asked.
'Nix said he shouldn't have come after you, that he should have left you out of it and the cops would have left them alone.'
'What did Centurion say?'
'That's the part I didn't understand,' Abby said. 'Centurion said he would have done it even if you hadn't caused him so much trouble. He said it was payback for someone else.'
'Payback for someone else?' Mason asked.
Abby sipped her tea slowly. 'Centurion said he was doing it for someone else that owed you big-time. Nix said that Centurion wasn't paid enough to risk their entire operation. Centurion said he didn't have a choice. Then you blew up the barn.'
Mason tugged at the stubble on his chin, finally understanding why the car-jackers showed no interest when he told them about the baby ledger. They were just supposed to kill him. He searched his memory for someone who not only wanted him dead, but also had the money and means to convince Centurion to do it. Before he could match anyone to those exclusive criteria, Tuffy shimmied through the dog door, rubbing herself against Abby, shoving her nose into Mason's thigh, feinting toward the back door with a grab-the-leashand-let's-hit-the-road stutter step.
'You're lucky the dog lets you live here,' Abby said.
'We have an understanding,' Mason said. 'I provide the food and she makes sure I get enough exercise.'
'You better let her take you on a walk. I've got to go home and clean up. Showering with you is too distracting.'
'I've got to catch up with Mickey, Harry, and Blues. I'll call you later. Stay busy. It's harder when you're alone with nothing to do.'
Abby kissed him. 'I can do alone,' she said, patting him on the chest. 'But it's nice not to have to.'
Mason took Tuffy for a spin in Loose Park, tracking down Blues with his cell phone.
'What have the Hacketts been up to?' Mason asked Blues.
'Harry and I met down the block from the Hacketts' house last night after Mickey called us. We watched the house for a couple of hours. They had a steady stream of visitors until about ten o'clock. People dropping by like somebody died.'
'Two somebodies died,' Mason said. 'Centurion and Nix.'
'Heard it on the news while I was sitting in my car peeing into a bottle with your name on it,' Blues said. 'Somebody in the Hacketts' house turned on a television. Big screen. I could see it from the street. They were watching the live reports from Sanctuary. Did you start that fire?'
'Got into the habit playing with matches when I was a kid. What happened after the news was over?'
'Company left. Then things got interesting. Arthur Hackett went for a drive. Harry and I flipped a coin and Harry got the old man. A few minutes later, Carol Hackett left, and I followed her. Arthur paid a visit to Paula Sutton and Carol got some late night legal advice from David Evans.'
Mason stopped in his tracks, forcing Tuffy onto her haunches, straining to reach a squirrel. 'Anybody have a sleep-over?'
'Nope. It didn't look like that kind of a visit to me. Harry said the same thing.'
'Do you think Arthur knew that Carol went out too?'
'Hard to say. She got home before he did. If she didn't tell him, he wouldn't have known she was gone. Any idea what's going on?'
'It's coming together,' Mason said, telling Blues what Roy Bowen had found out.
'You still have a pretty big hole in your story, you know that,' Blues said.
'Yeah, the son. Trent doesn't fit into any of this. Neither does this,' Mason added. 'Centurion didn't set me up to be car-jacked and whacked because I was shining the light on his operation. Somebody paid him to do it.'
'Who hates you that much?' Blues asked. 'All the rich people you pissed off are in jail.'
'Hard to imagine, isn't it,' Mason answered. 'Jimmie Camaya is the only person I can come up with who kills people to get even. Last time I saw him, we were buddies.'
'Jimmie wanted you dead, he'd do it himself and make sure you knew it was him. So, it isn't him. Besides, Jimmie is a businessman and he's got no business with you since your old law firm ate itself alive.'
'Then I'm back where I started. Which is no place.'
'I'll tell you one thing,' Blues said.
'Is this where you make me feel better?' Mason asked.
'Since you aren't dead and Centurion is, you better keep your head up and your eyes open or go home and lock your doors. What's it going to be?'
'House calls, but not at my house,' Mason said, giving Blues his itinerary.
'I get overtime on weekends, you know that,' Blues said.
'I've got to stay alive for you to get paid, you know that, don't you?'
'That's what makes me so good at what I do. You owe me too much money for me to let you get killed.'
'Good,' Mason said. 'I'd rather owe you than cheat you out of it.'
Chapter 36
Things don't always work out. Mason knew that, had been raised on it, and had made a living because of it. People plan, pray, and connive and, still, things don't always work out. The brutal truth, Claire told him when he was ten and came home from the roller rink with a bloody nose, is that things generally don't work out, at least not the way people intend. Life is more ad-libbed than scripted, people more reactive than proactive, trouble more easily found than avoided.
That's the daily dynamic. People manage. The chaos takes on its own unpredictable charm. At the end of the line, most people shrug and say their lives could have been better, could have been worse, that they have no complaints that count and who would listen anyway.
That's most people. Mason knew that killers were different, whether they were thoughtful, vengeful, or impulsive, jealous, psychotic, or greedy. They demanded order, accountability, and control they imposed through the death of others. They did what they had to do or couldn't keep from doing. Just ask them. But tighten the circle around a killer and learn the meaning of nothing left to lose.
Mason had not come to this moment in his life by design, proving again that his aunt was right. He had migrated from a small plaintiff's personal injury law firm to a big corporate firm, then to solo practice, always looking for an elusive something he was certain he would find at the next stop. Claire had warned him each time that he wouldn't find what he was looking for in a place. He'd find it in himself.
What he found was completely unexpected. He could kill a man and cloak it in pop-psychology bromides. He could risk his life without worrying whether he was responding to a heroic imperative or whether he was just too stupid to live. It wasn't only about the law, or justice, or taking the bad guys down. It was about the jolt, the rush of diving into dark water and coming out on the other side alive.
Sitting in his car outside Paula Sutton's apartment late on Saturday afternoon, the battle at Sanctuary still fresh in his mind, he wondered when taking the dive had become the reason for taking the dive. A gathering chill crept into the car, the sky a slag heap of scrap-metal gray, its broken edges rusted by the failing sun, giving him a different jolt, one that drained the courage he lived on. He was sliding fast toward the hazy ground where rationalization made anything possible and everything right, where strong arms blurred with strong wills, where men killed because they could. It was a world Blues navigated without losing his soul, a dead reckoning Mason wasn't certain he possessed.
Looking at his image in the rearview mirror, he promised himself that this day, this case would be the last of it, knowing that his promise was more for Abby than for him. She had killed a man, though he didn't mourn Centurion. He felt responsible, not for Centurion's death, but for putting her in that moment when she had to kill one man to save another. He wouldn't let her follow his path. He needed her to retreat from his.
It was this new calculus, factoring love against loss, that scared him, that could cause a fatal hesitation, fulfilling the prophecy. Swallowing against the dryness in his throat, he stepped out of his car, glancing around for Blues, not finding him or expecting to, knowing that Blues worked best from the shadows.
