Deadman's Poker: A Novel (Tony Valentine)

by James Swain

  “Not a problem,” Bill said.

  Valentine looked back at Longo. “Anything else about Jinky we should know?”

  “Yeah,” the detective said. “The bodyguard fancies himself a karate expert. He fights in those tough-man competitions.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “He calls himself Finesse.”

  Valentine had never cared for fighters who gave themselves comic book names, and decided he could deal with Finesse. “There are two things I’m going to need from you, Pete.”

  “Name them,” Longo said.

  “First, I want you to pull any cops from the vicinity of Jinky’s club when Bill’s agents raid the place.”

  Longo looked at Bill. “I’ll need you to coordinate the time of the raid with me.”

  “Done,” Bill said.

  Longo looked at Valentine. “No problem.”

  “Second, I’m going to need a SWAT team at my disposal,” Valentine said. “Once I get Jinky to tell me where Gerry is being held, I want that team to rescue him.”

  “Consider it done,” Longo said.

  The three men shook hands, and the deal was struck.

  Longo picked up the tab, then leaned forward on his elbows. His eyes swept the room the way only a cop’s can before he spoke. “Since we’re putting our cards on the table, I guess it’s time for me to show mine. Tony, does the name Ray Callahan ring any bells?”

  Valentine gave it some thought. “Not particularly.”

  “You busted him in Atlantic City fifteen years ago.”

  Valentine hated hearing that his mind was going, and struggled with the name some more. “I arrested a Raymond Callahan at Resorts International in 1991 for cold-decking a poker game where he was the dealer. The prosecutor let him cop a lesser charge, and he did probation. Same guy?”

  “Same guy,” Longo said. “Callahan’s a dealer in the World Poker Showdown. He collapsed yesterday and was rushed to the hospital. The hospital ran a background check and his rap sheet popped up. How do you cold-deck a poker game?”

  There were many ways to switch a deck of cards during a game of poker. Some involved wastepaper baskets, others, umbrellas and sports jackets with large pockets. But in the end, what made any deck switch fly was a pair of steady hands and nerves of steel. Raymond Callahan, as Valentine recalled, had an abundance of nerve.

  “Practice,” he said. “How can Callahan be a dealer at the World Poker Showdown when he has a criminal record?”

  “I asked myself the same question, and decided to talk to my boss about it,” Longo said. “Karl Jasper, the president of the WPS, didn’t submit a list of names of their poker dealers to us. Those dealers are working without Sheriff’s Cards.”

  By state law, employees of Las Vegas casinos could not work without Sheriff’s Cards. Possessing one meant you’d been vetted, and had a clean record.

  “How can that be possible?” Bill asked.

  Longo’s eyes again swept the room. His voice dropped an octave lower. “Jasper is claiming that this is a private event, and that his organization did the vetting.”

  “Your boss isn’t buying that, is he?” Bill asked.

  “My boss says he’s going to put the screws to Jasper, but we’re now into day four of the tournament, and so far, nothing has happened,” Longo said. “I’ve seen him act this way before. He talks a big game, but doesn’t do anything.”

  “Why?” Bill said.

  “High jingo.”

  High jingo meant the sheriff was getting pressure from above not to interfere with the tournament, and Valentine wondered if it was coming from the mayor or even the governor. To them, the World Poker Showdown was a good thing, since it brought money and exposure to Las Vegas. They didn’t see the harm a crooked tournament could cause, simply because it was easier to look the other way. He tossed his napkin onto the table and slipped out of the booth.

  “I need to talk to Callahan,” Valentine said. “Where is he?”

  43

  Valentine drove to the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada where Ray Callahan was a patient, and parked in the visitor parking lot. Bill had let him keep the photograph of Gerry, and he placed it on the steering wheel. For a long while he stared at his son’s bloody face and the cornered look in his eyes. Saving his son’s ass had become something of a specialty over the years, but each time he’d done it, it had been with the knowledge that one day he’d run out of luck and his son would take a hard fall. Closing his eyes, he prayed that this was not that day.

