Mr. Lucky (18 page)

31

S
omeone had once told Mabel that the month of May was beautiful wherever you went. Not just in the United States, but all over the world.

It was certainly true in Florida. The air was warm but not too humid, the grass and vegetation blooming everywhere you looked, the days longer and more fulfilling. She sat on a rocker on her front porch, taking it all in. The trip to Gibsonton had been fun, but now she was exhausted. She put in long hours working for Tony. Usually she enjoyed it, but sometimes it also wore her out.

A FedEx truck came down the street and stopped in front of Tony’s house. FedEx delivered on Sundays, but you had to pay them through the nose. It was probably a videotape from a casino that had lost a bundle of cash. It seemed to be happening more and more, despite the breakthroughs in technology that were available, like facial-recognition databases and digital cameras that could photograph a pimple on an elephant’s behind. Because casinos generated so much cash, they attracted the worst that society had to offer. Like Tony was fond of saying, it wasn’t a matter of
if
a casino was going to have problems, it was a matter of
when
.

She signed for the package, then watched the truck pull away from the curb. Moments later, she saw Yolanda come out of her house with the baby in her arms. Yolanda looked harried, and Mabel saw that she had on mismatched slippers. Mabel pushed herself out of her rocker and walked down the path to the sidewalk in front of her house.

“Is everything all right?” she called across the street.

Yolanda shook her head. “No.”

“Is this about Gerry?”

“Yes.”

“Give me a minute.”

Mabel went inside, made sure the teakettle wasn’t boiling on the stove, then grabbed her keys and hurried out the door. It had bothered her that Gerry hadn’t come home right away from his trip to Gulfport. Something about his reason for staying had sounded fabricated. Reaching Yolanda’s house, she let herself in.

She heard Yolanda in the kitchen, talking in Spanish on the phone. As she walked down the hallway, Mabel glanced into the different rooms. Each was spotless, with not a single child’s toy or piece of child’s clothing lying on the floor. Mabel was convinced that Yolanda would one day surrender to motherhood, but so far it hadn’t happened.

In the kitchen she found Yolanda sitting at the table, the baby struggling in her lap. Mabel took the baby from her and felt its heavy diaper. She went into the master bedroom and changed her.

“It’s my mother in San Juan,” Yolanda called out. “She’s had a premonition about Gerry.”

“Is he in trouble?”

“Yes.”

Yolanda’s mother had this uncanny ability to see into the future and predict when bad things were about to happen. By having a son-in-law like Gerry, she was going to be busy for a long time. Mabel finished changing Lois’s diaper and returned to the kitchen. “What did he do?” she asked.

Yolanda was saying good-bye to her mother, which could take anywhere from ten seconds to a full minute. Finally she hung up. “My mother had a dream while she was taking a siesta this afternoon,” Yolanda said, taking the baby from her. “In it, she saw Gerry being pursued by a man who looked like a bear. My mother said Gerry took something from him.”

Yolanda’s lips were trembling. Mabel didn’t believe in psychics, or the frauds on TV who claimed to communicate with the dead; only, Yolanda’s mother’s premonitions somehow always came true.

“This isn’t good,” Mabel said. “Have you called Gerry and asked him to come clean?”

“No,” Yolanda said.

Mabel glanced at the cell phone sitting on the table. So did Yolanda. Her mother had spooked her, and Mabel watched her bring the baby to her chest and rock her.

“Would you like me to call him?” Mabel asked.

Yolanda kissed the top of Lois’s head with her eyes closed.

“Would you please?” she asked.

Gerry stared at the monitor above the door of the trailer. In his hand was Lamar’s gun. The fat guy—who he guessed was Huck Dubb—was having a problem loading his automatic rifle. Gerry wanted him to lower the rifle’s barrel a little bit more. Just another foot, and Gerry was going to open the door and blow his head off.

“He’s got an AK-47,” Lamar said, lying on the floor. His right arm was spurting blood, and he was holding his other hand over the wound. “Their barrels heat up if you fire too many rounds at once.”

