Mr. Lucky

by James Swain

  Ricky pushed his chair back from the table. It was a classic gesture from a witness who was about to go south. Roberts and Knuts also pushed back. For a long moment, no one cared to speak. Valentine looked into everyone’s faces. Shit, he thought.

  52

  Roberts and Knuts left the shabby conference room without a word. Ricky rose and went to stand by the sooty window. Polly started to follow him, and Valentine touched her sleeve and eyed the door. She hesitated, then reluctantly walked out.

  Valentine went to where Ricky stood. Ricky was staring down at the street scene below. It was like watching life through a dirty lens, and he mumbled a harsh profanity under his breath.

  “Want me to leave?” Valentine asked.

  Ricky shook his head. Removing his wallet, he extracted a photograph from behind the plastic protector and propped it on the windowsill. It was of a woman with silver hair and a thin smile, and Valentine guessed this was Aunt Helen. Ricky said, “When I was a teenager, my aunt moved to Slippery Rock for a year and took care of me while my parents went through their divorce. She protected me from all the fighting. She was a tough old gal, but she was always good to me.” He swallowed hard. “I wanted to pay her back. That was why I brought her in.”

  “You recruited her?”

  “Yeah.” Ricky picked the picture up and slipped it back into his wallet. Then he stared down at St. Andrew’s tiled rooftop. He shook his head at something he could not undo. “Tell them to come back,” he said.

  “You mean Roberts and Knuts?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They’re busy men, Ricky. I can’t order them around.”

  “I’m ready to talk.”

  “About Stanley?”

  “Yeah, about Stanley.”

  Valentine went to the door. Ricky called to him. “One thing,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t want Polly in the room this time.”

  Roberts and Knuts returned to the conference room ten minutes later. They took the same seats, Roberts throwing his bag of candy in the center of the table while Knuts started the tape recorder. Ricky slid the candy back the FBI man’s way, then gave them hard looks.

  “Either of you gents ever hear of Cascade International?”

  Knuts and Roberts both shook their heads.

  “It’s a company in Aventura, Florida. They make expensive casual clothes for women.”

  “I think my wife bought some clothes there,” Knuts said. “North Miami Beach, right?”

  “That’s them,” Ricky said. “Their flagship store is in the same building as their headquarters. Eight thousand square feet of couture. Dresses, shoes, lingerie, you name it, they sell it.”

  “What about them?” Roberts said impatiently.

  “The company went public last year. Guess who brought them to market.”

  “You tell us,” Roberts said.

  “Stanley Kessel. The stock opened at a dollar and is currently trading at nine bucks, which makes Cascade worth a cool seventy million. Which is pretty amazing, when you consider the company only has one store.”

  Knuts and Roberts leaned forward. “Come again?” Roberts said.

  “You heard me. They have one store.”

  “Explain yourself.”

  “Cascade is an illusion of Stanley Kessel’s creation. It’s a paper company. The annual stock report says they have thirty-six stores, and all are doing gangbuster business. The stores are spread across the country. Tuscaloosa, Panama City, Savannah, Fresno, and every other city that you’ve heard of but can’t easily travel to. Get it?”

  Both men shook their heads. They didn’t get it at all. Ricky looked at Valentine.

  “Why don’t you explain it to them, Doctor?”

  The two men glanced at Valentine. It seemed obvious, but he said it anyway. “The Miami store is a front. Stanley put the other stores—which are phantoms—in out-of-the-way cities that people from Wall Street weren’t likely to check out.” He looked at Ricky. “That about it?”

  Ricky nodded.

  “That operation in Miami cost a lot of money,” Knuts said. “Who fronted Stanley the capital to get it started?”

  Ricky stared at the tape recorder. He seemed to be fighting himself, then finally spoke. “Stanley got his funding from a gang of Miami cocaine dealers. Those are his partners.”

  Roberts rose from his chair. “Cascade is drug money?”

