Final judgment

FIFTEEN

Davey’s Uptown Rambler Club was at the corner of Thirty-fourth and Main, an intersection that was either seedy or had character, depending on your attitude toward bars, porn, and vacant storefronts. Davey’s was on the southwest corner. Ray’s Playpen was on the northwest, offering sexual novelties but no sex. The vacant storefronts were across the street on the east side of Main.

Further north were Crown Center, the Liberty Memorial, Union Station, and the Crossroads Art District. To the south were Thirty-ninth Street and Westport Road, two east-west arteries that had harnessed urban cool into successful restaurant and retail lifelines capturing the uptown flavor Davey’s claimed as its own. The waves of progress washed out before reaching Davey’s and Ray’s corner of the world. They didn’t mind and neither did their customers.

A large unlit neon sign that hung on the north side of Davey’s offered parking behind the bar. Mason used the rear entrance, following a short, dimly lit hallway past the john and into the bar. There was a large room to his right with a couple of pool tables, games in progress on both; the players were using their cues to balance themselves more than to make a shot.

Davey’s was long and narrow, three booths on Mason’s left toward the front, two round tables with stools in the center and the bar covering the wall on his right. A collection of bleached cow skulls and gold-painted ceramic cherubs hung above the rows of whiskey bottles behind the bartender.

The regulars manned the stools along the bar, nursing their beers. A television tuned to ESPN, the sound off, hung from the ceiling. One of the round tables was occupied by five guys unwinding on their way home. Mason caught enough of their conversation to know they were lawyers, nodding at their looks of recognition when they saw him. Mason accepted that he had a high profile, but he didn’t play off it.

Samantha Greer was waiting for him in the front booth, her back to him. The lawyers’ conversation softened as he passed, one of them saying hello and asking how it was going, Mason answering good enough, wishing it was.

He slid into the booth across from Samantha. She was midway through her first beer, tipping the bottle toward Mason.

“You’re late. I had to buy my own.”

“Better to owe you than cheat you out of it.” Mason reached across the table for her hand, squeezing it until she squeezed back a little too tightly. “Thanks for coming.”

“Couldn’t resist. Never could.”

They had known each other for four years. The first two years were marked by meteoric sex fueled more by need and loneliness than anything else. Recognizing it for what it was, they made mutual promises that they weren’t making any promises. Mason had kept his promise, but Samantha wished she’d never made hers.

“You changed your look,” he said.

She fingered hair that hung just past her chin. She used to be blond. Now she was some metallic copper shade.

“Cut it and colored it. I needed a change of pace. You like it?”

“Looks great,” he said, meaning it, glad to see a bright flicker in her green eyes.

Samantha finished her beer. “I bought the first round. Might as well stick with the program.”

He watched as she walked to the bar and bought two more bottles. She had a compact body, muscled enough to take down a suspect, soft enough to fit nicely against his, the memory indelible. He hadn’t seen her much while he was with Abby. Her hair wasn’t the only thing that had changed. Crow’s-feet stretched from the corners of her eyes, and there was a resignation in her face that was at war with the determination he’d once found there. He did some quick math. She was forty, or nearly so. Her birthday was this time of year, though he’d forgotten the date.

“Nice place,” Mason said, gesturing with his bottle when she returned. “You a regular?”

She shook her head. “I figured we should avoid a cop bar or Blues’s place. Not likely we’ll see anyone here who gives a crap if they see us together.”

“Who would care?”

“Griswold and Cates, for starters. They know our history. They’d assume that I was talking to you about their case, telling you things I shouldn’t tell you.”

“Will you?” he asked, leaning back in the booth.

She twirled the neck of her bottle in one hand, flicking condensation off with the other. “No. I’m a cop. It’s not my case. I won’t screw it up for them.”

“Then why agree to meet me?”

She dipped her head, took a sip from her beer. “It’s good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you too, Sam.”

They sat for a moment, neither of them talking, the silence building to an awkward crest. Mason had called her to ask her to do exactly what she wouldn’t and shouldn’t do. She had said yes in the hopes he would do what he could but wouldn’t do. At least their disappointment was mutual.

Mason broke the silence. “Hey, let’s get some dinner.”

She shook her head again. “Can’t. I’ve got to finish up the paperwork on that domestic case. Take a rain check?”

“Sure. How about next week-Tuesday?”

He understood the message in her refusal. She was available, but not just so he could use her as an inside source. Dinner was a way of saying she was right, admitting that she deserved better from him.

She brightened again. “Tuesday would be great,” she said, getting up. “There is one thing I can tell you.”

“What’s that?”

“Griswold and Cates still don’t know who the victim is, but they like your client for it anyway.”

“Why, other than where the body was found?”

“Because it works and cops like that better than anything else.”