Deadman's Bluff (17 page)

32

V
alentine was ready to make a bust.

He’d shown Bill Higgins the surveillance tape of Skins Turner mucking a card. Bill had seen his share of muckers, and he whistled through his teeth when Skins did his switch in plain view of everyone else at the table.

“Guy’s got balls,” Bill said.

“He’s also got tremendous misdirection,” Valentine said.

“How so?”

“Everyone’s watching DeMarco.”

Taking out his cell phone, Bill had put into motion the necessary steps to go into Celebrity’s casino, and arrest Skins Turner. For starters, he alerted the casino’s head of security and explained exactly what Skins was doing. Then he gave a detailed description of what Skins looked like and where he was sitting in the game. More than one cheater had gotten away when a security guard had, in his haste to make a bust, nabbed the wrong person.

Then Bill called the Metro Las Vegas Police Department and went through the same drill with a sheriff. Skins would eventually end up in the Metro LVPD clink, and Bill didn’t want some judge letting him out on a hundred-dollar bail because the arresting officer hadn’t understood the seriousness of the charge.

The next thing Bill did was invite the other techs in the room to look at the tape of Skins and confirm that cheating was taking place. Juries in Nevada hated the casinos and would not convict a cheater without clear and compelling videotape evidence. A cop’s word simply wasn’t good enough.

Once the techs had agreed Skins was cheating, Bill did a background check on Skins. Nothing could be more helpful to prosecuting Skins than him having a prior conviction for cheating. Bill got Skins’s name and address from the hotel’s reservation department, and then called it in to the police, and his own people. If Skins had ever been arrested, either Metro or the Gaming Control Board would have a record of it.

Ten minutes later, both Metro and the GCB called Bill back.

“Damn,” Bill said, hanging up the phone.

“He’s clean?”

“Got a couple of speeding tickets down in Houston, but that’s it. Where the hell is Sammy Mann, anyway? Maybe he knows this guy from the past.”

“Sammy flew the coop,” Valentine said. “He ran right after we grilled him.”

Bill clenched his jaw. “That lousy prick. I gave him a second chance, and this is how he repays us.” He asked the tech to replay the tape of Skins, and they both watched it again. Bill cursed under his breath. “This isn’t good enough to convict.”

“It isn’t?”

“No.” Bill pointed at Skins’s right hand. It hung over the edge of the table and beneath his other arm, hiding the palmed card from his opponents but not entirely from the camera’s eye. A tiny sliver of card showed between Skins’s third and fourth fingers. Cheaters called this “leaking.”

“Our illustrious mayor, who used to be a high-priced defense attorney, was able to get specific laws put on the books in regards to how close a mucker’s hands had to be to the table for a crime to have actually been committed,” Bill said. “Skins’s hands aren’t close enough.”

“But we saw him switch cards,” Valentine protested.

“We saw him cover the cards with his hands,” Bill corrected him. “We didn’t see the actual switch. The only evidence we have of foul play is him leaking the card, and since his hand is off the table, that isn’t technically cheating. I know it sounds stupid, Tony, but it’s the law.”

Valentine felt himself getting angry, and took a walk around the room. Old-time gamblers had a special name for conversations like this. They called them “Who shot John?” They were so ridiculous, there was absolutely nothing to compare them to.

When he came back, Bill was still standing there.

“So what do we do?” Valentine asked.

“We wait, and get another tape of Skins cheating,” Bill replied.

“You’re going to let Skins play some more?”

“I don’t have a choice.”

“But that’s crazy. It’s an elimination tournament. Every time Skins cheats, some poor guy is getting knocked out.”

“I want the evidence to stand up in court,” Bill said. “Look, you want to bust DeMarco at the same time, right? Grab the dealer and the equipment and figure out once and for all what the kid’s doing. Well, if we arrest Skins, and it doesn’t hold up, then neither will a case against DeMarco if we find evidence of him cheating. His attorney will be able to say we seized his client under false pretenses.”

“Hey,” the tech who’d originally replayed the tape for Valentine called out. “They’re back playing poker.”

Valentine and Bill went over to the tech’s monitor and stared at the screen.

Within ten minutes of play resuming, Skins chopped a card from his hand, stuck it beneath the table, and on the next hand, mucked the card in, and won the pot. DeMarco had folded and sat at the other end of the table, wearing a disgusted look on his face.
He knows something’s wrong,
Valentine thought.

The tech replayed Skins doing the switch on a monitor. Bill cursed.

“Let me guess,” Valentine said. “The video isn’t good enough.”

“You don’t see the switch actually taking place,” Bill said. “It won’t fly in court.”

Valentine felt like kicking something. Nothing made him angrier than a cheater ripping off innocent people. He supposed it had something to do with the crime itself. The cheater wasn’t just stealing money. He was betraying a trust as well.

The tech spoke up. “Maybe I can help.”

