Deadman’s Bluff

1

“I win,” Rufus Steele said.

Tony Valentine could not believe his eyes. Steele, a seventy-year-old, whiskey-drinking Texas gambler, had just outrun a racehorse named Greased Lightning in the hundred-yard dash. The race had taken place on the manicured football field of the University of Nevada, the pulsating neon of the Las Vegas strip electrifying the night sky.

Valentine stood in the end zone with a mob of gamblers, many of whom had bet against Rufus. The gamblers were competing in the World Poker Showdown, the world’s richest poker tournament. Valentine was there for a different reason. He’d been hired by the Nevada Gaming Control Board to figure out how a seeing-impaired player could be cheating the tournament, and he was trying to help his son avenge the murder of a childhood friend. The fact that he’d solved neither case to his satisfaction had made for a long four days, and watching Rufus fleece some suckers had provided a welcome distraction.

“I want to see the tape,” declared a man known as the Greek.

The Greek had lost a half million bucks on the horse. He fancied himself a gambler, but had never swam with sharks as big as Rufus. The old cowboy sauntered over to where the Greek stood.

“Want to bet on the outcome again?” Rufus asked.

“Shut up!” the Greek roared.

Zack, the cameraman who’d filmed the event, rewound the tape, and the Greek and Rufus huddled behind him, staring at the camera’s tiny screen. Valentine wanted to see the race again as well, and stared over the two men’s shoulders.

Gloria Curtis brushed up beside him. In Vegas covering the poker tournament for a cable sports network, Gloria had filmed the race to be shown on her talk show. “Did you know Rufus was going to swindle the Greek like that?” she whispered to Valentine.

“Rufus didn’t swindle him,” he whispered back.

“He didn’t?”

“No. Rufus tricked him.”

“And how is that different?”

“Rufus told the Greek he could beat a horse in the hundred-yard dash. He never said the race would be run in a straight line.”

She chewed her lower lip, thinking it over. “But Rufus put a plastic cone on the fifty-yard line, so the horse had to stop, turn around, and run back.”

“It was a hundred-yard race, fair and square,” Valentine said.

She smiled at him with her eyes, which were the prettiest Valentine had seen in a long time. She’d interviewed him about the cheating at the tournament, and they’d immediately hit it off. He had no idea where the relationship was going, or even if it was going anywhere, but the ride so far was enjoyable.

“I know it looks like Rufus swindled the Greek,” he explained, “but the Greek went into the race with a gigantic edge, and he knew it.”

“An edge?”

“An advantage. The Greek’s advantage was that no human being can outrun a horse. The Greek had to know that Rufus would level the playing field to make the race competitive. And that’s exactly what Rufus did.”

“You still didn’t answer my question. Did you know what Rufus was up to?”

“No.” Valentine sensed Gloria didn’t quite believe him. Normally it wouldn’t have mattered, only she’d been in his thoughts these last few days. So he added, “Scout’s honor.”

She kissed him on the cheek. “Good.”

“Here we go,” said Zack.

The tiny screen on Zack’s camera showed Rufus and Greased Lightning about to start their race. The horse’s jockey stood in his saddle, clutching his crop. Valentine had been the starter, and the audio on the camera played back his voice intoning, “Take your marks... Get ready — go!” and the shot of the starter pistol.

Greased Lightning bolted, the jockey gripping the reins for dear life. The horse was out of control, and by the time the jockey managed to stop and turn around, he was ninety yards down the field. By then, Rufus had reached the cone, spun around, and was heading for the finish line.

“For the love of Christ,” Valentine now said under his breath.

“What’s wrong?” Gloria asked.

“Rufus tricked me.”

“But I didn’t think anyone could trick you,” Gloria said.

Valentine shook his head, realizing what Rufus had done. The sound of the starter pistol had put Greased Lightning into a frenzy, and prevented the jockey from trotting to the cone, turning around, and galloping back.

“It happens,” he said.

On the tiny screen, Rufus was huffing and puffing, his arms and legs working in unison, the horse coming up from behind like a runaway train. The ending was decided by inches, with Rufus throwing himself over the finish line as Greased Lightning thundered past. Zack froze the frame, and everyone leaned forward to see Rufus’s hand break the plane of the end zone before the horse’s nose did.

Rufus pounded the Greek on the back.

“I win,” Rufus said.

Professional gamblers did not take IOUs or personal checks. They dealt in cold hard cash, and the Greek had brought an enormous bag of money with him to the football field. As the Greek paid Rufus off, he looked at him pleadingly.

“I want another chance,” the Greek said.

There was weakness in his voice. Rufus glanced up from his counting.

“Want to win your money back, huh?”

The Greek nodded.

“I didn’t bust you, did I?”

The Greek shook his head. “I have more,” he said.

Rufus pulled the drawstring tight on the bag and gave it some thought. Sweat had started pouring off his body right after the race had ended. Valentine had tried to get him to drink water, but he’d refused.

“Well, I used to be pretty good at Ping-Pong,” Rufus said. “How about this. I’ll challenge anyone still playing in the tournament to a game of Ping-Pong, winner to reach twenty-one.”

“How much money are we talking about?” the Greek asked.

Rufus pointed at the sack of money lying on the grass. “That much. Interested?”

The Greek smiled like he’d found sunken treasure. “Yeah, I’m interested.”

“I’ve got one stipulation,” Rufus said. “I supply the paddles. Your man can choose either one. If he wants to switch during the match, he can. I just don’t want some guy showing up with one of those crazy rubber paddles that put so much spin on the ball that it’s impossible to hit back.”

“I’m agreeable to that,” the Greek said.

“Tell Rufus not to go through with this,” Gloria whispered in Valentine’s ear.

“Why not?”

“Takarama is still playing in the tournament. I profiled him for my show the other day. He still practices table tennis three hours a day.”

Shiego Takarama was a world table tennis champion who’d retired to play tournament poker. He was still in tremendous shape, and Valentine envisioned him wiping up the floor with Rufus. He went over to Rufus and pulled him aside.

“You don’t want to go through with this,” Valentine said.

“Of course I do,” Rufus replied.

“But you’re going to lose.”

“Tony, I can play Ping-Pong as good as the next fellow. I’ve got a table in my basement that I play my granddaughters on.”

“But...”

“Did you hear what the Greek said? He has money. That’s my money, Tony. The Greek is just holding it for me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some business to take care of.”

There was no stopping a man when he wanted to gamble. Rufus went up to the Greek and shook hands, sealing the deal. Shaking his head, Valentine returned to where Gloria stood with her cameraman. “He’ll never beat Takarama,” he said.

A twinkle appeared in Gloria’s eye. “So, you want to make a bet on that?”

“You mean bet against Rufus?”

“Yes.”

Betting against a grifter was like betting against the sun rising. No matter how outlandish the proposition, the grifter was going to come out ahead.

“Never,” he said.

2

Big Julie, a famous New York gambler, once said that the person who invented gambling was smart, but the person who invented chips was a genius.

Poker had a similar truism. The person who’d invented poker may have been smart, but the person who’d invented the hidden camera that allowed a television audience to see the players’ hands was a genius.

George “the Tuna” Scalzo sat on his hotel suite’s couch with his nephew beside him. It was ten o’clock in the evening, and the big-screen TV was on. They were watching the action from that day’s World Poker Show down, which was generating the highest ratings of any sporting event outside of the Super Bowl. His nephew, Skip DeMarco, was winning the tournament and had become an overnight sensation.

“Tell me what you’re seeing, Uncle George,” DeMarco said.

His nephew faced the TV, his handsome face bathed in the screen’s artificial light. Skipper suffered from a degenerative eye disease that he’d had since birth. He could not see two inches past his nose, and so his uncle described the action.

“They’re showing the different players you knocked out of the tournament today,” Scalzo said. “Treetop Strauss, Mike ‘Mad Dog’ McCoy, Johnny ‘the Wizard’ Wang, and a bunch of other guys. It’s beautiful, especially when you call their bluffs. They don’t know what hit them.”

Bluffing was what made poker exciting. A man could have worthless cards, yet if he bet aggressively, he’d win hand after hand. DeMarco had made a specialty of calling his opponents’ bluffs, and had become the most feared player in the tournament.

“Is the camera showing me a lot?” DeMarco asked.

“All the time. You’re the star.”

“Do I look arrogant?”

Scalzo didn’t know what arrogant meant. Proud? That word he understood. He glanced across the suite at Guido, who leaned against the wall. His bodyguard had a zipper scar down the side of his face and never smiled. Guido came from the streets of Newark, New Jersey, as did all the men who worked for Scalzo.

“Guido, how does Skipper look?”

“Calm, cool, and collected,” Guido said, puffing on a cigarette.

“Is he a star?”

“Big star,” Guido said.

“There you go.” Scalzo elbowed his nephew in the ribs.

The show ended, and was followed by the local news. The broadcasters covered the day’s headlines, then a story from the University of Nevada’s football field came on.

“What’s this?” his nephew asked.

Scalzo squinted at the screen. The story was about Rufus Steele challenging a racehorse to the hundred-yard dash. Rufus appeared on the screen dressed in track shorts. Beside him was Tony Valentine, the casino consultant who’d caused them so much trouble. Scalzo grabbed the remote and changed the channel.

“Put it back on, Uncle George,” his nephew said.

“Why? He can’t beat no fucking racehorse,” Scalzo protested.

“I want to see it anyway. This is the old guy who challenged me to play him. I said I’d play him after the tournament was over if he could raise a million bucks.”

The suite fell silent. “You’re not going to play that son-of-a-bitch,” Scalzo declared.

“If he raises the money, I’ll have to, Uncle George,” DeMarco said.

“Why?”

“Because this is poker. If I don’t accept Rufus’s challenge, he wins.”

Scalzo did not like the direction the conversation was taking. He clicked his fingers, and Guido rose from his chair.

“Yes, Mr. Scalzo,” the bodyguard said.

“A glass of cognac for me. What would you like, Skipper?”

“For you not to drink while we have this conversation,” his nephew said.

Scalzo balled his hands into fists and stared at his nephew’s profile. If someone who worked for him had said that, he would have had him killed. “You don’t like when I drink?”

“You get mean. Doesn’t he, Guido?”

Swallowing hard, the bodyguard said nothing. Scalzo made a twirling motion with his finger. Guido walked into the next room, shutting the door behind him.

Scalzo changed the channel with the remote, and watched Rufus beat Greased Lightning in the hundred-yard-dash while explaining it to his nephew. Then he killed the power and the room fell silent.

“This cowboy is the real thing,” his nephew said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Scalzo snapped.

“He’s an old-time hustler, Uncle George. I can’t scam him the way we’re scamming the tournament. It won’t work.”

Skipper had won several dozen poker tournaments on the Internet. Live games were a different matter, with other players ganging up on him because of his handicap. Scalzo had wanted to level the playing field, and found a scammer in Atlantic City named Jack Donovan who’d invented a scam that would let Skipper win. Scalzo had Donovan murdered for the scam, then taught it to his nephew. Although Skipper had never cheated before, he’d gone along, wanting the recognition that winning brought, which he believed he deserved.

“But no one has figured out the scam so far,” Scalzo said.

“Steele will. He’ll feel a breeze.”

“So let him put a sweater on.”

“It’s a gambler’s expression, Uncle George. Steele will know something is wrong. Even if he doesn’t know what it is, he’ll figure it out eventually. I have to play him on the square. If I’m as good as I keep telling myself I am, then I should beat him.”

“You want to play the cowboy legitimately?”

“Yes.”

Scalzo scowled. Skipper was letting his mouth overload his ass. He wasn’t going to play Steele head-to-head. The old cowboy knew too many damn tricks. Scalzo dropped the remote in his nephew’s lap. “I’m going to bed,” Scalzo said. “Let’s talk again in the morning.”

