me what you and Stanley were up to. Why didn’t you stop after you scammed the Mint? Why rig the lottery and the horse race? And why did you hire a public relations firm to broadcast all this crap to the newspapers?”
“Publicity,” Ricky said. “Stanley was going to make me into a household name.”
“Why? So he could put your face on a box of Wheaties?”
“He wanted to take me public.”
Valentine had lost his appetite for stupid jokes and nearly smacked Ricky in the side of the head. He saw Polly nod, and realized Ricky wasn’t joking.
“How much money did Stanley think he could raise?”
“A hundred million dollars,” Ricky said. “It would go into a hedge fund, which I’d control. I’d pick winners, and the investors would reap the rewards.”
“But the winners would actually be stocks that Stanley was feeding you.”
Ricky put his hand into Polly’s lap. “That’s right. Stanley would buy the stocks early, then sell high. The fund would eventually crash, but by then, we’d all be rich.”
“The classic pump and dump.”
“Yeah.”
“The gang that was just here knew about this, didn’t they?”
Ricky nodded. “That was their payoff. Each of them was going to be allowed to buy ten thousand shares when the stocks opened, then dump their shares when the stock peaked. There were other people in town that knew about it as well.”
Valentine drummed his fingers on the back of his chair. Another piece of the puzzle had slipped into place. “The guys I shot in the bank. They were pushed out, weren’t they?”
Ricky nodded again. “They blabbed about it, so they got voted off the island.”
Valentine saw the cat enter the room and climb into Ricky’s lap. “Do you have evidence of what Stanley was going to do? Did he write up this company he was going to form?”
“Yes. I have everything,” Ricky said.
Valentine pushed himself out of the chair. It was the strangest damn thing. He’d never met Stanley Kessel and had no idea what he looked like, yet still wanted to put him in prison for the rest of his life. Perhaps it was because Valentine had run across so many guys just like Stanley. Grand schemers who sucked innocent folks in, then systematically ruined their lives.
“Go pack yourself a suitcase,” he told Ricky.
“Where are we going?”
“New York City. We’re going to go see the guys who police the stock market.”
Ricky and Polly rose from their chairs. They were still holding hands, and Valentine guessed that Polly had talked Ricky into coming clean. It was too bad they’d gotten divorced. He had a feeling Ricky would have never gone down this road had they been together.
“You can come, too,” Valentine told her.
49
Valentine went out onto the front porch to wait while Ricky packed his clothes. The cat, which had been preening around Ricky, followed him outside and did its little dance. He scooped it up in his arms.
“Traitor,” he said, rubbing its head.
The lawn was empty of cars, and the police cruisers were also gone. He would have to call Gaylord and explain what had happened. The sergeant would be happy to hear that he wasn’t going to have to arrest the gang. Valentine wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do, but he didn’t live here. He started to unclip the badge from his shirt, when he heard a voice call his name. He walked around the side of the house and found Mary Alice Stoker sitting on a swing.
“How long have you been here?” he asked.
“The whole time,” she said. “I was on the porch. I heard your speech.” She patted the spot beside her on the swing. He sat beside her and made the chains sing. “I once lived in this house. I can still walk the grounds without getting lost.”
“Who brought you here?”
“A neighbor. She was involved.” She pushed the ground with her feet, and the swing went backward. “You were very kind with them, considering what they did.”
“I was more than kind,” he said.
“How so?”
He took her fingers and placed them on the badge still clipped to his shirt.
“When did that happen?”
“Last night. It’s only temporary.”
She patted him on the knee. “You are a good man, Tony Valentine. But there is something that’s bothering me.”
“What’s that?”
“Your friend in Las Vegas, Lucy Price. Why did you abandon her?”
He felt like an invisible dagger had been plunged into his heart. His dream from an hour ago was still rumbling around in his head. He’d been in a car with Lucy but still couldn’t prevent her from crashing. The moral had been clear: He couldn’t alter the course of Lucy’s life, or the misfortune she might cause others. No one could do that but Lucy. He started to get up from the swing and saw the blind librarian stiffen.
“Please don’t run away from me as well.”
He sat back down and waited for her to resume. The swing had stopped moving.
“As a cop, you know how to help people. But as a person, you’re misguided.”
“You think so?”
“Yes, I do.”
“So straighten me out.”
A secret smile crossed her face. She placed her hand on his sleeve and left it there. “You told me a story yesterday about two cops who were summoned to a domestic disturbance. Instead of arresting the young man causing the problem, one of the cops tried to talk some sense into him. The young man hit the cop in the face with a hammer, and the cop’s partner shot him dead. You told me that the cops had made a mistake. Had they arrested the young man, neither of those terrible things would have happened.”
“That’s right.”
“But you left out an important part,” she said. “You didn’t factor in all the other times that those two cops were able to talk sense into someone and keep them from venturing down the wrong path. How many times do you think those two cops did that?”
Valentine shrugged. “Hard to say.”
“A lot?”
“Sure. It comes with the job. You get to play Solomon all the time.”
“Exactly. Cops have to make life-altering decisions every single day. And what I’m telling you is this: That one tragedy you described to me doesn’t cancel out all the good things those two cops did. Evil never cancels out good. It only eclipses it and makes us not see it. But the good remains. It’s always there. It is the thing that makes the human experience worth having.”
The front door of the house opened, and Ricky and Polly stepped outside. Mary Alice heard the sound, and her grip on his sleeve intensified. “The bad deed that Lucy Price committed does not negate the good deed that you did for her. Nor should it stop you from continuing to help her. In the end, you will prevail, just like you did today.”
“You think so?”
“I know so,” she said.
It was something one of the little kids he’d met in her library might say. Ricky and Polly were standing on the porch, looking for him. Valentine got their attention and pointed at Ricky’s Lexus sitting in the carport. Ricky and Polly walked across the yard and climbed into it.