Gerry glanced at Kent and Boomer. They had dragged themselves over to the corner and were tending to each other’s wounds.

“You need to take him out,” Lamar said.

“I know,” Gerry said.

“Better turn the safety off.”

Gerry found the safety and flipped it off. In the monitor, Huck Dubb was cursing and banging his rifle with the palm of his hand. Gerry heard his cell phone ring, and jerked it out of his pocket. It was Yolanda, calling from the house. He hit talk.

“I love you,” he said. “Call you right back.”

He killed the power and put the phone away. Then he jerked the door open and stepped outside the trailer. There was a small platform, then three steps to the pavement. Huck stood twenty feet away, not seeing him. He aimed at Huck’s chest and squeezed the trigger. The gun barked, and Huck spun like a top, the rifle flying out of his hands. Gerry watched it slide beneath a parked car and felt the weight of the world lift from his shoulders.

Huck fell against a car and brought his hand up to his head. Blood was spurting from his ear, and Gerry realized he’d winged him. He went down the steps and saw Huck start to back away. Gerry motioned for him to stop. Huck kept backing up.

“I’ll shoot you,” Gerry said.

The side of Huck’s face was sheeted in blood. Huck spit at Gerry.

“You killed my boys,” he said.

“You shouldn’t have sent them after me.”

“You a cop?”

Gerry shook his head. In the distance he could hear an approaching siren.

“Fuck you,” Huck said.

Huck did a one-eighty and took off at a dead run. Gerry aimed at his back. He started to squeeze the trigger, then hesitated. From the trailer he heard Lamar yelling at him to do it. He thought of the faces of the Dubb boys as he dumped the logs on them. He’d seen in their eyes the stark terror that accompanies the realization that your life is about to end. He didn’t want to see that look ever again, and lowered his arm.

“Aw, shit,” he heard Lamar say.

Two ambulances and half the Gulfport police force showed up a minute later. A posse of cops went to hunt down Huck, while the three wounded men were put on gurneys and taken to the hospital. Gerry rode in the ambulance with Lamar.

“You should’ve shot him,” Lamar said.

“You ever kill anyone before?” Gerry asked him.

Lamar shook his head.

“Then shut up,” he said.

Gerry turned his eyes away as a medic treated Lamar’s wound. He felt something being pressed into his hand, and looked down to see Lamar handing him his cell phone.

“Call Isabelle, would you? Tell her what happened.”

Gerry made the call for him. Isabelle had already heard the news. The employees who they suspected of cheating were being rounded up. She made Gerry put Lamar on. He put the phone next to the big man’s lips and saw him whisper something to her, then say good-bye. Gerry put the phone back to his own mouth. “Isabelle, I need you to do something for me.” To Lamar he said, “Which blackjack table was I watching before?”

“Table seventeen.”

“Isabelle, make sure you confiscate the trash can beneath blackjack table seventeen. It will be filled with used tissues.”

She agreed, and the line went dead. He saw Lamar smile at him.

“Used tissues?”

“That’s right.”

“Still want to win that bet, huh?”

“Twenty bucks is twenty bucks,” Gerry said.

32

V
alentine was still steaming over Mary Alice’s remark when Bill Higgins called him late Sunday afternoon. She’d made him feel absolutely rotten, and he’d known her exactly one day. Women were amazing that way, the power they wielded far greater than they knew.

“You forget about me?” Bill asked.

Just what he needed. More guilt. No, he hadn’t forgotten about Bill. He just didn’t have anything solid to tell him. He now remembered why he liked to keep his cell phone turned off. It allowed him to lead a normal life.

“I’m on the case,” Valentine said. “Casino bosses biting at your heels?”

“They’re calling me on the carpet tomorrow afternoon,” Bill said.

“I thought your meeting wasn’t until Friday.”

“So did I. The Associated Press won’t leave the story alone. They’re hounding the mayor’s office and the convention and visitors bureau for closure. Did you know that Ricky Smith hired a public relations firm in New York?”

