Mr. Lucky (5 page)

“What brings you here?”

“I’m writing my memoirs. I needed a little peace and quiet.”

“From Florida?”

Her third degree was starting to wear on his nerves. He took out his wallet and let her see the snapshots he proudly carried around. “From my granddaughter and my son and his wife.”

She stared at the picture of little Lois, and he saw something in her face melt.

“You must be very proud,” she said.

Valentine said that he was.

“Not to change the subject, but the house goes for six hundred a month, plus a security deposit. What do you say?”

He started to tell her he wanted to think about it. But a noise from outside got his attention. Over the sink was a window with peeling paint that looked onto the wooded backyard. He opened it with both his hands and stuck his head out.

The screeching sound that can only be made by a wayward electric guitar was tearing a hole in the chilly night air. Polly stood next to him at the sink, and he pointed at the ramshackle house on the other side of the trees. “It sounds like someone’s torturing a cat.”

The real-estate agent grimaced. “It does, doesn’t it?”

He pulled his head back inside and shut the window. “I’m going to have to think about it.”

She followed him through the house. Reaching the front door, she grabbed the knob, then stopped. “I can have a talk with him, if you’d like. Ask him to turn it down.”

“Who?”

She opened the door, and the screaming guitar invaded the quiet interior. “The moron who likes to play his music so loud.”

“You know him?”

“Name’s Ricky Smith. He’s my ex-husband. He likes to play his stereo loud enough to wake the dead. Especially his Stevie Ray Vaughan bootlegs.”

Somewhere in the woods a dog was howling. Throughout the neighborhood other screaming mongrels joined in. Unsnapping her purse, Polly dug out a Kleenex and began to blow her nose. Suddenly the guitar stopped being a guitar, the CD player stuck on a screaming high note. The neighborhood mongrels shredded their vocal cords, and Valentine realized she was crying. He touched her arm.

“You going to be okay?” he asked.

“Who knows?” she said.

They returned to the kitchen. Hiding in the ancient Frigidaire was a can of Miller Lite. Polly poured it into a tall paper cup, which she tapped against Valentine’s water glass. While crying, she had inadvertently wiped away her mascara and makeup, and now resembled an eighteen-year-old, her eyes puffy and soft.

“Sorry about the waterworks,” she said. “Ricky and I didn’t part on the best of terms. We dated in high school; I dumped him, thought he was a jerk. We got back together a few years ago. I thought he’d changed, or that I could live with him, or whatever. Stupid me. Any idea what it’s like being married to someone who’s convinced he’s a born loser and has no self-esteem? It’s like watching someone circle a drain. I finally dumped him.”

“Did he always play the stereo so loud?”

“Yes. I thought it was cute in the beginning, like he was rebelling against something. When I complained he gave me earplugs.”

“Any kids?”

“I couldn’t see him as a father. I think that was what drove us apart. He didn’t have the backbone.”

“You still talk?”

“We went to this marriage counselor after we split up. Slippery Rock being a small town and the two of us having to cross paths just about every day, the counselor suggested we keep a dialogue going, you know, keep things civil. Hah! All we did was vent our spleens at each other. One night we had drinks at the Holiday Inn and I ended up punching his lights out.”

Her cup was empty, and Valentine watched her search the refrigerator for more beer.

“Any regrets?” he asked.

“Yeah. I wish I waited until he had some money to divorce him.”

Valentine didn’t say anything, and watched her slam the refrigerator hard.

“He stuck me for ten grand when we split up,” she explained.

“Oh,” he said.

“Ricky’s rich now. He won a million bucks out in Las Vegas, and this afternoon I heard he picked a fifty-thousand-dollar lottery ticket, if you can believe that. But to tell you the truth, I don’t think all the money in the world could get us back together. Ricky isn’t the type of cat that’s going to change his stripes, know what I mean?”

He walked Polly to her car. As she was climbing in, her cell phone chirped, and she answered it while firing the engine up. “Hey, Kimberli. Yup, everything’s fine, I’m just leaving. Thanks for checking up. Bye-bye.”

