Mr. Lucky

by James Swain

  Bill breathed heavily into the phone. He’d worked for the Gaming Control Board for thirty years; finding another job at this stage of his life wouldn’t be easy. He said, “I stumbled upon something strange earlier.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The night Ricky beat the Mint, I interviewed all the floor people. Everything seemed on the square. It occurred to me that I hadn’t talked to anyone in the surveillance control room. I read their log sheets, and no one reported anything suspicious while Ricky was winning, so I didn’t take it any further. But I figured, what the hell, I should talk to these folks, feel them out.”

  “And you found something.”

  “Yeah. There were two techs watching the craps table. They got a call from the floor ten minutes before Ricky started to roll the dice. A floor manager thought two rail birds at the table might be stealing other players’ chips.”

  Rail birds were bystanders who watched the action but never played. Casino people hated them, but there was no way to get rid of them. It was a free country.

  “The rail birds were standing at opposite ends of the table,” Bill went on. “The techs watched them. They didn’t see any stealing, but you know, that stuff is almost invisible.”

  “Sure.”

  “So one of the techs calls downstairs and gets a cocktail waitress to approach them. She tells them that if they’re staying in the hotel, she’ll get them free drinks. They said yes and volunteered their names. She called upstairs and passed the names to the techs. They contacted the police and the GCB to check if either had a criminal record.”

  “Did they?”

  “No, both were clean. But here’s the good part: When I interviewed the techs, one of them pulled the names off a sheet and gave them to me.”

  “Anyone we know?”

  “Frank Barnes and Clayton McCormick.”

  Valentine racked his memory. “Never heard of them.”

  “They’re both from Slippery Rock, North Carolina,” Bill said.

  “Must be friends of Ricky.”

  “That’s what I figured. But then I remembered something. Ricky told me he’d come to Las Vegas alone.”

  Valentine jumped out of the rocker and in the woods heard a small animal scurry through the leaves for cover. The epiphany he’d had the day before came back to him. This is a small town. It should have dawned on him that if people in the town were willing to help Ricky Smith rig lotteries and fix horse races, they might also be willing to step on a plane and go to Las Vegas and help him work his magic out there.

  “Barnes and McCormick were staying at the Mint,” Bill said. “They came out that morning and left the next day.”

  It was like the trees had parted and Valentine could see clear through the forest. Every time he’d watched the tape, he’d watched Ricky. That was a mistake. He needed to be watching the other players at the table. He felt the heady rush that came when a puzzle began to come together.

  “I’ll call you right back,” he told his friend.

  Valentine went into the bedroom, pulled his suitcase from beneath the bed, and removed a copy of the videotape of Ricky Smith. In the living room he popped the tape into the VCR beside the TV. The VCR made a sound like it was regurgitating, and he thought it had eaten the tape. Then the TV flickered to life.

  He fast-forwarded the tape to Ricky’s streak at craps. Ricky had rolled the dice fifteen times and beaten the house every time. The odds were about the same as stepping outside and being hit by lightning. He watched the tape, then called Bill back. “I’ve got the tape of Ricky frozen on the screen of my TV. Which guys are Barnes and McCormick?”

  Bill described them to a tee. Both were in their mid-thirties, with thinning hair and growing paunches. They stood at opposite ends of the craps table. As Ricky threw winner after winner, they jumped up and down and whooped their fool heads off.

  “You said Barnes and McCormick stayed at the Mint,” Valentine said.

  “That’s right,” Bill said.

  “Same room?”

  “Yes.”

  Valentine pulled a footstool up to the TV. That was the clue he needed. Barnes and McCormick were friends. Friends didn’t stand on opposite ends of a craps table. They were part of a gang. They had purposely done something suspicious to get the floor manager to call upstairs and ask for them to be watched. That was their role in the scam.

  “Let me think about this,” he said.

  “I’ll be right here,” Bill replied.

