Deadman's Poker: A Novel (Tony Valentine)

by James Swain

  “Let me see that guy’s stub,” Valentine said.

  The kid wore his hair in his face and shot him a defiant sneer. “No way. It’s against hotel rules.”

  “I’m a dick doing a job for the hotel.”

  “You’re a dick?” the kid said, hiding a laugh.

  “It’s short for detective. Let me see it.”

  The kid stared at his clothes. Sometimes, looking like a cop had its advantages. The kid produced the stub from his pocket, and Valentine read the name printed across the top: Renfo. He stuck ten bucks in the kid’s hand, then returned to the curb and waited for his rental to come up.

  He waited until he was on the highway driving toward Garduno’s before pulling out his cell phone and dialing Las Vegas information. A chatty female operator came on, and he asked for any listings in Clark County for Renfo. Within seconds she had found four. Two were businesses, the other two residential.

  “The residential, please,” he said.

  She gave him the numbers and he memorized them, then called them while driving one-handed. Both were disconnected. He called information again, and this time got the two business listings. The first number led him to a long-haul trucking company and a friendly guy named Jack. The second number was answered by a middle-aged woman with a smoker’s raspy voice. She was not nearly as friendly.

  “Good morning, Renfo and Company,” she said. “What can I do for you?”

  “Hi,” Valentine said. “I met Mr. Renfo this morning, and he gave me his business card. I’d like to talk to him about some work.”

  “You’d like to hire Renfo?” the women asked, sounding skeptical.

  “That’s right.”

  “What kind of engagement do you have in mind?”

  The woman had a cutting edge to her voice, and Valentine felt himself feeling sorry for Renfo. Whatever he did for a living, she sure wasn’t helping.

  “Engagement?”

  “Yeah, as in work. Are you hiring Renfo for a birthday party, a corporate event, a bar mitzvah, or what? How big is the group? How long do you want him to work? The standard questions, you know?”

  She sounded ready to slam down the phone, and Valentine quickly improvised.

  “It’s my son’s birthday party next Saturday. There will be about thirty children and ten adults. I’d like Renfo to work for half an hour.”

  “How old are the kids?” the woman asked.

  “Ten- to twelve-year-olds.”

  “That’s good to know. I’ll tell Renfo to leave out the blue stuff.”

  “Blue stuff?”

  “Yeah, the dirty jokes.”

  Renfo was a comedian? That didn’t make sense, and he started wondering if this was another dead end.

  “Some of them are actually pretty funny,” the woman added.

  “You don’t say.”

  “Really, they are,” the woman said. “Renfo’s got one where he says, ‘What’s your favorite bird?’ And Freddy, his dummy, says, ‘A woodpecker.’ And Renfo says, ‘I bet you’ve always wanted one of those.’ Ha, you get it?”

  Valentine stared at the bluish bank of mountains rimming the horizon, thinking back to everything that had happened in the poker room that morning. Now he understood why Rufus had wanted a leather bag put over his head. It had muffled his voice, and made it impossible to tell if he was actually doing the talking. Dr. Robinson, aka Renfo, wasn’t a doctor at all. He was a professional ventriloquist.

  “Got it,” he said.

  Part III

  Shoot the Pickle

  41

  Mabel Struck was about to leave for a late lunch when the phone rang. She’d spent the morning soothing the nerves of several panicked casino bosses, and had worked up an appetite. She looked at the phone, and saw that it was Tony’s private line. Only a few people had the number, and she stared at the Caller ID. It was the boss himself.

  “Grift Sense,” she answered cheerfully.

  “Is this a money-laundering operation?”

  “There you are. How’s sunny Las Vegas?”

  “Fine. I saw something this morning that you would have really enjoyed.”

  “What was that?”

  “I saw a ventriloquist turn a crowd of smart people into a bunch of dummies.”

  “A ventriloquist? I thought you were out there working.”

