Mr. Lucky (12 page)

20

V
alentine went downstairs to the reception area, expecting to find Ricky Smith waiting for him. Ricky had promised to give him a ride back to the house he was renting. Instead he found a handwritten note awaiting him on the receptionist’s desk.

Hey Mr. Valentine,

Sorry to leave you high and dry, but I had to go home.

A deputy will give you a lift, if you want.

Thanks for saving my life.

Ricky

Valentine crumpled the note and tossed it into a trash basket. He’d saved Ricky’s life and the kid couldn’t hang around and take him home. That was gratitude for you. Through the front doors he spied rays of sunlight peeking through the clouds. It was the first decent weather he’d seen in days, and he asked the receptionist how far his house was from the police station.

“About two miles as the crow flies,” she replied.

“What if the crow’s walking?”

She gave him directions, and he headed out the door. The late afternoon air was crisp and clean, and he crossed the street and found a footpath beside the main road that led into town. The path was well-worn, and he settled into a comfortable pace. It had become a beautiful day to be outdoors, and with each step, he felt himself start to calm down.

He walked with his hands stuck in his pockets, thinking about Beasley and the scarecrow. He’d killed seven people in his life, including them. Each time, it had punched an invisible hole in him that had been slow to heal. Most cops he knew could walk away from a killing without any regrets. He couldn’t. He would think about Beasley and the scarecrow for a long time, wondering if he could have handled it any differently.

A mile into his walk, a pickup truck pulled up alongside him. He heard it slow down and stopped walking. Then he glanced at the driver. It was a middle-aged woman with her hair tied in a bun. She stared at him anxiously, and he realized he recognized her. She’d served Ricky soft drinks in the cafeteria and known that Ricky liked to drink Orange Crush.

The truck braked to a halt. The road had four lanes, and no other vehicles were in sight. Valentine took his hands from his pockets and waited expectantly. The woman stared at him while clutching the wheel. She looked scared out of her wits.

“Hello,” he said.

She continued to stare, as if frozen in space.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

Her breath fogged the side window. She shook her head.

“Do you want to tell me something?”

She glanced in her mirror to see if anyone was coming, then rolled down her window. “This is a small town,” she said, making it sound like a curse.

“Am I in danger?”

She hesitated. “You should leave. For your own good.”

“Am I in danger?”

“I’ve told you all I can.”

“Look, we’re going the same way. How about you give me a ride?”

She hesitated. She had a kind face, and he remembered the easy repartee she’d shared with Ricky that morning. He stepped into the road, thinking that if he got in the truck, she might open up and tell him what was on her mind. She shook her head, and the truck quickly sped away. Standing still had gotten him chilled, and he started walking again.

One of the curses of the retired was dredging up childhood memories. Valentine had read this in a magazine published by AARP. According to the writer, the elderly spent too much time dwelling on stuff that had happened when they were kids. It was a hard trap to avoid, considering all the free time retired people had on their hands, and the writer had suggested that his readers take up a hobby, like collecting stamps.

The article had annoyed the hell out of him. Since moving to Florida, he’d found himself thinking about his childhood often and had come to the conclusion that dredging up childhood memories was just another of life’s natural stages. You grow old, slow down, and look over your shoulder at where you’ve been. It wasn’t a trap, and nothing was wrong with it.

He often thought about his father. Dominic Valentine was a drunk and had abused his wife. At age eighteen Valentine had thrown him out of the house, and they’d never gotten along after that. Yet what Valentine remembered about him now was his father’s honesty. His father believed it was wrong to steal or take anything that didn’t belong to him. It was a lesson that he’d instilled in his son, one that Valentine was grateful for.

He stopped walking. He could see Slippery Rock up ahead, and slipped into the forest by the side of the road and stood beneath the shadow of a giant oak. Fishing a pack of Life Savers from his pocket, he popped one into his mouth.

For a while, he watched the comings and goings in town. In the daylight it looked smaller than it had at night. He tried to guess how many people lived here. Nine thousand? Probably less. Atlantic City, the town he’d been born and raised in, was also small. His mother had liked to say that gossip was the local currency, with everyone in town knowing everyone else’s business. He guessed Slippery Rock wasn’t any different.

