The Last Witness

Chapter Fifteen

Mason retreated to one of the many bars that ringed the gaming tables, ordered a beer, and watched the crowd from his stool, his back to the bar. He added Fiora's name to the list of people who wanted him to find Cullan's files for them. He could live with the deals he'd made with Rachel Firestone and Amy White, but wasn't willing to bet his life on a deal with Fiora.

Not far from where he was sitting, a band of cheerleaders surrounding a craps table screeched as someone ran a hot streak even hotter. The shooter was the celebrity of the moment, mistaking a statistical anomaly for good looks, charm, and wit. Anything was possible while the dice were hot. A collective moan rose from the hangers-on and side-betters when the shooter shot craps. His last reward was a few claps on the back as people shifted their loyalties and hopes to the next shooter, welcoming him with a joy and rapture usually reserved for tent meetings.

Mason caught a glimpse of Rachel now and then. Once she was taking her turn at rolling the dice, basking in the instant adoration of her own good luck. Not long after, he saw her huddled with another woman, a lanky brunette in a black pantsuit and open tuxedo shirt, sharing full-throated laughs and long looks. Mason had assumed that Rachel was on the prowl for a story, not companionship. Instead, he realized, she was using the night to lose herself in the anonymity of the crowd and give free rein to impulse. Tomorrow, no one would remember.

Just after eleven-thirty, Mayor Sunshine arrived and began working the crowd. Amy White hung at his side, whispering the names of contributors who sought him out. She scanned the crowd, looking for opportunities or trouble. Her eyes caught Mason's for a moment, and her calculus was quick as she steered the mayor in the opposite direction. Mason tipped his bottle toward her in a small salute, acknowledging her good call. If she saw his gesture, she ignored it.

Thousands of balloons had been gathered in nets suspended from the cavernous ceiling. Confetti cannons were aimed in a cross-fire pattern to blanket the crowd. Scoreboard-size digital clocks had been mounted throughout the casino to count down the final minutes until midnight. Time was running off the clocks in hours, minutes, seconds, and tenths of seconds. It was eleven forty-five and the clocks were racing to the finish line. Two of the clocks were visible from the bar, and two men seated next to Mason were arguing loudly whether one clock was faster than the other. They decided to settle their dispute by betting which clock would first strike twelve.

Mason set his bottle on the bar and turned to the two gamblers, who were studying the competing clocks with watery-eyed concentration.

"Hey," he whispered to them. "I saw a clock on the other side of the casino next to the roulette wheels that was a minute ahead of those two."

"No shit?" they asked in unison.

"No shit. There's a guy standing under it giving five-to-one odds that it hits midnight first."

"Damn," they said, and left their unfinished drinks to cash in on Mason's tip.

The bar Mason had been sitting at was near the back of the casino. He decided to start making his way to the front to be certain he was there at midnight to meet Rachel. He stood and waited a moment, remembering how to get there. A casino was designed to obliterate all points of reference except for the tables and slots. There were no windows and, except on New Year's Eve, no clocks.

The noise level was rising to near deafening. Slot machines trumpeted new winners with bleating air horns. Piped-in music throbbed overhead with an orgasmic Latin beat. The craps tables erupted in roars as one good throw followed another. Even the blackjack players, notorious for their semicomatose poker faces, were high-riving one another. The joint was jumping.

A sliver of the crowd parted in front of Mason as a woman cut through their ranks. People peeled away from her path as if pushed aside by her presence, or so it seemed to Mason, when he recognized her.

Beth Harrell, clad in a shimmering silver gown, her head thrown back, was walking toward him. Her left hand was extended over her shoulder, holding on to a mink coat that trailed behind her like a cape. Large, lustrous pearls were roped around her neck. Her diamond earrings and platinum bracelets were lost in the glow of her eyes and the promise of her sly smile. The tops of her breasts swelled gently from her gown as she stopped in front of Mason.

