Mr. Lucky

“Sure. They stuck a satellite dish on the roof of an OTB parlor and used the feed from the dish to show the races from Belmont, instead of using the normal TV signal. The satellite feed had a seven-second delay on it because the satellite is up there in space. Those seven seconds allowed an employee in the OTB parlor to see which three horses came out of the gate first. Most people don’t know it, but the three horses that come out of the gate first usually finish in the money. Guys at the track have been using this information for years to place late bets. It’s called past-posting.

“The guy at the OTB parlor wrote the numbers of the horses down on a racing slip and passed it through the bars to Ricky. Ricky pretended to write on the slip, then slapped his money down and passed the slip back. Ricky told me he wasn’t always accurate when it came to picking the ponies, which should have been a tip-off.

“With this race, Ricky was lucky. All three horses were winners. He won eight hundred thirty-six dollars and eighty-seven cents for his three-hundred-dollar bet. If he’d been smart, he’d have torn the slip up. But he had to wag it in my face and gloat about it.”

“Let me guess,” the accountant said. “The slip had the time on it.”

Valentine nodded. No one else seemed to understand. He said, “The slip showed the time the bet was recorded, which was seven seconds after the race actually started. Stanley and Ricky couldn’t figure out a way to change that, so they didn’t.”

“How many laws did they break?” the accountant asked.

He was a pleasant enough guy, with a trusting face and caring eyes, and Valentine found himself feeling sorry for him. He wiped away the emotion and counted off the crimes on the fingers of his hand. “Racketeering, wire fraud, and conspiracy. The Belmont track is in the state of New York. The attorney general of New York doesn’t take kindly to this kind of stuff. He’ll come down hard on Ricky and Stanley, and all of you.”

“But we didn’t know about this,” a woman on the couch said.

“It doesn’t matter. You’re still part of the gang.”

“What are we looking at in terms of prison sentences?” the accountant asked.

The question silenced the room.

“About ten years in prison, with time off for good behavior,” Valentine said.

“Unless we cooperate with you.”

Valentine started to answer him, then saw a vehicle pull down the driveway and park directly in front of the house. The doors opened, and two people emerged. As they climbed onto the porch, their faces became recognizable. It was Polly Parker and Ricky.

48

Polly and Ricky entered the house, holding hands. Ricky looked like he’d been doing a lot of crying, his face a sickening red, his eyes bloodshot. Polly led him into the center of the living room and stepped aside. Her ex-husband stared at Valentine with a look of anguish distorting his face. “Do you know what happened in Las Vegas this morning?” he asked.

“Yes,” Valentine said.

“Helen Ledbetter was my aunt. I…loved her dearly.”

“I’m sorry.”

Ricky pointed behind his back at the twenty-four members of his gang, who he no longer could find the courage to look in the eye. “Will you let them go if I play ball?”

“You ready to do that?”

“Yes. I’ll tell you everything.”

“Will you help me nail Stanley Kessel?”

Ricky nodded his head vigorously.

“Will you come clean with me?”

“I just said I would.”

“I wasn’t born yesterday, kid. This wasn’t just about ripping off the Mint. You and Stanley had something bigger in mind. A lot of time and a lot of money went into this. I want to know everything, or no deal.”

Ricky’s answer got caught in his throat. He began to shake, and cried while looking at the floor. He still hadn’t looked at the others. Maybe he never would.

“Okay,” he finally said. “Just let them go. Too many people have died over this.”

Valentine glanced at the rest of the gang. They looked ready to hit the floor running. He’d gotten what he wanted; only, it no longer seemed enough. He wanted his pound of flesh from these people. The cat had returned and was sashaying through his legs. He picked her up and said, “You folks want to get out of here, don’t you? You want to go home and get back to your kids and your jobs and forget this ever happened. Am I right?”

The twenty-four people crowded into the living room nodded as one. It was exactly what they wanted.

“Well, it’s not going to work that way,” he said, “because what happened isn’t going to stay in this room. Sergeant Gaylord will know, and so will his deputies. And they’re going to tell the rest of the people in this community how you scammed a casino while people in a burning hotel across the street were jumping out of windows. You used that tragedy to your advantage, and you know it. And now your neighbors are going to know it, too.”

It was like he’d invisibly punched every single one of them in the stomach. He supposed it was the next best thing to throwing them all in jail. He watched them file dejectedly out of the house, then gave Ricky a hard look. “You’d better not be lying to me, kid.”

Ricky couldn’t answer him. He looked like a man who’d just come home to find his house carried away by a tornado. He was melting down, his life a total loss. Polly stepped forward and put her arms around him. Ricky whispered something in her ear.

“He’ll do whatever you want,” she said.

Valentine continued to stare at Ricky. He trusted him about as far as he could kick him. “Why the sudden change of heart? You decide you want to go to heaven?”

Polly answered for him. “Stanley called Ricky this morning. He threatened to hurt me if Ricky went to the police.”

“You believe him?”

Ricky nodded. Shame affected people in different ways. For Ricky, it was a bucket of cold reality poured over his head. “Stanley’s always had a mean streak,” he whispered.

“He’s the brains behind this, isn’t he?” Valentine said.

“Yeah. Always was.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I was a kid, I ran away from home to be with a carnival,” Ricky said. “I was their sign painter. It was great. One day Stanley shows up. He’d run away from home, too. Only, he didn’t want to paint signs or clean up after the elephants. He wanted to learn how to scam people. He talked me into learning with him.”

“So he corrupted you.”

“Yeah, I guess you could call it that. Stanley liked to say that it isn’t stealing if you don’t get caught.”

“And it’s been one big joyride ever since,” Valentine said.

Ricky found the strength to look him in the eye. “I tried to back out a bunch of times, but Stanley always pulled me back in. Out in Las Vegas, I told him no, but then the fricking hotel had to burn down.”

“What did the fire have to do with it?”

“Stanley ran across the street when the hotel started to burn. He saw me jump from the balcony and pulled me out of the pool. Then he laid a guilt trip on me and said everyone from Slippery Rock was depending on me.”

“So you caved in and went through with it.”

Ricky nodded, then swallowed hard. “You really despise me, don’t you?”

“I killed three people because of you,” Valentine said. “You’re goddamn right I hate you.”

“What can I do to make things right?”

Valentine looked into his face and sensed that Ricky was finally going to come clean with him. He grabbed three chairs and made Ricky and Polly sit down, then sat backward in one so he was facing them. “For starters, tell