  Ricky nodded. “The company has an account with one of the big Miami banks. The drug dealers launder money through the account. That was the trade-off Stanley made with them.” Ricky glanced at Valentine. “Those were the guys beating me up at my house.”

  “So, I did kill a drug dealer,” Valentine said.

  “That’s right. The four principals move with Stanley all the time. He calls them his business associates. They’re really part of the cartel.”

  “How do you know this?” Roberts said.

  “The first time Stanley came to see me, he told me about the Cascade deal,” Ricky explained. “He sucked me in by selling me ten thousand shares at the opening price. I sold out a month later and made a huge profit. It’s what I’ve been living on.”

  “You realize I’m going to have to arrest you,” Roberts said.

  Ricky nodded. Knuts and Roberts went to the other side of the room and took out their cell phones. They began the process that would eventually put Stanley Kessel behind bars. Valentine glanced at Ricky and saw him silently weeping. He put his hand on Ricky’s shoulder.

  “You did good,” he said.

  “You think so?”

  Valentine nodded, and Ricky found the strength to smile.

  “I guess there’s a first time for everything,” he said.

  53

  Valentine was standing in the hallway five minutes later, watching Ricky say good-bye to Polly, when Roberts rushed past and took an elevator downstairs. The FBI agent was moving fast, and Valentine sensed that he had a bead on Stanley Kessel. He’d come too far to miss the grand finale, and started to leave.

  “Wait a second,” Ricky said as he entered another elevator.

  Valentine put his hand on the door to stop it from closing. Ricky stood awkwardly in the doorway, his wrists handcuffed together. Another FBI agent stood nearby, eyeing him.

  “Tell me one thing,” Ricky said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Do they have art classes in prison?”

  “They sure do,” he said.

  When Valentine reached the lobby, he saw no sign of Roberts. Going outside, he saw the FBI agent jump into a black sedan and the vehicle pull away from the curb. He went into the street and hailed a yellow cab and was soon following Roberts uptown.

  The cabdriver was Pakistani and drove like he was fighting for the pole at the Indy 500. Valentine told him to keep his distance, then settled back in his seat and watched the city pass by. As a cop, he’d loved the thrill of a chase, but he didn’t love it anymore. It meant that something bad was waiting at the other end, and he’d had enough bad things happen to last him a long time.

  “They are stopping,” the driver said. He pulled the cab up behind the sedan and threw his flag up. “Fourteen dollars and thirty cents, please.”

  Valentine paid the fare while staring out his window at the street sign. Forty-sixth Street and Third Avenue. The tony east side. Ricky had said that Stanley had a town house on the east side and liked to hang out here. Getting out, Valentine saw Roberts standing in front of a fancy restaurant called the Gold Door. Roberts saw him, as well, and hurried over.

  “What are you doing here?” the FBI agent said angrily.

  “Getting some lunch. How about you?”

  “Don’t be funny,” Roberts snapped. “Stanley Kessel is in there, and we’re going to nab him and drag his ass downtown. Don’t you dare step inside that door, or I’ll throw you in the same cell as Stanley and his drug-dealing buddies. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Anothe
r sedan pulled up to the curb, and three men jumped out. They had short hair and dark suits and had FBI written all over them. Roberts gave them orders like a drill sergeant, and then they marched into the restaurant.

  Valentine went over and leaned against the cab. His driver had double-parked the vehicle and was standing in the street, staring at the Gold Door. “There is going to be fireworks, yes?”

  Valentine ignored him, his eyes peeled on the restaurant.

  “You are a cop, yes?”

  He didn’t think the question deserved an answer.

  “You look like a cop on that TV show, NYPD Blue,” the driver said. “Not the fat one, the other one. It is my favorite show on television. I watch it every week.”

  Oh, brother, Valentine thought.

  The driver came over and stood beside him. Dropping his voice, he said, “There is something I think you should know.”

  Valentine wanted to tell him to take a hike. Except, something in the driver’s eyes told him otherwise. “Go ahead.”

