Value of a Buck

Jules Kendall sits in her car outside a restaurant, talking on the phone with Connie. She is about to meet her old friend Buck Meltsner, who is visiting town, and she is nervous about telling him she has become a Christian. Back when they were close, it felt like the two of them were the only non-Christians around, and that was part of what bonded them. When Buck walks up, he immediately asks to move their meeting to Hal's Diner because a big church crowd is at the restaurant and he can't deal with that. Jules agrees, but privately worries that he is not going to understand her news at all.

At the diner, Buck mentions the news article about Jules's accident and the new railings being built in the national forest, then launches into everything that has happened to him lately. It began at the school football banquet, which he attended with Lexie Winters. Lexie told him about a ministry called Delivering Biblical Blessings, in which teenagers help residents at an assisted care facility by running errands and organizing activities, and instead of paying the teens, the residents donate money to send children in Burundi to school. She showed Buck a video about a boy named Richard who dreams of becoming a doctor and helping the sick people in his village. Lexie explained that the founder, Mr. Burgum, doesn't even take a paycheck and likes to say "blessings beget blessings." Buck was skeptical, sure that someone must be making a profit somewhere, but Lexie reminded him that he already does this kind of thing himself: he mentors a foster boy named Chase. Buck admitted that helping Chase feels like paying off a debt, since people once helped him when he was in the same situation. That same night, Buck was named the team's most valuable offensive player, having scored 22 touchdowns despite starting the season late.

Buck agreed to check out the ministry and brought Chase along to the nursing home. There they met the sharp-tongued Mrs. Clementine, who scolded Chase for shouting at her, complained about being stuck playing bingo, and gleefully teased Buck about Lexie, noting that his blushing ears looked like sliced tomatoes. She revealed that Lexie visits her twice a week as her "philanthropical advisor," helping her decide where to donate her money, and that she happily writes checks to Delivering Biblical Blessings. While Mrs. Clementine fussed over Buck's oatmeal-stained shirt and insisted on plucking his eyebrows, Buck studied the charity's brochure and felt uneasy. It looked oddly like the publicity materials Mr. Skint, the con man who raised him, once used to scam people out of donations. Buck called Jason Whittaker and asked him to investigate.

Then came hard news at home. Buck's adoptive mother, Katrina, told him gently that the state penitentiary in Philadelphia had called: Mr. Skint is dying and has been moved to a hospital under guard. She offered to go with Buck if he wanted to say goodbye, or even to forgive him, but Buck refused. Mr. Skint raised him for about fifteen years, but he taught Buck to pick locks and run cons, twisting his sense of right and wrong, and Buck was the one responsible for sending him to prison. He couldn't imagine Skint would want to see him.

On his next visit to the nursing home, Buck met Mrs. Clementine's daughter, Chloe, and walked into a family argument. Mrs. Clementine wants to sell a bracelet that has been in the family for generations and donate the money to the ministry, insisting it is just a gaudy old thing, while Chloe pleads with her to keep the heirloom she remembers her grandmother wearing. Talking it over with Lexie later, Buck realized why the scene troubled him so much. When he was eleven or twelve, he helped Mr. Skint con a woman out of a ring by promising to invest the money for her daughter's inheritance. The daughter cried and begged her mother not to give it away. The ring turned out to be nearly worthless in money but priceless in memories, and Skint stashed it in a storage unit full of loot he planned to use in future scams. Buck announced he was taking a trip to Philadelphia.

Before the visit, Jason reported back: Delivering Biblical Blessings is a registered nonprofit, but its money moves from account to account, even overseas, without ever seeming to land in the countries it claims to help, and no one there returns his calls.

At the hospital, the guard is surprised to find Buck is the only name on Mr. Skint's next-of-kin list. Weakened by throat cancer, Skint can barely speak and keeps a whiteboard for writing messages. He greets Buck warmly, but instead of showing any regret, he urges Buck not to give up conning people. "It's in your blood. It's who you are," he insists. Buck asks about the storage unit, hoping to recover the ring and return it, and Skint tells him it is at Arlenville Storage, with the key in the side pocket of his duffel bag, which the guard is keeping. Skint then coaches Buck in a scheme: when the cookie cart comes at four o'clock, pretend to choke, double over, and grab the key in the confusion. He also urges Buck to find his old associate Dirk and work with him. Out in the hallway, the guard explains he would need a supervisor's permission to open the bag. When the cookie cart arrives, Buck stares at the cookies, torn, and then quietly refuses to take one. Moments later, alarms sound. Mr. Skint is found collapsed on the floor by the window; the fake-choking plan was really a distraction so he could attempt one last escape. The nurses cannot revive him, and he dies minutes later.

Back at the diner, Buck tells Jules how strange his grief feels. He is sad to lose someone he spent so much of his life with, but even sadder about what that life amounted to: one more scam, one more escape. Skint always claimed they were the freest people in the world, yet he died a prisoner of the law and of his own delusions. There was no key in the duffel bag after all, and Buck wonders why Skint hid its location even at the end. Then the guard finds Buck and hands him the whiteboard the nurses recovered, bearing Mr. Skint's final scrawled words: "Key other raves." The guard admits the message makes no sense to him, but Buck looks at it and says it just might mean something after all.