Deadman's Poker: A Novel (Tony Valentine)

by James Swain

  “I can’t see through it,” he announced.

  “That’s the whole idea,” Rufus said.

  Several gamblers who’d made bets with Rufus wanted to examine the bag, and it was passed around the room. Valentine caught Gloria flashing him a nervous smile. When the gamblers were finished examining the bag, it was handed to the Greek. He stepped forward, and began to fit it over Rufus’s head, when the old cowboy stopped him. “One last thing. We need to agree on how many items I have to identify.”

  The Greek hesitated, and glanced at his partners.

  “Three,” one of the men called out.

  “Three?” Rufus asked. “I was thinking more like one.”

  “You could guess with one,” the man shot back. “Three is fair.”

  “I’ll do three,” Rufus said, “if you’ll make it double or nothing.”

  The Greek looked at his partners, then at the other men who’d made wagers with Rufus. Gamblers were good at communicating with their eyes, and without a word being spoken, everyone who’d made a wager with Rufus agreed to double it.

  Valentine felt his knees buckle. The only way he could cover the bet now would be to sell his house and his car and probably his giant-screen TV. If there hadn’t been so many witnesses and a camera rolling, he would have dragged Rufus across the room and beaten the living crap out of him.

  “Double or nothing it is,” the Greek said.

  With a smile on his face, the Greek placed the leather bag over Rufus’s head, and tied the drawstring as tightly as he could.

  Dr. Robinson stepped forward with the annoyed look still on his face. He didn’t look like a gambler, or the kind of person who enjoyed gamblers’ company, and Valentine imagined him going straight home after this, and taking a long shower. The doctor looked at the Greek and said, “Ready when you are.”

  The Greek fished a worn deck of playing cards from his pocket. Removing one, he held it up to the crowd. It was the four of clubs. He handed the card to Robinson. Without a word, the doctor held the card a few feet from Rufus’s bagged head.

  “It’s a playing card,” Rufus’s muffled voice said.

  Another hush fell over the group. The Greek acted like he’d been kicked in the groin with a steel boot.

  “Which one?” the Greek asked.

  “Four of clubs,” the muffled voice said.

  Valentine could not believe what he was seeing. There was only one way to pull this stunt off—by having Robinson “cue” Rufus through a verbal code. These codes, called second sight, were the staple of mind-reading acts, and known by cheaters. Only Robinson hadn’t said a word, the annoyed look still painted across his face.

  The Greek took a stack of chips from his pocket. They were a rainbow of colors, indicating several different denominations. He plucked out a purple chip, and gave it to Robinson. The doctor held the chip in his outstretched hand.

  “It’s a chip,” Rufus’s muffled voice said.

  “What denomination?” the Greek asked.

  “Ten grand,” the voice said.

  The Greek angrily threw the chip to the ground. “You’re cheating!”

  Valentine stepped forward to defend his man. “How can he be cheating?”

  “He’s somehow seeing through the glasses and the bag,” the Greek said. “He has to be. There’s no such thing as X-ray vision.”

  Valentine got in the Greek’s breathing space. “Then why did you bet with him?”

  The Greek started to reply, then thought better of it, and shut his mouth.

  “Cover my eyes with your hands,” Rufus’s muffled voice said.

  Valentine’s head snapped.

  “You heard me,” the voice said.

  The Greek took the bait, and scurried around to the back of Rufus’s folding chair. Leaning forward, he placed his enormous palms directly over Rufus’s eyes. One of the Greek’s partners stepped forward, and removed a handful of change from his pocket. The man selected a coin—an old-looking silver quarter—and bypassing Dr. Robinson, held the coin up to Rufus’s face.

  “What’s this?”

  “A dirty fingernail,” Rufus’s muffled voice said.

  Everyone in the room who wasn’t part of the wager started laughing. Those who were part of the wager looked like candidates for Siberia. After a few moments, the room quieted down.

  “You’re holding a quarter,” the muffled voice said.

  The man holding the quarter started to shake. “What’s the date?”

  “It’s 1947.”

