Lou Mason Mystery - 02 - The Last Witness

by Joel Goldman

  “She didn’t say. Why, do you think you know her?”

  “Only if her name is Margaret. Are you still following Fiora’s money trail?”

  “Inside and outside, boss. I may have something for you tonight.”

  Mason stopped at the jail to talk with Blues. The sheriff’s deputy who brought Blues into the visiting attorney room pointed his thumb and forefinger at Mason, dropped the hammer on his imaginary gun, and told Mason he was saving a cell for him.

  “Talk inside is that the cops are looking at you for the Shirley Parker thing.”

  “They can look all they want. Harry knows I didn’t do it.”

  “Who did?”

  “Tony Manzerio is my choice.” Mason briefed Blues about Cullan’s files, the fire, and Shirley Parker. He told Blues about Donovan Jenkins’s contract with Ed Fiora and Jenkins’s loan to the mayor. He finished up with his visits to Baker McKenzie and Al Douglas.

  “You think the same person killed Cullan and Parker?” Blues asked.

  “Makes sense. If the ballistics tests show that the bullets were fired from the same gun, you’ll be out of here with a refund. I’ll check with Harry as soon as I can.”

  Blues nodded silently, got up from his seat, and knocked on the door, signaling the guard that he was ready to return to his cell. He cocked his fist at his side, making imaginary contact with Mason, who returned the gesture.

  Mason worried as the door closed behind Blues. His face never betrayed what he was thinking or what he might do. That unpredictability made him particularly dangerous. Even a rattlesnake rattled before it struck.

  Blues had been in jail for more than three weeks, charged with a murder that could take his own life. Mason had looked for signs that he was bending to the grind of incarceration. He had seen none, no tic at the corner of his eyes, no tightening of his mouth, no tremor in his hands. Yet Mason knew that Blues’s rage simmered just beneath the surface and that he would make someone pay for putting him behind bars. Mason worried that getting him out of jail might just be the first step down a path that brought him back to the same place.

  December’s subzero wind chills and snowstorms had given way to a raw January. Each day brought a thin mist or a thicker sleet that whipped and whirled into every body pore and open space. The sun was being held hostage behind a slate-gray sky. It was the kind of weather that kept heads down and chins tucked against chests. By spring, the entire city would need a chiropractor just to stand up straight.

  Mason’s phone rang as he got behind the wheel of the Jeep, rubbing his hands against the cold.

  “Lou Mason,” he said, his breath vaporizing before disappearing.

  “I didn’t think you would answer.” It was Beth Harrell. She sounded breathless and shaky.

  “That makes us even. I didn’t think you would call.”

  It was a small lie. Mason had expected that one of Beth’s ex-husbands, or both, would tell her about his visits. She was the kind of woman who kept a hold on a man long after the last kiss. He wondered which ex-husband had called. Baker McKenzie would call to brag about decking him. Al Douglas would call to hear her cry.

  “I’m sorry. Calling you was an impulse, another bad one, I guess.”

  Her voice triggered a crotch-centered impulse. Beth was a dangerous woman under the best of circumstances, and they were a long way from that ground. Still, she managed to reach inside him.

  “Don’t apologize. What’s on your mind?”

  “I’m practically a prisoner in my apartment. If I go out, the press won’t leave me alone. I guess I was just feeling lonely and I couldn’t think of anyone else to call.” She hesitated, waiting for Mason to reply. He didn’t. “Bad idea, huh?” she asked in a low, throaty, bad-girl voice.

  “Not the best, but I haven’t heard many good ideas lately. The last guy you went out with on a Friday night ended up with a bullet in his eye. I don’t want to make page one again anytime soon.”

  “Neither do I. Although I don’t think we could top your picture in this morning’s paper unless we were caught having sex on Main Street.”

  Mason laughed, disarmed by her earthy humor. “You haven’t seen my good side.”

  “Show me. I’ll make us dinner. You can park at the hotel and take the walkway across to my building. No one will see you. You’ll be safe.”

