Mr. Lucky

39

Gaylord wasn’t nearly as stupid as he acted. After Valentine examined the rubber bullets, Gaylord pulled a chair up and made Valentine repeat what had happened. He took copious notes and made Valentine clarify points that bothered him or didn’t make sense. It was an old cop trick, designed to trip up a suspect. The sergeant obviously didn’t believe Valentine’s story.

When Valentine was finished, Gaylord picked up the phone and called Polly Parker’s house. He asked for Ricky and spoke to him for several minutes. The questions he asked were the same ones he’d asked Valentine. He jotted down Ricky’s answers, keeping his pad tilted. When he was done he said good-bye and hung up. The look on his face was one of confusion.

“What’s he saying?” Valentine asked.

“Four Cubans he used to know showed up on his doorstep, said he owed them money,” Gaylord said. “They roughed him up and broke some of his stuff. Then you showed up and saved the day.”

“What about the guy I shot in his driveway? Did he mention that?”

Gaylord slapped his notepad on the table. “Ricky said you told him to shut his eyes. He heard you shoot your gun but didn’t see anything. That true?”

Valentine shook his head. Did anyone deal in the truth in this goddamned town? “Yes,” he said.

“So there aren’t any witnesses?”

“No.”

“No witnesses and no body.” Gaylord rose and picked up his notepad. “I wish like hell I knew what was going on here. My gut says you’re telling the truth, but I don’t have anything to corroborate what you’re saying. Understand?”

“Yes, you don’t have a case.”

“Not yet.”

Valentine looked into his face expectantly.

“I like to work off assumptions,” the sergeant said. “I’m going to assume you’re telling the truth and that you shot someone earlier tonight. Which means there’s a body, and that body needs to be dealt with. I’m putting an all-points bulletin out to every police precinct within five hundred miles of here, asking them to be on the lookout for a man shot between the eyes.”

“Assuming they dump the body.”

“Ricky said the SUV they were driving was rented. They’ll have to dump the body before they drop the rental off. My guess is, they’ll do it sooner rather than later.”

His thinking was sound, and Valentine stood up. “What do you want me to do?”

“Stay put. I’ll call you in the morning.”

“Thanks for taking my side in this.”

“It’s the only one that makes any sense,” Gaylord said.

Leaving Ricky’s house, Valentine crossed the yards to his own. Ricky’s cat was at his back door, pawing the wood. He guessed the owner of the house had once fed it. He let the cat in and searched the shelves of the kitchen pantry. He found a box of cat food that had expired a few weeks ago. He poured some into a dish and put it on the floor. The cat didn’t seem to mind.

He’d put his cell phone on the table, and noticed it was blinking. He had a message. He retrieved it and heard the sound of his son’s voice. He listened to the message twice. He was happy to hear that Gerry had gotten Tex Snyder to open up and admit he’d participated in a scam. But he wasn’t happy to hear that Huck Dubb was still on the loose. He erased the message and called his son back.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” his son said. “I’m back at Lamar’s house. You never told me how dangerous your business was.”

Valentine settled into a chair and felt the cat rubbing against his legs. Reaching down, he rubbed its head. “Something you said in your message didn’t make sense. Huck Dubb and his brother went to the Holiday Inn looking for you, right?”

“That’s right.”

“But Huck already knew you’d checked out. He sent his boys after you, remember?”

There was a long pause on the line.

“Maybe he forgot,” Gerry said.

“I don’t think so,” Valentine said.

Another long pause. If his son was going to work in this business, he needed to use his head for something else besides growing hair.

“I give up,” Gerry said.

“Huck knew you stayed at the Holiday Inn. He and his brother went there looking for something else.”

“Like what?”

“How about the card you filled out when you registered?” Valentine said. “Every hotel asks for it. You give them your name and address. They send it to their corporate headquarters, put you on a mailing list.”

“You think that’s what he was after? You think he’s going after my family?”

“You killed his boys. Yes, he’s going after your family.”

“Oh, Jesus, Pop. Jesus Christ.”

His son sounded like he was ready to cry. He had wanted to join his business in the worst way. Was he having second thoughts?

“I’ll call the Palm Harbor police and alert them,” Valentine said. “You need to call Yolanda and tell her to move across the street to my place until Huck gets hauled in.”

“Shit,” his son said.

“What’s wrong?”

“The card I filled out at the hotel had two boxes. One for home, the other for work. I put your address in that one.”

Valentine silently counted to five. He kept a PO box, which he’d told Gerry to always use. Obviously, his son hadn’t listened.

“Tell Yolanda to go down the street to Mabel’s house.”

“You think Mabel will be okay with that?”

“She will if you ask her nice.”

Valentine hung up, then called the Palm Harbor police department. He’d lived in Palm Harbor for two years and had tried to ingratiate himself with the local cops without becoming a pain in the ass. So far, it had worked pretty well, and the cop he spoke to promised to send a cruiser to Gerry’s house. He also promised to call the Gulfport police and make sure they coordinated their efforts. It was all Valentine could ask for.

He went to the bedroom, pulled his suitcase from beneath the bed, and started packing. If a deranged Mississippi redneck wanted to do his family harm, he needed to be there and deal with it, even if it meant breaking the promise he’d made to Gaylord to stay put.

He looked at the luminous face of his wristwatch. Nearly eleven. If he left now, he could hit the highway when it was empty and speed home. He figured the trip at ten hours max. He guessed Huck was also driving, but would stay away from main highways to avoid any highway patrol that might be looking for him.

In the hallway he found his heavy coat, and threw it over his shoulders without buttoning it. He looked around the house, wondering if he’d left anything. If he had, it would probably come to him when he was on the road.

He was pulling open the front door when he saw a pair of headlights pierce the darkness. A vehicle was coming down his driveway. He slammed the door shut, and for a moment considered running. If it was the Cubans, he needed to hide in the woods.

The car stopped halfway down the drive. He looked through the cutout in the door and saw an interior light come on. He squinted and realized it was Gaylord. He opened the closet door, and shoved his suitcase inside. Then he pulled his coat off and threw it on a peg. He heard a knock and pulled the door open. Gaylord stood on the stoop.

“We found the body,” he said.