“With whose money?”

“That’s what I’d like to know.”

Valentine was sitting on the rocker on the screened porch of his house, staring at the forest. In Florida, a forest was another name for an overgrown swamp; here, it was maples and pines and vegetation that didn’t have alligators hiding behind it. “My gut tells me Ricky Smith is as crooked as a corkscrew,” he said. “Problem is, I can’t prove it.”

Bill breathed heavily into the phone. He’d worked for the Gaming Control Board for thirty years; finding another job at this stage of his life wouldn’t be easy. He said, “I stumbled upon something strange earlier.”

“What’s that?”

“The night Ricky beat the Mint, I interviewed all the floor people. Everything seemed on the square. It occurred to me that I hadn’t talked to anyone in the surveillance control room. I read their log sheets, and no one reported anything suspicious while Ricky was winning, so I didn’t take it any further. But I figured, what the hell, I should talk to these folks, feel them out.”

“And you found something.”

“Yeah. There were two techs watching the craps table. They got a call from the floor ten minutes before Ricky started to roll the dice. A floor manager thought two rail birds at the table might be stealing other players’ chips.”

Rail birds were bystanders who watched the action but never played. Casino people hated them, but there was no way to get rid of them. It was a free country.

“The rail birds were standing at opposite ends of the table,” Bill went on. “The techs watched them. They didn’t see any stealing, but you know, that stuff is almost invisible.”

“Sure.”

“So one of the techs calls downstairs and gets a cocktail waitress to approach them. She tells them that if they’re staying in the hotel, she’ll get them free drinks. They said yes and volunteered their names. She called upstairs and passed the names to the techs. They contacted the police and the GCB to check if either had a criminal record.”

“Did they?”

“No, both were clean. But here’s the good part: When I interviewed the techs, one of them pulled the names off a sheet and gave them to me.”

“Anyone we know?”

“Frank Barnes and Clayton McCormick.”

Valentine racked his memory. “Never heard of them.”

“They’re both from Slippery Rock, North Carolina,” Bill said.

“Must be friends of Ricky.”

“That’s what I figured. But then I remembered something. Ricky told me he’d come to Las Vegas alone.”

Valentine jumped out of the rocker and in the woods heard a small animal scurry through the leaves for cover. The epiphany he’d had the day before came back to him.
This is a small town
. It should have dawned on him that if people in the town were willing to help Ricky Smith rig lotteries and fix horse races, they might also be willing to step on a plane and go to Las Vegas and help him work his magic out there.

“Barnes and McCormick were staying at the Mint,” Bill said. “They came out that morning and left the next day.”

It was like the trees had parted and Valentine could see clear through the forest. Every time he’d watched the tape, he’d watched Ricky. That was a mistake. He needed to be watching the other players at the table. He felt the heady rush that came when a puzzle began to come together.

“I’ll call you right back,” he told his friend.

Valentine went into the bedroom, pulled his suitcase from beneath the bed, and removed a copy of the videotape of Ricky Smith. In the living room he popped the tape into the VCR beside the TV. The VCR made a sound like it was regurgitating, and he thought it had eaten the tape. Then the TV flickered to life.

He fast-forwarded the tape to Ricky’s streak at craps. Ricky had rolled the dice fifteen times and beaten the house every time. The odds were about the same as stepping outside and being hit by lightning. He watched the tape, then called Bill back. “I’ve got the tape of Ricky frozen on the screen of my TV. Which guys are Barnes and McCormick?”

Bill described them to a tee. Both were in their mid-thirties, with thinning hair and growing paunches. They stood at opposite ends of the craps table. As Ricky threw winner after winner, they jumped up and down and whooped their fool heads off.

“You said Barnes and McCormick stayed at the Mint,” Valentine said.

“That’s right,” Bill said.

“Same room?”

“Yes.”

Valentine pulled a footstool up to the TV. That was the clue he needed. Barnes and McCormick were friends. Friends didn’t stand on opposite ends of a craps table. They were part of a gang. They had purposely done something suspicious to get the floor manager to call upstairs and ask for them to be watched. That was their role in the scam.

