Lou Mason Mystery - 01 - Motion to Kill (34 page)

“If you mean by that that we ended up dealing with you, I would quite agree,” St. John said.

“And everyone says you have no sense of humor, Franklin. Sullivan’s murder knocked everything off track. You had threatened to prosecute Sullivan so that he would put pressure on O’Malley to cooperate. If O’Malley wouldn’t give up his son to save himself, did you really think he’d do it to save his lawyer?”

“I didn’t care,” St. John answered. “Richard Sullivan was involved in the senior O’Malley’s bank fraud and he knew about the money laundering. We were negotiating a plea bargain when he was killed.”

“So you must have known that Vic Jr. was washing the mob’s money through the law firm with the help of Scott Daniels and Harlan Christenson and that O’Malley had nothing to do with it.”

“Apparently so. Sullivan had proposed giving us the evidence on his partners and Vic Jr. in return for a free pass for himself and O’Malley.”

“So that’s why Sullivan didn’t tell anyone about the subpoena for the firm’s records. He was going to give you the records, claim ignorance of the money laundering, and let Scott and Harlan take the fall along with Vic Jr. Did O’Malley know what Sullivan was doing?”

“A detail in which I had no interest.”

“With Sullivan dead, you were stuck with Vic Jr. to make the case against D’lessandro, but he disappeared. Harlan Christenson is dead and Scott Daniels is going to be the next poster boy for electroshock therapy. Camaya is your last chance.”

“It pains me to admit that you’re right.”

“There’s one thing I still don’t get,” Mason said. “How did Jimmie find Kelly’s cabin?” Mason asked the question, almost forgetting that Camaya was lying in bed behind him.

Camaya answered. “I found a map in Theonis’s apartment after—”

“That’s enough,” Mason interrupted. “Don’t confess to anything yet.”

The door to Camaya’s hospital room flew open. The police officer that had been on guard was shoved inside and onto the floor, his hands cuffed behind his back. Two men dressed in black, silenced pistols drawn, followed. One was tall, the other about Mason’s height, only broader. Both had the slack appearance of men who aren’t impressed by much and who care about less.

“Hey, Jimmie,” the taller man said. “You don’t look so good.”

Camaya sat up, using Mason as a shield. “Feel better than I look, Tony.” Mason could feel Camaya’s labored breath on the back of his neck.

“Carlo said we should come down. Check on you. If you was feeling bad, he said we should put you out of your misery. So how you feelin’?”

McNamara made a poorly disguised move for his gun.

“Hey, fat boy,” Tony warned. “Don’t be stupid. Gino,” he said to his companion, “get this dickhead’s piece.”

Gino shoved McNamara against the wall, grabbing his gun. McNamara offered no resistance when Gino yanked his wallet from his pocket. St. John’s face twisted with disgust, though he remained silent.

Mason felt Camaya’s hand slide under the back of his shirt onto the butt of his gun. He couldn’t move without giving Camaya away. He hoped Camaya knew which side he was on.

“This guy’s fucking FBI,” Gino said after opening McNamara’s wallet.

Tony turned to St. John. “And who are you, J. Edgar Hoover?”

“You should see him in a dress,” Mason said.

“Shut the fuck up,” Tony told Mason. “Jimmie, you got all these visitors. Carlo don’t like that. He’s worried you might talk to the wrong people. Maybe say the wrong thing.”

St. John couldn’t keep his mouth shut. “My name is Franklin St. John and I’m the United States attorney. Put your guns down. You’re under arrest.”

Tony laughed. “Jimmie, where did you get these guys? And who are you?” he asked Mason.

“I’m Jimmie’s lawyer.”

“So that’s the way it is, huh, Jimmie?” Tony said. “You got your lawyer, the FBI, and the U.S. attorney in your room all at the same time. Smells like you’re selling out. I guess we got here just in time.”

Gino pulled St. John from his chair and shoved him against McNamara, leaving them huddled in a corner next to the window. He took a step back, keeping out of McNamara’s reach and keeping his pistol pointed at the two of them.

Camaya lifted the gun from behind Mason’s back and nudged Mason with the barrel. Mason edged forward until he was on the edge of the bed, the balls of his feet pressed to the floor like loaded springs. He braced his hands against the mattress for added leverage.

