Mr. Lucky

49

Valentine went out onto the front porch to wait while Ricky packed his clothes. The cat, which had been preening around Ricky, followed him outside and did its little dance. He scooped it up in his arms.

“Traitor,” he said, rubbing its head.

The lawn was empty of cars, and the police cruisers were also gone. He would have to call Gaylord and explain what had happened. The sergeant would be happy to hear that he wasn’t going to have to arrest the gang. Valentine wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do, but he didn’t live here. He started to unclip the badge from his shirt, when he heard a voice call his name. He walked around the side of the house and found Mary Alice Stoker sitting on a swing.

“How long have you been here?” he asked.

“The whole time,” she said. “I was on the porch. I heard your speech.” She patted the spot beside her on the swing. He sat beside her and made the chains sing. “I once lived in this house. I can still walk the grounds without getting lost.”

“Who brought you here?”

“A neighbor. She was involved.” She pushed the ground with her feet, and the swing went backward. “You were very kind with them, considering what they did.”

“I was more than kind,” he said.

“How so?”

He took her fingers and placed them on the badge still clipped to his shirt.

“When did that happen?”

“Last night. It’s only temporary.”

She patted him on the knee. “You are a good man, Tony Valentine. But there is something that’s bothering me.”

“What’s that?”

“Your friend in Las Vegas, Lucy Price. Why did you abandon her?”

He felt like an invisible dagger had been plunged into his heart. His dream from an hour ago was still rumbling around in his head. He’d been in a car with Lucy but still couldn’t prevent her from crashing. The moral had been clear: He couldn’t alter the course of Lucy’s life, or the misfortune she might cause others. No one could do that but Lucy. He started to get up from the swing and saw the blind librarian stiffen.

“Please don’t run away from me as well.”

He sat back down and waited for her to resume. The swing had stopped moving.

“As a cop, you know how to help people. But as a person, you’re misguided.”

“You think so?”

“Yes, I do.”

“So straighten me out.”

A secret smile crossed her face. She placed her hand on his sleeve and left it there. “You told me a story yesterday about two cops who were summoned to a domestic disturbance. Instead of arresting the young man causing the problem, one of the cops tried to talk some sense into him. The young man hit the cop in the face with a hammer, and the cop’s partner shot him dead. You told me that the cops had made a mistake. Had they arrested the young man, neither of those terrible things would have happened.”

“That’s right.”

“But you left out an important part,” she said. “You didn’t factor in all the other times that those two cops were able to talk sense into someone and keep them from venturing down the wrong path. How many times do you think those two cops did that?”

Valentine shrugged. “Hard to say.”

“A lot?”

“Sure. It comes with the job. You get to play Solomon all the time.”

“Exactly. Cops have to make life-altering decisions every single day. And what I’m telling you is this: That one tragedy you described to me doesn’t cancel out all the good things those two cops did. Evil never cancels out good. It only eclipses it and makes us not see it. But the good remains. It’s always there. It is the thing that makes the human experience worth having.”

The front door of the house opened, and Ricky and Polly stepped outside. Mary Alice heard the sound, and her grip on his sleeve intensified. “The bad deed that Lucy Price committed does not negate the good deed that you did for her. Nor should it stop you from continuing to help her. In the end, you will prevail, just like you did today.”

“You think so?”

“I know so,” she said.

It was something one of the little kids he’d met in her library might say. Ricky and Polly were standing on the porch, looking for him. Valentine got their attention and pointed at Ricky’s Lexus sitting in the carport. Ricky and Polly walked across the yard and climbed into it.

“I need to go. Can I give you a lift home?”

“My neighbor is picking me up at noon and taking me back to school,” she said. “May I ask where you’re going?”

“New York. I’m going to put Stanley Kessel in jail.”

“I’d like to ask you for a favor. I hope you won’t be offended.”

“What’s that?”

“I have a picture in my mind of what you look like. May I touch your face and find out if my picture is anything like the real thing?”

“First tell me what your picture looks like.”

“I most certainly will not.”

He found himself staring at her. He’d avoided doing that, as if staring at a blind person was somehow cheating. What he saw was a woman of great character and moral courage. Taking her hand from his sleeve, he brought it to his face and allowed her fingers to run across the contours of his life. Done, she lowered her hand.

“Good luck in New York,” she said.

The Lexus had a phone in the dashboard that let Ricky make plane reservations from Charlotte to New York for later that night. The drive to the airport was about two and a half hours, and Valentine got settled in for the ride, then called Gerry on his cell phone.

“I’m in the Hattiesburg airport, boarding my flight,” his son said. “I said my good-byes and got the hell out of there. Lamar wants to hire us, but I don’t know.”

“Had enough of Gulfport?”

“That’s an understatement. They’re calling my section. Got to run.”

“Wait a second,” Valentine said, having remembered what had been bugging him since that morning. “Did they catch Huck’s retarded brother?”

“Not since I last talked to Lamar.”

“When was that?”

“About fifteen minutes ago. He asked me to call him from the airport and let him know I’d gotten there safe and sound.”

“And the north Florida cops haven’t caught him.”

“No. Look, Pop, the poor guy’s retarded. If he’s running around in the woods, he’ll probably end up dying from exposure.”

“That’s a cheery thought,” Valentine said.

“You know what I mean. What’s bugging you?”

“When I was a cop in Atlantic City, several guys on the psycho ward at the hospital took off one night. They weren’t very hard to find.”

“Very funny.”

“I’m dead serious, Gerry. Think about it.”

“I’m going to lose my seat, Pop. I’ll call you when I’m back home.”

The connection went dead. His son sounded pissed off. Valentine didn’t like to scare him, but something wasn’t adding up. If Florida cops were good at anything, it was tracking people. They knew how to hunt and used their skill as well as anyone.

He leaned back in his seat and felt his eyes start to droop. The memory of that night in Atlantic City flashed through his head. He and his partner Doyle had gotten one of the psychos in their car, and the guy kept climbing out. He was as slippery as an eel, and every time he got away, he’d laugh hysterically at them. It had been a long night.

The Lexus swerved to avoid something in the highway. Valentine’s eyes snapped awake. People with mental conditions were difficult to take out in public. So why had Huck brought his retarded brother along? He flipped open his cell phone and called Gerry back.

“Pop, we’re starting to taxi.”

“Did it ever occur to you that the Florida cops don’t know what Huck Dubb looks like?”

“But they identified him.”

“What if the retarded brother was told to say ‘I’m Huck’?” Valentine said. “What if he has some credit cards in his pocket with his brother’s name on them? What if the retarded brother is a plant? Just because Huck’s a redneck doesn’t mean he’s stupid, Gerry.”

“Pop, you’re scaring me.”

Valentine looked at his watch. Nearly noon. Nine hours had passed since Huck had gotten pulled off the road. Plenty of time to find another set of wheels and make it down to Palm Harbor. He said good-bye to his son, hung up, and punched in Yolanda’s number.

“Please be home,” he prayed as the call went through.