Mr. Lucky (26 page)

47

A
s Valentine crossed the backyard, he clipped Gaylord’s badge to his shirt. It was a strange feeling to be wearing a shield again, but not an unpleasant one. He’d never disliked being a cop like so many guys he’d known. It was something he’d been born to do.

The cat walked beside him, preening around his legs. He scooped the animal into his arms, then entered Ricky’s house through the back door. Seven people were standing in the kitchen. Upon seeing him, one of them gasped, while another put her hands over her eyes and moaned.

“We’re screwed,” someone muttered.

“Let’s go,” Valentine said.

They didn’t understand. He pointed at the swinging door that led to the living room, while rubbing the cat’s head. It seemed to calm everyone down.

The seven walked through the door in single file. The rest of the gang was assembled in the living room, the women sitting on chairs and the couch, the men standing. It wasn’t a big room, and they were all bunched up and talking in hushed tones. Seeing him, everyone stopped.

“Shit,” someone said.

“Cut the profanity,” Valentine said, letting the cat slip out of his hands. He did a visual sweep and counted twenty-five heads. Half the faces were ones he’d seen in the past three days; half were strangers. McFarland hadn’t bothered to show.

“Thanks for coming,” he said. “You’re all under arrest.”

More gasps. Several people closed their eyes or stared at the floor.

“Hold on a second,” a voice declared.

Valentine stared at a guy standing in the back of the room. He was in his late twenties and wore a dark suit and a screaming yellow tie. He had a baby face and a body like Jell-O, and Valentine guessed he’d never done a day of exercising in his life. The guy stepped forward, business card in hand.

“I represent these people,” he said.

He stuck his business card beneath Valentine’s nose. His name was embossed, the rest of the card plain.
LAURENCE MATTHEW BENDER, III. ATTORNEY-AT-LAW, DICKUM & FINE. SPECIALIZING IN MEDICAL MALPRACTICE AND CORPORATE NEGLIGENCE
.

“These people have rights,” Bender said. “You can’t drag them in here like this is a Charlie Chan movie. What you did this morning was entrapment. You broke the law.”

Valentine handed the card back. “Did you accept any money from these people?”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. Did anyone pay you to be here?”

“Well, no—”

“Then your opinion isn’t worth anything. Get out.”

“Now wait just a minute—”

Valentine grabbed Bender’s arm and gave it a mean twist. He saw the attorney’s knees buckle. He loosened his grip and hustled him toward the front door. Throwing it open, he led him outside and down the front steps. Two dozen cars were parked on Ricky’s front lawn, and he guessed no one in Slippery Rock had ever heard of carpooling. Up on the road, Gaylord sat behind the wheel of a police cruiser. Five cruisers were parked behind him, with two officers sitting in each. If it wasn’t the whole force, it was damn close. Valentine brought Bender to Gaylord’s car and threw him in the backseat.

“This guy’s gumming up the works. I’d appreciate your babysitting him until I’m done.”

“Not a problem,” Gaylord said. “Holler if you need anything.”

“I’ll do that.”

As Valentine headed back to the house, he heard the attorney barking like a junkyard dog. Gaylord silenced him with a threat that had something to do with Bender’s driving skills when he was intoxicated. Valentine’s eyes fell on the gang of people standing on Ricky’s front porch. They were staring at the line of police cars, their gums flapping in the breeze. Whatever ideas they’d had about taking their chances in court had collectively vanished from their faces, and they looked scared as hell. It was a good start, and he ushered them inside and shut the door forcefully behind him.

They shuffled into the living room and took their places. Valentine went to the room’s center and stood with his back to the swinging door, just in case he needed to make a quick exit. “Here’s the deal,” he said. “I talk, you listen. This isn’t
Jerry Springer,
where people shout out whenever they feel like it. Understand?”

His eyes swept the room, and he saw them nod. Every member of the gang fell between mid-thirties to late forties. They were well dressed and, he assumed, fairly well educated. He also guessed they had never broken a law in their lives, until now. Turning ordinary citizens into criminals was never easy, and he imagined Ricky Smith and Stanley Kessel had appealed to a common denominator among them all. Greed.

“Good. I’ve seen a lot of sophisticated scams in my day, but none that compares to what you folks did. You practiced in the basement of that house on the outskirts of town and got your roles down perfectly. Then you went out to Las Vegas and did your number on the Mint. Of course, Ricky had a lot to do with how it went, but he needed you folks to sell his streak of luck. And you did your jobs perfectly.

“You also covered your tracks real well. I’m going to guess that Stanley Kessel was the reason, because he seems to be the brains behind this operation. Stanley made sure that nothing was left behind that could be used against you in court. There was a miniature camera in a purse, but that got destroyed this morning. Stanley also picked scams that beat the eye in the sky, so there’s no videotape evidence either. The truth be known, there’s nothing to tie you to the Mint getting ripped off that will hold up in court.”