  Dr. Robinson took the quarter out of the man’s hand and, in a loud voice, verified the date. It was indeed 1947. The doctor handed the quarter back to the man, who passed it to his partners. The other men examined the coin while shaking their heads in disbelief.

  No one was more despondent than the Greek, who hurriedly came around Rufus’s chair, and examined the coin. The Greek began to dab at his eyes, and Valentine realized he was crying, never a pretty sight inside a casino.

  “Hey, Tony, help me out, will you?” Rufus asked.

  Valentine went to where Rufus sat, and untied the drawstring of the leather bag around the old cowboy’s head. He pulled the bag off, then untied the twine holding the steel glasses to Rufus’s face. To his surprise, the glasses hadn’t moved, and he wondered how Rufus had managed to see through them.

  Rufus rubbed at his eyes, and then patted down his hair. Standing, he faced Gloria Curtis’s microphone and the camera, and raised his arms triumphantly into the air.

  “I win,” he declared.

  39

  “We’re not going to kill you,” Jinky Harris said.

  Gerry Valentine stared at his captor, the rhythmic pounding of flesh reverberating across the dusty warehouse. He was sitting bound to a chair and sweat was pouring off his body. Jinky’s men hadn’t driven very far after abducting them, and Gerry had seen the casinos’ blazing neon in the distance as he’d been pulled from the trunk.

  “You could have fooled me,” Gerry said.

  The warehouse was shaped like a small airplane hangar. On the other end, Vinny and Nunzie and Frank also sat bound in chairs. Jinky’s henchmen had been slapping them around for a while, then decided to gang up on Frank, their punches sounding like sledgehammers hitting a side of beef.

  “You want me to stop it?” Jinky asked.

  “Of course I want you to stop it,” Gerry replied.

  Jinky played with the automatic controls on the arm of his wheelchair, and pulled around so he was facing Gerry. He’d been eating nonstop since their arrival, and crumbs of food peppered his beard. He pointed across the warehouse.

  “Which one of them shot Russ Watson in the parking lot yesterday?” Jinky asked. “That’s all I want to know.”

  “Who’s Russ Watson?”

  Jinky pulled a candy bar from the pocket of his purple velour tracksuit and tore off the wrapper. “You’re making this hard on your friends.”

  Gerry stared across the warehouse at the guy punching Frank in the face. The guy was a gorilla, yet Frank kept smiling at him in between getting hit. Frank had boxed as a pro for six years, and won all his fights except a couple of hometown decisions. His fight philosophy had been simple: he’d been willing to take punishment in order to deliver punishment. They’d picked the wrong guy to beat up.

  Gerry’s eyes returned to Jinky. “Let me guess. Russ Watson is the dead guy that turned up in my motel room yesterday.”

  “That’s right,” Jinky said. “I want to know who shot him.”

  On the other side of the warehouse, Frank let out a sickening grunt. It echoed across the room, and made Gerry’s stomach do a flip-flop.

  “Will you tell me something if I tell you?” Gerry asked.

  Jinky bit into the candy bar like he had a grudge with it. “Depends.”

  “We came to you in good faith, and told you what we were doing in Las Vegas,” Gerry said. “You got in touch with the Tuna, and ratted us out. The Tuna sent a hitman, who killed my best friend,
to kill us. When that went south, you tried to have us killed. Why did you do that?”

  The candy bar was a memory. Jinky fingered the control on the armrest of his chair, like he was considering taking off. The question obviously made him uncomfortable. Gerry, tied to a chair, had just called him a piece of shit.

  “You don’t know how things work in Las Vegas,” Jinky said.

  “I don’t?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then why don’t you educate me?”

  Jinky snorted under his breath. “This town is run on juice.”

  “It is?”

  “Absolutely. The Tuna has juice with people in town, so it was in my best interest to strike a deal with him. Your father has juice with people in town, so it’s in my best interest not to kill you. Get it?”

  Gerry gazed across the warehouse. “What about my friends?”

  “Your friends are fucked,” Jinky said. “Nobody knows them from Adam. They could die and it would be like they never existed. That’s what happens when you don’t have any juice in Las Vegas.”

