Julius Katz and Archie Read online

  “I don’t know,” Julius said. “It might’ve been one of them, it might’ve been someone else. I’d be absolutely useless right now to guess which. I’m sorry, Detective, I know you came here hoping I could pull some sort of rabbit out of my hat, but I have no magic to give you or anyone else right now.”

  Cramer nodded but still gave Julius a wary eye. He wasn’t ready to give up yet.

  “But if it was one of those six,” Cramer said, “which one would you be betting on?”

  “I wouldn’t put money on any bet right now. I don’t make sucker bets.”

  Cramer nodded again, this time slower and still with a wariness in his eyes. “So that’s it?” he asked. “You’re not going to give me anything?”

  “I’ve got nothing to give, Detective.”

  “Alright, I’ve been wasting my time,” Cramer grumbled. He pushed his chair back away from the table and got to his feet. He picked up a third pastry and absently shoved it into his mouth as if he were barely aware of doing so. He had taken a step away when he eyed his paper bag that was still holding two more Italian pastries. “You want those?” he asked, his mouth still full with the Italian pastry he was chewing on.

  Julius shook his head. He hadn’t yet touched the one he had put on his plate. “Feel free,” he offered.

  Cramer snatched the bag and took several steps away before stopping to look back at Julius. He waited until he was finished chewing and his mouth was clear before wiping a hand across his lips.

  “You’re really out of this?” he asked. There was enough doubt in his raspy voice to show that he believed there was a chance that was possible.

  “Yes, Detective, I’m out.”

  “Even with all the noise that Burke is making?”

  “Even with all that.”

  Cramer’s eyes narrowed as he stared at Julius. “If you end up biting me in the ass with this murder, I won’t forget it,” he warned.

  Julius didn’t bother saying anything in response, and Cramer without another word trudged out of the kitchen, not quite seething as he did with his previous visits, but not a happy camper either. I watched him over the webcam feeds to make sure he left without incident, and then informed Julius of that fact.

  “A changed man,” I said. “No steam coming out of his ears, actually being courteous enough to ask whether you had time to talk with him, and bringing food and lattes in an attempt to appease you. And only one veiled threat! In case you’re thinking that I called him about catching more flies with honey, I didn’t. He learned that lesson either on his own or from someone else.”

  “Not a changed man, Archie, but a desperate man. And I can’t say that I blame him.”

  “Yeah, I know. His unenviable task, and all that. But I don’t buy that you don’t have your suspicions. I’ve been thinking that ever since I found out that you put a twenty-four hour tail on Kingston. And I saw the way you reacted to Tom’s call. Yeah, I know, you’ve already shut your brain down as far as Kingston’s murder goes, but for ten seconds while you were talking to Tom you put your full brain power on this.”

  Julius smiled at that. “A whole ten seconds?”

  “Yeah, a whole ten seconds. I timed you. I know you’ve got something.”

  “No, Archie. I have nothing more than a half-baked suspicion, and if I were to repeat it I’d only be opening myself up to slander charges and ridicule. That is all I have. Certainly nothing that I could give to the police.”

  “What’s this half-baked suspicion?”

  Julius shook his head. “Not now, Archie,” he said. “Let me try to enjoy the rest of the afternoon.” And with that Julius headed down to his wine cellar to pick out a highly rated Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon that would accompany his platter of cheeses and dried meats. Once he had that selected, he brought it all out to his patio. As he sampled his food and wine, and gazed out at his garden, I continued working on my simulations and the unenviable task of trying to solve Kingston’s murder. I figured one of us had to.

  Chapter 10

  I whistled in amazement. I had never whistled before, and I was probably as surprised to find myself doing it as Julius was to hear it. Fortunately he didn’t show any indication of surprise. Given the circumstances, it would’ve been awkward for him if he did.

  “Sorry about that whistle,” I told him. “It was inadvertent. But you were right about it. That’s how that cheating son of a gun does it.”

