Final judgment

FIFTY-SEVEN

Mason stopped for a moment as he reached the top of the back stairs to the second floor above Blues on Broadway. There were three offices along the hallway. Blues used the one to Mason’s right. The door was open, the office empty. The lights were on, Coltrane humming in the background.

Mickey Shanahan had lived in the office on the other side of the hall until Abby had lured him to Washington, D.C. He had originally rented the space for his own public relations firm, which had proved to be more fantasy than fact. Blues let him work off the rent by tending bar until Mason put him to work. The door to that office was propped open by a suitcase. Mickey was back but nowhere in sight.

Mason’s office was at the end of the hall, the door closed. The mail slot in the center of the door, usually stuffed by this time of day, was empty. Mickey was probably sitting behind Mason’s desk, feet up, balancing the day’s take-in fees against the bills marked Past Due. Mason picked up his stride, pushed open the door to his office, and stopped, rooted to the spot.

Mickey was seated behind Mason’s desk, though his feet were firmly on the floor, the unopened mail piled in front of him. Blues stood behind him, watching the traffic on Broadway. Both men looked up, though they offered neither a greeting nor an outstretched hand. Their faces were silent and long, their eyes now aimed at the woman sitting in the chair opposite Mickey, her back to Mason.

He recognized Vanessa Carter’s erect bearing even before she rose and turned around. She removed the dark glasses she was wearing, revealing a purpled right eye swollen half shut.

“We are running out of time,” she said.

“Who did this?” Mason asked, taking two steps toward her.

“I don’t know. He was waiting for me inside my garage when I came home last night. He’d unscrewed the lightbulbs. It was dark. I didn’t see anything. He grabbed me, hit me, and told me.”

“Told you what?” Mason asked.

“That I was running out of time.”

Wounds inflicted by guns, knives, or bare hands eventually healed, scars the last remnants. The wound that often didn’t heal was to the psyche, to that inner sanctum where people took refuge from the vagaries of a harsh and uncertain world; fear of another attack became a daily rite marked by a tremor or a tic. Vanessa Carter was no different. The tic had wormed its way into her cheek, her facial muscles twitching like she’d been short-circuited.

“Did you call the police?”

She clenched her hands together, pressing them against her middle, biting the words. “We both know I can’t do that. You have to stop this.”

Mason looked at Blues and Mickey, searching them for answers, finding none. He took a breath. “I’m working on it.”

It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the truth either because the statement implied that he was making progress or that he had a plan; that a solution was in sight. None of that was true. Instead, the walls were coming down around him-and her-and he had no better idea of what to do about it than to sacrifice himself, an option that had as much appeal as throwing a virgin into a volcano to keep it from erupting.

“I can keep an eye out,” Blues volunteered.

Judge Carter looked back at him, a tremor creeping into her voice. “I would appreciate that. I’ll be at home until this is over.”

It was another concession to her circumstance that she made reluctantly, her pride in being self-sufficient another casualty. She walked slowly down the hall, disappearing one step at a time.

Mason wiped his dry erase board clean, laying out the facts as much for him and Blues as for Mickey. Taking it from the beginning forced him to organize the story chronologically, highlighting the gaps in what they knew and underscoring the questions that had to be answered.

The first case Mickey had worked on for Mason had been the one in which Blues had been charged with murder. Mason and Blues hadn’t told him about Judge Carter, seeing no reason to involve him. Hearing that part of the story for the first time, his eyes widened and he shifted uneasily in Mason’s desk chair.

“You’re in deep shit,” Mickey said when Mason had finished.

“Is that what the politicians say in D.C.?” Mason asked.

“No. They say this is no time for politics, which means every man for himself. Do we have a plan?”

“Not exactly. Everything begins and ends with the casino. Carol Hill, Charles Rockley, Johnny Keegan, Al Webb, Lila Collins-they all worked at Galaxy. Lila is the only one who worked for both Ed Fiori and Al Webb. She’s the common denominator and the best bet to have found Fiori’s tapes. There’s no connection between Avery Fish and Charles Rockley, but there’s a big connection between Al Webb and Avery Fish.”

“What about a link between Rockley and Webb?” Blues asked. “Rockley is really some punk named Tommy Corcoran. Webb is really a con man named Wayne McBride who committed murder to fake his own death. The feds are investigating him for skimming from the casino. He had to have help. My money is on Rockley. Their relationship goes south, maybe because of Carol Hill’s lawsuit. Webb pops him and stuffs him in Fish’s car.”

“Doesn’t work,” Mason said. “Fish’s car is the last one Webb would have picked because it opens up his past.”

“What about Dennis Brewer, the FBI agent?” Mickey asked. “Where does he fit in?”

Mason shook his head. “I can’t get anything out of Kelly about Brewer or about whose e-mail the FBI intercepted with the photograph of Blues attached to it.”

“No wonder Abby called in the cavalry,” Mickey said. Mickey was lean and lanky. Gone was the spiked hair and soul patch of his early twenties. In their place was the buttoned-down, close grooming of a Capitol Hill staffer. Mason was glad that Mickey’s grown-up look hadn’t suppressed the cockiness that he brought to the table.

“What did she tell you?” Mason asked.

“Just that you were in trouble-for a change, she said. She didn’t know the details but said it had to do with Avery Fish. What do you want me to do?”

“I need a fresh pair of eyes to look at all of this. I downloaded the arbitration file to my PC. Start with that. I’ll be back this afternoon.”

“What about me?” Blues asked. “I’m tired of sitting on the sidelines.”

“I thought you were going to keep an eye on Judge Carter,” Mason said.

“That’s a nighttime gig. Nobody is going to bust down her door in broad daylight. Besides, she got the message last night. No need to repeat it this soon.”

“Okay. In that case, get back to Mark Hill. See if he forgot to tell us anything.”

“I may have to motivate him. You got a problem with that?”

From anyone else, Blues’s question would have carried a trace of humor, but he didn’t joke about violence. It was a necessary tool to be applied selectively but without regret. He wasn’t asking Mason’s permission. He was just making certain that Mason knew.

Mason let out a long breath. The walls were crumbling down and he was tossing some of the bricks. It was ugly, dirty, and wrong, but so was the mess he was in. He could argue the fine points of whether the ends justified the means until he was buried under the last brick. Even before he answered, he knew that he was breaking another of his Aunt Claire’s admonitions-if you’re in a hole, quit digging.

“We need answers. Do what you have to do.”

“What about you? What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to try my luck at the Galaxy. See if I can get Lila Collins to blow on my dice.”