His nephew stared absently into space as if disappointed with his uncle.

“Good night, Uncle George,” he said.

Scalzo entered the next room and was greeted by an unexpected guest. Karl Jasper, founder and president of the World Poker Showdown, stood at the bar, talking with Guido while drinking a beer. The face of the WPS, Jasper had black-dyed hair, whitened teeth, and shoulder pads in his jackets that made him look trimmer than he really was.

“Nice place,” Jasper said.

Scalzo and his nephew were staying in a high-roller suite, compliments of the hotel. It had a fully stocked bar, pool table, Jacuzzi, and private theater with reclining leather chairs. It was the best digs in town, and wasn’t costing them a dime. A snifter of cognac awaited Scalzo on the bar. They clinked glasses, and Scalzo raised the drink to his lips and sniffed.

“Did you see Rufus Steele on TV?” Jasper asked.

“The man is becoming a menace.”

Scalzo let the cognac swirl around in his mouth. It felt good and strong and made him wake up. He liked how Jasper addressed things. He was a product of Madison Avenue, and had gone from account executive to founder and president of the World Poker Showdown in the blink of an eye. He was a smart guy who suffered from the same problem that a lot of smart guys suffered from: He didn’t know how to run a business. Within six months of starting the WPS, he’d run out of cash. In desperation he’d gone to the mob, and Scalzo became his partner.

Scalzo could not have envisioned a more perfect setup. The biggest mistake the mob had ever made was letting themselves get pushed out of Las Vegas. No other town in the world had the same kind of action. By partnering with Jasper, Scalzo could run a card game inside a Las Vegas casino without the law breathing down his neck. It didn’t get any better than that.

“Rufus Steele is a clown,” Scalzo said. “The real problem is Tony Valentine. He wants to expose Skipper. He has a grudge with me.”

The beer in Jasper’s glass had disappeared. Guido popped the cap off a bottle and poured him another.

“You’ve dealt with Valentine before?” Jasper asked. Scalzo nodded stiffly.

“Can he be bought off?”

“No,” Scalzo said. “He was a casino cop for twenty years. They called him the squarest guy in Atlantic City.”

“So what should we do?”

Scalzo stared across the suite at the picture window on the other side of the room. The curtains were pulled back, allowing him to see the pulsing neon spectacle that was the strip at night. For years he’d run a successful scam in Atlantic City that had made him a small fortune, but this was different. This was Las Vegas, and for as long as he could remember, he’d wanted a piece of it all for himself.

“We need to get rid of him,” Scalzo said. “Once Valentine’s gone, Steele will fade into the sunset, and we can go back to business.”

“When you say get rid of him,” Jasper said, “do you mean, run him out of town?”

Scalzo put his snifter down, and coldly stared at his guest. Jasper’s face and hands were evenly tanned from playing golf three times a week. They’d been partners for over a year, and so far, Jasper had shown no regrets for having jumped in bed with the devil.

“I mean we need to kill the bastard,” Scalzo said.

“You’re serious.”

“Yeah. If you wanna get somethin’ done, you need to do it yourself.”

Jasper blinked, and then he blinked again. Making a Madison Avenue decision, Scalzo thought. He placed his hand on Jasper’s arm, and squeezed the younger man’s biceps. “We need to do it right now,” Scalzo added.

3

Old age was mean.

Valentine had discovered that a few years ago, the week he’d turned sixty. He’d gotten up one morning, and half the bones in his body felt broken. He’d tried to remember what he’d done to deserve such punishment, and realized his body was paying him back for a judo class he’d taken two days before.

A two-day-old payback. That was just plain mean.

Old age also turned cruel on Rufus right after the football field cleared out. Rufus was putting his winnings into a rented Wells Fargo truck when both legs cramped and his face turned blue. Valentine had thrown the last bag of money into the truck, then gotten his head under Rufus’s armpit, dragged him to his rental, and poured Rufus into the passenger seat.

Gloria and Zack had already left. Valentine got the rental started, and drove across the field to the break in the chain-link fence that led to the parking lot, then on to Las Vegas Boulevard. As the tires hit pavement, Rufus’s eyes snapped open.

“I need whiskey,” the old cowboy muttered.

“You need to see a doctor first.”

“Whiskey’s cheaper and it works faster.” Rufus pointed at a casino up ahead, a run-down joint called the Laughing Jackalope. “That place will do.”

“You sure?” Valentine asked.

“Yessir.”

Valentine found a space in the Jackalope’s dusty parking lot. Killing the engine, he stared at the peeling paint and decay on the building. There were three types of casinos in Las Vegas: carpet joints, sawdust joints, and toilets. The Jackalope was on the low end of the toilet scale. Opening the door, Rufus practically fell out of the car.

“See you inside,” he said.

Valentine watched Rufus lurch across the lot like a drunk on ice skates. At the front door he threw his shoulders back and snapped to attention, then marched inside.

The sound of a shot glass slamming the bar greeted Valentine upon entering the poorly lit, mirrored cocktail lounge. Rufus was at the bar, getting served. The bartender, a cross-eyed albino wearing a faded purple tuxedo shirt, held a bottle of Johnny Walker at the ready.

“Another?” the albino asked.

“I’d sure appreciate it,” Rufus replied.

The albino poured and Rufus drank. The color had returned to his cheeks, and he no longer looked ready to keel over. Wiping his lips, he glanced through an open doorway into the next room where a couple of construction workers wearing coveralls were shooting pool. Rufus pointed at the halfway mark on the shot glass.

“To there, if you don’t mind,” he said.

The albino half-filled the glass. Rufus staggered into the next room, doing his drunk act, and started baiting the construction workers. The albino placed another shot glass on the bar and filled it with whiskey.

“No thanks,” Valentine said.

“Who said it was for you?” the albino snorted.

The albino slammed the drink back, then returned the bottle to its slot on the mirrored display behind him. When he turned around, he gave Valentine a hard look.

“I remember you now,” the albino said. “You came in here a few days ago, asking a lot of questions. Your name’s Gerry, isn’t it?”

Valentine and his thirty-six-year-old son, Gerry, bore a strong physical resemblance, and the crummy bar light was a good equalizer. Gerry had been with him until a few hours ago when Valentine sent him to Atlantic City to chase down a lead. He guessed the albino was one of his son’s local sources, and said, “That’s right. How’s it going?”

“Shitty,” the albino said. “What do you want?”

“You always so warm and fuzzy?”

“Just call me Mister Fucking Sunshine.”

“You must really bring in the customers.”

“You came in, didn’t you?”

There was no use arguing with a guy like this, and Valentine decided to leave. Pulling out his wallet, he asked, “How much do I owe you?”

“Same as before,” the albino said.

“Refresh my memory.”

The albino reached into Valentine’s wallet and gingerly removed a C-note. He put his elbows on the bar in a friendly fashion and said, “You want to see the notebook? I just got the updates last night. Lots of new dealers.”

Valentine played back everything that had just happened. The albino knew his son, and had just taken a hundred-dollar bill from his wallet. “Sure,” he said.

The albino removed a plastic three-ring notebook from beneath the bar. Valentine flipped it open and scanned the neatly typed pages. After a few moments, he realized what he was looking at. The notebook contained the names and physical descriptions of several dozen blackjack dealers in Las Vegas, their work hours, and how many times per hour they mistakenly “flashed” their hole card to the players. Reading a flashed card was called front-loading, and a perfectly legal way to beat the house.

Valentine shut the notebook. “Actually there was something else I wanted to ask you. What’s the story with the World Poker Showdown?”

“I hear it’s rigged for the blind guy to win,” the albino said.

“Any idea how?”

“Rumor is, they’re using touch cards.”

Touch cards were a popular way among cheaters to mark cards. The cheater would use a sharp device called a punch to create an indentation in the card that could be felt by the thumb during the deal. This indentation let the dealer know when certain cards were coming off the top. Other variations used sandpaper and nail polish to scuff the back of the card.

“Thanks,” Valentine said, rising from his stool.

“You know, you’ve aged a lot since the last time I saw you,” the albino said.

Valentine was twenty-seven years older than his son. He wanted to tell the albino to get his eyes checked, but had a feeling the comment might be taken the wrong way. He said good night, and walked into the next room to watch Rufus shoot pool.

They left the bar with Rufus holding a handful of the construction workers’ money. As Valentine drove away, Rufus took several hundred-dollar bills and shoved them into Valentine’s shirt pocket.

“What’s that for?” Valentine asked.

“Saving me from getting whacked over the head with a pool cue,” Rufus said.

“You tell those guys I was a cop?”

“I sure did. That and those broad shoulders of yours kept those boys honest.”

“Were they hustlers?”

Rufus nodded. “Their hands gave them away. They were wearing dirty construction clothes, but didn’t have any calluses and their fingernails were clean.”

Valentine took Las Vegas Boulevard to the freeway, then headed north toward their hotel. The Celebrity, two exits away, was hosting the World Poker Showdown. A giant billboard in front of the hotel resembled a movie marquee, on which a video clip was being shown.

“Is that who I think it is?” Rufus asked.

Skip DeMarco’s handsome face had appeared on the marquee. DeMarco had knocked several famous players out of the tournament that day, just as he had since the beginning of the tournament four days ago, each time by calling their bluffs. DeMarco had “read” his opponents’ hands, even though he could not see their faces.

“That boy’s getting famous,” Rufus said. “Too bad he’s a cheat.”

“The bartender at the Jackalope said DeMarco is in collusion with the dealer,” Valentine said.

“Doing what?”

“Touch cards.”

Rufus shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“There’s a tell with touch cards. The thumb of the dealer’s hand scrapes across the top card. It wouldn’t fly.”

The traffic started to move and Valentine goosed the accelerator. On the marquee, DeMarco was dragging his opponent’s chips across the table with a gleeful look on his face. Rufus let out a disapproving snort.

“I can’t wait to play that boy once the tournament’s over,” Rufus said.

“You really dislike him, don’t you?”

“Kid’s got no class. You can tell he’s never driven the white line.”

“What’s that?”

“Looking for action. You drive a couple hundred miles to a game you’ve heard about. Sometimes the town isn’t even on a map. If the game looks beatable, you play. You do this forty weeks a year, and spend the rest of the time at home, getting reacquainted with your wife and kids. It’s a hard way to make a living. And the hardest part is driving the white line, not knowing what lays in store for you.”

“Sounds dangerous,” Valentine said.

“It is. One time down in Austin, I was playing in a tent on this rich guy’s cattle ranch. It was Saturday night, and there’s a hundred guys playing poker. Not just ordinary guys, either. There were billionaire oilmen, richer-than-God cattle barons, the crème de la crème of high society, if Texas has such a thing.

“A car pulled up, and four hooded guys with machine guns jumped out. They shot up the tent and made everyone lie down, then robbed us. They were slick, and everyone knew not to mess with them. I was the last person they got to. One of the robbers stared at me. Then he winked.”

“A friend?” Valentine asked.

“Yup. We’d run together for a year. I’d heard he’d fallen on hard times.”

“What did you say to him?”

“Nothing. I didn’t want anyone in that tent knowing we were acquainted. I gave him everything I had, including my late father’s watch.”

“That must have been hard.”

“I got it all back in the mail a week later. He hadn’t even touched my bankroll.”

They reached their exit. A minute later, Valentine was pulling up a winding front entrance lined with palm trees.

“That was awful nice of him,” Valentine said.

Rufus frowned, as though being nice had nothing to do with it. “He wasn’t going to rob me, even if I was the last person on the face of the earth. We drove the white line together.”

