Deadman's Poker: A Novel (Tony Valentine)

by James Swain

  “Let him go,” Valentine said to the SWAT team members.

  The man holding the rifle shifted his attention to him.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. He’s one of us.”

  The man looked at his partner, who’d finished frisking Frank. Then he lowered his rifle and they both walked away. Valentine went up to Frank and saw him smile. He whacked Frank on the shoulder and the big man winced.

  “Not so hard,” Frank said. “That’s my bad arm.”

  Valentine led Frank outside and turned him over to a pair of medics who’d come in an ambulance, and were attending to Gerry, Frank, and Nunzie. The medics had already inspected the corpses inside the warehouse, and were happy to have live people to be treating. Valentine walked over to the police van they’d arrived in. Bill Higgins stood beside the van, making a call on his cell phone. Bill had stayed outside with Jinky Harris, who sat in the back of a van in his electric wheelchair. Jinky had started singing like the fat lady in the opera once he’d heard that Detective Hector Frangos had been arrested, and was cooperating with the Metro Las Vegas Police Department.

  “Mind if I talk to your prisoner?” Valentine asked.

  “Be my guest,” Bill said.

  Valentine popped open the van’s back door and climbed in. Jinky’s chair was strapped to the floor of the van with pieces of rope, making him a prisoner. Jinky had the look of a caged rat, and started protesting before Valentine had shut the door.

  “Get the hell away from me.”

  “Hear me out.”

  “No! Get away from me! Hey Higgins, get him away from me!”

  Valentine slammed the door, then got down on his haunches and looked at Jinky. “If you had half an ounce of common sense, you’d play ball with me.”

  Jinky stared through the van’s tinted window at Bill standing outside, talking on his cell phone. When he realized Bill wasn’t going to save him, he calmed down.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “Some straight answers would be nice.”

  “I brought you here, didn’t I?”

  “That’s a good start.”

  “What do I get in return?” Jinky asked.

  Valentine glanced at his son and three friends standing outside the van. It was a miracle they hadn’t died, and he wanted Jinky to pay for what he’d done to them. Only Jinky was the key to finding out what was going on at the World Poker Showdown, and he was determined to solve this case. Then he had an idea.

  “Come clean with us, and I’ll get Bill Higgins to persuade the prosecutor to cut you a deal.”

  The air-conditioning in the van had been shut off and the interior air was warm and sticky. Jinky removed a wadded-up Kleenex from the pocket of his tracksuit and dabbed at his reddening face. “Is that a promise?”

  “Yes, it’s a promise.”

  “Okay. What do you want to know?”

  “How is Skip DeMarco cheating the World Poker Showdown?”

  “You think the Tuna told me? Get real.”

  “You must have some idea what’s going on.”

  “I’ll tell you what I know,” Jinky said. “The Tuna stole a poker scam from some sick guy in Atlantic City. Nobody knows what the scam is, but it’s supposed to be perfect. No traces, no clues, nothing. There’s only one drawback.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It can make a person really sick if they don’t handle it right,” Jinky said. “That’s what everyone says, so it must be true.”

  Valentine thought back to his meeting with Ray Callahan at the hospital, and how Callahan had stared at the playing card Valentine was carrying in his wallet.

  “Is that why two dealers in the tournament collapsed?”

  Jinky shrugged. “Could be. Like I said, I don’t know what the scam is.”

  “Next question. Why did you try to have my son and his friends killed?”

  Jinky dabbed at his face some more. “There’s a lot of mob money being bet on DeMarco to win the tournament. I have nothing against your son and his friends, but when they started screwing with DeMarco, I got told to whack them.”

  “By the Tuna.”

  “No, not the Tuna.”

  “Then who?”

  “If I told you that, I’d be dead tomorrow.”

  “Even if the police put you in protective custody?”

  “I’d still be dead tomorrow,” Jinky said.

