Deadman’s Poker

“Mind if I talk to your prisoner?” Valentine asked.

“Be my guest,” Bill said.

Valentine popped open the van’s back door and climbed in. Jinky’s chair was strapped to the floor of the van with pieces of rope, making him a prisoner. Jinky had the look of a caged rat, and started protesting before Valentine had shut the door.

“Get the hell away from me.”

“Hear me out.”

“No! Get away from me! Hey Higgins, get him away from me!”

Valentine slammed the door, then got down on his haunches and looked at Jinky. “If you had half an ounce of common sense, you’d play ball with me.”

Jinky stared through the van’s tinted window at Bill standing outside, talking on his cell phone. When he realized Bill wasn’t going to save him, he calmed down.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“Some straight answers would be nice.”

“I brought you here, didn’t I?”

“That’s a good start.”

“What do I get in return?” Jinky asked.

Valentine glanced at his son and three friends standing outside the van. It was a miracle they hadn’t died, and he wanted Jinky to pay for what he’d done to them. Only Jinky was the key to finding out what was going on at the World Poker Showdown, and he was determined to solve this case. Then he had an idea.

“Come clean with us, and I’ll get Bill Higgins to persuade the prosecutor to cut you a deal.”

The air-conditioning in the van had been shut off and the interior air was warm and sticky. Jinky removed a wadded-up Kleenex from the pocket of his tracksuit and dabbed at his reddening face. “Is that a promise?”

“Yes, it’s a promise.”

“Okay. What do you want to know?”

“How is Skip DeMarco cheating the World Poker Showdown?”

“You think the Tuna told me? Get real.”

“You must have some idea what’s going on.”

“I’ll tell you what I know,” Jinky said. “The Tuna stole a poker scam from some sick guy in Atlantic City. Nobody knows what the scam is, but it’s supposed to be perfect. No traces, no clues, nothing. There’s only one drawback.”

“What’s that?”

“It can make a person really sick if they don’t handle it right,” Jinky said. “That’s what everyone says, so it must be true.”

Valentine thought back to his meeting with Ray Callahan at the hospital, and how Callahan had stared at the playing card Valentine was carrying in his wallet.

“Is that why two dealers in the tournament collapsed?”

Jinky shrugged. “Could be. Like I said, I don’t know what the scam is.”

“Next question. Why did you try to have my son and his friends killed?”

Jinky dabbed at his face some more. “There’s a lot of mob money being bet on DeMarco to win the tournament. I have nothing against your son and his friends, but when they started screwing with DeMarco, I got told to whack them.”

“By the Tuna.”

“No, not the Tuna.”

“Then who?”

“If I told you that, I’d be dead tomorrow.”

“Even if the police put you in protective custody?”

“I’d still be dead tomorrow,” Jinky said.

Valentine looked in the big man’s face and knew he wasn’t going to get the name. He didn’t know anything more about how DeMarco was cheating the tournament than he had when he’d stepped off the plane at McCarran yesterday. Worse, he’d nearly lost his son in the process of trying to find out. He opened the rear door and started to climb out.

“What about my deal?” Jinky asked indignantly.

He turned. “What about it?”

“Are you going to talk to Bill Higgins, like you said?”

Valentine paused. As a cop, he’d prided himself on never going back on his word. The oath that went with being a police officer was something he’d always upheld. But being retired was different. He was his own man now.

“No,” he said.

“But you promised me!”

“I lied,” Valentine said.

51

One of the most depressing movies Valentine had ever seen was called Leaving Las Vegas.In the film, an alcoholic comes to Las Vegas, shacks up with a hooker, and proceeds to methodically drink himself to death. The title had summed up the plot perfectly. For some people, the only way to leave Sin City was in a pine box.

Valentine was not going to let that happen to his son, or his son’s friends. He retrieved his rental car from police headquarters, then drove Gerry, Frank, and the Fountain brothers to their motel to get their things and check out, then straight to the airport. It was a tight fit in the car, but he wasn’t going to let them out of his sight until they were safely on an airplane, and headed home.

“The four of you may have to come back out here and testify in a trial,” Valentine said as he parked the rental in short-term parking. “If that happens, I’ll come out as well.”

“I don’t want to ever come to Las Vegas again,” Vi

Once inside, Frank and the Fountain brothers went to the American Airlines counter and booked three seats in economy on a flight to Philadelphia that left in ninety minutes. The reservationist kept looking at Frank’s battered face, as if she might consider him a security risk. Valentine leaned on the counter and spoke to her.

“He’s a professional boxer.”

“You his manager?”

“Sort of.”

“He ought to consider another line of work,” the reservationist said, printing out three boarding passes and sliding them across the counter.

“You should see the other guy,” Valentine said.

They walked to the security screening area, stopping on the way to buy Frank a baseball cap and sunglasses so his face wouldn’t cause any small children to burst into tears. As the three men got in line, they shook Valentine’s hand and thanked him for all he’d done. Valentine turned to his son as they passed through the metal detector.

“Think they’ll ever straighten up?”

Gerry waved to his friends. “And do what? Become monks?”

They returned to the ticketing area and went to the Delta counter, the main carrier into Tampa, and Valentine purchased a seat on the ten o’clock red eye for his son.

“Don’t you think I should stay and help you?” Gerry asked.

“No. Remember what I told you before we came out here?”

“Sure. No job is worth getting killed over.”

“Well, I have a new saying.”

“What’s that?”

“No job is worth losing your son over.”

Gerry wanted to say something, only didn’t know how to say it. Instead, he gave his father a bear hug in the middle of the terminal with dozens of people swarming around them. They hadn’t done enough of that kind of thing when Gerry was growing up, and when they were finished hugging, Valentine offered to buy his son a cheeseburger.

“You’re on,” Gerry said.

They walked around the terminal and found a food court where the prices were so high Valentine thought he was in Paris. But there were times when he was willing to pay just about anything for a decent cheeseburger with a slice of onion, and he tossed the menu aside and ordered for both of them. When the waitress had departed, Gerry said, “Hey, look. The tournament is on TV.”

The restaurant had a horseshoe-shaped bar with a TV perched above the bottles of liquor. Valentine spun around in his chair, and saw Skip DeMarco being interviewed. DeMarco was wearing his familiar smirk, and the caption beneath him read World Poker Showdown Tournament leader—$5.8 million in chips.Valentine shook his head in disbelief. Only a few hours ago, Bill had told him that he was heading to Celebrity to shut down the tournament.