by James Swain
“What do you think’s going on here?” Gaylord asked.
Valentine shook his head. He had no earthly idea.
A uniformed cop named Farnsworth appeared fifteen minutes later. He was a handsome guy and all red in the face. Valentine wondered where he’d been rousted from.
“Watch him,” Gaylord said.
Farnsworth took Gaylord’s seat. The sergeant went outside and slammed the door. Through the kitchen window Valentine watched him enter the woods with the flashlight in his hand. Feeling the weight of Farnsworth’s stare on his face, he shifted his eyes.
“I saw the video of you shooting the bank robbers,” Farnsworth said. “Where’d you learn to shoot like that? Army?”
Valentine shrugged and resumed looking through the window. The images of Beasley and the scarecrow were gradually fading from his mind; in a few weeks, they’d be gone and would resurface only during bad dreams or those times when life got him down.
“I meant it as a compliment,” Farnsworth said.
“Thanks.”
“I’ve never had to shoot anyone,” he admitted.
“You’re damn lucky.”
Gaylord emerged from the woods ten minutes later. In one arm he held Ricky’s cat. He entered the kitchen and let the cat slip out of his grasp. It scampered over to its food bowl. He came over to the table, reached into his pocket, and dropped several small objects on the table.
“I found those in the woods,” he said.
Valentine picked the objects up and examined them. They were rubber bullets.
38
Sweet dreams,” Isabelle said into the phone.
They were in the kitchen of her house, Gerry drinking a cup of decaf at the kitchen table, Clarkson in the other room watching ESPN, two cruisers parked outside on the street. Isabelle blew a kiss into the phone and hung up. To Gerry she said, “Want a refill?”
“That would be great,” he said.
She joined him at the table, and he saw the glimmer of a tear in her eye. He remembered the first time his father had gotten shot and how his mother had reacted. It was like someone had invisibly torn her in half.
“Lamar wants to know if you’ve spent the money you won off him,” she said.
“I haven’t had time.”
“I think he was joking,” she said, spooning sugar into her cup.
Clarkson let out a yell. Gerry looked into the next room and saw the detective throw his arms into the air as his team scored. It was nice to see he had his priorities straight.
“Lamar really likes his job, doesn’t he?” Gerry said.
“Loves it,” Isabelle said.
“This won’t slow him down?”
She shook her head. “I think he saw it as another badge. Not one he wanted, but one he’d wear if it happened.”
“What kind of badge?”
She glanced at the living room, not wanting Clarkson to hear her. She had a sultry look that was in her genes. Part French and who knew what else. In a soft voice she answered him. “When Lamar was sixteen, he went into a convenience store in Gulfport to buy a loaf of bread and some milk and got himself arrested. Spent a whole night in jail. Got thrown in a holding cell with a bunch of hard cases. They scared the shit out of him. Worst experience of his life, to hear him tell it.”
“What did he do?”
“I told you. He bought a loaf of bread and some milk.”
Gerry felt like she was baiting him. He tried to imagine a scenario where a sixteen-year-old black kid could innocently enter a store and get arrested, and came up with air.
“Was it a case of mistaken identity?”
Isabelle shook her head. “It was nine-fifty in the evening. The store closed at ten.”
He chewed on the information for a little bit.
“Was the store in a bad part of town?”
“Yes. The store owner had been robbed several times. It always happened when he was closing up. That’s when there was the most money in the till. He saw Lamar and thought he was getting robbed again, so he pressed a buzzer beneath the counter and called the cops. And all because Lamar was big and black.”
Gerry said, “Is that why he went into law enforcement?”
“Yes. The first day on the job with the Casino Commission, you know what he did?”
“No.”
“He went back to that convenience store and had a chat with the manager.”
Isabelle’s cell phone rang. It was down inside her pocketbook and sounded like a tiny bird trying to escape. She dug the phone out and stared at the caller ID.
“Speak of the devil.”