Tony stood at the door, about five feet in front of Mason. Gino was closer to Mason, but at an angle to Mason’s left. He knew that Tony would shoot him before he got close to him, but he’d have a chance with Gino if Camaya took care of Tony.

“Listen, Tony,” Mason began. “This isn’t working out like you expected. You probably counted on the cop outside the door but no way could you figure on an FBI agent, the U.S. attorney, and me being here. You kill everyone in this room and your boss is going to catch so much heat you’ll never be able to go home again.”

Tony considered Mason’s comments. “It is the way it is, pal. Lots of people end up in the wrong place at the wrong time. I guess this is just your time.”

“Last chance,” Mason said. “Put your guns down and give up or Jimmie will shoot you.” Both gunmen laughed. “Don’t say I didn’t give you a chance.”

Mason stood up, stepping toward Gino and drawing Tony’s attention away from Camaya. Tony froze in astonishment at the gun in Camaya’s hand long enough for Camaya to shoot him in the face. He was dead before he hit the floor.

Mason leapt at Gino but not before Gino shot McNamara. Gino had weight on his side. Mason had surprise and desperation on his. And he fought dirty. Mason grabbed Gino’s gun with his left hand and Gino’s testicles with his right, squeezing both while he drove his head into Gino’s neck.

The gun flew out of their grasp as they toppled onto the floor. Gino slammed his knee upward, breaking Mason’s grip on his crotch, and wrapped his hands around Mason’s throat. His fingers were crushing Mason’s windpipe and cutting off his breath. Mason straddled Gino as the bigger man held Mason at arm’s length, strangling him.

Raising his right hand from Gino’s chest, Mason jammed his forefinger into Gino’s eye, puncturing the outer surface until he felt the hard socket against his knuckle. Gino’s piercing scream nearly shattered Mason’s eardrum as his grip on Mason’s throat gave way. Mason withdrew his bloody hand, leaving Gino’s eye dangling alongside his nose.

Mason staggered to his feet. McNamara lay on the floor, moaning but alive. St. John had wet himself and assumed the fetal position.

“My man! My main man!” Camaya crowed, waving Mason’s gun in the air.

Mason snatched the gun from him and grabbed him by the throat. “I’m not your man, you miserable piece of shit. Now, call the nurse!”

Sunday started with a steady rain pinging against Mason’s windows as he lay in bed long after Harry Ryman’s last questions stopped reverberating in his ears. It was welcome white noise, something to concentrate on when he felt Gino’s blood trickling down his arm again.

Bright flashes of light sparked against his eyelids when he clenched them against the jarring array of mortal images he had collected. Snapshots of Sullivan’s bloated corpse, Harlan’s gargoyle death mask, Julio’s pulverized face, and Gino’s mutilated eye dotted his mental landscape like unholy billboards.

He had slipped so easily from a world of rules where uncivil conduct toward an adversary was grounds for sanction to one in which blood ruled and the only sanction that mattered was death. He doubted whether he could return to his old world without a part of him remaining in his new one.

Dawn, gray and misty, found him pounding the jogging path around Loose Park, two blocks from home. Breathing raggedly, he tried to outrun the demons that had become his new best friends until he dropped facedown in the grass, cool and wet. The rain ran off him as he rolled onto his back, squinting skyward, looking for an opening in the clouds. With no epiphany in sight, he trudged home to find Anna Karelson camped on his doorstep, dry and nosy under her umbrella.

“For pity’s sake, Lou, you’d have to look better to die!”

She had bed head and she hadn’t found her mouthwash yet. Her candy-striped housecoat, loosely tied at the waist, was playing peek-a-boo with her heavy bosom.

“Early morning isn’t your best time of day either, Anna. It’s just the rain. I’m fine.”

“In a pig’s eye! My two-week-old bananas have better color than you do.”

“Look, Anna. I appreciate your concern, but I’m really okay. I promise to look better after I clean up and get some rest.”

“Well, Mr. Celebrity Lawyer, I wouldn’t plan on getting any rest today if I was you.”

“Meaning?”

“TV trucks and reporters have been banging on your door since you left this morning. I told them you took a cab to the airport. But they’ll be back; that’s for sure.”

Mason had one more rock to turn over before he was ready to go to the cops with Sullivan’s and Angela’s killer. If the media started shining their light on him now, he’d lose the privacy he needed.

