Poker Articles

Queen For A Day: A Poker Cop Mystery
By Robert Arabella

Part 2
Queen For A Day - 1950's TV Game Show

Two high-stakes hold'em players have bet $500,000 that one can, in a week, teach a total novice, a "Poker Virgin," to beat the other in a winner-take-all poker game. Not trusting each other to pick the Poker Virgin, they have insisted that a neutral third party, Talbot, "The Poker Cop," pick for them.

At the Inquest into the Poker Virgin Murders I swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I testified that as Chief of Poker Room Security at the Majestic Hotel & Casino, "The Poker Cop," I had witnessed the events leading up to the deaths under investigation and could put them into context for the jurors. I tried. But in a poker room a $500,000 bet that a Poker Virgin could be taught, in a week, to beat a Rock made perfect sense. Hearing myself tell the story in a Clark County Courtroom it sounded perfectly crazy. None of the jurors were poker players and when I told them the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, they couldn't understand a word it. Only a poker player would understand. That's why I'm telling this story to you.

Jimmy "The Garbage Man" Joyce, a no-fold'em-hold'em player who never met two unconnected off-suited cards he wouldn't play, and George "Rocky" Shaw, a fold'em-fold'em-hold'em player who only played "big cards/right odds" hands, had just agreed on a $500,000 bet that Joyce could teach a Poker Virgin to beat Shaw. That's where I, The Poker Cop, come into this story.

Joyce and Shaw turn to me.

"Talbot, we need a Poker Virgin."

"Someone who I can teach."

". . . and I'm going to beat."

"Listen," I began. "I'm not going to . . ."

A crowd had gathered. Someone said, "I want a piece of this action."

"1-100 on Rocky."

"I'll take those odds!"

"200-1 on the Virgin"

"I'll give those odds!"

"I'll take that bet."

"Let me in on this."

The crowd grew. Money started changing hands.

"Come on, Talbot. We need a Virgin."

"This is Vegas," I told them, "There are no Virgins."

Shaw, on my left, grabbed my arm and turned me towards the Casino floor. Joyce, on my right, pointed straight ahead. Through the parted Poker Room curtains, I could see down a row of slot machines.

"Pick someone!" yelled Shaw.

Joyce said, "Right out there. Pick someone, Talbot! Now!"

"Pick someone" yelled the crowd. "We need a Virgin!"

I give in, "OK, OK. I pick . . ." I look down the row of slots. There were three women sitting at the 5 cent; slots. "There, that woman,' I pointed and all eyes followed. "The one closest to the rail. The dime-a-dozen dishwater blond in blue jeans and a t-shirt. She's your Poker Virgin."

Jimmy Joyce leaned over the rail separating the Poker Room from the Casino to find out if the young woman I've picked is, in fact a Poker Virgin. Her answer to the question, "Do you know how to play poker?" a simple, "O no! There's no card gamblin' en Nawlens!" brought smiles out all around.

Her name was Arlen. "It rhyme's," she explained in her deep southern drawl, "with darlin.' "

She was a refugee from rural Mississippi, now living in New Orleans. She had, after saving up all year, come here for a week of "Viva Las Vegas."

Joyce spent the next five minutes trying to explain the bet to her. When he was finished she an-swered, "Ah don' quite undahstan . . . " and it was George Shaw's turn to explain, which, five min-utes later, earned him the question, "Yawl try'n to git' me bettin' on poka?" and finally I tried for five minutes only to hear her say, "Sur, Ah'm not'a poka playah."

I look at the two "poka playahs" and shrug. "This is not going to happen," I tell them. That's when Red Penny showed up.

Let me tell you a little about "Red Penny." Penelope Fallon looks like a high-priced Vegas call girl, young and beautiful, wild-red hair, pale-green eyes, and milk-white skin, all wrapped in skin tight clothes. Looks can be deceiving She is, in fact, an ex-FBI Special Agent who runs the Majestic Ca-sino's Security. Her jurisdiction, the House Games, occupies over 99.9% of the Casino's floor. My jurisdiction, the Poker Room, occupies the remaining less than .01%. Penelope Fallon does not share well with others. Having to deal with me, a burnt-out ex-LVPD Homicide cop, drives Red Penny, a Type A+ obsessive/compulsive control freak, crazy. In the Casino, people think Red Penny is al-ready crazy. In the Craps Pits, they call her Snake-eyes. At the Blackjack Tables, The Red Queen. In the Roulette Pit, she's The Green-Eyed Monster. In the Pai Gow Pits she's The Dragon Lady. I call her Red Penny. But never to her face.

"Talbot," says Red Penny, walking up the slot aisle, "there's a reason we have a wall separating poker players from our guests. Must I add barbed-wire and guard-towers to keep you people where you belong?"

"Hello, Penelope," I say to her, "We're looking for a Virgin. You can leave now."

She ignores me and asks Arlen, "Miss, are these men bothering you?"

Before Arlen can answer, "Yas mam," giving Red Penny an excuse to put up the Berlin Wall around the poker room, Joyce and Shaw begin explaining the bet to Red Penny.

"Let's see if I've got this straight," says Red Penny after they're done. "You," pointing at Jimmy Joyce, "have bet him," pointing at George Shaw, "that this woman," pointing at Arlen, "can, in a week's time, be taught to play high stakes head's-up winning poker."

"That's right," they tell her.

Red Penny asks, "What's in it for her?"

Joyce and Shaw exchange puzzled looks.

"Well . . . I hadn't thought . . ."

". . . we'd give her something . . ."

"Miss, what do you make it a week?" Red Penny asks Arlen.

"Well, 'tween cashierin' at the Sprawl-Mart an' the tables at the Red Rooster Ah make near $300."

"$10,000," Red Penny tells the players, "$5,000 from each of you. Up front."

"Look," says Joyce, "you're not her agent . . ."

". . . or her manager," adds Shaw."

"Tin thousin' dollers?" says Arlen.

"Where are you staying, Miss?" asks Red Penny.

"At a motel 'bout a mile offn' the Strip. . "

Red Penny ups the ante, "And a week in a Majestic Sky Suite."

"Tin thousin' dollars?" repeats Arlen.

Joyce and Shaw talk this over. "We have to give her something . . ."

". . . she needs to be in the hotel . . . OK! It's a deal," they tell Red Penny. There are smiles all around.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" I ask the three of them. When they stare back as if they can't think of anything they have forgotten, I remind them their Poker Virgin has yet to agree. I say to Arlen, "Ms. Fallon works for the Casino. I work for the Poker Room. These two men, Mr. Joyce and Mr. Shaw, are professional poker players. All of this is on the up-and-up. Mr. Joyce wants to spend a week teaching you to play a game called no-limit Texas hold'em. Once you've learned that game Mr. Shaw wants to play the game against you. For one week of poker lessons and playing the game, they will pay you $10,000."

Arlen Spring shakes her head in wonderment. "Tin thousin' dollars just to play a silly old card game?"

"Yes," I tell her.

"Ah don't have to play naked, do Ah?"

"No," says Red Penny

"Why!" she exclaims, "This . . . this is jus' lak that ol' time game show on the tee-vee. Jus' lak Queen For A Day!"

Red Penny, who's too young to know there was a Jeopardy! before Jeopardy! looks blank. I, who can remember watching 50's housewives crying their eyes out over getting a new "icebox," answer, "Yes! Exactly! You will be just like a contestant on Queen For A Day!"

Arlen smiles and says, "Awlrite! Ah'll do it!"

And that is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth of how exactly how I, Talbot, The Poker Cop, found The Poker Virgin who would, by the end of this story, cause so much death and ruin.

Copyright © 2003 by Robert Arabella