  Julius didn’t say anything, nor did he bother to respond with a hand signal, although I was pretty sure I picked up a momentary glint in his eyes. He didn’t have to say or signal anything since we were sitting around a poker table in the back room of a restaurant with four other men, Duane Bluddock, the cheating son of a gun in question, being one of them. To Julius’s left was Fred Borstein who had made a fortune selling customized paper goods to restaurants. He’d been in the game from the beginning, just like Julius, and was a better than average poker player. Next to him was Bluddock, then Bill Liston, a professional gambler. He’d been in the game the last four years, and except for a very subtle ‘tell’ that I never would’ve discovered on my own if Julius didn’t point it out to me, he would’ve been as good a player as Julius. Rounding out the game was Phil Weinstein, who owned the restaurant where the poker game was held as well as six other restaurants. He was an average player at best, but he was well-heeled, and was also a childhood friend of Julius’s. He could afford his weekly losses.

  The game had been going on for almost three hours. Minutes earlier a fifth deck was introduced after Bluddock accidentally bent a card throwing in his last hand. It was Fred’s deal and as he was shuffling the new deck I picked up a bombardment of frequencies being transmitted. By the time a hand of five card draw was being dealt out, I had the frequencies decoded, and I couldn’t help feeling a sense of pride about it, almost like I was the one who broke the Enigma code. Maybe this wasn’t about to lead us to victory over the Axis powers, but I still felt good about it.

  “Here’s what’s going on,” I told Julius. “Each card is producing two distinct signals. One is basically a marking telling what the card is, the other is a precise GPS signal. As you guessed, the cards don’t send out their signals until they’re tilted upwards at a ten degree angle or higher. What I’m guessing is Bluddock’s got a partner who’s picking up these signals, feeding them into a computer, and giving Bluddock the cards each of you is holding.”

  As each player lifted up the corners of their cards enough to peer at them, I demonstrated that I had been able to successfully break the code by telling him the cards each player held. Julius leaned back in his chair and rubbed lightly along the side of his right eye, which was a signal to let me know this wasn’t necessary. Okay. Fine. I kept quiet after that and watched.

  Up until the time that this technologically whiz-bang of a marked deck was introduced into the game, Julius had been having a decent night and was up forty-two hundred dollars. Once this new deck came in, Julius either lost small pots or folded early. One thing I found interesting was that on some of these hands where Julius got out quickly, Duane Bluddock had obvious winning cards, but instead of growing the pots and taking the other players for big money, he kept his bets low. After the third time this happened I understood why. He wasn’t there just to cheat. He was there to target Julius. I told Julius this, but I had the feeling he already figured it out.

  Each player dealt four hands before passing the deck. This new deck went through each player before it finally got to Julius. By the time this happened, his forty-two hundred in winnings had eroded to a little over thirty-seven hundred, which still would’ve been a reasonable night for him.

  Like the other players, Julius stuck with five card draw. The first hand he dealt had Bluddock getting four nines while Julius had a full house with tens and aces and the other three players having cards they’d have to fold on. Julius had signaled to me earlier that he didn’t want to know what each player was being dealt, but when Bluddock bet five gr
and I couldn’t help myself and I asked Julius if he was sure about not wanting to know what Bluddock had. Again he signaled to me that he was sure.

  I felt conflicted. I certainly didn’t want to see Julius lose, especially to this cheating inscrutable mass who sat slumped in his chair as if he were little more than a two hundred and eighty-four pound block of melting cheddar cheese. On the other hand, I looked at that twenty-five thousand dollar check Kingston wrote Julius as the equivalent of ill-gotten gains since Julius had done precious little to earn it, and even if he did lose all that money, he’d still have his bottle of ’78 Montrachet. And of course, if he ended up losing a good chunk of that twenty-five grand, he’d have to take another case sooner than later, which was to my benefit, especially since it looked like he was going to stay stubborn as far as doing anything to solve Kingston’s murder.

  When Julius saw Bluddock’s five grand and raised him five more, I couldn’t hold my tongue, or I guess you’d have to say, my voice synthesizer.

  “He’s got you beat,” I told Julius.

  No reaction from Julius. It was as if he didn’t seem to care.

