CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Patrick Ortiz called Mason on Monday morning, asking Mason to meet him and Leonard Campbell at eleven.
'What's the occasion? You guys ready to surrender, or what?'
'Eleven o'clock,' Ortiz answered, and hung up.
Mason didn't think they were ready to surrender. He did think they were ready to negotiate, or at least make the offer that Tony Manzerio had encouraged him to take during their slow dance in the parking lot.
He wasn't looking forward to getting an offer Blues wouldn't take. Telling Blues about the offer was the easy part. Telling him that Manzerio had threatened both their lives if Blues didn't take the offer was the hard part. Blues wouldn't take the deal to save his own life, but he might do it to save Mason's, and that was a debt Mason didn't want on his books.
Mason liked representing defendants. He just hated being on the defensive. He slapped his hand on his desk, taking his frustration out on an inanimate object that stung his hand in return. That's solo practice, he thought to himself. Even his desk gave him a hard time.
Mason signed in at the receptionist's desk when he arrived at the prosecutor's office, printing his name, address, and telephone number and the name of the person he'd come to see. Four other people were already waiting. Two of them were dressed in lawyer's uniforms, thumb-typing on their BlackBerrys. The other two were an elderly man and woman, the man clutching a brochure on how to avoid home-remodeling scams. From their ruined looks, Mason concluded that they had waited too long to take the advice.
The receptionist was a young woman with big hair and long fingernails painted bright yellow. She kept her back to him while playing solitaire on her computer and talking on her headset, saying 'Get out!' and 'You go, girl!' as if that was the limit of her vocabulary. Had her name been Margaret, he wouldn't have stayed. Fortunately, according to the nameplate on her desk, her name was Tina, so he stuck it out.
'Damn this piece of shit! Not you, girl,' she said into her headset. 'This damn computer. Beats me every damn time. I give up. Someone's waitin' on me anyway.'
She scanned the sign-in sheet, pressed a speed-dial button on her phone, and announced Mason's arrival. Moments later, Campbell's secretary, an attractive woman with dark hair and a lavender skirt that had been spray- painted onto her heart-shaped bottom, appeared and told him to follow her. He wanted to tell her to slow down. She ushered him into Campbell's office with a small flourish of her hand and held his eyes as he nodded his thanks.
Patrick Ortiz was seated in a chair on the visitors' side of Campbell's ornate walnut desk. Campbell stood behind his desk, the phone to his ear. He motioned to Mason to take the chair next to Ortiz and squeezed his thumb and forefinger together to indicate that the conversation would be a short one.
Mason remained standing, smiled at Ortiz, and shook his hand. They didn't speak. Mason had nothing to say, and Ortiz was being deferential to his boss.
Mason looked around the office. There were law books on one wall that Mason was confident Leonard Campbell had never opened; pictures of Campbell with various local dignitaries on another; and Campbell's framed law school diploma on a third. Mason examined it closely to be certain that Campbell's degree wasn't from the Columbia School of Broadcasting. He was annoyed to learn that he and Campbell had gone to the same law school, though Campbell had graduated twenty-five years earlier.
Campbell finished his phone call, hung up the phone, and greeted Mason.
'Good to see you, Lou!'
He was a trim, well-kept man nearing retirement, a neat white mustache penciled in above his upper lip. He shook Mason's hand with both of his, the left clamped over the right in a firm commitment of fellowship that Mason took as a sign that Campbell was about to screw his lights out. Claire had once warned him that the two-handed shake was the male equivalent of a woman's air kiss, a gesture of phony intimacy and a warning to keep your hand on your wallet and a close eye on your virtue.
'Nice to see you too.'
'Have a seat.'
'I don't think I'll be here that long.'
Campbell gave him the toothy grin he reserved for voters. 'You might change your mind after you hear what we've got to say.'
'I'm listening.'
'Patrick tells me that we've got your client dead to rights. No sense in putting the taxpayers through an expensive trial. We've got a proposal for you. Let your client put this whole thing behind him, do his time, and start over while he still has something to look forward to.'
'Patrick is too good a lawyer to have told you that you've got my client dead to anything. Your case sucks.'
'Your client's skin and blood were found under the victim's fingernails. The victim threatened to shut his bar down, and your client responded by threatening to kill him. And, he doesn't have an alibi.'
'My client stopped Jack Cullan from beating the crap out of his date. The rest is trash talk. You can't even put my client at the murder scene. The only deal you should be offering me is a dismissal and an apology in return for a promise not to sue your ass.'
Campbell smiled again and nodded at Ortiz.
'We can put him at the scene,' Ortiz said.
Mason looked at Ortiz, knowing he wouldn't bluff on something like that. It would be too easy for Mason to call him on it.
'What have you got, Patrick?'
'Your client's fingerprints on Cullan's desk in the study where the maid found his body. Still think my case sucks?'
Mason refused to be baited. He needed to talk to Blues. 'I'm obligated to convey any offer you make to my client. You're still a long way from home on this case and we all know that.'
Campbell chuckled. Mason wanted to sew his lips shut.
'We'll accept a plea to second-degree murder and we won't make any recommendation on the sentence. Your client will probably be sentenced to twenty years to life and be paroled in seven years.'
'That's not much of a deal. Even with the fingerprints, second degree is the worst that he's likely to be convicted of on your best day in court. This isn't the kind of deal that will make anybody lose any sleep if we turn it down.'
'This is our best and only deal. It's on the table until the preliminary hearing. After that, we go to trial. Believe me, this deal is in everyone's best interests.'
'Including yours? Is that what Ed Fiora told you?'
Campbell's face purpled, his eyes narrowing. Ortiz jumped in before he could answer.
'You're way out of line!'
'We'll see. In the meantime, be careful you don't step in your boss's shit bucket.'
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Twenty minutes later Mason was in a visitor's room at the county jail with Blues.
'They found your fingerprints in Cullan's study. On his desk.'
Blues showed no emotion. He didn't curse and he didn't deny.
'Did you hear what I said? Patrick Ortiz told me they found your fingerprints. They can put you in Cullan's house the night he was killed.'
'I wasn't there.'
