by James Swain
“You want me to call him?” she asked.
Mabel shook her head. “No, I’ll do it.”
Tony’s cell phone was turned off. Mabel left a message and asked him to call back. Her boss picked up his messages sporadically, which meant it might be a few hours, or even a day, before she got an explanation out of him.
Yolanda had to feed the baby, so Mabel showed her out. Shutting the front door behind Yolanda, Mabel suddenly had an idea. She didn’t remember Tony making any trips to Canada recently, which meant he’d probably solved the candy bar scam from the comfort of his La-Z-Boy. Going into the living room, she looked through the stacks of videotapes that were scattered around the room. Tony’s handwriting was hard to decipher—Gerry likened it to the cartoon character Bullwinkle’s—and she squinted at the labels.
She looked through every stack, then the tapes stuck in drawers and cabinets. It wasn’t anywhere to be found. Now she was getting mad. It had to be here somewhere.
On the La-Z-Boy was a yellow legal pad and the remote, Tony’s two main work tools. It occurred to her that the tape might still be in the VCR, and she powered up the TV, then hit play on the VCR. A grainy surveillance of a balding man with bare feet filled the TV screen. It was Ricky Smith at the Mint. She had read about Ricky’s exploits in the newspaper, but wasn’t prepared for what she now saw.
Ricky played like a man possessed. With one hand he bet; with the other, he rolled the dice or flipped over his cards. No movement was wasted. Bam bam bam! What made it so amazing was that he didn’t lose. Not once. That wasn’t possible, and Mabel slowly lowered her posterior onto the La-Z-Boy, her eyes fixed on the screen.
According to MapQuest, the town of Slippery Rock, North Carolina, was six hundred and sixty miles from where Valentine lived in Florida, and nowhere near a public airport. So he’d gotten the oil changed in his ’92 Honda and taken to the highway.
He drove in the right lane most of the way, and caught the drivers of passing cars giving him the eye. The Honda was definitely showing its age, the navy blue paint job fading to a less vibrant color. He kept thinking of trading it in; only, the engine still turned over every time he fired it up. What more did he want in a car?
Crossing into North Carolina, he felt his ears pop, and he grabbed MapQuest’s directions off the passenger seat. He’d been a flatlander all his life and hadn’t bothered to check the town’s elevation when he’d printed the instructions off his computer. Slippery Rock was twenty-nine hundred feet above sea level and in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. No wonder it was taking him so long to get there.
He kept his eyes peeled for a gas station. He’d run out of nicotine gum an hour ago, and the craving for a cigarette was killing him. He fiddled with the radio and found local news and Billy Graham saving souls. A Sinatra CD was in the player, but he saved that for special occasions, leaving silence as his traveling companion.
His cell phone rang, jolting him out of a daydream. The caller ID said HOME.
“Sick of driving yet?” his neighbor asked.
“Just about,” he admitted.
“Not to say I told you so, but flying to Atlanta would have been much easier.”
“If I didn’t hate airports so much, I’d agree with you.”
“I know, they remind you of medium-security prisons,” Mabel said. “Look, I just had a look at this tape of Ricky Smith, and I’d have to agree with your friend Bill Higgins. Something is definitely not on the square, to use your favorite expression.”
Valentine sat up in his seat. “You think so?”
“I’d bet my hat on it.”
Mabel rarely disagreed with him, especially when it came to his work. This sounded more like a scolding, and before he could answer, she continued.
“I think you need to take a fresh approach to this case, Tony.”
“You do?”
“Yes. You’re still angry at the casino owners in Las Vegas for what they did to Gerry. You have to forget about that.”
He swallowed hard. “Okay.”
“You also have to forget that Ricky Smith jumped out of a burning building,” Mabel said. “You’re letting that cloud what happened inside the casino. The man won eighty separate bets at blackjack, craps, and roulette. He didn’t lose once.”
“People get lucky,” he heard himself say.
