Lou Mason Mystery - 02 - The Last Witness (12 page)

Mason called Patrick Ortiz after he left the jail. “My client says he’ll take a pass on your deal.”

“Have a nice life,” Ortiz said, and hung up.

“Yeah,” Mason said to the dead phone. “Whatever is left of it.”

New Year’s Eve fell on a Monday. No one had tried to kill him since Blues had turned down the prosecutor’s plea bargain. Mason didn’t know whether that was just luck or whether thugs took off the week between Christmas and New Year’s.

He sat at his desk late in the afternoon gazing out the window onto Broadway. It was a slate-gray day, the sky nearly the same color as the pavement. It was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. Black ice made of frozen slush and grime was pocketed along curbs and buildings. It hadn’t snowed in two weeks, but it hadn’t been warm enough to melt the hard-core remnants of the last storm.

The week before, Mason took Mickey to visit Blues so they could discuss the plans for New Year’s Eve. Mason explained to Mickey that he could go by himself, but Mickey declined, telling Mason that jail was a place you should never go without someone who knew how to get you out.

“I’ve got a terrific idea for New Year’s,” Mickey told Blues.

Blues raised his eyebrows, doubting whether Mickey was capable of such a thought.

“It’s a bar,” Blues said. “I’ve got Pete Kirby’s trio booked already. I’ve lined up extra bar and kitchen help. All you have to do is keep the booze and the food moving.”

Mickey waved both hands in protest. “No, no, no. You’ve got it all wrong. This is an opportunity, a huge opportunity. We bill the night as a benefit for your legal defense fund. It’ll be a knockout.”

He looked back and forth at Blues and Mason, who both shook their heads. “No fund-raiser,” Blues said.

“Not a chance,” Mason added.

“Okay, okay. Plan B. You guys will love this. We do a murder mystery. You know, hire actors to stage a murder. Involve the people in the bar in solving the crime. Plant clues, stuff like that. Reveal the killer at midnight. I’m telling you guys, it will be fantastic!”

Blues had pressed his hands against the glass separating prisoners and visitors like he wanted to reach through and strangle Mickey.

“Just say hello to the people when they come in, take their money, and don’t fuck it up.”

Mickey overcame his anxiety of going to the jail by himself, shuttling back and forth, pleading with Blues to approve one scheme after another. Blues finally told him that if he came back again, the guards would arrest him.

Today, Mickey called Mason a dozen times with last-minute pleas to approve one off-the-wall idea after another. Mason had said no to the first ten and hung up on the last two.

He spent the rest of the day going over his notes for the preliminary hearing. He didn’t think Patrick Ortiz would reveal anything more about his case than was necessary to convince Judge Pistone to bind Blues over for trial. The evidence of Blues’s fingerprints at the scene would be more than enough.

Mason had listed the witnesses he expected Ortiz to call on the dry-erase board. The maid would testify that she had found Cullan’s body. The coroner would testify to the cause of death. Beth Harrell or Pete Kirby would testify about the fight at the bar and Blues’s threat. Harry Ryman would testify about his investigation. A forensics investigator would testify about the fingerprints.

Mason had no evidence to work with. The last two weeks had yielded nothing that changed the core facts of the case. Judge Pistone would find probable cause to believe that Blues had murdered Jack Cullan. The press would have a field day, its monstrous appetite satisfied for the moment. Leonard Campbell would smile into the cameras on the courthouse steps and boast about doing the people’s business. The image made Mason want to puke.

The phone rang again. He let it ring twice before picking it up.

“Listen, Mickey,” he said. “Just do it the way Blues told you. It’s not a carnival.”

Rachel Firestone said, “What’s not a carnival? Who’s Mickey and what did Blues tell him to do? Are you planning a New Year’s Eve jailbreak? Tell me what time and I’ll get a photographer over there.”

“Shit. I told him not to call me at work. You reporters are too clever. I knew you’d figure it out.”

“I’ll make certain it’s front-page, above the fold. All seriousness aside, what’s going on?”

“Mickey is running the bar while Blues is on vacation. He’s been driving me crazy all day wanting to turn it into the Circus Maximus for New Year’s. I figured it was him.”