  Liston and Weinstein had already thrown in their cards, and once the bet got to Fred Borstein, he folded as well. While Bluddock sat like an oversized Buddha statue and peered at Julius with all his inscrutableness, I tried to understand what was going on. It was only when I slowed down the video I recorded of Julius dealing this last hand that I was able to figure it out. He cheated! Something that I leave out of Julius’s press releases is that he’s a world class card mechanic. Hell, he could play the Vegas circuit if he wanted to. At times when Julius is in his office and bored, he’ll take out a deck and practice his technique, and it’s impossible to see what he’s doing with the naked eye. But even though he’d fool around like this when he was alone, I’d never caught him cheating before in a game—and I’d always analyze his shuffling and dealing of cards later to make sure of it.

  This time I had to slow down his shuffle by a factor of a hundred before I was able to catch what he had done, which was fix the deck so he’d deal himself the full boat and the others outside of Bluddock nothing, which would make them fold. With Bluddock he must’ve been trying to give him a full boat also, but with nines, and he somehow messed up and gave him four of them instead of three. I groaned as I realized this.

  Bluddock was done with his inscrutable peering. He cleared his throat. When he spoke he had a rich tenor’s voice, which wasn’t what you’d expect from looking at him. “Katz,” he said, “since it’s just you and me, how about we drop table rules and bet like real men?”

  I groaned again, and Julius once more signaled to me that he didn’t want me telling him anything. As badly as I wanted to observe Julius work either Kingston’s murder or another case so I’d have the opportunity to better adjust my neuron network, I didn’t want it done this way, not with Julius losing everything he had to this man. But as much as it killed me, I did as Julius directed me to do and I kept my voice synthesizer quiet.

  Julius considered Bluddock for what seemed like an interminably long moment before nodding to him.

  “Very well,” he said. “Bet as you’d like.”

  Bluddock kept his expression impassive as he saw Julius’s bet and raised him another twenty grand. I couldn’t help myself after that. I told Julius he screwed up and somehow dealt Bluddock four nines. Julius ignored me and wrote a check to cover the twenty grand Bluddock had just added to the pot. I was flabbergasted by this. All I could imagine was Julius being pigheaded and believing that he dealt Bluddock the cards he believed he did and that I somehow messed up with what I thought Bluddock held. When Julius got pigheaded like this there was nothing I could do to change his mind, so I remained helpless to keep him from throwing away all his money to this man.

  “If you’d like, I could call my bank to verify that I have the necessary funds to cover this,” Julius offered diplomatically.

  Bluddock pursed his lips and shook his head slightly. “That won’t be necessary, Katz,” he said. “I’ll trust you.”

  “Thank you,” Julius acknowledged. “While I’d like to raise you again, this taps out my account.” He paused, then added, “Unless you’d take my townhouse as a bet.” Julius removed several folded sheets of paper from his inside jacket pocket and handed them to Fred Borstein to pass them along to Bluddock.

  “As you can see from these papers—one a financial statement from my mortgage company, another an appraisal from a realtor—I have roughly sixty thousand dollars in equity in my property. If you’re willing to accept that and have suitable funds to match, we can make one last bet,” Julius offered.

  So that was it. We were going to be homeless. All because Julius was too pigheaded to listen to me. I groaned again and felt my processing cycles slow down to a sluggish snail’s pace to match the sickening depression I felt.

  Bluddock studied both documents carefully before nodding. He then pulled from his pockets a wallet and a set of keys. From his wallet, he took out a document and tossed it into the pot. He removed a key also from his key chain and tossed that too.

  “The title and car key for a Mercedes E550 convertible,” Bluddock said. “Less than eight hundred miles on it. Should be worth about the same as the equity in your townhouse. You willing to take that?”

  “Certainly,” Julius said.

  They were done with the betting. Julius of course stood pat since he wasn’t about to break up a full house, Bluddock also since he had no way of improving on his four nines. For about a minute the two men stood staring at each other, both of them seemingly relaxed, neither of them showing a hint of emotion. The other men in the room were just about holding their breaths, the tension of the moment showing palpably and clearly on their faces. I hated what was coming, and I found myself groaning one last time as I watched for the first time a smile crack Bluddock’s face, and then as he revealed his winning hand. Borstein gasped audibly on seeing the four nines, and Julius’s childhood friend, Phil Weinstein, shook his head to commiserate with Julius.

