Mr. Lucky

28

Valentine spent an hour on the phone talking to Gerry. He wasn’t sure it did any good. Killing the murderous Dubb brothers had ripped a hole in his son’s psyche.

Valentine knew the feeling too well. Television and the movies distorted how the act of killing another human being actually made you feel. There was nothing glorious or heroic about it, and there never would be.

“Pop, I need to go,” his son said. “Lamar just got a call from the local police. The Dubb brothers’ father is on the loose, and Lamar wants to take me to a more secure place.”

Valentine pushed himself out of the chair he was sitting in. He didn’t want his son to hang up. His boy’s situation had reminded him that there were more important things in life than figuring out how casinos got ripped off. “You keep yourself glued to Lamar Biggs’s side,” he said. “You don’t know who in that town Huck Dubb knows.”

“I will,” his son said.

“You tell Yolanda any of this?”

“Not yet. I wanted to do it in person. Like you used to with Mom after you had to shoot someone.”

Valentine had always wondered if his son had learned anything from him. It was nice to know something had sunk in.

“I’m going to leave my cell phone on,” Valentine said. “Call me anytime you want to.”

“You’re going to leave your cell phone on?” Gerry said, feigning astonishment. “That’s a first. I’m alerting the media.”

And a smart mouth. Gerry had learned that from his father as well.

Hanging up, Valentine went into the living room and browsed through the books left by the previous owners. An entire set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica lined one shelf, their spines brittle with age. He pulled out the edition with the word Atlas printed on its spine. In the very front was a four-color map of the United States. With his thumb, he measured the distance between where he was in North Carolina to where Gerry was in Mississippi. It was about five hundred miles. His paternal instinct told him he needed to go.

He’d left his cell phone on the kitchen table and now heard it beep. Someone had left a message. He guessed it had come in while he was talking to Gerry. He went into the kitchen and retrieved it, and heard Mabel’s cheerful voice.

“Yolanda and I just had the most marvelous time with two flatties in Gibsonton,” his neighbor said. “That’s slang for carnival people. And guess what? They taught us how the Ping-Pong trick works! I’m not surprised it fooled you. Call me at home when you get a chance, and I’ll be happy to explain how it’s done.”

Valentine erased the message and then dialed Mabel’s number. He realized he was smiling. He was always explaining scams and cons to her and could tell she enjoyed knowing something that he didn’t.

“Let me guess,” he said when she answered. “A four-year-old kid could figure it out.”

“Oh, not at all,” his neighbor said. “In fact, I don’t think I would have figured it out myself. The Ping-Pong ball hides the secret.”

He sat down at the kitchen table. “Okay, I give up. What secret?”

“Five of the Ping-Pong balls are frozen ahead of time. Those are the winning numbers. The audience can’t tell that the balls are frozen, because they’re white to begin with. The person who pulls the balls out of the bag simply grabs the cold ones.”

Which meant that the barker at the high school was part of the scam. The smile faded from his face. But what about Mary Alice Stoker? Was she involved, or just a patsy, chosen because she was blind and wouldn’t know that frozen balls were in the bag?

“But the balls weren’t cold when I examined them,” he said.

“That’s the other clever part of the scam,” she said.

He waited and heard her breathing on the line.

“Uncle,” he said.

“Uncle?”

“Yeah. I give up. What’s the other part?”

“The balls warm up in a person’s hand,” his neighbor replied, sounding delighted with herself. “It takes about ten seconds for the plastic in the ball to return to room temperature. It’s an old carnival trick.”

“I bet it is,” he said.

“Oh, I also got the skinny on the gypsies that ran the carnival Ricky Smith lived with. They were called the Schlitzies, and they were real crooks.”

Valentine felt his face grow warm. And so are a bunch of other people in this town. From the front of the house he heard a frantic banging and realized someone was at the front door. He went into the hallway and put his face to the glass cutout in the door. No one was there.

“That’s funny,” he said.

“That the Schlitzies were crooks?” his neighbor said.

“Sorry. I was just talking out loud.”

“Well, I need to run. I’ve got lasagna baking in the oven, and Yolanda is coming over later for dinner. You take care of yourself.”

“You, too,” he said.

The phone went dead in his hand. He killed the connection when the frantic banging started again. It was so loud it nearly made him jump. He jerked open the door to find a young girl with a ponytail standing on the stoop. Out in the driveway lay a bicycle.

“Mr. Valentine,” she said breathlessly. “Please help.”

Valentine crouched down so they were eye to eye. It was a trick he’d learned when he was a street cop and had to talk to a kid. It immediately set them at ease. The girl was about twelve, tall and blond, and wore a navy sweatshirt that said ASPIRING SHOPAHOLIC. It was funny; only, there was nothing but fear in her eyes.

“What’s your name?”

“Elizabeth Ford. Everyone calls me Liz.”

“Who do you want me to help, Liz?”

“Ms. Stoker.”

He gently placed his hand on her shoulder. “Has she been hurt?”

She was breathing hard and nodded her head.

“Did she send you?”

“She doesn’t know,” she said.

“Take a deep breath and tell me what happened.”

“I went to her house. She was going to help me with a book report for school. I usually let myself in through the back door. There’s a key under the mat. I went into the kitchen and heard voices in the living room. I pushed the door open and looked inside.”

Tears raced down her cheeks. Valentine held her steady. “You’re a very brave girl. Now tell me what you saw.”

“There were four men in the living room with Ms. Stoker. They had accents. They were threatening her. She was sitting in a chair, and they were standing around her. One of the men was breaking things—”

“What kind of things?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I was scared.”

“I know you were. What were the men saying?”

“One of them was threatening Ms. Stoker. He kept telling her she had a big mouth and that he’d hurt her if she said anything else. Ms. Stoker tried to talk back, but the man kept poking her in the shoulder with his hand. Finally she tried to say something, and…”

“And what?”

“He hit her in the face with his hand.”

Liz was really crying now. Valentine drew her into his chest and held her until the sobs subsided. He could remember it like it was yesterday: His old man getting drunk and slapping his mother around. The memory had only grown more vivid as he’d gotten older. “What did you do then?” he asked.

“I hid in the pantry. I heard the men leave and ran into the living room. Ms. Stoker was sitting in her chair crying. I asked her what she wanted me to do. She told me to go home and forget what I’d seen.”

“But you came here instead.”

She swiped at her eyes. “I heard you liked her.”

Valentine pushed himself up so he was standing. “You’re a smart kid, you know that?”

“Are you going to help Ms. Stoker?”

“You bet I am,” he said.