People who gambled for a living lived on a roller-coaster: one day they were up, the next day they were hurtling down. When Valentine had first gotten together with Rufus four days ago, the old cowboy, one of the first victims of Skip DeMarco, had been poorer than a church mouse, and Valentine had offered the couch in his suite for Rufus to sleep on. Even though Rufus’s for tunes had changed dramatically since then, he’d not asked Rufus to leave. He enjoyed the old cowboy’s company.

They walked through the hotel’s main lobby, which had a jungle motif. It reminded Valentine of an old Tarzan movie, and at any moment he half-expected a guy wearing a loincloth to come swinging through the lobby.

They got on an elevator, Valentine hitting the button for the fourth floor. As the doors closed, two guys hopped on. Late thirties, one black, the other white, they argued over who was the best golfer of all time — Nicklaus or Woods — neither man willing to back down.

Everyone got out on the fourth floor. Still arguing, the men went in one direction, Valentine and Rufus in the other. “I happened to personally know the best golfer in the world, and it wasn’t Jack Nicklaus or Tiger Woods,” Rufus said. “It was Titanic Thompson.”

Valentine had heard of Thompson. He was a famous hustler who the character Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls was based on. “I thought Thompson’s games were cards and dice.”

“And golf,” Rufus said. “Ti was the best. He taught me all the angles. I can beat any golfer in the world, if the money’s right.”

They reached the suite and Valentine stuck his plastic key into the door. He rarely stayed up late, and the long hours he’d been keeping were taking their toll. The security light flashed green, and he pushed the door open.

“Home sweet home,” Rufus said, sailing his Stetson into the room as he went in. “I’ll tell you a little secret about Ti. He always practiced his golf shots in the shade. That way, when suckers played him, they assumed he didn’t get out much.”

As Valentine turned to shut the door, it slammed open in his face. Pools of black appeared before his eyes and he staggered backward into a wall.

The men from the elevator rushed into the suite. The white guy was holding a nylon rope stretched between his hands, the black guy a pipe. The black guy ran across the suite and tried to smack Rufus over the head. Rufus fell on the couch.

“Don’t hurt me,” the old cowboy said. “Please don’t hurt me.”

The white guy wrapped his rope around Valentine’s neck, then spun him around and put his knee into Valentine’s back. Valentine tried to wiggle his fingers between the rope and his windpipe. It was no good.

“I’ll pay you twenty grand, cash,” Rufus said to his attacker.

“You got that much?” his attacker asked.

“Yeah, in the wall safe.”

The black guy looked at his partner, then back at Rufus. “Double it, and I won’t kill you.”

“Deal,” Rufus said.

“What about your friend?”

“What about him?” Rufus asked.

The black guy laughed harshly.

Valentine felt the fight leave his body and his legs begin to buckle. From across the room, Celebrity’s garish neon flashed through the partially open blinds. Las Vegas was built on losers, and he realized he was about to become one of them.

4

Valentine was sinking in a bottomless lake. He felt weightless and surprisingly calm. Dying isn’t so bad, he thought.

He heard a sharp crack! that sounded like thunder. The rope strangling him went slack, and fell to the floor. He took a deep breath, then spun around. His attacker was holding his arm, cursing in pain. Valentine kicked the man’s legs out from under him. Called the sweep, it was the best way to take someone down. As the man fell forward, Valentine kneed him in the face for good measure.

He heard another crack! from across the suite. Rufus stood in the middle of the living room, brandishing a bullwhip. He cracked the whip like a pro, repeatedly hitting the black guy in places that were hard to defend: his ankle, face, and crotch. Valentine had seen Rufus slip something beneath the couch a few nights before, and had assumed it was a pair of shoes.

“Look out behind you,” Rufus said.

Valentine spun around. The effort made his head throb and the room spin. The white guy had gotten up and was staggering out the door, his face a bloody mess.

“Tony, behind you again,” Rufus called out.

Valentine turned again, this time a little more slowly. Rufus’s attacker ran past him. He joined up with his partner, and their pounding footsteps reverberated down the hallway. Cracking his whip, Rufus followed the two men into the hall. His Stetson was back on his head, and he looked as regal as any cowboy had the right to look.

“Anytime, girls,” Rufus yelled, standing in the hallway. “Come back anytime.”

Valentine got his wits back, then searched the suite for a weapon. He settled on a brass flower vase sitting on the TV. It was shaped like a woman in a floor-length dress. He went into the hall with the vase clutched in his hand.

“Call hotel security,” he told Rufus.

“Sure. You okay?”

“Never better,” Valentine said.

Like Hansel and Gretel in the forest, their attackers had left a trail. Instead of bread crumbs, they’d left drops of blood. He followed them to the hallway’s end, stopping at the doorway to the emergency exit stairwell. Opening the door cautiously, he stuck his head in, staring into semidarkness.

From down below came voices. His adrenaline had burned off, and the bridge of his nose felt as wide as his head. The smart move was to retreat. He’d escaped, and that was the important thing. Only Valentine wanted to pay these jokers back. When it came to killers, he believed in the Old Testament’s advice: “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” He went into the stairwell, and listened some more.

When Valentine returned to the suite a minute later, Rufus handed him a towel wrapped around some ice cubes. Sitting on the couch, he pressed the towel to his nose.

“I called hotel security,” Rufus said. “They’re dealing with a problem in the casino, and will be up in a few. Hey, Tony, you’ve got blood on your shirt. You okay?”

Valentine looked down at his shirt. The lower half was soaked in red.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Well, you don’t look fine,” Rufus said.

“Okay, so I’m lousy.”

Rufus pulled a suitcase from the closet. He unzipped a pocket, removed a glass pint of bourbon, and offered it to him. “This is the finest bourbon known to man, brewed in a Mississippi bathtub by the great-grandson of Jack Daniels himself.”

“No thanks,” Valentine said. “But go ahead yourself.”

Rufus unscrewed the top and took a long pull, smacking his lips when done. Some men, like Valentine’s father, could not drink without turning into monsters. Others, like Rufus, seemed better for the experience.

Rufus retrieved the coiled bullwhip from the floor. It looked like a thick black snake whose head was hidden within its coils, and he tucked it beneath the couch.

“You always carry that around?” Valentine asked.

“Used to carry a gun,” Rufus said. “After 9/11, I started carrying the whip. In some ways, it’s better than a gun. You should learn how to use one.”

“You think so?”

“It’s like fly casting a fishing rod. Ever try that?”

“I fly-fished once on vacation,” Valentine said. “I caught the hook on my earlobe. Had to go to the emergency room at the hospital to have it removed.”

“Maybe you should stick with beating people up.”

“Thanks.”

Rufus returned his pint to the suitcase, then consulted his wristwatch. It was an old silver dollar that had been turned into a timepiece. The coin needed polishing, but probably wouldn’t see any in Rufus’s lifetime.

“Those hotel guards are mighty damn slow,” he said.

Valentine shifted the icepack on his face. A five-minute response time in a Vegas hotel was normal. Although their casinos had state-of-the-art surveillance systems, they were largely ineffective when it came to crimes against guests. There were simply too many rooms.

“They’ll show up eventually,” he said. “Since neither of us were killed, they’re not hurrying. It’s how things work. Everything gets prioritized. Especially guests.”

“And since you and I aren’t whales, we get the pooch treatment.”

“Exactly.”

Rufus removed his Stetson and patted down his hair like he was expecting company. He fitted his hat back on, and looked Valentine in the eye.

“I’d hate this crummy town if I didn’t like to gamble so much,” Rufus said.

In the bathroom, Valentine changed shirts, downed four ibuprofens, then appraised his profile in the mirror. He’d gotten his nose broken twice as a cop, plus a couple times in judo competition, yet it had never flattened. Good genes, he guessed. He returned to the suite, sat on the couch with Rufus.

“Come straight with me about something,” Rufus said.

“Sure.”

“When that guy was threatening me with the pipe, you thought I was selling you out, didn’t you?”

Valentine considered denying it, then decided not to lie. “Afraid I did.”

“Sorry. It was the only ruse I could think of.”

There was a commotion in the hallway. Four uniformed cops entered the suite, followed by Pete Longo, chief detective with the Metro Las Vegas Police Department’s Homicide Division. As Valentine rose from the couch, the cops drew their weapons.

“Stay seated,” a cop ordered him.

Valentine dropped back into his seat.

“Where are your guns?” the cop asked.

“We don’t have any,” Valentine said.

The cops searched the suite anyway. Valentine glanced at Longo, whom he’d known for many years. Longo had recently lost a lot of weight, but hadn’t changed his wardrobe. His rumpled suit swam on his body.

“Can’t you help us, Pete?” Valentine asked.

Longo shot him a skeptical look. “You don’t have any firearms in the suite?”

“There’s a bullwhip lying beneath the couch, but that’s it.”

The cops finished their search. The one who’d been doing the talking approached the couch and said, “You better be telling the truth.”

“Ain’t no reason to lie,” Rufus replied.

“Come with me,” Longo said. “I want to show you something.”

Valentine and Rufus followed Longo out the door, happy to be away from the uniforms. They took an elevator to the lobby, which was swarming with more cops, some in uniform, some plainclothes. Yellow police tape cordoned off an area around a door with an emergency exit sign above it. Longo lifted up the police tape and they walked beneath it. The detective pointed to a door propped open with a metal chair.

“Take a look,” Longo said.

Rufus went first, and came away shaking his head. Then Valentine stuck his head in. The light inside the stairwell was muted, and he let his eyes adjust. When they did, he saw their two attackers lying at the bottom. Their faces looked eerily peaceful, save for the bullet holes in their foreheads.

“Recognize them?” Longo asked, now behind him.

“Those are the guys who just attacked us in our room,” Valentine said.

“Did Rufus Steele shoot them?”

“No.”

“Did you shoot them?”

“No.”

“I’d like to do a paraffin test for gunshot residue.”

“Be my guest.”

“I also want to talk to your son. Last time I checked, he had a grudge against some mobsters in town. Maybe this was his way of paying them back.”

“Gerry isn’t in Las Vegas, ” Valentine said. “I put him on a plane to Philadelphia four hours ago.”

“Why did you do that?” the detective asked.

He almost told Longo it was none of his business, then reminded himself he was a suspect in a double homicide and everything was Longo’s business. “The World Poker Showdown is being scammed, and nobody knows how. The secret is in a hospital in Atlantic City.”

“And you sent your son there to figure it out.”

“That’s right.”

Longo’s face was stoic. He doesn’t believe me, Valentine thought. Gerry’s stay in Vegas had been rough, and Valentine didn’t want his son getting dragged back here.

“If you don’t believe me, call him,” Valentine said.

Longo dug his cell phone from his pocket.

“Give me your son’s number,” the detective said.

5

Stepping off the Delta 767 at Philadelphia Airport, Gerry Valentine spotted an undercover detective standing in the terminal. The detective was a handsome guy, black, six one, athletic, and pushing forty. What blew his cover were his cheap threads. That was where most detectives disguising themselves screwed up. They dressed like schleps.

Up until last year, Gerry’d been a bookie, and had done his fair share of business with underworld types. But then his life had changed. He’d gotten married and had a beautiful little daughter. His priorities had shifted, and he’d decided he didn’t want his kid to have a criminal father. So he’d shut down his bookmaking operation and gone to work in his father’s consulting business. It hadn’t been easy. Sometimes, Gerry’s past came back to haunt him, and he now considered walking back onto the plane.

He decided against it. Better to walk past the detective and see if anything happened. He’d always been good with his mouth, and could talk his way out of most situations. As he got close, the detective stuck his hand out.

“You must be Gerry. I’m Detective Eddie Davis.”

Gerry had heard Davis’s name before. Davis had helped his father track down his partner’s killers a few years back. Gerry shook his hand.

“Let me guess. My father sent you.”

Davis scowled. “He asked me to look out for you. Something wrong with that?”

