he signed the back of a check that he’d received for solving a scam. His bank account was growing fatter by the week, and he supposed one day he’d go out and buy himself a new car, or some nice new clothes, or maybe even a boat. Someday, but not today.

  As he started to shut down his computer, he remembered why he’d come back to his study in the first place. Digging into his pocket, he removed the sheet of paper on which he’d written down Vinny Fountain’s and Frank DeCesar’s social security numbers, driver ID numbers, and addresses. He canceled the shut down and went into his e-mail, hitting the button for NEW MESSAGE. Then he typed in the recipient’s name: Eddie Davis.

  Eddie was an undercover detective with the Atlantic City Police Department, a hip black guy whose resemblance to the actor Richard Roundtree from the first Shaft movie was uncanny. Eddie had joined the force after Valentine had retired. They’d never worked together, and had no mutual friends in the department. But they did have bond. Eddie had helped Valentine catch the people who’d murdered his partner, and they’d become good friends.

  Valentine copied Vinny Fountain and Frank DeCesar’s information into the body of the e-mail, and hit SEND. Picking up the phone, he called Eddie at home.

  “Am I getting you at a bad time?” he asked when Eddie answered.

  “Just entertaining a lady friend.”

  “I can call back.”

  “She was just leaving, weren’t you, honey?”

  Valentine heard a woman’s angry voice, followed by an unpleasant exchange. The conversation ended with a door being slammed.

  “I’m back,” Eddie said.

  “I hope I wasn’t the cause of that,” Valentine said.

  “Not at all. She was starting to use offensive language, so I figured it was time to end things.”

  The mean streets of Atlantic City were as bad as any in the nation, and Valentine couldn’t imagine any language that Eddie might find upsetting.

  “What kind of offensive language?”

  “You know, words like marriage and commitment. That sort of thing.”

  “You’re never going to settle down, are you?”

  “The fields are too green for a man to stop mowing.”

  “I guess that means no.”

  “I’ll find the woman of my dreams someday,” Eddie said.

  Valentine’s eyes found the framed photograph of his late wife that sat on his desk. She’d never stopped being the woman of his dreams, even after she’d died.

  “So what’s up?” Eddie asked.

  “I just sent you an e-mail with the names of two punks in Atlantic City I’d like you to check out. I need everything you can tell me about these jokers. Criminal backgrounds, who they run with, crimes they’ve been accused of, the whole shooting match.”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem. Anybody I know?”

  “Vinny Fountain and Frank DeCesar. There’s also a third one, Nunzie Fountain.”

  Eddie went silent, and Valentine said, “You know them?”

  “Their names have come up.”

  “How so?”

  “This is in strict confidence, okay?”

  “Of course.”

  “Vinny and Frank are informants. There was a flood of bad heroin on the streets a year ago; lots of hookers were shooting up and dropping dead. Vinny and Frank came forward, gave us enough information to track the source, and shut the operation down. The department didn’t pay them or anything.”

  “What are you saying, they’re good Samaritans?”

  “In a way, yeah,” Eddie said. “Don’t get me wrong. They’re wise guys, but they’re also locals. They didn’t like what was happening, so they put a stop to it.”

  “Sounds like they want to go to heaven,” Valentine said.

  Eddie laughed. “I’ll run a check on them first thing tomorrow.”

  7

  At eight o’clock in the morning, Gerry drove his family across Highway 60 toward Tampa International Airport, the rush-hour traffic made bearable by the near-perfect spring weather. Warm temperatures, and not a cloud in the flawless blue sky. The baby was asleep in her car seat in the back, while his wife sat beside him reading the paper. He drove with his eyes glued to the road, even though traffic was hardly moving.

  “What time did your father come over last night?” Yolanda asked.

  “Late,” Gerry replied.

  “I’m surprised I didn’t hear him.”

  “He tried to be quiet. He knows how lightly you sleep.”

  “What made him change his mind?” his wife asked.

  Lying had never been Gerry’s strong suit, and it was rare that he was able to pull the wool over his wife’s eyes. Yolanda had a sixth sense when it came to knowing the truth, and he guessed it was why she hated it when he tried to break bad news to her over the phone.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Come on. You must have some idea.”

  “I guess he realized I’m not a kid anymore,” Gerry said.

  “You’re always going to be a kid in his eyes.” His wife took out a sanitary wipe and cleaned off their daughter’s chin. “You need to get used to it.”

  The traffic began to move and Gerry goosed the accelerator. Ahead was the Courtney Campbell Causeway, the four-lane highway bordered on both sides by the gently lapping sea. Yolanda had hit the nail on the head. His father was still treating him like a kid. Only he wasn’t a kid anymore; he’d stopped being one the day he’d started taking bets from his classmates in high school. He’d done that for twenty years along with plenty of other illegal things, yet somehow his father had forgotten that.

  “We’re partners now,” Gerry said. “My father can’t be bossing me around if we’re going to work in the same business together.”

  “Even if he knows it’s for your own good?” his wife asked.

