Poker News

Poker Cop: A Poker Murder Mystery

Crash! A tray of drinks is dropped. While everyone (except me) looks away, Wheels trades cards with The Dealer.

“All-in,” says Wheels.I move to go all-in, pushing my blue stacks forward before saying, “Wait, I’ve got one more chip!”

I lift up my plaster cast, revealing the $25 ‘Limp Inn’ chip and splash it into the pot.

Wheels does not turn up his cards. Instead he nods to a passing waitress who screams, Ow! Who grabbed my ass!

While everyone (including me) looks away, a trapdoor opens under my chair. The Dealer calls to the Brush, “Open seat!”

A nauseating stench wakes me up. I’ve been dumped in a windowless basement. Like the paraplegic poker player Wheels, I’m tied to a chair. He rolls his wheelchair up to me and asks, “Where,” holding up the $25 chip, “did you get this Quarter?”

To help me remember he grabs my plaster-casted broken arm.

Twist.

“Is that stink your bad breath?

Twist.

“Or did you not make it to the toilet in time?

Twist.

“Maybe. Do you like sitting in your own. . . .”

TWIST.

“Don Giuseppe. I got the Quarter from the Don.”

“Mad Joey is dead. Murdered! Where did you get the Quarter from?”

“From his widow Donna Francesca.”

“Spiderwoman? I don’t think. . . .”

I never found out what Wheels “didn’t think.” Jake kicks open the alleyway door. Lifts Wheels’s chair up over his head, and throws it, and its occupant, against the wall. Jake unties me, asking, “What’s that disgusting odor?”

Jake puts Wheels back into his chair. I give his arm a Twist and Wheels becomes very talkative.

I ask, “Why would Don Giuseppe ever play poker in a dive like The Limp Inn?”

Wheels laughs, “Mad Joey? He’d never play poker in this juice joint. You’re not going to believe this, but the Don came here to clean his poke.”

Wheels is wrong. I do believe him. Laundering a dirty bankroll in apoker room makes perfect sense.

“And the Quarter?”

“His laundry ticket. The Don hands me his poke. I hand him an equal amount of chips. When his poke is washed clean he gives me back the chip and I give him back his clean laundry.”

“When do you give the Quarter?”

“A week before he died, the Don gave me his poke to clean. Says it’s his buy-in for some big-time poker game. He was scheduled to pick up his clean laundry - it’s in a metal briefcase up in the closet, the night he was murdered. I thought, since you had his Quarter, that maybe you had killed him and. . .”

” . . . if you killed me you could keep the poke?”

Wheels shrugs.

I ask, “Did The Don say anything else about this “big-time poker game? Anything about The House of Cards?”

Wheels shakes his head, “No. Never heard of it.” “What’s this worth?” I ask, holding up the $25 chip.

“Twenty-five.”

“Twenty-five what?”

“Twenty-five times ten thousand.”

I do the math: $250,000.

I ask, “Where’s the poke now?”

Wheels should have worn sunglasses. His eyes go involuntarily to the far wall. “I don’t keep it here.”

I go to the far wall, where the stench is overpowering, and, in a dark corner, find a door. I open it. A huge dog, its jaws opened wide, leaps for my throat.

Filed under: Poker News