“I don’t need a babysitter.”

Davis followed Gerry to baggage claim, where they watched some misbehaving kids ride around on the carousel. “Your father said you had a bad experience in Las Vegas, and that George Scalzo was involved,” Davis said. “Hearing that, I figured I’d better meet you at the airport.”

Gerry checked the tags of the garment bags on the carousel. He needed to get rid of this guy. He was going to Atlantic City to learn how Jack Donovan’s poker scam worked, and expected to run into his friends from the old days. What was he going to say, “Hey Vinny, this here is Eddie Davis. Keep your mouth shut, he’s a cop”? No, that wasn’t going to work.

“Your father said Scalzo murdered a guy named Jack Donovan, and you and some buddies went to Vegas gunning for him, and nearly got yourselves killed,” Davis said.

“Dad likes to exaggerate,” Gerry said.

“Your father said one of your buddies got the hair on his face burned off by a flamethrower. That an exaggeration?”

His garment bag appeared. Gerry pulled a strap out of a side pocket, attached it to the bag, then threw it over his shoulder. He knew the Philly airport like the back of his hand, and would give Davis the slip once he got downstairs. He couldn’t have a cop playing Me and My Shadow with him on this trip. Not even a well-intentioned one.

“Ready to roll,” he said.

Going downstairs, Gerry excused himself and headed for the men’s room. Davis tagged him on the shoulder like they were playing touch football.

“I once had a suspect duck out through the side entrance,” Davis said. “You weren’t thinking of doing that, were you?”

“I’ll tell you after I take a leak,” Gerry said.

Davis shot him a disapproving look. “For Christ’s sake man, I’m here to help you. I know about your background with the rackets. I won’t hassle any of your friends if we run into them.”

Davis sounded sincere, which made Gerry suspicious.

“Why would you do that?”

“Because I need your help with a cheating case I’m working on,” Davis said.

Gerry considered Davis’s offer. Having a cop watching his back wasn’t such a bad idea. He’d made an enemy out of George Scalzo in Vegas, and suspected Scalzo would pay him back someday soon.

“Okay,” Gerry said.

They sped along the scenic New Jersey Expressway in Davis’s souped-up ’78 Mustang, the four-lane, pencil-straight highway bordered by lush berms and mature oaks. Atlantic City had been created as a summer playground for rich people from Philadelphia, the expressway being the shortest distance from that city to the sea.

“This case has been driving me crazy,” Davis said. “There’s a retirement condo on the south end of the is land where a resident is cheating other residents at cards. This guy is stealing retirement money. I want to nail him, but none of the residents will cooperate. He’s local, they’re local, and none of the cops working the case are.”

“How much is the guy stealing?”

“A couple grand a week. He’s done this to hundreds of elderly people.”

Gerry got the picture. The cheater was what his father called a public menace — someone who enjoyed hurting people as much as stealing. “What’s the guy doing?”

“He plays cards in the same restaurant every day, and that’s where he fleeces his victims,” Davis said. “He doesn’t play for cash, but keeps a running tally of points on a sheet of paper. That way, we can’t bust him for an illegal card game. I got my hands on the cards and they’re normal. No marks, bends, or gaffs. I also filmed him through a window, and watched the video. He isn’t doing any sleight-of-hand.”

“Describe the restaurant where he plays cards.”

“It’s a mom-and-pop beachfront joint with some booths lining the walls and a half dozen round tables. Most of the customers live on social security or pensions. Nothing on the menu is too pricey.”

“How long has he played there?”

“Years,” Davis said.

“So he’s got an arrangement.”

The Mustang slowed down almost imperceptibly, then sped back up.

“I’m not following you,” Davis said.

“The guy’s got an arrangement with the owner of the restaurant,” Gerry said.

“The owner’s hardly there.”

“Then he’s got an arrangement with the manager, or head waitress or whoever’s running the place.”

“It’s a waitress,” Davis said.

Gerry wasn’t his father’s son for nothing, and said, “The guy cheats his opponent and gives the waitress a cut, probably twenty percent. More if she’s involved in his scam.”

Davis briefly took his eyes off the road. “Would you mind telling me how you came to that conclusion?”

“Sure. You said the cards weren’t marked and the guy wasn’t using sleight-of-hand. Well, that leaves only one more thing. They’re a team.”

“They are?”

“Have to be. The waitress is peeking at the opponent’s cards when she waits on the table, writes it on a paper napkin or a check, and slaps it on the table. The guy picks the napkin up, and reads what his opponent is holding.”

A pained look crossed Davis’s face, and he resumed staring at the expressway. Gerry guessed Davis had spent some time in the restaurant and gotten to know the waitress. He’d formed an opinion of her, and was experiencing the unsettling feeling that came when you found out someone you liked was really a piece of garbage.

“How do I prosecute this guy, and get a jury to believe my story?” Davis asked.

Gerry had seen his father handle cases similar to this. Prosecuting cheating wasn’t easy, the crime difficult to prove. “Haul the waitress in, tell her you know what she’s been doing, and you’re going to report her to the Internal Revenue Service for income tax evasion if she doesn’t cooperate.”

“I should turn her against her partner?”

“Yes.”

Davis considered it. Like most cops, he rarely saw justice, and when he did, it usually had a pair of horns attached to it.

“That’s one of your father’s tricks, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Sure is,” Gerry said.

Atlantic City was a thirteen-mile-long island, and their arrival on its north end was greeted by the brilliant neon of half a dozen names synonymous with gambling. Casinos had sucked the lifeblood out of Atlantic City, and Gerry stared down the Monopoly-named streets he’d once played on, seeing poverty and despair.

At a traffic light Davis hit the brakes. “You hungry?” he asked.

Gerry was thirty-six, and could still eat an extra meal and not have trouble getting into his pants. His father had warned him that someday he would pay, but so far, he wasn’t sweating it.

“What do you have in mind?”

“Sacco’s Sack O’ Subs.”

Sacco’s made the best submarine sandwiches in the world, and was located on the southern end of the island, in the town of Ventnor where Gerry had grown up.

“You’re on,” Gerry said.

The restaurant was hopping when they arrived. Taking a booth in the back, they ordered the signature sandwich, an Italian hot sausage sub, then waited for their food. A couple in the next booth were talking with Jersey accents so thick that an outsider would have needed an interpreter to understand them. Gerry felt right at home.

Their sandwiches arrived. A TV set above the counter was turned on, showing Skip DeMarco playing at the World Poker Showdown.

“DeMarco used to come into the card rooms here.” Davis sprinkled grated cheese over his sandwich. He wasn’t sweating the calories either and took a big bite.

“How did he do?” Gerry asked.

“Lost his shirt. He filed a beef with the police, claimed the other players were taking advantage of his blindness and cheating him. It never went anywhere.”

Gerry lowered his voice. “DeMarco is George Scalzo’s nephew. He’s scamming the World Poker Showdown.”

Davis’s eyes grew wide. “Well, I’ll be. How’s he doing it?”

“That’s what I came to Atlantic City to find out,” Gerry said. “My father thinks the scam’s secret is at the Atlantic City Medical Center where my buddy Jack Donovan just died. He wants me to snoop around the hospital, see what I can find.”

Davis chewed reflectively, perhaps familiar with Gerry’s friend’s shady past. “Most of the staff at the hospital know me pretty well. Maybe I can help you.”

“You’d do that?” Gerry asked.

“Sure. I’d like nothing better than to see George Scalzo and his cheating nephew in jail.”

Gerry lowered his sub to his plate. The distrust he’d felt for Eddie when he’d stepped off the plane had vanished. He started to say okay, then stopped himself. His father did not like having outsiders help with jobs, even when they were friends. Gerry needed to run this by the old man, make sure he was okay with it.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, sliding out of the booth.

He powered up his cell phone in the parking lot. He could taste the salt air coming off the ocean, could remember all the summers he’d spent playing on the beach. Growing up, he’d assumed that he’d raise a family here, but the arrival of casinos had changed that. Now, he could no more imagine living in Atlantic City than in Baghdad.

His phone’s message icon was blinking, and he went into voice mail. Detective Pete Longo, head of homicide for the Metro Las Vegas Police Department, had called two hours ago. Saying he needed to talk to Gerry urgently, he left his number. Gerry had met Longo in Vegas and considered him a stand-up guy. He punched in Longo’s number.

Longo picked up after two rings. His voice was all business.

“Your father tells me you’re in Atlantic City,” Longo said.

“That’s right. I arrived a couple of hours ago,” Gerry said.

“Can you prove that?”

“Why should I?”

“Because you’re a suspect in a double homicide, that’s why,” Longo snapped.

Gerry felt the hair on his neck stand up. He’d been crosswise with the law many times, and knew that cooperation was the key to staying out of trouble. He asked Longo to hold, then went back into Sacco’s, and found Davis working on his gums with a toothpick.

“I need a favor,” he said, sliding into the booth.

“Name it,” Davis said.

Gerry handed Davis his cell phone.

“Talk to this guy,” he said.

6

“Your son’s alibi checks out,” Longo said, folding his cell phone.

“I told you he was in Atlantic City doing a job,” Valentine said.

“Never hurts to check.”

Longo and Valentine sat on stiff-backed chairs in a stuffy detention room behind Celebrity’s casino. Longo had given him a paraffin test to check for gunshot residue. Finding Valentine clean, he then peppered him with questions about the two men who’d attacked him and Rufus in the suite.

Valentine answered the questions, feeling sorry for Longo. The detective had a thankless job. The clearance rate for homicides in Las Vegas was the worst of any major U.S. city — with less than one in four murders ever being solved. If the cops didn’t catch the criminals right away, chances were, they never would.

“Which brings us right back to you,” Longo said.

“It does?” Valentine said.

“Yes. Right now, you’re my main suspect in the murders, Tony.”

Valentine stared into space. Hotel security had furnished Longo with a surveillance tape taken in the hallway near the emergency stairwell during the time of the attack. It showed his two attackers running into the stairwell, followed by Valentine clutching a metal flower vase. Valentine reappeared a minute later, and went back to his room.

“What happened in that stairwell?” Longo asked.

“Nothing,” Valentine said.

“You didn’t run downstairs and shoot those guys?”

“I didn’t have a gun.”

“Maybe you disarmed them. You were a judo champ, weren’t you?”

“That was a long time ago.”

“You didn’t answer the question.”

Valentine took a deep breath. Longo was getting on his nerves, the way good cops were supposed to. “I didn’t shoot them. I stood at the top of the stairwell, decided it was too risky, and went back to my suite to lick my wounds.”

Something resembling a smile crossed Longo’s face. “The Tony Valentine I know would have run those ass-holes down, and made them pay for their transgressions.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Valentine said.

“Any idea who gave them the head ornaments?”

“If I knew, I’d tell you.”

Longo crossed his arms in front of his chest. He’d gone through personal hell during the past twelve months because of an affair he’d had with a stripper. He’d done the smart thing, falling on his sword and confessing. It had made a better man out of him, and when he spoke again, his voice was softer. “I have enough circumstantial evidence to book you for manslaughter, only I’m not going to do that,” he said.

Shifting his gaze, Valentine looked at the detective.

“You’re a brother cop, and someone I respect,” Longo went on. “I’m going to let you go, with the understanding that if I need to talk to you again, you’ll drop whatever you’re doing and cooperate.”

Valentine rose from the chair. “Of course. Thanks, Pete.”

“I want to tell you something else. There are seven bodies in the Las Vegas morgue connected to you and this fricking poker tournament. If I find out you’re holding back in any way, I’ll nail your ass to a board. Understood?”

He nodded stiffly.

“Have a nice night,” Longo said.

He returned to his suite to find Rufus lying on the couch, staring at the mute TV.

“That detective finally come to his senses?” Rufus asked him.

