Mr. Lucky

Book 5: Tony Valentine

by James Swain

Genres: Traditional Mysteries; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

Tony Valentine made his living and his name as a cop in Atlantic City-and is now known worldwide for his ability to spot the kinds of scams, grifts, and rip-offs that cost casinos billions every year. A man with a biting wit who drives a '92 Honda, Tony is low-profile, old-school, and has seen it all-until he meets the luckiest man on earth.

Ricky Smith was once a small-town loser. Then he went to Las Vegas, jumped out the window of a burning hotel, lived to tell the tale, and tore up the Strip on an incredible winning streak. Ricky didn't just win at one slot machine or table game. He won at blackjack, roulette, and craps, and then beat the pants off the world's greatest poker player. Tony knows that goofy, loudmouthed Ricky Smith-or anyone else, for that matter-couldn't possibly be that fortunate. But when "Mr. Lucky" returns home to the little town of Slippery Rock, North Carolina, he keeps on winning everything from a horse race to a $50,000 lottery.

Hired by a desperate casino, Tony starts to pry into Ricky's past, his friends, and the strange little town that is benefiting from Ricky's fame and fortune. Unfortunately for Tony, his cover is blown when he is forced to reveal a trick he has up his own sleeve: a pocket Glock he can shoot with laser-like precision. Suddenly, two men are dead, the cops are on Tony's tail, and the investigation explodes in violence-putting the lives of Tony's son and his young family in danger.


For years, Tony's son Gerry has dueled with his own criminal impulses. Now, the Ricky Smith case has lured Gerry through the gates of temptation and into a murderous confrontation with the Dixie Mafia. With Tony stuck on the slippery slope of Slippery Rock and Gerry fighting for his life, the Valentines are finding out just how bad good luck can get.

Against a neon-tinted backdrop of adrenaline rushes, hard crashes, big money, and high-wire tension, the inimitable James Swain has set his best Tony Valentine novel yet: a funny, furious ride with an astounding array of crooks, marks, and one killer scam.

Release date: August 28, 2007

Publisher: Ballantine Books

Print pages: 432

Sample

1
 
The moon looked funny that night, so bright it seemed to sport a face with droopy eyes and a sly little grin, and for the rest of his life Ricky Smith would think of that face whenever he paused to reflect upon the series of events that had turned his life upside down.
 
“So how did you win all that money?” the beautiful girl in his room wanted to know. Her name was Rita, and somehow he’d talked her into coming up to his room high above the Las Vegas Strip, her statuesque body parked beside him on the lumpy double bed. God, is she gorgeous, Ricky thought. Her eyes demanded an explanation, and he shrugged like winning twenty grand at blackjack was no big deal.
 
“Come on,” she pleaded, giving his knee a squeeze.
 
“Tell me.”
 
The little man in Ricky’s crotch snapped to attention. Divorced six months and eleven days, he found himself getting aroused walking in a stiff wind. Time stood still as he struggled for something clever to say. “I got lucky,” he mumbled.
 
Rita’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t believe that for one minute.”
 
He looked at her face, seeing double. “Believe it.”
 
Rita’s tongue did butterfly kisses on his earlobe while her hand crawled up his thigh. The little man was six degrees from exploding, and Ricky squeezed his legs together.
 
“You were cheating, weren’t you?”
 
His head snapped. “No.”
 
“Card counting?”
 
Ricky shook his head. He played a system developed by a legendary counter named Stanford Wong, but tonight it hadn’t been necessary to memorize a single card. As every gambler knew, for all the calculations and odds and multiplying strategies of working the percentages, there were days when things just went your way.
 
“You’re holding back on me,” she cooed.
 
The little man was ready to pounce. Battle stations were ready, all men on deck. He swallowed hard as Rita’s hand climbed farther up his leg, her pink fingernail tickling the crotch of his pants. “I’ll make you tell me.”
 
Ricky didn’t think that was going to be very difficult. Rita coyly pulled her hand away, waiting for him to say something. He coughed awkwardly. “You want a drink or something?”
 
She crossed her arms. Not pissed off, but getting there. “Or something? What have you got in mind?”
 
Ricky’s cheeks burned. Talking to women always tied him in knots. Maybe that was why he’d married the first girl he’d ever slept with. Trying to get up, she grabbed his hand.
 
“Tell me your secret,” she demanded.
 
His tongue felt as thick as a potato. “If I did that, I’d have to kill you.”
 
Rita fell backward onto the bed and started laughing. Ricky would have been hurt, only she pulled him down for the ride, the two of them rolling around in each other’s arms like a couple of kids on a hayride. His lips brushed her mouth, and suddenly they were kissing. Ricky’s heart beat out of control. This is how it was meant to be, he thought. She did not seem to mind that he wasn’t good-looking or well dressed and that he had as much hair on his head as most guys had on their ass, and all Ricky could hope for was that the magic spell he’d cast over her wouldn’t wear off before morning.
 
“I’ll take you up on that drink,” Rita said when they pulled themselves apart.
 
“Name your pleasure.”
 
“Gin and tonic, heavy on the gin.”
 
He went to the room’s minibar. Once his winnings had started to mount, the casino had plied him with free drinks, and now he could barely walk. Stopping at the boxy TV mounted to the wall, he paused to stare at his disheveled appearance in one of the smoky mirrors that served as wall decorations. His face was smeared with pink lipstick, and his hair stood on end. He looked like shit. In the same reflection he caught Rita firing up a butt. She was a mess, too, but in a sexy way, like she’d just woken up, and it occurred to him that no matter what she did to herself, she was always going to be beautiful, and he would always be a grunt. He staggered into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.
 
“Jesus.” The bathroom light was bright and harsh. Filling the sink with cold water, he dunked his head, came up for air, then plunged his face in again.
 