  Inside the hospital he found a friendly receptionist who directed him to Callahan’s room on the fourth floor. Callahan was in the intensive care wing, the cancer he’d been battling having come back with a vengeance. Valentine explained that he was doing an investigation for the Gaming Control Board, and asked if Callahan had had any recent visitors. The receptionist opened up the visitor logbook, and thumbed through its pages.

  “Just his lawyer,” she said.

  Valentine wrote down the lawyer’s name and put it into his wallet. He thanked the receptionist, and took the elevator to the fourth floor.

  Of all the employees who worked in a casino, the dealers were a casino’s biggest concern. There were a lot of reasons for this. Dealers handled large sums of money at the tables, but rarely got to keep any of it. They tended to make scale, and relied on tips to pay their bills. And they usually gambled on the side.

  Some dealers ended up resenting the casinos, and decided to pay them back. There were dozens of ways a dealer could do this, from using sleight-of-hand to rig a game, to collusion with outside agents, and sometimes even forming a conspiracy with other dealers. Whatever the method, the end result was almost always the same. The casinos lost their shirts.

  The elevator parked on the fourth floor and he got out. A sign pointed the way toward ICU and he started walking. During the drive, his memory of Callahan had come back. Callahan had used a cold-deck machine to switch during a game in the casino’s card room. A cold-deck machine was a black bag concealed behind the waist of the dealer’s pants. Inside the bag was a metal clip that held a stacked deck. At the appropriate time, the deck in use would be dropped in the bag, and the stacked deck grabbed. The term cold-deck came from the fact that the switched deck was colder to the touch. As he recalled, Callahan had made the bag disappear during the bust, which had helped reduce his sentence.

  Callahan’s room was at the hallway’s end. Valentine stuck his head in, and saw that Callahan was propped up in bed on oxygen, taking a nap. He walked into the room and stood by the bed. After a moment, Callahan’s eyelids flickered open. A look of fear spread across the dealer’s face.

  “Did I die and go to hell?”

  Valentine grinned. “You remember me, huh?”

  “Of course I remember you. You nailed me in Atlantic City. That crummy partner of yours isn’t with you, is he?”

  Doyle Flanagan, Valentine’s partner, had been the bad cop of the team, and liked to kick the chairs out from underneath any cheater they hauled in. Landing on your ass had a way of staying with you, and most cheaters never forgot the experience.

  “He’s downstairs in the lobby,” Valentine said.

  “Very funny. What do you want?”

  “Can I sit down?”

  “No.”

  Valentine got a chair anyway, and sat down beside Callahan’s bed. There was a faraway look in Callahan’s eyes, and he shifted his gaze to the view of distant mountains circling the pinkish horizon.

  “Nice view,” Valentine said.

  “It’s pollution.”

  “I busted you how many years ago?”

  “Fifteen,” Callahan said.

  “And you’ve been doing business ever since.”

  The muscles in Callahan’s neck tightened, and he continued to look away. “I haven’t been cheating, if that’s what you mean. What happened in Atlantic City was a one-time thing. I was down on my luck, and made a mistake. I paid my debt to society.”


  It sounded like a speech a lawyer had written for him. Valentine found himself staring at Callahan’s hands, which rested above the sheets. The nails were manicured by decades spent riffle-shuffling cards and were polished by smooth felt tables. They were a card mechanic’s hands, and Callahan guiltily pulled them beneath the covers.

  “I want you to leave,” Callahan said.

  “Just answer one question for me.”

  “No.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  “Cold-deck the game in Atlantic City? I needed the money.”

  “No, why did you cheat the World Poker Showdown, and signal the cards you were dealing to Skip DeMarco?”

  Callahan’s face clouded with anger. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I think you do.”

