CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
Mason found the men's room, bent over a sink, and splashed his face with cold water until his skin stung. He wiped his face with paper towels, scrubbing at invisible stains. He challenged his image in the mirror for an explanation but found no answers in his own bewilderment.
He had wasted more than an expensive favor. Fiora hadn't gone through the prosecutor's office. He'd gone straight to Judge Carter, and now Mason had wasted her career, laid her bare to whatever hold Fiora had on her. If he didn't find a way to unring this bell, he would have wasted his own career as well.
At least Blues would be out of jail in a few hours and together they could try to find a way out of the wilderness. Mason found a room reserved for lawyers to meet with their witnesses, locked the door, and called Mickey, unable to stop the flutter in his voice.
'The judge ordered Blues released on bail.'
'You want me to cancel the e-mail to Rachel Firestone?'
'Immediately. Copy Fiora's bank records on two different flash drives. I've got a safe-deposit box at City Bank. The key is in the top drawer of my desk. Put the drives in the box. I'll call the bank and tell them that you are coming over to use the box. Then wait for me at the office.'
'What are you going to do?'
'Arrange for the bail and wait for them to process Blues's release.'
'You don't sound so good, boss. You okay?'
'Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just trying to figure out the part where Jupiter crushes the Titans.'
'Don't forget your wingman, boss. You don't have to go it alone.'
Mason paused, realizing Mickey was right about that. He didn't have to go it alone, but he didn't want to take anyone else down with him.
'Thanks. I'll talk to you later.'
Mason's next call was to Carlos Guiterriz, his favorite bail bondsman. Carlos ran a one-man shop and took it personally when the prosecutor's office opposed bond for a defendant, claiming they were conspiring against him in his effort to support three ex-wives and five children.
'Guiterriz Bail Bonds,' he said when Mason called.
'Carlos, it's Lou Mason. I need a bond for a quarter of million this morning. Can you do that?'
'Who's it for?'
'Wilson Bluestone, Jr., and let's keep it our secret. The press will pick it up soon enough.'
'Holy shit, Lou! That is too sweet! How in the hell did you swing that?'
Mason had anticipated the question and knew that Carlos would repeat the answer a hundred times before the day was out.
'Judge Carter ordered the bail. She said she'd granted bail to other defendants in cases like Blues and that she wouldn't treat him any differently.'
'I'll bet that tight-ass Patrick Ortiz shit sideways!'
'It was a thing of wonder.' Guiterriz's enthusiasm took the rough edge off Mason's mood. 'Blues will put up his bar as collateral, and I've got stocks worth fifty thousand bucks if you need more than that. Get the bond to the courthouse right away.'
Guiterriz laughed loudly enough that Mason had to hold his phone away from his ear. 'A thing of wonder,' he quoted Mason when he stopped laughing. 'I would have put up the bond myself to see Ortiz take it in the shorts like that. Give me an hour.'
Mason wandered downstairs to the first-floor lobby of the courthouse, undecided how to kill time until Guiterriz showed up. He stood at the glass doors that fronted Twelfth Street and watched pedestrians and drivers fight to keep their balance as a new coating of ice descended on the city.
City hall was across the street. Mason hadn't heard from Amy White since their meeting in the parking lot of the Hyatt Hotel. If Carl Zimmerman had been keeping her informed about the status of the homicide investigation, she might know something about Zimmerman's whereabouts the night Shirley Parker was killed.
Clutching his topcoat around his collar, Mason made the crossing from the courthouse to city hall, shook the ice from his shoulders, and rode the elevator to the twenty-ninth floor in the hope that he would catch Amy in her office, finding her waiting for the elevator when it opened on her floor. She stepped onto the elevator and pushed the button for the first floor.
'Perfect timing,' Mason told her as he kept his finger on the button to open the elevator door. 'I hoped that I would catch you in the office.'
'Lousy timing. Whatever it is, I don't have time unless you have a hundred thousand tons of salt and a fleet of trucks to spread it. The weather service says we're going to get two inches of ice and ten inches of snow in the next twelve hours.'
'I need to talk with you about something. It's important.'
'What is it?'
'Carl Zimmerman.'
Amy's mouth tightened as if a sudden pain had struck her. 'You've got as long as the elevator takes to get downstairs.'
Mason punched the buttons for all twenty-eight floors. 'This may take a while,' he said.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
Mason and Amy eyed each other as the ancient elevator lurched to a halt at each of the next three floors. Amy broke off their eye contact with a nervous glance at her watch. The illuminated buttons on the elevator panel promised another twenty-five sea-sickening stops. Mason waited for Amy to speak first and set the course for his questions. The door opened on the twenty-fifth floor. Amy took a step toward the open door when Mason blocked her path.
'I'm getting off,' she insisted.
'Nope. A deal is a deal. All the questions I can ask until we hit bottom.'
Mason pushed the button to close the elevator door.
'Okay, fine,' she said without meaning either. 'What about Carl Zimmerman?'
'You know him?'
'He's a cop. Good enough?'
'Easy, Amy. How much snow can fall before we finish stopping at the next twenty-four floors? How do you know that he's a cop?'
'The chief brought him to the mayor's office after Jack Cullan was found dead. He and another detective-I think the other one was named Harry Ryman-were investigating the case and the mayor wanted some answers. The chief told Zimmerman to keep me updated on the case.'
Mason listened, his silence prompting her to continue.
'You know all that already or you wouldn't be asking me,' she said. 'And you can't be so stupid to think I would lie about something you could so easily prove that I did know. So get to the point. You're running out of floors.'
A barely operable ceiling fan wheezed and sucked warm, greasy air from the elevator shaft into the elevator, filling the car with the metallic taste of friction-heated oil. The odor combined with each ball-bouncing stop, turning their ride into a stomach-churning descent. Amy took off her knee-length navy wool coat and Burberry scarf and unbuttoned the high-necked collar of her dress. Her face was taking on a pasty, alien hue. Mason couldn't tell if her suddenly green-gilled complexion was due to their rocky ride or his questions.
'When was the last time he checked in with you?'
'I didn't log him into my PalmPilot. What difference does it make?'