“Sort of. I’ll see you in the morning,” Valentine said.

In his bedroom the phone’s message light was blinking. He went into voice mail, heard Gloria Curtis request the pleasure of his company over breakfast, nine sharp in the hotel restaurant. He’d been late the last two times they’d gotten together, and heard an edge to her voice that said she wouldn’t tolerate another infraction.

He brushed his teeth, threw on his pajamas, and realized he wasn’t tired anymore. In the living room he got a soda from the minibar, asked Rufus if he wanted anything.

“Just some company,” the old cowboy said.

Valentine pulled a chair next to the couch. On the TV was Skip DeMarco’s heroics at the tournament. Poker was a boring game, with most hands decided by everyone dropping out, and one player stealing the pot. But the people running the WPS had figured something out. They focused on a handful of players, filmed them exclusively, then edited their play down to the exciting footage. The magic of television was turning DeMarco into a star.

Rufus killed the power with the remote. “Watching this kid reminds me of the time I got cheated in jolly old England.”

“You got cheated?”

Rufus nodded. Valentine had learned that hustlers didn’t like to talk about scams they’d pulled, but loved to talk about the times they’d gotten swindled. He supposed it was their way of explaining their own behavior.

“What happened?”

“One day I got a phone call asking me to fly to London to play cards with some British aristocrats, Sir This and Lord That. They sounded like suckers, so I hopped on a plane.

“When I arrived, they rolled out the red carpet. I stayed at a four-star hotel with a uniformed doorman and a suite with all the trimmings. Everyone I bumped into knew my name. Let me tell you, Tony, they buttered me up real good.

“That night, I went across the street to play cards. It was a private club, lots of polished brass and mahogany. I met my opponents, and we retired to the card room for a little action.

“There’s three of them, and one of me. One of them says, ‘How about a game of Texas Hold ‘Em, Mr. Steele?’ Right then, I knew I was in trouble.”

“Why?”

“At the time, I was the best Texas Hold ‘Em player in the world. When some hoity-toity aristocrat says he wants to challenge me, my radar went up.”

“So you left.”

“Naw. If I’d quit every time someone was trying to cheat me, I’d have missed some great opportunities. I threw my money in the pot, and let them deal the cards.

“Now, I’m familiar with most methods of card cheating. I guessed these boys were going to signal each other, what most amateurs do. So I studied them real good.” Rufus stretched his legs and yawned prodigiously. “Come to find out, they weren’t signaling. So, I played.”

“Did you lose?”

“Oh yeah. They bled me real good. Whenever I had good cards, they dropped out like they had a train to catch. When I tried to bluff, one of them would call me, and I’d get beat. Finally, I figured out what was going on.”

“Let me guess,” Valentine said. “There was a hole in the ceiling.”

Rufus pulled his cowboy boots off and massaged the soles of his feet, which were rubbed raw from his footrace with Greased Lightning. “You got it. Someone was using a telescope to spot my cards, then relaying the information to a waiter, who passed the information to my opponents. It was a fancy setup.

“Then I got an idea. I excused myself and went to the coat check. I borrowed an umbrella, and went back to the card room. When I sat down, I opened the umbrella and held it over my head. Then I told them to shuffle up and deal.”

“What did they say?”

“They summoned the club manager. He told me it was against house rules to play with an open umbrella. I told him it was raining outside, and I was afraid I’d get wet being there was a hole in the ceiling. I told him that if their doctors were as bad as their dentists, I’d just as soon not get sick.”

Valentine slapped his hand on his leg. “Is that when the game stopped?”

Rufus shook his head. “That’s when it got started.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s when I really got cheated,” Rufus said.

Rufus took out his wallet. It was a hand-stitched piece of rawhide he’d been carrying in his pocket for decades. From it, he produced a faded snapshot and passed it Valentine’s way. It showed Rufus wearing a snappy brown jacket with suede shoulders, the crown of his Stetson encircled by dead rattlesnake. To round out the bizarre picture, he was holding an umbrella over his head.

“Who took the picture?” Valentine asked.

“One of my opponents. I should have realized I was about to get greased, but I was so full of myself, it just blew right by me.”

He handed the snapshot back. “What happened?”

“I won a few hands, and pulled even. Then I got a monster hand. Pocket kings. The best cards I’d had all night, so I bet twenty grand. Two of the Brits dropped out. The flop comes ace, king, four. I’ve got three kings, a set. I bet fifty grand, and the guy who stayed in leans forward and studies the table. The waiter brings him a drink. I start twirling my umbrella like Mary Poppins, just to piss him off. He puts his drink down, says he’s betting one hundred grand. I figure he’s got two pair. I call him. He flips his cards over, and I see he’s got two aces in the hole. The flop and fifth street are meaningless. His three aces beats my three kings. End of night.”

“Did you figure out how they cheated you?”

“Yeah, after I got home.”

“It must have been real clever.”

“It was,” the old cowboy said.

Valentine sipped his soda. Rufus was not going to tell him how the scam worked unless he begged him. That was how it worked with these old-timers. You had to beg. Only Valentine had never been good at begging, so he gave it some thought. Rufus had said that his opponents knew what cards he was holding. That had led Rufus to conclude there was a hole in the ceiling, and somebody was watching him. But that wasn’t the only use for a hole in the ceiling, and he said, “They were using luminous readers.”

Rufus’s face sagged. “You’re not slowing down, are you?”

“Not so you’ll notice. Want me to explain the rest?”

“Be my guest.”

“The cards were marked with luminous paint,” Valentine said. “The paint is invisible to the naked eye, and can only be read by someone with tinted glasses. Only in this scam, the tinted glass was in the ceiling. The guy upstairs was reading the cards as they were being dealt. He passed the information to the waiter, who told your opponents. When you got dealt kings, and your host aces, and the flop turned ace, king, four, the guy upstairs knew you were in trouble. That’s when they trapped you.”

Rufus stopped rubbing his feet to give him a round of applause. It would have seemed sarcastic coming from anyone else, but from this old codger it meant something.

“That’s damn good,” Rufus said, clapping.

“Here’s my theory about DeMarco,” Rufus said. “I know the cards in the game are being checked every night, and so far nothing’s come up, but maybe DeMarco’s using a special luminous paint that grows invisible after a few hours.”

“No such thing exists,” Valentine said.

“Maybe someone invented it.”

The snapshot of Rufus was lying on the coffee table. Valentine thought over what Rufus had told him about the scam in London.

“You think there’s a hole in the ceiling of the poker room, and someone is reading the cards, and signaling their values to DeMarco,” Valentine said.

“It would make sense, don’t you think?”

“But how many times could they do that without people noticing?” Valentine asked, having seen enough scams to know that what eventually doomed them was repetition. “It would become obvious.”

“Yes, it would.” Rufus stretched his arms and made the bones crack. “But I learned a good lesson in jolly old England. You only have to cheat a man once in a poker game to get his money. I’ve checked the ceiling of every poker room I’ve ever played in since that little episode.” He paused. “Except here.”

“Checked how?”

“With a flashlight.”

“Do you have one with you?”

Rufus flashed his best cowboy smile. “I thought you’d never ask.”

7

Casinos never slept. It was the greatest thing they offered people who liked to gamble. At any hour of the day or night, you could enter one and make a wager. Old-timers called it the itch for play.

Casinos’ surveillance departments never slept, either. They watched the floor of the casino every minute of every hour, every day of the year. When President Kennedy was assassinated, one Las Vegas casino had stopped play for an hour in his memory, but the surveillance department had not stopped watching the casino.

Valentine knew he was taking a risk searching Celebrity’s poker room for holes in the ceiling, but it was a risk he was willing to take. Celebrity had surveillance cameras covering the poker room, but that didn’t necessarily mean those cameras were being used. Surveillance technicians were trained to watch the money. Places where money didn’t change hands were often neglected, or ignored.

Celebrity’s poker room was a good example. Tournament play ended at six o’clock each night, with everyone’s chips stored in a safe and the room locked down until the next day. Since the opportunity for theft no longer existed, the technicians stopped watching the room. They might glance in from time to time, but chances were, they probably wouldn’t.

Valentine and Rufus stood in the lobby in front of the poker room. Valentine had decided to pick the door and he eyeballed the lock. He’d used lock picks as a cop, and had kept them after he’d gone to work for himself. His lock pick kit looked like an ordinary car key case, and contained a dozen picks made from tungsten steel. He unzipped the case, and chose the appropriate pick.

“You’re a man after my own heart,” Rufus said.

Valentine heard a whirring noise and stopped what he was doing.

“What the heck’s that?” Rufus asked.

Acoustics in casinos could be deceiving. The lobby was empty, and Valentine decided the noise had come from behind the door. He grasped the door’s handle, and to his surprise, found that it was unlocked.

“This is our lucky day,” Rufus said.

Putting his picks away, Valentine stuck his head in side. In the old days, casino poker rooms had been toilets, reeking of ashtrays and body odor. Televised poker tournaments had changed that. Celebrity’s poker room had thick carpet and cut-glass chandeliers the size of wrecking balls. He spied a team of Hispanic cleaning men vacuuming the floor with a level of enthusiasm you hardly saw anymore.

“Follow me, and take off your hat,” Valentine said.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want anyone in surveillance who might be watching to see it and recognize you.”

“Got it.” Rufus removed his Stetson.

Walking to the room’s center, Valentine took from his pocket Rufus’s flashlight and twisted it on. He shone the light at the ceiling, then moved it back and forth in a slow, steady pattern. If what Rufus had alleged was true — and the cards at Skip DeMarco’s table were marked with luminous paint — then someone was reading them while looking down from above. That someone had to be looking through red-tinted lenses, which would become reflective the moment his flashlight shone against them. The hidden accomplice in the ceiling trick. An old scam but still a good one.

After a minute his hopes came crashing to earth. No glitters had appeared in the ceiling, the pure white alabaster not showing a single crack or imperfection.

“Damn,” he muttered.

“No luck?” Rufus asked from several tables away.

Valentine’s neck hurt from looking up, but he kept looking anyway.

“No, and it’s pissing me off.”

He twisted the flashlight off, returned it to his pocket. The cleaning men were racing around the room on their machines, making a game out of who could finish first. He saw Rufus take out a pack of cigarettes and light up.

“You want one?” Rufus asked.

“I’m trying to quit.”

“I tried to quit once. Enrolled in one of those special progams.”

“Did it work?”

“Yeah. Every time I wanted a smoke, I called a special phone number, and a guy came over and got drunk with me.” Rufus laughed through a mouthful of smoke. His pack fell from his hand, and he bent over to pick it up. As he did, he glanced beneath one of the poker tables.

“Well, lookee here,” he said.

He pulled something from beneath the table, then held it on his palm for Valentine to see. It was pink and looked like it had been thoroughly chewed.

“Know what this is?”

“Gum?”

“Silly Putty.”

Valentine came over for a closer look. “You think it’s a bug?”

“Uh-huh.”

“So we’ve got a mucker in the tournament.”

“Sure looks that way,” Rufus said.

A mucker specialized in switching cards during play. The bug was his assistant, and used to secretly hide a card beneath the table. When the mucker needed the card, he brought it up, switched it with a card in his hand, then put the extra card back in the bug. The switch required terrific timing, skill, and plenty of nerve.

“There’s also a paper clip involved,” Rufus said. “The paper clip is wedged into the Silly Putty, and the card is stuck in the clip.”

“Did you see a paper clip on the floor?”

“No, but there has to be one.”

Valentine searched the floor beneath the table. The carpet was sticking up after being vacuumed, and he walked over to the cleaning men and took out his wallet. They instantly silenced their machines.

“Which one of you cleaned that table?” he asked, pointing.