  “Can I ask you something else?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Who does the Tuna have juice with?”

  Jinky’s laughter filled the warehouse. “You don’t know anything, do you?”

  “I guess not,” Gerry said.

  “Now, it’s your turn to answer a question. Who shot Russ Watson yesterday?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Jinky said angrily.

  “He was a hitman,” Gerry said.

  Jinky’s face went blank. “So?”

  “One of the job dangers of being a hitman is that sometimes people fight back.”

  “You think Russ got what was coming to him?”

  “You sent Russ into battle and he lost.”

  A look of rage flashed over Jinky’s face, and it occurred to Gerry that he wasn’t used to back talk. The big man touched the arm control on his wheelchair and crashed into him, sending Gerry’s chair scraping several feet across the concrete floor.

  “Don’t give me any of that philosophy shit,” Jinky roared. “Which one of you shot Russ Watson?”

  Gerry studied Jinky’s face. Every time Jinky mentioned Russ Watson, his eyes went soft, and Gerry guessed they’d had a relationship like the one he’d had with Jack Donovan. Telling Jinky the truth would only lead to Frank getting killed.

  “It was the security guard,” Gerry said.

  “Which one?”

  “The guard in the parking lot.”

  Jinky had to think. “The old geezer with the hearing aids?”

  “Yeah. Your friend got fresh, and the guard shot him. It wasn’t pretty.”

  Jinky crashed into him again. Seeing it coming lessened the impact, and Gerry felt his chair tip dangerously to one side, then right itself like a tightrope walker.

  “If your father wasn’t tight with Bill Higgins, I’d put a bullet in your head,” Jinky said.

  A harsh cry went up across the warehouse. Jinky stared, and Gerry followed his gaze. The man who’d been punishing Frank was clutching his hand while cursing up a storm.

  “What happened?” Jinky yelled to him.

  “I broke my hand against his face,” the man called back.

  “I told you to wrap a towel around your hand, didn’t I?”

  “I did wrap a towel around it,” the man said.

  “So, walk it off.”

  Easy for you to say, Gerry nearly said. He watched the man walk a serpentine pattern across the warehouse. If the look on his face was any indication, he was going to need a doctor. Frank had beaten the guy without ever laying a finger on him. Gerry caught Frank’s eye, and Frank winked. His friend’s face looked like a pepperoni pizza that had been left out for too long in the sun. Gerry winked back.

  “Who’s got the digital camera?” Jinky called out.

  “I do,” the man with the broken hand said.

  “Bring it over here.”

  The man came over and handed Jinky a digital camera. Jinky monkeyed with it for a little bit, then aimed at Gerry and snapped a picture. Jinky held the camera away from his face and stared at the picture, then showed it to the man with the broken hand.

  “What do you think?”

  “He looks too pretty,” the man said.

  “Then make him look unpretty.”

  The man came over and popped Gerry in the face with his good hand. Gerry felt something run out of his left nostril and knew it wasn’t snot. He stared down at the blood sheeting his neck and the front of his shirt, then saw another flash from Jinky’s camera.

  “Take a look,” Jinky said.

  The man came around Jinky’s wheelchair and appraised his handiwork.

  “Much better,” the man said.

  40

  Valentine hung around the poker room for a few minutes and helped Rufus Steele collect his money. Poker players were a lot of things, but it was rare that one welshed on a bet. By Valentine’s calculations, Rufus was owed five hundred and ninety-four thousand dollars, and that was exactly the amount collected. When Rufus tried to hand him some, Valentine balked.

  “Come on, it’s your cut,” Rufus protested.

  “I did it as a favor,” Valentine said, refusing to touch the packets of money being shoved his way. It was at least fifty grand, maybe more.

  “I’m well aware of that,” Rufus said, “but I’m not a charity case. Take it.”

  The tone of his voice hadn’t changed, but there was a bite to his words nonetheless. Gloria was standing nearby with Zack, and they both turned their backs, and pretended to be watching the segment they’d just shot. Valentine didn’t want to make an enemy of Rufus, and stared long and hard at the money.