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

“You didn’t. What’s on your mind?”

“New Year’s Eve. What else? You have any plans?”

“It’s against my religion. Besides, what happened to your girlfriend the rugby player?”

“Fear of commitment.”

“Hers or yours?”

“Mine. I figured you would be the perfect date. I’m on the rebound and I don’t like guys. Who could be safer for a girl at the peak of her vulnerability?”

“You make it sound irresistible, but I think I’ll pass. I’m not in a party mood.”

“I haven’t told you about the party yet. You might change your mind.”

“Okay, where’s the party?”

“The Dream Casino. Invitation only and I’ve got one. Does your tux still fit?”

Mason perked up. He doubted that Ed Fiora would talk to him about Cullan’s murder, but he figured it couldn’t hurt to ask. The worst Fiora could say was no. The preliminary hearing was in two days and Mason needed something. He couldn’t think of any reason not to try and get it from Fiora, except for Tony Manzerio. Mason didn’t think Fiora would whack him in the middle of his casino on New Year’s Eve in front of hundreds of witnesses.

“I don’t own a tux, but I’ve still got my bar mitzvah suit. Will that be formal enough?”

“Perfect. I’ll pick you up at nine o’clock.”

Rachel rang Mason’s doorbell at exactly nine. He finished smoothing out the knot in his tie before he opened the door.

“Man-O-Manishewitz!” Mason said.

Rachel swirled into the entry hall wearing a full-length mink coat. She slipped one arm effortlessly out of her coat, letting it slide down the other into a pile on the floor, revealing an off-the-shoulder, above-the-knee, black sheath that clung to her body as if she were born with it on. Hands on her hips, she bumped to the right, then grinded to the left, the light reflecting off the diamonds and gold on her wrist, ears, and neck.

“Am I not fabulous?”

“Fabulous doesn’t come close. You’re going to break every heart in the place. The men will die because they can’t have you and the woman will hate you because they don’t know they’re the only ones with a chance.”

“Trust me. The right ones will know.”

“What? You have a secret handshake?”

“Can’t tell you. That’s what makes it a secret.”

“How do you afford all this glory on a reporter’s salary?”

“I’m different.”

“Why? Because you’re gay?”

“No, because I’m rich. Let’s go.”

Casinos are built on the myth that luck lies in the next roll of the dice; the optimism that prosperity is in the next card and not just around the corner; and the greed of human beings dying to spend the rent money to cash in on something for nothing. Casinos sell euphemisms by the pound. Gambling is gaming. Blackjack dealers are buddies, and losers are high rollers.

But the house is not a home. Mason had represented a string of people who’d put their faith in hitting on sixteen and hit the skids instead. Some went home and beat their wives and kids. Some stole from their employers to cover their losses. Some went to liquor stores to buy something to make them forget, stealing it instead.

Mason didn’t blame the casinos. They didn’t round people up at gunpoint and make them empty their pockets. The casino owners, from the entrepreneurs like Ed Fiora to the shareholders of the publicly traded companies like Galaxy, knew there was a lot of money to be made in the stuff of dreams. Winning big was the American dream writ large.

The lobby of the Dream Casino was carpeted in deep red and gold, the walls papered in a soothing creamy shade, and the whole area lit by cascading floodlights. Above an arched entryway to the casino, images of demographically correct winners were plastered on the wall. Three couples—one white, one black, one Hispanic—were locked in ecstatic embraces as poker chips rained down on them. The casino’s slogan made the point. “Take a Chance! Make Your Dream Come True!”

Mason and Rachel joined the crowd of people thick with fur coats and jewels. Her eyes glittered more than her diamonds, and her red hair shimmered like woven rubies. He shook his head, mourning the loss of Rachel to heterosexual men, himself in particular.

Hidden fog machines spewed white clouds in the path of the partygoers, creating a mystical sensation as they entered the casino. They might not have been walking into a dream, but the effect was like passing into another world.

“Can you believe this?” Rachel asked Mason once they emerged from the clouds. “It’s a hundred and fifty thousand square feet; one of the biggest casino floors outside of Vegas and Atlantic City. Look at the people!”

