Deadman's Bluff

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.”