He saw several people in the gang exchange nervous glances. A man standing behind the couch raised his hand. He was short and wore a tie wrapped around his neck like a noose.

“You have to go to the bathroom?”

“I have a question,” he said. “If there’s no evidence, then why are we under arrest?”

“You another lawyer?”

“I’m an accountant.”

“Well, Mr. Accountant, it’s like this: Ricky and Stanley didn’t just scam the Mint. They also scammed a horse race.” Valentine removed the OTB racing slip from his pocket and held it in the air. “You aware of this?”

The accountant shook his head.

“How about the rest of you?”

The roomful of people shook their heads.

“No,” a woman on the couch added for emphasis.

“That’s too bad,” Valentine said, sticking the slip into his pocket while eyeing the group. It was his only evidence, and he was going to fly out the back door if anyone made a move to jump him. When he sensed no one had that in mind, he continued. “You see, even though I can’t prove you scammed the Mint, I can connect you to Ricky and Stanley in all sorts of ways. And I can prove that they scammed the horse race. That makes you their accomplices.”

“Would you mind telling us what they did?” the accountant asked.

“Sure. They stuck a satellite dish on the roof of an OTB parlor and used the feed from the dish to show the races from Belmont, instead of using the normal TV signal. The satellite feed had a seven-second delay on it because the satellite is up there in space. Those seven seconds allowed an employee in the OTB parlor to see which three horses came out of the gate first. Most people don’t know it, but the three horses that come out of the gate first usually finish in the money. Guys at the track have been using this information for years to place late bets. It’s called past-posting.

“The guy at the OTB parlor wrote the numbers of the horses down on a racing slip and passed it through the bars to Ricky. Ricky pretended to write on the slip, then slapped his money down and passed the slip back. Ricky told me he wasn’t always accurate when it came to picking the ponies, which should have been a tip-off.

“With this race, Ricky
was
lucky. All three horses were winners. He won eight hundred thirty-six dollars and eighty-seven cents for his three-hundred-dollar bet. If he’d been smart, he’d have torn the slip up. But he had to wag it in my face and gloat about it.”

“Let me guess,” the accountant said. “The slip had the time on it.”

Valentine nodded. No one else seemed to understand. He said, “The slip showed the time the bet was recorded, which was seven seconds after the race actually started. Stanley and Ricky couldn’t figure out a way to change that, so they didn’t.”

“How many laws did they break?” the accountant asked.

He was a pleasant enough guy, with a trusting face and caring eyes, and Valentine found himself feeling sorry for him. He wiped away the emotion and counted off the crimes on the fingers of his hand. “Racketeering, wire fraud, and conspiracy. The Belmont track is in the state of New York. The attorney general of New York doesn’t take kindly to this kind of stuff. He’ll come down hard on Ricky and Stanley, and all of you.”

“But we didn’t know about this,” a woman on the couch said.

“It doesn’t matter. You’re still part of the gang.”

“What are we looking at in terms of prison sentences?” the accountant asked.

The question silenced the room.

“About ten years in prison, with time off for good behavior,” Valentine said.

“Unless we cooperate with you.”

Valentine started to answer him, then saw a vehicle pull down the driveway and park directly in front of the house. The doors opened, and two people emerged. As they climbed onto the porch, their faces became recognizable. It was Polly Parker and Ricky.

48

P
olly and Ricky entered the house, holding hands. Ricky looked like he’d been doing a lot of crying, his face a sickening red, his eyes bloodshot. Polly led him into the center of the living room and stepped aside. Her ex-husband stared at Valentine with a look of anguish distorting his face. “Do you know what happened in Las Vegas this morning?” he asked.

“Yes,” Valentine said.

“Helen Ledbetter was my aunt. I…loved her dearly.”

“I’m sorry.”

Ricky pointed behind his back at the twenty-four members of his gang, who he no longer could find the courage to look in the eye. “Will you let them go if I play ball?”

“You ready to do that?”

“Yes. I’ll tell you everything.”

“Will you help me nail Stanley Kessel?”

Ricky nodded his head vigorously.

“Will you come clean with me?”

“I just said I would.”

“I wasn’t born yesterday, kid. This wasn’t just about ripping off the Mint. You and Stanley had something bigger in mind. A lot of time and a lot of money went into this. I want to know
everything
, or no deal.”

Ricky’s answer got caught in his throat. He began to shake, and cried while looking at the floor. He still hadn’t looked at the others. Maybe he never would.

“Okay,” he finally said. “Just let them go. Too many people have died over this.”

Valentine glanced at the rest of the gang. They looked ready to hit the floor running. He’d gotten what he wanted; only, it no longer seemed enough. He wanted his pound of flesh from these people. The cat had returned and was sashaying through his legs. He picked her up and said, “You folks want to get out of here, don’t you? You want to go home and get back to your kids and your jobs and forget this ever happened. Am I right?”

The twenty-four people crowded into the living room nodded as one. It was exactly what they wanted.

