Mr. Lucky

31

Someone had once told Mabel that the month of May was beautiful wherever you went. Not just in the United States, but all over the world.

It was certainly true in Florida. The air was warm but not too humid, the grass and vegetation blooming everywhere you looked, the days longer and more fulfilling. She sat on a rocker on her front porch, taking it all in. The trip to Gibsonton had been fun, but now she was exhausted. She put in long hours working for Tony. Usually she enjoyed it, but sometimes it also wore her out.

A FedEx truck came down the street and stopped in front of Tony’s house. FedEx delivered on Sundays, but you had to pay them through the nose. It was probably a videotape from a casino that had lost a bundle of cash. It seemed to be happening more and more, despite the breakthroughs in technology that were available, like facial-recognition databases and digital cameras that could photograph a pimple on an elephant’s behind. Because casinos generated so much cash, they attracted the worst that society had to offer. Like Tony was fond of saying, it wasn’t a matter of if a casino was going to have problems, it was a matter of when.

She signed for the package, then watched the truck pull away from the curb. Moments later, she saw Yolanda come out of her house with the baby in her arms. Yolanda looked harried, and Mabel saw that she had on mismatched slippers. Mabel pushed herself out of her rocker and walked down the path to the sidewalk in front of her house.

“Is everything all right?” she called across the street.

Yolanda shook her head. “No.”

“Is this about Gerry?”

“Yes.”

“Give me a minute.”

Mabel went inside, made sure the teakettle wasn’t boiling on the stove, then grabbed her keys and hurried out the door. It had bothered her that Gerry hadn’t come home right away from his trip to Gulfport. Something about his reason for staying had sounded fabricated. Reaching Yolanda’s house, she let herself in.

She heard Yolanda in the kitchen, talking in Spanish on the phone. As she walked down the hallway, Mabel glanced into the different rooms. Each was spotless, with not a single child’s toy or piece of child’s clothing lying on the floor. Mabel was convinced that Yolanda would one day surrender to motherhood, but so far it hadn’t happened.

In the kitchen she found Yolanda sitting at the table, the baby struggling in her lap. Mabel took the baby from her and felt its heavy diaper. She went into the master bedroom and changed her.

“It’s my mother in San Juan,” Yolanda called out. “She’s had a premonition about Gerry.”

“Is he in trouble?”

“Yes.”

Yolanda’s mother had this uncanny ability to see into the future and predict when bad things were about to happen. By having a son-in-law like Gerry, she was going to be busy for a long time. Mabel finished changing Lois’s diaper and returned to the kitchen. “What did he do?” she asked.

Yolanda was saying good-bye to her mother, which could take anywhere from ten seconds to a full minute. Finally she hung up. “My mother had a dream while she was taking a siesta this afternoon,” Yolanda said, taking the baby from her. “In it, she saw Gerry being pursued by a man who looked like a bear. My mother said Gerry took something from him.”

Yolanda’s lips were trembling. Mabel didn’t believe in psychics, or the frauds on TV who claimed to communicate with the dead; only, Yolanda’s mother’s premonitions somehow always came true.

“This isn’t good,” Mabel said. “Have you called Gerry and asked him to come clean?”

“No,” Yolanda said.

Mabel glanced at the cell phone sitting on the table. So did Yolanda. Her mother had spooked her, and Mabel watched her bring the baby to her chest and rock her.

“Would you like me to call him?” Mabel asked.

Yolanda kissed the top of Lois’s head with her eyes closed.

“Would you please?” she asked.

Gerry stared at the monitor above the door of the trailer. In his hand was Lamar’s gun. The fat guy—who he guessed was Huck Dubb—was having a problem loading his automatic rifle. Gerry wanted him to lower the rifle’s barrel a little bit more. Just another foot, and Gerry was going to open the door and blow his head off.

“He’s got an AK-47,” Lamar said, lying on the floor. His right arm was spurting blood, and he was holding his other hand over the wound. “Their barrels heat up if you fire too many rounds at once.”

Gerry glanced at Kent and Boomer. They had dragged themselves over to the corner and were tending to each other’s wounds.

“You need to take him out,” Lamar said.

“I know,” Gerry said.

“Better turn the safety off.”

Gerry found the safety and flipped it off. In the monitor, Huck Dubb was cursing and banging his rifle with the palm of his hand. Gerry heard his cell phone ring, and jerked it out of his pocket. It was Yolanda, calling from the house. He hit talk.

“I love you,” he said. “Call you right back.”

He killed the power and put the phone away. Then he jerked the door open and stepped outside the trailer. There was a small platform, then three steps to the pavement. Huck stood twenty feet away, not seeing him. He aimed at Huck’s chest and squeezed the trigger. The gun barked, and Huck spun like a top, the rifle flying out of his hands. Gerry watched it slide beneath a parked car and felt the weight of the world lift from his shoulders.

Huck fell against a car and brought his hand up to his head. Blood was spurting from his ear, and Gerry realized he’d winged him. He went down the steps and saw Huck start to back away. Gerry motioned for him to stop. Huck kept backing up.

“I’ll shoot you,” Gerry said.

The side of Huck’s face was sheeted in blood. Huck spit at Gerry.

“You killed my boys,” he said.

“You shouldn’t have sent them after me.”

“You a cop?”

Gerry shook his head. In the distance he could hear an approaching siren.

“Fuck you,” Huck said.

Huck did a one-eighty and took off at a dead run. Gerry aimed at his back. He started to squeeze the trigger, then hesitated. From the trailer he heard Lamar yelling at him to do it. He thought of the faces of the Dubb boys as he dumped the logs on them. He’d seen in their eyes the stark terror that accompanies the realization that your life is about to end. He didn’t want to see that look ever again, and lowered his arm.

“Aw, shit,” he heard Lamar say.

Two ambulances and half the Gulfport police force showed up a minute later. A posse of cops went to hunt down Huck, while the three wounded men were put on gurneys and taken to the hospital. Gerry rode in the ambulance with Lamar.

“You should’ve shot him,” Lamar said.

“You ever kill anyone before?” Gerry asked him.

Lamar shook his head.

“Then shut up,” he said.

Gerry turned his eyes away as a medic treated Lamar’s wound. He felt something being pressed into his hand, and looked down to see Lamar handing him his cell phone.

“Call Isabelle, would you? Tell her what happened.”

Gerry made the call for him. Isabelle had already heard the news. The employees who they suspected of cheating were being rounded up. She made Gerry put Lamar on. He put the phone next to the big man’s lips and saw him whisper something to her, then say good-bye. Gerry put the phone back to his own mouth. “Isabelle, I need you to do something for me.” To Lamar he said, “Which blackjack table was I watching before?”

“Table seventeen.”

“Isabelle, make sure you confiscate the trash can beneath blackjack table seventeen. It will be filled with used tissues.”

She agreed, and the line went dead. He saw Lamar smile at him.

“Used tissues?”

“That’s right.”

“Still want to win that bet, huh?”

“Twenty bucks is twenty bucks,” Gerry said.