Joel Goldman - Final judgment

Mason put his cup on the table next to his chair. “I’m sorry, Avery. I don’t see any way around it. Things will only get worse for you when the cops get that picture. They’ll want an explanation from you. You’ll have to tell them that you couldn’t have told me to send Blues to Rockley’s apartment because you didn’t know Rockley was the dead man or where he lived. If they believe you, they’ll want an explanation from me.”

“And you can’t give them one. Am I right?”

“You’re right. I can’t. That’s why I don’t see any way around this.”

“Then keep looking. I don’t want another lawyer.”

Mason shook his head. “I’m glad you feel that way, but I don’t have a choice. I’ve got to get out.”

“You can’t quit without telling me why. It’s not right. Besides, maybe I won’t mind that you’ve got a conflict of interest. My whole life has been a conflict of interest and things haven’t worked out so bad for me.”

“You’re divorced. Your daughters will barely let you see your grandkids. You’re facing a federal felony conviction for mail fraud and a state charge for murder. What’s so good about that?”

“Yes, but I can cook,” Fish said. “And, I can think and I’ve been thinking about Mr. Blues and your problem, whatever it is. Someone takes his picture outside the apartment of this dead man, this Rockley. Mr. Blues works for you. He’s your gumshoe. The FBI thinks you sent Mr. Blues to Rockley’s apartment because I told you that Rockley was the dead man in the trunk of my car. How could I have known that unless I killed Rockley? Am I right so far?”

“On the money.”

“But, I didn’t kill Rockley so I didn’t know who he was before or after someone put him in my trunk. That means you had some other reason to send Mr. Blues to Rockley’s apartment. You say that Mr. Blues didn’t kill Rockley and I assume that you didn’t kill him either. So whatever is going on between you and Rockley has nothing to do with me. Still right?”

“Still right.”

“Then what’s the problem? I’ll tell you what’s the problem. You’re in some kind of trouble because of this Rockley and you can’t get out of it and represent me at the same time.”

Mason looked at his watch. “It’s getting late.”

Fish narrowed his eyes. “You’ve got that right, boytchik. I’ve been in my share of tight spots. I know what it’s like to get squeezed. Tell me what this is all about. If I can’t help you, I’ll get another lawyer. Don’t worry. Everything we talk about is confidential anyway.”

Fish sat with his hands on his knees, his fleshy face pinched with seriousness, his eyes filled with worry. Mason sensed that Fish was as concerned about him as he was himself. Mason didn’t understand this, but it made him want to answer Fish’s questions.

Fish’s pitch was tempting. It was the same one he’d made to Lari Prillman. She had turned him down and he needed to do the same to Fish. Though, if anyone would understand Mason’s predicament without judging him, it was Fish. A con man’s instincts may be just what Mason needed. Yet he couldn’t forget that Fish was a con man, someone not to be trusted. Claire had warned him.

Mason stood and stuffed his hands in his coat pockets. “I’ll call you tomorrow with the names of some other lawyers.”

Fish leaned back in his chair, hands making a steeple on his stomach. “I expected more from you.”

Mason bristled at Fish’s comment. He shouldn’t have cared what Fish’s expectations of him were, but somehow he did.

“Why? Because of what you’ve read about me in the papers? I’ve had some high-profile cases, but that doesn’t mean I leap tall buildings in a single bound.”

“No. You don’t look like much of a leaper to me.”

“Then is it because we’re both Jewish? Does that mean I’m supposed to treat you differently than any other client? It doesn’t work that way.”

“We Jews have to look out for one another. That’s one lesson we’ve learned after more than five thousand years. But that’s not it either. I expected more from you because of who you are.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I knew your father and he never would have given up as easily as you.”

Mason felt like the air had been sucked out of Fish’s living room. His head spun for an instant until he realized that he wasn’t breathing. He’d never met anyone who had known his father besides his Aunt Claire. She hadn’t talked much about him over the years except to assure Mason that his father had been a good and decent man. She stuck to that description even after Mason learned the details about his parents’ deaths. She said his father had made a mistake and couldn’t put things right and that Mason should leave it at that. Some things just couldn’t be fixed, she had told him. His father’s betrayal of his mother was one of them.

He knew his father only through photographs and Claire’s limited references. He hadn’t pushed for more, content to grow up with Claire as his mother and Harry Ryman the closest thing he had to a living father. He wasn’t like an adopted child who decided to search for his birth parents to complete his identity. He had found Brenda Roth and Judith Bartholomew more by accident than design. Afterward, he confronted Claire, demanding to know more about how his parents had died. When she told him what had happened, he saw in Judith a possible link to his father, an indirect way to connect with him without confronting who he was. Fish was offering the direct route and Mason wasn’t certain he wanted to go there.

Mason stared at Fish and started to breathe again. The old man smiled at him. “You knew my father?”

“Sit down and I’ll tell you a story. You were what-three, four years old when your parents died?”

“Three,” Mason said, sitting and leaning forward in his chair, hands wrapped around his cup of tea.

“Who took you in?”

“My Aunt Claire.”

“A very disagreeable woman,” Fish said, his hand raised to blunt Mason’s reply. “I know, I know. You think she hung the moon. Maybe she did, but I guarantee the moon didn’t appreciate it.”

Mason laughed. “She is tough and she’s not a member of your fan club either.”

Fish perked up, arching the folds of skin above his eyes into canopies. “You told her about me?”

“She invited me to dinner for tonight, but I told her you got to me first.”

“What did she say?”

“That you didn’t deserve a lawyer like me.”

“Hah!” Fish slapped his palm hard against his knee. “She’s still the sanctimonious keeper of all that’s sacred. Your aunt and I had a go-round or two. She never cared for me and I never lost sleep over her. What do you think? Do I deserve a lawyer like you?”

“So far. How did you know my father?”

“I met your father, mother, and aunt through the synagogue. I was on the membership committee and they were new members. You might say I took them in, made them feel at home-introduced them to other people. A few years later, I got into some difficulty with a few of my fellow congregants. They were unhappy with an investment I’d recommended and wanted to run me out of the synagogue for duping them. The bylaws said I could be kicked out for acts of moral turpitude, which, being very religious, these people defined by the amount of money they lost.

“The board of directors called a closed meeting to decide what to do. Your father found out about the meeting and asked to speak to the board on my behalf. No one else did. I had no idea he was going to be there. He just marched into the meeting and asked to be recognized. He was a tall man, your father, like you, and he had a quiet way of speaking that made people listen. The board members were so surprised, they didn’t know what to do, but they let him talk. He said that he didn’t know me that well but that I’d been kind and good to him and his family. He talked about how easy it was to get caught up in something that was never intended; how things could go wrong in an instant without anyone ever intending for that to have happened, and how all of us deserved a second chance so we could set things right.”