  The house soon grew dark and the temperature dropped. Valentine remained frozen in front of the TV. The only thing moving was his finger on the remote control. The tape would end, and he’d rewind and watch the craps shooting over again. Fifteen rolls, fifteen winners. He still couldn’t make the scam. He realized that he’d grown to despise Ricky, if for no other reason than that his cheating ways had kept him here, and away from more important things. His cell phone rang. It lay on the floor between his feet. He looked down at the caller ID. It was Bill.

  “Any luck?” his friend asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “I had a brainstorm,” Bill said.

  Valentine stared at the screen. It felt like a portal to another universe. “What’s that?”

  “I called the convention and visitors bureau and got them to contact all the hotels in town. I asked them for the names of everyone from Slippery Rock who was staying in Las Vegas that weekend.”

  Valentine tore his eyes away from the screen and stared at the phone illuminated in his hand. “And?”

  “You’re not going to believe this.”

  “Try me.”

  “There were twenty-six of them. I’ve got their names right here.”

  Valentine froze the picture on the screen. If people in Slippery Rock wanted to gamble, they could visit Biloxi or hit one of the Indian casinos in North Carolina. He counted the number of players standing around the craps table, cheering Ricky on. There were twenty-six on the nose. He hit play and watched the dice fly down the table and everyone cheer.

  “For the love of Christ,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Everyone’s involved.”

  Valentine felt like an idiot. The clue he’d been searching for was right in front of his nose. Ricky had learned his trade in a carnival. With carnival scams, everyone was involved. It was what made the illusion so believable.

  “What do you mean, everyone?” Bill said.

  “Players, employees working the table, even the floor manager,” Valentine said.

  “What?”

  “It’s a big charade. They’re miscalling the dice, Bill. That’s why the floor manager called upstairs. He asked surveillance to watch both ends of the table to ensure that the camera for the game stayed at a wide angle. On the tape, we see the dice fly down the table, but we’re not seeing the outcome. What we’re seeing is the crowd and employees’ reaction to Ricky throwing sevens or elevens, or making his point. But he isn’t. The crowd is just making us believe he is.”

  “Wait a minute,” Bill protested. “I saw the stick man pull the dice back with his stick three times. He did it slowly. I saw that Ricky had rolled sevens.”

  “That’s right. Ricky rolled sevens legitimately three times. So the stick man pulled the dice back slowly so the camera could see it. The other times, the stick man kicked the dice over as he retrieved them. That way, the camera couldn’t see the total.”

  Bill whistled through his teeth. “I’ve never seen anything like this. Have you?”

  “No.”

  “So how do we convict them without a videotape we can show in court?”

  Valentine killed the VCR and went onto the porch. No jury in Nevada would convict someone of cheating without videotaped evidence. It didn’t matter if the prosecutors had loads of circumstantial evidence; the locals hated the casinos and paid them back whenever they could. He stared at the eerie sheen the moon had cast over his backyard.

  “You don’t,” he said.

 
; “You’re saying I should let them skate?”

  “Afraid so. No tape, no case.”

  “What do I tell the casino owners?”

  “Tell them you saved them a million bucks. You have probable cause to keep Ricky’s winnings. I’ll crack one of the other scams, and you’ll have enough evidence for an arrest. They should also fire the employees who were involved and get them banned from working in the gambling industry again. It’s not the punishment they deserve, but it’s better than nothing.”

  The plaintive wail of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s guitar ripped a hole in the otherwise peaceful night. Ricky was thumbing his nose at the neighborhood again. He liked to do that. And he obviously liked to corrupt people; especially his friends. And when things had gotten hairy, he liked to send his thugs out and terrorize blind librarians. Opening the screen door, Valentine stepped outside and began walking across the yard toward Ricky’s house.

  “I need to have a talk with my neighbor,” he said. “I’ll call you later.”

  33

  There were times when Valentine was happy he was no longer a cop. He’d liked the work and the sense of balance it had brought to his life, but the rules had sometimes confined him, especially when dealing with bad people.