“Anna, mind if I shower at your house?”

“Lou!” she said as she blushed and clutched her gown to her chest. “Jack’s still asleep!”

“Don’t worry, I’m a quiet scrubber.” He ran upstairs and grabbed clean clothes, a black Windbreaker, a Beaver Creek cap, and Vernon’s Bible. “Drive my car around the block behind your house,” Mason said when he came back and handed her the keys to the TR6. “I’ll be in the shower.”

Anna came in through her back door, dripping and cursing Mason as water ran off her neck and between her breasts. “Honestly, Lou, I don’t know why I let you talk me into these things.”

He was sitting at her kitchen table, tying his shoes while scanning the front page of the morning paper. McNamara would live. St. John announced that his investigation into organized crime would continue.

“That’s what neighbors are for, Anna. I owe you one.”

Mason glanced out her living room window. Camera crews for the local affiliates of the major networks were setting up shop in his front yard, their logos emblazoned on the rain poncho of each crew member. The clock was running on his fifteen minutes of fame.

Mason kissed Anna on the cheek and went out the back door, cutting across lawns to the next block and his car. It was eight o’clock, early for house calls. Mason hoped he wasn’t too late.

Pamela’s newspaper was still in the driveway and there were no lights on in the house. It felt as though more than twenty-four hours had passed since he’d last knocked on her door. Vernon’s Bible lay heavily against his side, protected from the rain by his jacket, as he leaned on the doorbell. Five minutes of chimes brought protesting footsteps that stopped on the other side of the peephole in the door.

“Lou, what are you doing here at this hour?” Pamela asked in a voice muffled by the thick oak door.

“I’ve got to talk with you. It’s very important.”

“I had a late night. Can’t it wait until later, or tomorrow?”

“Pamela, please open the door. I can hardly hear you.”

Mason hoped that it would be harder to send him away face-to-face than separated by the heavy door. The dead bolt slid back. Pamela pulled the door open enough to peer around the edge. Mason stepped sideways through the narrow opening before she could protest.

She had the same puffy-eyed, just-rousted-from-bed look as Anna Karelson had. He could taste the stale, smoky aroma that hung on her, and he could smell the booze in her sweat. She hunched her shoulders inside the velour red robe she had zipped to the neck. She was close enough to rock bottom to touch it with her tongue.

“I’m sorry to barge in on you like this. I know who killed your husband. I thought you would want to know.”

She slumped against the door, pushing it closed, as she covered her mouth with one hand, her eyes asking questions that she refused to speak.

“I don’t want to go to the police until I’m certain,” Mason continued. “There are a few details about Richard’s past that I need to clear up. Let’s talk in the study.”

Mason led the way, not giving her the chance to object. He hoped that taking charge in her own house would keep her off her guard. The study reeked of Pamela’s long night. She didn’t smoke. Mason wondered who did.

The sofa cushions had been left in casual disarray, with two of them piled at one end. Pamela sat on the sofa, holding a cushion in her lap, her arms wrapped around it. Mason chose the wingback chair opposite the sofa, setting his jacket next to the ornamental letter opener on the small table next to the chair, the Bible tucked inside the jacket.

A dark walnut butler’s table separated them, adorned with an empty wine bottle and two glasses turned on their sides. Two streaked glasses, one with lipstick on the rim. He pretended not to notice. It wasn’t any of his business if Pamela skipped the grieving-widow stage and jumped into friendly arms.

Pamela squeezed the cushion in her lap as if she were trying to pull herself inside it. She hadn’t uttered a sound since he’d told her why he was there. Not even a monosyllabic “Who?” The silence was so puzzling that he decided to wait her out and make her ask him who did it.

Smiling at Pamela, Mason stood and began a quiet survey of the books lining the shelves behind Sullivan’s desk. He had a theory that you could learn a lot about a person by the books they kept. Some people kept them for show, while others intended to read them someday, though they never would. Still others read them, loved them, and took comfort in being around them. The bindings on Sullivan’s books were crisp and virginal. Having them was what counted. Not knowing them.

Mason stopped in front of a volume half-hidden by the vertical molding at the end of the middle shelf. The top half of the letters in the title was visible enough along the book’s spine that he could read
Rogersville H.S. 1973 Yearbook
. He sat down in Sullivan’s desk chair and began leafing through the book. Pamela was still mute.