Out In the 1950s Night- A Grifter’s Farewell-Take Two

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Back in the 1950s the name Dan Shea could be heard, sometimes in whispers, in almost any poker club, back road Indian reservation casino or back alley 14^th floor hotel room in the less choice part of the downtown of any city of any size in California. You would not hear his name in high- roller Vegas or Reno, no, that was not his turf, not his turf at all once he had been buried in Vegas and got the hell out of town one jump ahead of the hard-nosed boys. That is a brutal story not cluttering up Brother Shea’s resume, except that he was always heard to say “water seeks its own level” when asked why he refused to even go there to take in a show or something. So, no. if you were looking for him any night, any night after sundown, any night he could smell some guy who thought he was lucky he would be in some poker club, casino, or back room hotel anyway from Dago to Eureka (he avoided Oregon and latitudes north as being below the standard for a stand-up grifter and so the borders of California were home).

The reason that one Daniel Francis Shea was known far and wide in certain gambling circles, sometimes mentioned in whispers in those circles was simple, five- card stud, the max daddy, walking daddy, any kind of daddy of the poker world. And within that narrowly defined world, the second tier world, he was the king hell grifter, or was until that other shoe dropped, that other shoe that will always drop when you play life close to the bone, when you try to cut just one too many corners. And take it from me every grifter, even every king hell grifter like Dan will eventually hear that shoe fall.

And like every other grifter that has ever been born, or who will ever be born, Dan did the best he could. And the best he could in the stud poker world, in the gambling world, and for that matter in the back streets and low-life spots of any town of any size was to win just enough more than he lost to keep him away from pawn shops, bail bondsmen, loan sharks and other assorted denizen of the back alleys. In order to do that he needed a steady supply of marks to step up to the table and lay their money down, preferably in large bills but any denomination would do when Dan needed to make his rent.

In order to provide that steady flow of marks any grifter worth his salt needed a good roper to bring the prospects in. A roper for the civilian being a sharp-eyed guy who could smell loose money just by hanging around bars, hotels, race -tracks and other places where sports, or guys who thought they were sports, laid some money down, and not two dollars to show money either. And the best ropers had the marks (you can figure that one out, right) practically begging the roper to let him (and very seldom a her) in on easy street money. A book could, and should be written about the real pros at this well-established career. Timmy (The Guy) Riley, Dan’s roper was a prime example of that honored profession.

Now there is no need to go into Dan’s life, except to say he, like a million other guys who saw service in World War II was restless, was not going back to Omaha, Nebraska after the service and search for the great American white picket fence dream. That idea was blasted in some Pacific island for Dan. He tried a couple of years of school on the GI Bill but he just didn’t fit in, couldn’t cope with dizzy nineteen years old wet behind the ears and all starry-eyed (although he did take a run at more than one co-ed, nineteen didn’t matter in that particular category). What he did take from his college stint was some important knowledge about probabilities from a math course that he took. That is why he always, or almost always was right, or right enough times, always excluding Vegas which was a matter of hubris as anything, in his choices at cards-like the song said-“he knew how to hold them, and he knew how to fold them.”

As for Dan’s actual grifter life though there is no need to recite chapter and verse about his profession. Keep searching for marks, move quickly, get up at noon, study various plays, search for money for rent if luck was a little short, have a few drinks, maybe a joint or two to mellow out when the routine got too monotonous. Something more of a kick if it was around but it was dangerous to play middle –stakes cards loaded. So mainly keep moving, keep the action going, keep playing those odds.

One story, which I have been hard-pressed to confirm from anybody but guys who were ready to pump Dan’s legend, or who heard it from a guy, a grifter probably, trying to build up the profession to some kids or something, will give you a flavor of what Dan’s action was like when he “walked with the king.” Dan had been having, like happens to every guy who makes the grift a career, a tough streak, was short of dough, had a few outstanding loans out (not as many as Vegas though), and needed some ready cash because Big Bill Brady, a guy with dough, was coming west for a convention. Dan had always had Big Bill’s number so he needed dough bad. He had Timmy working overtime lining up marks and one night, one night a couple of weeks before Big Bill was to hit town, Timmy brought in a beauty. A guy, a salesman, real good at his profession, who not only had some cash, ready cash, but had a big-sized company check he was supposed to be taking back to the main office from a customer.

Well, you can figure out what happened, Sure the guy won a few big hands, at first. Then his luck changed, changed courtesy of Timmy giving Dan the high sign. The guy lost everything including that big check that he signed over to pay off Dan. So you see how the grift works when it is working right, when it has few moving parts to foul things up. Here is the best part, and a part that was confirmed, because Dan took Big Bill for about eighteen thou when he showed up. And the loser salesman? Someone said he wound up doing a nickel in Joliet courtesy of his company and the State of Illinois. Oh, well, go big or don’t go at all. That’s from Dan, by the way.

Oh yah, let me tell you this too. Like I said Dan had a way with women, although over all they were too much of a distraction, all except, Lizabeth. Lizabeth, a torch-singer over at the Alhambra Club in Santa Monica could get under his skin a little, and she was flat out in love with him come hell or high water. When things were tough, when Dan went dry for a while old Lizabeth made sure his rent was paid and his loans covered, some of them anyway. And maybe that was why she got under his skin. That and when he was in a foul mood she could wipe it away with some song, a throaty song like Cry Me A River, her signature song. But like I said for the rest of Dan’s life, the grifter’s life, it was, is, nothing but keeping on the move, keep looking for that next chance, keep looking for the oro of El Dorado.

And that need to hustle eventually did one Daniel Shea in.

He had been on a hot streak out in Indio and the high desert, had picked up about thirty thousand like finding money on the ground. That was when the back alley guys, the newsies, the jack-roller, the three- card Monte guys began to whisper his name. Timmy was bringing them in, bringing the marks in who wanted to test Dan’s luck. But that line soon dried up once the mystique that Dan was on a serious roll, that he couldn’t be beaten took hold and bad sign in the profession. So Timmy needed to go far afield to get some decent marks, had to go to the uptown hotels and look for, say, a high-end company guy with a taste for the wild side, or some bank executive at a conference who figures he knows money and let it rain on him, guys like that.

Well one night Timmy brought in a Mayfair swell, a guy from New York, a big guy in advertising around that town, James Short. Yes, that James Short who did the advertising campaign that put United Airlines on the map back then. That night Dan was ahead maybe ten thousand, maybe twelve, a big pot of dough for one night’s work and he wanted to quit while he was ahead but Short kept badgering him to keep playing feeling his luck was going to change. And it did. Without detailing every hand, every pot, by six the next morning Short was ahead eighty - thousand dollars, most of it in markers, in I.O.U. collectable when the banks opened. Dan had nowhere near that sum and so he did what every respectable grifter did, he split, split to parts unknown (really unknown since nobody even today knows where he might have hidden out)to figure things.

That move was the end of one Dan Shea though; they found him in a ravine down along the Los Angeles River one morning with two slugs in his heart. See, even Mayfair swells have their standards and one James Short, a large deal in New York, was not about to let some California low-life laugh at him. So he did what more than one New York Mayfair swell has done when necessary. He hired a sweet New York hit man to take care of business.

Oh yah, as for Timmy Riley he went to work as a personal aide to James Short. See that hotel night Timmy changed sides, changed sides and kept giving Short the high- sign during the betting. So Dan Shea met the fate of many out in the back alleys and dark streets of America, unmourned and unloved. Unmourned except for Lizabeth who cried herself a river when she heard that Dan Shea had cashed his check.