  Valentine looked in the big man’s face and knew he wasn’t going to get the name. He didn’t know anything more about how DeMarco was cheating the tournament than he had when he’d stepped off the plane at McCarran yesterday. Worse, he’d nearly lost his son in the process of trying to find out. He opened the rear door and started to climb out.

  “What about my deal?” Jinky asked indignantly.

  He turned. “What about it?”

  “Are you going to talk to Bill Higgins, like you said?”

  Valentine paused. As a cop, he’d prided himself on never going back on his word. The oath that went with being a police officer was something he’d always upheld. But being retired was different. He was his own man now.

  “No,” he said.

  “But you promised me!”

  “I lied,” Valentine said.

  51

  One of the most depressing movies Valentine had ever seen was called Leaving Las Vegas. In the film, an alcoholic comes to Las Vegas, shacks up with a hooker, and proceeds to methodically drink himself to death. The title had summed up the plot perfectly. For some people, the only way to leave Sin City was in a pine box.

  Valentine was not going to let that happen to his son, or his son’s friends. He retrieved his rental car from police headquarters, then drove Gerry, Frank, and the Fountain brothers to their motel to get their things and check out, then straight to the airport. It was a tight fit in the car, but he wasn’t going to let them out of his sight until they were safely on an airplane, and headed home.

  “The four of you may have to come back out here and testify in a trial,” Valentine said as he parked the rental in short-term parking. “If that happens, I’ll come out as well.”

  “I don’t want to ever come to Las Vegas again,” Vinny said as they walked across the lot toward the terminal. “I used to think I understood how this town worked, but I was wrong. This place is like another planet.”

  Once inside, Frank and the Fountain brothers went to the American Airlines counter and booked three seats in economy on a flight to Philadelphia that left in ninety minutes. The reservationist kept looking at Frank’s battered face, as if she might consider him a security risk. Valentine leaned on the counter and spoke to her.

  “He’s a professional boxer.”

  “You his manager?”

  “Sort of.”

  “He ought to consider another line of work,” the reservationist said, printing out three boarding passes and sliding them across the counter.

  “You should see the other guy,” Valentine said.

  They walked to the security screening area, stopping on the way to buy Frank a baseball cap and sunglasses so his face wouldn’t cause any small children to burst into tears. As the three men got in line, they shook Valentine’s hand and thanked him for all he’d done. Valentine turned to his son as they passed through the metal detector.

  “Think they’ll ever straighten up?”

  Gerry waved to his friends. “And do what? Become monks?”

  They returned to the ticketing area and went to the Delta counter, the main carrier into Tampa, and Valentine purchased a seat on the ten o’clock red eye for his son.

  “Don’t you think I should stay and help you?” Gerry asked.

  “No. Remember what I told you before we came out here?”

  “Sure. No job is worth getting killed over.”

  “Well, I have a new saying.”

  “What’s that?”

  “No job is worth losing your son over.”

  Gerry wanted to say something, only didn�
��t know how to say it. Instead, he gave his father a bear hug in the middle of the terminal with dozens of people swarming around them. They hadn’t done enough of that kind of thing when Gerry was growing up, and when they were finished hugging, Valentine offered to buy his son a cheeseburger.

  “You’re on,” Gerry said.

  They walked around the terminal and found a food court where the prices were so high Valentine thought he was in Paris. But there were times when he was willing to pay just about anything for a decent cheeseburger with a slice of onion, and he tossed the menu aside and ordered for both of them. When the waitress had departed, Gerry said, “Hey, look. The tournament is on TV.”

  The restaurant had a horseshoe-shaped bar with a TV perched above the bottles of liquor. Valentine spun around in his chair, and saw Skip DeMarco being interviewed. DeMarco was wearing his familiar smirk, and the caption beneath him read World Poker Showdown Tournament leader—$5.8 million in chips. Valentine shook his head in disbelief. Only a few hours ago, Bill had told him that he was heading to Celebrity to shut down the tournament.

