Mr. Lucky

14

Valentine got a man in the parking lot of Slippery Rock High to give him a lift back to his rented house. At least one person in town hadn’t been there for Ricky’s shining moment. Then he took his Honda into town and bought a ham-and-Swiss sandwich at a deli. It was a real deli, and not located inside the bowels of a supermarket like the delis back home in Florida. The sandwich filling was easily an inch thick, what they used to call a Dagwood. He ate the sandwich at the kitchen table while drinking a homemade lemonade he’d also bought at the deli. It was a little tart and had the kind of taste you could never get out of a bottle. He drank it slowly, thinking about the public embarrassment he’d endured that morning. Ricky had played him like a fiddle.

He went outside onto the screened-in porch. The furniture was covered in plastic, and he peeled a protective sheet off a love seat and made himself comfortable. The porch was in the shade and very cold, and he felt his head clear. His thoughts went back to Ricky holding the winning ticket in front of his face an hour earlier. Why had Ricky done that? He thought about it for several minutes before the answer came to him. Because Ricky didn’t want him to think he had somehow printed the ticket after the fact. Ricky had wanted to establish the numbers. Which meant the barker had somehow manipulated the selection of the five Ping-Pong balls. There was no other logical explanation.

He heard a loud banging coming from inside the house, followed by a man’s voice. He went inside and walked through the house to the front door. The voice sounded familiar, and he jerked the door open and saw Ricky jump back.

“Hey, don’t hit me,” he said, flashing his court-jester grin.

“Should I?”

He stood on the steps, still smiling. “You were pretty pissed when you left the school.”

“You set me up.”

“Me?” Ricky put his hand over his heart. “Scout’s honor, I did no such thing. You just don’t want to believe what you saw is real. You’re a skeptic.”

“So why the house call? You want to rub it in?”

“No, no,” his visitor said. “I came to make peace. I don’t want you thinking I’m some kind of crook. I know that’s what you deal with every day; I went on your Web site. But I’m not a crook. Never broke a law a day in my life. I want to convince you of that.”

“There’s only one problem,” Valentine said.

“What’s that?”

“You are a crook.”

Stepping onto the stoop, Valentine jabbed his forefinger hard into Ricky’s chest. “Tell me something. When you were on your streak at the Mint, why didn’t you try the slot machines? They have a progressive jackpot worth ten million. Why didn’t you take a shot at that?” He could see the gears grinding inside Ricky’s head. “I’ll tell you why. Because you couldn’t rig a slot machine. Practically nobody can. So you avoided them.”

“Slots are for idiots, that’s why I didn’t play them,” Ricky said, slapping Valentine’s hand away. He was blushing and acted like his feelings had been hurt. He stuck his hands into his pockets. “You have a real serious anger issue, you know that?”

“So I’ve heard. Now what do you want?”

“Another chance.”

“To do what?”

“Convince you that this isn’t a scam, that I really am lucky.”

“You going to make me look like a fool again?”

“No,” Ricky said.

Valentine burned a hole into Ricky’s face with his eyes.

“That’s a promise,” Ricky added.

“You just buy this?” Valentine asked, sitting in the passenger seat of Ricky’s Lexus a few minutes later. The car had more amenities than most third-world countries, and he counted twenty-six different buttons on the dashboard and his door.

“I bought it with the money I don’t have,” Ricky said with a derisive laugh.

“You mean the Mint’s money?”

“That’s right. I’ve got an unlimited line of credit everywhere I go in town. It’s like being king for a day, every day of the week.”

They began to descend a steep hill, and Valentine listened but could not hear the car’s gears shift as they reduced speed. It was a hell of a car, and it reminded him that he was going to need new wheels someday soon. He’d been putting off thinking about it, not wanting to jinx the car he had. So far, the philosophy was working just fine.

“I want to explain something about my lucky streak,” Ricky said when they reached the bottom of the hill and the road flattened out. “If I’m drawn to something, I go to it. If not, I don’t. I can’t just sit down at a slot machine and expect to win.”

“Unless you’re drawn to it,” Valentine said.

“That’s right.”

“Let me guess. A little voice tells you.”

Ricky bit the words about to escape his lips. He was trying not to be a jerk, and it was killing him. Valentine, on the other hand, could be a jerk whenever he wanted to, and said, “There was one flaw to the Ping-Pong scam this morning. Want me to tell you what it was?”

Ricky flashed a village-idiot grin. “Oh, pray tell, do.”

“There were a hundred Ping-Pong balls with numbers in that bag. What do you think the odds of you getting all five on your ticket were?”

“I have no idea,” Ricky said, staring at the road.

“More than seventy-five million to one. Which is the same as walking out of your house, and being struck by lightning twice. Get it?”

“No. What’s your point?”

“My point is, if you got four out of five, I could buy that. But not five out of five. There’s a name for what you did. It’s called the too-perfect ending. It screams fix. You and your barker friend and whoever else is involved messed up.”

