Текст книги "Deadman's Bluff"

Автор книги: James Swain

Соавторы: James Swain
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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

15

Al “Little Hands” Scarpi was pumping iron in the weight room at Ely State Penitentiary when an inmate named Big Juan came in. Six six and about three hundred pounds, Big Juan walked with a strut that came from having his way most of his life. Little Hands was six inches shorter and fifty pounds lighter, but not easily intimidated.

Sweat poured down Little Hands’s face as he curled a pair of fifty-pound dumbbells. The weight room was quiet except for the belching guard reading a comic book in the corner. In exchange for additional time in the weight room, Little Hands waxed the guard’s car every week, using nothing but a can of Turtle Wax and a rag. It was boring work, but got him out of his cell for a few hours. Sometimes, that was all a man needed to keep from going insane.

Big Juan came over to watch. He had a towel slung over his shoulder and a teardrop tattoo beside his left eye—meaning he’d killed someone. Little Hands had killed plenty of people, but had never done anything as stupid as write it in ink on his body. He continued to curl the dumbbells.

“You Little Hands?” Big Juan asked.

Was the guy blind? Al’s hands were the size of a child’s, the fingers thin and delicate, and had caused him undue hardships growing up. Kids in school had made fun of them, and as he’d gotten older, guys in bars had picked fights with him. The hands were his handicap, and why he’d taken up weightlifting.

“What do you think?” he replied.

Big Juan stared at his fingers, then over his shoulder at the guard.

“I need to talk to you,” he said quietly.

“About what?”

“A deal.”

Little Hands had gotten a head of steam going with the dumbbells, and his sweat made a small puddle on the floor. He started every day like this, sweating so hard that he was able to forget he was a prisoner, a man going nowhere for a very long time.

“I’m available next Tuesday morning at nine,” Little Hands said.

Big Juan gave him a dead-eyed stare. Little Hands had tried to develop a sense of humor since coming to the joint. It made the day go quicker.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s a joke. You like jokes?”

“Fuck no,” Big Juan said.

Little Hands had run into a bunch of humorless guys in Ely. Nearly all came from the streets and acted like a different species. He kept pumping the dumbbells.

“You want to hear my deal or not?” Big Juan asked.

“Sure.”

Big Juan lowered his voice. “I can get you out of here.”

Little Hands didn’t slow down or pause or do any of the things that inmates did when someone mentioned freedom to them. Lawyers did it all the time, as did wives and loved ones and cops who wanted you to cooperate with them. They talked about freedom like it was something that could be pulled out of a top hat, and handed back to you. Little Hands knew better. The system was the only thing that could give a man his freedom back.

“How much is it going to cost me?”

“That’s the good part,” Juan said. “It won’t cost you nothing.”

Little Hands put the dumbbells on a rack, then walked over to a weight bench. There was a barbell across the bench with three hundred pounds in weights fitted on it. He always ended his sessions doing bench presses with the barbell.

“Keep talking,” he said.

Everything cost something in the joint, especially a favor. Little Hands suspected that Big Juan was playing him for a fool. He didn’t like that.

He asked Big Juan if he lifted. It was a dumb question, but Little Hands liked to play stupid sometimes, just to see where it would get him.

Big Juan said yes, and Little Hands asked him to spot for him.

“Sure,” Big Juan said.

Little Hands lay down on the weight bench. The bench was made of steel, and had uprights to hold the barbell in place. He lifted the barbell off the uprights, and pressed it five times over his head. Finished, he asked Big Juan to help him, and the bigger man lifted the barbell off Little Hand’s chest and fitted it into the uprights.

“Your turn,” Little Hands said, rising from the bench.

Big Juan hesitated. Three hundred pounds was a lot of weight, even for someone who lifted every day. But Big Juan was a macho man. He wasn’t going to take weight off the barbell and humiliate himself in front of Little Hands. He was the biggerman, so he lay on the bench and lifted the barbell off the uprights.

Big Juan pressed the barbell above his chest, and the effort made his face change color. Little Hands stood over him.