Mabel laughed. “Not like this.”
He suddenly felt like an idiot. Mabel had obviously spotted something on the tape. He’d watched the tape again late last night after getting home from Key West. He’d been sleepy and dozed off near the end. “What did you see?”
“The surveillance tape in your VCR of Ricky Smith is actually four tapes spliced together,” his neighbor said. “There’s a time posted on each segment. Did you bother to check them?”
“No.”
“The times are continuous. He was running from game to game in his bare feet. Is that the way winners act?”
The sun was starting to set, and Valentine realized he was smiling. “No, they sure don’t.”
“The whole thing stinks, if you ask me.”
His headlights caught a green billboard on the side of the highway. Slippery Rock was another thirty miles, and he punched the accelerator with his foot.
“You’re a genius,” he told his neighbor.
From the elevated interstate, downtown Slippery Rock looked like something out of a storybook: four blocks square, the red brick streets laid out in a perfect grid, the buildings no more than three stories high, with old-fashioned storefronts and no neon lights. It was a pleasant step back in time, and as Valentine entered town, the bell in the tower of the Old First Presbyterian Church tolled seven o’clock. The roads were slick from a rain he hadn’t encountered, and he inched the vehicle down Main Street while searching for the Century 21 office.
Turning around, he drove through downtown a second time. It reminded him of several bucolic burgs he and his late wife had considered as places to retire to. In the end they’d chosen Florida, but a town like this would have been high on the consideration list. It was so clean it sparkled, and that was always a good sign.
He found the Century 21 office on a side street, the mullioned front window a montage of available homes and condos. Tapping his keys on the front door, he stamped his feet to stay warm. The mountains were always colder. Too bad he hadn’t remembered that when he’d packed. A cleaning lady unlocked the front door.
“I’m looking for Dolores Parker,” he announced.
The cleaning lady shrugged. “Who you?”
“Her seven o’clock appointment.”
The cleaning lady pointed across the street at the Holiday Inn. “Try the bar. Short blond lady. Fast talker.”
He thanked her and crossed the street. Dolores Parker was Ricky’s ex-wife. Her name had popped up in a newspaper article Valentine had found on the Internet. The article said she sold real estate, so he’d called the chamber of commerce and found out where. Making a phony appointment wasn’t entirely kosher, but neither was cheating a casino.
The bar, called the Beef & Brew, was just off the lobby. It was a dark, low-ceilinged room filled with loud people, the loudest of which, a spitfire blonde with inchlong fingernails, stood barefoot on a table while singing the Monkees’ “Last Train to Clarksville,” the lyrics drowned out by her unappreciative audience. When she was done, Valentine stepped forward and helped her down from the table.
“Thanks, mistah,” she slurred.
“Tony Valentine,” he said, offering his hand. “Your seven o’clock appointment.”
Her hand went up to her mouth, then she giggled, reached out, and pumped his hand hard. “Dolores Parker, nice to meet you. My friends call me Polly or P squared. Let me guess—your flight was delayed. Or was it the roads? They’re horrible this time of year. Well, the important part is you made it to Slippery Rock safe and sound. So how do you like our little oasis?”
“I like it,” he said.
“Well, good!�
�� Slipping on her pumps, she grew three inches, the top of her perky little head reaching Valentine’s chin, and wrapping her arm in his, she let out a loud “See ya later, boys!” and hustled her client out into the cold and rainy night.
He followed Polly Parker to the north side of town. The drive had made him sleepy, and he rolled down his window and let the night air blow in his face. Slippery Rock was a pretty place, but he now remembered why he and Lois had decided against living in the mountains. It was cold six months of the year.
Polly drove her Acura into a cul-de-sac, the modest ranch houses sitting on heavily wooded lots, and he pulled his Honda up a sloping driveway and parked beside her. As he got out, he saw her window come down. She was on her cell phone, and he heard her say, “Hey, Kimberli, it’s Polly. I’m doing fine. Look, I’m showing a client from out of town the Muller place on Willard Court. I’ll call you when we’re done. Bye-bye.”