Valentine took a step back from the car. The Holiday Inn in town wanted a hundred and thirty bucks a night for a room. With all the hidden taxes and charges, it would come to a hundred and fifty bucks easy. Times the four nights he expected to be here was six hundred bucks. Taking his wallet out, he removed six crisp hundreds, then tapped on Polly’s window with his knuckle. The window came down, and she stuck her head out, an expectant look on her face.

“Here’s six hundred for the first month’s rent,” he said.

“You want the place?”

“It will do.”

“There’s also a security deposit,” she said.

“For what? The house is practically falling down and there’s nothing worth stealing. Six hundred, and that’s my final offer.”

He shoved the money into her hand. She considered it for a moment.

“You’ve got a deal,” she said. “You want me to call Ricky, tell him to turn the music down? He will if I ask him.”

“He won’t get mad?” Valentine asked.

“Oh, he’ll yell and scream, but that’s typical.”

“Why don’t you give me his phone number? He starts yelling, I’ll go over and punch him in the nose.”

She giggled, the alcohol giving her voice a little squeak. “It’s 555-1292.”

He memorized the number and watched her back down the drive. Growing up with a drunk for a father, he’d learned to hate what alcohol did to people, and he brusquely motioned for her to come back. She drove back to her original spot and lowered her window.

“You forgot to give me the keys to the house,” he said.

8

W
hile his father was getting settled in Slippery Rock, Gerry was traveling to Gulfport, Mississippi, determined to find Tex “All In” Snyder and have a talk with him.

It had been a long day. He’d flown from Key West to Atlanta that afternoon, taken an eight-seater to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and rented a car. By the time he’d actually gotten on the highway, it was growing dark, and he’d wisely gotten in the right lane. A lot of tall white trucks were on the highway, and they roared when they passed him.

He found a radio station that wasn’t country, and jacked the volume up. He was tired, but it was a good tired. His father had bailed him out, given him fresh wings. He’d never been in prison, so he didn’t know what it was like to get sprung. But he had a feeling that the euphoria he was feeling right now was something real close.

He looked at himself in the mirror. That morning, at Yolanda’s suggestion, he’d gotten his hair cut. He liked to wear it longer than most, and his wife had reminded him that he was heading into Dixie, where Yankees were not always welcome. So he’d gotten his ears lowered, and decided he liked the way it made him look.

He turned his attention back to the highway. It ran north-south, with a fifty-foot median planted with hundred-year-old pines. The night seemed very big, the stars illuminating the farthest corners of the universe. It was too good not to share, and he flipped open his cell phone and called his wife.

An hour later, he passed a junior college, then a milling operation where acres of forty-foot-long trees stood adjacent to the highway. Next was a large store that sold nothing but Bibles. Then he passed a town that consisted of one building that housed two restaurants, and a state trooper’s car hiding in the shadows looking for speeders.

The highway eventually dead-ended at a beachfront marina and amusement park. Beneath the glare of a full moon, the park had a ghoulish, otherworld quality that reminded him of a horror film called
Carnival of Souls.
Hanging a right, he drove to a brightly lit casino named Dixie Magic and found a space in the crowded lot.

He was about a quarter mile from the front doors, but that was okay. His legs were stiff, and he stretched his hamstrings as he walked. He’d never been to Mississippi, and his father had explained the deal to him. By law, casinos couldn’t be on Mississippi soil, so several local businessmen had dug out huge craters of beachfront, flooded them with water you wouldn’t swim in, and floated barges whose interiors were giant casinos. To lessen the cheesy effect, the barges were covered in blinking lights and garish neon.

He crossed the metal gangplank with a bounce in his step. Find Tex, have a chat, and go home to his wife and beautiful baby. It didn’t get any easier than that.

At the front door, a security guard counted him with a clicker. The barge could hold only a certain number of passengers, and a running count was kept of everyone inside.