  “Give me an hour.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  Mason had a hard time using the words safe and Beth in the same sentence, but he had to talk to her about the pictures and about the gun. He stopped at home, showered, shaved, fed the dog, and listened to his messages, including one from his aunt Claire demanding that he call her. He promised the answering machine that he would and left the lights on so that Tuffy wouldn’t be left in the dark.

  There were two entrances to the hotel’s parking garage, one on the north and one on the east. Beth’s apartment was in a high-rise on the south side of the Intercontinental. Mason chose the north entrance to the parking garage to minimize the chance that some reporter staking out Beth’s apartment would see him.

  It took him longer than he expected to find the walkway that connected the hotel and the apartment building, and it was past seven o’clock when he knocked on her door. He heard the sharp clack of heels on hardwood as Beth walked hurriedly to the door, opening it with a sigh mixed with relief and anticipation.

  Mason stood in the doorway, deciding whether to cross her threshold. Beth waited, one hand on the door, the other on her hip, wearing black linen slacks and a bloodred silk shirt unbuttoned far enough to get his attention. A sly smile creased her cheeks. She looked like a woman who’d never known trouble she hadn’t asked for and who was ready to ask again.

  “Come on in, Lou. I won’t bite.”

  “Hardly worth the effort, then,” he said as he walked past her.

  The entrance hall opened into a living room with a wall of glass that faced north, looking over the top of the Intercontinental Hotel to the Plaza fifteen stories below, its eight square blocks of shops sparkling in a quarter of a million Christmas lights. Long, tapered candles lit with perfect ovals of yellow flame beckoned from the dining room table. Mellow jazz filled the corners from hidden speakers.

  Mason stopped in front of the windows, taking in the view, Beth nestling against his back, her hands on his shoulders, drawing his coat halfway off. He turned toward her and she pushed his coat onto the floor, resting her hands on his chest. He held her arms, not trusting his hands.

  “We’re alone, if you were wondering,” she said.

  “That’s what worries me.” He took her by the wrists and pulled her hands of him. “Get your coat.”

  Her face reddened as if he had slapped her. “Why?”

  “We need to talk, and the chances of keeping our clothes on while we do it are much better outside than inside.”

  She backed up a few steps, hugging herself. “You are the master of the mixed message. I’m at the end of my rope and you take advantage of me every time we’re together. I can’t keep playing these games with you.”

  “That’s good, Beth. That’s very good. The best defense is a good offense. Let’s stay on task. If I can prove that both you and Blues are innocent, you’ll only get one message from me. In the meantime, I don’t trust either one of us unless we’re standing up with our clothes on and it’s too cold to take them off.”

  “I won’t go with you,” she said, adopting a pout. “You can’t make me.”

  “Would you prefer your own front-page story? I don’t have a photograph to go with it yet, but sometimes it’s better for the reader to create his own picture. Especially when it’s a story of a woman taking nude pictures of herself, then claiming a dead man was blackmailing her with the pictures.”

  “You wouldn’t!” she said, wheeling around, her hands planted on her hips.

  “Without pleasure and with regret, I assure you, but I will do it the moment I walk out of here. Rachel Firestone would love to have the story.”r />
  “I saw you with her on New Year’s Eve. I don’t know what you see in a woman like that! She can’t love you!” Tears pooled at the corners of her eyes, spilling down past her nose and tracing a wet line along her lips. “Damn you!” she said as she stood crying, her arms limp, her shoulders heaving.

  Her world was collapsing around her and Mason was pushing her to the brink. Each time she reached out her hand, he was afraid to take it because he didn’t know if she would take him down with her. But for now, he needed her to hold on. He wrapped his arms around her and she muffled her cries against his chest, gathering herself, wiping her eyes.

  “God, I’m a mess,” she said.

  “Not if you like mascara streaks. I understand that’s how Kiss got the idea for their makeup.”

  “Screw you,” she said, finding half a smile.

  “Let’s go for a drive instead.”

  “Okay. Let me change.”