“Let me think about this,” he said.

“I’ll be right here,” Bill replied.

The house soon grew dark and the temperature dropped. Valentine remained frozen in front of the TV. The only thing moving was his finger on the remote control. The tape would end, and he’d rewind and watch the craps shooting over again. Fifteen rolls, fifteen winners. He still couldn’t make the scam. He realized that he’d grown to despise Ricky, if for no other reason than that his cheating ways had kept him here, and away from more important things. His cell phone rang. It lay on the floor between his feet. He looked down at the caller ID. It was Bill.

“Any luck?” his friend asked.

“Not yet.”

“I had a brainstorm,” Bill said.

Valentine stared at the screen. It felt like a portal to another universe. “What’s that?”

“I called the convention and visitors bureau and got them to contact all the hotels in town. I asked them for the names of everyone from Slippery Rock who was staying in Las Vegas that weekend.”

Valentine tore his eyes away from the screen and stared at the phone illuminated in his hand. “And?”

“You’re not going to believe this.”

“Try me.”

“There were twenty-six of them. I’ve got their names right here.”

Valentine froze the picture on the screen. If people in Slippery Rock wanted to gamble, they could visit Biloxi or hit one of the Indian casinos in North Carolina. He counted the number of players standing around the craps table, cheering Ricky on. There were twenty-six on the nose. He hit play and watched the dice fly down the table and everyone cheer.

“For the love of Christ,” he said.

“What?”

“Everyone’s involved.”

Valentine felt like an idiot. The clue he’d been searching for was right in front of his nose. Ricky had learned his trade in a carnival. With carnival scams, everyone was involved. It was what made the illusion so believable.

“What do you mean, everyone?” Bill said.

“Players, employees working the table, even the floor manager,” Valentine said.

“What?”

“It’s a big charade. They’re miscalling the dice, Bill. That’s why the floor manager called upstairs. He asked surveillance to watch both ends of the table to ensure that the camera for the game stayed at a wide angle. On the tape, we see the dice fly down the table, but we’re not seeing the outcome. What we’re seeing is the crowd and employees’ reaction to Ricky throwing sevens or elevens, or making his point. But he isn’t. The crowd is just making us believe he is.”

“Wait a minute,” Bill protested. “I saw the stick man pull the dice back with his stick three times. He did it slowly. I saw that Ricky had rolled sevens.”

“That’s right. Ricky rolled sevens legitimately three times. So the stick man pulled the dice back slowly so the camera could see it. The other times, the stick man kicked the dice over as he retrieved them. That way, the camera couldn’t see the total.”

Bill whistled through his teeth. “I’ve never seen anything like this. Have you?”

“No.”

“So how do we convict them without a videotape we can show in court?”

Valentine killed the VCR and went onto the porch. No jury in Nevada would convict someone of cheating without videotaped evidence. It didn’t matter if the prosecutors had loads of circumstantial evidence; the locals hated the casinos and paid them back whenever they could. He stared at the eerie sheen the moon had cast over his backyard.

“You don’t,” he said.

“You’re saying I should let them skate?”

“Afraid so. No tape, no case.”

“What do I tell the casino owners?”

“Tell them you saved them a million bucks. You have probable cause to keep Ricky’s winnings. I’ll crack one of the other scams, and you’ll have enough evidence for an arrest. They should also fire the employees who were involved and get them banned from working in the gambling industry again. It’s not the punishment they deserve, but it’s better than nothing.”

The plaintive wail of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s guitar ripped a hole in the otherwise peaceful night. Ricky was thumbing his nose at the neighborhood again. He liked to do that. And he obviously liked to corrupt people; especially his friends. And when things had gotten hairy, he liked to send his thugs out and terrorize blind librarians. Opening the screen door, Valentine stepped outside and began walking across the yard toward Ricky’s house.

“I need to have a talk with my neighbor,” he said. “I’ll call you later.”