She said hello to her husband, then went silent for a moment. She handed the phone across the kitchen table to her guest. “He wants to speak with you. Says it’s urgent.”
Clarkson drove Gerry to Gulfport Memorial Hospital. One cruiser led the way, while another followed them. Clarkson said it was risky going out, but Gerry didn’t care. He was not one to ignore a dying man’s request. They went inside and were met by a white-haired doctor with a kind face, holding a clipboard clutched to his chest. The doctor looked saddened by what had happened.
“He was doing fine a few hours ago,” the doctor said. “Then suddenly everything started to slip. I don’t like to give people death sentences, but I’m afraid I had to tell him. I asked him if he’d like us to call anyone, and he asked that we track you down.”
“Did he say why?” Gerry asked.
“No. I don’t think he has any immediate family. He wrote None in the box that says Next of Kin on his admittance application.”
They took an elevator up to the top floor of the hospital. It had rubber floors and walls and felt like the interior of a spaceship. Gerry followed the doctor down the hallway past the nurses’ station to the ICU. At the doorway the doctor pulled back.
“Call me if you need anything. There’s an intercom by the bed.”
Then he was gone. Gerry swallowed hard and stuck his head into the room. It was a single, with a bed against the wall and a bunch of tubes running into the patient. Tex “All In” Snyder stared back at him with drooping eyes. He looked one foot in the grave, his face ashen. His hand popped up out of the sheet like something in a horror movie. He beckoned Gerry closer, his lips moving up and down. Gerry pulled up a chair and sat beside the bed.
“Hey, Tex, how’s it going?”
“I’m dying,” he whispered.
Tex tried to reach across the bed. Gerry took his hand with both his own.
“You want me to do something for you?”
Tex nodded.
“Name it.”
“You got religion in that bathroom yesterday, didn’t you?” the old gambler said, his voice hoarse. “You went in ready to rob that sucker with me. When you came out, you’d changed. What happened?”
Gerry told him about getting the message from his wife and how the sound of his daughter’s laughter had cleared his head and driven away the bad decisions he’d made. Tex nodded approvingly when Gerry was finished, then motioned for the water bottle sitting on the night table. Gerry placed the flexible straw beneath Tex’s lips and watched him drink.
“I have a half sister in St. Augustine,” Tex said when he was done. “Haven’t seen her in twenty years. I want her to get some money I have stored away.”
“Where is it?”
“In a safe-deposit box. Her name is on the box. She doesn’t know it.”
“You want me to contact her for you?”
“Yes. I would be forever in your debt.”
Gerry got a pad and pencil from the nurses’ station and wrote down the location of the safe-deposit box and the box number, then Tex’s sister’s name and her last known address. He told Tex he’d be able to find her even if she’d moved, the Internet being what it was. Tex reached beneath his cotton pajamas and removed a thin gold chain hanging around his neck. From it dangled a safe-deposit key. He started to give it to Gerry, then hesitated. “Promise me you’ll do it,” he said.
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“You have my word,” Gerry said.
“Please don’t rob me.”
“How much money are we talking about here?” He saw Tex glare at him and said, “What I’m asking is, should your sister bring a bag?”
“A million and a half dollars.”
Gerry blew out his cheeks. A small fortune for a sister Tex hadn’t laid eyes on in twenty years. He tore the sheet off the pad and stuffed it into his pocket. Then he took the key out of Tex’s hand. He saw Tex stare at him like he’d just made the worst decision of his life.
“Please don’t rob me,” he said again.
“I’m not going to rob you,” Gerry said. “But I want you to come clean with me.”
“About what?”
“Did Ricky Smith really beat you at the Mint that night?”
Tex flashed the weakest of smiles. “’Course not.”
“You let him win?”
“His partner paid me to lose. Slick guy from New York. I said sure. Good for business.” Gerry didn’t understand. Tex motioned him closer to the bed. “It’s like this, son. I’m a cheater. Problem is, if I win all the time, nobody will play with me. So I lose sometimes to lesser players. Word gets out that I’m getting old and not what I used to be. The suckers think I’m easy pickings and come looking for me.”
