Mr. Lucky (28 page)

51

O
ne St. Andrews Plaza was the address of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York City. The building was eight stories of steel and dirty glass and housed some of the most powerful federal prosecutors in the country. Valentine had visited there before and always wondered when the feds were going to clean the place up. So far, no one had bothered.

Next door to the U.S. Attorney’s Office was St. Andrew’s Church. It was one of the city’s great historic Roman Catholic churches and dated back to the late 1700s. At seven-thirty the next morning, Ricky Smith climbed the steps of the church to go to confession, while Valentine and Polly waited outside on the sidewalk. From where they stood, they had an excellent view of the Brooklyn Bridge, and the early morning view was spectacular. Polly was wearing her Sunday-best clothes. So was Ricky.

“Will these men be fair with Ricky?” she asked.

“Yes. Ricky’s coming forward makes a huge difference,” Valentine said.

“Will he have to testify against Stanley in court?”

“Probably.”

She chewed on a fingernail. “Will Ricky go to jail?”

Valentine stared at the line of traffic coming off the bridge. He had a feeling that the AUSA—the Assistant United States Attorney—would be more interested in prosecuting Stanley Kessel. That was what his gut said. But, the AUSA might put the screws to Ricky, as well. It was one of the chances you took turning in state’s evidence.

“He might.”

“How long will Stanley go to jail?”

“Ten to twelve if he’s lucky.”

“Do you think that’s long enough?”

Valentine shrugged. Stanley Kessel had corrupted an entire town; Valentine didn’t know what the proper punishment was for a crime like that. At ten minutes before eight Ricky came outside. Confessing to a man of the cloth affected people differently. Ricky stared at the sidewalk as if it were about to open up and swallow him whole. Polly took his hand and gave it a squeeze. “You okay?” she asked him.

“Not really,” he replied.

“Sure you want to go through with this?”

He looked at her, then at Valentine. “Positive,” he said.

The lobby in the U.S. Attorney’s Office resembled a police station, with surveillance cameras perched on the walls and a metal detector that everyone entering the building was required to pass through. They gave their names and photo IDs to a stern-faced receptionist, then stood by a wall with a gang of others waiting to go upstairs.

Valentine assumed the people they waited with were crooks and their attorneys. He killed a few minutes trying to discern which were which. It was impossible to tell the difference, and he finally gave up.

At eight-fifteen the AUSA’s assistant came downstairs and got them. They passed through the metal detector and were wanded by a guard. When Valentine tried to get his ID back, he was told it would be returned when he left. Riding up in the elevator, the assistant said, “Everyone gets the same treatment. It’s the new world order.”

They got off on the seventh floor and were escorted to a conference room consisting of a long table, six chairs, a flickering overhead light, and ceiling tiles that looked ready to fall on their heads. Two men rose from chairs as they entered. They identified themselves as Robert Knuts, AUSA, and Special Agent Stephen Thomas Roberts of the FBI. Knuts had a shock of blond hair and a ruddy complexion; Roberts was a tough-looking Irishman with dark eyes that looked capable of drilling a hole in your head.

“Have a seat,” Knuts said, pointing at the chairs opposite him and Roberts. “Would you like something to drink?”

They declined and sat down. Ricky had started breathing heavily, and Valentine wondered if he was going to bolt. The only thing that seemed to be holding him down was Polly. She was as solid as a rock.

Ricky pointed at the tape recorder sitting on the table. “You going to record this?”

Knuts nodded. “Do you have a problem with that?”

Ricky started to say something. Valentine sensed that he was going to tell Knuts off and blow it. Instead Ricky snapped his mouth shut.

Knuts put his finger on the record button, and the machine started to whir. He identified himself into the machine, gave the date and time, then glanced Ricky’s way.

“The floor is yours,” he said.

Ricky started at the beginning and explained how he and Stanley had learned to cheat while apprenticing with the Schlitzie carnival in Florida. Then he talked about returning to Slippery Rock, and the scams he and Stanley had pulled while growing up. To hear him tell it, virtually every promotion and sweepstakes that had run in Slippery Rock during that time was corrupted, and more than once Valentine saw Polly close her eyes and sadly shake her head.

