“So why are you doing them a favor?”
Ricky’s face lit up. “So, you’re accepting my argument.”
“It has its points.”
“Glad you think so. I’m doing them a favor by reminding them how cruel Lady Luck can be. I drive up in a seventy-thousand-dollar car, make one wager, and walk away a winner. There’s a lesson if I ever heard one.”
“Which is what?”
“Life sucks, and then some guy rubs your face in it.”
Valentine realized Ricky was being serious. It was a sad philosophy, and he shifted his gaze so he was staring at the highway.
The outskirts of Slippery Rock was like a thousand other small towns, the landscape littered with strip shopping centers and flat-roofed fast-food franchises. Ricky bought two sixteen-ounce coffees from a McDonald’s and drove around the outskirts of town for a while. Several times drivers in other cars waved at him, but he did not wave back.
“You always so antisocial?” Valentine asked.
“Didn’t know them before, don’t want to know them now,” Ricky said, blowing the steam off his cup. “I mean, why do people think they
“People harassing you?”
“You could call it that, yeah.”
Something clicked in Valentine’s head. He’d assumed the four Spanish guys in the forest last night were looking for him. Had they been looking for Ricky and gotten the house wrong? It would have been easy to do in the dark.
“Any of them Spanish?” he asked.
Ricky turned his head to stare at his passenger. A long moment passed. Valentine pointed at the highway. “Watch the road, will you?”
“No,” he said.
“You don’t want to watch the road?”
“None of them were Spanish.”
The highway was entering a curve, and the Lexus drifted into the next lane. Valentine reached over and straightened the wheel with one hand. Ricky returned his attention to his driving. After a moment he glanced at his watch and cursed.
Valentine felt the car accelerate. A sign that said 60 MPH flew by. The Lexus was doing at least eighty. “What’s the hurry?”
“I promised my buddy Roland Pew I’d meet him at the Republic National Bank at two,” Ricky explained. “We won a lottery ticket together yesterday. The check is in both our names. I have to endorse it with him.”
“The bank’s open on Saturdays?”
Ricky nodded. “It’s a Slippery Rock tradition. The manager is coming in to congratulate Roland. His name is Highland Moss.”
“This must be a big occasion.”
Ricky nodded. “Roland’s going to open an account with his share of the money. He’s had a hard life. It’s the first time anyone in his family has had a savings account.”
“So the manager agreed to come in on a Saturday and help him do it.”
“That’s right.”
“I thought you said everyone around here was an asshole,” Valentine said.
The Republic National Bank was a one-story concrete bunker with a single drive-in and no ATM. A sign on the lawn gave the daily mortgage rate. Beneath the rate were the words NO POINTS. They got out and Ricky locked the car doors with the key. He headed toward the bank’s entrance with Valentine beside him.
“There are some decent people around here,” Ricky admitted. “Highland Moss is one. Roland Pew is another. So’s Max Bookbinder.”
“Who’s he?”
“He’s the ex-principal over at the high school.” He caught Valentine’s look and said, “Let me guess. My antisocial ways would have precluded me from liking an ex-principal.”
“Did I say that?”
“No, but you were thinking it. Max is a great guy. A few weeks after Polly and I busted up, she spent the weekend with Max. Guy’s old enough to be her father. Sure enough, I hear about it, just like everyone hears about everything in this jerkwater town.” They had reached the front door, and Ricky rapped on the glass. “So I run into Max in the produce department at the supermarket. I’ve been working on this line for days, and I ask him, ‘Hey, Max, how do you like secondhand goods?’ I mean, I say it
“You’ve got some warped sense of humor,” Valentine said.
“Thanks.”
The bank’s front door was darkened by a curtain. Above the door hung a tasseled banner. These were Golden Savings Days, the banner proclaimed—INVEST NOW IN SIX-MONTH CDS. A white-haired guard pulled the curtain back. He tried to wave them away.
“That’s Claude,” Ricky said under his breath. “Single-handedly supports every titty bar in the county.” He raised his voice. “Hey, Claude, let us in!”
“We’re closed,” Claude said through the glass.
Ricky pointed at a beat-up bicycle parked beside the front door. “I’m here to help Roland Pew open his account. He needs me to cosign the check.”
Claude turned his head, and Valentine guessed someone inside the bank was talking to him. When he turned back, he was frowning. He reached for the giant key ring hanging from his belt, then hesitated. Ricky banged the glass with his palm.
“Come on, Claude. Open up.”
Claude unlocked the door. His movements were stilted. As they went inside, he closed and locked the door behind them. The bank’s interior was as cold as a meat locker. On one wall were three teller stations; on the other, a row of desks where officers conducted business. On each desk was a blotter, a phone with multiple lines, and a computer. The chairs behind the desks were empty.
Valentine followed Ricky to a desk that had a plaque with Highland Moss’s name on it. The phone on the desk was blinking wildly, all four lines on hold. Valentine heard an alarm go off inside his skull. He turned around, his eyes sweeping the room. The teller stations were also deserted, and he spied the contents of a woman’s pocketbook strewn across the floor. A lipstick, some coins, gum, and a pocket calendar.
He heard someone cough and glanced over his shoulder. Behind Highland Moss’s desk was a large curtain. From behind it stepped a tall, gangly man with a black ski mask pulled over his face. He was dressed like a scarecrow, the knees of his jeans gone, his red flannel shirt caked with dirt. From his right hand dangled a .357 Magnum revolver.
“Arms in the air,” the scarecrow said.
Valentine and Ricky raised their arms into the air. Swallowing hard, Ricky said, “Where’s Roland?”
“He a friend of yours?” the scarecrow asked.
“Yeah.”
“Roland’s right here.”
The scarecrow snapped his fingers, and Roland Pew emerged from behind the same curtain. A handsome kid, wearing his Sunday clothes.
For a long moment, no one moved. The scarecrow waved the .357 menacingly in their faces. “Don’t make me shoot you,” he said.
The four men slowly sunk to the floor.
