Текст книги "Deadman’s Poker"

Автор книги: James Swain

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

19

Valentine killed the connection, thinking how impressed Gloria Curtis was going to be when he explained the sugar scam over dinner. It would make him seem more rounded, knowing that sugar didn’t smell in its natural state. He hadn’t had the urge to impress a woman in a long time, and liked the way it made him feel.

He took the stairs to the third floor of the casino and walked down a windowless hallway to a steel door marked PRIVATE. A surveillance camera was perched above the door, and he stared into its lenses. Moments later the door buzzed, and he entered Celebrity’s surveillance control room.

The room’s lighting was subdued, the air kept at a chilly sixty degrees so the electronic equipment would run properly. Valentine let his eyes adjust, then stared at the opposing wall of video monitors, the four-color digital pictures as clear as real life. Bill Higgins stood beside the monitors, talking on a cell phone. Bill shut his phone, and walked over with a grim look on his face.

“I don’t know how to tell you this,” his friend said, “but your son and his friends just robbed someone in the casino.”

“What?”

“I was on the phone, telling hotel security to backroom your son when it happened,” Bill said. “Your son and his three friends ran out to the parking lot, and got away. Your son’s in serious trouble, Tony.”

Trouble. It should have been Gerry’s middle name. Bill spoke to a tech sitting at a desk. The tech typed on a keyboard, and a tape appeared on a monitor showing Skip DeMarco, his bodyguard, and the Tuna exiting the casino bar. The tape had a time and date code in the right-hand corner, and had been taken a short while ago.

“Watch,” Bill said.

Gerry and his friends came out of the bar moments later. They were moving fast, and they threw themselves into the bodyguard and DeMarco, knocking them to the floor. Then Gerry grabbed the canvas bag from the Tuna, and with his friends ran out of the picture. The tech hit a button and froze the tape.

“Have you called the cops?” Valentine asked.

“No, I was waiting for you,” Bill said.

Valentine tried to imagine his son in prison. Nevada’s penal system was one of the harshest in the country, and Gerry would never be the same if he ended up doing time. If he hadn’t asked Bill to backroom his son, Bill wouldn’t have been watching Gerry on a surveillance camera. He felt responsible, even though it was Gerry who’d broken the law.

“Don’t,” Valentine said. “He’s working with me.”

Bill gave him a look of pure astonishment. “Tony, he just robbed a guy.”

Valentine pointed at the frozen picture on the monitor. “See that old guy? That’s George ‘the Tuna’ Scalzo, a mobster out of Newark. I’m convinced he’s scamming the tournament. He’s also backing DeMarco.”

“You’re saying your son robbed DeMarco with your permission?”

Valentine swallowed hard. “Yes.”

“Do you have any proof against Scalzo?”

Valentine shook his head.

Bill crossed his arms in front of his chest and gave him a hard look. “Tony, listen to me. Scalzo is downstairs talking to hotel security. He’s going to file charges. I have to show security the tape of your son, and identify him. It’s the law.”

Valentine glanced at the tech, then edged closer to Bill and dropped his voice. “The law? The Gaming Control Board routinely busts people you suspect of cheating without any proof. Correct?”

Bill slowly nodded.

“That means that you’re the law, Bill. And since you hired me to investigate this tournament, you have to back me up. My son is helping me solve this case, and I don’t want you to show security the tape. Okay?”

Bill thought it over. “What if Scalzo calls the police?”

“Let him.”

“But the police will ask for the tape.”

“Tell them the camera was taping something else.”

One of the common fallacies of the casino business was that surveillance cameras taped everything on the casino floor. In reality, the cameras were constantly rotating, and missed a great deal of what was going on. Over 50 percent of the casino was not being watched most of the time. It was why casinos lost so much money to cheaters.

Bill went over to the tech and spoke to him. The tech stared up at Bill, his eyes wide. He slowly typed a command into his keyboard. Valentine stared at the frozen picture on the monitor. The picture went into reverse, and stopped just before Gerry and his friends exited the bar.

“You sure you want me to do this?” the tech asked.

“Yes,” Bill said. “Erase the whole thing.”

The screen went blank and stayed that way. Valentine felt the air trapped in his lungs escape, and he went over and slapped Bill on the back.

“I owe you,” he said.

“I need to talk to you about the tournament,” Bill said.

“I’m all ears.”

Bill nodded at one of the offices. A casino’s surveillance control room should have been the safest place in the world, but secrets often escaped from there as well. They went into the office and Bill shut the door. “I’ve been recording DeMarco’s play, and having an old hustler watch the tapes to see if he can spot any hankypanky,” Bill said.

“Which old hustler?”

“Sammy Mann.”