The exertion got him coughing, and Gerry grabbed the water bottle. He thought back to the videotape of Tex and Ricky playing. Neither had shown their cards at the same time. Usually that meant one player was bluffing. That wasn’t the case here. Tex had thrown away winning cards and let Ricky steal the pot.
“How much did this guy from New York pay you?”
“Ten grand.”
“Did he have a name?”
“Stanley.” Tex’s eyes darted across the room. Gerry turned around in his seat and saw Clarkson standing in the doorway. The look on his face was not a happy one. He motioned with his hand, and Gerry rose from his seat. Tex grasped the cuff of Gerry’s shirtsleeve.
“Swear on a stack of Bibles you’ll contact my sister.”
“I already told you I would.”
“I don’t trust you.”
Gerry looked into Tex’s face, and their eyes locked. Then why did you ask for me to come here? he nearly said. He put his lips to the dying man’s ear.
“Too bad,” he said.
Clarkson took Gerry into the hallway. In a hushed voice he said, “Huck Dubb and his retarded brother showed up at the Holiday Inn a half hour ago. Huck asked the receptionist on duty to tell him what room you were staying in. The receptionist told him you checked out yesterday. Huck didn’t believe him. He and his brother tore the place up.”
“Did my coming here get you in trouble?”
“Yes. I need to get you back to Lamar’s house, pronto.”
“I need to say good-bye to Tex.”
“Your life is in danger. We’ve got to leave right now.”
The detective took Gerry’s arm and began to drag him down the hall. As they passed the nurses’ station, a piercing alarm went off. The nurse on duty stared at a monitor on her desk. She jumped up, ran down the hall, and disappeared into Tex’s room.
Gerry looked at the monitor. A flat line was tracking across the screen. Tex was gone. Gerry crossed himself, then got onto the elevator with Clarkson.
39
Gaylord wasn’t nearly as stupid as he acted. After Valentine examined the rubber bullets, Gaylord pulled a chair up and made Valentine repeat what had happened. He took copious notes and made Valentine clarify points that bothered him or didn’t make sense. It was an old cop trick, designed to trip up a suspect. The sergeant obviously didn’t believe Valentine’s story.
When Valentine was finished, Gaylord picked up the phone and called Polly Parker’s house. He asked for Ricky and spoke to him for several minutes. The questions he asked were the same ones he’d asked Valentine. He jotted down Ricky’s answers, keeping his pad tilted. When he was done he said good-bye and hung up. The look on his face was one of confusion.
“What’s he saying?” Valentine asked.
“Four Cubans he used to know showed up on his doorstep, said he owed them money,” Gaylord said. “They roughed him up and broke some of his stuff. Then you showed up and saved the day.”
“What about the guy I shot in his driveway? Did he mention that?”
Gaylord slapped his notepad on the table. “Ricky said you told him to shut his eyes. He heard you shoot your gun but didn’t see anything. That true?”
Valentine shook his head. Did anyone deal in the truth in this goddamned town? “Yes,” he said.
“So there aren’t any witnesses?”
“No.”
“No witnesses and no body.” Gaylord rose and picked up his notepad. “I wish like hell I knew what was going on here. My gut says you’re telling the truth, but I don’t have anything to corroborate what you’re saying. Understand?”
“Yes, you don’t have a case.”
“Not yet.”
Valentine looked into his face expectantly.
“I like to work off assumptions,” the sergeant said. “I’m going to assume you’re telling the truth and that you shot someone earlier tonight. Which means there’s a body, and that body needs to be dealt with. I’m putting an all-points bulletin out to every police precinct within five hundred miles of here, asking them to be on the lookout for a man shot between the eyes.”
“Assuming they dump the body.”
“Ricky said the SUV they were driving was rented. They’ll have to dump the body before they drop the rental off. My guess is, they’ll do it sooner rather than later.”