  She chose corduroy jeans, ankle-high boots, and a heavy red woolen sweater. She had washed her face and tied her hair back with a bandanna. Not bothering with more makeup, she was scrubbed clean and fresh, indifferent to the crow’s-feet and laugh lines she’d left exposed. Relieved of the burdens of tears and seduction, she had a fresh vulnerability that pierced Mason’s heart. She pulled on her parka, grabbed her purse, and marched to the door while he stared at her, transfixed.

  “Let’s go,” she said. “I’m not going to spend my whole life waiting for you.”

  Mason did a lap under the Plaza lights and headed south. Neither of them spoke. When they left the city limits in the distance and the headlights ahead and behind them dwindled to a few, curiosity overcame her.

  “Do we keep going until you run out of gas?”

  “Not much farther.”

  A few minutes later, they pulled into the driveway of a farmhouse. Mason got a swift shot of paranoia until a car that had seemed to be following them continued on past the driveway. He got out and walked to the end of the driveway, looking to his west as the car’s taillights disappeared over the next hill. Satisfied, he got back into the Jeep and drove around the farmhouse, down a rutted path, and into a small clearing in the woods.

  “Let’s go for a walk,” he told her.

  “Are you nuts? In the dark? In this cold?”

  “It’s invigorating. The Swedish do it all the time. If we had snow, we’d take our clothes off and roll around in it.”

  Mason grabbed his flashlight from the glove compartment and led her through the woods, back toward the farmhouse, quieting her with hand signals whenever she started to ask a question. Mason could make out the shape of the farmhouse when a pair of high-beam headlights bounced off the front windows and splashed back into the front yard. Mason turned off his flashlight and pulled Beth down to the ground.

  Tony Manzerio stepped out of the car, silhouetted by the headlights, and took a quick tour of the grounds. Sound travels farther at night, and in the cold stillness he heard Manzerio invoke ghosts and godfathers in frustration at having lost them. They waited in the woods until Manzerio drove away, and another twenty minutes to make certain he wasn’t coming back.

  “Okay,” Mason said. “Let’s go.” He helped her up and began walking toward the farmhouse.

  “Wait a minute,” Beth said. “The car is back the other way.”

  “We’re not going to the car. We’re spending the night here.”

  Mason walked to the back door of the farmhouse and knelt at the stoop, where he found a porcelain jug. He twisted the top off the jug and removed a key. He unlocked the door and returned the key to the jug.

  “Lou Mason, international man of mystery,” Beth said as they stepped inside. “Whose place is this?”

  “It belonged to a former partner of mine who was killed when he got in over his head in a money-laundering scheme. He used to invite me out here. He was a nice man, gentle but weak, and it got him killed. I look after the place for his family, who live on the West Coast. They’re waiting for suburbia to get here before they sell it.”

  “And you feel safer spending the night with me in an abandoned farmhouse in the middle of nowhere than in my nice, warm apartment on the Plaza where we can actually order room service from the Intercontinental Hotel? Don’t tell me what drugs you’re taking because I don’t want any of it.”

  “I didn’t intend to come here, but it looked like we were being followed. I’m not much good at playing hide-and-seek in traffic, so I tried a little misdirection and it worked. I don’t know if Manzerio was following both of us or just one of us. There’s no point in finding out by going back to either of our places tonight. No one will bother us here.”

  “What about keeping our clothes on?”

  “Trust me. You’ll want to keep every stitch on. There’s no heat and no electricity.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  “I am not spending the night in a freezing-cold abandoned farmhouse!”

  “It’s a long way to anywhere from here,” Mason told her. He shined the flashlight around the kitchen, spotlighting a worn butcher-block table and two vinyl-upholstered chairs. “Let’s talk first. Then we can decide about spending the night.”

  Beth stepped toward the back door. Mason cut her off, aiming the flashlight at the chairs.

  “Oh, please! You aren’t really going to hold me hostage here until I talk. Don’t you remember anything from law school? Like kidnapping is against the law? Like coerced confessions are inadmissible?”

  “I’m not kidnapping you. You’re free to go, but it is a long walk and Tony Manzerio is out there somewhere. Maybe he’ll give you a ride. Just tell me the truth about you, Jack Cullan, your pictures, and his files, and then I’ll take you home.”