  Callahan pulled himself up in his bed, and looked around for the call button, which was attached to a string and hung from the wall. The string was hanging behind the bed, out of Callahan’s reach, and Valentine made no attempt to retrieve it for him. “Get out of here, or I’ll start yelling my head off, and have you thrown out.”

  Valentine rose from his chair. He’d forgotten how much he enjoyed making creeps uncomfortable; it was one of the great perks that came with being a cop.

  “I want you to think about something. You’ve beaten your cancer before, and you just might beat it again. If you do walk out of here, you’ll be facing a murder rap. Is that how you want to spend the rest of your life, in jail?”

  “A murder rap?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Valentine put the chair back against the wall, and went to the door. “It’s been nice catching up with you. I’ll tell my partner you said hello.”

  “Come back here,” Callahan said angrily.

  “You’re not going to have me thrown out?”

  “No, I want to hear about this.”

  Valentine got the chair back, and returned to Callahan’s bedside. This time when he rested his elbows on the metal arm, Callahan did not look away.

  “It’s like this,” Valentine said. “George Scalzo stole a poker scam from a guy named Jack Donovan. Jack was dying at the time, and Scalzo had Jack murdered so he wouldn’t squeal. Only, Jack did squeal.”

  Taking out his wallet, Valentine removed the playing card that Jack had given Gerry, and showed it to Callahan. “This is our evidence. George Scalzo is going down, and so is his nephew. The question is, do you want to go down with them?”

  “Can I see it?”

  He let Callahan hold the playing card. Callahan stared at the card for a few moments, then handed it back.

  “Is that your evidence?” he asked.

  “That’s part of it,” Valentine said. “Do you want to go down the river with them or not?”

  “Tell me something first,” Callahan said.

  “What’s that?”

  “This guy Donovan, what was he dying of?”

  The hairs on the back of Valentine’s neck went straight up. He wanted to ask Callahan what that had to do with anything, but sensed that he’d blow whatever rapport he’d established.

  “Cancer.”

  “You said he was terminal.”

  “Yes,” Valentine said.

  Valentine saw Callahan’s eyes shift, and stare at the playing card that Valentine held in his hand. There was a connection here that he wasn’t getting, and he didn’t know how to press Callahan without revealing that he didn’t know how the scam worked. That was the problem when working with too little information. Sometimes, you got yourself painted in a corner and couldn’t get out.

  “Afraid I can’t help you,” Callahan said.

  Valentine stood up. “We’re talking about life in prison, Ray.”

  Callahan’s face was vacant. He’d seen through the ruse, and wasn’t buying it.

  “Don’t let the door bang you in the ass on the way out,” he said.

  44

  If there was a dead time on the congested highways of Las Vegas, it was midday, when everyone was at work. Valentine made it back to Celebrity in fifteen minutes, and walked through the hotel’s front doors with the picture of Gerry clutched in his hand. His son was being held somewhere in Las Vegas, and he wasn’t going to leave until he rescued him. Upstairs in his suite he found Rufus Steele sitting on the couch, counting the money he’d won that morning.

  “Hey pardner, long time no see.”

  The money was stacked in piles on the floor. Real gamblers did not use checks, and nearly all of Rufus’s winnings were in hundred dollar bills, most of them brand-new. Over the years he’d heard gamblers call money “units,” and learned that it wasn’t the value that was important, just the level of the action that the units allowed the gambler to play.

  “I need your help,” Valentine said.

  Rufus was wrapping the stacks with rubber bands, and looked up. “Well, it’s about time I returned you a favor. Name it.”

  “I need for you to stage one of your scams later today, and get as many gamblers as you can involved. I’ll make sure Gloria Curtis is there. I’m going to alert the World Poker Showdown people to be there, and I want you to say some things about the tournament which aren’t particularly flattering.”

  “Sounds right up my alley,” Rufus said. “What exactly am I going to say?”

  “You’re going to announce that you’ve learned that the dealers in the WPS haven’t been cleared by the Metro Las Vegas Police Department, which makes them the only dealers in the state of Las Vegas who haven’t. You’re also going to say that you’re aware that one of these dealers has a criminal record for cheating.”