“Come on, you can do it. Four more.”

Big Juan blew out his cheeks and strained to press the barbell again. His arms began to tremble, and Little Hands put his hands on the bar to help him.

“Thanks, man,” Big Juan said.

Little Hands continued to hold the bar and let Big Juan catch his breath.

“How are you going to get me out of this fucking place?”

Big Juan looked up at him. “You know the conservation camp?”

Ely Conservation Camp was part of the prison and was run in conjunction with the Nevada Division of Forestry. The warden assigned camp operation support activities to model inmates. Working at the camp was the dream of every Ely inmate.

“What about it?” Little Hands asked.

“You’re being assigned to it.”

“When?”

“Today. This morning.”

Little Hands released his grip on the barbell, and it sunk down to Big Juan’s chest.

“Come on. Do another.”

Big Juan strained with the barbell, barely lifting it a foot above his chest. When he could lift it no farther, panic set into his eyes. Little Hands picked up the barbell and held it a few inches above him.

“Then what happens?”

Big Juan was blowing out his cheeks, regretting every bad thing he’d ever done to his body. In a whisper he said, “You’ll take a truck over to the conservation camp and check in. Another truck will take you out to a forest to do a clean-up job. You’ll walk away from the job into a waiting car.”

“Where am I going?”

“Las Vegas.”

“Who’s behind this? Someone in Las Vegas?”

“Yeah,” Big Juan wheezed.

Little Hands was getting the picture. He’d lived in Las Vegas and knew how that town worked. When one of the casino bosses wanted something done, palms got greased, phone calls got made, and it got done. He made Big Juan do another press. The effort nearly killed him.

“Who does this person in Las Vegas want me to kill?”

Big Juan was opening and shutting his eyes while sucking down air. Each time he inhaled, cherry-sized lumps formed where his jaw met his sideburns.

“Who said this was a hit?” Big Juan asked.

Little Hands leaned down and breathed in Big Juan’s face. “I was a hitman. Ain’t no other reason someone is going to go to the trouble to spring me out of here.”

“Some retired cop,” Big Juan said.

“That’s the hit?”

“Yeah. He’s in Las Vegas.”

Little Hands felt his brow tighten the way it did when his blood pressure rose. A retired cop was responsible for putting him in the slammer.

“What’s his name?”

“Valentine.”

“Tony Valentine?”

“Yeah. You know him?”

Little Hands lowered the barbell and forced Big Juan to do another press. He’d dreamed about snuffing Valentine ever since being locked up. Valentine had sucker-punched him in a Vegas motel while Little Hands was staring at a porno movie playing on the TV. The movie had reminded Little Hands of something he’d seen his mother doing when he was a little kid. It had messed Little Hands up real good.

Big Juan was shaking his head in defeat. He’d had enough. Little Hands lifted the bar off his chest, and Big Juan shut his eyes.

Little Hands crossed the weight room with a towel in his hands. He looked out the barred window that faced the yard. Ely housed over a thousand prisoners along with the state’s Death Row inmates. Security was tight, with armed guards sitting in turrets on the two main buildings, watching the yard twenty-four hours a day. He’d heard lifers talk about “escaping” by running between the two main buildings, and going out in a blaze of gunfire. No one hadever escaped, and he imagined the glory of being the first.

“Get your hands off the bars,” the guard called out.

Little Hands released the bars and turned to face the guard.

“Sorry.”

Comic book in his lap, the guard fingered his double-barreled shotgun. He was a round kid with a moon face and flour-sack arms.

“Get away from the window,” the guard said.

“I was just looking.”

“You heard me, Hercules.”

Little Hands walked back to the weight bench. Big Juan was still panting like he’d just run a four-minute mile. The guard picked up his comic book and emitted a loud belch as he flipped back to his spot.

“I want the job,” Little Hands said.

Big Juan nodded, then tried to get up. He fell back hard on the bench and closed his eyes. When he reopened them, there was a new appreciation in his face.

“Doesn’t all that weight make you hurt?” Big Juan asked.