  “There is an exit in the back of this restaurant that is connected to an alley,” the driver said. “When celebrities and important people eat here, they use this exit.” He pointed to an alleyway a few doors down. “Over there.”

  Valentine pushed himself off the cab. Stanley Kessel was one of the smartest criminals he’d ever encountered. He’d covered all his bases and then some. There was no reason to believe that he hadn’t covered this one, as well. Valentine took out his wallet and extracted five twenty-dollar bills. He handed them to the driver.

  “I want you to use your cab to block that exit.”

  The driver refused the money. “You do not have to pay me. I will do it.”

  “You sure?”

  “Of course. It is the correct thing to do.”

  Valentine went around to the back of the restaurant with the words ringing in his ears. The correct thing to do. When was the last time he’d heard someone say that? His mother, fifty years ago. Coming around the alley, he spied a black limousine sitting outside the restaurant’s back door. Two men sat in front. They were the Cubans he’d sucker punched behind Ricky’s house. Stanley’s drug-dealing pals.

  A row of garbage pails lined the alley. Valentine went to one and fished out an empty Jack Daniel’s bottle. He thought about the best way to handle this. Pulling his shirt out from his pants, he staggered over to the BMW with the bottle clutched in his hand. The Cuban in the passenger seat got out and pointed at him.

  “Get lost, old man,” he said.

  Valentine watched the Cuban turn his back and start pissing against the alley wall. He staggered up to the driver’s side and saw the window come down.

  “You heard him,” the Cuban behind the wheel said. “Get lost.”

  Valentine removed the twenties he’d offered the cabdriver and let them fall to the ground. Then he pointed. “I think you dropped this, mistah,” he said.

  The Cuban stared at the money. He started to get out, and Valentine threw his weight against the open door. The Cuban yelped and fell to the ground.

  Valentine walked around the car to the guy taking a leak. He could tell that the guy wanted to fight him; only, he couldn’t do it without pissing on himself. Valentine hit him in the head with the bottle. The guy went down holding his dick.

  Valentine heard shouting inside the restaurant. He went to the back door and listened. Stanley was not going easily. He thought about rushing inside, but then remembered Roberts’s warning and decided to stay by the door.

  Next to the door was an upturned crate. A half-smoked cigarette lay on it, a whisper of smoke trailing off one end. He couldn’t help himself, and put the burning end up to his nose and inhaled. He heard both Cubans groaning. Normally, he didn’t like hurting people, but this was different. These guys were drug dealers.

  He’d worked narcotics in Atlantic City for a while and discovered how drug dealers operated. They went to parties and handed out free coke or heroin. Someone always got hooked. The dealer would feed their addiction until they ran out of money. Then the dealer would move on.

  Inside the restaurant he heard the pop-pop-pop of gunfire. He threw the cigarette away and cracked the door open. Down a darkened hallway he could see a man standing with his back to him, shooting an automatic handgun into the brightly lit restaurant. The man was walking backward as he fired.

  Valentine shut the door and stepped away from it. He felt his heartbeat quicken. He could run, or he could try to take Stanley down. Running was the smart choice; only, if he did, Stanley might get away, and all this would be for nothing.

  Valentine pressed himself against the wall beside the doorway to the restaurant. He reminded himself that he was no longer a cop and the rules were different now. The door banged open, and the man stepped outside waving his automatic.

  “Hey, Stanley,” Valentine said.

  The man turned, startled. He was short and had perfectly tanned skin. He wore a light-gray designer suit that was spotted with someone else’s blood. Without hesitation, he aimed the automatic at Valentine’s heart. Valentine grabbed Stanley’s arm with both hands and pointed the gun’s barrel skyward. It went off with a loud retort.

  “Drop it,” Valentine told him.

  Stanley kicked him in the shin. Then he reached up with his other hand to grab the weapon. The faces of Beasley and the scarecrow and Juan all flashed through Valentine’s mind. Three dead men, about to be joined by a fourth.

