Текст книги "Deadman’s Poker"

Автор книги: James Swain

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

“What’s this?”

“A dirty fingernail,” Rufus’s muffled voice said.

Everyone in the room who wasn’t part of the wager started laughing. Those who were part of the wager looked like candidates for Siberia. After a few moments, the room quieted down.

“You’re holding a quarter,” the muffled voice said.

The man holding the quarter started to shake. “What’s the date?”

“It’s 1947.”

Dr. Robinson took the quarter out of the man’s hand and, in a loud voice, verified the date. It was indeed 1947. The doctor handed the quarter back to the man, who passed it to his partners. The other men examined the coin while shaking their heads in disbelief.

No one was more despondent than the Greek, who hurriedly came around Rufus’s chair, and examined the coin. The Greek began to dab at his eyes, and Valentine realized he was crying, never a pretty sight inside a casino.

“Hey, Tony, help me out, will you?” Rufus asked.

Valentine went to where Rufus sat, and untied the drawstring of the leather bag around the old cowboy’s head. He pulled the bag off, then untied the twine holding the steel glasses to Rufus’s face. To his surprise, the glasses hadn’t moved, and he wondered how Rufus had managed to see through them.

Rufus rubbed at his eyes, and then patted down his hair. Standing, he faced Gloria Curtis’s microphone and the camera, and raised his arms triumphantly into the air.

“I win,” he declared.

39

“We’re not going to kill you,” Jinky Harris said.

Gerry Valentine stared at his captor, the rhythmic pounding of flesh reverberating across the dusty warehouse. He was sitting bound to a chair and sweat was pouring off his body. Jinky’s men hadn’t driven very far after abducting them, and Gerry had seen the casinos’ blazing neon in the distance as he’d been pulled from the trunk.

“You could have fooled me,” Gerry said.

The warehouse was shaped like a small airplane hangar. On the other end, Vinny and Nunzie and Frank also sat bound in chairs. Jinky’s henchmen had been slapping them around for a while, then decided to gang up on Frank, their punches sounding like sledgehammers hitting a side of beef.

“You want me to stop it?” Jinky asked.

“Of course I want you to stop it,” Gerry replied.

Jinky played with the automatic controls on the arm of his wheelchair, and pulled around so he was facing Gerry. He’d been eating nonstop since their arrival, and crumbs of food peppered his beard. He pointed across the warehouse.

“Which one of them shot Russ Watson in the parking lot yesterday?” Jinky asked. “That’s all I want to know.”

“Who’s Russ Watson?”

Jinky pulled a candy bar from the pocket of his purple velour tracksuit and tore off the wrapper. “You’re making this hard on your friends.”

Gerry stared across the warehouse at the guy punching Frank in the face. The guy was a gorilla, yet Frank kept smiling at him in between getting hit. Frank had boxed as a pro for six years, and won all his fights except a couple of hometown decisions. His fight philosophy had been simple: he’d been willing to take punishment in order to deliver punishment. They’d picked the wrong guy to beat up.

Gerry’s eyes returned to Jinky. “Let me guess. Russ Watson is the dead guy that turned up in my motel room yesterday.”

“That’s right,” Jinky said. “I want to know who shot him.”

On the other side of the warehouse, Frank let out a sickening grunt. It echoed across the room, and made Gerry’s stomach do a flip-flop.

“Will you tell me something if I tell you?” Gerry asked.

Jinky bit into the candy bar like he had a grudge with it. “Depends.”

“We came to you in good faith, and told you what we were doing in Las Vegas,” Gerry said. “You got in touch with the Tuna, and ratted us out. The Tuna sent a hitman, who killed my best friend, to kill us. When that went south, you tried to have us killed. Why did you do that?”

The candy bar was a memory. Jinky fingered the control on the armrest of his chair, like he was considering taking off. The question obviously made him uncomfortable. Gerry, tied to a chair, had just called him a piece of shit.

“You don’t know how things work in Las Vegas,” Jinky said.

“I don’t?”

“Nope.”

“Then why don’t you educate me?”

Jinky snorted under his breath. “This town is run on juice.”

“It is?”

“Absolutely. The Tuna has juice with people in town, so it was in my best interest to strike a deal with him. Your father has juice with people in town, so it’s in my best interest not to kill you. Get it?”

Gerry gazed across the warehouse. “What about my friends?”