  Gerry feigned a laugh. Yolanda was the best thing that had ever happened to him. She was beautiful and wickedly smart and loved him to a fault. But she didn’t always back him up, especially when it came to disagreements with his old man.

  “Even then,” he said.

  People who lived in Tampa liked to say that their airport was the best in the country. Gerry had used the airport a few times, and joined the chorus. The place worked like a fine Swiss watch. He parked in short term, and got his wife’s suitcase out of the trunk along with his daughter’s stroller. They took an elevator down to the second level, and headed for the American Airlines counter. Within ten minutes the suitcase had been vetted by two TSA agents, and Yolanda had the boarding passes to San Juan.

  They strolled around the main concourse, looking inside the shop windows, then bought two coffees at the Starbucks stand and an oatmeal cookie for their daughter. Yolanda glanced at her watch and said, “Well, I guess we should be going.”

  The flight didn’t leave for another hour, and Gerry knew that Yolanda would pre-board because of the baby. He asked, “Had enough of me, huh?”

  Yolanda kissed him on the lips, then looked into her husband’s eyes.

  “What I mean is, it’s time for you to go to work,” she said.

  “Think my old man will dock me if I show up late?”

  “With that attitude, yes.”

  “Do I have a bad attitude?”

  “You do with your father. He brought you into his business to help you, Gerry. That says a lot about what type of person he is. I know he can be a bear sometimes, but he has your best interests at heart and always will.”

  Gerry didn’t doubt what Yolanda was saying for a minute. His old man had been there for him through thick and thin. But he also knew that if he didn’t avenge Jack Donovan’s murder, he w
asn’t going to be able to live with himself.

  They walked over to the Concourse E shuttle and kissed again. Then he gave his daughter a kiss. His wife gave the security person her driver’s license and the boarding passes, and a moment later was let through. Gerry waved good-bye, and watched Yolanda and his daughter board a tram that would take them to their airline gate.

  Gerry drove his car out of short-term parking and handed the ticket attendant his stub. Moments later his charge was printed on a digital screen next to the attendant’s booth. NO CHARGE.

  “I get to park for free?” Gerry said.

  “You just made it under the minimum amount of time,” the attendant said.

  “What a great place.”

  “Tell me about it. Have a nice day.”

  He followed the signs out of the airport until he saw one that said AIRPORT RETURN. He got in the left lane, and looped back the way he came. A minute later he reentered the parking area, and headed for long term. He spent several minutes finding a spot, parked, and sat behind the wheel watching a jet depart on a runway. He imagined Yolanda and his daughter on that jet, and how he would feel if something happened to them and he was not by their side. Pangs of guilt swept over him, and he supposed that was the penalty for being untruthful with his wife.

  He got his suitcase from the trunk. He’d stowed it there the night before, when Yolanda was sleeping. His wife believed she was a light sleeper, but ever since she’d had the baby, she slept like a log.

  He took a tram to the main concourse, then an elevator to the second level. As he exited the elevator, he stopped beneath a giant electronic board that showed the morning’s arrivals and departures arranged alphabetically by city. There were three flights out that morning, and he didn’t think he’d have trouble getting a seat. He went to the Delta counter and handed a reservation agent his driver’s license and credit card.

  “Where are we going today?” the agent asked.

  “Las Vegas,” Gerry said.

  8

  One of the curses of the retired was the excess of unstructured time. Though not yet retired, Valentine had read that in a magazine published by AARP and had taken it to heart. Every morning, he followed a strict routine—twenty minutes of exercise, followed by breakfast while reading the paper. By nine he was ready to start work, and would go to his study and check his e-mails. More often than not, a panicked casino boss in some part of the world had contacted him the night before, and his workday would officially begin.

  But today felt a little strange. He had plenty to do—with six e-mails having come in since last night—but his enthusiasm was not there. Perhaps it had something to do with the cryptic note he’d found stuffed in his newspaper from Gerry. His son had taken his family to San Juan early that morning, and promised to call in a few days.

  Valentine stared out the window onto his backyard, and tried to put his finger on why he felt out of sorts. It took only a moment for him to realize what was wrong.

  He was alone.

  He’d battled loneliness since his wife had died, and considered it his greatest nemesis. He needed to stay engaged, regardless of the task. He was still staring out the window when his office line rang. He answered the phone without enthusiasm.

  “Tony, is that you?” It was the familiar voice of Bill Higgins. Director of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, Bill was responsible for policing Nevada’s casinos. They had been close friends for over twenty-five years.

  “Sure is. You’re up early.”

  “Just doing the Lord’s work,” Bill said. “I’ve got a problem that I was hoping you could help me with.”

  “Help’s my middle name,” Valentine said.

  “Good. Are you familiar with the World Poker Showdown?”

  “Sure. Largest open poker tournament in the world, held in Las Vegas for eight days every year, over five thousand players competing for a ten-million-dollar grand prize. This year’s event is being held at Celebrity’s new casino.”

  “I didn’t know you stayed up on the poker stuff,” Bill said.

  “Beats playing shuffleboard.”