  “I am out here working,” he said. “I’m on my way to a meeting with Bill Higgins. I called to see if Romero had sent the FBI’s file on George Scalzo.”

  Mabel spun in her chair so she faced Tony’s computer, and opened his e-mail account. Six new messages had arrived in the last twenty minutes, and she quickly scrolled through them. The last was from Special Agent Romero.

  “Got it. Would you like me to read it while you drive?”

  “You’re psychic,” he said.

  Mabel stuck the phone into the crook of her neck and opened Romero’s e-mail. The special agent had sent a thank-you note, and she read the note first.

  “Dear Ms. Struck: Thanks for your help last night. When our agents knocked down the wall in the basement, they discovered the hidden electromagnets, plus a large bag of cash. Our suspect has decided to change his plea, and is cooperating with the prosecutor.

  “Unfortunately, I cannot fulfill your request and provide you with the FBI’s current case file on George Scalzo, since the law does not allow me to share information regarding ongoing investigations. However, I did remove from the file information regarding Scalzo’s relationship with Chris DeMarco, and have pasted it into the body of this e-mail. Feel free to contact me if I can be of further assistance. Yours truly, Special Agent Romero.”

  “You helped the FBI crack a case?” Valentine asked.

  “Why, yes, I did,” Mabel said.

  “That’s great. Now I can retire, and get out of this racket.”

  “Listen to you! Are you ready to hear what Romero sent?”

  “Fire away.”

  Mabel scrolled down the e-mail. “Let’s see. Special Agent Romero included some background information about George Scalzo. Would you like to hear that?”

  “Why not? Mobsters are always good for a few laughs.”

  “Okay. Scalzo was initiated into the New Jersey mob at eighteen. By twenty-two, he had been involved in over a dozen crimes, including kidnapping, murder, loan-sharking, bookmaking, racketeering, fire-bombing, extortion, and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. He’d been to state prison three times, and it didn’t do him any good.”

  “What a charmer,” Valentine said.

  “Okay, here’s the case file. It’s broken down by date. On September 19, 1981, a prostitute named Danielle DeMarco and her blind four-year-old son, Chris, rented a house two blocks south of Washington Street in Newark, New Jersey, where George Scalzo lived. Living with Danielle was a black pimp named Jester (real name unknown).”

  “Chris DeMarco’s mother was a hooker?”

  “That’s what it says here. Two weeks later, Danielle DeMarco was arrested for rolling a john in a motel. Jester posted her bail, but left Chris alone at home. The boy left the house somehow, and made his way over to Washington Street. He ended up walking into a restaurant called Carmine’s where a birthday party was taking place. Scalzo was there playing the piano, and talked Chris into sitting on the piano stool with him.”

  “Scalzo plays the piano? I sure hope he doesn’t sing.”

  “You’re hysterical. The next day, Scalzo turns Chris over to the police, and the boy is reunited with his mother. That night, while Danielle is working the streets, Jester decides to punish Chris for leaving the house. According to neighbors who listened through an open window, Jester beat him with a coat hanger, then burned his arms and chest with a cigarette.”

  The connection had gone quiet. Then she heard Tony cough, and continued.

  “Word of the boy’s abuse spread through the neighborhood, and the police were summoned the next morning. Danielle refused to open the front door, and said nothing was wrong. The p
olice left to get a warrant. Not long after their departure, a town car containing four men pulled up in front of the house. The four men got out, and forced their way inside. They pulled Jester from bed and started to beat him up. When Danielle came to her pimp’s aid, the men threw her down a flight of stairs.”

  “Nice guys.”

  “At twelve fifty-five that afternoon, Jester and Danielle were admitted to the emergency room of a local hospital. Every major bone in Jester’s body was broken, and Danielle was suffering from a broken leg and a broken back. Two hours later, they were both pronounced dead.”

  “Jesus.”

  “The police went to Danielle’s house but could not find Chris. Although scores of neighbors saw the men break in, none of the neighbors were willing to identify the four men for police.”

