Joel Goldman - Final judgment

“Believe me, we tried. McBride worked the Midwest. Corcoran operated strictly in New Jersey. There’s nothing to connect them until they show up in Kansas City. Then there’s Johnny Keegan.”

“What do you have on Keegan?”

“Just what I got from Detective Griswold. Why was Keegan holding on to your name and phone number when he was killed?

“I don’t know. I’ve never heard of him,” Mason said, holding both hands up. “The guy was in enough trouble to get killed; it’s no surprise he needed a lawyer. Don’t tell me he had a secret past too.”

“Not that we’ve found.”

“Which gets us back to my client being innocent. Griswold seems like a reasonable guy. Maybe you can convince him not to charge Fish?”

“Are you certain you want me to do that?”

Mason took a step back. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Kelly dropped her arms to her sides, her hands on her hips. “Because Griswold might start asking himself the same questions I’ve been asking myself. Like why was Blues checking out Rockley’s apartment before I told you that Rockley was the dead man? And why were you and Blues talking to Mark Hill and taking pictures down in Fairfax? And why were you talking to Vince Bongiovanni about Carol Hill’s sexual harassment case? And why do you want me to investigate another FBI agent?”

Mason saw no point in telling her that Griswold was already asking him enough questions to make his shoes tight. “Was Brewer the leak?”

“I’ll deal with Brewer. Answer my questions.”

“It doesn’t work that way. I answer yours, you answer mine.”

Kelly crossed her arms. Mason smiled. She tapped her foot. He smiled again. “Fine,” she said, not meaning it. “You first.”

“Fair enough. Here’s what I know. Carol Hill sued Rockley for sexual harassment. Somebody killed Rockley and hid his body in the trunk of my client’s car on the same day we were supposed to make a deal with Pete Samuelson. Your pal Brewer breaks the news to Samuelson about the dead body just as we’re about to ink the plea bargain. Samuelson shits his pants and says no deal. Samuelson and his boss change their mind and invite us back last Friday to make a new deal. Suddenly, Brewer is out and you’re in.”

“I don’t need the history lesson.”

“Wrong. History is written by the winners and this case is still a jump ball, so pay attention. Friday morning you tell me about Rockley. Friday night, Blues and I find Carol Hill’s husband, Mark, in that bar in Fairfax. He tells us that his wife was having an affair with Keegan. Mark leaves and runs his pickup into a car parked across the street. Two guys are in the car; one jumps out and clocks poor Mark. The other guy gets on the phone and Brewer shows up two minutes later. We head for home and you nearly rear-end us.”

“Tell me, Lou. Did you think if you said it fast enough and cute enough, I wouldn’t realize you hadn’t answered any of my questions? I’ve got a picture of Blues outside Rockley’s apartment taken on Thursday and I don’t think he was selling encyclopedias door to door. I didn’t tell you about Rockley until Friday morning. Eight hours later, you had tracked down Mark Hill. How did you manage that?”

“I’m good at what I do.”

“You’re not that good. Carol Hill’s lawsuit is a private arbitration, not a matter of public record. You couldn’t have known about it unless someone told you and I didn’t. Vince Bongiovanni didn’t tell you because you wouldn’t have known that he represented Carol until after you found out about her case. And that’s not the kind of information big companies like Galaxy give to strangers, especially lawyers.”

“It doesn’t matter how I knew.”

“It does to me if it means you’re connected to all of this by something other than Avery Fish.”

“I don’t have any connection to Carol Hill, Charles Rockley, Johnny Keegan, or the Galaxy Casino.”

“But you do have a connection to the Dream Casino. That’s what the Galaxy was called when Ed Fiori owned it. You didn’t represent him either. But, you were there when he died.”

Mason was dancing as fast as he could, but Kelly was a step ahead.

“Ed Fiori is ancient history.”

“There is no such thing as ancient history. The past is always waiting there to bite us in the ass. I did some digging after we found out about the sexual harassment case. Fiori was Vince Bongiovanni’s and Carol Hill’s uncle. Galaxy bought the casino from Fiori’s estate. Bongiovanni was the executor. He accused Galaxy of fraud and sued to set the sale aside, only the case was thrown out. Maybe the two of them set Rockley up so they could get even with Galaxy.”

“None of which has anything to do with me.”

“Then why won’t you answer my questions?”

“I did. You just didn’t like the answers. It’s your turn. Was Brewer the leak?”

Kelly blew her exasperation away in a fog of frosted breath. “You are beyond salvage. You know that? Beyond salvage.”

“So sell me for scrap, but tell me about Brewer first.”

She took a smaller breath that calmed her. “I don’t know. Proving that Brewer was the leak is almost impossible unless Rachel Firestone has him on tape and agrees to give it up.”

“Rachel will never give up her sources.”

“Then I’ll probably never know if Brewer was the leak.”

“Which makes us even. You don’t like my answers to your questions and I don’t like your answers to mine.”

“You always get in over your head. You can’t help it any more than Avery Fish can resist trying to steal the government’s money. I can’t keep my eye on both of you. Talk to me before it’s too late,” she said.

Mason tried staring her down, but there was more steel in her eyes than in his. He would have settled for a smart-ass comeback, but he didn’t have one. All he had was a twisted gut he was about to choke on. He walked away without answering, not stopping until he reached his car. He opened the driver’s door, lingering for a moment, looking back at her. It was still early, the street quiet. He ducked behind the wheel, fired the ignition, and drove away wondering if it already was too late.

Vince Bongiovanni made enough money suing corporations to build a building with his name on it, complete with corporate logo and slogan- Doing the People’s Business. The logo was a golden eagle in flight holding silver scales of justice in its beak and was positioned above the entrance at an angle to reflect the sun off the eagle’s shiny wings and bounce it again off the silvery scales. It was a not so subliminal message to potential clients to stop by and pick up their money.

The building was located at the intersection of Rockhill Road and Brush Creek Boulevard, east of the Plaza. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art loomed over its shoulder to the north. The Kaufman Foundation, devoted to education and entrepreneurship, sat across from it. The Stowers Institute, dedicated to curing cancer, rose on the opposite corner. The University of Missouri at Kansas City occupied the fourth corner of the intersection. Bongiovanni said that his building was dedicated to justice and was, therefore, a perfect complement to his neighbors.

His firm was on the third floor, the bottom two floors rented to other lawyers in pursuit of justice as their clients defined it. His private office would have accommodated three or four of Mason’s, the artwork alone worth more than Mason’s annual gross.

Mason tried not to be jealous, remembering his Aunt Claire’s admonition not to be a prisoner of his possessions. Still, he conceded a twinge of envy, noting how well things had gone for Bongiovanni and wondering if he could have done the same had he stayed with the law firm he started with when he graduated from law school, a small group that had also grown rich representing plaintiffs. He’d left that firm in a dispute over ethics, though with the passage of years it was hard to remember the details or summon the passion of that moment.