“Busy night?” Gerry asked.

“Every night’s busy,” the guard said.

Gerry pushed open the glass door, and the smell almost knocked him over. Adrenaline and cheap after-shave, a thousand cigarettes, free booze. The smell of a few thousand people compressed in a tiny space, gambling. For years, people swore that the casinos pumped extra oxygen through the air vents to keep players going, but it wasn’t true. The games kept people going.

He caught the eye of a cute change girl, and learned the poker tournament was on the second floor. He made his way to a bank of elevators. Down in Key West, his father had given him a videotape of Ricky Smith’s winning streak, and he’d watched it with Yolanda. Ricky Smith had played poker with Tex Snyder for twenty minutes and won two hundred grand. He’d made Snyder look like a chump. Surely Snyder would have some interesting thoughts on what happened. The challenge would be making him open up.

Gerry got on a crowded elevator. On the way up, he found himself checking out the other haircuts. He fit right in. Great.

The poker tournament was in the casino’s card room and was being filmed by a cable station for a later showing. Tournament poker was the rage on TV and, according to his father, was creating a whole new legion of suckers. Anyone could enter, and as Gerry started to walk in, he noticed the guy by the entrance. Black, six-two, a soul patch on his chin, his black shirt hanging outside his pants, disguising his massive girth. Stepping forward, he placed his forefinger on Gerry’s shoulder. It was as big as a blood sausage.

“Your name Gerry Valentine?” he asked.

“That’s me,” Gerry said.

“My name’s Lamar Biggs. I run the casino’s security. You’re not wanted here. I’m going to show you out. If you try to resist, I’ll hurt you.”

Gerry flashed Lamar his best smile. “Au contraire. That’s been cleared up. If you call Bill Higgins at the Nevada Gaming Control—”

“Au what?”

“Au contraire. It’s French. It means, on the contrary.”

“So you just told me in French that I’m an idiot,” Lamar said, his eyes narrowing.

“I told you that it’s been cleared up,” Gerry replied stiffly.

Lamar tried to squeeze his shoulder, and Gerry instinctively pulled back. It took all the sting out of whatever nerve Lamar was trying to pinch, and the big man looked surprised. Then his face hardened into a piece of granite, and with his head, he indicated the
EMERGENCY EXIT
sign. “That way,” he ordered.

Gerry did as told. Walking down the stairway, he felt Lamar’s hot breath on his neck. He’d had onions for dinner. Gerry’s father had told him not to get upset with heads of security who had bad attitudes. Usually, it meant they’d been ripped off and needed to release some anger. At the first-floor landing Gerry stopped and stared straight up. What looked like a water sprinkler hung from the ceiling. It was only a few inches long and covered in tiny hair.

“What’s that?”

“A bat,” Lamar said. “Barge is filled with them. Rats, too. Keep walking.”

“That’s why you have this stairway closed except for emergencies, huh?” Gerry said. “Never show them the inside of the sausage factory.”

“The what?”

“The sausage factory. It’s an old expression. It means, don’t—”

Lamar gave him a push. “I don’t care what it means. Keep walking.”

Gerry had a good idea what was coming next. Outside, Lamar took him to the parking lot to a spot Gerry guessed wasn’t being watched by the cameras. He saw Lamar pull back his sleeves.

“Having a bad day, huh?”

Lamar grunted something under his breath and threw a punch at his face. Gerry wasn’t good at judo like his old man, but he knew a couple of moves. Ducking the big man’s fist, Gerry grabbed his wrist and within seconds spun Lamar around and held his arm firmly behind his back. He hadn’t liked being pushed in the stairwell, and gave Lamar’s arm a little extra twist. Lamar grimaced and muttered, “Okay, okay.”

“We need to get something straight,” Gerry said. Holding Lamar’s wrist with one hand, he dug out his cell phone and said, “What’s the number of your surveillance control room?”

“Why? You want to call them and embarrass me?”

“No. I just want to clear something up.”