“Sure,” Little Hands said.

“Why do you do it?”

Little Hands smiled to himself. Big Juan’s muscles would be burning, his body going into shock. He would hurt for days, had maybe even damaged his joints or his heart. He did not understand pain the way Little Hands understood pain. Few people did.

“Because I like it,” Little Hands said.

16

“Have you ever seen one of these before?” Detective Joey Marconi asked.

Gerry Valentine tiredly shook his head. Late morning, and he was sitting in the hospital visitors’ area with Eddie Davis’s partner, having spent several hours going over what had happened outside Bally’s.

Marconi was holding a New York Yankees baseball cap. He’d found the cap on the floor of Bally’s while chasing the other members of Abruzzi’s gang, who’d escaped out the casino’s rear exit. The cap had a miniature receiver and three light-emitting diodes sewn into its rim, and had been used to rip Bally’s off at blackjack.

Gerry had seen some sophisticated cheating equipment since going to work for his father, but the cap was unique. By looking upward into the cap’s rim, a cheater could read signals being sent by another member of the crew. Like looking at a tiny movie screen,Gerry thought.

“Do you know how the cap works?” Marconi asked.

“I think so,” Gerry said.

Marconi was on his sixth cup of coffee, and as animated as a five-year-old with a sugar buzz. He was small and wiry and so Italian he looked Greek. He wore the standard undercover detective’s uniform: blue jeans and a sweatshirt with a pullover hood. Across the front of the sweatshirt were the words I’M BLIND, I’M DEAF, I WANT TO BE A REF!

“You have to do better than that, Gerry,” Marconi said.

“I do?”

“Yes. Your story will determine how this case is handled.”

“Handled by who?”

“The district attorney.”

Gerry took a deep breath. This wasn’t going right. Marconi was treating him like a suspect, instead of someone who’d saved his partner’s life. He put his elbows on his knees, and gave Marconi a hard look.

“Excuse me, but what am I missing here? Abruzzi was going to shoot Eddie. I did the only thing I could.”

“I believe you, but we have to make sure the district attorney believes you.”

“Why wouldn’t he? You have the gun, don’t you?” Marconi lowered his gaze, and stared at the floor. It was the quickest admission of guilt Gerry had ever seen.

“You don’t have the gun?” Gerry asked.

“Couldn’t find it,” Marconi said, eyes still downcast. “I had two uniforms stay and search the area after day break. The gun is gone.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that we don’t have evidence that the guy you killed actually took a shot at Eddie, as you and Eddie claim.”

“What about the car across the street that got winged?” Gerry asked. “That’s evidence, isn’t it?”

“The car is gone, too,” Marconi said, not enjoying the role reversal.

“Gone? How does that work? Mirrors?”

“We’re not sure.”

“Let me guess. One of the uniforms let the owner drive it away.”

Marconi massaged his face with his hands. “Probably.”

Gerry had grown up hearing about bone-headed mistakes made by cops. The average pay for a uniform on the AC police force was twenty-eight grand. As a result, the force didn’t always attract the best and the brightest, and mistakes at crime scenes were common.

“So what you’re saying is, I might be facing a manslaughter rap,” Gerry said.

Marconi looked up. “That’s not going to happen. You have my word.”

“But it couldhappen.”

“Let’s not go there. We need to concentrate on your story. I want to explain to the DA that this was an organized gang of cheaters. Right now, all I’ve got is this baseball cap. If you can explain how it works, we’re home free.”

“Do you know what a crossroader is?” Gerry asked.

Marconi clutched a cup of machine-made coffee. “That’s a cheater who specializes in ripping off casinos.”

“Correct. The most important weapon in a crossroader’s arsenal is signaling, or what crossroaders call giving the office. Here’s an example.” Gerry spread his fingers out wide. “This is called George, and is usually done on the table, or with the hand held flat against the chest. What do you think it means?”

Marconi shook his head.

“George means everything is okay. If five cheaters are spread out across a casino, they can use George to communicate that the coast is clear. Here’s another example.” Gerry made his hand into a fist. “This is called Tom. It’s also done on the table, or against the chest. Tom means there’s a problem, and everyone needs to clear out.”