“Are you all right?” she asked through the door.
 
He pulled his face out of the sink. “Give me a minute, okay?”
 
“You want a drink?”
 
“Coke.”
 
“Want some rum with that?”
 
“No, straight.”
 
Another dunk and he felt a little better. Drying himself, he examined the pocks and crevices of his face in the mirror, his wet hair hanging limply from the circular edge of his freckled head. His pride had been crushed long ago, and he felt the skeptic in him rear itself. What did Rita really see in him, besides the twenty grand? No immediate answers came to mind. Then he had a brilliant thought; he’d ask her.
 
He cracked the bathroom door. She was at the minibar, her back to him. In the smoky mirror he watched her fix their drinks. She’d slipped off her shoes and found Kenny G on the radio, her feet dancing as she poured his soda. She was primed, and the little man sent a message to his brain telling him to drop his drawers and march right up to her. “Or something,” he’d say wittily, then throw her on the bed. Wild, uncontrollable sex would follow, and life would be perfect for a little while.
 
“Don’t drown in there,” she called out.
 
His pants were hanging around his knees when he saw Rita dig a tiny vial from her purse. Oh no, he thought, a coke head. Unscrewing the top, she dumped the contents into his bubbling soda and mixed it with her pinky.
 
“I’m waiting,” she called out.
 
Ricky shut the door and leaned against it, breathing heavily. Not coke, a mickey. Knock out the dummy, take the money. He wanted to cry; would have had he been alone.
 
“Time’s up,” she called out.
 
A strained laugh came out of his mouth. Being a nerd, Ricky carried a miniature screwdriver in his shirt pocket, and he got on his knees and unscrewed the air-conditioning vent, then removed his winnings from his belly pack and stuffed them into the small rectangular hole in the wall.
 
A strange smell was coming out of the vent. He took a deep whiff, trying to place it. Like badly burnt toast. Rita knocked on the bathroom door.
 
“Rick-y!”
 
“I’m coming.”
 
“Not without me!”
 
“Ha-ha,” he said.
 
He screwed the vent back into place. Opening the bathroom door, he saw Rita sitting on the bed with their drinks, her blouse partially unbuttoned.
 
“Here I am,” he said, sitting down beside her.
 
She passed him his soda. “Bottoms up.”
 
They clicked glasses, and Ricky felt her stare. He put his drink on the floor, then said, “Listen, something’s come up. I think it would be best if you left.”
 
“But we’re just getting started.”
 
She had a mouth that could make your heart melt. Ricky was a sucker for beautiful girls and had to remind himself that this one wanted to roll him. Staring past her, he said, “I really think you need to go.”
 
She squeezed his leg. This time the little man did not respond. “What’s wrong? You got a wife at home you’re not telling me about?”
 
“Something like that,” he said.
 
“Sure you don’t want to play around?”
 
“I’m sure.”
 
The dreamy look vanished from her face. Putting her drink on the floor, Rita picked up her purse. “And I thought you were someone special,” she said.
 
Ricky looked into her eyes, trying to see into the soul of a woman who’d take advantage of a lonely guy and steal his dough. Did she care that he was hypersensitive to sleeping medication and that her mickey might kill him? No, she probably didn’t. He stood up and pointed at the door.
 
“Get out,” he said.
 
Her face turned to granite. She went to the minibar and slipped on her pumps. She didn’t seem tipsy anymore, and walked calmly to the door before stopping.
 
“Maybe some other time,” she said.
 
“I don’t think so.”
 
She scowled, the lost money eating a hole in her. In the movies the guy got to say something clever right about now, and Ricky pointed at the door. “See you around, sweetheart.”
 
“Who said that? Bogart, or was it Edward G. Robinson?”
 
“Jimmy Cagney.”
 
She lingered at the door, smiling coyly. “Sure you don’t want me to stay?”
 
“You don’t quit, do you?”
 
“Quitting is for losers, big boy.”
 
“Get lost, or I’ll call security.”
 
“You’re so brave.”
 
“Keep it up and I’ll toss you myself.”
 
“A slob like you?” She pulled a can of mace from her purse. “I don’t think so.”
 
Ricky blinked. A thick black snake about nine feet long had slithered into the room and wrapped itself around Rita’s shapely legs. Thinking the booze was messing with his head, he watched the snake begin to squeeze the life out of her, only to melt away in a harmless puff of smoke. Rita looked at the floor, sensing something was wrong.
 
“What’s that funky smell?” she said.
 
“Something’s burning. You’d better not open that door.”
 
“Why not?”
 
Because somewhere deep down inside I want to believe you might really care for me, he thought. “I think the hotel’s on fire,” he said.
 
Rita put her hand on the knob and twisted it. “Right. And you and I are going to stay in this room until the firemen come. My hero. Well, if I stay, it’s going to cost you, toilet-bowl head. Four hundred bucks an hour, a grand for the night.”
 
Ricky winced. All his life people had soiled him with names, but for some reason this dagger hurt more than the others. He hadn’t intentionally lost his hair, but women seemed to think something was wrong with his genetic makeup because he had. His lower lip began to tremble, and he had to think hard.
 
“How about twenty bucks, and you have to shine my shoes in the morning?”
 
Rita’s mouth dropped open: score one for RS. Jerking the door open, she said, “Stick it up your ass, fat boy,” and marched into the hallway.
 
A loud whoosh! greeted her as the fire smoldering in the hallway sucked up the bedroom oxygen and caused the hallway to burst into flames. Rita stood in the center of it. She acted confused, like someone trapped in a carnival fun house, and Ricky watched in morbid fascination as her flowing blond hair and baby-doll red dress sparked, then burst into bright orange flames.