His thoughts drifted to Ricky Smith. He was a local fixture; the woman in the cafeteria had known what kind of soda he drank. And Ricky knew everyone, as well; he’d pegged Roland Pew’s bicycle sitting outside the bank that afternoon.

This is a small town.

What was the woman in the pickup truck trying to tell him? That everyone in town was connected to Ricky in some mysterious way? It sounded far-fetched, yet she had acted genuinely scared.

He rested his head against the tree, its bark cold against his neck. Closing his eyes, he felt like he was falling through a bottomless hole, and put the palms of his hands against the tree for support. All his life, he’d been having epiphanies, strange little moments in time when his brain suddenly saw truth where only questions had been before. He was having an epiphany now, and Ricky’s incredible string of luck suddenly took on a whole new meaning. To an outsider, Ricky winning the lottery and a drawing for a trip to Hawaii and a horse race looked like a miracle. But to the locals, it didn’t look like a miracle at all. Instead of making a fuss over him, they were accepting it. Anywhere else, they would have been throwing palm fronds at his feet and treating him like a saint.

Not here. Not once had Tony seen anyone in town come up to Ricky, whack him on the back, and tell him how amazing his lucky streak was.

But why?

Only one good answer came to mind. The locals knew something about Ricky that he didn’t. They knew what was going on.

This is a small town.

Valentine opened his eyes and realized he had his answer. The key to the puzzle was right here in Slippery Rock, and he walked out of the forest determined to find it.

21

G
erry figured it was time to leave Gulfport. He’d done like his father had asked, and talked to Tex Snyder. The fact that it had turned into a dead end was too bad, but he couldn’t do anything about it.

He checked out of the Holiday Inn a few minutes after six. He hadn’t eaten much that day, and had been eyeing the flashing neon sign on the restaurant directly across the road from the casino.
BEST STEAKS IN THE SOUTH
. He was in the mood for a big bleeding piece of meat, even though his old man would probably holler when he saw the charge come through on the credit card. What the hell.

He ended up ordering a sixteen-ounce T-bone with hash browns and string beans smothered in butter on the side. The meat was tenderized in something that would probably give him stomach cancer in ten years, but he didn’t care. He’d crossed a major bridge in his life today. He’d walked away from temptation. It was worth celebrating.

The meal made him want to sleep, and he ordered a double espresso. By the time he got on the road it was seven-fifteen and his eyelids felt like they were nailed to his forehead. He’d made a hotel reservation in Hattiesburg, and planned to get up first thing in the morning and catch a commuter flight back to Atlanta, then home to Tampa.

He drove to the run-down beachfront marina and hung a left on Highway 49. In his mirror he watched the marina’s lights slowly fade. He’d heard that Donald Trump had expressed an interest in the marina, then backed out. Gerry guessed it was because the Donald didn’t like the way gambling was run in Mississippi. The state had a conscience when it came to gambling, and had put limits on how much locals could wager; five hundred dollars for two hours was the maximum. They’d initiated the rule as a result of a rise in personal bankruptcies, and it had worked great. Gerry had decided he liked that. It kept things sane.

The speed limit was sixty-five. He drove a mile below it through the outskirts of Gulfport. The other good thing was that the state was pouring the proceeds from the casinos into public works and schools. Like the Indian reservations, they were doing something constructive with the money. He liked that, too.

After an hour he passed the town at the bend with the Bible store and noticed a state trooper’s car hiding in the shadow of two small restaurants. A few miles later, the smell of freshly cut pine trees invaded the car. His headlights caught the pine-milling operation up ahead. Acres of forty-foot-long trees lay on the side of the highway, waiting to be turned into two-by-fours. He filled his lungs with the great-smelling air.

He saw headlights come up from behind him. A Jeep, going way over the speed limit. Gerry shifted into the right lane. The Jeep moved over as well and got on his bumper. It had its brights on, and Gerry put his mirror down to cut the glare. He didn’t like how close the Jeep was, and punched his accelerator.

The cars separated, then the Jeep caught up. Where in hell was the state trooper when you needed him? Gerry heard a loud bang. The flash of a rifle being discharged was quickly followed by his car lurching to one side, its left rear tire blown to bits. Gerry hit the brakes and saw the Jeep swerve to avoid slamming into him. He accelerated and heard another loud bang followed by someone in the Jeep cursing.