  He approached Ricky’s house from the rear, the music so loud it made his head hurt. The song sounded familiar. Stevie Ray doing Jimi Hendrix’s “Manic Depression,” the chords etched into his brain from hearing it so many times when he was a cop. His partner at the time had called it the drug dealer’s national anthem.

  Ricky’s house was built by a weekend carpenter, with an addition that did not mesh with the original structure, and mismatched shingles on the roof. There was a back door, and he stared through the glass into the kitchen. An aging Doberman and a cat were huddled in the corner. Both animals looked frightened, and he saw a pool of urine on the floor.

  He tried the knob. The door was unlocked. He cracked it open and saw the dog and cat jump forward, wanting out. He opened the door fully. Both bolted past him.

  He went in and smelled something burning in the oven. He turned the heat off, then pulled the oven door open. A TV dinner lay smoldering inside.

  The music changed to Stevie Ray playing an instrumental with a big-band accompaniment. Valentine loved big band; but, this was too damn loud. He went to the swinging door that led to the next room, opened it with his finger. Through the crack he spied Ricky collapsed on a chair in the dining room. He wore jeans and a ratty T-shirt and was staring at the floor.

  “No,” Ricky said.

  A muscular guy wearing black pants and a black turtleneck stepped into the picture. He looked Cuban, late thirties, with his hair greased down like an old-time hoodlum. His hand cradled Ricky’s chin and lifted his head up. With his other hand, he slapped Ricky in the face.

  “You’re going to do what I tell you,” he shouted over the music.

  “No, I’m not, Juan,” Ricky said.

  “You don’t have a choice,” Juan shouted.

  Ricky looked up, his face defiant. “It’s over.”

  Juan looked across the dining room. Three other Cuban macho men were holding up the wall. “You hear that? Ricky said it’s over.”

  “Ha!” one of them said.

  Valentine pushed the door open a little more. Judging by the bulges beneath their shirts, the Cubans were packing heat. Lying on the floor were hundreds of shattered CDs, and he guessed this was Ricky’s prized music collection. They were giving him the same treatment they’d given Mary Alice. He let the door close and walked through the kitchen and out the back door. Heroes, he’d learned long ago, were dead people who got elementary schools named after them. He’d call Gaylord and let him deal with this.

  Out on the lawn he found the Doberman waiting expectantly. He let the dog sniff his hand and heard a loud pop, followed by shouting.

  He spun around. The house had gone completely dark, and he guessed a fuse had blown. Serves you right for playing the music so damn loud, he thought. In the kitchen he heard someone banging around in the dark.

  “The fuse box is out back,” a man said. “I saw it when we came in.”

  “So go flip the switch,” another said.

  Valentine looked for someplace to hide. With the moon out, he was going to be easy to spot, and he ducked beside the house and held his breath. Moments later, one of the Cubans came out the back door and headed straight to where he was standing. Valentine pressed his back to the house, feeling ridiculous. Yet somehow it worked: The man didn’t see him.

  They were the same height, the Cuban heavier and about thirty years younger. Opening the fuse box, he squinted at the switches beneath the moonlight, then glanced at Valentine standing a few feet away. Reaching out, he placed his hand on Valentine’s arm like he was some trick of his imagination and not real.

  “Hey,” he said.

  Valentine took his hand and bent the fingers back. Groaning, the younger man sunk to the ground. Valentine kneed him in the jaw, and he fell backward and lay still on the ground.

  “What’s the holdup?” another man called from the house.

  Valentine grabbed the Cuban’s arms and dragged him around the house. He heard the back door bang open and the other man step outside.

  “Just flip the fucking switch,” the man said. “Is that so hard?”

  Valentine came around the side of the building just as the man reached the fuse box. Valentine hit him flush on the jaw. The man did a crazy dance across the yard, and the Doberman tackled him. He went down hard.

  “Good dog,” Valentine said. He went to where the second man lay. Out cold. He pulled up the man’s sweater and, to his surprise, saw a cell phone where he’d expected to see a gun. He quickly frisked him. The guy wasn’t armed.