Lamar gave him the number. Gerry punched it in, stuck the phone up to Lamar’s face, and said, “Tell whoever answers the phone to go to your desk and look through your mail for a letter from the Nevada Gaming Control Board.”

A woman with a Southern accent answered, and Lamar told her to go to his office. She came back a few moments later.

“Sorry, Lamar, but I can’t find any letter.”

“Tell her to try your e-mail,” Gerry whispered in his ear.

“Try my e-mail,” Lamar said.

“Got it,” the woman said a few moments later.

“Read it to me,” Lamar said.

“It’s from William Higgins, director of the Nevada Gaming Control Board,” the woman said. “It says, ‘It has been brought to my attention that several casinos in Las Vegas recently sent out a warning regarding an individual named Gerry Valentine. This warning was sent in error. Gerry Valentine is not a casino cheater, nor is he a card counter. He is employed by his father, a highly regarded gaming consultant named Tony Valentine. Please disregard this warning. Thank you.’”

“When was this sent?” Lamar asked.

“Yesterday. This is the guy you just pulled off the floor, isn’t it?” the woman said.

Lamar hesitated, clearly at a loss for words. In his ear, Gerry whispered, “Say, ‘That’s right. Guess I’ll have to let him go.’”

Lamar glanced at him over his shoulder. Something resembling a smile crossed his lips. He repeated the words to the woman, then said good-bye. Gerry killed the connection and released Lamar’s wrist. The big man turned around, shaking his arm.

“Thanks for doing that,” he said.

“Anytime,” Gerry replied.

The problem with running a casino off a barge, Lamar explained when they were sitting in his office, was that there were weight restrictions. To allow more passengers to gamble, the owners had cut down on the amount of surveillance equipment, leaving Lamar and his staff at a disadvantage when it came to catching cheaters and card counters.

“We get ripped off a lot,” Lamar said, fingering Gerry’s business card. “Lots of small stuff, but it adds up. So what’s this Grift Sense?”

“It’s my father’s consulting firm.”

“I figured that out,” Lamar said. His office was the size of two phone booths. The woman with the drawl came in without knocking, placed two steaming cups of coffee on the table, then left. “What does it mean?”

“It’s the ability to spot a hustle or a scam. It’s like a sixth sense.”

“That’s what you and your old man do?”

Gerry had never nailed a cheater in his life, but he saw no reason to tell Lamar that. “That’s right. A lot of casinos put us on retainers. We look at videotapes of suspected cheating, and sometimes even live feeds from the casino floor.”

“How’d you learn?”

“My father was an Atlantic City casino cop for twenty-five years.”

Lamar clicked his fingers. “That’s where I heard the name. How long you been working for him? Couple of months?”

There was a twinkle in his eye, but Gerry knew a challenge when he heard one. “Look, friend. My father is the best there is. But I’m no slouch. You’re getting ripped off? Hire us, and if we don’t figure out what’s shaking, we’ll give you your money back.”

Lamar laughed under his breath. “Cut the sales pitch. I’ll give you the business if you can answer a simple question for me.”

“What’s that?”

“I get scammed a lot. But one scam is pissing me off. We’re getting ripped off the same two times a month. We don’t know how, or where. We just know our take is short about four grand twice a month.”

Lamar ripped the tops off a handful of sugar packets and dumped them into his coffee. Gerry sipped his drink while trying to hide the smile on his face. Of all the questions Lamar could have asked him, he had picked one that Gerry actually knew the answer to. Looking his host in the eye, he said, “Based upon what you just told me, I’d say it’s an inside job.”

Lamar glared at him while mixing his coffee with the eraser end of a pencil. “Give me a break. How can you draw that conclusion based upon what I just told you?”

“You’re short the same two times a month?”

“Correct.”

“Every month?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Is it right before payday?”

Lamar leaned back in his chair and gave Gerry the same thoughtful look he’d shown out in the parking lot. “You know something? I think I could learn to like you.”