“Tom is also a criminal name for the police,” Marconi said.

“Maybe that’s where it came from,” Gerry said. “My father busted a gang using George and Tom to cheat a blackjack game. The dealer was involved, and flashing cards to her accomplices as she dealt. The flashing was invisible to the eye-in-the-sky cameras, but could be spotted by a pit boss standing behind her. Her accomplices used George and Tom to tell her when the pit boss was there, and when he wasn’t. They stole over a half million dollars using just two signals.”

The baseball cap lay on a coffee table. Gerry pointed at the receiver and LEDs stitched into the rim. “The gang inside Bally’s was using electronic signals. We know they had a woman nail-nicking cards at blackjack. Once the cards at a table were marked, two members of the gang used the information to beat the house.”

“How?” Marconi asked.

“You play much blackjack?”

“No.”

“It’s a simple game. The dealer gets two cards, one face up, the other face down. The players also get two cards, and try to get a total closer to twenty-one than the dealer. Because the dealer goes last, the house has an edge of one and a half percent.

“When cheaters nail-nick cards, it allows them to read the dealer’s face-down card, and know the dealer’s total. This gives them a fifteen percent advantage. But, the cheaters must be careful. Staring at the dealer’s hand is a dead giveaway that marked cards are in play.”

“Makes sense,” Marconi said.

“Here’s what the gang in Bally’s was doing. One member sat to the dealer’s right. He read the nicks on the dealer’s face-down card, and sent the information to his partner through a tiny transmitter strapped under his pant leg. His partner played the Iggy, or dumb tourist.

He drank and smoked and horsed around. He also read the signals in his baseball cap, and beat the house silly.”

Marconi thought it over. “Let me play devil’s advocate for a minute. What if the district attorney says the LEDs inside the cap are decorative. Plenty of people wear lights and electronic doodads in baseball caps. What do I say then?”

“The cap has a receiver,” Gerry said. “According to the New Jersey device law, no person shall possess any calculator, computer, or any other electronic, electrical, or mechanical device to assist in projecting or altering the game’s outcome.”

A thoughtful look crossed the Marconi’s face.

“That will work,” the detective said.

Gerry took out his cell phone. He needed to call his father, and get him up to speed. He wondered what his father would say upon hearing that Gerry had killed a member of George Scalzo’s crime organization.

A female cop entered the visitors’ area. The bland contours of her uniform could not hide her stunningly attractive figure. She pulled Marconi into a corner, spoke in a hushed voice, then handed him a thick Pendaflex file from under her arm. Marconi opened the file, his dark eyes scanning the page, then glanced nervously at Gerry.

“Thanks, Ellen,” he said.

She left. Marconi came over to where Gerry was sitting, and dropped the folder in Gerry’s lap. Then he sat down across from him.

“We need to talk,” Marconi said.

Gerry put his cell phone back into his pocket. “What’s wrong?”

Marconi pointed at the folder. “That.”

Gerry opened the file, and found himself staring at a Xeroxed memo from the Atlantic City Casino Control Commission. His name was on the center of the page and highlighted in yellow marker. He glanced at the other memos beneath it. His name was highlighted in yellow on them as well.

“What are these?”

“Memos from the Atlantic City Casino Control Com mission on which your name appears,” Marconi said. “Out of curiosity, I had Ellen do a name search through the computer. That’s how many files the CCC has on you. Your name is linked to more gambling scams in Atlantic City than anyone else in the computer. Tell me how I’m going to explain that to the district attorney.”

Gerry dropped the folder on the coffee table. A few hours ago he’d killed a scammer; now Marconi had evidence that said he was also a scammer. It didn’t paint a pretty picture, and he decided to come straight with the detective.

“Does it bother you that I was never arrested?” Gerry asked.

“So you were smart.”

“My name’s on fifty memos. That would make me a genius, don’t you think?”

Marconi leaned back in his chair. “Okay, so what’s your point?”