Sammy Mann was an old-time crossroader who’d given up his life of crime and gone to work helping casinos. He was a nice guy, as far as ex-crooks went.

“He find anything?” Valentine asked.

“Sammy says DeMarco is either incredibly good, or he’s cheating.”

“But not lucky.”

“His luck stinks,” Bill said. “He’s gotten the worst draws of any player in the tournament. But, he’s got this knack of knowing when to play his good cards.”

Valentine considered what that meant. If DeMarco knew when to play his good cards, it also meant that he knew that his opponents were weak. Knowing those two things said that DeMarco knew every card on the table. Either the kid was psychic, or he was using marked cards, just like Gerry had been saying all along.

“Did you have today’s cards examined?”

“Yes. We sent them over to the FBI’s forensic lab after today’s round was done. The FBI even gave the cards the burn test.”

The burn test was a clever way to detect if a playing card was marked with a foreign substance. The suspected card was slowly burned while being examined under a microscope. If there was a foreign substance on the card, it would burn differently and reveal itself.

“What did they find?” Valentine asked.

“Absolutely nothing,” Bill said.

There was nothing more frustrating than knowing a scam was taking place, but not having enough evidence to nail the cheaters and shut it down. They agreed to talk again later that night. Bill opened the office door, and they walked back into the surveillance control room.

As Valentine passed the wall of monitors, he saw a tape of the Tuna taken in the casino lobby right after he’d been robbed by Gerry and his friends. The Tuna was stomping his feet and cursing up a storm, and looked almost comical. Valentine walked over to the tech whom Bill had told to erase the tape. The tech was sucking a thick shake like it was the only food he’d had in days.

“Any particular reason you’re watching this tape?” Valentine asked.

“Just covering my ass,” the tech said.

“How so?”

“Mr. Higgins told me to erase the tape of that guy having his bag stolen. I figured I’d better erase the aftermath as well.”

“I’d like to watch it before you erase it.”

“Be my guest,” the tech said.

Valentine went back to the monitor and watched the tape. The Tuna was poking DeMarco’s bodyguard in the chest while yelling at him. The bodyguard whipped out a cell phone and made a call. Thirty seconds later a guy with pocked skin entered the picture. Valentine felt the icy chill of recognition and turned to the tech.

“Freeze this.”

Instantly the image became frozen on the monitor.

“Now enlarge the guy’s face.”

“I can show you his pimples,” the tech said.

“A head shot will do.”

The face became enlarged, then appeared on every monitor on the wall. The tech was having fun, showing what his toys could do. It was enough of an overload to jolt Valentine’s memory into remembering where he’d seen that face before. Taking out his wallet, he removed the composite that Gerry had paid a courthouse artist to draw of Jack Donovan’s killer, and compared the composite to the face on the monitor. It was a match.

“Are your tapes digital?” Valentine asked.

“State of the art,” the tech said. “We use Loronex.”

Loronex was a digital surveillance system that could take a picture of a person, run it against ninety days of past tapes, and pull up any tapes the person appeared on.

“Find this guy in your digital database,” Valentine said. “I want to see where he went after this tape was shot.”

The tech’s fingers were a blur on the keyboard. Moments later, the monitors came alive with a new tape. It showed the guy with the pocked skin walking through the front doors, and giving the valet a stub for his car. As he waited for his car, he removed a shiny business card from his pocket, and dialed his cell phone while staring at it.

“Can you enlarge that card?” Valentine asked.

The business card became enlarged on the monitor. It was for the Sugar Shack, and had a naked girl lying horizontally across it. Bill, who’d been talking to another tech, came over to where Valentine stood.

“That’s Jinky Harris’s club,” Bill said. “He runs the local flesh market.”

“Is he in the mob?”

“He sure is.”

Valentine stared at the monitor while feeling his heart pound against his rib cage. Gerry and his friends were in real trouble, and not just because they’d stolen the Tuna’s canvas bag. He took out his cell phone and called Gerry’s cell. An automated voice answered, and told him to leave a voice or text message. His son was always picking up text messages from his wife, and Valentine typed a short message telling Gerry his life was in danger. He marked it urgent and hit send.

“Do you mind my asking you a question?” Bill asked.

Valentine snapped his cell phone shut. “What’s that?”

“Is your son really working with you?”

A lie was only good if you kept it going.

“Yes,” he said.

20

Las Vegas was like any other major city once you get away from the downtown, the roads and highways jammed with impossibly long lines of traffic. Highway 15, the main thoroughfare on the west side of town, was particularly bad, with lots of tire-burning stop-and-go. Gerry drove in the slow lane, searching for their exit.

“Boy, that was slick,” Vinny said, the canvas bag Gerry had snatched from the Tuna sitting protectively in his lap. “Those assholes didn’t know what hit them.”

