Joel Goldman - Deadlocked

"You're kidding me!"

Mason leaned forward. "Not one damn bit, Dixon. You know how your old client Damon Parker got into the psychiatric hospital business? He was a shrink. It's right there in his bio on the company Web site. Guess he figured out there was more money to be made running hospitals and nursing homes than in listening to people's troubles eight hours a day."

"I knew he had a medical degree, but I thought he quit practicing."

"He just had one patient," Mason said. "Victoria King. He signed off on her admission, her treatment-which was mostly to leave her alone-and the insurance claims filed to reimburse Golden Years for taking such good care of her. Samantha Greer told me about it this morning before the news conference."

Smith inched toward Mason, keeping his voice down. "Parker hired me to represent him in a Medicare fraud investigation. The feds want him for filing phony claims, shit like that. Victoria's was one of the claims. I probably should have told you about it, but it was privileged. You understand."

Mason took another sip of beer and stared hard at Smith. "No problem, Dixon. Don't worry. I didn't hear it from you. But you might be interested in knowing that I'm going to sue Parker and Golden Years for conspiring with Victoria and Whitney King."

"Conspiracy? To do what?"

"Conceal the truth about her son and keep Nick Byrnes from suing the King family for his parents' wrongful deaths. It's going to be a huge case. Frankly, I could use your help. You know what's going on at Golden Years. Now that you don't represent Parker any longer, I was hoping you might want to change sides."

Smith laughed. "Isn't there a small problem of ethics, Lou? I represented the man. I know his secrets."

"Compared to the money I'm going to get out of Parker, it is a small problem. You can stay in the background. I'll split with you fifty-fifty after I collect. As long as you really do know Parker's secrets."

Smith rolled his cocktail glass between his hands, set it aside, absently picked up his knife, tapping the blade against the table as he studied Mason, finally chuckling again. "I told you that you and I were a lot alike, Lou."

"Black or white, Dixon, we're all about the green underneath, man."

"How much green you figure is underneath us in this case?"

Mason pursed his lips. "I figure compensatory and punitive damages could go as high as fifty million. There's no jury that isn't going to be seriously pissed at these people. My fee is one-third. Half of that is yours. You do the math and I'll keep your name out of it. Parker will never know."

Smith cocked his head to one side. "When I get done talking to you, fifty million will be chump change."

"Then talk to me, baby," Mason said, grinning.

Samantha Greer ushered Mason into Patrick Ortiz's office Monday evening after the rest of his staff had left for the day. Ortiz was leaning back in his chair, feet propped on his desk, glasses halfway down his nose, immersed in the typed transcript of Mason's lunchtime conversation with Dixon Smith.

"You're sure Smith didn't make you for wearing a wire?" Ortiz asked Mason.

"Positive. Why? Is it too good to be true?"

"It's better than that. Shows the power of the almighty dollar. You dangled enough money in front of him and he gave you enough to send Parker away for a long time, not just for Medicare fraud. Parker knew what Virginia King had done and he helped her get away with it. He must have been sleeping with her."

"If they were having an affair, that's not all there was to it," Mason said. "Parker was depositing money in an off-thebooks account for Victoria every month. They were covering for each other. When she really got sick, Parker had to deal with Whitney."

"So why did Smith lie to you about Parker firing him?" Ortiz asked.

"Sandra Connelly found the memo in her firm's files from the partner who originally suspected Victoria had killed her husband. She knew Dixon represented Parker and asked him to check it out. Smith told Parker and Parker told Whitney. Smith told me he'd been fired because he was hoping to keep a line of communication open with me that he could use to feed information back to Parker. I went him one better when I hired him to represent me."

Ortiz dropped his feet to the floor. "Too bad he's such a damn good lawyer. He worked me over pretty good."

"Smith also incriminated himself on that tape. He was as much a part of it as the rest of them. Have you picked him up yet?" Mason asked.

"My partner, Al, just brought him in. He's screaming entrapment and every other damn thing, but I don't think he's going to return the favor," Samantha said.

"What favor?" Mason asked.

"I don't think he's going to hire you to represent him."

Tuesday morning was August 1, the last day Mason could file Nick's lawsuit. It was also the day of the primary election and the fortieth anniversary of his parents' deaths. The combination was a trifecta he would never have bet on.

He stopped at the cemetary just as the sun was rising over the hillside, the first light glancing off his parents' headstones. The grave diggers, Albert and Marty, watched him as he placed a stone on the graves. Afterward, Mason shook their hands, making good on his promise of fifty dollars.

He was waiting when the court clerk's office opened at eight o'clock, handing the lawsuit and a check for the filing fee to the woman on the other side of the counter. She stamped the papers with the date and time, gave him a copy and a receipt for his check, and told him that the papers would be served within the week.

He'd given the story to Rachel Firestone the night before and the morning paper carried it above the fold. Nick's grandmother called Mason to thank him, telling him that Nick was at physical therapy and making great progress.

He spent the day fielding congratulatory phone calls and welcoming back his old clients. He and Mickey were going over their files when Claire appeared in his doorway. Mickey looked up, saw the storm clouds on her face, and left, files under each arm.

Claire sat on the sofa, patting the space next to her. "Come sit," she said.

Mason joined her. Her color was a bit off, her gait a step slow.

"You don't look so hot," he said.

"I'm at the age when looking hot is not a good thing," she said, brushing off his concern. "Didn't take you long to get back in business," she added.

"There's no shortage of human suffering or people willing to add to the misery," Mason said.

She didn't say anything else for the moment, looking around his one room office, taking in the barely controlled chaos, the lived-in look of a life and a law practice that had no line separating one from the other.

"I was wrong," she said.

"Why? Because you were trying to protect me," Mason said, knowing that she was talking about his parents.

"When you were too young to understand, that was a good reason. But that was a long time ago. No, I was wrong to keep using that excuse to protect myself."

"From what?" Mason asked.

"From pain, more than anything else. I didn't want to deal with what happened to your parents. It was all I could do to take you to that cemetery, but I did it because I had to. I owed you that much."

"The car wreck," Mason said softly. "Was it an accident or did my father kill himself and my mother?"

Claire reached over and rested her hand on Mason's cheek, angling her head slightly, taking him in with tears in her eyes.

"There was a group of us," she began. "Your parents and me and eight or ten others we got to be very good friends with at the synagogue. All of us full of faith and fury. You know social action is one of the most important things to the Jewish people. Heal the world. That was our motto. We studied Torah and we worked in inner city soup kitchens and we marched against the Vietnam War and we had a grand time."