Wild Card

Chapter 13

Valentine was exhausted when he walked into the kitchen of his house at seven o’clock that night. It had been a long afternoon at the casino.

First, he’d busted a man for putting a coin into a slot machine with a string attached to it, and jerking the coin out. A silly crime, only the man played the machine so many times he won a jackpot. Jackpots could not be paid until the videotape was reviewed, and now the man was sitting in a holding cell, facing three-to-five.

Then, he’d nailed a card mucker. The guy could invisibly switch cards while playing blackjack. What had tripped him up was his face. It was in a book of mug shots of known cheaters Bill Higgins had sent him. Valentine had made the match, and now the mucker was in the same cell with the yo-yo man.

The icing had been nailing a gang of teenage boys who’d been ripping off slot players. The boys would enter the casino from the Boardwalk, and approach a woman playing a slot machine. One boy would toss coins beneath the woman’s chair. A second would tap her shoulder, and point at the coins on the floor. While the woman was retrieving the coins, the third would snatch her purse. And out the door they’d go.

Until today. The slot player had been Doyle, wearing a wig. Now the lads were sitting in a juvenile detention center, waiting to face their parents.

The kitchen of Valentine’s house was cold and empty. Taking off his jacket, he went to the oven and pulled down the creaky door. Nothing cooking. After his parents had split up, his mother had stopped cooking, and it had taken the warmth out of their house. They were memories that he’d just as soon forget.

He checked a pot sitting on the stove. It was half-filled with water. Pasta? His hopes rose. He stuck his finger in the water. Ice cold.

“We’re in here,” Lois said from the dining room.

He poured himself a glass of cold water and took a long swallow. Gerry’s school bag sat on the kitchen table next to his wife’s purse. He sensed something was not right, and walked into the dining room. Gerry sat at the head of the dining room table with his head bowed. Lois stood behind him, breathing fire.

“Stand up when your father comes into the room.”

Gerry sat motionless at the dining room table.

“What’s going on?” Valentine asked.

“The school principal called me,” Lois said. “Gerry is hanging around with a group of older kids accused of gambling and selling pot.”

“What?”

“We’re not selling pot,” his son declared.

“I said, stand up.”

“We’re not. I swear—”

“Stand up.”

Gerry rose guiltily from his chair, and Valentine stared in disbelief at his son’s wardrobe. A black leather jacket, white tee shirt, jeans, and a pair of pointy-toed boots that locals called fence-climbers. He looked like a punk.

“Where are your school clothes?” Valentine asked.

“These are his school clothes,” Lois answered. “He’s been changing them every day in the gym. Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde.”

“All the kids do it,” his son said.

“And if all the other kids jumped off a bridge, would you follow them?”

Gerry smirked. “Probably.”

Valentine wanted to start yelling. Or take off his belt and whip the bejeeus out of him. Things that his own father had done that he’d never forgotten. But he was not about to follow in his father’s footsteps. Going into the kitchen, he grabbed his son’s school bag and brought it into the dining room, dumping its contents on the table. Out fell a pack of cigarettes, candy bars, a glossy hot-rod magazine, and a gold necklace.

“How much allowance do we give you a week?” Valentine asked.

“Fifty cents,” Gerry mumbled.

“Let me guess, you took a job bagging groceries at the A & P and forgot to tell us.”

“Hey,” his son said, “it’s just some stuff.”

“Stuff costs money.”

Gerry swallowed hard. “It’s not what you think.”

“You weren’t selling pot?”

“No, sir,” his son replied.

“We have a meeting with the school principal first thing tomorrow morning,” Lois said.

“You’d better not be lying to me,” Valentine said.

“I swear Pop, I’m not.”

“And those clothes are gone.”

“Yes, sir.”

His son looked truly remorseful. Valentine glanced at his wife. Lois nodded her head, satisfied. He started dropping his son’s loot into his school bag when a bulge in a side pocket caught his eye. It was the paperback novel he’d seen Gerry reading the night before, The Catcher in the Rye. The book’s cover was coming off, and he flipped it open, and read a few lines. Looking up, he caught his son’s fearful gaze.

“When did J.D. Salinger start writing porno?” he said.