by James Swain
Standing at the front door, he started to knock, then hesitated when he heard footsteps on the other side of the door. “It’s Tony Valentine. May I come in?”
“I was in the middle of something,” she said through the door. “What do you want?”
“I need to return an overdue book.”
There was a long silence. The four men had scared the daylights out of her. That was why she wasn’t opening the door. He knocked again, this time a little more forcefully.
“What do you want?” she asked again.
“Your permission.”
“To do what?”
“Beat up the four guys who threatened you.”
The door jerked open, and she stood silhouetted in the doorway. She wore a floor-length denim dress and had her hair down. Something hard dropped in his stomach. A hideous purple bruise marred the right side of her face. She held an ice pack in her outstretched hand, letting him see what they had done to her. He silently followed her inside.
His eyes canvassed the living room. Liz had said the four men had broken things while threatening Mary Alice. He didn’t see any evidence of that.
“Elizabeth Ford told you,” she said, sitting on the couch.
He drew up a chair and sat across from her. “That’s right. She said four men were threatening you.”
“It was a misunderstanding.”
Valentine stared at the bruise on the side of her head. It was a beauty. “I’ve discovered that kids are good barometers when it comes to bad people. These guys sounded scary.”
“I told you, it was a misunderstanding.”
“Liz said one of them hit you.”
“She has an active imagination.”
“How did you get that bruise?”
“I fell down earlier when I was outside. Blind people do that sometimes.”
He drew back in his chair. There was real defiance in her voice. The friendliness she’d shown that morning had evaporated, and he sensed that she didn’t want him in her house.
“Would you like me to leave?”
“You’re very perceptive,” she said.
He rose and put the chair back where he’d found it. He started to walk to the door and heard something crunch loudly beneath his shoe. His eyes found a tiny piece of porcelain lying on the rug. Kneeling, he picked it up with the tips of his fingers.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Wondering why you just lied to me.”
She shuddered. “I’d like you to leave. I was taking a nap. Please go.”
“No,” he said.
A swinging door led him into the kitchen. He went to the sink and started pulling open the large cabinet doors beneath it. She followed him uncertainly into the room.
“What are you doing? Please stop whatever it is you’re doing.”
“No,” he said again.
The back door was ajar. He opened it and stepped outside. A short flight of wooden stairs led to her garden. The garden was meticulously kept, with three rows of red, white, and yellow roses. They were all in bloom. Her babies, he guessed.
At the foot of the stairs he spied a cardboard box. He walked down the steps and picked up the box with both hands. It was heavy, and he felt its contents shift. He walked up the stairs and went into the house, dropping the box onto the kitchen table. Mary Alice jumped.
“You’re a lousy liar,” he said.
“Please don’t be angry with me as well.”
He peeled back the lid. Inside the box were porcelain statues that had been shattered into tiny pieces. One of the pieces was a little boy’s head, and he held it on his palm and stared at the painstaking detail that had gone into its creation.
“You collect these?” he asked.
She fumbled pulling a chair out from the kitchen table. Then she sat in it. “Yes. They’re from a town in Germany called Meissen. There’s a shop in Palm Beach that used to sell them. Every year I would save up my money and treat myself to one.”
“How many did you have?”
“Twenty-two. I gave each one a name.”
He put the head back into the box and closed the lid. Her other babies, he guessed. He pulled a chair out from the table and sat down beside her. He reached over and put his hand on her arm. A wall of resolution rose in her face.
“I would prefer if you didn’t touch me.”
He withdrew his hand. “When did I become the bad guy?”
“My friends in town called me. They told me what you did.”
“What did I do?”
“You shot the two bank robbers in cold blood. They were trying to talk their way out of it, and you shot them. The casinos sent you. You’re some kind of hit man.”
A porcelain bowl filled with white candy sat in the center of the table. He stuck his hand into it. Some of it was hard, while other pieces were soft. He put some into his mouth and chewed. It was sweet and disgustingly good.
“Do you know Roland Pew?” he asked.
“I taught Roland to read,” she replied.
He took the cordless phone off the counter and called information, got Roland’s number, and punched it in. Roland’s familiar voice answered on the second ring. Valentine handed Mary Alice the phone. “Roland was there during the robbery,” he said. “Ask him to tell you what really happened.”
Valentine ate the entire bowl of candy while Mary Alice talked to Roland. She made him repeat himself a number of times, and Valentine guessed she was comparing his version of things against that of her friends. She hung up shaking her head.
“I can’t believe my friends lied to me,” she said.
“Maybe someone lied to them,” he said. “This candy is absolutely delicious. You’ve got to give me the recipe.”
She broke into a faint smile. Her hand reached across the table, and Valentine realized she was trying to touch him. He put his hand on top of hers and left it there.
“I’m sorry I doubted you,” she said. “I hope you weren’t offended.”
“I’ll get over it.”
