and the police station had seemed the best choice. He backed out of the lot and pulled onto the street, but not before first looking in both directions. The road was quiet. He wondered if the Cubans had been smart enough to bring a backup car with them. Most professional crews usually had one.
“I need to put you someplace safe,” he said.
“You got me,” Ricky said.
“I was thinking about dropping you at your ex-wife’s.”
Ricky jerked his head so hard that the dog sleeping in back lifted its head. “Are you nuts? Polly and I can’t be in the same room together.”
“She still cares for you. She showed me my house and couldn’t stop talking about you.” He glanced at his passenger. “Not all of it was pleasant, but there’s something still there.”
“Wow, this is great. First you save my ass, now you’re trying to save my failed marriage. Is there anything you can’t do?”
If Ricky hadn’t been bleeding, Valentine would have backhanded him in the face.
“Where does she live?”
“I’m not telling you,” Ricky said.
“You want me to call information, and call her and make you look like a fool?”
Ricky threw the bloodied Kleenex to the floor and buried his head in his hands.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” he said.
Dressed in a bathrobe, Polly Parker stood on her wraparound front porch when Valentine pulled down her gravel driveway a few minutes later. He’d gotten her number from Ricky and called her, and she’d offered her house as a safe haven without a moment’s hesitation. He had been right. The thread of love was still there.
Polly’s house was small and quaint, with enough Southern charm to grace the pages of a magazine. Before getting out of the car, Ricky scrubbed his face with his shirtsleeve. It was like watching a kid going on his first date. As he climbed out, the dog bounded out of the backseat and moments later was in Polly’s arms, getting hugs and kisses.
“Oh, my God,” Polly said as Ricky climbed onto the porch. “What happened to your face?” She glared at Valentine coming up from behind. “Did you do that to him? Did you?”
“Some hoods came to the house and beat me up,” Ricky said. He jerked his thumb in Valentine’s direction. “Mr. Wonderful saved me.”
Polly gently pushed the dog away. She was wearing Garfield slippers and was a foot shorter than her ex. Reaching up, she touched his damaged face.
“You just can’t stay out of trouble, can you?”
Ricky pulled his head away like he’d been slapped. “Don’t start in, okay? He’s bad enough. I don’t need any more.”
“Oh, Ricky, come on.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean grow up and put it behind you. I have.”
He looked down at his feet. “I’m…sorry.”
She slid her arms around his waist and held him. “Why don’t you come inside, and I’ll clean you up and make you a sloe gin fizz, and you can sit in front of the TV and not worry about anything. What do you say?”
A long silence followed as Ricky seemed to wrestle with her offer, his eyes still staring downward. And then it hit Valentine what was going on. Ricky had kept Polly in the dark. She wasn’t one of the gang of people in Slippery Rock involved in whatever crazy scheme he had going on. He’d protected her by not telling her. It said a lot of things about him as a man, but most importantly, it told Valentine that Ricky knew what he’d done was wrong. Otherwise, he would have had no reason to hide it from her.
“I’d like that,” he said.
Polly started to lead him into the house. She turned when they were both in the foyer and looked at Valentine. “You’re welcome to join us. I’m sorry I was so short with you.”
“Thanks, but I need to run,” Valentine said.
Ricky turned to stare at him. Panic had returned to his eyes.
“You going to the police?”
“I sure am,” Valentine said.
Not knowing his way around Slippery Rock, Valentine retraced his steps back to the police station and, finding the parking lot empty, drove back to his house. On the way, he started to punch in 911 on his cell phone, only to stop when he realized that he would have no way of knowing if the cop who replied to his call was also involved in Ricky’s scheme. So he called information instead and asked for Rodney Gaylord’s number. As he suspected, it was unlisted.
“I need you to do me a favor,” he told the operator. “Please call Sergeant Gaylord and tell him Tony Valentine needs to speak with him. Tell him I’m at my house, and he should drive there right away. Okay?”
The operator was young and didn’t like being told what to do. “I’m not supposed to do that. It’s against the rules.”
“Tell him I just shot someone, and I figured he’d want to know,” Valentine said.
“You serious, mister?”
“Dead serious.”
He drove back to Ricky’s house. As he expected, the black SUV was gone. He pulled into Hank Ridley’s driveway a few minutes later. Hank had looked pretty stoned a half hour ago, and Valentine guessed Hank was spinning in the ozone by now. Leaving the keys on the front doormat, he put his ear to the door and heard blaring rock ’n’ roll bleeding through the grain. It was another bootleg of the Grateful Dead. The band sounded horribly out of tune. Maybe it sounded good to Hank.
Valentine traipsed through the woods back to his house, stopping every fifty feet to listen to the sounds of the forest. In his eardrums he heard a steady beating sound, then realized it was his heart. He came to a stump and sat down on it.
His thoughts drifted to Juan. He’d hated shooting him, but he hadn’t seen any other choice. Back when he was patrolling Atlantic City’s casinos, he’d rarely drawn his firearm, much less used it. Guns were dangerous in crowded places. But having been a street cop, he also knew that guns never settled problems. They simply ended things.
For the hell of it, he took his pulse. Eighty-eight beats a minute. Normally it was seventy. He stood up and walked down the path toward his house.
Sergeant Gaylord was waiting for Valentine in the driveway of his rental house. He was dressed in blue jeans, a threadbare sweater, and sneakers. His eyes were puffy, and his hair looked like he’d stuck it in a blender.
“Give me your gun,” he said.
Valentine removed the Glock from his ankle holster. Gaylord examined the gun and shook his head. “One bullet?”
Valentine didn’t understand what he meant.
“You shot him with one bullet in the head.”
Valentine felt the air escape his lungs. “That’s right.”
“You’re pretty damn good at that.” Gaylord locked the Glock in the trunk of his vehicle. Then he said, “Show me where.”
Valentine walked him down the road to Ricky’s house while explaining what had happened and why he’d chosen to shoot Juan in Ricky’s driveway. Gaylord stared at him intently in the dark. More than once the sergeant stumbled on the uneven road.
“Ricky tell you why they were beating him up?” Gaylord asked.
“No, sir.”
“And Mary Alice Stoker stonewalled you as well?”
“Yes.”
“You think this has something to do with the scam at the Mint?”
Valentine met his gaze. It was the first time he’d heard Gaylord imply that he thought Ricky was a cheater. “I sure as hell do,” he said.
They halted at Ricky’s driveway. Gaylord said, “Stay behind me,” and walked a few yards ahead of him while