“Your friends are fucked,” Jinky said. “Nobody knows them from Adam. They could die and it would be like they never existed. That’s what happens when you don’t have any juice in Las Vegas.”

“Can I ask you something else?”

“What’s that?”

“Who does the Tuna have juice with?”

Jinky’s laughter filled the warehouse. “You don’t know anything, do you?”

“I guess not,” Gerry said.

“Now, it’s your turn to answer a question. Who shot Russ Watson yesterday?”

“Why do you care?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Jinky said angrily.

“He was a hitman,” Gerry said.

Jinky’s face went blank. “So?”

“One of the job dangers of being a hitman is that sometimes people fight back.”

“You think Russ got what was coming to him?”

“You sent Russ into battle and he lost.”

A look of rage flashed over Jinky’s face, and it occurred to Gerry that he wasn’t used to back talk. The big man touched the arm control on his wheelchair and crashed into him, sending Gerry’s chair scraping several feet across the concrete floor.

“Don’t give me any of that philosophy shit,” Jinky roared. “Which one of you shot Russ Watson?”

Gerry studied Jinky’s face. Every time Jinky mentioned Russ Watson, his eyes went soft, and Gerry guessed they’d had a relationship like the one he’d had with Jack Donovan. Telling Jinky the truth would only lead to Frank getting killed.

“It was the security guard,” Gerry said.

“Which one?”

“The guard in the parking lot.”

Jinky had to think. “The old geezer with the hearing aids?”

“Yeah. Your friend got fresh, and the guard shot him. It wasn’t pretty.”

Jinky crashed into him again. Seeing it coming lessened the impact, and Gerry felt his chair tip dangerously to one side, then right itself like a tightrope walker.

“If your father wasn’t tight with Bill Higgins, I’d put a bullet in your head,” Jinky said.

A harsh cry went up across the warehouse. Jinky stared, and Gerry followed his gaze. The man who’d been punishing Frank was clutching his hand while cursing up a storm.

“What happened?” Jinky yelled to him.

“I broke my hand against his face,” the man called back.

“I told you to wrap a towel around your hand, didn’t I?”

“I did wrap a towel around it,” the man said.

“So, walk it off.”

Easy for you to say, Gerry nearly said. He watched the man walk a serpentine pattern across the warehouse. If the look on his face was any indication, he was going to need a doctor. Frank had beaten the guy without ever laying a finger on him. Gerry caught Frank’s eye, and Frank winked. His friend’s face looked like a pepperoni pizza that had been left out for too long in the sun. Gerry winked back.

“Who’s got the digital camera?” Jinky called out.

“I do,” the man with the broken hand said.

“Bring it over here.”

The man came over and handed Jinky a digital camera. Jinky monkeyed with it for a little bit, then aimed at Gerry and snapped a picture. Jinky held the camera away from his face and stared at the picture, then showed it to the man with the broken hand.

“What do you think?”

“He looks too pretty,” the man said.

“Then make him look unpretty.”

The man came over and popped Gerry in the face with his good hand. Gerry felt something run out of his left nostril and knew it wasn’t snot. He stared down at the blood sheeting his neck and the front of his shirt, then saw another flash from Jinky’s camera.

“Take a look,” Jinky said.

The man came around Jinky’s wheelchair and appraised his handiwork.

“Much better,” the man said.

40

Valentine hung around the poker room for a few minutes and helped Rufus Steele collect his money. Poker players were a lot of things, but it was rare that one welshed on a bet. By Valentine’s calculations, Rufus was owed five hundred and ninety-four thousand dollars, and that was exactly the amount collected. When Rufus tried to hand him some, Valentine balked.

“Come on, it’s your cut,” Rufus protested.

“I did it as a favor,” Valentine said, refusing to touch the packets of money being shoved his way. It was at least fifty grand, maybe more.

“I’m well aware of that,” Rufus said, “but I’m not a charity case. Take it.”

The tone of his voice hadn’t changed, but there was a bite to his words nonetheless. Gloria was standing nearby with Zack, and they both turned their backs, and pretended to be watching the segment they’d just shot. Valentine didn’t want to make an enemy of Rufus, and stared long and hard at the money.

“I’m here on someone else’s nickel,” he said quietly. “If word got around that I’d gone into business with you, my real business would suffer. So let’s just say you owe me one, okay?”