“Cops think that wherever there’s smoke, there’s fire,” Gerry said. “But there isn’t any fire here. Before I went to work for my father, I was a bookie. I did good business, and I’m not ashamed of it. I also had a reputation as being Tony Valentine’s son. Every scammer in the Northeast knows who my father is. Guys would come to me and ask me my advice.”

“What kind of advice?”

“They would be thinking about scamming a casino in Atlantic City. They would tell me what they were going to do, ask me if I thought my father had ever seen it before. When I was a kid, my father used to show us scams at the dinner table. I was exposed to a lot of amazing stuff when I was growing up. I also understand how my father thinks. I’d look at the scam, and tell them if I thought it would pass muster.”

“You charge for this?”

“No.”

“Then why did you do it?”

“The guys I helped out referred customers to me.”

“That’s sweet. How many guys did you tell not to bother?”

“Nearly all of them,” Gerry said. “Most of the scams were old, stuff my father had seen before. To be honest, I think I saved the taxpayers a lot of money.”

“How so?” Marconi asked.

“I kept those guys out of jail, and saved the taxpayers from having to pay for it.”

Something resembling a smile crossed Marconi’s face. He took the file and slapped it against Gerry’s leg, then rose from his chair. “A regular public servant. I’m going to go have a talk with the DA. Don’t go anywhere.”

Gerry realized he was off the hook. Marconi left, and Gerry took out his cell phone and called his father.

17

“Y ^{ou did} what?” Tony Valentine asked, the cell phone pressed to his ear.

“I killed a guy who works for George Scalzo,” his son said. “He was trying to shoot Eddie Davis outside Bally’s. I rammed Eddie’s car into the back of the guy’s car, and sent him through the windshield.”

Valentine closed his eyes. “Jesus, Gerry. You killed a mobster.”

“I know, Pop. Think I should go into witness protection?”

“That’s only for criminals,” Valentine said.

“Bet I could tell the police a couple of things that would make me qualify.”

Valentine found it in him to laugh. He was still in Gloria’s suite, the sunlight splashing through the window. Over the years, he’d become convinced that casino hotels did everything imaginable to drive guests out of their rooms during the day, from having chambermaids come early to clean, to facing the rooms due east so they became flooded with light each morning.

“I do have some good news,” his son said. “I talked to a nurse at the cancer ward where Jack Donovan died. She remembered Jack, and said she’d search her computer to see if anything dangerous was stolen from the hospital.”

“I’m not concerned about Jack right now,” Valentine said, closing the blinds. “I’m concerned about you. Scalzo won’t take this lying down. He already has a contract out on me.”

“He does?”

“Yes. I’m having to watch my back,” Valentine said.

“So, here’s what I want you to do. Catch the next plane home. Better yet, catch the next plane to San Juan, and meet up with Yolanda. Lay low for a while, so I can figure out what to do.”

There was silence on the line. Valentine would have thought the connection had gone dead had he not heard his son cough. He went to the table where the breakfast he’d shared with Gloria still sat. A piece of cold bacon found its way to his mouth.

“I’m going to stay in Atlantic City,” his son said.

Valentine nearly choked. “What are you talking about? You could get whacked.”

“I owe it to Jack Donovan.”

“What about your wife and daughter? What do you owe them?”

“Pop, remember the conversation we had before I left Vegas?”

Valentine thought back to the day before. So much had happened since, it seemed like last month. He picked up another piece of bacon and bit into it.

“I may be your son, but I’m also your partner,” Gerry went on. “When things happen you don’t like, you can’t switch roles, and order me around because I’m your son.”

“I can’t?”

“No. I came to Atlantic City to find out how Jack’s poker scam works. Just because I’ve got some mobster pissed off at me doesn’t mean I should run.”

“But your life’s in danger.”

“It’s part of the business,” Gerry said. “Look, Pop, what if every time yourlife was in danger, I called you up and told you to run back to Florida, hide in your house, and make Mabel answer the door. Think you’d like that?”

Valentine bristled. “This is different.”

“Why it is different?”

