Poker News

Poker Cop: A Poker Player Murder Mystery

The Ugly Man is dying. He holds up the As, “Now they have to let me play at the House Of Cards! It’s in the Rules. You show the Spade, you play. The game’s tonight. All I have to do now is stand on the corner. . . .” He starts to drift off into unconsciousness.

I shake him awake, “What corner?”

“Winslow, Arizona and such a fine sight to see . . .” His eyes roll up. I sit there helpless. Suddenly he wakes, shakes The Spade in my face, yells, “Gyp told me his partner at the table had an invitation to play at the House Of Cards. That was you, you lying son of. . . ” and dies.

“Gyp told you I had an invitation to play at the House Of Cards?” There’s no reply and no use in waiting for one. I take the As, and the check, out of his hand.

Jake asks, “What now?” “Now?” I answer. “We need to stand on a street corner in Winslow, Arizona and wait for a girl in a flatbed Ford to take us to the House Of Cards.” I dry swallow a couple of painkillers and tell Jake, “I need a drink.”

I’ve killed three Stoli shots and downed more painkillers. I ask Jake a question he can’t answer, “What did the Ugly Man mean ‘Gyp told me his partner had an invitation to play at the House of Cards?’ I was Gyp’s partner and Gyp knew I didn’t have The Spade.”

“Is it possible that you weren’t Gyp’s only partner?”

“No,” I tell him, “that’s impossible.” But all poker players know when you eliminate the impossible, whatever you have left, no matter how improbable, has to be the truth.

I kill another shot, washing down the last of the painkillers, thinking this over. I tell Jake, “If Gyp had another a partner at that game, who was it? Not Mo, Larry, or Curly - they couldn’t wash their hands let alone play them. Which leaves Shemp who underbet every hand. Even holding wired aces, with rags on the board, he underbet his hand.”

“How did that hand end?”

“Shemp picked my pockets with Rockets. It was a bad beat . . . unless Gyp was running a scam on me with. . . .

Suddenly I stop breathing, “What’s. . . .”

“. . . wrong,” says Gyp, “iz dat use been drink’ Valium & Vodka an’ now, yore die’n.’

I ignore my death notice and ask, “Gyp were you running a scam on me with Shemp?”

He replies, “Well Jackie, ya see. . . .”

CPR! Start CPR!

“. . . kind’s always scammin ‘ someone. Ain’t that. . . .”

“Clear!”

“. . . besides, it was kinda funny to see ya lose.” “You lost too, you and the others at the game who were murdered.”

“Not awl a’ us at da game wuz kilt.”

“You mean me?’

“No. As a matta a fact I don’t. . . .”

“. . . think he’s going to make it. You. . . .”

“. . . woodent eider if you’d think it awl out. Da reel problum iz ya kan’t count the numba a. . . .”

“dead. One more failed shock and we’re declaring him dead. . . .”

“. . . jus’ like me an’ da three othas. Nows iz dat. . . .”

“Clear!”

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