“No one ever worked with Rufus Steele and didn’t get paid,” the old cowboy said, waving the stacks in Valentine’s face. “This is your money. I’m going to hold it for you until your job is over. Then it’s yours. Understand?”

Rufus wasn’t going to back down, and Valentine guessed there was a worthwhile charity he could donate the money to before he left town.

“I’ll do it, provided one thing.”

Rufus had eyebrows that looked like fluffy sandpaper. They both went up.

“What’s that, pardner?”

“Explain how you pulled that stunt.”

The old cowboy laughed like someone was tickling both his feet.

“Never in a thousand years,” he said.

“What kind of man puts up nearly six hundred thousand dollars to back a crazy bet?” Gloria Curtis asked when Rufus was gone. There was a bemused look in her eyes, and Valentine didn’t know if she thought he was a fool or an idiot or both.

“I think it has something to do with Rufus’s unique powers of persuasion,” he said. “I’d normally never do anything like that.”

“I sensed that,” she said. “You old guys really stick together.”

“Is that what I am? An old guy?”

She put her hand on his wrist and gave it a squeeze. “A good old guy.”

Gloria had innocently touched him several times in the past two days, and he found himself liking it. Each time they had a conversation, he felt the need to continue it, and he said, “Would you like to have lunch with me?”

She smiled at him with her eyes. “Sure. I have to cover the tournament this morning. Is twelve thirty all right?”

“That’s my nap time.”

“Stop that.”

He felt a smile coming on. “Twelve thirty it is. I’ll meet you in the lobby restaurant.”

“See you then.”

She gave his wrist another squeeze and left with her cameraman. When they were gone, Valentine asked himself where this was going. She was part of the case. Even if this relationship went no further than the platonic stages, it was the wrong thing to be doing. Business was business, pleasure was pleasure, and they weren’t supposed to mix.

He felt his cell phone vibrate, and pulled it from his pocket. The Caller ID said BILL HIGGINS. As he flipped the phone open, he realized he didn’t care. Gloria was smart and pretty and he liked talking to her. His partner in Atlantic City had liked to say that it was easy to find a woman to have sex with, but finding one whom you wanted to talk to, that was tough.

“Hey, Bill, what’s up?” he said into his phone.

“I need to talk to you,” his friend said. “It’s urgent.”

“Just say where.”

“Meet me at Gardunos in twenty minutes.”

Gardunos was a local Mexican restaurant they sometimes frequented. It was away from the casinos, and the food was homemade and exceptionally good.

“I’ll see you in twenty,” Valentine said.

Going outside, he handed the valet his stub, then went to the curb and waited for his rental to come up. Celebrity’s valet stand was decorated with African flora and fauna, and had Congo music playing over a loudspeaker. It was like walking onto a movie set, and at any moment he expected to see Tarzan come swinging through the trees.

While he waited, Valentine found himself staring at a man standing at the end of the curb. The man wore tailored slacks and a white dress shirt that clashed with a floppy tennis hat and Ray-Bans. He sensed the guy was trying to keep a low profile, and guessed he was a celebrity visiting the hotel incognito. The man looked impatiently at his watch, and Valentine got a good look at his face. It was Dr. Robinson, the house physician.

A decrepit Toyota Corolla pulled up to the curb. Robinson picked up a gym bag lying at his feet, and went to the car. He gave the valet his stub and climbed in behind the wheel.

Valentine felt his radar go up. Robinson was driving a junker and hadn’t tipped the valet. Valentine had known plenty of house physicians at hotels, and they all made a decent buck. Something wasn’t adding up here. He walked down the curb, and glanced into the Toyota just as Robinson pulled away. A tattered black suitcase occupied one of the backseats. Stenciled across its front were the words RENFO & COMPANY in bold white letters. It looked like something an entertainer might use, and he went to the valet stand, and found the kid who’d brought up the car.

“Let me see that guy’s stub,” Valentine said.

The kid wore his hair in his face and shot him a defiant sneer. “No way. It’s against hotel rules.”

“I’m a dick doing a job for the hotel.”

“You’re a dick?” the kid said, hiding a laugh.

“It’s short for detective. Let me see it.”

The kid stared at his clothes. Sometimes, looking like a cop had its advantages. The kid produced the stub from his pocket, and Valentine read the name printed across the top: Renfo. He stuck ten bucks in the kid’s hand, then returned to the curb and waited for his rental to come up.