Ricky blew his cheeks out. They were on a highway, driving away from town, and Valentine glanced at the dashboard and realized they were doing eighty. It didn’t feel that way, the car insulated from everything on the outside except the fleeting scenery.

“And based on that, you’re calling me a cheater.”

Valentine hid the smile forming at his lips. It was the second time that Ricky had used that word. He leaned back in his seat and didn’t respond. After a minute he saw Ricky point at a green highway sign. They were crossing into South Carolina.

“Our exit is a few miles ahead. South Carolina legalized betting on horses last year. I’m going to pick some winners.” He smiled and added, “Don’t worry. For some reason, I’m never one hundred percent when it comes to the ponies. I guess even luck has its problems with stupid beasts.”

The Off Track Betting parlor was a few miles across the state line. From the distance, it resembled a black outhouse with tinted windows. Valentine’s father had frequented OTBs back in New Jersey, and he could still remember the night his old man had lost his paycheck before his mother could get her hands on it. She had cried for hours.

He followed Ricky inside the building. The parlor was packed with unshaven, chain-smoking men staring at a wall of color TVs showing racetracks around the country. Ricky waved at the men, and got dull looks in return.

“Guess you didn’t pick any winners for them, huh?” Valentine asked.

“You think they’d listen?” he said, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his coat.

“Probably not,” Valentine admitted.

“Probably not is right. I could pick winners all day, and they wouldn’t notice.”

Valentine followed him to the far end of the room. Three skinny, sallow-faced men sat behind barred windows and took bets. Valentine wasn’t sure who was worse looking—the people who frequented OTBs, or the people who worked in them.

“You know why they wouldn’t notice?” Ricky said, peeling off his jacket. “Because they all have a system or a premonition or a hunch that tells them how to bet. They think luck is going to wave a magic wand over them, and they’re going to get rich.”

Throwing the jacket over his arm, he approached the betting window. The teller pushed a racing slip through the bars, and Ricky picked up a pencil while staring at the names of the horses. In a matter of seconds he circled the names of three horses for a race at Belmont Park in New York and pushed the slip back through the bars. From his pants pocket he extracted three crisp hundred-dollar bills. He shoved them through the bars into the teller’s hands.

“Those three horses to show,” Ricky said.

Valentine watched the teller place the three bets. To show meant that Ricky would win money if the horse came in first, second, or third. It was a safe bet, except the three horses Ricky had picked were long shots. The odds were heavily against him winning any money at all.

They crossed the room to the TV sets to watch the race. The room was a smoker’s paradise, and Valentine found himself struggling not to grab a pack out of the nearest guy’s hand.

“You a punter?” Ricky asked.

It was an English expression for a gambler, and Valentine shook his head. “My father was. He lost all our money.”

“And the son was forever cured,” Ricky said. He pointed at a TV set in the center of the wall and said, “That’s us.”

Valentine stared at the set. Belmont Park near Queens, New York, was one of the most respected thoroughbred tracks in the world. He remembered once hearing about a race that was fixed by a jockey at Belmont. Somehow, the track stewards had found out the moment the race was about to start. Instead of letting the horses run, they’d shut off the power to the starting gate and offered refunds to everyone who’d placed a bet. Ricky Smith might somehow rig a casino game or a high school lottery, but he wasn’t capable of rigging a race out of Belmont. No one was.

The race was a mile and a half long. There were nine horses, a crowded field. Valentine had memorized the numbers of the horses Ricky had picked. As they came out of the gate, all three horses started strong. Ricky broke out in a crazy dance, drawing the ire of his fellow bettors.

“Sorry, guys,” he said. “Just working my mojo.”

At the mile marker, Ricky’s horses were lined up in a row and fighting for the lead. In fourth place was the favorite, a horse named Four Leaf Clover. The jockey had run a poor race and allowed himself to get boxed in. His horse had the speed; he just couldn’t properly use it.

A cry went up among the other bettors. As Four Leaf Clover faded from the picture and Ricky’s three picks crossed the finish line, they tore up their tickets and stomped their feet. Ricky was oblivious to their pain and started doing a faithful rendition of the twist. Valentine saw a bettor ball his hand into a fist, and instinctively stepped between him and Ricky.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Valentine said.

“Your friend’s a flaming jerk,” the man growled.

“I’m not arguing with you there,” Valentine said.

Ricky had shut his eyes and was rolling his head like Stevie Wonder. He was making fun of them, and the men quickly surrounded them. They had wolflike looks on their faces, as if they were planning to tear Ricky up and devour him.

“Cut it out,” Valentine told him.

Ricky’s eyes snapped open. Seeing the situation he had created, he stuck his leg out and gyrated like Elvis Presley.

A door banged open on the far side of the room. The teller who’d taken Ricky’s bet stuck his head out. “Knock it off!” he exclaimed.

Ricky kept doing his crazy dance. The teller marched across the room and shoved Ricky’s winnings into his hand. Then he pointed at the door.

“Get the hell out of here.”

Ricky was still gyrating as Valentine dragged him out the door.