Deadman’s Poker

Bill Higgins: There is a nonstop Delta flight to Tampa this afternoon at 5:25. Tell Tony Valentine to be on it, or he’ll never see his son alive again.

He put the note down, and looked across the table at Bill.

“They delivered this to you?”

“A kid on a bike brought it to my office an hour ago,” Bill said.

“It was nice of them to check out flight arrangements for me.”

Bill drummed the table with his fingertips. Their waitress took that as a cue, and scurried over. Bill tried to wave her away, and a hurt look crossed her face. Valentine intervened and ordered the homemade guacamole, a house specialty. She smiled and disappeared through swinging doors into the kitchen.

Valentine stared at his friend’s face. Bill was in a tough spot. The kidnappers had put Gerry’s fate in Bill’s hands. Bill continued to drum the table and the waitress reappeared. Valentine ordered two iced teas.

“You’re going to have to order the whole menu if you keep that up,” he said when she was gone.

“You’re not making this any easier,” Bill said.

“I’m not leaving town, if that’s what you want to know,” Valentine said.

“You’re not?”

“No. I step on that plane, and they’ll put a bullet in Gerry’s head.”

“How can you be sure?”

Valentine picked up the photograph and pointed at his son’s face. “He’s not wearing a mask. My guess is, neither are the guys who abducted him. Gerry saw their faces, which is as good as a death sentence.”

“Who do you think is behind this?”

It was Valentine’s turn to drum the table. Skip DeMarco’s cheating, Jinky Harris’s wanting to kill Gerry and his friends, and the strange things taking place at the World Poker Showdown were all co

“I have a good idea,” he said.

“Then let’s go to the police,” Bill said.

Their booth looked onto the parking lot, and Valentine paused to stare at the dusty bumper of his own rental. “My son said he thought a cop was tailing them yesterday. If that’s true, then the police are the last people we should contact.”

Bill poured enough artificial sweetener into his tea to kill a horse. “Dirty cops or not, the police need to be involved. If they find out Gerry’s been abducted and we didn’t tell them, they’ll haul us in. We need to do this by the book, Tony.”

Valentine felt himself slowly exhale. The memory of Gerry’s first car had popped into his head, and how Gerry had wrapped the vehicle around a telephone pole within forty-eight hours of owning it. It was always something, and he looked at Bill.

“Let’s call Pete Longo,” he said.

Twenty-five minutes later, Longo slipped into their booth at Gardunos. He wore old jeans and a polo shirt and hadn’t shaved, and Valentine guessed it was his day off.

“How’s your son doing?” Longo asked.

Valentine slipped the photograph of Gerry across the table. The detective’s eyes grew wide, and he put down the chip dripping with salsa he was about to stuff into his mouth. He read the note accompanying the photo.

“When did you get this?” he asked Bill.

“Nine o’clock this morning.”

Longo shifted his gaze to Valentine. “I walked your son out of the station house this morning at three A.M.”

“I know,” Valentine said. “He called and left me a voice mail.”

Longo turned the photograph face down on the glistening table. The loss of weight had given his face gravity beyond his years, and he shook his head sadly. “I was talking to your son about Jinky Harris, and the problems I’ve been having nailing him. I told your son it’s like my phones are being tapped.”

“Maybe they are,” Valentine said.

Longo picked up the chip he’d been meaning to eat. “That’s why you asked me to come here, isn’t it? You think I have a dirty cop in my department, and he’d find out we were meeting.”

“That’s right.”

The salsa had made the chip soggy, and it split in half before it reached Longo’s mouth, and landed with a plop on his place setting. He stared at it, then at them.

“Shit,” the detective said.

Cops held grudges. It came with the job. You worked the streets long enough, and you ended up hating people. Longo had a grudge with Jinky Harris, and he made it clear he would break as many rules as necessary to help them find Gerry. It was a good start, and Valentine leaned across the table and dropped his voice.

“I once nabbed a gang of dice cheaters in Atlantic City. They took the casino’s dice, and switched them in plain view for shaved dice. There was no subtlety. These guys had been around for a while, and I finally got one of them to open up. He told me it was all about distraction. Right before they did the switch, a drunk started arguing at a blackjack table, while a pretty girl started peeling off her clothes at the roulette table, while a couple staged a fight in the aisle. They were all part of the gang.”

“Like a giant smoke screen,” Longo said.

“Exactly,” Valentine said. “This afternoon, I’m going to create a smoke screen, and distract everyone who I think had something to do with my son and his friends being abducted. Once that happens, I want to have a chat with Jinky Harris.”

“By yourself?” Longo said skeptically.

“Yes.”

“The guy has twenty guys on his staff, and a seven-foot-tall bodyguard.”

Valentine glanced at Bill. “Think your agents can handle twenty guys?”

“Not a problem,” Bill said.

Valentine looked back at Longo. “Anything else about Jinky we should know?”

“Yeah,” the detective said. “The bodyguard fancies himself a karate expert. He fights in those tough-man competitions.”

“What’s his name?”

“He calls himself Finesse.”

Valentine had never cared for fighters who gave themselves comic book names, and decided he could deal with Finesse. “There are two things I’m going to need from you, Pete.”

“Name them,” Longo said.

“First, I want you to pull any cops from the vicinity of Jinky’s club when Bill’s agents raid the place.”

Longo looked at Bill. “I’ll need you to coordinate the time of the raid with me.”

“Done,” Bill said.

Longo looked at Valentine. “No problem.”

“Second, I’m going to need a SWAT team at my disposal,” Valentine said. “Once I get Jinky to tell me where Gerry is being held, I want that team to rescue him.”

“Consider it done,” Longo said.

The three men shook hands, and the deal was struck.

Longo picked up the tab, then leaned forward on his elbows. His eyes swept the room the way only a cop’s can before he spoke. “Since we’re putting our cards on the table, I guess it’s time for me to show mine. Tony, does the name Ray Callahan ring any bells?”

Valentine gave it some thought. “Not particularly.”

“You busted him in Atlantic City fifteen years ago.”

Valentine hated hearing that his mind was going, and struggled with the name some more. “I arrested a Raymond Callahan at Resorts International in 1991 for cold-decking a poker game where he was the dealer. The prosecutor let him cop a lesser charge, and he did probation. Same guy?”

“Same guy,” Longo said. “Callahan’s a dealer in the World Poker Showdown. He collapsed yesterday and was rushed to the hospital. The hospital ran a background check and his rap sheet popped up. How do you cold-deck a poker game?”

There were many ways to switch a deck of cards during a game of poker. Some involved wastepaper baskets, others, umbrellas and sports jackets with large pockets. But in the end, what made any deck switch fly was a pair of steady hands and nerves of steel. Raymond Callahan, as Valentine recalled, had an abundance of nerve.

“Practice,” he said. “How can Callahan be a dealer at the World Poker Showdown when he has a criminal record?”