None of the men spoke English, but their eyes said they were eager to help. Rufus came over and asked them in Spanish, which he spoke without an accent. One of the cleaning men stepped forward and raised his hand.

“I clean,” the man said haltingly.

Rufus asked him to open the bag on his vacuum. The man obliged, and Valentine handed him a twenty-dollar bill. The man’s face lit up.

Rufus glanced into the bag, then stuck his hand in up to the elbow, and twirled his long fingers around. Moments later he pulled out an object, and held it up to the light. It was a paper clip painted black. Mucking cards during play was the hardest cheating known to man. No matter how good a mucker was, he never drew attention to himself, and played under the radar. This wasn’t Skip DeMarco’s scam; it was somebody else’s.

“Looks like we’ve got another cheater working the tournament,” Valentine said.

8

Hanging out with Eddie Davis was a step back in time. Outside of being an undercover detective, Davis was like a lot of guys Gerry had grown up with. He was single, liked to frequent clubs and singles bars, and drove a souped-up car. He was an eighteen-year-old kid in a forty-year-old body, and enjoying every minute of it.

Davis was also a night owl, and they did a loop of the island, eventually returning to the Atlantic City Expressway entrance. Gerry found himself remembering the housing development that once stood there, and the park with a statue of Christopher Columbus. The park had been one of his father’s favorite places; his mother’s, too.

Davis’s cell phone began to play the theme song from the TV show Cops. Bad boys, bad boys, what’cha gonna do, what’cha gonna do when they come for you? He ripped the phone from the Velcro pad on the dash.

“Davis here.”

“Eddie, it’s Joey,” his caller said. “I need help. I’m at Bally’s with our friends.”

Davis’s brow knotted. “You got them pinned down?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll be right over.” Davis closed the phone. His tires ripped the macadam as they took off.

“Trouble?” Gerry asked.

“There’s a gang of blackjack cheaters we’ve been trying to nail for a month. Two men, one woman. My partner spotted them at Bally’s.”

“Is the woman nicking cards?”

Davis’s head jerked in his direction. “How did you know that?”

Nail-nicking cards in blackjack was a speciality among female cheaters. The woman would put in the work with her fingernails while no one was looking, then her partner would read the cards before they were dealt from the shoe, and signal them to the gang’s third member, who did the heavy betting — organized cheating at its best.

“Lucky guess,” Gerry said.

Davis got onto Atlantic Avenue, put his foot to the floor, and sped south.

“Not that it’s any of my business,” Gerry said, “but why haven’t you arrested them before now? It sounds like you know them pretty well.”

“We’ve tried to arrest them,” Davis said. “They always seem to know when we’re coming, and which door we’re coming through.”

“Psychic cheaters?”

“It’s starting to feel that way,” Davis said.

Gerry’s mind raced. The hardest part about cheating a casino was avoiding the police, who were always present on the casino floor. It occurred to him that Davis’s blackjack cheaters weren’t psychic, they were just smart.

Bally’s neon sign blinked gloomily in the pale night sky. The front entrance was jammed with stretch limousines, and Davis pulled down a side street and parked his car. He grabbed his cell phone off the dash, then turned to Gerry. “Sorry, but I need to leave you here.”

Gerry pointed at the cell phone in Davis’s hand. “You going to call your partner and tell him you’re coming?”

“Sure am,” Davis said, his hand on the door.

“That’s how the cheaters know you’re coming,” Gerry said.

Davis took his hand off the door. “Say what?”

“The cheaters are picking up your calls. That’s why you can’t catch them.”

The look on Davis’s face was pained, but he didn’t let it slow him down. “How are they doing that?”

“They’re using a police scanner.”

“Keep going.”

“A member of the gang sits outside in a car with the scanner, and monitors the casino’s in-house security frequency,” Gerry said. “Whenever the police want to make a bust inside a casino, they have to alert the casino’s security department. The security department calls the guards on the floor to avoid any confusion or problems. The guy in the car intercepts the call and alerts the gang. It gives them enough time to run.”

Davis held up his cell phone. “By law, I have to call Bally’s security department before I make a bust. What do you suggest I do?”

“Find the guy with the scanner,” Gerry said. “They’re good for about a hundred yards. Either the car is on a side street, or near the entrance.”

“You sound like you know all about this,” Davis said.

Gerry reddened. There were a lot of things he knew about the rackets. He hadn’t planned on spilling the beans to Davis, but sometimes these things just happened.

“I’ve been to the carnival a couple of times,” Gerry admitted.

Davis took Gerry’s advice, and checked the side streets on the north and south side of Bally’s casino. To the south was Michigan Avenue. The detective parked his Mustang at the end of the street, then strolled down the sidewalk while shining a flashlight into each parked vehicle. He returned with a smile on his face.

“What’s so funny?” Gerry asked.

“I just saw a couple of kids tearing each other’s clothes off,” he said.

The northside street was Park Place, and Davis turned down it while staring at his cell phone. Gerry could tell that he wanted to call his partner inside the casino.

“I sure hope you’re right about this,” Davis said.

Park Place dead-ended at the beach. As Davis drove to the end of the block, Gerry glanced into the vehicles parked on either side of the street.

“I think I saw him,” Gerry said.

“Which car?” Davis asked.

“The black Audi. There was a guy smoking a cigarette and talking on a cell phone.”

“Telling his buddies inside the coast is clear.”

“Probably,” Gerry said. “Gangs that use scanners keep a constant dialogue with the man outside, just to make sure the scanner hasn’t malfunctioned and stopped picking up the frequency.”

“Never can be too careful, huh?” Davis said.

“It’s part of the business,” Gerry said.

Davis turned the car around, and parked so he was facing Bally’s instead of the ocean. It allowed him to watch the guy in the Audi several cars away.

Gerry didn’t particularly like the view, but didn’t say anything. Bally’s was located where the magnificent Marlborough-Blenheim hotel had once stood, considered by many to be the island’s single greatest contribution to architecture. It was hard to look at the ugly building that had replaced it and not get depressed.

Davis took binoculars from the glove compartment, brought them to his face. The street was well lit, and Gerry realized the detective was reading the Audi’s license plate.

“How good’s your memory?” Davis asked.

“Photographic.”

“Okay. Remember this license. RFG 4M6.”

Gerry repeated the license number three times to himself.

“Is that a local plate?”

“That’s a good question,” Davis said, adjusting the binoculars. “Let’s see. It’s from Newark.”

Davis put the binoculars away, then called the station house and got transferred to a desk sergeant. He asked to have a vehicle checked out, then cupped his hand over the mouthpiece. “The license, Mr. Memory.”

Gerry repeated the license, and Davis gave it to the desk sergeant. He was put on hold, and turned to Gerry. “I’m going to find out who the owner of the Audi is, and have his name run through NICAP and see what pops up. If the guy is part of a gang, chances are he’s got a rap sheet.”

Gerry leaned back in his seat. Chances were better than good that the guy in the Audi had a record. You couldn’t be a professional scammer and not get caught at least once. It was part of the business.

The desk sergeant returned a few minutes later. Davis pulled a notepad and pen out of the glove compartment, and started writing. He wrote in furious script, and covered two pages with notes. Done, he thanked the desk sergeant and hung up.

“Do you believe in fate?” Davis asked.

“Not really,” Gerry said.

“Well, maybe you should start. The owner of the Audi is Kenny “the Clown” Abruzzi, age fifty-two, born and raised in Newark, his father, brother, and three uncles all mobsters. Kenny was inducted into the Mafia at age twenty, has been arrested nine times, and gone to prison three.”

“Sounds like a real charmer,” Gerry said. “What does that have to do with fate?”

“He works for George Scalzo,” Davis said.

Gerry felt the blood drain from his head. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Not about something like that,” Davis said.

Gerry heard the sound of a car door opening. Davis heard it as well, and jerked his head. Together they stared through the windshield. Kenny Abruzzi had climbed out of his Audi, and was coming directly toward them. He was built like a refrigerator, his face cast in stone. Something long and dark was clutched in his hand.

9

Canada Bob Jones, a famous card cheater who’d specialized in fleecing the clergy on America’s railroads during the early twentieth century, had once said that it was morally wrong to let suckers keep money. This was also Rufus Steele’s mantra, and Valentine sat in Celebrity’s sports bar, watching Rufus fleece a couple of suckers at darts.

It was three A.M. and the bar was mobbed with the day’s losers from the tournament. Every single one had a sob story to tell about how or why he’d gotten knocked out. It was like listening to fishermen talk about the big one that got away.

The bar had a retro motif, and posters of half-naked starlets who were now card-carrying members of AARP hung from the walls. Valentine removed the Silly Putty they’d found in the poker room and started to play with it. It wasn’t unusual to find a mucker in a poker tournament, but there was something not right about finding one in this tournament. Maybe after a good night’s sleep, he’d figure out what it was.

“Hey Tony, come here and take a look at this,” Rufus said.

Valentine slipped out of his chair and went to where Rufus stood at the dartboard, attaching a hundred-dollar bill to the cork with colored toothpicks. Finished, Rufus stepped back and studied his handiwork. “Pretty big target, wouldn’t you say?”

“Looks big from here,” Valentine said.

The suckers came over to stare at the bill. Their names were Larry and Earl, and they’d gotten knocked out of the World Poker Showdown on the first day. Each had won a satellite event in his hometown, and believed he was a world-class player. In fact, they both knew little about cards, and had simply beaten a bunch of guys who knew less than they did. Each man ran his fingers across the bill’s face.

“Explain the rules again,” Earl said.

“Be more than happy to,” Rufus replied. Picking up three darts from the holder beneath the board, he stepped back to the blue line on the floor, toed it, and lined up to throw a dart. “First, you have to throw a dart from the blue line, and hit the bill.”

“Anywhere?” Earl asked.

“That’s right,” Rufus said. He tossed the dart, and it did a graceful arc through the air and hit the board with a loud plunk, impaling the bill. “Then, you have to step forward, stop, throw a second dart, and hit the bill.”

“A giant step or a baby step?” Earl asked.

“A moderate step,” Rufus replied. Taking a moderate step forward, he lined up his shot and threw the dart, hitting the bill in its center with another plunk. “Last but not least, you have to return to the blue line, take a moderate step backward, and throw the last dart.” Suiting action to words, Rufus returned to the blue line, took a moderate step backward, and lined up his shot. The dart flew gracefully through the air, and hit Benjamin Franklin in the center of his forehead. Rufus smiled, obviously pleased with himself. “That’s all there is to it, boys. Hit the hundred-dollar bill three times, and it’s yours. If you don’t, you have to pay me a hundred dollars. It’s that simple.”

Larry and Earl stepped away to talk it over. Valentine knew plenty of bar room hustles and saw nothing transparent with Rufus’s proposition. Throw three darts, hit the bill, and win a hundred dollars. Rufus lowered his voice.

“You know this one?”

“No. Is it a scam?”

The old cowboy chuckled under his breath. “Of course.”

“What’s the trick?”

“Just watch, pardner.”

“You’re on!” Earl called out.

“This handsome fellow has agreed to referee,” Rufus said, pointing to Valentine. “He’s an ex-cop, so you can trust him with your money.”

Earl and Larry each gave Valentine a hundred dollars for safekeeping. Earl pulled the three darts out of the board, and went to the blue line. He let the first dart fly, and it landed in the center of the bill. “Bingo!” Earl exclaimed.

“One down, two to go,” Larry exhorted him.

Earl took a moderate step forward, lined up his shot, and threw his second dart. The dart seemed to take on a life of its own, and sailed over the dartboard and hit the wall, pocking it in the process. The dart fell to the floor with Earl staring at it.

“Must be the beer,” Earl said.

Taking out a money clip stuffed with cash, Earl peeled off another hundred and handed it to Valentine. “I want to try again,” he said.

