Joel Goldman - Final judgment

“I’ve checked his job, the bar in Fairfax, and a few other places. No luck, but I’ve got a feeling where he is.”

“Where’s that?”

“Thin air, man. That cat is gone. I can feel it.”

“Vertical or horizontal?”

“Flip a coin, you ask me. Either way, he isn’t coming back.”

Mason drew a red circle around Mark Hill’s name on the dry erase board, adding Gone? Where? beneath his name.

“If I was you,” Blues said, “I’d pin the blackmail label on Webb. Rockley’s dead, Keegan’s dead, and Judge Carter is still getting pressured. Webb is the only one left at Galaxy who has a stake in what happens.”

Mason nodded, putting the tag under Webb’s name in large blue letters. “What about you, Mickey?” Mason asked. “Any epiphanies from reading my file or did you just search the Internet for clues and come up with all the answers?”

Mickey laughed. “I haven’t had a good epiphany since I went to Washington, but I have found a better way to get what I’m looking for than the Internet. It’s called the staffers’ network. I’ve been seeing a woman who’s a staffer on the Senate Judiciary Committee. She has a cousin who works at the FBI. By tomorrow, I’ll have a rundown on Charles Rockley, a.k.a. Tommy Corcoran, and Al Webb, a.k.a. Wayne McBride.”

“Whatever happened to privacy and government security? Don’t you have to have security clearances to get that kind of information?”

“There are no secrets in our nation’s capital-just people who know them and people who know the people that know them. D.C. is the ultimate upstairs/downstairs world. All the politicians are busy running for reelection while grunts like me work the information black market finding the stuff that helps them win or lose.”

“Makes me feel better about paying my taxes.”

“I did see one thing in your file that may be kind of interesting,” Mickey said. “This Sylvia McBride works at a call center, right?”

“Right. But you’ve been in D.C. too long if you think working at a call center is interesting.”

“No, man,” Mickey said. “Check this out. Senator Seeley is on the telecommunications subcommittee. A lot of companies are shipping their call center operations overseas because it’s cheaper to hire someone in New Delhi to give bad customer service than it is to hire someone in New Jersey. The committee staff is investigating because outsourcing jobs to foreign countries has become a real voter hot button.”

“What’s that got to do with us?”

“Bongiovanni made a big deal out of the fact that you got Rockley’s employers to give you detailed references for him over the phone. You said Lari Prillman was able to get references over the phone for Johnny Keegan.”

“So?” Blues said.

“So,” Mason explained, “employers won’t talk about their ex-employees anymore because they’re all afraid of getting sued. What are you getting at, Mickey?”

“Okay,” Mickey said. “Here’s how it could work. We know that Rockley and Webb had fake IDs. That means they’ve got to use fake references too. When someone calls the phone numbers for the fake references, the calls are answered at Sylvia’s call center. The operator knows what to say and the caller thinks he’s getting the straight story. Pretty slick, huh?”

Mason came out of his chair, flipped through his file until he found Rockley’s employment application. “Look. His prior employers are in three different states. How would that work?”

“Simple. The calls go through a router set up in the area code for the phone number. The equipment doesn’t cost much, especially if it’s not handling a lot of calls; doesn’t even require an office. You call a number in Ohio and it gets routed to Sylvia McBride’s call center in Minneapolis. She gets a readout that tells her the name of the company being called so she knows who she’s supposed to be when she answers the phone.”

“But I talked to a different person on each call.”

“So she’s got a few people working for her. No big deal.”

“Easy enough to find out if the phone numbers are legit,” Blues said. “Use a reverse directory to find out who owns the numbers. If it’s not the companies on Rockley’s application, I’d say Mickey’s got it nailed.”

“Where do we get a reverse directory?” Mason asked.

“Now that’s what the Internet is for,” Mickey answered. “If you don’t mind spending a few bucks and getting a lifetime of spam.” He opened the browser on Mason’s desktop, did a search for reverse directory, and pushed his chair away from the monitor. “Pick any site you want. Plug in the phone numbers you’re interested in and your credit card.”

It only took a few minutes to confirm that each employer on Rockley’s application was the owner of the phone number Rockley had given for them.

“Shit,” Mickey said. “It seemed like a great idea at the time.”

“Still is,” Mason said. “All you need for a phone number is an address and a place to put the phone or the router to handle the calls. If you’re in the fake identity business, that’s just overhead. Can you use the reverse directory to check out addresses?”

“Sure,” Mickey said. “Put in an address and you get a phone number that goes with it.”

“Fine. Try some addresses close to the ones on Rockley’s application. Start calling until someone answers. When they do, ask them about their neighbors.”

“What about Fish?” Blues asked. “I’m supposed to keep an eye on Judge Carter.”

“And I’m supposed to have dinner with Abby,” Mason said. “We’re both going to be late. I want you inside the restaurant with Fish and Kelly. I’ll be in the parking lot.”

“How’s that supposed to work?” Blues asked. “Kelly will ID me in a heartbeat.”

“I’ll do it,” Mickey said. “I can make the calls in the morning. Kelly and I have never met so she won’t recognize me. Just give me a description of her and Fish and I’ll get lost in the crowd. You guys wait outside. I’ll call you when the money walks out the door.”

“Then what?” Blues asked.

“Follow the money,” Mason said.

They took separate cars and drove different routes so they wouldn’t arrive at the same time. Mason called Abby from the car, assuring her that he would be at her place by eight. She promised to chill the wine, not able to disguise the worry in her voice. It was nothing, he told her-a late appointment. Hurry, she said. He’d picked the wrong night to be late.

Cinzetti’s was in Overland Park, the biggest city in Johnson County, a sprawling suburban enclave on the Kansas side of the state line that divided the metropolis between Kansas Jayhawks and Missouri Tigers. The restaurant occupied a large slab of the parking lot in an upscale strip mall on the west side of Metcalf Avenue, faux Roman columns flanking the entrance.

Blues was driving a BMW, a car that fit his personality as uncomfortably as a promise fit a politician. Both couldn’t wait to get out of them. He preferred his pickup truck, but the BMW was a thank-you from a twentysomething trust fund baby who had gotten in too deeply with a drug dealer until Blues had separated them. When Blues turned the gift down, the grateful heir dropped the keys, title, and registration on the bar and walked out.

The BMW was perfect for surveillance in Johnson County, where driving a car worth more than the average person made in a year wasn’t bragging-it was expected. Blues had backed into a parking place along the far row of the lot, giving him a clear view of the front and both sides of the restaurant and easy access to the street.

A service road separated the rear of the building from the back side of a row of shops, the door to each illuminated by halogen lamps that bathed the road in purple-white daylight. There was no place to park, and the only inconspicuous place from which to watch the back door of the restaurant was a rectangular alcove big enough for a soda machine between two of the stores. Mason drove slowly past as a man wearing a white kitchen coat kicked the door open, dragged two black garbage bags to a nearby Dumpster, and tossed them in before lighting a cigarette and watching Mason go by.