“Well, it’s not going to work that way,” he said, “because what happened isn’t going to stay in this room. Sergeant Gaylord will know, and so will his deputies. And they’re going to tell the rest of the people in this community how you scammed a casino while people in a burning hotel across the street were jumping out of windows. You used that tragedy to your advantage, and you know it. And now your neighbors are going to know it, too.”

It was like he’d invisibly punched every single one of them in the stomach. He supposed it was the next best thing to throwing them all in jail. He watched them file dejectedly out of the house, then gave Ricky a hard look. “You’d better not be lying to me, kid.”

Ricky couldn’t answer him. He looked like a man who’d just come home to find his house carried away by a tornado. He was melting down, his life a total loss. Polly stepped forward and put her arms around him. Ricky whispered something in her ear.

“He’ll do whatever you want,” she said.

Valentine continued to stare at Ricky. He trusted him about as far as he could kick him. “Why the sudden change of heart? You decide you want to go to heaven?”

Polly answered for him. “Stanley called Ricky this morning. He threatened to hurt me if Ricky went to the police.”

“You believe him?”

Ricky nodded. Shame affected people in different ways. For Ricky, it was a bucket of cold reality poured over his head. “Stanley’s always had a mean streak,” he whispered.

“He’s the brains behind this, isn’t he?” Valentine said.

“Yeah. Always was.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I was a kid, I ran away from home to be with a carnival,” Ricky said. “I was their sign painter. It was great. One day Stanley shows up. He’d run away from home, too. Only, he didn’t want to paint signs or clean up after the elephants. He wanted to learn how to scam people. He talked me into learning with him.”

“So he corrupted you.”

“Yeah, I guess you could call it that. Stanley liked to say that it isn’t stealing if you don’t get caught.”

“And it’s been one big joyride ever since,” Valentine said.

Ricky found the strength to look him in the eye. “I tried to back out a bunch of times, but Stanley always pulled me back in. Out in Las Vegas, I told him no, but then the fricking hotel had to burn down.”

“What did the fire have to do with it?”

“Stanley ran across the street when the hotel started to burn. He saw me jump from the balcony and pulled me out of the pool. Then he laid a guilt trip on me and said everyone from Slippery Rock was depending on me.”

“So you caved in and went through with it.”

Ricky nodded, then swallowed hard. “You really despise me, don’t you?”

“I killed three people because of you,” Valentine said. “You’re goddamn right I hate you.”

“What can I do to make things right?”

Valentine looked into his face and sensed that Ricky was finally going to come clean with him. He grabbed three chairs and made Ricky and Polly sit down, then sat backward in one so he was facing them. “For starters, tell me what you and Stanley were up to. Why didn’t you stop after you scammed the Mint? Why rig the lottery and the horse race? And why did you hire a public relations firm to broadcast all this crap to the newspapers?”

“Publicity,” Ricky said. “Stanley was going to make me into a household name.”

“Why? So he could put your face on a box of Wheaties?”

“He wanted to take me public.”

Valentine had lost his appetite for stupid jokes and nearly smacked Ricky in the side of the head. He saw Polly nod, and realized Ricky wasn’t joking.

“How much money did Stanley think he could raise?”

“A hundred million dollars,” Ricky said. “It would go into a hedge fund, which I’d control. I’d pick winners, and the investors would reap the rewards.”

“But the winners would actually be stocks that Stanley was feeding you.”

Ricky put his hand into Polly’s lap. “That’s right. Stanley would buy the stocks early, then sell high. The fund would eventually crash, but by then, we’d all be rich.”

“The classic pump and dump.”

“Yeah.”

“The gang that was just here knew about this, didn’t they?”

Ricky nodded. “That was their payoff. Each of them was going to be allowed to buy ten thousand shares when the stocks opened, then dump their shares when the stock peaked. There were other people in town that knew about it as well.”

Valentine drummed his fingers on the back of his chair. Another piece of the puzzle had slipped into place. “The guys I shot in the bank. They were pushed out, weren’t they?”

Ricky nodded again. “They blabbed about it, so they got voted off the island.”

Valentine saw the cat enter the room and climb into Ricky’s lap. “Do you have evidence of what Stanley was going to do? Did he write up this company he was going to form?”

“Yes. I have everything,” Ricky said.

Valentine pushed himself out of the chair. It was the strangest damn thing. He’d never met Stanley Kessel and had no idea what he looked like, yet still wanted to put him in prison for the rest of his life. Perhaps it was because Valentine had run across so many guys just like Stanley. Grand schemers who sucked innocent folks in, then systematically ruined their lives.

“Go pack yourself a suitcase,” he told Ricky.

“Where are we going?”

“New York City. We’re going to go see the guys who police the stock market.”

Ricky and Polly rose from their chairs. They were still holding hands, and Valentine guessed that Polly had talked Ricky into coming clean. It was too bad they’d gotten divorced. He had a feeling Ricky would have never gone down this road had they been together.

“You can come, too,” Valentine told her.