“Be my guest,” Rufus replied.

The first dart was easy; the second again went high.

Earl cursed like he’d hit his thumb with a hammer and threw another hundred Valentine’s way. “Again,” he said.

“Of course,” Rufus said.

Earl’s first dart hit the bill. He stepped forward for the second shot, lifted his leg like a dog watering a bush, and let the second dart fly. It hit the hundred-dollar bill, but just barely. Earl let out a war whoop.

“One more to go,” Larry said encouragingly. “Come on, Earl, you can do it.”

Earl returned to the blue line and took a moderate step backward. His beer was sitting on the corner of the pool table. He stared at it, then shook his head like he wanted to have nothing to do with it. He lined up his shot and let the dart fly. It flew over the board and hit a poster of a bikini-clad Farrah Fawcett squarely in her navel.

“God damn!” Earl screamed.

“Let me have a try,” Larry said.

Ten minutes later, Valentine and Rufus left the bar with most of Larry’s and Earl’s money. The suckers had not gone quietly, and were demanding a rematch on the golf course. Rufus had politely declined and bid them good night.

“I thought you were good at golf,” Valentine said.

“Only when the price is right,” Rufus replied.

On the elevator ride to their room, Valentine finally broke down and asked Rufus to explain how he’d managed the dart trick.

“Ain’t no trick,” Rufus said, smothering a yawn.

“You didn’t put something in their drinks?”

“Naw.”

“Then how does it work?”

“Throwing a dart is harder than you think,” Rufus explained. “Even the best players have to take a few practice throws before they play. The arm’s muscles have a memory, and it takes a while for the memory to kick in. By changing the distance for each throw, the muscles in the thrower’s arm get confused, and the darts miss the target.”

“You made it look easy when you threw the darts.”

“That comes from years of practice and self-denial.”

The elevator reached their floor and they got out. Valentine took the Silly Putty and paper clip from his pocket, and stared at them while walking down the hallway to his suite.

“That bug’s still bothering you, huh?” Rufus said.

“It sure is,” Valentine said.

“Sort of makes you wonder what kind of tournament they’re running.”

“How do you mean?”

“First DeMarco cheats me, and now this.”

Valentine was tired, and the old cowboy’s words were slow to sink in. The World Poker Showdown had already had one allegation of cheating, and the tournament should have gone out of its way to ensure that no more took place. Yet more cheating was taking place, and he had the evidence right in his hand. He stopped at the door to his suite and fitted the plastic key into the lock. Then he looked Rufus square in the eye.

“You think the people running the tournament are crooked, don’t you?”

Rufus nodded grimly. “Cheaters don’t like to expose other cheaters. It makes them uneasy.”

“It that why the tournament isn’t regulating itself?”

“That would be my guess.”

The light on the lock flashed green. Valentine removed the key and pushed the door open. He could hear his bed calling to him, but it wasn’t as loud as his conscience.

“Then I guess I’ll just have to shut the tournament down,” he said.

10

As Kenny “the Clown” Abruzzi walked up to the car, Davis reached into his sports jacket and drew a .40 mini-Glock, the same gun Gerry’s father had carried up until the day he’d retired from the Atlantic City Police Department.

“Get ready to hit the floor,” Davis said.

Gerry stiffened. Bally’s unfriendly neon sign offered enough light to let him see Abruzzi’s face. The guy looked lost.

“I think he wants to ask us something,” Gerry said.

“With a gun in his hand?”

“I think it’s a flashlight.”

“Your vision that good?”

“Twenty/twenty.”

The flashlight in Abruzzi’s hand came on, proving Gerry right. It shone a sharp beam of light onto a piece of paper in his other hand that looked like directions. Davis slipped the Glock back into his shoulder harness, then rolled down his window.

Abruzzi flashed a sheepish grin. For a big guy, his face was small, with a hawk nose, smallish eyes, and dark hair slicked back on both sides. He held the instructions up to Davis’s open window, the familiar MapQuest symbol at the top of the page.

“Hey buddy, can you help me?” Abruzzi asked. “I think I’m lost. I’m looking for a Days Inn.”

Davis looked at the instructions while watching Abruzzi, then pointed out his window. “The Days Inn is five-and-a-half miles south on Atlantic Avenue. Hang a left, and go straight. You can’t miss it.”

Abruzzi said thanks, then hustled back to the Audi and climbed in. Gerry sensed he had made Davis as an undercover cop, and was going to run. Davis guessed the same thing, and redrew his Glock while opening his car door.

“You going to arrest him?” Gerry asked.

“I will if I find a police scanner in his car,” Davis replied.

“What can I do, besides stay out of your way?”

Davis had one foot on the macadam, and he turned to look at him. “Get behind the wheel. When I go up to Abruzzi’s car, I’ll give you a sign. Turn the headlights on so I can see what I’m dealing with.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Gerry said.

Davis got out and silently shut the door.

Gerry climbed across the front seats. Growing up a cop’s son, he knew that there was a science to handling a bust. If the bust was to go right, the first few seconds of the suspect learning his freedom was about to be taken away were critical. Anything could happen if the arresting officer didn’t handle the suspect properly. Gerry got behind the wheel and found the switch for the headlights.

Then he watched Abruzzi. The mobster had fired up a cigarette and was blowing smoke out his window. Davis came up to the window and identified himself as a police officer, then ordered Abruzzi to step out of the car while keeping his hands visible. Stepping back, Davis made the okay sign to Gerry.

Gerry hit the headlights and flooded the Audi in light.

Abruzzi didn’t get out. Instead, he stuck his head through the open window and started talking. He was playing dumb, and Gerry guessed this was where he’d gotten the nickname the Clown. Davis again ordered him out of the car.

Abruzzi kept up the idiot routine, and Gerry found himself thinking how Abruzzi had approached them with the instructions. It had allowed him to see what he was up against, and Gerry sensed Abruzzi was going to put up a fight. Gerry flashed the car’s brights, and Davis glanced in his direction.

“What?” Davis said loudly.

“Signal 30,” Gerry called out.

A Signal 30 was used by the Atlantic City police dispatchers when there was trouble and they needed to round up officers.

“I won’t say it again,” Davis said to Abruzzi. “Out of the car.”

“All right already,” Abruzzi said.

Quickly drawing a gun from a hiding place in his door, Abruzzi fired it at Davis, a sharp bang! ripping the night air. Davis instinctively went backward, the bullet from Abruzzi’s gun taking out the headlight of a car parked across the street. Twisting his ankle, Davis fell to the pavement, and lay on his side with a dazed look in his eyes.

“Throw your gun away,” Abruzzi said.

“You’re under arrest.”

“Like hell I am. Throw it away or I’ll clip you.”

Davis reluctantly tossed his Glock across the macadam.

“You’re real smart for a spade,” Abruzzi said sarcastically.

Gerry sensed that Abruzzi was going to shoot Davis in cold blood, then drive away. Abruzzi had sized them up. Davis was the threat, and Gerry wasn’t.

Gerry twisted the key in the ignition and heard the Mustang’s engine roar. Abruzzi jerked his head and stared just as Gerry threw the Mustang into drive.

Big mistake, Gerry thought.

Gerry hit the rear of the Audi doing forty-five mph, throwing it into the street. The impact, making a horrible crunching sound, buckled the Mustang’s hood, and a mushroom cloud of black smoke hung ominously above the vehicle. Getting out, Gerry went to where Davis lay, saw a dark pool of blood swelling around the detective, and gagged.

“Jesus Christ, you’re shot,” Gerry said.

“I don’t feel shot.” Davis touched his back, then brought his hand to his face. It was covered with red, and he grimaced.

“Go make sure Abruzzi’s disarmed,” he said.

“But you’re bleeding, Eddie.”

“Just do as I say,” Davis said.

Gerry ran over to the Audi. It no longer looked like a fancy forty-thousand-dollar sports car. The driver’s seat was empty, the windshield disintegrated. Twenty feet up the street Abruzzi lay on the pavement with his head twisted at an unnatural angle. He’d killed a mobster. A mobster. Gerry staggered backward.

“Gerry!” Davis yelled at the top of his lungs.

“What...?”

“Don’t pass out on me, man.”

“He’s dead...”

“Stop looking at him.”

Gerry turned his gaze from the dead man and filled his lungs with air.

“Was there a police scanner inside the car?” Davis asked.

Gerry took a deep breath, tried to collect his wits, then went to the Audi, looked inside the crumpled car. An upside-down police scanner sat on the passenger seat, the multicolored lights on its control panel flashing wildly. Frantic voices came out of its speaker. The guy’s partners inside the casino had heard the collision.

Gerry went back to where Davis lay on the pavement.

“Scanner’s there,” he said.

“Get on my cell phone, and call Joey inside the casino,” Davis said. “Tell him to grab the guy’s partners. Joey’s number is in the phone’s menu.”

The pool of blood around Davis’s body was expanding. The detective’s voice sounded perfectly normal, but Gerry knew that people could get shot and never feel it. He ran back to the Mustang and pulled the car’s radio off the dashboard while praying it still worked. There was a crackle of static and a dispatcher came on.

“Officer down,” Gerry said. “I have an officer down.”

11

Valentine was sound asleep when the phone rang the next morning. He fumbled with the receiver, a word resembling hello spilling out of his mouth.

“You up?” Bill Higgins asked.

“I was writing my memoirs,” Valentine mumbled.

“I heard what happened last night. Are you okay?”

“My neck’s a little sore, but I’ll live.”

“I need to talk to you.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Face to face,” Bill said. “Not over the phone.”

Before going to sleep, Valentine had shut the room’s curtains and turned the air-conditioning down to its coldest setting. Snuggled beneath the blankets was the place to be, and his body was fighting to go back to sleep.

“How about lunch?”

“How about right now?” Bill snapped.

Valentine opened his eyes and stared at the imaginary face of Bill hovering on the ceiling. One of his best friends, Bill was also director of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, and the most powerful law enforcement officer in the state of Nevada. Bill didn’t have to ask nicely if he didn’t want to.

“You’re sure this can’t wait?”

“George Scalzo sent those hitmen last night.”

“Who told you that?”

“The FBI are wiretapping Scalzo’s phones and over heard him putting out the contract. He did it in code, though, so they can’t arrest him.”

The FBI ran a special operation in Las Vegas that did nothing but try to prevent contract killings. Murder-for-hire was prevalent in Sin City, and the bureau paid snitches to keep their ears to the ground to hear when a contract came up.

“Scalzo doesn’t give up easily,” Bill went on. “Mark my words, he’s going to hire someone else to kill you.”

Valentine’s eyes had shut as his head sunk deeper into his pillow. Thirty more minutes of blessed sleep was all he wanted. “I’ll change rooms and grow a moustache.”

“Tony, I want to discuss this with you,” Bill said, growing agitated. “It’s my responsibility to make sure nothing happens to you while you’re in Las Vegas. I hired you for this job, remember?”

His eyes remained shut. Thirty years ago, having two guys try to kill him would have resulted in a sleepless night. He’d had a wife and a kid and a mortgage to worry about. But time had changed his situation: his wife was dead, the house sold, and Gerry a grown man. Being threatened didn’t have the same consequences anymore.

“I get it. This is one of those cover-your-ass phone calls.”

“Eight-fifteen in front of your hotel,” Bill said. “Be there.”

Bill’s shining Volvo C70 convertible was parked by the entrance when Valentine stepped through the hotel’s front doors thirty minutes later. Bill had driven Volvos well before they’d become fashionable, claiming that Swedish engineering and Native American sensibilities shared a lot in common. He sat behind the wheel, his protruding chin marred by random specks of gray. Valentine climbed in and they sped away.