“You did a good job knocking down that bodyguard,” Gerry said.

Vinny glanced into the backseat at Frank and Nunzie. “It was just like the good old days, wasn’t it, guys?”

Frank and Nunzie both started laughing. They had spent their formative years doing hit-and-runs on drunks playing the slot machines in Atlantic City’s casinos, knocking them off their stools and stealing their plastic buckets of coins. For a lot of bad kids, it had been the equivalent of having a summer job.

“So, when are we going to open the bag?” Nunzie wanted to know.

“Yeah,” Frank said, leaning between the seat, “let’s see what this secret is.”

Gerry took his eyes off the highway and glanced at Vinny. They’d talked about this earlier; Jack Donovan had lost his life because of this secret, and Gerry didn’t think they should just open up the bag, and start playing with it like a toy.

“We’re going to wait until we get back to the motel,” Vinny said.

“Aw, come on,” Frank said belligerently. “I want to know what it is.”

“Me too,” Nunzie said.

“Only when we’re back at the motel,” Vinny said.

Since Vinny was buying the secret, his word stood. Frank looked dejected, and popped an unlit cigarette into his mouth. It made him look like Marlon Brando from On the Waterfront, and he said, “I got a question. I know we were moving fast, but what if the cameras caught us? We could go to jail.”

Gerry saw their exit and put his indicator on. “The cameras are always rotating. Which means we had a one-in-two shot of not being seen. Sort of like a coin toss.”

Frank thought it over, then removed a quarter from his pocket, and tossed it into the air. Nunzie called heads, and Frank caught the coin, and slapped it on the back of his hand. He slowly pulled his hand away. Nunzie’s face said it all. Tails.

“Gotcha,” Frank said.

Gerry was in the motel parking lot when Vinny’s cell phone rang. Vinny had downloaded Frank Sinatra singing “My Way” and used it as the chime for his cell phone. The novelty had already worn off, and Gerry felt like tossing it out the window. Vinny answered the call, then covered the phone’s mouthpiece with his hand.

“It’s Jinky Harris,” he announced.

“Ask him if he’s still cleaning up the milk,” Gerry said.

“Shut up. That goes for everybody, okay?”

Everyone in the car quit talking, and Vinny took his hand away.

“I’m here, Jinky. What’s shaking?”

Vinny’s head bobbed up and down while he listened to Jinky talk. Vinny couldn’t have a conversation without some part of his body acting like a metronome. If he was standing, it was his hands; sitting, his head or his foot.

“You got it,” Vinny said. “We’ll meet you at the Voodoo Lounge in twenty minutes. I know where it is. See you there.”

Vinny killed the connection and gave Gerry instructions to the Voodoo Lounge. It was halfway between Las Vegas and the town of Henderson, and well off the beaten path. As Gerry headed back to Highway 15, Vinny explained that Jinky wasn’t angry about the night before, and wanted to talk to them about a business proposition.

“Jinky says he’s got a sweet deal for us,” Vinny explained.

“What kind of deal?” Gerry asked.

“You think he was going to tell me over the phone?”

Gerry got back on the highway and followed the signs to Henderson. Jinky hadn’t been willing to share his egg rolls, yet now was offering them some easy money. It didn’t add up.

“We need to be careful,” Gerry said.

“For Christ’s sake, you think we’re going to get gunned down, going into a bar in broad daylight?” Vinny asked.

Gerry stared at the curving highway. There was a break in the traffic, and he hit the gas, thinking that Vinny didn’t know Las Vegas the way he knew Las Vegas. He’d grown up hearing stories from his father. Las Vegas had more scumbags than any city in America. Anything could happen here, and often did.

“Yes,” Gerry said.

The endless flow of money that was Las Vegas’s lifeblood did not stray far from the casinos, and the Voodoo Lounge looked like a desert outpost, the sandblasted paint job suggesting a long-forgotten Mexican theme. They got out of the rental and went inside.

The lounge was a low-ceilinged fire trap, with posters of bikini-clad women supplied by beer companies covering the walls. There was a pool table with purple felt, some tables, and a silent jukebox. A barrel-chested bartender stood by the cash register, polishing a glass. His only customer, a construction worker at the far end of the bar, was drinking a beer while staring at the hypnotic curls of smoke coming off his cigarette.

Vinny, Frank, and Nunzie took seats at the bar. Gerry looked around before sitting.

“What’s your pleasure?” the bartender asked.

“You have a happy hour?” Nunzie asked.

“We’re always in a good mood,” the bartender said.

“Any house drinks?” Frank asked.

“Ass juice.”

“What’s that?”

“Try one and find out,” the bartender said.

Gerry turned in his seat, and stared at the front door. There was something not right about the place, only he couldn’t put his finger on it. After a few moments of thinking, he realized what it was. No wheelchair access. He nudged Vinny with his elbow.

