by James Swain
The valet made them empty their pockets, frisked them, led them to the back of the Firebird, and made Gerry and Vinny climb into the open trunk. He slammed the trunk down hard, and they were instantly enveloped in suffocating darkness.
They listened to Nunzie and Frank being put through the same drill, and put in the trunk of another vehicle. This was how hoodlums executed people, and they both knew it.
“It’s been nice knowing you,” Vinny said.
37
Valentine had never used an alarm clock in his entire life. When the sun rose, so did he.
His hotel bedroom wasn’t big enough for him to get on the floor and do his exercises, so he went into the living room, and did his push-ups and sit-ups to the accompaniment of Rufus Steele’s apocalyptic snoring. He’d told Rufus off before going to bed, and sensed the old cowboy was faking sleep, his Stetson conveniently hiding his face. Valentine stole glances at him while he worked up a sweat.
He’d always thought of Rufus as a man born a hundred years too late. He had uncanny street smarts, and a century ago might have become a prominent businessman or politician. But those days were long past, and his lot in life was playing cards.
Finishing his exercises, he sat on his haunches in front of the window, watching the sun rise. Dawn was the best part of the day, the first rays of sun filled with promise and hope. His mother had taught him that, and he had never forgotten it.
He shaved, then took a hot shower. His exercises consumed twenty minutes of every day. That, his walking, and his judo classes kept him sharp. He wasn’t the man he used to be, but he was a hell of a lot closer than most guys his age.
He took his time dressing, and was ready to go downstairs to have breakfast with Gloria Curtis at eight. His cell phone was on his night table, and he powered it up and found a message from Gerry. He listened to it, his son’s overapologizing making him smile. If only his wife were alive to hear this. He walked out of his bedroom with the cell phone in his hand. As he passed the couch, Rufus spoke up.
“You ain’t running out on me, are you?”
Valentine reached over and removed the Stetson from Rufus’s face. The old cowboy was wide awake and twirling a wooden toothpick between his gums.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Valentine said, tossing the hat into Rufus’s lap. “I’m meeting Gloria Curtis for breakfast, and then we’ll both come over to the poker room to film you and your X-ray eyes. I sure hope you know what you’re doing.”
“Well, there is one thing I failed to mention, come to think of it.”
The words had a serious tone to them, and Valentine stared at him. “What’s that?”
“The boys who fleeced me last night—the ones I’m about to fleece back?”
“What about them?”
“I told them they could invite their friends to the demonstration this morning, and that if their friends wanted in on the action, they could have some.”
Valentine felt something drop in his stomach. He’d reluctantly agreed to front Rufus the hundred grand he was going to need to fleece the boys who’d cheated him at poker. Now, Rufus was telling him that there was going to be more action, and that he was going to have to cover it, since Rufus was flat broke. He pulled up a chair and sat in it so he was facing his guest.
“Their friends?”
“You know, some of the boys.”
“In other words, more suckers.”
“Now, I didn’t say that, but I wouldn’t call these boys the most knowledgeable gamblers who’ve ever lived, just some of the greediest.”
“How much additional action will I have to cover?”
Rufus scratched the steel-gray stubble on his chin. His posture on the couch reminded Valentine of the uneasy sleepers he used to have to run off from the public places in Atlantic City when he was a street cop. “That’s hard to say,” Rufus said.
“Take a wild guess.”
“Okay. Another hundred and fifty grand. Maybe two hundred, if we’re lucky.”
Valentine blew out his cheeks and stared at the carpet. He’d retired on his pension and social security and a little money squirreled away in the bank. Opening Grift Sense had been a windfall, and the last time he’d checked his bank statement, the account was hovering at three hundred thousand dollars. The notion that he might lose all of it covering Rufus Steele’s bet did not seem real, and he forced himself to his feet.
“You look slightly perturbed,” Rufus said.
“I am,” Valentine said. “This is my life savings we’re talking about.”
