Joel Goldman - Deadlocked

"Gosh, Whitney," Mason said. "Do you think you'll have as much fun as when you murdered Graham and Elizabeth Byrnes?"

King cut the short distance between him and Mason in half, his chest and neck swelling, the move a threat, not a plea. "You're forgetting the jury said I didn't do it."

Mason finally stood, measuring himself against King's shorter frame, sensing that King's coiled power offset his own height advantage.

"Then you can clean my clock and wipe my ass. Sandra is expensive, but at least you'll get your money's worth."

King closed the distance between them again. Sandra slid in front of him, her back to Mason, her hands on King's shoulders.

"Bell's rung, boys. Round one is over. No blood on the floor. Just lots of testosterone. Come on, Whitney," she told him. "You bought the most expensive table at the Jazz Museum fund-raiser tonight. Don't waste it trying to prove you've got a bigger dick than Lou. You probably do, but Lou doesn't think size matters."

Sandra wrapped her arm around King's shoulder, pulling him to her breast. King smiled again, this time like a wolf, pointing his fingers at Mason like an imaginary gun, dropping the hammer.

"Take my advice, Counselor. Stay away from windows," King said.

Sandra rolled her eyes, pretending King and Mason were just little boys having a play date, all of them knowing that neither of them was playing. King gave Sandra a shove, leaving her a step behind.

"You make friends so easily," Rachel told Mason after King and Sandra left.

"Really," Mason said. "I didn't think he liked me that much."

"Liked you?" Rachel said. "He wanted to kill you."

"I guess old habits die hard," Mason said.

"His or yours?" Rachel asked.

Dinner ran long. Mason was in no hurry to go home, checking his voice mail while Rachel went to the bathroom. There was no message from Abby, though he had left one for her. Call when you can. He bet that she wouldn't.

Mason lingered outside Camille's after Rachel left, eyeing the Jazz Museum across the street. A pack of valets hustled cars from the front of the museum to a vacant lot a block away, bringing them back when people began to leave. Young guys sprinted for the lot when a guest handed them a claim check like it was the baton in a relay and they were running the anchor leg. The owners pressed tips into the valets' hands when they returned with the cars, the valets palming the bills, checking them on the sly, grunting at the cheapskates, saluting the swells.

He had no place to go and nothing to do when he got there, so he returned to Camille's, took a table in the front window, picked at a piece of pie, and waited for Whitney King to leave. Whitney had either admitted to the drive-by shooting at Mason's house or teased him with the knowledge that he knew about it. The shooting hadn't made the paper, but that didn't mean it was a secret.

Sandra Connelly left before King did. Mason was glad they were traveling separately, having a hard enough time thinking of Sandra as King's lawyer. Not wanting to add consort to counselor. It wasn't jealousy. Sandra could ignite Mason's lust, but she couldn't sustain his romantic affection. He looked past her sharp-edged, hardball style and saw someone he didn't want taken down by her client. They'd been through enough together that he owed her that much.

Summer light surrendered slowly, the heat sticking around, the valets dripping with each dash to the parking lot as the sky purpled, then blackened. The neon street lit up, the honkytonks honked though not with the wild abandon they must have had when Kansas City was a wide-open town in the days between the World Wars. The people on the street tonight were there to look at the past, not make the present.

King left just after ten o'clock, the lucky valet clicking his heels when King tipped him, turning to his mates before King pulled away, flashing a bill and a grin to match. King drove a BMW 7 series sedan, black, the windows tinted. Mason squinted, crunching his eyes to match the car with his memory of the one on his blacked-out street. It was a definite, tentative maybe.

Mason had gotten lucky when he arrived at Camille's, finding a parking place on the street across from the restaurant, allowing him to fall in behind King, separated by a short string of cars creeping west on Eighteenth Street back to the donors' side of town. Mason didn't plan to follow King. It just happened that way, Mason having no reason other than curiosity, confident that King wouldn't spot him.

King took Eighteenth Street west to Main, turned south on Main, then west on Forty-seventh, cutting through the Plaza, then south on Wornall and west onto Mason's street before it dawned on Mason that King had not only spotted him but was pimping him. King glided to a stop in front of Mason's house.

Mason turned into his driveway, this time not able to ignore King. He parked, got out of his car and leaned against the passenger side, waiting. The driver's door on King's car swung open, King stepping out. They stood silently in the dark, King making his point. He knew where Mason lived.

King broke the silence. "You're out of your league, Mason. Give it up."

"Lucky for me, this is a neighborhood watch area," Mason said.

"Then you better hope your neighbors are watching you all the time," King told him, pointing at Mason's house. "When you get that window fixed, I'd recommend bulletproof glass."

Mason watched King drive away, looking too long at his house before heading for the garage. Mason wasn't hard to find. His address was in the phone book. King could have driven by out of the same curiosity that prompted Mason to follow him, unaware that Mason was behind him, taking advantage of Mason's arrival to jack with him. Or, he could have seen Mason in his rearview mirror, stringing Mason along just to play tough guy one more time. Mason wondered which scenario gave King too much credit.

He wanted to dismiss King's threats, but couldn't. Not if he was going to prove that King murdered Graham and Elizabeth Byrnes, then let his boyhood best friend die for his crimes. King had emerged from the murders without blood on his hands, building a life on a foundation of money, the first floor of a penthouse he inherited. King wouldn't let go easily. He'd fight to keep that life, even if someone else had to die.

Maybe, Mason thought, King was right. Maybe Mason was out of his league, especially with Blues and Harry sitting this one out and Mickey on the road. The clincher hit him as he pulled into the garage. Innocent people let their lawyers deliver threats. Killers don't pass up the pleasure.

Abby was right to leave, he realized. He didn't want her to call, afraid that she would come back before it was over.

Tuffy was pacing in the kitchen, her tail down, greeting Mason with a low whine.

"A hungry dog is not a happy dog," Mason told her, filling her dish, going outside with her when she was finished eating.

Mason took a slow tour of his house, treading in the shadows the brick walls cast on the grass, picking up the dusty smell of parched ground and the sickly sweet decay of wilting flowers. There was a story in the paper that day of an elderly couple overcome by the heat, not found until the smell gave their death away. The mayor reminded everyone to check on their neighbors and not water their grass or flowers. Weather forecasters said they were sorry, but there was no end in sight. Mason touched the wall of his house, still radiating the day's warmth, bricks and mortar the only things that could stand up to the weather. Living things were out of their league.

He rattled his first-floor windows to make certain the locks were secure, knowing that the protection they offered was illusory. He'd had an alarm system installed a few years ago when thugs broke in and redecorated; giving in to Claire's insistence that he wasn't Superman. The alarm system was down until the living room window was replaced and the motion sensor reinstalled.