Mr. Lucky

52

Roberts and Knuts left the shabby conference room without a word. Ricky rose and went to stand by the sooty window. Polly started to follow him, and Valentine touched her sleeve and eyed the door. She hesitated, then reluctantly walked out.

Valentine went to where Ricky stood. Ricky was staring down at the street scene below. It was like watching life through a dirty lens, and he mumbled a harsh profanity under his breath.

“Want me to leave?” Valentine asked.

Ricky shook his head. Removing his wallet, he extracted a photograph from behind the plastic protector and propped it on the windowsill. It was of a woman with silver hair and a thin smile, and Valentine guessed this was Aunt Helen. Ricky said, “When I was a teenager, my aunt moved to Slippery Rock for a year and took care of me while my parents went through their divorce. She protected me from all the fighting. She was a tough old gal, but she was always good to me.” He swallowed hard. “I wanted to pay her back. That was why I brought her in.”

“You recruited her?”

“Yeah.” Ricky picked the picture up and slipped it back into his wallet. Then he stared down at St. Andrew’s tiled rooftop. He shook his head at something he could not undo. “Tell them to come back,” he said.

“You mean Roberts and Knuts?”

“Yeah.”

“They’re busy men, Ricky. I can’t order them around.”

“I’m ready to talk.”

“About Stanley?”

“Yeah, about Stanley.”

Valentine went to the door. Ricky called to him. “One thing,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“I don’t want Polly in the room this time.”

Roberts and Knuts returned to the conference room ten minutes later. They took the same seats, Roberts throwing his bag of candy in the center of the table while Knuts started the tape recorder. Ricky slid the candy back the FBI man’s way, then gave them hard looks.

“Either of you gents ever hear of Cascade International?”

Knuts and Roberts both shook their heads.

“It’s a company in Aventura, Florida. They make expensive casual clothes for women.”

“I think my wife bought some clothes there,” Knuts said. “North Miami Beach, right?”

“That’s them,” Ricky said. “Their flagship store is in the same building as their headquarters. Eight thousand square feet of couture. Dresses, shoes, lingerie, you name it, they sell it.”

“What about them?” Roberts said impatiently.

“The company went public last year. Guess who brought them to market.”

“You tell us,” Roberts said.

“Stanley Kessel. The stock opened at a dollar and is currently trading at nine bucks, which makes Cascade worth a cool seventy million. Which is pretty amazing, when you consider the company only has one store.”

Knuts and Roberts leaned forward. “Come again?” Roberts said.

“You heard me. They have one store.”

“Explain yourself.”

“Cascade is an illusion of Stanley Kessel’s creation. It’s a paper company. The annual stock report says they have thirty-six stores, and all are doing gangbuster business. The stores are spread across the country. Tuscaloosa, Panama City, Savannah, Fresno, and every other city that you’ve heard of but can’t easily travel to. Get it?”

Both men shook their heads. They didn’t get it at all. Ricky looked at Valentine.

“Why don’t you explain it to them, Doctor?”

The two men glanced at Valentine. It seemed obvious, but he said it anyway. “The Miami store is a front. Stanley put the other stores—which are phantoms—in out-of-the-way cities that people from Wall Street weren’t likely to check out.” He looked at Ricky. “That about it?”

Ricky nodded.

“That operation in Miami cost a lot of money,” Knuts said. “Who fronted Stanley the capital to get it started?”

Ricky stared at the tape recorder. He seemed to be fighting himself, then finally spoke. “Stanley got his funding from a gang of Miami cocaine dealers. Those are his partners.”

Roberts rose from his chair. “Cascade is drug money?”

Ricky nodded. “The company has an account with one of the big Miami banks. The drug dealers launder money through the account. That was the trade-off Stanley made with them.” Ricky glanced at Valentine. “Those were the guys beating me up at my house.”

“So, I did kill a drug dealer,” Valentine said.

“That’s right. The four principals move with Stanley all the time. He calls them his business associates. They’re really part of the cartel.”

“How do you know this?” Roberts said.

“The first time Stanley came to see me, he told me about the Cascade deal,” Ricky explained. “He sucked me in by selling me ten thousand shares at the opening price. I sold out a month later and made a huge profit. It’s what I’ve been living on.”

“You realize I’m going to have to arrest you,” Roberts said.

Ricky nodded. Knuts and Roberts went to the other side of the room and took out their cell phones. They began the process that would eventually put Stanley Kessel behind bars. Valentine glanced at Ricky and saw him silently weeping. He put his hand on Ricky’s shoulder.

“You did good,” he said.

“You think so?”

Valentine nodded, and Ricky found the strength to smile.

“I guess there’s a first time for everything,” he said.