Joel Goldman - Final judgment

“I don’t think so. No. Your FBI agent, Miss Holt, she will think you quit because of the picture of your friend, Mr. Blues. She will think you know too much about Rockley to be my lawyer. That’s why this is all about you, not me.”

Fish was analyzing his case like the con man he was. That didn’t mean Fish was wrong, but it meant Mason had to understand Fish’s approach.

“What makes a good con?” Mason asked.

“Two things. The con man has to have better information than the mark and the mark has to want to believe the con.”

“That’s why this is about you and not me. Blues used to be a cop. He helps me with some of my cases. Kelly Holt knows that. She thinks you knew that Rockley was the murder victim because you killed him. You told me, and I told Blues and sent him to Rockley’s apartment. It’s what she wants to believe. If she shows that photograph to the cops, they’ll agree with her. She’s wrong, but I can’t tell her why.”

“So you think she’s trying to con both of us so that I’ll take this cockamamie deal they’ve offered.”

“That’s the best I can come up with.”

“And Kelly Holt wants to believe I killed Rockley, but you’re the one with the better information.”

“That’s me.”

“And you won’t tell me what it is. So who’s conning whom?” Fish asked.

Mason looked at Fish, realizing that there was something else that made a good con. The mark had to trust the con man like a penitent trusts a priest. Mason fought the temptation to trust Fish. He was torn between wanting to tell him and worrying that he’d already told him too much.

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry is for losers. And you’re no loser. Come for dinner on Sunday. Six o’clock. We’ll talk some more.”

“There’s nothing more I can tell you.”

Fish climbed out of the car, holding on to the door as he leaned back in. “Trust me, we’ll find something to talk about, eh, boytchik.”

Mason spent the rest of the afternoon looking for the path of least resistance to the truth about Charles Rockley. He was certain of one thing. The story laid out in Rockley’s employment records didn’t jibe with someone whose DNA was at the top of the FBI’s unidentified murder victims pile. The FBI’s DNA database was for convicted felons and suspected terrorists, not middle managers. Mason shifted his focus to proving that Rockley’s resume was phony.

He pulled up Rockley’s application for employment at the Galaxy Casino on his computer. It listed the names, addresses, and phone numbers of five prior employers.

He picked up the phone and started dialing, betting that the companies were either out of business or had never heard of Charles Rockley. An hour later he was done. All five were still open for business. All five confirmed that Rockley had worked for them, just as Rockley had written on his application to Galaxy. All five gave him glowing references and said they had been sorry to see him go but had understood that he had to take a better job.

It didn’t make sense, but that didn’t matter. No con artist, not even the FBI, could get five different companies in five different states to lie about a former employee.

He studied the names on his dry erase board, looking for someone who would talk to him. Al Webb was the manager of the Galaxy Casino. Lila Collins was the HR director. Both knew Rockley. Carol Hill knew Rockley well enough to sue him for sexual harassment. Once word got out that Rockley had been murdered, their lawyers would wire their jaws so tight they’d have to learn sign language.

Mason was about to give up on the dry erase board as an oracle when Blues came into his office carrying two cold bottles of beer. He handed one to Mason and retired to the sofa with the other bottle.

“Happy Hour,” Blues said.

“Except I’m not happy.” He set the beer on his desk and leaned forward in his chair. “Charles Rockley is dead.”

“Then you ought to be happy if he was the one blackmailing Judge Carter.”

“Not if he was also the dead man in the trunk of Avery Fish’s car and not if the FBI has a picture of you outside Rockley’s apartment.”

Blues nodded. “I can see how that wouldn’t make either one of us happy. What’s the story?”

Mason laid out the day’s events, glad to have another perspective. Blues was a bloodless problem-solver even though his solutions were often bloody. He didn’t get hung up on sentiment or regret, which enabled him to see things others didn’t and do things others wouldn’t. When Mason finished, Blues walked to the dry erase board, picked up a red marker, and circled the name of Carol Hill’s husband, Mark.

“I’d say this cat is one seriously pissed-off motherfucker,” Blues said. “And I’ll bet you he doesn’t have a lawyer to shut him up or a friend who gives a shit.”

Mason grinned. “A man like that needs at least one friend.”

“Two would be even better.”

Carol Hill’s lawyer, Vince Bongiovanni, had asked her typical softball questions at the arbitration about how wonderful her marriage had been until Charles Rockley started harassing her. It was a standard tactic designed to elicit sympathy.

Mason knew it was lost on Vanessa Carter, who was more likely to find sympathy in the dictionary between shit and suicide than in a plaintiff’s well-rehearsed tears. Especially after Galaxy’s lawyer, Lari Prillman, shredded Carol’s warm and fuzzy story, ripping out the last thread with Carol’s admission that she’d had an affair with one of the casino bartenders.

In addition to its marginal value as soap opera, Carol’s testimony had included enough information for Blues and Mason to track down her husband, Mark, who worked at the GM plant in the Fairfax Industrial District and did his drinking at a bar not far from the plant called Easy’s. That’s where Blues and Mason found him just after six o’clock either winding down from the week or winding up for the weekend.

Easy’s was a one-room cinderblock dive with no windows, blue lights, and bar stools worn to the nails. Friday after work was prime time and the bar was full of men who had traded hard hats for cold beer. A jukebox pounded out country music, love-gone-bad songs sending some men home and others back to the bar. Two waitresses worked the room, their hard-bitten faces offering no comfort. The bartender, a dirty towel slung over his bony shoulder, made change and conversation.

Blues shouldered his way to the bar and paid ten dollars more than the price of two beers, the heavy tip a fair price for a line on Mark Hill. He navigated back to Mason, who was standing near the door, squinting while his eyes adjusted to the perpetual dusk.

“That’s him,” Blues said, aiming his bottle at the man sitting on a stool at the far end of the bar, shoulders hunched, head down. “Bartender says he’s a mean drunk. Likes to mix it up.”

Hill was husky, broad in the shoulders, heavy in the gut. He was wearing a barn jacket that padded his shoulders, giving him an even more rounded look. Mason guessed that he was in his mid-thirties, though he looked older. Probably been working the same assembly-line job long enough to be bitter, more so after his wife humiliated him.

He finished his beer, shoving the mug away from him, a silent signal to the bartender for a refill. He chased it with a shot of whiskey, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. He was drinking at a steady pace that would blind him before the night was over. No one talked to him. Even in the crowded bar, people kept their distance. The bartender had him pegged.

Mason slipped through the crowd, rested his elbow on the bar next to Hill, and waved a twenty-dollar bill at the bartender. Blues lingered a step behind him.