The crowd was slow to get out of their way, and Longo flashed his silver detective’s badge to hurry them along. Valentine stared at the dealer, and saw a look of panic distorting his face.
Longo came up to the tournament director, and the two men had a talk. Part of the director’s job was to act as an MC, and announce when players had won hands. To do this, he used a hand-held microphone, which he now raised to his face. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to have a five-minute recess. Dealers, please stop your games and reshuffle. Thank you.”
Longo and the three uniforms had broken away from the tournament director, and were coming around the table. The dealer had pushed his chair back and placed both his hands palms down on the felt, a sure sign that he’d been arrested before. Longo walked past the dealer and directly toward Valentine while barking an order to the uniforms. Reaching into his jacket, Longo removed a pair of handcuffs from the clip on his belt.
“Tony, you’re under arrest,” Longo said.
“For what?” Valentine said incredulously.
“Two counts of second-degree murder.”
“You’re making a mistake,” Valentine said.
“Like hell I am. Lift your arms into the air.”
The crowd was giving the police plenty of room now, and Valentine felt their hostile stares. He’d arrested hundreds of people in his life, and had always wondered what it felt like. Now, he was going to find out.
He lifted his arms into the air, and a uniform frisked him. Then his wrists were handcuffed behind his back. He hadn’t done anything wrong, but that didn’t matter; he feltlike he’d done something wrong, and his face was burning.
As Longo led him out of the poker room and into the lobby, Gloria and Rufus stood off to the side, watching with horrified faces. Valentine wanted to tell them that he was innocent, but instead stared down at the ugly carpet as he walked past.
23
Skip DeMarco sat frozen in his chair. There were cops in the room—he could feel the tension in the air—but he couldn’t hear what was being said. Had they figured out the scam, and were they about to arrest him? He tried to act nonchalant, and shuffled a stack of chips with one hand. What was his uncle’s expression? Never run if you’re not being chased. The chips fell out of his hand and spilled across the table. He felt himself shudder uncontrollably.
“Here you go,” the dealer said, pushing the chips back.
“What’s going on?”
“The cops just arrested some guy in the crowd,” the dealer said.
The dealer’s voice was strained, like he was afraid of something. Although his uncle had not explained how the scam worked, DeMarco knew someone in the room was reading his opponents’ cards and signaling them to him. He’d ruled out the dealer, simply because the dealer had a job to do. But now he sensed the dealer was involved. DeMarco felt a hand on his shoulder, and nearly jumped out of his chair.
“Sorry to startle you,” the tournament director said. “We’re taking a break. You’re free to get up.”
DeMarco rose from the table. He waited for Guido and his uncle to appear. When they didn’t, he grew nervous. Where had they gone? And why hadn’t they told him they were leaving? The guy sitting next to him announced he was going to the bathroom. His name was Bruce Ballas, and when he wasn’t playing cards, he was strumming a guitar in a band. DeMarco asked if he could walk with him.
“Sure,” Ballas said.
They walked together to the lavatory. The joke of the tournament was that the men’s lavatory had a dozen stalls, the women’s only three. Ballas led DeMarco to an empty stall at the end of the row, and he locked himself in.
Sitting, he buried his face in his hands. When his uncle had come to him with a way to scam the World Poker Showdown, he hadn’t hesitated to say yes. The scam would let him cheat the people who’d cheated him, and claim what was rightfully his. But he’d never considered that he might get caught. How stupid was that?
His chest was heaving up and down. He took several deep breaths, and told himself to calm down.
Ballas was waiting when DeMarco came out a minute later. “There’s a woman wants to talk to you,” Ballas said. “Said she was a big fan, wanted to say hi.”
“Nice looking?” DeMarco asked.
“A major league speed bump,” Ballas said.
DeMarco had promised his uncle not to talk to strangers. Only he’d heard the other players talking about the women they’d seen hanging around the tournament. Women beautiful beyond compare. He’d gone to bed thinking about them every night.
“Lead the way,” he said.
Ballas led him to a table in the corner of the room. DeMarco heard the woman rise from a chair, felt her hand clasp his. Her perfume was strong and lilac scented. He envisioned a long-legged, dark-haired beauty, and waited to hear what she had to say.
“Hello, Skipper,” she said. “Do you remember me?”
He felt something catch in his throat. Her voice was vaguely familiar, but he could not place from where. “I don’t know if I remember you or not,” he said.
“You were little. It was a long time ago.”
“How long?”
“Twenty years. You were a child.”
“You worked for my uncle as a nanny, right?”
“No, I was before your uncle,” she said.
The tournament director’s voice came over the public address system. Play would resume in one minute, and players needed to return to their seats. Ballas touched DeMarco’s sleeve, said he was going back to the game.
“I’ll get back on my own,” DeMarco said.
“You sure?” Ballas asked.
DeMarco said yes. Ballas walked away, and DeMarco asked, “What do you mean, before my uncle?”
“You had a life before you went to live with George Scalzo,” she said. “I was a part of it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I used to make you raisin cookies and sing you songs. On your birthday, I bought you a Roy Rogers costume, and you went to your party as a cowboy.”
DeMarco heard a series of rapid clicks in his earpiece. Play had resumed, the dealer sailing the cards around the table. The clicks were in Morse code, the dots and dashes telling him what cards his opponents held. He listened intently. His opponents had ace–king, a pair of deuces, 2–9, a pair of fours, 7–8 of clubs, and a k–9, also known as a Canine. He didn’t like missing the hand, but wanted to hear the woman out.
“You didn’t work for my uncle?” he asked.
“No.”
“Then who are you?”
The woman grabbed his wrist and tried to stuff something into his hand. It was stiff, and felt like a photograph. When he wouldn’t take it, she shoved it into the breast pocket of his shirt.
“What did you just give me?” he asked.
“A gift. I saw you on the television, and flew here from Philadelphia to see you.”
“Please let go of my wrist,” he said.
She released him and he stepped back. He wanted to tell this woman to stuff her head in a toilet. The only person in his life before Uncle George was his mother, and she was lying dead in a cemetery in New Jersey. Uncle George had taken him to her grave.
“I tried to contact you many times,” she said, “but your uncle wouldn’t let me near you. I even once tried to visit you at school. Do you remember that?”
“No,” he said.
“You were in the third grade. I came to the school, and the teacher pulled you from the class.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, lady. I need to go.”
“Your uncle sent his bodyguard to my house in Philadelphia,” she said. “He threatened me. Said he’d hurt my family if I tried to contact you. So I stayed away.”
“Good,” he said.
“You don’t care?” she said.
“Not in the least.”
She stifled a tiny sob. He’d wounded her, and heard her hurry away. So this is what it feels like to be a celebrity,he thought.
DeMarco let the noise of the poker room guide him back to the table. Before he reached his chair, his uncle was by his side, holding his arm and breathing on his neck. “Skipper, where the hell you been?” his uncle asked.