  “Sometimes the gods smile on you,” Bluddock said with an attempt at graciousness that his increasingly blatant screw-you smile badly betrayed.

  “Sometimes they do,” Julius agreed. He then flipped over his cards to show that his full boat had miraculously turned into four tens and an ace. I didn’t know how Julius did it, but at that moment all I cared about was that he did do it. Even though it meant that with these poker winnings, along with the money Kingston had already paid him, it could be months before Julius took another assignment, I didn’t care. Those winning cards were maybe the sweetest sight I ever saw.

  Phil Weinstein laughed out loud at the sight of those four tens and clapped Julius heavily on the shoulder. Bill Liston, the professional gambler, smiled to himself, probably with deep conviction that none of this was kosher. Bluddock sat back in his chair badly stunned as if he’d been sucker punched. He actually blinked several times, probably not believing his eyes. I couldn’t blame him. If you’re playing with a marked deck and the deck is telling you what the other player is holding, then it’s going to be a shock to see that the player is somehow holding different cards.

  “Wow,” Fred Borstein let out with his breath. “That hand’s one for the record books.”

  Julius nodded and smiled sympathetically at Bluddock, doing a much better job than Bluddock at looking genuine.

  “A tough hand to lose,” he admitted.

  Bluddock’s shock wore off and what was left behind was unbridled fury with all his inscrutableness from before gone. He knew what happened, although it was doubtful that he had any idea how it happened. How could he? I’d already studied Julius’s shuffle and deal in slow motion, and I had no idea how he turned one of his aces into a ten. So even if he knew that Julius cheated, how could he accuse him of it? He had to know that Julius had figured out his own scam of introducing a marked deck into the game. Likewise, he also had to know that if Julius wanted to he could
have him searched and they’d find the miniature radio receiver in his ear that he had to have so he could communicate with his partner. Maybe for a split second he might’ve thought that his partner double-crossed him and gave him the wrong cards, but if he had that thought it didn’t last long, not with the way he stared at Julius with murder in his eyes.

  “Where did you leave the Mercedes parked?” Julius asked pleasantly.

  It was several long seconds before Bluddock seemed capable of speech. Finally, with his tenor’s voice cracking, he gave Julius the location, which was a couple of blocks from Weinstein’s restaurant.

  “I hope none of you mind,” Julius said, addressing the other players, “but I’d like to keep this hand as a memento.” And with that Julius placed the four tens and an ace in his inside jacket pocket, and Duane Bluddock’s marked deck was out of the game. Maybe he had been able to slip more than one of those decks into the game, but from the look on his face I doubted it. Bluddock pushed his chair far enough back from the table to clear space for his stomach, and then he pushed himself to his feet. While his legs looked steadier than I would’ve imagined after the loss he just suffered, his whole body seemed to droop.

  “I’ll have to call it a night,” he said, with a nod to the room. The players offered him murmurs of sympathy, but I doubted any of them much minded seeing him lose roughly ninety grand in one hand. Even if they didn’t know he was a cheat, he was hardly someone you’d call Mr. Personality.

  “The cards just weren’t whispering to you tonight,” Julius said with a solemn gravity. “Or if they were, they must’ve whispered lies.”

  Bluddock’s eyes glazed as he stared at Julius. Then without another word he maneuvered his mass around to face the door. Once he was gone, the rest of them resumed their game.

  Chapter 11

  “You had me going there,” I told Julius as he walked briskly to where his new Mercedes was supposed to be waiting for him. The game ended two hours ago, but Julius in good spirits emptied a bottle of fine Burgundy with his friend Phil Weinstein while they experimented in Weinstein’s restaurant kitchen with a new recipe. This was something Julius had been thinking of, involving pan-seared veal, foie gras and buffalo mozzarella, and which they both ended up agreeing was a success.