Stanley moved away from Slippery Rock after getting caught stealing test answers, and Ricky didn’t see him for many years. During that time, Stanley was in New York becoming a stockbroker and making his fortune, while Ricky stayed in Slippery Rock and bounced around between jobs. Then, one day three years ago, Stanley appeared on Ricky’s doorstep. “He took me out drinking and told me about this scam he’d been thinking about,” Ricky said into the tape recorder. “Stanley’s speciality was helping small companies go public. He knew that most of the companies were dogs. But every once in a while, there was a good one. Stanley was convinced that if he fed me the good ones, and I bought them when they were low, I could establish a track record of picking winners. Then, he could promote me to investors as the world’s greatest stock picker.

“We kicked it around for a while. I told Stanley it wouldn’t work, because I didn’t know anything about the markets. Stanley said that most stock pickers didn’t know anything about the markets, either.

“Stanley said the key was making investors believe that you had the golden touch. He was convinced we could do this by making people think I was the world’s luckiest man. He thought the best way to do this was by scamming a casino. He said the publicity would give me instant credibility. The other scams that came after that were my idea.”

“How much money did Stanley think you could raise from private investors?” Knuts asked.

“A hundred million at the start.”

“At the start?”

“Stanley wanted to use the initial capital to establish who I was, then establish a hedge fund that I would manage. Stanley said the sky was the limit once we got going.”

“You must have discussed a figure.”

“Half a billion dollars,” Ricky said.

The sound of Polly’s sharp intake of breath made everyone’s heads snap. She covered her mouth with her hands and stared at her ex in disbelief. Valentine saw Knuts’s hand reach over to the tape recorder and turn it off. Then the AUSA looked at the FBI agent sitting to his right.

“Your turn,” Knuts said.

Valentine had dealt with scores of FBI agents over the years. They ranged from good guys to world-class jerks with an occasional wacko thrown in the mix. It was hard to tell into which category Roberts fell. He was Irish, which was usually a good sign, and looked like a normal guy, except for his eyes. They had the intensity of someone who’d been to hell and back and hadn’t enjoyed the experience. Valentine saw him reach into his jacket and remove a party-size bag of M&M’s. Tearing them open, Roberts poured a handful into his cupped palm, then slid the bag across the table in Ricky’s direction.

“Help yourself,” the FBI agent said.

Ricky fished a couple of candies out and popped them into his mouth.

“I run the FBI’s office in lower Manhattan,” Roberts said. “Mostly I deal with white-collar crime and brokers gone bad. I spent yesterday afternoon with a friend of yours.”

“Stanley?” Ricky said.

“That’s right. He came to my office and told me the same story you just did.”

“Did you arrest him?”

Roberts shook his head. “Nothing to arrest him for. There’s no crime in claiming someone’s the world’s greatest stock picker. Every brokerage house on Wall Street does it. And Stanley claims that he never gave you any inside tips. He says you talked about it, but it never happened. That true?”

Ricky started coughing like he was choking. “Yes,” he finally said.

“So the only real crimes here were ripping off the Mint in Las Vegas and past-posting a horse race at an OTB parlor,” Roberts said. “Stanley says that his involvement at the Mint was something called visual prediction at roulette and that what he did wasn’t illegal.” He stared at Valentine. “I’m told cheating at casinos is your speciality. That true?”

“That’s right,” Valentine said.

“Is visual prediction against the law?”

“No.”

“So Stanley didn’t break any laws at the Mint.”

Valentine felt Roberts’s eyes drilling a hole into his soul. “That’s correct.”

The FBI agent turned his attention to Ricky. “Stanley says that the OTB deal was your doing and that he had nothing to do with it, along with everything else in Slippery Rock.”

“That’s not true,” Ricky said, his face growing red.

“Can you prove Stanley was involved?”

“He funded the whole goddamn operation.”

“Stanley says he lent you some money.”

Ricky put his elbows on the table. He looked ready to explode, and Polly put her hand on his arm. Through gritted teeth he said, “And you believed him?”

Roberts picked up the bag of M&M’s and poured some more into his hand. His demeanor hadn’t changed, and he fished a couple of candies out and popped them into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed before speaking again. “It has nothing to do with what I believe or don’t believe. I deal in evidence, and right now, you don’t have any. Personally, I think Stanley Kessel is pond scum, and I’d enjoy throwing him in jail with a bunch of guys who lost their pensions in the crash and then watching the fireworks. But I can only do that if you’ll help me.”

Ricky pushed his chair back from the table. It was a classic gesture from a witness who was about to go south. Roberts and Knuts also pushed back. For a long moment, no one cared to speak. Valentine looked into everyone’s faces.
Shit,
he thought.

52

R
oberts and Knuts left the shabby conference room without a word. Ricky rose and went to stand by the sooty window. Polly started to follow him, and Valentine touched her sleeve and eyed the door. She hesitated, then reluctantly walked out.