“Stop worrying, pardner. This is a sure thing.”
If there was any lesson Valentine had learned from the gambling business, it was that you didn’t mail in the results, and there was no such thing as a sure thing. People who believed otherwise ended up in the poorhouse, and he left the suite without saying another word to his guest.
Talking to Rufus had made him late for his breakfast with Gloria Curtis, and he found her sitting at a secluded table in the hotel restaurant, the simmering look in her eyes suggesting she was ready to walk out. He slid into the seat across from her.
“Oversleep?” she asked.
Her question had a bite to it, like a guy as old as him might need to get his rest.
“Actually, I was up with the sunrise,” he said. “My roommate dropped a bombshell on me, and I needed to have a chat with him. I’m sorry I’m late.”
“Care to share?”
A waitress filled their cups with coffee, then glanced into their faces, and said she’d come back. She was the first competent person Valentine had encountered in the hotel.
“Rufus has bet some guys that he has X-ray vision,” he said.
“So I’ve heard.”
“Well, it appears I’ll be fading the action on his wager. Since we’re talking about several hundred thousand dollars, I wanted to talk it over with him.”
“Fading the action?”
Valentine sipped his coffee and nodded. “It’s one of gambling’s little secrets. A gambler will use another gambler’s money to play with, only he doesn’t tell anyone. The problem with this wager is that Rufus didn’t bother to tell me.”
His words slowly registered across Gloria’s face, and her anger was replaced by a look of concern. Her hand came across the table and encircled his wrist.
“How much money are we talking about?”
“Three hundred thousand dollars.”
“Are you serious?”
“I’m always serious.”
“Can you cover it?”
He was tempted to say just barely, but nodded instead. Her fingers felt comforting against his skin, and he suddenly knew exactly what she was thinking. Before the words could come out of her mouth, he said, “I know, he’s wrong, and I shouldn’t be backing him, but these guys cheated him in a poker game, so Rufus is going to cheat them right back.”
“What if he loses the bet?” Gloria said. “Then what?”
Her hand was still on top of his wrist. She’d done that the night before at dinner to gain his confidence, and Valentine decided he liked it. The world of gambling was new to her, and she wanted to learn, so long as the person teaching her was someone she could trust. He decided he liked that, too.
“Then I pay up,” Valentine said.
“You would?”
“Every last cent.”
“But these men that Rufus is gambling with, they don’t know he’s using your money,” she said, lowering her voice. “What if you told Rufus to forget it, that he’d have to find the money someplace else. What then?”
“Then Rufus would have to tell them he didn’t have the money, and give the men IOUs. The gamblers would be angry, and they’d sell the IOUs to wise guys, who’d show up on Rufus’s doorstep in a few days, looking for payment.”
“What if Rufus refused, or was flat broke? What then?”
Valentine looked into Gloria’s eyes while considering the best way to answer her. He’d lived in a violent world for
the better part of his life, and had done a good job of shielding the people he cared about from that world. His role was that of a filter, and it was not a responsibility he took lightly. He said, “There used to be this famous gambler in New York City named Arnold Rothstein. Supposedly, Rothstein was responsible for fixing the 1919 baseball World Series.”
“The infamous Black Sox scandal,” Gloria said.
“That’s right. One night in New York, Rothstein got in a poker game with a gambler named Titanic Thompson, and ended up losing half a million bucks. Rothstein gave Thompson an IOU, and Thompson sold the IOU to some hoodlums. They tried to collect, and Rothstein welshed. Guess what happened.”
“That was the end of Arnold Rothstein.”
“Exactly.”
“Would you do that to Rufus?”
Valentine’s coffee cup had mysteriously emptied itself, and he stared at the grounds in its bottom. He was angry with Rufus for putting him in such a bad spot, and also afraid of losing his life savings. But deep down, he wanted to believe that Rufus had one last trick up his sleeve, and was still capable of pulling the wool over the eyes of any gambler in the world. Belief was the only thing a person had in this world, and he realized he was willing to put every cent he had behind Rufus pulling this off.