  He ran around the building and frisked the first guy. He wasn’t armed, either. That changed the balance of things. Kneeling, he drew the Glock from his ankle holster, then went to the fuse box and flipped the down fuse. The house instantly came back to life.

  He marched into the kitchen and straight into the dining room. Ricky was still sitting in the chair, looking dazed. Valentine pointed the Glock at his two tormentors.

  “Arms in the air, girls.”

  Juan and the other man froze. Then, slowly, they reached for the ceiling. Valentine led them across the room to a small closet. “I hope you two like each other,” he said.

  They reluctantly squeezed themselves into the cramped space. Valentine shut the door and propped a chair up against it. Then he went to the front door and opened it. A black SUV with tinted windows was blocking Ricky’s Lexus from leaving.

  “Out the back door,” he told Ricky.

  They went outside, and the Doberman instantly jumped on its master.

  “You see my cat?” Ricky asked.

  “Cat’s fine,” Valentine said.

  Valentine considered marching straight over to his house and calling Gaylord, but then decided that was a bad idea. If the Cubans decided to follow, they could surround the house. “You know the trails in the woods?”

  “Like the back of my hand,” Ricky said.

  “Lead the way. And don’t do anything stupid.”

  “Like what? Tell you your mother dresses you funny?”

  Valentine stared at him. Ricky’s face was swollen, his lips and nose bloodied. Usually those were things that lent people sympathy. Valentine shoved him forward and saw Ricky wince like he’d been kicked.

  A hundred yards into the woods, they heard a commotion. Valentine glanced over his shoulder as the back door to Ricky’s house burst open. Juan and his friend had broken free. Juan was cradling a rifle in his arms while his partner screamed at him.

  “For Christ’s sake, put that thing down.”

  “I’m gonna kill that fucker,” Juan said. He stared into the darkened forest. “I can hear them rustling around out there. Hey, boys—think we can’t hear you? Think again!”

  Valentine grabbed Ricky’s arm and pulled him behin
d a tree. He could feel his heartbeat kicking against his chest and the adrenaline pumping through his veins. The two Cubans were standing beneath the back-door light and made easy targets. He went into a crouch, raised his Glock, and aimed at the center of Juan’s chest.

  “Please don’t shoot him,” Ricky whispered.

  “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “They’re just a bunch of mutts.”

  “What does that—”

  “They’re not going to hurt us.”

  “They roughed you up pretty good.”

  “I deserved it,” he whispered.

  “That rifle could do some damage.”

  “He’ll probably shoot his foot off with it.”

  Valentine watched Juan and his friend argue back and forth. If Juan hadn’t been holding a rifle, it would have been comical. They had the physical mannerisms that gangsters had been using in movies for years. What was missing was the guts to pull it off.

  “These guys related?” Valentine whispered.

  Ricky nodded in the dark.

  “Cousins?”

  “Yeah,” Ricky said, “how did you know?”

  Valentine had grown up with a slew of cousins and thought he recognized what was going on. Juan was acting tough to impress his cousin. If he didn’t, his cousin would later give him shit for it. Valentine lowered his Glock. Ricky was right; the only people they were probably going to hurt were themselves.

  The Doberman pinned to Ricky’s side curled its upper lip and emitted a fierce snarl. Ricky put his hand on the dog’s snout and clamped it shut.

  “You hear that?” Juan said.

  “It was just an animal,” his cousin said. “Come on, let’s beat it before the cops get here.”

  “They’re right out there. Come out here, you fuckers!”

  His cousin tugged at his sleeve. “Come on.”

  Juan shoved him aside. Taking a step forward, he raised the rifle to shoulder height and began shooting. Valentine pulled his head behind the tree while cursing his missed opportunity. Bullets tore through the trees on either side of them. It sounded like a heavy rain and was punctuated by a dozen sleeping animals waking up and darting for cover. After a few moments the shooting subsided. Valentine glanced up at Ricky and saw him hugging the tree and sobbing.