This time when he hit the brakes, he put his foot straight to the floor. The rental screeched a hundred yards down the highway before it came to a halt. The Jeep couldn’t brake that hard without flipping over. It flew past him on the highway, then slowed down and did a hasty U-turn.

Gerry looked up and down the highway. He was in the middle of Mississippi nowhere. On one side of the road was a barren field. On the other, the pine-milling operation. He drove the car over the median, crossed two opposing lanes of traffic, and looked for a place in the logs that he could drive the rental through. Behind him he heard three men’s coarse laughter. They sounded like good old boys.

He found an opening in the logs and drove through it. It was just wide enough for his car. Then he had an idea. Braking, he threw the rental into reverse, then opened his door and jumped out. He started to run as the rental went backward. He heard it hit the Jeep.

“Shit,” a good old boy screamed.

“He’s getting away,” another shouted.

“Out of the car,” the third yelled.

Gerry ran down an aisle of stacked trees. They were stacked with spaces between them, and he saw his assailants on the other side, running alongside him. Each had a pump shotgun, a big belly, and a ponytail. What had happened to the old days, when guys with long hair stood for peace, love, and understanding? He saw one of them stop, aim, and fire. The blast flew by Gerry’s head.

Up ahead he saw another opening in the logs. He was doomed: Those good old boys would run through and shoot him and that would be it. Gerry couldn’t believe it. He’d finally gotten his act together, and now he was going to die.

His eyes saw a green and white metal sign. It was positioned next to the logs, and its lettering glowed in the moonlight.
DANGER!! DO NOT TOUCH
!

“There’s an opening,” one of them yelled.

“He’s mine,” the second screamed.

“No, he’s mine!”

Gerry felt his feet sprout wings. He reached the glowing sign before any of his pursuers reached the opening. Groping around in the dark for the thing that the sign didn’t want him to touch, his fingers latched onto a metal handle. He grasped it with both hands and looked through the space in the logs at the three bear-size men. They had stopped and were smiling like it was a rabbit they’d cornered and not another human being.

He yanked hard on the handle. A mighty roar followed as the forty-foot-long trees became disengaged from the metal cables holding them together. One of his pursuers screamed.

Gerry stood motionless. The space between the trees did not immediately close, and he watched as two of the men were instantly crushed. The third got a running start and was halfway across the highway when the trees caught up with him. He was knocked down like a bowling pin and carried along, his body banged and smashed.

The trees spread out evenly across the highway. Gerry waited until they’d stopped rolling, then walked over to where the first two men lay. Both had died with looks of surprise on their faces. He wanted to feel happy that they were dead; only, he didn’t. All he’d wanted was to get away. He hadn’t wanted to crush the life out of their bodies. It had just worked out that way.

He crossed the road and stopped where the third man lay in the middle of the road. The man was hanging on by a thread, the whisper of life in his eyes. His shotgun was still in his hand. Gerry kicked it away.

“You…,” the dying man moaned.

“Who sent you?”

“…gonna…”

“Tell me.”

“…die…”

He shut his eyes, and Gerry saw his chest cave in and realized he was passing into the great beyond. The wind, which had been blowing forcefully from the gulf, suddenly died off, and for a long moment time seemed to stand still. Gerry stared into the dead man’s face. Then he walked to the side of the road and surrendered his dinner.

The rain came back with a vengeance during his walk home, and Valentine peeled off his soaking wet clothes as he passed through the front door of his rental house and headed straight for the shower.

When he emerged ten minutes later, his skin was tingling and he felt refreshed. In the refrigerator he found the half-eaten sandwich from yesterday, and sat down at the kitchen table with a can of Diet Coke to wash it down. Since his wife had died, he’d been eating sandwiches for dinner and keeping crazy hours and basically living like a kid in a college frat house. Mabel was constantly scolding him about it, and out of deference to her, he picked up his wet clothes lying in the foyer when he was finished, and threw them in the washing machine in the basement. Then he dug out his cell phone and called his neighbor.

“How’s it going?” he asked when she answered.

“Oh, Tony, I’ve done something really stupid,” she replied.

Valentine sincerely doubted it. Mabel was one of the sharpest people he’d ever known. She rarely blundered, and when she did make a mistake, she was a master at fixing it.

“Let me guess,” he said, walking up the creaky basement stairs. “You wiped out the database in my computer.”

“That will
never
happen again,” she said. “No, this was just stupid. But I’m still ashamed.”