Valentine went to where Ricky stood. Ricky was staring down at the street scene below. It was like watching life through a dirty lens, and he mumbled a harsh profanity under his breath.

“Want me to leave?” Valentine asked.

Ricky shook his head. Removing his wallet, he extracted a photograph from behind the plastic protector and propped it on the windowsill. It was of a woman with silver hair and a thin smile, and Valentine guessed this was Aunt Helen. Ricky said, “When I was a teenager, my aunt moved to Slippery Rock for a year and took care of me while my parents went through their divorce. She protected me from all the fighting. She was a tough old gal, but she was always good to me.” He swallowed hard. “I wanted to pay her back. That was why I brought her in.”

“You recruited her?”

“Yeah.” Ricky picked the picture up and slipped it back into his wallet. Then he stared down at St. Andrew’s tiled rooftop. He shook his head at something he could not undo. “Tell them to come back,” he said.

“You mean Roberts and Knuts?”

“Yeah.”

“They’re busy men, Ricky. I can’t order them around.”

“I’m ready to talk.”

“About Stanley?”

“Yeah, about Stanley.”

Valentine went to the door. Ricky called to him. “One thing,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“I don’t want Polly in the room this time.”

Roberts and Knuts returned to the conference room ten minutes later. They took the same seats, Roberts throwing his bag of candy in the center of the table while Knuts started the tape recorder. Ricky slid the candy back the FBI man’s way, then gave them hard looks.

“Either of you gents ever hear of Cascade International?”

Knuts and Roberts both shook their heads.

“It’s a company in Aventura, Florida. They make expensive casual clothes for women.”

“I think my wife bought some clothes there,” Knuts said. “North Miami Beach, right?”

“That’s them,” Ricky said. “Their flagship store is in the same building as their headquarters. Eight thousand square feet of couture. Dresses, shoes, lingerie, you name it, they sell it.”

“What about them?” Roberts said impatiently.

“The company went public last year. Guess who brought them to market.”

“You tell us,” Roberts said.

“Stanley Kessel. The stock opened at a dollar and is currently trading at nine bucks, which makes Cascade worth a cool seventy million. Which is pretty amazing, when you consider the company only has one store.”

Knuts and Roberts leaned forward. “Come again?” Roberts said.

“You heard me. They have one store.”

“Explain yourself.”

“Cascade is an illusion of Stanley Kessel’s creation. It’s a paper company. The annual stock report says they have thirty-six stores, and all are doing gangbuster business. The stores are spread across the country. Tuscaloosa, Panama City, Savannah, Fresno, and every other city that you’ve heard of but can’t easily travel to. Get it?”

Both men shook their heads. They didn’t get it at all. Ricky looked at Valentine.

“Why don’t you explain it to them, Doctor?”

The two men glanced at Valentine. It seemed obvious, but he said it anyway. “The Miami store is a front. Stanley put the other stores—which are phantoms—in out-of-the-way cities that people from Wall Street weren’t likely to check out.” He looked at Ricky. “That about it?”

Ricky nodded.

“That operation in Miami cost a lot of money,” Knuts said. “Who fronted Stanley the capital to get it started?”

Ricky stared at the tape recorder. He seemed to be fighting himself, then finally spoke. “Stanley got his funding from a gang of Miami cocaine dealers. Those are his partners.”

Roberts rose from his chair. “Cascade is drug money?”

Ricky nodded. “The company has an account with one of the big Miami banks. The drug dealers launder money through the account. That was the trade-off Stanley made with them.” Ricky glanced at Valentine. “Those were the guys beating me up at my house.”

“So, I did kill a drug dealer,” Valentine said.

“That’s right. The four principals move with Stanley all the time. He calls them his business associates. They’re really part of the cartel.”

“How do you know this?” Roberts said.

“The first time Stanley came to see me, he told me about the Cascade deal,” Ricky explained. “He sucked me in by selling me ten thousand shares at the opening price. I sold out a month later and made a huge profit. It’s what I’ve been living on.”

“You realize I’m going to have to arrest you,” Roberts said.

Ricky nodded. Knuts and Roberts went to the other side of the room and took out their cell phones. They began the process that would eventually put Stanley Kessel behind bars. Valentine glanced at Ricky and saw him silently weeping. He put his hand on Ricky’s shoulder.

“You did good,” he said.

“You think so?”

Valentine nodded, and Ricky found the strength to smile.

“I guess there’s a first time for everything,” he said.