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