“This is a setup,” Gerry said.

Vinny stiffened. “Why are you so paranoid?”

“Jinky isn’t coming here.”

“Why not?”

“He can’t get his wheelchair through the fricking door.”

Vinny looked over his shoulder at the front door. “You think it’s an ambush?”

“I sure do,” Gerry said.

Gerry felt the gentle pulsation of his cell phone against his leg. He pulled the phone from his pocket, and stared at the text message: SON. YOUR LIFE IS IN DANGER. BE CAREFUL! POP. He showed the message to Vinny.

“My father feels the same way,” he said.

The most important aspect of a fight was the element of surprise. Whoever got the jump on his opponent usually won. Gerry ordered a draft, and as the bartender poured it, he jumped clean over the bar. At the same time, Vinny leaned over the bar, and grabbed the bartender by the wrists.

The bartender’s .38 Magnum was in a leather holster wedged between two perspiring coolers. Gerry drew the gun, and alternated pointing it at the construction worker and the bartender. Both men stared at him without a trace of fear in their eyes.

“All my money’s lying on the bar,” the construction worker said.

“Mine’s in the till,” the bartender said.

“Lift up your shirts, and show me what you’re carrying,” Gerry said.

Both men complied. The construction worker’s stomach was flat and white, the bartender’s round and hairy. Neither man was carrying any heat. Gerry made them drop their shirts, and pointed at the front door with the Magnum.

“Any idea who’s about to come through that door?”

The bartender had broken out in a wicked sweat. He shook his head.

“The mailman?” the construction worker asked.

Gerry looked at the bartender. “You know.”

“No, I don’t,” the bartender said.

“You’re lying.”

“I swear to God, I’m not.”

The bar’s front door banged open. Sunlight flooded the room, and a hooded man wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a shotgun came in. The hooded man hesitated, letting his eyes adjust. Although Gerry had been a bookie most of his life, he still went to church. He liked to think that God—in His infinite wisdom—watched over him. Like now, for instance. He was holding the most powerful handgun in the world, and had it pointed directly at the door. All he had to do was squeeze the trigger, and he wouldn’t end up playing a harp.

He pumped two bullets into the hooded man’s vest. The man flew backward like he had strings attached to him, the shotgun discharging into the ceiling and making the whole building shake. Gerry kept firing, and sent the man into the parking lot.

A getaway car was parked outside. The hooded man fell backward through the open passenger door, his face exposed to the sun. Gerry stared at his face, and realized it was the guy he’d seen in the hospital stairwell the night of Jack Donovan’s murder. The getaway car sped away before he could squeeze off another round.

A stiff wind shut the front door, and the lounge fell quiet. Vinny, Nunzie, and Frank were frozen to their spots and looked like they’d seen a ghost. Gerry looked at the bartender, who appeared ready to cry.

“You were saying?” Gerry said.

The bartender fell to his knees, sobbing like he expected to die.

“Please don’t kill me,” he said.

“You work for Jinky Harris, don’t you?” Gerry said.

“Never heard of him,” the bartender said.

Gerry glanced down the bar at the construction worker, whose face still didn’t show any emotion. Gerry wanted to believe the construction worker wasn’t part of the plot to kill them, but his gut told him otherwise. The guy had a role. Maybe it was to drag their bodies away or bury them in the desert. Or something else.

Gerry led the construction worker and the bartender to the back room, and locked them in a broom closet. He told them to wait ten minutes before kicking the door down. Then he and Vinny searched the place, while Nunzie and Frank guarded the front door.

Beneath the bar Gerry found a stack of papers with World Poker Showdown printed across the top of each page. He leafed through them, and saw the names of every player in the tournament, along with their odds of winning. Skip DeMarco’s odds were highlighted, and were 40 to 1. It was an angle Gerry hadn’t considered. Anyone who bet on DeMarco to win would make a killing. He stuck the papers under his arm.

“Let’s get out of this toilet,” he said.

They went outside to the parking lot. The wind off the desert had picked up, and invisible particles of sand stung their faces. Vinny stuck his hand out, and asked Gerry for the keys to the rental.

“Let me drive,” Vinny said.

Each time they’d worked together, Gerry had done the driving while Vinny rode in the passenger seat, and called the shots. Now Vinny was acknowledging that a shift had occurred. Gerry hadn’t just saved their lives; he’d also taken charge.

“You sure?” Gerry asked him.

“Positive, man. Hand them over.”

Gerry looked at Nunzie and Frank to make sure they were cool with what was happening. Both men dipped their chins, acknowledging they were okay with the change in leadership. Only then did Gerry take the car keys from his pocket, and drop them in Vinny’s outstretched hand.