“I’m your father.”

“You’re my sixty-three-year-old father, who probably shouldn’t still be playing cops and robbers,” Gerry said. “But you do, and I keep my mouth shut.”

“You think I’m playing cops and robbers?”

“It’s dangerous work, and you’re not a kid anymore.”

His son had a point. If last night was any indication, his ability to defend himself had diminished. He needed to be more realistic about what he could and couldn’t do.

“Do you worry about me?” Valentine asked.

“All the time.”

“Why haven’t you said anything?”

“I saw where it got Mom,” his son said.

When it came to catching crooks, Valentine had never let anything stop him. He couldn’t scold Gerry for wanting the same thing.

“So you’re staying in Atlantic City to figure out Jack’s secret,” he heard himself say.

“That’s right.”

“What about protection?”

“Eddie Davis and Joey Marconi said they’d help me out.”

“That’s only two guys.”

“I’ll be fine. Trust me.”

Valentine started to argue, then thought better of it. Gerry had to make his own decisions, and he could only pray that none of them would get his son killed. He heard a knock on the door. “I’ve got company. I’ll talk to you later.”

“You’re cool with my decision?”

“Yes. Just promise you’ll watch your back.”

“Love you, too, Pop,” his son said.

Valentine stuck the last strip of bacon into his mouth as he went to the door. He still ate bacon and eggs and lots of other food that wasn’t considered healthy, having decided that he’d rather exercise every day than not eat those foods. It was called living, and he was going to do it until the day he died.

He stuck his eye to the peephole. Rufus stood in the hallway dressed in a purple velour running suit and black high-top sneakers. He ushered the old cowboy in.

“How did you know where to find me?” Valentine asked.

“I had you paged in the casino and the restaurants,” Rufus said. “Then I checked with the valet, and they said your car was still here. Since you and Ms. Curtis have been getting along so famously, I figured I’d find you here.”

Valentine’s cheeks burned. Hearing Rufus had found him so easily was unsettling.

“It’s not what you think,” he said.

Rufus flashed his best aw-shucks smile. His teeth, stained the color of mahogany from years of chewing tobacco, looked like pieces of antique furniture.

“Maybe not, but I bet it will be soon,” Rufus said.

Valentine’s cheeks burned some more. “So what can I do for you?”

“The Greek is taking me up on my Ping-Pong bet,” Rufus said. “He paid the hotel to put a Ping-Pong table in the poker room, then talked some sucker into playing me during the break. They’re waiting downstairs. I was hoping you’d act as my second.”

“Sure,” Valentine said.

Rufus removed a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket, banged one out, and tossed it into the air. The cigarette did a complete revolution, then landed on his outstretched tongue. He fired it up with a lighter.

“Who’s the sucker?” Valentine asked.

“Some Japanese guy named Takarama.”

Valentine had wanted to warn Rufus about Takarama the night before, but in all the excitement it had slipped his mind. “I hate to tell you this, but Takarama was the world table tennis champion a few years ago.”

Rufus took off his Stetson and scratched his skull. “Is he still in the tournament? The deal was, I’d only play someone still in the tournament.”

“Afraid so. Takarama’s a helluva poker player, too.”

Rufus smoothed the remains of his hair, covered it with his hat. “Let me ask you something, Tony. Would you bet against me? Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

“I’d have to say yes,” Valentine said.

“What kind of odds would you give me against Takarama?”

Valentine thought it over. He’d seen Takarama walking around the poker room the day before. The guy looked to be in tremendous shape.

“Twenty to one.”

“Think I can get that downstairs with any of the hairy legs?”

Hairy legs were the money men who backed poker players, and often could be spotted in the audience during tournaments, gnashing their teeth like berserk fathers at a Little League game. Takarama could always fall down and break his ankle, and he said, “Maybe ten to one.”

Rufus exhaled two purple plumes of smoke through his nostrils. It made him look like a fire-breathing dragon, and his eyes sparkled mischievously.

“Good,” Rufus said. “Let’s go downstairs and reel in some suckers.”