  Mason held the flashlight in front of him, pointing the beam at the ceiling like a torch, illuminating their faces as if they were sitting at the edge of a campfire. Beth looked at him, her mouth clamped shut, her eyes narrowed, waiting for Mason to call off his parlor game. He tipped his head at the table and raised his eyebrows as if to say he wasn’t kidding.

  “Okay. You win. But turn off the light just in case Manzerio comes back.”

  “Good thinking.”

  He turned the flashlight off and sat in one of the chairs, his eyes adjusting to the dark, moonlight sneaking through a window as Beth rustled in her purse.

  “Turn your flashlight on for a second. I’ve got a surprise for you.”

  Mason chuckled. “You were supposed to keep your clothes on.” He aimed the beam at her chest. She pointed a gun at his. “Does that count as a mixed message?”

  “Give me the keys to your car,” she said.

  “Is that the .38 Baker McKenzie gave you?”

  “Give me the goddamn car keys!”

  “Or you’ll shoot me like you shot Jack Cullan and Shirley Parker?”

  Before Beth could answer, Tony Manzerio kicked in the back door, carrying a flashlight bigger than Mason’s and a gun bigger than Beth’s. Mason jumped to his feet.

  “Steady, Batman,” Manzerio told him. “I like you a lot better sitting down.” Mason hesitated, weighing his chances. “Do it!”

  Mason sat down, noticing that Beth was no longer pointing her gun at him. She wasn’t pointing it at Manzerio either. Mason didn’t know what she had done with her gun or whom she was likely to point it at next.

  The momentary silence was broken by the sound of someone kicking the front door off its hinges. Ed Fiora and two men only slightly smaller than Manzerio made their way in the dark to the kitchen.

  “Hey, Mason,” Fiora said as his two goons flanked him. “It must be hard to tell who your friends are these days.”

  The goons laughed and pointed their flashlights and guns at him. Mason held his hands up to shade his eyes from the glare.

  “Can’t tell the players without a program.”

  “You are right about that.”

  “Why were you following me?”

  “I got something for you that you been l
ooking for. I wanted to give it to you so maybe you’d get off my back. I sent Tony here to deliver it, only he couldn’t catch up to you. You gave him the drop, but I figured you stayed at the farmhouse when we didn’t see any other cars on the road.”

  One of the goons handed Fiora a large envelope. He held it in one hand, tapped it against his other, and tossed it onto the table.

  “Go ahead, open it.”

  Mason picked up the envelope, guessing at its contents. Beth hung her head, looking away. He put the envelope back on the table.

  “Not interested.”

  “That’s not what I hear. Tony,” Fiora said to Manzerio, “Mason’s dick has gone limp. Open that envelope for him.”

  Manzerio stuffed his gun in his pocket and his flashlight under his arm, ripping the envelope open and fanning out pictures of Beth Harrell across the table. Mason kept his eyes on Fiora. Manzerio gripped the back of Mason’s head like a melon, pushing his face at the pictures.

  Beth was nude in each photograph, legs spread, squeezing and probing her body with her hands in some pictures, using a dildo in others. Her closed eyes and open mouth mimed a staged rapture that looked stag-film phony.

  “Not bad for amateur stuff,” Fiora said, nodding at Manzerio, who released his grip on Mason’s head.

  “What do you want?” Mason asked.

  “Like I told you, I want you to back off. You think I’m blackmailing this bitch with these pictures. Cullan gave me the pictures after I got my casino license. I never used them except to make sure she came to my New Year’s Eve party.”

  “So forcing her to come on to me while you watched on closed-circuit TV is just taking one of those edges you need every now and then? Is that it? Plus now I’m supposed to believe that you didn’t have Cullan whacked so you could get rid of his file on you?”

  “I knew all about Cullan’s files. They didn’t mean squat to me. Cullan couldn’t take me down without taking himself down. Hell, I’ve got my own files. Everybody has files on everybody else. It’s like nuclear bombs. Everyone wants them, but none of us can afford to use them.”