Joel Goldman - Final judgment

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.”

Mason liked dropping in on witnesses unannounced, preferring their unrehearsed answers to the ones prepared for them by their lawyers. It had become almost impossible to do that since Corporate America had become Fortress America. Visitors had to sign in under the watchful eyes of armed security guards while being videotaped for posterity. If the object of your affections didn’t return your devotion, you weren’t getting in.

Lila Collins had no reason to see him. If he gave her a truthful one, she’d have less reason. She would tell Al Webb, who would call Lari Prillman. Lari would bite his head off for trying to talk to her client without her knowledge. He would accomplish nothing more than to encourage them to build their wall a little higher.

Galaxy had gone to the mattresses like so many other businesses, cordoning off its business offices with armed guards and locked doors. Mason walked past the guards without stopping to ask where they kept the loosest slots.

It was just as well. Even if he could get past Galaxy’s security, Lila’s office was the wrong place to talk about Ed Fiori’s tapes. He needed a private place for their meeting, somewhere she would feel comfortable enough to open up. If she had the tape and was involved in the blackmail, she wouldn’t tell him even if he spirited her to a tropical island. If she knew about the tape but wasn’t involved, she might talk if he could push the right button. It could be fear, greed, or jealousy. It could even be moral outrage, though Mason considered that a long shot.

He didn’t know what Lila looked like so he couldn’t hang around the blackjack tables hoping she’d walk by. She wasn’t listed in the phone book, so he couldn’t park his car in front of her house and wait for her to come home from work.

He wandered through the maze of craps tables, blackjack dealers, and video poker machines, past the slots, the cashiers, and the twenty-four-hour buffet until he reached the lobby of the adjoining hotel and called Vince Bongiovanni.

“Is Carol Hill still hiding out in your suite at the Galaxy Hotel?”

“She went home last night,” Bongiovanni said.

“What about her husband?”

“She kicked his ass out.”

“Where did he land?” Mason asked, hoping to get a lead for Blues.

“On a bar stool would be my guess. Why the interest?”

“I don’t like guys who beat up women, but that’s just me. I need a favor,” Mason said and explained what he had in mind.

“Consider it done,” Bongiovanni said. “I’ll call Carol first and then the desk clerk at the hotel on one condition-I get whatever you get. Understood?”

“Consider it done.”

Mason waited five minutes before asking the desk clerk, a smiling young woman whose name tag said she was Brandi and her hometown was Laramie, Wyoming, for a key to Bongiovanni’s suite. She handed him the key and wished him hot dice and good hole cards.

There was a basket of fresh fruit on a table in the living room of the suite. Mason grabbed an apple, realizing that he’d missed lunch. He ate as he inspected the living room, bedroom, and bath, indulging his paranoia in a search for hidden microphones and cameras, wondering whether Bongiovanni or Galaxy was more likely to have installed them.

Despite his claim that he had advised his uncle to get rid of his taping system, Mason wondered if Bongiovanni had given in to the temptation. As for Galaxy, surveillance was its central nervous system, the best way to watch for card counters, cheats, and others who threatened the house’s edge. Al Webb may have wanted the suite badly enough to bug it, hoping for leverage that would force Bongiovanni to sell. Such an acquisition strategy made sense for someone who would also blackmail Judge Carter.

After checking the lamps, the buttonholes on the sofa, the phones, and the vents, Mason was fairly certain the place was clean. Nonetheless, he couldn’t shake the feeling that history was about to repeat itself when he heard the knock at the door.