  He twisted Stanley’s wrist so the automatic was pointing downward into the stockbroker’s face. Gave him a second to change his mind. Stanley looked into Valentine’s eyes with hatred.

  “Fuck you,” he said.

  Valentine squeezed Stanley’s hand, and the gun went off in his face.

  54

  That night, Mabel cooked dinner for Gerry and Yolanda in her house. She fixed them her favorite meal—chicken and dumplings with corn bread and collard greens, then strawberry shortcake for dessert. It was food to feed the soul, and her guests ladled more praise on her than she was used to. It was also a lot of work, and afterward she scrubbed the pots in the sink while Gerry helped her dry. In the next room they could hear Yolanda lying on the living-room floor, playing with the baby. Gerry had stepped off the plane that afternoon not knowing if his family was all right, and the look of relief had yet to disappear from his face. He dried the last pot and put it away in the cupboard while Mabel hung up her apron.

  “I need to talk to you,” he said.

  “Of course.”

  Gerry turned on the back porch light and stepped outside onto the stoop. Mabel joined him and swatted away at the mosquitos that had instantly appeared. Gerry stood with the drying towel stretched between his hands and spoke in a hushed tone. “I need to ask you a huge favor.”

  Mabel nodded, then saw a look on Gerry’s face that said a nod was not enough.

  “Certainly,” she said.

  Gerry put the towel over his shoulder, then reached into the pocket of his shirt and removed a folded square of paper. With the paper came a small metal key. He handed both to Mabel, then cupped his hands around the older woman’s.

  “A man on his deathbed gave me that key. It’s for a safe-deposit box. The bank where the safe-deposit box is located is on that piece of paper. The name of the man’s sister and her address are also on the paper. I want you to take the key to her.”

  Mabel unfolded the paper. The man’s sister lived in a retirement village in St. Augustine on the other side of the state. It was easily a four-hour drive.

  “What’s in the box?” Mabel said.

  “Money.”

  “How much money?”

  “A million and a half dollars.”

  Mabel sucked in her breath. “Why…can’t you do this?”

  A sad smile spread across his face. “I was going to. Yolanda and I were going to make the trip together. Go to St. Augustine and see the sights, then track down the sister. Only, the more I thought about it, the more I realized it w
as a bad idea.”

  “But St. Augustine is a fun place to visit. You can see the old fort and the village. Did you know that it’s the oldest city in America?”

  Gerry shook his head. “That’s not what I mean. I’m afraid that sometime during the trip, I’d start thinking about all the things Yolanda and I could do with the money. Like buying a bigger house, or a new car, or prepaid college tuition for the baby. And maybe I’d talk myself into asking the sister to share the money. You know, like a finder’s fee. I’d figure out a way to convince myself that it was okay. I’d tell myself that since the sister doesn’t know the money existed, she shouldn’t object to sharing it.”

  “What your father calls criminal logic.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So you’re afraid of being tempted,” Mabel said.

  Gerry looked directly into her eyes. “Yes.”

  “But you know it’s wrong. I can hear it in your voice.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It doesn’t?”

  “Money does that to me.”

  Mabel folded the paper around the key and slipped it into her pocket. A look of relief spread across Gerry’s face, and she took him into her arms and held him like he was one of her own children.

  “For you, dear, anything,” she said.

  Epilogue

  The State of Nevada versus Lucille Price,” the bailiff announced.

  Valentine saw Lucy Price’s attorney jump to his feet. He was a short guy, heavyset, and approached the bench while buttoning the middle button of his jacket. The judge was a woman and seemed to appreciate the gesture. Her courtroom was filled with drunks and prostitutes and crackheads. Little things counted here.

  Lucy’s attorney explained to the judge that his client wanted to change her plea. The judge looked at Lucy sitting in the front row, then at her attorney. It wasn’t a kind look. Lucy spun around in her chair and shot Valentine a dagger. He was sitting two rows back, and it felt like a slap in the face.