  “Sounds familiar.”

  “The next day, Scalzo contacts the police, and tells them that Chris had come to his house. When the boy is turned over to the police, he is wearing new clothes, and his cigarette burns have been treated by a doctor. The police turn him over to Health and Human Resources, who put him in a foster home. Four weeks later, George Scalzo’s sister, Lydia, files papers to become Chris’s legal guardian. Lydia tells friends in the neighborhood she is doing this for her brother, who never had children.

  “Three months later, a judge in Newark bestows legal guardianship of Chris DeMarco to Lydia Scalzo, and the boy is transferred from his foster home to Lydia’s house. Within a few days, he is living with his ‘Uncle George’ next door. And…that’s where the e-mail ends.”

  “Well, that explains a lot,” he said.

  Mabel saved the e-mail message, then turned away from the computer. “You need to be careful with this one, Tony.”

  “I’m always careful,” he replied.

  “I know that. But this isn’t your ordinary hoodlum.”

  “It isn’t?”

  “No, it’s a psychotic who had a woman killed, and stole her child.”

  “That’s one way to look at it. I’ll be doubly careful.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Here’s my exit. Oh, by the way, lunch is on me today.”

  “Why, that’s awfully nice of you,” she said.

  “You broke a case, you deserve it. Talk to you soon.”

  Mabel said good-bye and hung up the phone. Reading about George Scalzo getting custody of Chris DeMarco had an unsettling effect on her, and she realized she wasn’t hungry anymore. Men could be such monsters when they wanted things. She decided to take a walk instead, and slipped on her shoes. It was a beautiful day, and she felt certain that a leisurely stroll around the neighborhood was just the thing to lift her spirits.

  42

  Gardunos served the best Mexican food in Las Vegas, with a terrific waitstaff and homemade dishes you couldn’t find anywhere else. It was ten o’clock when Valentine slid into the booth across from Bill Higgins. The restaurant had just opened it doors, and they were its only customers. The look on Bill’s face said he did not feel well.

  “What’s wrong?” Valentine asked.

  “I’ve got some bad news this morning,” his friend said.

  “Concerning me?”

  “Yes, concerning you.”

  Since getting into the consulting racket, Valentine had discovered that he wasn’t doing his job if he wasn’t regularly pissing someone off.

  “I’m a big boy, I can take it,” he replied.

  Bill removed an envelope from his pocket, and handed it to him.

  “It isn’t pretty,” Bill said.

  A waiter delivered bowls of homemade chips and salsa, and Valentine stuffed a chip into his mouth. He’d tried to call Gerry several times during the ride over, and now nearly choked as he pulled a photograph of his son bound to a chair from the envelope. The lower half of Gerry’s face was sheeted in blood, and there was a cornered look in his eyes, like he knew he’d reached the end of his rope. Paper-clipped to the photograph was a note that had been banged out on an old-fashioned typewriter.

  Bill Higgins: There is a nonstop Delta flight to Tampa this afternoon at 5:25. Tell Tony Valentine to be on it, or he’ll never see his son alive again.

  He put the note down, and looked across the table at Bill.

  “They delivered this to you?”

  “A kid on a bike brought it to my office an hour ago,” Bill said.

  “It was nice of them to check out flight arrangements for me.”

  Bill drummed the table with his fingertips. Their waitress took that as a cue, and scurried over. Bill tried to wave her away, and a hurt look crossed her face. Valentine intervened and ordered the homemade guacamole, a house specialty. She smiled and disappeared through swinging doors into the kitchen.

  Valentine stared at his friend’s face. Bill was in a tough spot. The kidnappers had put Gerry’s fate in Bill’s hands. Bill continued to drum the table and the waitress reappeared. Valentine ordered two iced teas.

  “You’re going to have to order the whole menu if you keep that up,” he said when she was gone.

  “You’re not making this any easier,” Bill said.

  “I’m not leaving town, if that’s what you want to know,” Valentine said.