He waited until he was on the highway driving toward Garduno’s before pulling out his cell phone and dialing Las Vegas information. A chatty female operator came on, and he asked for any listings in Clark County for Renfo. Within seconds she had found four. Two were businesses, the other two residential.

“The residential, please,” he said.

She gave him the numbers and he memorized them, then called them while driving one-handed. Both were disconnected. He called information again, and this time got the two business listings. The first number led him to a long-haul trucking company and a friendly guy named Jack. The second number was answered by a middle-aged woman with a smoker’s raspy voice. She was not nearly as friendly.

“Good morning, Renfo and Company,” she said. “What can I do for you?”

“Hi,” Valentine said. “I met Mr. Renfo this morning, and he gave me his business card. I’d like to talk to him about some work.”

“You’d like to hire Renfo?” the women asked, sounding skeptical.

“That’s right.”

“What kind of engagement do you have in mind?”

The woman had a cutting edge to her voice, and Valentine felt himself feeling sorry for Renfo. Whatever he did for a living, she sure wasn’t helping.

“Engagement?”

“Yeah, as in work. Are you hiring Renfo for a birthday party, a corporate event, a bar mitzvah, or what? How big is the group? How long do you want him to work? The standard questions, you know?”

She sounded ready to slam down the phone, and Valentine quickly improvised.

“It’s my son’s birthday party next Saturday. There will be about thirty children and ten adults. I’d like Renfo to work for half an hour.”

“How old are the kids?” the woman asked.

“Ten– to twelve-year-olds.”

“That’s good to know. I’ll tell Renfo to leave out the blue stuff.”

“Blue stuff?”

“Yeah, the dirty jokes.”

Renfo was a comedian? That didn’t make sense, and he started wondering if this was another dead end.

“Some of them are actually pretty funny,” the woman added.

“You don’t say.”

“Really, they are,” the woman said. “Renfo’s got one where he says, ‘What’s your favorite bird?’ And Freddy, his dummy, says, ‘A woodpecker.’ And Renfo says, ‘I bet you’ve always wanted one of those.’ Ha, you get it?”

Valentine stared at the bluish bank of mountains rimming the horizon, thinking back to everything that had happened in the poker room that morning. Now he understood why Rufus had wanted a leather bag put over his head. It had muffled his voice, and made it impossible to tell if he was actually doing the talking. Dr. Robinson, aka Renfo, wasn’t a doctor at all. He was a professional ventriloquist.

“Got it,” he said.

Part III

Shoot the Pickle

41

Mabel Struck was about to leave for a late lunch when the phone rang. She’d spent the morning soothing the nerves of several panicked casino bosses, and had worked up an appetite. She looked at the phone, and saw that it was Tony’s private line. Only a few people had the number, and she stared at the Caller ID. It was the boss himself.

“Grift Sense,” she answered cheerfully.

“Is this a money-laundering operation?”

“There you are. How’s sunny Las Vegas?”

“Fine. I saw something this morning that you would have really enjoyed.”

“What was that?”

“I saw a ventriloquist turn a crowd of smart people into a bunch of dummies.”

“A ventriloquist? I thought you were out there working.”

“I am out here working,” he said. “I’m on my way to a meeting with Bill Higgins. I called to see if Romero had sent the FBI’s file on George Scalzo.”

Mabel spun in her chair so she faced Tony’s computer, and opened his e-mail account. Six new messages had arrived in the last twenty minutes, and she quickly scrolled through them. The last was from Special Agent Romero.

“Got it. Would you like me to read it while you drive?”

“You’re psychic,” he said.

Mabel stuck the phone into the crook of her neck and opened Romero’s e-mail. The special agent had sent a thank-you note, and she read the note first.

“Dear Ms. Struck: Thanks for your help last night. When our agents knocked down the wall in the basement, they discovered the hidden electromagnets, plus a large bag of cash. Our suspect has decided to change his plea, and is cooperating with the prosecutor.

“Unfortunately, I cannot fulfill your request and provide you with the FBI’s current case file on George Scalzo, since the law does not allow me to share information regarding ongoing investigations. However, I did remove from the file information regarding Scalzo’s relationship with Chris DeMarco, and have pasted it into the body of this e-mail. Feel free to contact me if I can be of further assistance. Yours truly, Special Agent Romero.”

“You helped the FBI crack a case?” Valentine asked.