  The story ended, and Valentine crossed the restaurant, and stood in a quiet corner before flipping open his cell phone and calling Bill.

  “What the hell is going on?” he asked his friend.

  “As of this afternoon, the World Poker Showdown is being classified as a private event,” Bill replied. “Unless I can prove that cheating is taking place, I’ve been told to lay off.”

  “Told by who?”

  “The governor of the state of Nevada.”

  The burden of proof that was required of the police and other law enforcement agencies in the U.S. was not required of the Nevada Gaming Control Board. The GCB could shut down any gambling operation based on suspicion of cheating. And since the WPS was already on thin ice—from DeMarco rigging the first day’s seating, to dealers with criminal records and a president who hung with mobsters—Bill didn’t need an excuse to pull the curtains. If anything, it was long overdue.

  “Can he do that?” Valentine asked.

  “Yes,” Bill said. “It’s in his job description.”

  “But why would he do that?”

  “Because the tournament is a huge success. You don’t screw with success in this town, Tony.”

  Valentine put his hand on his forehead and left it there. No matter what it was about in Las Vegas, it was always about the money.

  “I got some other bad news this afternoon,” Bill said. “Ray Callahan, our crooked poker dealer, died.”

  “Somebody whack him?”

  “No. Callahan died from cancer complications. Now we’ll never know how he was involved with DeMarco’s scam.”

  Valentine removed his hand from his forehead and pulled out his wallet. The playing card that Jack Donovan had given Gerry was stuck in his billfold, and he peeled back the bills with his fingers and stared at it. Ray Callahan had wanted to know what Jack had died from, and had not seemed surprised when Valentine had told him cancer. It was the clue he’d been looking for and it had been staring him right in the face.

  “Let me ask you a question,” he said. “If I can prove DeMarco’s cheating, will the governor let you do your job, and shut down the World Poker Showdown?”

  “He won’t have a choice,” Bill asked.

  “Even if the WPS is the biggest show in the history of television, and drawing more tourists than Las Vegas has beds?”

  Bill laughed into the phone.

  “Even then,” his friend said.

  Valentine stared at the playing card in his wallet. He’d been baffled by scams before but always managed to solve them. If he couldn’t solve one, then he needed to get out of the gambling business and into gardening or shuffleboard or whatever the hell it was retired people in Florida did.

  “I’ll call you later,” Valentine said.

  He heard Bill start to speak, then hesitate. “Are you still on the case?” his friend asked.

  “You bet,” Valentine replied.

  Valentine said good-bye and folded his cell phone. His son was standing beside him. Valentine removed the playing card from his wallet, and handed it to him. “The secret of how DeMarco is cheating is in the hospital where Jack Donovan died. Jack found something there that can be used to mark cards. It doesn’t leave a trace, and is dangerous if not handled properly. I know it’s been a rough couple of days, but I want you to go to Atlantic City, look through the hospital records, and find out what it is. I’ll ask one of my police buddies to accompany you, so no one tries to whack you.”

  Gerry blinked, and then he blinked again.

  “I thought you wanted me to go home.”

  “I changed my mind.”

  “So I’m still working with you on the case?”

  “You were never off the case.”

  “I wasn’t?”

  “Of course not. You’re my partner, aren’t you?”

  The happy look in Gerry’s eyes was one Valentine hadn’t seen in a long time. There was a time in every man’s life when he had to emerge from his father’s shadow, and this was Gerry’s time. His son slipped Jack’s playing card into his shirt pocket, and hugged his father again. Valentine was surprised at how good it made him feel.

  52

  “My producer thinks this story would make a terrific made-for-TV movie,” Gloria Curtis said, microphone in hand.

  Valentine nodded, staring at the magnificently conditioned racehorse standing a dozen yards away. The horse’s front legs were going up and down like pistons while a trainer held it in check with a lead rope. Valentine had put Gerry on a plane for Atlantic City, then driven to the University of Nevada football field where Gloria and several hundred gamblers were preparing to watch Rufus Steele challenge the horse in the hundred-yard dash.