“Never,” he said.
38
At ten minutes of nine, Valentine and Gloria left the restaurant, and met up with Zack in front of the poker room. Over breakfast, Gloria had explained how she and Zack had worked together for fifteen years, and developed a level of communication that bordered on telepathic.
“We’ve already got a good crowd in there, so we won’t have to make people bunch up like yesterday,” Zack said. “I talked a maintenance man into dimming the lights, so there won’t be a glare problem. And I convinced two security guards to keep the crowd noise down, so we won’t have to redub the sound before we send it to the network.”
“You’re a genius,” Gloria said.
“In my own mind,” Zack replied. His camera was lying on the floor, and he picked it up and hoisted it onto his shoulder. Pointing the lens at Valentine, he said, “So Tony, you have a reputation for being able to see through any con or swindle. How is Rufus Steele going to pull this X-ray vision stunt off, anyway?”
There was no one standing within earshot, and Valentine stared into the lens and said, “I honestly don’t know.”
“I’m not filming,” Zack said. “You can be honest.”
“I am being honest. I don’t know.”
Zack lowered his camera, and a disbelieving look spread across his face.
“Do you think he’s off his rocker?” the cameraman asked.
Gloria edged up beside Valentine, and locked her arm into his.
“Tony’s backing him, so he’d better not be,” she said.
The elevator doors on the other side of the lobby parted, and Rufus Steele emerged, wearing black pants, a gleaming white shirt, and a black bow tie with two long tails, western style. Seeing them, he hustled over, and Valentine read the words inscribed on each tail of his tie: Thin Man.
Rufus doffed his Stetson and bowed to Gloria Curtis, then gave Valentine a friendly whack on the arm. “Hey pardner, you ready to win some money?”
His eyes were twinkling, and Valentine sensed Rufus was prepared to dig down deep into his bag of tricks, and do something really wonderful. He’d never helped anyone win a bet before, and supposed there was a first time for everything.
“Ready when you are,” Valentine said.
Over two hundred men were gathered inside the poker room. They were the gray-faced, unshaven variety of male who populated casinos during the early morning hours; their hotel rooms used for shaving, showering, fornicating, and little else. They applauded politely as Rufus crossed the room with his entourage.
Taking off his Stetson, Rufus gave the crowd a big Roy Rogers wave, then approached the round table in the center of the room where the six players who’d cheated him the night before were assembled. Valentine edged up beside Zack.
“Do me a favor while you’re filming, and get a clear shot of those six guys, okay?”
“Sure,” Zack said.
“I’m also going to need to get a copy of the tape.”
“No problem. You saving their pictures for something?”
Valentine nodded. Back home on his computer was the largest database of cheaters in the world, and he planned to add these six jokers’ pictures to the mix.
“Before we start, I want to establish some rules,” Rufus began. “You gentlemen obviously will take great pains to make sure that I don’t swindle or cheat you, and I understand why you feel the need to take such precautions. I, too, feel the need to take precautions. Since I’m going to be blindfolded, I have asked the house physician, Dr. Robinson, to act as a neutral third party.”
A red-haired, red-bearded man wearing a tailored suit stepped out of the crowd. He wore an annoyed look on his face, and Valentine wondered if Rufus had conned Dr. Robinson into helping as well.
“Here’s the deal,” Rufus went on. “I don’t want someone holding something up to my blindfolded face, and asking me what it is—such as a coin—and then switching it. So, whatever object you’d like me to read with my X-ray vision, you will have to hand to Dr. Robinson to hold. Fair enough?”
The six cheaters went into a huddle and conferred among themselves. After a few moments, one stepped forward. He was a brutish-looking guy with swirls of dark hair sprouting from both ears. Above the pocket of his bowling shirt was his name: The Greek.