Thousands were jammed hip to elbow as far as Mason could see. Rachel may have had an invitation, but judging from the crowd, everyone else in town had one too, except for him. The crowds around the tables were so deep that the players had disappeared from view. The only open areas were in the pits, where pit bosses patrolled under the watchful eyes of the hidden cameras that ran the length and width of the casino.

Every person who entered a casino was videotaped from the moment he or she arrived until the moment he or she left. The only places that cameras weren’t allowed were the bathrooms, and security guards checked them on a regular basis.

Rachel said, “I’m going to check my coat and wander. I’ll meet you back here at midnight. Have fun.”

There was a bank of slot machines to his right, each one singing out its electronic siren call. Bells and whistles begged the players for more money. Women wearing thousand-dollar designer dresses sat on stools in front of the slots, padded gloves on their right hands to avoid calluses from pulling the handle, plastic buckets in their laps to collect their winnings, whooping and hollering as the slots paid off.

Mason plunged into the crowd. He nodded and smiled at a few familiar faces and pretended not to notice those who stared at him a little too much.

A woman planted herself in his path, her platinum hair piled as high as her dress was cut low. The breasts of a well-endowed twenty-year-old poured out of her gown, the rest of the woman a good thirty years older. He tried to look away, but the press of other bodies around them made it impossible.

“Got ‘em for Christmas, so might as well unwrap ‘em,” the woman told Mason as she cupped her hands under her breasts. Her speech was slurred and her stride was unsteady, her breasts the only things keeping her anchored.

“Deck the halls.”

“Deck this, sweetie,” she told him as she grasped his groin, laughed, and moved on to find her next grope.

Mason wedged himself into a blackjack table long enough to win two hundred dollars, giving up the chair before it turned cold. He sliced his way through the crowd until he reached a wall of private poker rooms. Tony Manzerio, wearing the largest tuxedo ever made, stepped out of the room to Mason’s left, forcing the crowd to go around him and trapping Mason against the wall.

Mason’s shirt collar lost a size when Tony flashed the gun tucked in the shoulder harness under his tux jacket and motioned Mason into the poker room.

“Need a fourth for bridge?” Mason asked.

“Move your ass, wise guy. Mr. Fiora wants to talk to you.”

“Lucky me. I didn’t even have an appointment.”

Mason walked past Tony, straightening his jacket with a studied nonchalance. Tony shoved Mason between the shoulder blades. Mason spun around, ready to shove back.

“Hey,” Tony said with a shrug. “Your collar was messed up. I was just straightening it.”

“Perfect. A hood with a sense of humor. Your mother must be so proud.”

Mason stepped inside the poker room as Tony closed the door behind him, staying outside.

The room was six sided. A poker table in the same shape stood in the center, covered in green felt. Stacks of hundred-dollar chips surrounded a dealer’s shoe filled with four decks of cards.

Ed Fiora was standing at the bar on the back wall. He was in his fifties, slicked-back hair, square chin, and a nose that had been broken more than once. He was skinny, not one intimidating muscle on his body. All his power and all his menace were in the two dead pools that passed for his eyes.

“So Tony found you.”

“Not easy in a crowd like that.”

“Not hard either. Video cameras picked you up when you came in with that bitch from the newspaper. What’s her name? Rachel something?”

“Firestone. Rachel Firestone.”

“Yeah, Firestone. You banging that broad? I hear she don’t dig guys.”

“If you’re such a big fan of hers, why did you send her an invitation?”

“You think I made up the list? My PR people did that. They invited everyone with a pulse but you. You, I didn’t invite.”

“I’d hire new PR people.”

Fiora measured him. “You’re a smart guy, aren’t you? Tony says you’re always wising off. Offended him. Made him think you weren’t listening.”

“Is that why he’s standing guard outside the door? To make sure I listen?”

Fiora poured himself a drink and took a sip, waving one hand at the door. “And to make sure nobody bothers us.”

“He’s a multitasking marvel.”

“You don’t give up, do you?”

“I don’t respond well to structure. What do you want?”