That was smart, Valentine thought. Tell a friend and warn me at the same time. She got out, and they walked down a narrow brick path to a double-story shingle house.
“Slippery Rock doesn’t have many rentals this time of year,” she said, fumbling with the keys. “Not that the house is bad, it’s just that for the same money, I can get you much better in the next town over.”
“Why don’t you just tell me what’s wrong with the place and get it out of the way?”
She hesitated, key in the door. “You sure?”
“I’m a big boy. I can take it.”
A noise came out of her mouth that sounded like a purr. Her bloodshot eyes betrayed how hammered she was, the tip of her tongue licking her finely shaped little teeth as she spoke. “Well, let’s see, the roof leaks and the basement floods when it rains and the carpets have a permanent damp smell you can’t get rid of and the street isn’t wired for cable so all you get is three channels and two of them are Billy Graham’s Evangelistic Association. And then there’s your neighbor, Hank Ridley. Ridley’s daddy once owned most of this county. Over time, he’d sold off parcels to pay for things he needed, like a new car or a kid’s education, and when he died, the last parcel was willed to Hank, who fancies himself an aging Beat Generation poet. Hank sits around all day and smokes pot and never cleans his place up so you can imagine—”
Valentine had a feeling she was going to give him the town’s entire history. Holding up his hand like a cop directing traffic, he said, “Why don’t you just show me the place?”
“Why, sure!” she said brightly.
Grabbing his arm, she barged inside.
Polly gave him the twenty-five-cent tour. By the time it was over he was almost feeling sorry for her. Seven-thirty on a Friday night and she didn’t have anything better to do than work him over. Several times, he’d tried to get her to open up and talk about herself. Only, Polly wasn’t going there, and by the end of the tour, he realized that he’d wasted her time, as well as his own. They were in the kitchen, and she filled two glasses with water and handed him one.
“So what did you say you did for a living?”
“I’m a retired cop,” he said.
“What brings you here?”
“I’m writing my memoirs. I needed a little peace and quiet.”
“From Florida?”
Her third degree was starting to wear on his nerves. He took out his wallet and let her see the snapshots he proudly carried around. “From my granddaughter and my son and his wife.”
She stared at the picture of little Lois, and he saw something in her face melt.
“You must be very proud,” she said.
Valentine said that he was.
“Not to change the subject, but the house goes for six hundred a month, plus a security deposit. What do you say?”
He started to tell her he wanted to think about it. But a noise from outside got his attention. Over the sink was a window with peeling paint that looked onto the wooded backyard. He opened it with both his hands and stuck his head out.
The screeching sound that can only be made by a wayward electric guitar was tearing a hole in the chilly night air. Polly stood next to him at the sink, and he pointed at the ramshackle house on the other side of the trees. “It sounds like someone’s torturing a cat.”
The real-estate agent grimaced. “It does, doesn’t it?”
He pulled his head back inside and shut the window. “I’m going to have to think about it.”
She followed him through the house. Reaching the front door, she grabbed the knob, then stopped. “I can have a talk with him, if you’d like. Ask him to turn it down.”
“Who?”
She opened the door, and the screaming guitar invaded the quiet interior. “The moron who likes to play his music so loud.”
“You know him?”
“Name’s Ricky Smith. He’s my ex-husband. He likes to play his stereo loud enough to wake the dead. Especially his Stevie Ray Vaughan bootlegs.”
Somewhere in the woods a dog was howling. Throughout the neighborhood other screaming mongrels joined in. Unsnapping her purse, Polly dug out a Kleenex and began to blow her nose. Suddenly the guitar stopped being a guitar, the CD player stuck on a screaming high note. The neighborhood mongrels shredded their vocal cords, and Valentine realized she was crying. He touched her arm.
“You going to be okay?” he asked.
“Who knows?” she said.
