“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.