  “There you go. There’s an old-timer entered in the tournament named Rufus Steele. His nickname is the Thin Man. You know him?”

  Valentine smiled into the receiver. Rufus was the last of the true Texas gamblers, and had never met a wager he didn’t like. “I helped Rufus out of a jam in Atlantic City twenty years ago. You know what they used to say about Rufus? If he stood sideways and stuck his tongue out, he’d look like a zipper.”

  “Well, the zipper is kicking up a storm. He got knocked out of the tournament last night, and started yelling that he’d been cheated. The tournament is being televised this year by one of the sports channels, so of course they interviewed him. It’s making all the casino owners in Las Vegas nervous.”

  “How so?”

  “Poker has been Las Vegas’s salvation since 9/11,” Bill said. “It draws more players with money than any other game. It’s keeping the casinos happy.”

  “And Rufus saying that he got cheated in the biggest game in town might kill the goose that laid the golden egg,” Valentine said.

  “Exactly.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Two things. The interview is going to be shown on television again. I’d like you to watch it, and see if you think Rufus has a legitimate beef. If he does, I’d like you to watch a surveillance tape of Rufus’s table in an e-mail I’m about to send you.”

  Valentine stared at his computer screen. The six e-mails he’d received last night were from casinos that paid him monthly retainers. He needed to address them, but didn’t want to leave Bill hanging. He didn’t put money before friendship, and never would.

  “When does the interview come on?”

  “Ten minutes.”

  “I’ll have a look, and let you know what I think.”

  The only new thing Valentine had purchased since moving to Florida was a giant-screen TV, and that was because his old TV had gotten blown out during a lightning storm. Sitting in his La-Z-Boy, he hit the power on the remote, then surfed through the hundreds of channels he paid for but never watched, until he hit upon the sports channel showing the World Poker Showdown.

  To Valentine’s way of thinking, poker tournaments were the only real competitive sport on TV. No one was getting paid except the blow-dried announcers, and every player paid an entry fee. He wondered how the prima donnas in baseball and football would feel if they had to pay to play their games in the hope of winning a prize.

  An announcer named Gloria Curtis appeared on the screen. She’d been a big-time sports analyst for years, then gotten sent down to the minor leagues of cable. Valentine had always liked her and turned up the volume.

  “This is Gloria Curtis, reporting from this year’s World Poker Showdown in Las Vegas. I’m standing here with poker legend Rufus Steele, who was knocked out of the tournament last night and is crying foul over what happened at his table.”

  The camera pulled back, and Rufus Steele entered the picture. He still looked like an advance man for a famine. He wore his usual cowboy garb—boots, blue jeans, and a denim shirt buttoned to the neck—and could have stepped straight out of a rodeo. His Stetson was held politely in his hands.

  “Rufus,” Curtis said, “could you explain to our viewing audience what happened last night?”

  “I was cheated,” Rufus said, staring into the camera.

  “Can you explain how you were cheated?”

  “I’d be happy to. The tournament starts with everyone having two hundred dollars in chips. As a result, everyone plays tight. Now, the tournament directors also move players around every hour to keep things fair.”

  “I’m with you so far,” Curtis said.

  “Good. The second hour into the tournament, I was up two hundred dollars, and doing the best at my table. Then the tournament director brought over a new player. This player had fourteen hundred dollars in chips, which put everyone at a disa
dvantage. Within an hour, this player knocked several players out, including myself.”

  “How is that cheating?” Curtis asked.

  “The cheating occurred at that player’s previous table,” Rufus said. “It is statistically impossible for that player—who is an amateur—to have won that much money in such a short amount of time.”

  She looked flustered. “But Mr. Steele, you’re playing cards. People get lucky.”

  Steele gave her an icy stare. “Ma’am, are you familiar with something called the Poisson distribution?”

  Gloria Curtis shook her head no.

  “The Poisson distribution is a mathematical method of analyzing rare events. One assumption of the Poisson distribution is that the chance of winning is equally distributed. Every individual should have an equal chance when it comes to a game of cards, or playing the lottery. Make sense?”

  “Certainly,” she said.

  “Well, I went back to my room, and used the Poisson distribution to analyze the chance of that player being the only player in this tournament to have won that much money in such a short period of time. Would you care to know what the odds are?”

  “Please.”

  “Six billion to one. Where I come from, that ain’t called luck.”

  Valentine heard the phone ringing in his study. He killed the power, and walked to the back of the house while thinking about what Rufus had just said. Rufus looked like a bumpkin, but it was just an act. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have lasted as long as he had.

  He picked up the phone, and heard Bill say, “So, what do you think?”

  “I’d say you’ve got a problem,” Valentine told his friend.

  9

  “You think Rufus was cheated?” Bill asked.

  “It sure sounds that way.”

  “Come on, Tony, there’s no smoking gun, just his word against the tournament director’s. I thought Rufus might say during the interview that he saw this other player marking cards or stealing chips, but he didn’t say anything like that. Quoting some obscure mathematical equation isn’t grounds to say you were cheated.”