“The candy is made from peanuts, raisins, and Golden Grahams cereal. Put everything in a small garbage bag, then add melted chocolate, melted peanut butter, and a cup of confectioners’ sugar. Shake the bag hard, and you’re done.”
“It’s addictive. What do you call it?”
“White Trash.”
He repeated the recipe to himself. He was lousy in the kitchen and would have to entice Mabel to make up a batch. “Did you know the four men who threatened you?”
“Their voices were unfamiliar.”
“Spanish accents?”
“Yes.”
“They told you to stop talking to me, didn’t they?”
“Yes. They said you were responsible for all the horrible things that were happening.”
“Which one of them hit you?”
She shook her head, this time smiling.
“I really did fall down when I was outside,” she said.
Stuck to Mary Alice’s refrigerator was a list of important phone numbers, along with names of friends and family. The phone numbers were printed in English and in braille. He studied it for a few moments, then said, “Do you have any friends nearby you could stay with? I think it would be best if you got out of Slippery Rock for a few days.”
“I have a cousin in Brevard. It’s ten minutes away.”
“I’d like to drive you, if you don’t mind.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you,” she said.
Ten minutes later Mary Alice was sitting in his car, her suitcase in the trunk. He hated taking her away from her house and the things she knew, but saw no other way to protect her. As he was backing out, his cell phone rang. He picked it up and stared at the caller ID.
“For the love of Christ,” he muttered under his breath.
“What’s wrong?”
It was Lucy Price, the last person in the world he wanted to talk to right now. He flipped the phone open and punched the power button. The phone went
dead in his hand.
“Nothing,” he said.
“You killed the power on your phone.”
“It was someone I didn’t want to talk to. How do I get to Brevard?”
“Who might that be?”
He had reached the end of her driveway. He didn’t know which way to go and threw the car into park. There was suspicion in her voice, and he said, “It was a woman I met in Las Vegas last month. I tried to help her. It didn’t work out. Now she calls me ten times a day.”
“How did you try to help her?”
“If you don’t mind, I really don’t want to talk about it.”
“I do mind,” she said stiffly. “I’m letting a strange man drive me someplace. I want to know who you are, or I’ll get out right now and go back in my house.”
She crossed her arms in her lap. She impressed him as someone who’d wait all day to get a straight answer. He killed the engine and turned sideways in his seat. “Her name is Lucy Price. She’s a degenerate gambler. She’s addicted to slot machines and owes money all over Las Vegas. I felt bad for her and gave her twenty-five thousand dollars to help her out.”
The figure made her head snap. “Seriously?”
“Yes. She isn’t a bad person; she just has this horrible problem. So I gave her the money.”
She looked puzzled, and Valentine watched her run her hand over the seat, then the dashboard, then the panel of the door. She shook her head.
“This is an old car, isn’t it?” she said.
“It’s a ’92 Honda Accord.”
“You’re not a rich man, are you?”
“I make a decent buck, but no, I’m not rich.”
“So you gave her the money out of the goodness of your heart.”
“I guess you could put it that way.”
“So why are you now shunning her? It doesn’t add up.”
Valentine felt the air escape his lungs. He didn’t want to go down this road. It was painful, and thinking about it would only ruin his sleep tonight, his dreams tortured by Lucy’s problems and his own troubled conscience. As if reading his mind, Mary Alice reached across the seat and grasped his arm. She gave it a healthy squeeze.
“Please answer me,” she said.
He had never liked talking in cars, and they got out and walked to her porch. The swing looked inviting so they sat in it. He stared at the maple tree in her front yard and tried to gather his thoughts. A big fat crow sitting on a branch stared back at him.
“When I first became a cop in Atlantic City, I thought part of my job was helping people,” he said. “I grew up there, so most of the people I came in contact with I personally knew. They were my friends, so I tried to help them work their problems out.”
“Instead of arresting them.”
“Exactly. One day, my supervisor took me aside. His name was Banko, and he liked to do things by the book. He told me I was making a mistake, that I needed to stop.”
“Did you listen to him?”
“Not at first. Then one day, something happened that changed my mind. Two cops I knew got called to a domestic disturbance. Their names were Manley and Hatch. I’d known them since grade school. Good guys. The disturbance was between a girl and her boyfriend. The girl was trying to break up, and the boyfriend was taking it hard. He was threatening her, so a neighbor called 911.
“Manley and Hatch entered the house, and the boyfriend got belligerent with them. Right then, they should have cuffed him, read him his rights, and thrown him in their cruiser. That’s what that situation calls for. Only, they didn’t. Manley put his hand on the kid’s shoulder and tried to talk some sense into him.
“The boyfriend was crazy angry. He worked construction, and his tools were sitting on the table. He reached down and picked up a ball-peen hammer.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a special hammer used to beat metal into shape. He smacked Manley in the face with it. Manley’s nose practically came off and was hanging on the side of his face. Hatch drew his gun and shot the kid through the heart.”
“Does that make Manley wrong?”
“Yes.”