“How?” Bill asked.

“There’s another surveillance camera on the table. The angle’s from the side.”

“Let’s see it,” Bill said.

The tech played the tape from the second surveillance camera. On this tape, the palmed card in Skins’s hand was visible while it rested on the table. Bill slapped the tech on the back.

“Let me know if you ever want to come work for the GCB,” Bill said.

“Thanks, Mr. Higgins.”

“Is that enough to nail him?” Valentine asked.

“Yes,” Bill said. “Now, how do I handle this, so we can expose DeMarco?”

Valentine pointed at the dealer on the monitor. “The dealer needs to be grabbed, plus whatever he brought to the table with him. Either he’s wearing transmitting equipment, or it’s hidden somewhere nearby.”

“How’s he sending the signals?”

“It happens when he deals the cards,” Valentine said.

“How’s DeMarco reading the signals?”

“Either he’s wearing an inner-canal earpiece, or a thumper strapped to his leg, or they’re coming through a cell phone on vibrate mode in his pocket.”

“You figured this all out just now?”

Valentine nodded, annoyed he hadn’t seen it sooner. The only way to effectively transmit information to a blind person was through sound. That was the secret to DeMarco’s scam. Now, Valentine just had to find out how the cards were being read, and the case could be put to bed.

Bill put his hand appreciatively on Valentine’s shoulder. “Good going,” his friend said.

Picking up the phone on the tech’s desk, Bill called downstairs to Celebrity’s head of security and informed him that they were coming downstairs to “freeze” the table where Skins and DeMarco were playing. The GCB’s greatest power was its ability to enter any casino, stop a game, and cart away the equipment for examination in their labs. Bill hung up the phone and looked at his watch. “Head of security needs five minutes to get his troops together.”

“You need to tell him to be prepared to grab Scalzo and his bodyguard as well,” Valentine said. “They might get violent when we expose what’s going on.”

“Good idea.” Bill reached for the phone when it began to ring. The tech answered it, then turned as white as a sheet. He meekly handed the receiver to Bill.

“It’s for you, Mr. Higgins. It’s the governor.”

Bill brought the receiver to his mouth. He identified himself, then listened to what the governor had to say. After a few moments, the puzzled look on Bill’s face turned to anger. He said good-bye and dropped the receiver loudly into its cradle on the desk.

“What’s wrong?” Valentine asked.

“The governor has ordered me not to disrupt the tournament.”

“What?”

“He doesn’t want the bust being filmed and shown on national television.”

“How the hell did he know?”

“Someone on the floor called him. He told me to arrest Skins after play ended for the day.”

Valentine stared at the live feed from the tournament on the tech’s monitor. The action at the feature table was heavy, with Skins involved in another monster pot. He felt something inside of him snap and headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” Bill called out.

“To put a stop to this,” Valentine said.

33

V
alentine took the stairs two at a time down to Celebrity’s main floor. He was mad as hell, and his feet had a real bounce in them. Entering the poker room, he headed straight for the feature table.

He was going to take Skins out of the picture. Letting Skins continue to scam the tournament reminded him of drug stings he’d heard about that let dealers continue to sell narcotics while the cops built up evidence. The purpose was to get the guy at the top, but in Valentine’s view, that was wrong. Cops were supposed to protect the innocent, which meant stopping the crime the moment you saw it happening.

The feature table was aglow in the TV cameras’ bright lights. Eight players were at the table. Skins, DeMarco, and six other guys who were probably decent players but didn’t have a chance with two cheaters working them over.

Valentine came up behind Skins. There were two ways to deal with a cheater. You could arrest him, or scare him. Scaring a cheater had its benefits. The cheater never came back, and he’d tell his friends about the experience. The casino would get a reputation, which wasn’t a bad thing.

A security guard materialized in front of him. Blond, late twenties, and built like a small gorilla. “Please keep away from the table while play is going on,” the guard said.

“Isn’t this the no limit, sixty-and-over tournament?”

A smile appeared on the guard’s face. “No, sir. You must be lost.”

Valentine crossed the room to the cash bar. Taking out his wallet, he tossed a handful of cash in front of the bartender then picked up a tray sitting on the bar and balanced it on his upturned palm. “Six beers,” he said.

“Where are you taking my tray?” the bartender asked.

“I’m playing a joke on my friends. I’ll bring it back. Scout’s honor.”

The bartender pulled six beers from a cooler and put them on the tray. Valentine raised the tray to his face and approached the feature table with no one paying attention to him. A player at the table raised his arm and caught Valentine’s eye.

“Over here,” the player said.

Valentine served the guy a beer. The guy pulled a monster wad out of his pocket and dropped a twenty on the tray. “Keep the change.”

Valentine stuffed the money into his pocket, then circled the table so he was behind the dealer. He spied a silver cigarette lighter to the dealer’s right. The lighter had Celebrity’s logo stamped on its side. Several dealers in the tournament had the same lighter, and he’d assumed they were a promotional gimmick. Now, he wasn’t so sure.