  The fun drained from Rufus’s face and he gazed at Valentine with renewed respect. “Sounds like your investigation is moving right along.”

  “It sure is.”

  “The World Poker Showdown is behind this whole thing, aren’t they?”

  “Let’s just say there’s a link which I need to get to the bottom of.”

  “Just so I don’t get sued for slander, who’s this dirty dealer?”

  “His name is Ray Callahan,” Valentine said, “and I busted him in Atlantic City for cold-decking a game fifteen years ago. He’s got a record.”

  Rufus glanced at the piles of money at his feet. Just a few short hours ago, he’d been poorer than a church mouse, but that, as gamblers liked to say, was ancient history. Still looking at the money, he said, “Tony, your timing is impeccable. Right after you left, I got into a verbal altercation with the Greek and his friends. Seems they thought about my X-ray vision stunt, and didn’t like the fact I had a bag over my head.”

  “You think they knew you were using a ventriloquist?” Valentine asked.

  Rufus did a double take. The look on his face was priceless, and Valentine wished he had a camera with some film in it. The old cowboy coughed into his hand.

  “Who the hell told you that?”

  “Nobody. I figured it out myself.”

  “You’re pretty damn smart for a cop.”

  Valentine had heard that for most of his adult life. Cops were supposed to be dumb. When people ran into a smart one, it tended to surprise them.

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “You’re welcome,” Rufus said. “Like I was saying, I decided to give the Greek and his cronies a chance to win their money back, and bet them I could beat a racehorse in the hundred-yard dash. They were skeptical at first, but when I told them that they could pick the horse and the jockey and the field to run on, they took me up on the wager.”

  “You’re going to do what?”

  “You heard me. I was the state champion runner in high school, and still can burn rubber when I have to.”

  Rufus was seventy years old if he was a day, and he still chain-smoked cigarettes, drank whiskey, and played cards all night long. He did all the things you weren’t supposed to do when you got old, and Valentine couldn’t envision him beating a ten-year-old kid in a footrace,
much less a racehorse.

  “You’re serious about this?”

  Rufus took out a pack of smokes and banged one out. “Dead serious.”

  “When’s this going to happen?”

  “Around nine o’clock tonight. The Greek is keeping the field location a secret. He’ll call me right before, and we’ll meet there and run the race.”

  “Where’s he getting the horse from?”

  “Wayne Newton has a bunch of horses out at his place. I hear he’s going to pull the fastest one.”

  “How much are you betting?”

  The old cowboy indicated the stacks of money lying on the floor, then spread his arms as wide as possible.

  “You’re betting all of it?”

  “Yes, sir. That DeMarco kid says he’ll play me for a cool million bucks. Well, right now I’ve got about half that much. It’s time to shoot the pickle.”

  “Shoot the what?”

  “The pickle. It means to go for it.”

  Had the situation been different—and Gerry’s life hadn’t been hanging in the balance—Valentine would have tried to talk some sense into Rufus. The Greek and his cronies weren’t going to let the same dog bite them twice, and would make sure that the racehorse Rufus ran against was lightning fast. But every man had his poison, and he guessed Rufus’s was making outlandish wagers.

  “What time do you want me downstairs, stirring up the pot?” Rufus asked.

  Valentine checked the time. It was twelve forty. Something had been nagging at him, and he realized what it was. His lunch date with Gloria Curtis had been for twelve thirty, and he said, “I’ll call you once I’ve got everything in place.”

  Rufus picked up a stack of hundreds lying at his feet. He licked his thumb, and began counting them. “I’ll be waiting,” he said.

  Valentine found Gloria sitting by herself at a corner table in the lobby restaurant, and she shot him a dagger as he pulled up a chair. Relationships between men and women were defined by how they fought, and he guessed theirs was about to be tested.

  “I’m sorry I’m so late,” he said. “Something came up, and I had to deal with it.”