“Please explain why.”
“Manley’s intentions were good, just like mine were when I interceded in disturbances. But the fact is, if Manley had cuffed the boyfriend like he was supposed to, he wouldn’t be walking around today with a steel rod in his face, and the kid would still be alive. Sometimes the best thing is to arrest a person and stick them in jail. Sure, it’s rock bottom, but that’s a place some people need to go.”
Mary Alice folded her hands in her lap. “Is that where Lucy Price needs to go?”
“Yes.”
“But you gave her twenty-five thousand dollars. Surely that helped her.”
“It only made things worse,” he said. “I had this selfish dream that by giving her the money, she’d get her life back in order and we’d get together. Instead, she took the money and went on a gambling binge. When it was over, she was broke. She got so despondent, she left one of the casinos and ran her car over the median of Las Vegas Boulevard. She hit another car and injured several tourists. One died.”
“Do you blame yourself for that?”
“Yes.”
“And you honestly believe that she’d be better off if you hadn’t given her the money.”
“I don’t know if Lucy would be better off or not,” he said. “I just know that someone wouldn’t have died.”
The crow started cawing at him. It was like being heckled from a crowd, and Valentine fished a coin out of his pocket to throw at it. Before he could, Mary Alice stood up from the swing. She did it suddenly, and his legs shot out from the sudden shift in weight. She marched across the porch to the front door of her house, then turned to face him.
“Goodness is never a sin,” she said.
He stared at her, his face burning.
“Shame on you for thinking so,” she added.
“Don’t you want me to take you to Brevard?”
“No,” she said.
She went back inside and shut the door behind her. He heard the dead bolt being thrown. It was a humiliating sound, and he sat for a long moment and let the crow berate him. Then he got her suitcase from the trunk and put it on the front mat.
30
At three-thirty Sunday afternoon, Lamar pulled his car into the parking lot of Dixie Magic, found one of the few remaining spaces, and killed the engine. The casino was doing a brisk business, and Gerry stayed low in the passenger seat.
“You think I’ll be safe here?”
“I’m not putting you inside the casino,” Lamar said. He pointed at a construction trailer at the rear of the lot. “I’m putting you there.”
Gerry stared at the trailer. It was covered in aluminum siding, and an air conditioner hanging from a window was dripping water. It looked like a pit.
“Why there?”
“That’s command central,” Lamar said. “Come on.”
Lamar took his gun off the seat and slipped it under his belt. They got out and crossed the lot, with Lamar standing between Gerry and the road.
Lamar knocked three times on the trailer door, paused, then knocked three times again. The door popped open, and a blast of cold air greeted them. They went in, and Lamar closed the door behind them and locked it. Gerry was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and felt himself shiver.
“We keep it this cold so the humidity doesn’t ruin the equipment,” Lamar said.
Gerry stared at the tables cramming the trailer’s interior. They contained dozens of video monitors stacked atop each other, and machines that generated the date and time on a tape. There were also phones and logbooks and plenty of empty coffee cups. Watching the video monitors were two guys Gerry remembered from his lecture the day before. Both men turned in their chairs and said hello.
“We set up command central a few weeks back,” Lamar explained. “It lets us watch the action inside the casino without anyone knowing it.”
Gerry stared at the monitors. “Discover any more cheating?”
Lamar scratched his chin. “Well, that’s where I was hoping you could help us.”
“Help you how?”
“You know, like you did with the chip scams.”
“You want me to figure out how you’re getting ripped off?”
“Only if you want to,” Lamar said.
Gerry felt breakfast turn over in his stomach. He’d watched videotapes of cheaters from his father’s library and had always been stumped. His lying was going to be the death of him one day. “Sure,” he said.
Lamar’s two men were named Kent and Boomer. Both had played football for Ole Miss and were likable guys. The only problem was their shoulders. Sitting between them, Gerry felt like he was wedged between two boulders.
Kent and Boomer had both worked for the Mississippi Gaming Commission for ten years and were knowledgeable about gaming security. Both men understood that the best way to detect a scam was to figure out which table was the problem, then work backward. His father did this all the time. He called it Logical Backward Progression.
They had isolated which tables were losing the most money in the casino, and determined that this was where the majority of cheating was taking place. The problem areas included a craps table, a roulette table, and a blackjack table. They had videotaped these tables for two days and were watching the tapes in slow motion in an effort to determine how the money was being stolen.
Gerry stared at the monitors while sipping a cup of bitter coffee. Watching videotapes was about as stimulating as watching paint dry. Knowing someone was stealing made it a little more interesting, but not by much. More than once his father had caught him switching channels when he was supposed to be studying casino tapes.
“We’ve watched these damn tapes forward and backward and still can’t see what’s going on,” Kent said, biting off the end of a candy bar. “It’s frustrating.”
“It’s probably something simple,” Gerry said.
Both men glared at him. So did Lamar, who stood in the corner.
“They can be the hardest ones to detect,” he added.