He kept moving and came around to where Skins was sitting. He served Skins a beer, and Skins shot him a puzzled look.

“Compliments of the lady at the bar,” Valentine said.

“Thanks,” Skins said.

He sensed motion in the crowd and looked up. The guard he’d spoken with was standing nearby with four other guards. A posse. If he did something stupid, they’d pummel him. At the same time, he couldn’t let this nonsense with Skins continue.

Then he had an idea.

He placed his thumb below Skin’s shoulder and drew an imaginary line down the cheater’s back. It was called the brush off, and used by casinos to tell undesirables to hit the road. Skins sat up in his chair like he’d been shocked with a live wire.

“You’ve been made,” Valentine said under his breath.

“Excuse me?” Skins said.

Skins was an old-timer, with tobacco-stained teeth and a crooked nose, and he was not willing to give up a big score so easily.

“They have it on tape,” Valentine said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The surveillance camera caught you mucking. You need to practice some more. The card palmed in your hand leaked.”

Skins swallowed hard. Play had resumed, and Valentine walked away from the table and into the waiting arms of the casino’s security guards.

The guards took the tray away from Valentine and hustled him into the lobby. They were big and mean and didn’t mind shoving him around. He tried to tell them he was doing a job for the Gaming Control Board, but they wouldn’t listen. One of the guards started to read him the riot act when Valentine heard a familiar voice.

“Tony? What’s going on?”

It was Gloria Curtis coming out of the hotel restaurant. She was trailed by Zack, his camera slung over his shoulder. Valentine caught her eye and silently mouthed the word
Help!
She instantly understood and stepped up to the guards.

“Excuse me, but what’s going on here?” she demanded.

“Ma’am, please stand back,” a guard said.

“I will do no such thing,” she replied matter-of-factly. “I’m Gloria Curtis with WSPN news, and this gentleman is Tony Valentine, president of Grift Sense, a consulting firm hired by the Nevada Gaming Control Board to investigate a cheating scandal at the World Poker Showdown. Who are you?”

“I work for casino security,” the guard said.

“Do you have a name?” she asked.

The guard didn’t answer. Gloria snapped her fingers, and Zack handed her a mike, then started to film. She shoved the mike in the guard’s face. “I’m sure our viewing audience would be interested in hearing why Celebrity, which is hosting the tournament, would choose to pull an investigator off the floor. Care to respond?”

The guard released his grip on Valentine’s sleeve.

Then he whipped a cell phone from his pocket and made a call. He explained the situation to whoever was in charge. Satisfied, he folded his phone.

“Our mistake,” the guard said. “Sorry to bother you, Mr. Valentine.”

Without another word, the guard and his posse marched back inside the poker room.

“What in God’s name was that all about?” Gloria asked.

The lobby was crowded with people, and Valentine pulled Gloria over to a large birdcage filled with exotic parrots, the birds flapping their wings and eyeing them suspiciously. “Bill Higgins and I caught a player named Skins Turner on videotape switching cards,” he explained. “Bill was going to arrest him but got ordered by the governor to wait until play had stopped for the day.”

“Let me guess,” she said. “The governor’s afraid of the bad publicity.”

“That’s all he seems to be afraid of.”

“What do you mean?”

“Skins was cheating, just like DeMarco’s cheating. But the governor is more interested in protecting the town’s interests than he is in protecting the integrity of his games.”

“Are you in trouble?”

There was always follow-up when a customer got escorted out of a casino, and it was usually negative.

“Probably,” he said.

“That’s terrible, Tony. Has that ever happened to you on a job before?”

Valentine shook his head. He’d been in the consulting racket for two years and never been treated like this before. It was a real low point. Gloria took his hand and gave it a squeeze. She was the one good thing that had come out of this job, and he supposed he could live with whatever happened.

Zack appeared. He’d slipped into the poker room and announced that Skins had lost over five million in chips to DeMarco on a bluff. On the very next hand, Skins had gone “all in,” shoved his remaining chips into the pot, and lost. He was now out of the tournament.

“Thanks for the update,” Gloria said.

They watched Zack walk away. Gloria squeezed his hand again. “See?” she asked.

“See what?” Valentine said.

“Every once in a while, the good guys
do
win.”

Valentine wasn’t so sure. Skins’s loss had put DeMarco back in the leader’s spot. DeMarco was going to win the tournament and the damage would be done. He felt his cell phone vibrate and pulled it from his pocket. It was Bill.

“How much trouble am I in?” Valentine asked his friend.

It was rare for Bill to be at a loss for words. His friend coughed into the phone.

“I just got off the phone with the governor,” Bill said.

“He heard about what you just pulled with Skins Turner.”

“Was he angry?”

“Just a little. You’ve been barred from the tournament.”