Mr. Lucky
Page 31
“It’s okay,” he whispered.
She made a face like she didn’t believe him, then spun back around. He’d flown out from New York and shown up on her doorstep last night. He’d avoided her for so long, she’d slammed the door in his face. But he’d rung the bell again. This time when she answered, he’d begged forgiveness.
She let him take her to dinner at Smith & Wollensky on the strip. For his money, it was the best restaurant in town. She ate a Cobb salad, while he ate a New York strip steak. By the time dessert came, she was holding his hand and whispering to him.
During the drive home, she fantasized about them running away together. That was why he’d come, she speculated. He’d rented a private jet, and it was now sitting on the tarmac at McCarran, its final destination someplace exotic, like Acapulco or Cancun. Listening to her ramble on, he’d felt immensely sad.
When they reached her doorstep, she’d tried to kiss him.
“No,” he said.
“But—”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll be back first thing tomorrow.”
“We’re not…running away?”
He’d put his hands on her shoulders and shaken his head. The look in her eyes had been painful. The death of hope was always wrenching.
At seven o’clock the next morning, Valentine drove Lucy to the Clark County Courthouse on South Third Street, two blocks south of the Fremont Street Experience. He’d been to the courthouse on several occasions to act as an expert witness in a trial. That it was located near several seedy casinos in the worst part of town had always seemed a perfect metaphor for Las Vegas.
Lucy wore a conservative blue dress and little makeup and said nothing during the ride. Parking was not available in front of the courthouse, and he drove to the mammoth county parking structure a block away. As he parked, he told her that he’d called his friend Bill Higgins and gotten the skinny on the judge. “Her name’s Redmond. She used to be a public defender and has experience dealing with problem gamblers. That’s in your favor.”
“Why’s that?” Lucy said.
“She understands how casinos seduce people. A person with a gambling problem becomes falsely elevated in a casino. It changes who they are, just like a drug.”
“Is that what happens to me?”
“Yes,” he said.
“And this judge knows that?”
He nodded, and Lucy stared at the car’s dirty windshield. He saw her start to tremble. She had come to that petrifying brink where her fantasies adjoined the real world. Taking a deep breath, she said, “You’re saying I should change my plea and throw myself upon the mercy of the court. Aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he said. “If you go to trial and lose, you’ll do hard time.”
The idea of jail petrified her, and for good reason: Nevada had some of the worst prisons in the country. They talked it over for a few minutes, and finally she agreed. They walked to the courthouse together and found her attorney in the courthouse lobby. When Lucy told him she’d changed her mind, her attorney had looked relieved.
“Ms. Price, please step forward.”
The bailiff motioned for Lucy to stand. She rose on wobbly legs, the bottom of her world about to drop out, and approached the bench with her attorney holding her arm.
“Your attorney has informed me that you wish to change your plea to guilty,” Judge Redmond said. “Is that correct?”
Lucy nodded woodenly.
“Do you understand that by changing your plea, you are giving up your right to a trial by a jury of your peers? Do you also understand that I will pass judgment this morning and may send you to prison?”
Again the wooden nod. The judge lowered her eyes and reviewed the facts of her case. It was all there in the file: Lucy’s gambling problems, busted marriage, the whole ugly story. Valentine hoped the judge would see the same thing in the file that he’d seen in Lucy the first time he’d met her: a damaged woman desperately in need of help.
After a minute, the judge closed the file and gazed down at her. “I’m ready to pass sentence. Ms. Price, is there anything you wish to say before I do?”
Lucy shook her head.
“Then you’re ready for me to make my decision.”
Lucy tried to answer, but the words refused to come out. She looked over her shoulder again, and Valentine saw panic in her eyes. It’s the correct thing to do, he’d said as they’d gotten out of the car. The words had given her strength, so he repeated them. She smiled faintly, then turned back around.
“Yes, Your Honor,” she said. “I am ready.”
Praise for James Swain’s Tony Valentine novels
“Mixing humor, suspense, poignancy and insider lore, Swain is one terrific writer.”
—Wall Street Journal
“Swain’s mysteries…are a sure bet.”
—Chicago Tribune
“In Tony Valentine, Swain has created a classic detective who will have a long career as a serious hero.”
—The Flint Journal
“James Swain is the real thing, a writer of pure, athletic prose, capable of bringing alive characters as original and three-dimensional as our best novelists.”
—JAMES W. HALL
“This smooth, funny series has got to be one of the finds of the decade.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“An expert on casino swindles, the author packs his books with mind-boggling cons and scams…along with entertaining dialogue and vivid characters.”
—Publishers Weekly
MR. LUCKY
“Swain has hit on a winning combination…. [Valentine] is the kind of man you wouldn’t mind having on your side in a high-stakes poker game, let alone the game of life.”
—Washington Post Book World
“The momentum is great, the writing nimble, the action intricate. If you like Swain’s formula, as I do, you’ll get a lot of what you expect and love it.”
—Los Angeles Times
“Mr. Lucky hits the jackpot. Impossible to put down.”
—MICHAEL CONNELLY
LOADED DICE
“Leaves us wanting more of this pulsing buoyant book.”
—Los Angeles Times
“A poker novel with the punch of a royal flush…Loaded Dice ought to be required reading.”
—Chicago Sun-Times
“Pure entertainment, building to a slam-bang ending.”
—San Jose Mercury News
“Great fun with just the right amount of edge—sort of like a night out at the blackjack table.”
—Booklist
SUCKER BET
“Ingenious entertainment.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“Great fun…Swain, an expert on card trickery and casino cheating, is an entertaining writer whose breezy style and flair for wise-guy dialogue make the story zoom by.”
—Boston Globe
“A vivid insider’s look at casinos [that] hits the jackpot…Sucker Bet is a sure thing.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Swain has come up with a doozy…. The gambling details are a treat [and] the banter is worthy of a place at Elmore Leonard’s table.”
—Booklist
FUNNY MONEY
“Fascinating…dazzling…entertaining…I can’t think of a novel I’ve enjoyed more this year.”
—Los Angeles Times
“There’s a certain intelligence to a book that teaches you something—even something as esoteric as how to spot a casino cheat—and Swain juggles that mix of learning and adventure perfectly.”
—Houston Chronicle
“Smart, snappy…tremendously infectious.”
—St. Petersburg Times
“Great fun—with oddball characters, a twisted plot, and scheming dreamers out for the big score.”
—Lansing State Journal
GRIFT SENSE
“A well-plotted debut mystery that pays off handsomely…Grift Sense delivers a vivid and credible look at the gaming in
dustry through eccentric yet believable characters.”
—Chicago Tribune
“One of the best debuts I’ve read in years. It has a great plot, wonderful characters, and a slick, subtle wit.”
—Toronto Globe and Mail
“The hard-nosed dialogue and the fast-paced, serpentine plot deliver a page-turner of a mystery. Just when readers start to relax, thinking it’s clear sailing to the end, Swain throws yet another curve.”
—Canadian Press
By James Swain
GRIFT SENSE
FUNNY MONEY
SUCKER BET
LOADED DICE
MR. LUCKY
DEADMAN’S POKER
DEADMAN’S BLUFF
Mr. Lucky is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
2007 Ballantine Books Mass Market Edition
Copyright © 2005 by James Swain
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., in 2005.
www.ballantinebooks.com
eISBN: 978-0-345-50019-9
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