The Volvo raced across the flat, sun-baked desert, the engine starting to breathe around ninety. Valentine tilted his seat back and stared at the endless highway ahead. Years ago, he’d considered retiring out west with his wife, having often heard it referred to as God’s country. Seeing it unfold in this morning light, he understood why.

Fifteen minutes later, they sat in the parking lot of a roadside gas station that sold hot coffee and fresh doughnuts. The woman behind the counter had made them out as law enforcement, and given them freebies. It made their day.

“Listen, I’ve got some bad news,” Bill said.

Valentine stared into his friend’s face while biting his doughnut. Bill was a Navajo, and kept his emotions well below the surface. “I hate to start the day with bad news. Tell me something funny first.”

“Why does it have to be funny?”

“Because you’re about to give me bad news. I’d like a good laugh first.”

Bill scrunched up his face. “Okay. Here’s a joke I heard. How do you get an eighty-year-old woman to say ‘Shit!’”

Valentine should know this one. He lived in Florida.

“I don’t have a clue.”

“Get another eighty-year-old woman to yell ‘Bingo!’”

He laughed. Definitely a Floridian joke. He washed down his last bite of doughnut with a gulp of coffee. It hit his stomach like a bomb, and he felt himself wake up. “Okay, I’m ready for your bad news.”

“I know this is going to sound harsh, but I’m taking you off the case,” Bill said.

“You’re firing me?”

“Yes,” Bill said.

Valentine didn’t know what to say. He stared out the windshield at the big, cloudless Nevada sky. Bill started the engine and pulled onto the highway, pointing the Volvo back toward town. A long minute passed.

“It’s like this, Tony,” his friend said. “Yesterday, I was given twenty-four hours by the governor of Nevada to produce hard evidence that there was cheating taking place at the World Poker Showdown. If I couldn’t prove there was cheating, I was told in no uncertain terms to leave the tournament alone. That also meant letting you go.”

“The governor told you to end the investigation?”

“That’s right,” Bill said.

“Is he being pressured?”

“Yes. The World Poker Showdown is helping every casino in town get business.”

“So the casino owners asked the governor to squash the investigation.”

“Bingo.”

“Shit.” Valentine’s eyes shifted to the ruler-straight highway. It resembled a tunnel, the desert scenery compressed. If he left Las Vegas, George Scalzo won, and Valentine wasn’t going to let that happen. He had never run away from a fight in his life.

“What if you could prove there was cheating at the tournament? Would the governor let the investigation continue?”

“He’d have to,” Bill said.

“Would you keep me on the job?”

“Of course I’d keep you on the job.”

From his jacket pocket Valentine removed the Silly Putty and paper clip he’d discovered in Celebrity’s poker room the night before. Sticking the Silly Putty on the dashboard, he plunged the paper clip into it like a flag.

“I didn’t know you were into toy figures,” Bill said.

“They help pass the time,” Valentine said. “Guess what this one is.”

Bill stared at the dashboard. “A bug?”

“That’s right. Rufus Steele found it stuck beneath a table in Celebrity’s poker room last night. There’s a mucker scamming the tournament.”

The Volvo slowed so they were actually doing the speed limit. Bill removed the bug from the dash and held it in his hand.

“Skip DeMarco?” he asked.

“No, it’s someone else. The folks running the World Poker Showdown should be watching for stuff like this, considering there’s already been one allegation of foul play. But they’re not. They’re running a loose ship.”

Bill frowned. He had joined the Nevada Gaming Control Board twenty-five years ago, and had spent much of that time changing Las Vegas’s image from a mob-run town to a family-friendly destination. One bad incident could change that overnight.

“Are you suggesting I ask the governor to stop the tournament?” Bill asked.

“No. Tell him you want him to keep the tournament going so you can nail the mucker, and show everyone that Vegas doesn’t tolerate cheating. It would be good for business, and there will also be another benefit.”

“Which is?”

“While we’re catching the mucker, we can scrutinize DeMarco’s play, and figure out what the hell he’s doing.”

“What about Scalzo? I’d bet my paycheck he’s going to hire another hitman to whack you.”

“I’ve got a bodyguard, remember? Rufus cracks a mean bullwhip.”

“Be serious.”

Valentine was being serious. The truth was, Scalzo was afraid of him. That gave him the upper hand, and he planned to take full advantage of it.

“I’ll deal with Scalzo,” he said.

12

“Detective Davis wasn’t seriously hurt,” the doctor at the Atlantic City Medical Center emergency room told Gerry. “He landed on a piece of glass on the pavement that put a gash in his back. He’ll be good to go once we stitch him up.”

Gerry wanted to give the doctor a hug but instead just nodded. She was a fiftyish woman with steel gray hair and sunken eyes that had seen their share of heartache. She gently touched Gerry’s sleeve. “You look pale. Are you going to be okay?”

“Just a little shook up,” Gerry admitted.

“Here. Come with me.”

She led him to a visitors’ area where they sat on a small couch. An ambulance had shown up outside Bally’s before any police cruisers, and Gerry had ridden to the hospital with Davis. Watching Davis bleed all over the back of the ambulance, Gerry had realized that he was partially responsible for what had happened. Davis had picked him up at the airport as a favor to his father. Davis should have been home, and not on the street.

“Did the sight of all that blood bother you?” the doctor asked.

“Yeah, how did you know?” Gerry said.

“It’s a common reaction. The human body has a hundred quarts of blood. Eddie lost a tiny fraction of that. He’ll be fine. Trust me.”

Gerry gazed into her kind face, and found it in him to smile.

“You’re a Valentine, aren’t you?” she asked.

His smile grew. “That’s right. Gerry Valentine.”

“Faith Toperoff. I knew your parents. How are they doing?”

“My mom passed away two years ago,” Gerry said. “My dad runs a consulting business out of Florida.”

“I’m sorry for your loss. I always admired your parents for staying on the island after the casinos came,” she said. “Not many people had the stomach for it, especially those first few years.”

“How long have you been here?” Gerry asked.

“All my life.”

There weren’t many like her left on the island, and he said, “My folks talked about packing up and leaving, but my father couldn’t do it. He said he’d be a traitor.”

“It was especially hard on the local cops,” she said. “The crime rate shot up every time a casino opened, and it was already the highest in the nation. I remember the night your father shot to death the man who’d shot his partner. Your father took it hard, even though he’d done the right thing. New Jersey struck a devil’s bargain the day it decided to let casinos take over this island.”

Gerry stared at the scuffed tile floor. He got depressed when locals talked about the old days. Atlantic City had been a decent place to live until the casinos had appeared. He’d been a teenager, and remembered hundreds of restaurants and retail stores closing down, while neighborhoods like South Inlet and Ducktown had disappeared altogether. A voice came over a public address, looking for Dr. Toperoff. She rose and slapped Gerry on the leg the way his mother used to do.

“Tell your father I said hello,” she said.

Gerry stayed in the visitors’ area until he saw the sun come up. He decided he was thirsty, and went downstairs to the basement and bought an iced tea from a humming soda machine. It tasted like the best thing he’d ever drunk.

He walked around, trying to collect his thoughts. Once the police found out he was responsible for sending Abruzzi to the big poker game in the sky, he was going to be put through endless questioning. He was in for a long day.

He came to the hospital cafeteria. It didn’t open for another half hour, and he stared through the doorway into the darkness. Two weeks ago, while visiting Jack Donovan, he’d come downstairs to this same cafeteria to get sodas, then returned to Jack’s room to find his friend’s oxygen tubes ripped out. Jack had died trying to tell him about the amazing poker scam he’d invented.

Gerry continued to stare into the darkness. His father believed the secret to Jack’s scam was hidden inside the hospital, and that if Gerry looked hard enough, he’d discover what it was. Jack had invented the scam while getting chemotherapy, and Gerry decided that would be the best place to start searching.

He found a hospital directory posted by the elevators, and located the floor on which cancer treatments were given. Getting on an elevator, he pushed the button for the floor. He finished his drink while the elevator creaked upward.

Even though Jack knew he was terminal, he’d still continued to get weekly chemotherapy, unwilling to give up the fight despite having already been counted out. It was the kind of courage that Gerry hoped he would summon when he faced the music.

The signs led him to a wing that looked brand new. A honey-blond nurse with the beginning of a double chin manned the nurses’ station, a fat diamond ring and gold band sitting on her third finger. Her eyes said it was okay for Gerry to approach, so he did.

“Can I help you?” the nurse asked.

“Please.” He took a business card from his wallet and placed it on the counter. His title was partner, a nice gift from his father. She stared at it indifferently.

“Grift Sense. What’s that?”

“We help casinos catch cheaters.”

“I thought it was the other way around.”

Gerry started to put the card away, then thought better of it. “Sometimes it is. We nail those guys, too.”

“What does ‘grift sense’ mean?”

“It’s a hustler’s expression, a compliment, really. It means you have a gift for spotting grift.”

“Sounds like fun. What can I do for you?”

There were charts spread all over her work area and a pen stuck behind her ear. Working alone and working hard. Gerry found himself liking her, despite her coolness.

“A friend of mine was getting chemotherapy here,” Gerry said. “His name was Jack Donovan. I was wondering if I could ask you some questions.”

She stiffened. “Jack Donovan is dead.”

“Yes. I know that.”

“I can’t talk to you about his death,” she said.

“There’s an ongoing criminal investigation being conducted by the homicide division of the Atlantic City Police Department. I was interviewed by two detectives, along with practically everyone else on the floor who was in contact with Jack.”

“I don’t want to talk to you about his death,” Gerry said. “I want to talk to you about his therapy.”

She pushed her chair back a foot from the desk. “What about it?”

“Jack invented a way to cheat at poker during his therapy. So far, it’s got all the experts fooled.”

“How do you cheat at poker?”

“In this case, marked cards.”

“Marked how?”

“That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.”

From his wallet, Gerry removed the playing card that Jack had given him before he’d died. It was an ace of spades from Celebrity’s casino in Las Vegas. The card had been scrutinized by an FBI forensic lab and found to be clean. Yet it was marked, and could be read if you knew the secret. She examined the card and handed it back.

“So you think Jack Donovan devised some special way to mark cards while getting treatment in this hospital,” she said.

“That’s right,” Gerry said.

Her face changed, and so did her tone. “What do you want me to do, Gerry Valentine, vice president of Grift Sense, let you search the place? Get real.”

This was a real Jersey girl, filled with piss and vinegar and capable of intimidating a three-hundred-pound NFL lineman.

“Of course not,” he replied.

“Then what do you want?”

“Jack Donovan stole something from this hospital,” Gerry said.

“He did?”

“Yes. It was in a metal strongbox in a bag under his bed. I saw it. Whatever was in that strongbox can be used to mark cards, but also happens to be dangerous.”

“Dangerous how?”

“I don’t know.”

“How can you be looking for something if you don’t know what it is?”

“I’m guessing there has to be a record of the theft. If I know what was taken, I’ll know what the scam is.”

“It’s that easy?” she asked.

Gerry nodded. He would take the mystery substance and coat a few dozen playing cards with it, and the rest would explain itself. To his surprise, she picked up his business card, and slipped it into her breast pocket.

“And it will go no further than that?” she asked.

“That’s right. No one will ever hear about it.”

She pulled out her lower lip and let it snap back, deep in thought. “I liked Jack. He was always cracking jokes, even when he knew what his situation was. I’ll look through the computer, let you know what turns up.”

“Thanks a lot,” Gerry said.

The phone on her desk had several buttons. The red one lit up and rang at the same time. She picked it up and said, “Cancer ward nurses’ station, Gladwell here.”

She listened for a moment, then looked at Gerry a little differently than before. “There are some homicide detectives in ER searching the hospital for you. They want to question you about a dead guy they think you sent through the windshield of a car.”

It was not the way Gerry had hoped to end their conversation.

“Tell them I’ll be right down,” he said.