  “It isn’t over yet,” he reminded her.

  “You sound awfully pessimistic,” Gloria said, shivering from a breeze.

  He continued to watch the horse, which had deposited a steaming pile of manure on the field. His late father had liked to bet on the ponies, and had always run to the betting windows after seeing a horse take a crap.

  “Just being realistic,” he said.

  “Meaning this may not having a happy ending.”

  Valentine didn’t say anything, not wanting to jinx Rufus, who stood on the fifty-yard line, doing jumping jacks in his Skivvies T-shirt and black boxing shorts while exhorting his fellow gamblers with nonstop banter.

  “Come on, boys, what do you say? I’ll give you even money I can beat that nag in the hundred-yard dash. That’s even money!”

  A group of gamblers stood around the horse, and appeared to be making sure the animal hadn’t been doped. The group included the Greek, who asked the trainer to lift the horse’s saddle, then peered beneath it to make sure there were no hidden electronic devices that might slow the animal down. Satisfied, he turned to his fellow gamblers.

  “Looks good to me.”

  “Check its hooves,” one of the gamblers said. “Maybe Rufus took off its shoes.”

  The Greek decided this was a good idea, and went to the noneating end of the horse and attempted to lift one of its hind legs. Before he could say Jack Robinson, the Greek was sitting on his rump in the grass, having been kicked solidly in the thigh. The other gamblers rushed to his aid.

  “I’m okay, I’m okay,” the Greek said, rising and dusting himself off. “That’s one hell of an animal. I think we just might have a bet here.”

  The horse was led to the center of the field where it began to prance around on its hind legs. Valentine wondered if Rufus had bitten off more than he could chew, and glanced at Gloria. She looked equally worried.

  “Maybe I’d better go talk to him,” he said.

  Rufus was still doing his exercises. He was all skin and bones, with some sinew thrown in for good measure. He winked as Valentine approached.

  “Hey, Tony, you ready to help me fleece these suckers?”

  “Are you sure you want to go throug
h with this?”

  “Of course I’m sure,” Rufus said, stopping to suck down the cool night air. “Come on, don’t tell me you’re losing faith in me?”

  Valentine looked across the field at the competition. The Greek had hired a professional jockey to ride the horse, unwilling to let Rufus provide the rider. The Greek’s jockey was a diminutive man with a pinched face and expressionless eyes, his uniform the color of money. With the trainer holding the horse, the jockey climbed into the saddle, then took the horse down the field at a canter.

  “A little,” Valentine admitted.

  “You don’t think I can beat Greased Lightning?”

  “Is that the horse’s name?”

  “Yeah. Raced in the Kentucky Derby a few years back, came in fourth,” Rufus said. “The owners use it for stud now. A real nag, if you ask me.”

  Valentine knew enough about horses to know that nags weren’t used for stud. The jockey had stopped in the end zone and turned Greased Lightning around. With a tip of the hat to the Greek and his friends, he took off at a dead gallop. A football field is exactly one hundred yards long, and Valentine clocked the horse with his watch. Greased Lightning went from end zone to end zone in seven seconds flat.

  He turned to see Rufus removing a cigarette from a pack of Marlboros. The Greek and his cronies were standing nearby, and watched Rufus light up and take a deep drag.

  “Rufus,” Valentine said, “you can’t beat what I just saw. Give up.”

  Rufus exhaled a thick plume of smoke into the still night air.

  “Say that a little louder,” he said under his breath.

  “Why?”

  “Because I want those boys standing nearby to hear you.”

  Valentine raised his voice. “Rufus, you can’t beat what I just saw.”

  Rufus looked pleased and offered the pack. Valentine reached for it, then hesitated. He was going to quit smoking, even if it killed him, and withdrew his hand.

  The Greek and his cronies stepped forward.