They returned to the kitchen. Hiding in the ancient Frigidaire was a can of Miller Lite. Polly poured it into a tall paper cup, which she tapped against Valentine’s water glass. While crying, she had inadvertently wiped away her mascara and makeup, and now resembled an eighteen-year-old, her eyes puffy and soft.
“Sorry about the waterworks,” she said. “Ricky and I didn’t part on the best of terms. We dated in high school; I dumped him, thought he was a jerk. We got back together a few years ago. I thought he’d changed, or that I could live with him, or whatever. Stupid me. Any idea what it’s like being married to someone who’s convinced he’s a born loser and has no self-esteem? It’s like watching someone circle a drain. I finally dumped him.”
“Did he always play the stereo so loud?”
“Yes. I thought it was cute in the beginning, like he was rebelling against something. When I complained he gave me earplugs.”
“Any kids?”
“I couldn’t see him as a father. I think that was what drove us apart. He didn’t have the backbone.”
“You still talk?”
“We went to this marriage counselor after we split up. Slippery Rock being a small town and the two of us having to cross paths just about every day, the counselor suggested we keep a dialogue going, you know, keep things civil. Hah! All we did was vent our spleens at each other. One night we had drinks at the Holiday Inn and I ended up punching his lights out.”
Her cup was empty, and Valentine watched her search the refrigerator for more beer.
“Any regrets?” he asked.
“Yeah. I wish I waited until he had some money to divorce him.”
Valentine didn’t say anything, and watched her slam the refrigerator hard.
“He stuck me for ten grand when we split up,” she explained.
“Oh,” he said.
“Ricky’s rich now. He won a million bucks out in Las Vegas, and this afternoon I heard he picked a fifty-thousand-dollar lottery ticket, if you can believe that. But to tell you the truth, I don’t think all the money in the world could get us back together. Ricky isn’t the type of cat that’s going to change his stripes, know what I mean?”
He walked Polly to her car. As she was climbing in, her cell phone chirped, and she answered it while firing the engine up. “Hey, Kimberli. Yup, everything’s fine, I’m just leaving. Thanks for checking up. Bye-bye.”
Valentine took a step back from the car. The Holiday Inn in town wanted a hundred and thirty bucks a night for a room. With all the hidden taxes and charges, it would come to a hundred and fifty bucks easy. Times the four nights he expected to be he
re was six hundred bucks. Taking his wallet out, he removed six crisp hundreds, then tapped on Polly’s window with his knuckle. The window came down, and she stuck her head out, an expectant look on her face.
“Here’s six hundred for the first month’s rent,” he said.
“You want the place?”
“It will do.”
“There’s also a security deposit,” she said.
“For what? The house is practically falling down and there’s nothing worth stealing. Six hundred, and that’s my final offer.”
He shoved the money into her hand. She considered it for a moment.
“You’ve got a deal,” she said. “You want me to call Ricky, tell him to turn the music down? He will if I ask him.”
“He won’t get mad?” Valentine asked.
“Oh, he’ll yell and scream, but that’s typical.”
“Why don’t you give me his phone number? He starts yelling, I’ll go over and punch him in the nose.”
She giggled, the alcohol giving her voice a little squeak. “It’s 555-1292.”
He memorized the number and watched her back down the drive. Growing up with a drunk for a father, he’d learned to hate what alcohol did to people, and he brusquely motioned for her to come back. She drove back to her original spot and lowered her window.
“You forgot to give me the keys to the house,” he said.
8
While his father was getting settled in Slippery Rock, Gerry was traveling to Gulfport, Mississippi, determined to find Tex “All In” Snyder and have a talk with him.
It had been a long day. He’d flown from Key West to Atlanta that afternoon, taken an eight-seater to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and rented a car. By the time he’d actually gotten on the highway, it was growing dark, and he’d wisely gotten in the right lane. A lot of tall white trucks were on the highway, and they roared when they passed him.