Reaching the first floor, he walked through the foyer to the kitchen and halted. A white envelope lay on the threadbare rug in the foyer. He’d had a visitor while he was downstairs, and he opened the front door and stepped onto the porch. It was still raining buckets. In the distance he faintly saw a kid on a bicycle pedaling furiously up a hill and out of sight.

“It must have been a doozy,” he said, closing the door. He picked up the envelope off the floor and went into the kitchen.

“I was in your study going through today’s mail, and I got distracted and without thinking…oh, this sounds like such a senior moment.”

“Come on,” he said, dropping the envelope on the kitchen table. “What did you do? The suspense is killing me.”

“I ate your hundred-thousand-dollar candy bar.”

“My what?”

“The 3 Musketeers bar that Ron Shepherd in Canada sent,” his neighbor replied. “It came in yesterday’s mail. Shepherd said it was for your collection of crooked gambling equipment, so I figured it must be important, even though I didn’t know how it worked. Well, like a dope, I absentmindedly tore off the wrapper and took a huge bite out of it. When I realized what I’d done, I nearly got sick.”

Valentine put his hand over his mouth. He’d helped Ron with the case over a year ago. A casino in Canada suspected its gift-shop manager of stealing from customers. Ron had sent him a videotape of the manager at work, and Valentine had quickly made the scam. Later, he’d learned the manager was stealing a hundred thousand dollars a year. It had to be a record, and he’d asked Ron to send him the candy bar after the trial so he could add it to his collection. He could not believe it now resided in his neighbor’s stomach.

“Is that laughter I hear coming out of your mouth?” Mabel asked.

“Sorry.”

“I get the feeling I haven’t totally ruined your day.”

“The image of you biting the end off, then realizing what you’d done—”

“Stop it,” she scolded him.

“Sorry.”

“So now that you’ve had a good chuckle, please explain what makes this candy bar so special? It certainly didn’t taste like it was worth a hundred big ones.”

“How much did it taste like it was worth?”

“Stop it!”

“Sorry. The manager kept the candy bar on the counter, next to where customers put items to be rung up. If a customer put down four items or more, he added the candy bar to the total. If someone looked at the receipt and questioned him, he pointed at the candy bar and said, ‘Didn’t you want that?’ The person would say no, and he’d apologize and give them their money back. It looked like an honest mistake, so no one ever reported it.”

“How much did the candy bar actually cost?”

“A buck.”

“You’re saying he did this a hundred thousand times a year?”

“Yeah. He had hundreds of customers a day. He cooked the books to hide the theft.”

“So what you’re saying is, I could have replaced the candy bar with one I bought at the grocery, and you wouldn’t have known the difference.”

This time Valentine couldn’t help himself and burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” she said.

“That’s something I would do,” he told her.

“Oh my, would you look at the time?” his neighbor said. “I’m off to the movies. Mustn’t let my one free day go to waste. Ta-ta.”

Valentine started to reply, but the phone had gone dead in his hand.

He retrieved the envelope he’d found in the foyer and opened it. Mabel probably hadn’t liked being strung along like that. He promised himself to make it up to her when he got home. The envelope contained a white sheet of stationery, with the faint scent of women’s perfume. He’d never liked things that were left anonymously. If the author wouldn’t look him in the face, why should he believe what was written on a piece of paper? His let his eyes scan the page.

W
E MET THIS MORNING
. I
WOULD LIKE TO TALK TO YOU
. M
EET ME IN THE HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY TOMORROW
. F
RONT DOOR OF SCHOOL WILL BE OPEN
. W
ALK TO BACK, TAKE A LEFT, GO TO END OF LONG HALL. 9:00.

He found himself shaking his head. A clandestine meeting in the school library on a Sunday morning? It didn’t get any more spellbinding than that. He guessed the woman in the pickup had finally gathered the courage to talk to him. He smothered a tired yawn. The day had finally caught up with him.

The lumpy bed in the master bedroom felt surprisingly comfortable. He lay down in his clothes and stared at the ceiling. Sometime tonight he was going to wake up in a cold sweat. It had happened every time he’d shot someone. He would then lie awake and replay what had happened, just to reassure himself that he’d made the right decision. Sometimes, he’d drift back asleep. But most of the time, he’d do ceiling patrol.