“Why, yes, I did,” Mabel said.

“That’s great. Now I can retire, and get out of this racket.”

“Listen to you! Are you ready to hear what Romero sent?”

“Fire away.”

Mabel scrolled down the e-mail. “Let’s see. Special Agent Romero included some background information about George Scalzo. Would you like to hear that?”

“Why not? Mobsters are always good for a few laughs.”

“Okay. Scalzo was initiated into the New Jersey mob at eighteen. By twenty-two, he had been involved in over a dozen crimes, including kidnapping, murder, loan-sharking, bookmaking, racketeering, fire-bombing, extortion, and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. He’d been to state prison three times, and it didn’t do him any good.”

“What a charmer,” Valentine said.

“Okay, here’s the case file. It’s broken down by date. On September 19, 1981, a prostitute named Danielle DeMarco and her blind four-year-old son, Chris, rented a house two blocks south of Washington Street in Newark, New Jersey, where George Scalzo lived. Living with Danielle was a black pimp named Jester (real name unknown).”

“Chris DeMarco’s mother was a hooker?”

“That’s what it says here. Two weeks later, Danielle DeMarco was arrested for rolling a john in a motel. Jester posted her bail, but left Chris alone at home. The boy left the house somehow, and made his way over to Washington Street. He ended up walking into a restaurant called Carmine’s where a birthday party was taking place. Scalzo was there playing the piano, and talked Chris into sitting on the piano stool with him.”

“Scalzo plays the piano? I sure hope he doesn’t sing.”

“You’re hysterical. The next day, Scalzo turns Chris over to the police, and the boy is reunited with his mother. That night, while Danielle is working the streets, Jester decides to punish Chris for leaving the house. According to neighbors who listened through an open window, Jester beat him with a coat hanger, then burned his arms and chest with a cigarette.”

The connection had gone quiet. Then she heard Tony cough, and continued.

“Word of the boy’s abuse spread through the neighborhood, and the police were summoned the next morning. Danielle refused to open the front door, and said nothing was wrong. The police left to get a warrant. Not long after their departure, a town car containing four men pulled up in front of the house. The four men got out, and forced their way inside. They pulled Jester from bed and started to beat him up. When Danielle came to her pimp’s aid, the men threw her down a flight of stairs.”

“Nice guys.”

“At twelve fifty-five that afternoon, Jester and Danielle were admitted to the emergency room of a local hospital. Every major bone in Jester’s body was broken, and Danielle was suffering from a broken leg and a broken back. Two hours later, they were both pronounced dead.”

“Jesus.”

“The police went to Danielle’s house but could not find Chris. Although scores of neighbors saw the men break in, none of the neighbors were willing to identify the four men for police.”

“Sounds familiar.”

“The next day, Scalzo contacts the police, and tells them that Chris had come to his house. When the boy is turned over to the police, he is wearing new clothes, and his cigarette burns have been treated by a doctor. The police turn him over to Health and Human Resources, who put him in a foster home. Four weeks later, George Scalzo’s sister, Lydia, files papers to become Chris’s legal guardian. Lydia tells friends in the neighborhood she is doing this for her brother, who never had children.

“Three months later, a judge in Newark bestows legal guardianship of Chris DeMarco to Lydia Scalzo, and the boy is transferred from his foster home to Lydia’s house. Within a few days, he is living with his ‘Uncle George’ next door. And…that’s where the e-mail ends.”

“Well, that explains a lot,” he said.

Mabel saved the e-mail message, then turned away from the computer. “You need to be careful with this one, Tony.”

“I’m always careful,” he replied.

“I know that. But this isn’t your ordinary hoodlum.”

“It isn’t?”

“No, it’s a psychotic who had a woman killed, and stole her child.”

“That’s one way to look at it. I’ll be doubly careful.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Here’s my exit. Oh, by the way, lunch is on me today.”

“Why, that’s awfully nice of you,” she said.

“You broke a case, you deserve it. Talk to you soon.”

Mabel said good-bye and hung up the phone. Reading about George Scalzo getting custody of Chris DeMarco had an unsettling effect on her, and she realized she wasn’t hungry anymore. Men could be such monsters when they wanted things. She decided to take a walk instead, and slipped on her shoes. It was a beautiful day, and she felt certain that a leisurely stroll around the neighborhood was just the thing to lift her spirits.