“Okay,” the Greek said. “You can use Dr. Robinson, provided you let our doctor—Dr. Carlson—examine you for any hidden transmitters or receiving devices.”
“Sure,” Rufus said obligingly. “Should I strip?”
Dr. Carlson stepped out of the huddle. He was one of the six cheaters, and had the superior air of a man who made too much money. “That won’t be necessary.”
“Shucks,” Rufus said.
Dr. Carlson went over Rufus with a fine-tooth comb, and ended the examination looking down Rufus’s ears with a pen light. Intercanal earpieces were commonly used by cheaters wanting to transmit information inside a casino, and Carlson did everything but stick an ice pick down Rufus’s ears to make sure he wasn’t wearing one. Satisfied, the doctor stepped back.
“He’s clean as a whistle,” Carlson said.
“Okay,” the Greek said, “now, examine Dr. Robinson.”
A hush fell over the crowd. There were common courtesies among gamblers. The Greek had just broken one, but didn’t seem to care. He took Carlson by the arm.
“Do it.”
Carlson looked at Dr. Robinson. “Do you mind?”
Dr. Robinson looked at the ceiling, as if asking God what the hell he was doing there, then nodded his compliance. Dr. Carlson went over him with the same painstaking precision he’d used on Rufus. Again he stepped back.
“He’s clean,” Carlson said.
“Good,” the Greek said.
Taking a paper bag off a chair, the Greek removed a pair of wraparound glasses made of stainless steel. The glasses were the same design worn by Arnold Schwarzenneger in the Terminator movies, and completely covered the wearer’s eyes. As the Greek showed them to the crowd, Valentine got closer, and had a look. The glasses were half-inch thick, and the idea that someone might be able to see through them seemed impossible.
When the Greek was finished showing the glasses around, Gloria Curtis stepped forward and stuck her mike in Rufus’s face.
“This is Gloria Curtis reporting from the poker room at the World Poker Showdown. Standing beside me is Rufus Steele, who has bet a number of gamblers that he has X-ray vision. Rufus, when did you discover you had X-ray vision?”
“About two years ago,” Rufus replied.
“Do you know what brought this on?”
“Happened after I wrecked my car. I’d been drinking.”
Gloria tried not to laugh, although
several gamblers in the crowd did.
“How much money have you wagered?” Gloria asked.
“A hundred thousand dollars,” Rufus said. His eyes swept the sea of faces. “If there’s anyone else who’d like a piece of action, please step right up, and talk to this handsome fellow standing to my right. He’ll take care of you.”
Two dozen gamblers formed a line in front of Valentine. He had come prepared, and wrote down each man’s name on a pad of paper he’d gotten in the restaurant, and the amount of his wager. He kept a running tally in his head, not wanting to go over the three hundred thousand bucks he was responsible for, and when the last man was done, did another re-adding. One hundred and ninety-seven thousand dollars in additional bets had been placed. Rufus had called it perfectly.
He went over to Rufus, and showed him the amount.
“That’s a nice number,” Rufus said. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
A folding chair was placed in the center of the room. Rufus sat down with a smile on his face, and was quickly surrounded by the crowd. Stepping forward, the Greek fitted the steel glasses onto Rufus’s face, then produced a piece of twine, and tied the glasses behind Rufus’s head.
“That’s a little snug,” Rufus complained.
“Does it hurt?” the Greek asked.
“Come to mention it, yes.”
The Greek added another knot, then another. He wore the twisted look of someone who enjoyed inflicting pain. Finished, he stepped back with a triumphant look on his face.
“You done?” Rufus asked.
“Sure am,” the Greek said.
Rufus stuck his hand into his pants pocket, and produced a leather bag with a drawstring. He tossed the bag in the Greek’s direction, and the Greek plucked it out of the air. “Put that over my head, will you?”
The Greek looked at the other gamblers, a suspicious look on his face. Then he tried the bag on over his own head, then tugged it off, his hair standing on end like he’d been shocked.