  “You’re not?”

  “No. I step on that plane, and they’ll put a bullet in Gerry’s head.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  Valentine picked up the photograph and pointed at his son’s face. “He’s not wearing a mask. My guess is, neither are the guys who abducted him. Gerry saw their faces, which is as good as a death sentence.”

  “Who do you think is behind this?”

  It was Valentine’s turn to drum the table. Skip DeMarco’s cheating, Jinky Harris’s wanting to kill Gerry and his friends, and the strange things taking place at the World Poker Showdown were all connected, even if he didn’t know exactly how. Their iced teas came, and he took a long swallow of his unsweetened drink.

  “I have a good idea,” he said.

  “Then let’s go to the police,” Bill said.

  Their booth looked onto the parking lot, and Valentine paused to stare at the dusty bumper of his own rental. “My son said he thought a cop was tailing them yesterday. If that’s true, then the police are the last people we should contact.”

  Bill poured enough artificial sweetener into his tea to kill a horse. “Dirty cops or not, the police need to be involved. If they find out Gerry’s been abducted and we didn’t tell them, they’ll haul us in. We need to do this by the book, Tony.”

  Valentine felt himself slowly exhale. The memory of Gerry’s first car had popped into his head, and how Gerry had wrapped the vehicle around a telephone pole within forty-eight hours of owning it. It was always something, and he looked at Bill.

  “Let’s call Pete Longo,” he said.

  Twenty-five minutes later, Longo slipped into their booth at Gardunos. He wore old jeans and a polo shirt and hadn’t shaved, and Valentine guessed it was his day off.

  “How’s your son doing?” Longo asked.

  Valentine slipped the photograph of Gerry across the table. The detective’s eyes grew wide, and he put down the chip dripping with salsa he was about to stuff into his mouth. He read the note accompanying the photo.

  “When did you get this?” he asked Bill.

  “Nine o’clock this morning.”

  Longo shifted his gaze to Valentine. “I walked your son out of the station house this morning at three A.M.”

  “I know,” Valentine said. “He called and left me a voice mail.”

  Longo turned the photograph face down on the glistening table. The loss of weight had given his face gravity beyond his years, and he shook his head sadly. “I was talking to your son about Jinky Harris, and the problems I’ve been having nailing him. I told your son it’s like my phones are being tapped.”

  “Maybe they are,” Valentine said.

  Longo picked up the chip he’d been meaning to eat. “That’s why you asked me to
come here, isn’t it? You think I have a dirty cop in my department, and he’d find out we were meeting.”

  “That’s right.”

  The salsa had made the chip soggy, and it split in half before it reached Longo’s mouth, and landed with a plop on his place setting. He stared at it, then at them.

  “Shit,” the detective said.

  Cops held grudges. It came with the job. You worked the streets long enough, and you ended up hating people. Longo had a grudge with Jinky Harris, and he made it clear he would break as many rules as necessary to help them find Gerry. It was a good start, and Valentine leaned across the table and dropped his voice.

  “I once nabbed a gang of dice cheaters in Atlantic City. They took the casino’s dice, and switched them in plain view for shaved dice. There was no subtlety. These guys had been around for a while, and I finally got one of them to open up. He told me it was all about distraction. Right before they did the switch, a drunk started arguing at a blackjack table, while a pretty girl started peeling off her clothes at the roulette table, while a couple staged a fight in the aisle. They were all part of the gang.”

  “Like a giant smoke screen,” Longo said.

  “Exactly,” Valentine said. “This afternoon, I’m going to create a smoke screen, and distract everyone who I think had something to do with my son and his friends being abducted. Once that happens, I want to have a chat with Jinky Harris.”

  “By yourself?” Longo said skeptically.

  “Yes.”

  “The guy has twenty guys on his staff, and a seven-foot-tall bodyguard.”

  Valentine glanced at Bill. “Think your agents can handle twenty guys?”