Wild Card

Chapter 59

“I don’t like it here,” Bernard said, his teeth chattering.

“Neither do I,” Valentine said.

“Can we go soon?”

“Sure. In a few minutes.”

Winter had hung on longer than it was supposed to. Two weeks into March, and there was still six inches of snow covering the ground. Valentine used the broom he’d brought to the cemetery to dust away the snow from the tombstone Bernard thought was his grandfather’s. It wasn’t, and Bernard asked him to try the next tombstone. Valentine did, and uncovered the grave of someone named Johnson.

“This is...” Bernard strained for the right word.

“Futile?”

“Yeah,” the boy said. “Futile.”

“But not a waste of time,” Valentine said.

“I didn’t say that,” Bernard said.

He’d turned eleven the week before and was growing like a weed. During the drive over, he’d told Valentine about the foster home he’d been living in for the past two months. The Polish couple that ran it took in lots of kids, and since he was the oldest, he didn’t get much attention. He hadn’t been complaining, just explaining how things were. Valentine tried another tombstone.

“Here he is,” he said.

Bernard edged up beside him. He stared down at his grandfather’s tombstone, then closed his eyes and stifled a tiny sob. Valentine put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, and kept it there until Bernard opened his eyes and wiped his tears away.

“I miss him every day,” Bernard said.

“I know you do,” Valentine said.

“Will I ever stop missing him?”

“No.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just do. You always miss the people you love.”

They trudged back through the snow to the car. The day was dreary, the sun refusing to come out from behind the blanket of clouds. As they reached the gravel lot, Valentine handed Bernard the car keys. “Go start up the engine, and turn the heater on.”

“You going someplace?”

“Just for a minute,” Valentine assured him.

Bernard said okay and walked away. Valentine retraced his steps, and found the petrified oak tree in the cemetery that was his landmark. He walked carefully around the headstones, then found the spot, and put the broom to work. Soon he was staring at his mother’s tombstone. He shut his eyes and said a prayer. His mother had died when he was twenty-one. As he’d grown older, he’d come to understand the life she’d lived more and more, and he prayed that she would find in heaven the harmony that had escaped her on this earth. Opening his eyes, he took a handful of rose petals from his pocket, and sprinkled them on her grave.

He found Bernard sitting behind the wheel of the running car, pretending to drive. He made him slide over, then got in. The cemetery was located in an area called Pleasantville, and he drove east on the causeway back to Atlantic City. Soon they were on the island, and heading south.

“How far?” Bernard asked after a few minutes.

“A couple of more blocks and we’ll be there,” Valentine said.

“I’m scared.”

“You want me to pull over?”

“Yeah,” the boy said.

The car’s tires kissed the curb. Valentine had expected this, and he turned and faced his passenger. Bernard’s face was drawn, and he looked more frightened than an eleven-year-old kid needed to be.

“What if it doesn’t work out?” Bernard asked.

“It will work out,” Valentine said.

“Yeah, but what if it doesn’t? What if they hate me?”

“They won’t hate you.”

“It can happen. Or I can hate them.”

“You still have to try.”

“Why?”

Valentine looked through the windshield at the road in front of them. At the next block, it forked into two roads. Pointing, he said, “All you get in life are choices, Bernard. Which road should I go down? Which will get me where I want to go? You take the information you have, and make your choice.”

Bernard looked annoyed, like he was expecting something more profound.

“You’re saying that’s what life is all about? Just some choices?”

“If you’re lucky,” Valentine said.

Bernard took a deep breath. Then he rubbed his face. He was thinking really hard.

“Okay,” he said after a minute.

“Okay, what?”

“I’m ready to go down this road.”

Soon they were sitting in the driveway of a split-level ranch with white curtains in every window. As Valentine killed the engine, he saw movement behind one of the downstair’s windows. Bernard saw it too, and said, “She’s real nice, isn’t she?”

“Yes, she is. And you should taste her cooking.”

“Real good?”

“Some of the best food I’ve ever eaten.”

That got the boy smiling. “But he’s kind of strict, isn’t he?”

Valentine wanted to tell Bernard that all fathers were strict, but realized it would be lost on him. “Not once you know him,” he said.

“You think we’ll get along?”

“Yes, I do.”

They got out of the car. Valentine opened the trunk, and removed Bernard’s suitcase. It was big and heavy, but it had to be. Inside of it was everything the boy owned.

The front path had been recently shoveled, and was covered with salt. It crunched under Bernard’s shoes as he marched up to the front door, and pressed the bell. A chime rang inside the house. Bernard stepped back, looking at Valentine out of the corner of his eye. “You live near here?” he asked.

“A mile away.”

“Good,” the boy said.

The front door swung in, and Gloria Mink and her husband came onto the stoop. For a second, Bernard looked like he was going to cave in, and start crying. But he didn’t. He made Valentine proud, and sucked in his feelings.

“Welcome to our home, Bernard,” Gloria Mink said.

Valentine drove straight to his house. Fuller had called the day before, and alerted him that the bust was about to go down. He’d been waiting months for this day.

He went inside. Lois had taken the day off, and was in the living room, watching the local TV channel. To be safe, they’d pulled Gerry out of school, and sent him to stay with her relatives in New York City.

“No news yet,” she said.

By noon, they were both bored silly, and decided to go to the Boardwalk and get some lunch. As they rose from the couch, a special news report came on.

“Maybe this is it,” she said expectantly.

Valentine turned up the volume, then sat on the couch and took his wife’s hand. A male newscaster appeared on the screen, and read awkwardly from a sheet of paper.

“This morning, in what law enforcement officials are calling a major blow to organized crime, the FBI issued arrest warrants for sixteen reputed members of the New York mafia, over twenty employees of Resorts’ casino, and two unnamed members of the New Jersey Casino Control Commission. The sting — called Operation Candy Store — uncovered a scam that was costing Resorts a hundred thousand dollars a day.”

The reporter seemed amazed at the figure, and Valentine found himself shaking his head. So it had reached all the way up to the commission. The newscaster touched his ear piece and said, “My director informs me that we’re going to a live news conference at city hall. Please stand by.”

Fuller appeared on the screen wearing a dark suit and tie. Speaking into a bouquet of microphones, he explained how the FBI had discovered the scam while tracking the Dresser months ago, and immediately set up shop. He sang the bureau’s praises, and made himself and Romero and the rest of his team out to be the best law enforcement agents on the planet. Not once were the local police mentioned as being involved.

Fuller read the names of the employees at the casino that had been arrested that morning. They included Mickey Wright and several in-house accountants, and a guy on the floor assigned to watch the cage. They were all people Valentine knew and liked. But he didn’t feel sorry for them. They’d made their choices. Who he felt bad for were their families and friends. They’d suffer through this for a long time, while wondering how their loved ones could have behaved so stupidly. More victims, he thought.

The press conference ended. Valentine went to the TV, and killed the power.

“I’m starving. Let’s go eat.”

His wife jumped up, and threw her arms around him. “Is that all you’re going to say? Not hurrah, or whoopee, or yeah — we did it!?”

He shook his head. He’d taken no pleasure from doing this, and wanted to put it behind him.

“Kiss me,” she said.

He pressed the tip of her nose against his wife’s. Then their lips touched, and the warmth of her love enveloped him. Despite all the bad things that had happened, he still had her, and Gerry, and his job, and all the other rewards a man could expect for living a clean life. He’d come out on top, and he knew it.