  “I’m here on someone else’s nickel,” he said quietly. “If word got around that I’d gone into business with you, my real business would suffer. So let’s just say you owe me one, okay?”

  “No one ever worked with Rufus Steele and didn’t get paid,” the old cowboy said, waving the stacks in Valentine’s face. “This is your money. I’m going to hold it for you until your job is over. Then it’s yours. Understand?”

  Rufus wasn’t going to back down, and Valentine guessed there was a worthwhile charity he could donate the money to before he left town.

  “I’ll do it, provided one thing.”

  Rufus had eyebrows that looked like fluffy sandpaper. They both went up.

  “What’s that, pardner?”

  “Explain how you pulled that stunt.”

  The old cowboy laughed like someone was tickling both his feet.

  “Never in a thousand years,” he said.

  “What kind of man puts up nearly six hundred thousand dollars to back a crazy bet?” Gloria Curtis asked when Rufus was gone. There was a bemused look in her eyes, and Valentine didn’t know if she thought he was a fool or an idiot or both.

  “I think it has something to do with Rufus’s unique powers of persuasion,” he said. “I’d normally never do anything like that.”

  “I sensed that,” she said. “You old guys really stick together.”

  “Is that what I am? An old guy?”

  She put her hand on his wrist and gave it a squeeze. “A good old guy.”

  Gloria had innocently touched him several times in the past two days, and he found himself liking it. Each time they had a conversation, he felt the need to continue it, and he said, “Would you like to have lunch with me?”

  She smiled at him with her eyes. “Sure. I have to cover the tournament this morning. Is twelve thirty all right?”

  “That’s my nap time.”

  “Stop that.”

  He felt a smile coming on. “Twelve thirty it is. I’ll meet you in the lobby restaurant.”

  “See you then.”

  She gave his wrist another squeeze and left with her cameraman. When they were gone, Valentine asked himself where this was going. She was part of the case. Even if this
relationship went no further than the platonic stages, it was the wrong thing to be doing. Business was business, pleasure was pleasure, and they weren’t supposed to mix.

  He felt his cell phone vibrate, and pulled it from his pocket. The Caller ID said BILL HIGGINS. As he flipped the phone open, he realized he didn’t care. Gloria was smart and pretty and he liked talking to her. His partner in Atlantic City had liked to say that it was easy to find a woman to have sex with, but finding one whom you wanted to talk to, that was tough.

  “Hey, Bill, what’s up?” he said into his phone.

  “I need to talk to you,” his friend said. “It’s urgent.”

  “Just say where.”

  “Meet me at Gardunos in twenty minutes.”

  Gardunos was a local Mexican restaurant they sometimes frequented. It was away from the casinos, and the food was homemade and exceptionally good.

  “I’ll see you in twenty,” Valentine said.

  Going outside, he handed the valet his stub, then went to the curb and waited for his rental to come up. Celebrity’s valet stand was decorated with African flora and fauna, and had Congo music playing over a loudspeaker. It was like walking onto a movie set, and at any moment he expected to see Tarzan come swinging through the trees.

  While he waited, Valentine found himself staring at a man standing at the end of the curb. The man wore tailored slacks and a white dress shirt that clashed with a floppy tennis hat and Ray-Bans. He sensed the guy was trying to keep a low profile, and guessed he was a celebrity visiting the hotel incognito. The man looked impatiently at his watch, and Valentine got a good look at his face. It was Dr. Robinson, the house physician.

  A decrepit Toyota Corolla pulled up to the curb. Robinson picked up a gym bag lying at his feet, and went to the car. He gave the valet his stub and climbed in behind the wheel.

  Valentine felt his radar go up. Robinson was driving a junker and hadn’t tipped the valet. Valentine had known plenty of house physicians at hotels, and they all made a decent buck. Something wasn’t adding up here. He walked down the curb, and glanced into the Toyota just as Robinson pulled away. A tattered black suitcase occupied one of the backseats. Stenciled across its front were the words RENFO & COMPANY in bold white letters. It looked like something an entertainer might use, and he went to the valet stand, and found the kid who’d brought up the car.