"Happy New Year, Lou," she said.

"I'm counting on that," Mason answered, his throat dry.

They stood for a moment, watching each other. She was probing. He was wondering. Mason willed himself to keep his arms at his side. In a room of stunning women, she could have stopped the digital clocks with a single look. Beth handed him her coat and turned her back to him. She pressed herself softly against him as he held her coat and she slipped her arms into the sleeves. The sensation of the fur and her body against his was electric.

Beth faced him again, closer than before. Her perfume was heady, like a full-bodied wine that had to be sipped slowly. "Walk with me," she said.

He followed her through an exit onto the outer deck of the casino. Heaters mounted along the outer wall glowed red, cutting the night's chill as they slowly made their way along the dimly lighted deck.

"Some riverboat," Mason said.

Beth laughed. "It's a barge permanently docked in a moat filled with water from the Missouri River. If the state legislature says it's a riverboat, that's good enough for me."

She slipped her arm through his as naturally as if they'd been doing it all their lives. "I didn't expect to see you here," she said.

"Into the belly of the beast," he told her. "Ed Fiora wouldn't return my phone calls so I decided to come see him."

"Alone?" she asked with a hopeful cast to her question.

"Sort of. I came with a friend but we're not together."

"Good," she said, emphasizing her satisfaction with a slight squeeze of his arm.

"How about you? Are you flying solo too?"

"I'm afraid so," Beth answered. She looked up at him, smiling weakly. "Not many men are anxious to be seen with me, especially since my last date ended up murdered."

"I suppose that would scare some guys away."

They had reached what was, in the mind of a fanciful architect, the prow of the boat. It was an elongated triangle that reached out over the Missouri River. It was at least ten feet wide at its base where it jutted out from the walk, narrowing to a couple of feet at its farthest point. The surface was made of reinforced steel. A wrought-iron rail, fabricated in cross-thatched weave to prevent small children from slipping through, rose four feet to keep adults high and dry as well. Pale blue Christmas lights had been strung along the rail providing the only illumination. They walked out onto the end of the prow, nearly invisible in the darkness, and leaned on the rail as the chill breeze blew off the river.

"How about you, Lou? Are you afraid of me?"

He shook his head. "I don't scare easily."

Beth leaned her shoulder into him and, without intending to, he slipped his arms around her middle and she covered his hands with hers. They stood like that, not talking, until fireworks launched from the casino parking lot announced the arrival of the New Year. Tracers of red and streaks of blue arced high into the sky. Green and white clusters exploded overhead, raining glowing cinders into the swiftly moving current twenty feet below them.

Beth rolled in Mason's arms, her mouth inches below his. "Don't let me scare you," she breathed. She pressed herself fully against him, rose on her toes, and kissed him softly, tentatively.

She barely pulled away, just enough to let him see in her quivering lips how much she wanted him, to let him feel the surge of need in her own body for his.

Mason was lost in the moment, intoxicated with her taste, a series of small shudders building like shifting fault lines in his groin and belly. He saw all that he wanted in her at that split second, and all that he could lose if he took it. He let go his grip, his arms slackened to his sides.

"I'm sorry, Beth. I'm truly sorry. Maybe when this is all over, but not now."

The light went out of her face as swiftly and coldly as the fireworks when they hit the water. She stepped back toward the deck, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Well, that's one way to start the New Year," she said. "Humiliate myself like a horny middle-aged broad who can't get laid."

"Don't do that to yourself, Beth. You're better than that," Mason told her.

"Am I?" she asked. She didn't wait for Mason's answer, leaving him alone at the end of the prow.

Mason stayed where he was, perched like the lookout on the Titanic, staring across the Missouri. The wind was brisk, but compared to the more recent biting cold, he could tolerate it for a few minutes. Besides, he wanted to give Beth time to leave the casino without another embarrassing encounter. He also wanted to let the cold air clear his muddled head.