His thinking was sound, and Valentine stood up. “What do you want me to do?”
“Stay put. I’ll call you in the morning.”
“Thanks for taking my side in this.”
“It’s the only one that makes any sense,” Gaylord said.
Leaving Ricky’s house, Valentine crossed the yards to his own. Ricky’s cat was at his back door, pawing the wood. He guessed the owner of the house had once fed it. He let the cat in and searched the shelves of the kitchen pantry. He found a box of cat food that had expired a few weeks ago. He poured some into a dish and put it on the floor. The cat didn’t seem to mind.
He’d put his cell phone on the table, and noticed it was blinking. He had a message. He retrieved it and heard the sound of his son’s voice. He listened to the message twice. He was happy to hear that Gerry had gotten Tex Snyder to open up and admit he’d participated in a scam. But he wasn’t happy to hear that Huck Dubb was still on the loose. He erased the message and called his son back.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” his son said. “I’m back at Lamar’s house. You never told me how dangerous your business was.”
Valentine settled into a chair and felt the cat rubbing against his legs. Reaching down, he rubbed its head. “Something you said in your message didn’t make sense. Huck Dubb and his brother went to the Holiday Inn looking for you, right?”
“That’s right.”
“But Huck already knew you’d checked out. He sent his boys after you, remember?”
There was a long pause on the line.
“Maybe he forgot,” Gerry said.
“I don’t think so,” Valentine said.
Another long pause. If his son was going to work in this business, he needed to use his head for something else besides growing hair.
“I give up,” Gerry said.
“Huck knew you stayed at the Holiday Inn. He and his brother went there looking for something else.”
“Like what?”
“How about the card you filled out when you registered?” Valentine said. “Every hotel asks for it. You give them your name and address. They send it to their corporate headquarters, put you on a mailing list.”
“You think that’s what he was after? You think he’s going after my family?”
“You killed his boys. Yes, he’s going after
your family.”
“Oh, Jesus, Pop. Jesus Christ.”
His son sounded like he was ready to cry. He had wanted to join his business in the worst way. Was he having second thoughts?
“I’ll call the Palm Harbor police and alert them,” Valentine said. “You need to call Yolanda and tell her to move across the street to my place until Huck gets hauled in.”
“Shit,” his son said.
“What’s wrong?”
“The card I filled out at the hotel had two boxes. One for home, the other for work. I put your address in that one.”
Valentine silently counted to five. He kept a PO box, which he’d told Gerry to always use. Obviously, his son hadn’t listened.
“Tell Yolanda to go down the street to Mabel’s house.”
“You think Mabel will be okay with that?”
“She will if you ask her nice.”
Valentine hung up, then called the Palm Harbor police department. He’d lived in Palm Harbor for two years and had tried to ingratiate himself with the local cops without becoming a pain in the ass. So far, it had worked pretty well, and the cop he spoke to promised to send a cruiser to Gerry’s house. He also promised to call the Gulfport police and make sure they coordinated their efforts. It was all Valentine could ask for.
He went to the bedroom, pulled his suitcase from beneath the bed, and started packing. If a deranged Mississippi redneck wanted to do his family harm, he needed to be there and deal with it, even if it meant breaking the promise he’d made to Gaylord to stay put.
He looked at the luminous face of his wristwatch. Nearly eleven. If he left now, he could hit the highway when it was empty and speed home. He figured the trip at ten hours max. He guessed Huck was also driving, but would stay away from main highways to avoid any highway patrol that might be looking for him.
In the hallway he found his heavy coat, and threw it over his shoulders without buttoning it. He looked around the house, wondering if he’d left anything. If he had, it would probably come to him when he was on the road.
He was pulling open the front door when he saw a pair of headlights pierce the darkness. A vehicle was coming down his driveway. He slammed the door shut, and for a moment considered running. If it was the Cubans, he needed to hide in the woods.