He wondered whether Beth had sought him out or whether their meeting had been serendipitous. She had been so direct, almost calculating, that he couldn't ascribe it to mere chance. On the other hand, it was unlikely that she knew he was at the casino, let alone precisely where to find him. Someone must have told her. Ed Fiora had reminded Mason how easy it was to find him or anyone else at the casino. They were all being watched all the time. The more intriguing question was why Fiora would want Beth to find him, take him out to the prow of the boat, and seduce him.

The possible answers to that question were more than unsettling, replacing the lingering arousal from Bern 's embrace with a dull queasiness. He looked down at the river, noticing for the first time how the end of the prow bobbed and swayed as if the riverboat were churning along with the current. He was surprised at how far out over the black, swirling water the prow extended.

Before he could answer any of the questions running through his mind, a sharp crack, like a stray firecracker, popped behind him as he heard a piercing smack against the railing next to his side. Unwilling to believe what he suspected, he turned around in time to see a muzzle flash from the shadows of the deck at the same instant he heard another pop and another harsh ping into the rail. There was no mistake now. Someone was shooting at him.

Mason realized that he was as exposed as if he were doing back flips naked down Broadway. He crouched and twisted to shrink the shooter's target, but knew there was little safety in the effort. Two more shots careened around him, sending him crashing back and forth in the corner of the prow like a pinball and showering broken Christmas lights at his feet.

The longer he stayed where he was, the more certain it was that he would be hit. The closer he got to the deck, the easier a target he would become. The river was his only option. Crouching as low as he could, he sprang into the air, planting his hands on the rail for added leverage, clearing the rail with his feet, and letting go as a bullet cut through his jacket, singeing his side.

Mason hit the river at an angle, falling forward and slapping his face on the water before being swept under. The water was so cold he felt as if his blood had been drained from his body and replaced with ice. He began to lose feeling in his hands, and struggled to free himself from his jacket, afraid that it would weigh him down as he fought to swim to shore.

Kicking ferociously, he managed to break to the surface, gasping for air and swallowing hard. Looking around wildly and treading water, he tried to get his bearings. The casino was already a hundred yards behind him, grim testimony to the swift current. He was easily the same distance from the bank, having been carried toward the center of the river.

Rather than trying to swim directly across the current, he tried to cut it at an angle. That would keep him in the water longer, but give him a better chance of reaching shore. He refused to think about how long he could stay in the water before hypothermia proved more deadly than gunshots.

Mason pressed one shoe against the other to slip it off and give him a better kick, then used his bare foot to do the same with the other. He guessed that he'd only been in the water a couple of minutes, but his arms and legs already felt heavy and he was getting light-headed as his body temperature dropped. There was no light along the river, and he could no longer judge his location.

An overwhelming weariness, deeper than any he'd ever experienced, crept over him as he realized that in another moment or two he wouldn't be able to lift his arms out of the water or kick his legs to stay afloat. Drowning suddenly had a restful appeal, more irresistible even than Beth Harrell, her breasts pressed against him, her scent filling his heart.

A raspy chopping sound floated over the water, stirring him. It was, he realized, a small motor. At this time and place, it could only be a boat. Flailing around in the water, he waved his arms and cried out for help. A spotlight danced around him, then disappeared as the boat drew closer. Barely able to stay afloat, he tried lying on his back when he heard something hard smack into the water near him and skip to his side. He flopped his hand against it, then grabbed it hard when he realized it was a round buoy that was used to cushion the side of a motor boat against the dock.

Mason rolled over in the water and clutched the buoy with both hands. It was clipped to the end of a rope that drew taut when he took hold of the buoy. He held on, nearly deadweight, as he was pulled to the edge of the boat. He managed to throw his arms over the side of the boat and, with the help of someone else, drag the rest of his body out of the water.

Lying in the bottom of the boat, he looked up, panting and shivering.

"I told you to meet me at midnight, and next time you better not be late," Rachel Firestone told him.