Final Judgment

by Joel Goldman

  He kept tabs on Lari throughout the evening but still maintained a passable line of small talk with the accountant sitting on one side of him while avoiding eye contact with Abby. Dessert was served at ten o’clock, the speeches moments away. Lari stood and looked directly at him as if she’d been watching him the entire evening as well.

  “Is that her?” Abby asked.

  “Who?”

  “The woman who just gave you that look. Is she the lawyer you were talking with earlier?”

  “I didn’t realize you were paying such close attention.”

  “Since you’ve hardly spoken to me all evening, I’ve got to pay attention. What’s eating you?”

  Mason pushed back from table, dipping his chin, keeping his voice low. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on between you and Seeley ...”

  “Nothing’s going on!”

  Mason nodded, trying to read her, afraid that he couldn’t. “I’m sorry. I’ve got to go. You’ll have to take a cab home,” he said, getting up.

  She stood next to him, taking his hand. “Will you call me?”

  He squeezed her hand and let go without answering.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Mason pulled Lari Prillman’s business card from his pocket, pleased that her office was in one of the Crown Center high-rises. He could walk there, maybe even get back before the speeches were over and sort things out with Abby.

  Lari was waiting for him outside the ballroom, a fur coat slung over one arm. She held it out to him so he could help her put it on. It was a polite gesture he couldn’t refuse and a subtle reminder that this was her show, not his.

  “I hope I didn’t disrupt your evening,” she said as they walked outside, the air sharp, the afternoon warmth an uncertain memory, distant stars lost in a fog of ground light.

  “Not at all.”

  “Your friend didn’t look too happy to see you go.”

  Mason let out an exasperated breath, the cold crystallizing, then vaporizing his frustration. “How do women do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “I told the woman I was with—her name is Abby—that I’d talked with a lawyer, a woman lawyer, earlier in the evening about a case. She saw you stand up and look at me, and she knows you were the woman. You take one look at her and tell me she isn’t happy.”

  Lari laughed. “Women pay attention to things men don’t.”

  “Like what?”

  “The way a man looks at a woman or tries not to look at her; the way a man talks to a woman or avoids talking to her.”

  “You were paying attention, weren’t you?”

  “I pay attention to everything. That’s why I’m letting you look at my files. I’ll be surprised if I’ve missed something important. If I did, I’d rather know now than after the police have their look.”

  Her office was on the twenty-ninth floor, the name of her firm—Prillman & Associates—scripted in gold leaf on the double glass doors. She knelt to unlock the dead bolt at the base of the door. She steadied herself with one hand on the glass, nearly falling over when the door gave way before she could insert the key into the lock. Mason grabbed her by the shoulder, helping her steady herself. They stepped inside, stopping at the reception desk, listening to the silence.

  “One of your associates working late?” Mason asked her.

  “Not unless we’re in trial, and we aren’t.”

  “Do you have an alarm?”

  She shook her head. “The building is secure. You have to sign in after hours and you can’t get to our floor without knowing the security code for the elevator.”

  “Maybe the last one to leave the office today forgot to lock the door.”

  “That was me and I didn’t forget.”

  “How much space do you have?”

  “Four attorney offices. Mine is the corner office at the back. Two paralegal offices, secretarial stations, filing room, and kitchen. About twenty-five hundred square feet altogether.”

  “Room to roam. Let’s call the security desk. Have them send someone up before we go wandering around.”

  Lari frowned, pushed out her lower lip, and patted him on the cheek. “Don’t worry. If some creep is snooping around my office, he’s going to find my shoe up his ass.”

  She dropped her fur over the back of a chair, marched past the reception desk, flipping light switches as she went. Mason glanced at the receptionist’s phone, his attention drawn by a blinking light indicating one of the lines was in use. The light blinked off.

  He caught up to Lari as she was halfway down the hall, pulled her to his side, and held a finger to her lips. She opened her mouth in protest and he covered it with his hand.

  “Don’t make a sound,” he whispered, biting off the words, leaving no room for argument. “Someone is back there. They were using a phone and hung up when they heard us.”

  The lights she had turned on suddenly went off, plunging the corridor into darkness. The doors to the lawyers’ offices were closed, shutting out any exterior light. The entrance to the file room was directly across from them, a black abyss.

  A red pinprick of light bounced off Lari’s forehead. Mason heard the muffled spit of a silencer as he yanked her to the floor in the same instant a bullet exploded above them, shards of drywall stinging their eyes.

  Mason lay on top of her, his mind racing with their limited options. He raised his head to gauge the distance to the front door. Another bullet whizzed past his head, flattening him against her. Either the shooter was wearing night vision goggles or he was taking random shots. Mason lay perfectly still, trying to shrink the target. Lari didn’t move, though he could feel her chest slamming against his, her hands balled against his sides.

  Lari wasn’t dressed for running, especially in a crouch while trying to evade gunfire. The shooter would assume they would run for the door and lay down fire in the hallway. It wouldn’t take long to find them if they hid in one of the offices, and twenty-nine floors was a long way down even if he could break a window. That left the file room, which would also be a trap unless it had another entrance he could use to get behind the shooter. Even if he could somehow do that, he had a better chance playing blindman’s bluff than taking out a killer with night vision.

  With Mason shielding Lari’s body as best he could, they snaked into the file room, the smooth linoleum floor easing their passage. He felt for an aisle between two rows of shelves. She belly crawled ahead of him, crouching at the end of the row. He knelt next to her, their eyes adjusted to the darkness enough that they could make out each other’s faces. He touched her cheek and she held his wrist, her grip firm.

  Mason heard footsteps trot down the hall, stopping where they had entered the file room. He couldn’t find another way out without giving himself away. They were trapped at the end of the aisle.

  He couldn’t judge the line of sight from the hallway to their hiding place, but he could hear someone breathing; slow, steady, and controlled. A red beam danced overhead, methodically dissecting the rows of files, searching for them. They pressed themselves against the cool tile, desperate to blend into the darkness. The beam angled to the floor, fixing on a point inches from them. Mason spread himself across Lari, sweat running in his eyes, waiting for it to find them and the bullets that would follow, not moving, hating even to breathe.

  Minutes passed before Mason realized the breathing and footsteps had disappeared from the hallway. He slid a thin file off the shelf and edged it toward the beam, deflecting the light without getting shot. He raised the file in the air, slowly waving it back and forth, tossing it to the floor with the realization of what had happened. The shooter had herded them into the file room so that he could pin them down and escape. The beam that had paralyzed them was probably from a laser pointer left behind, tying them up more securely than a square knot.

  “Where’s the fuse box?” Mason asked.

  “Inside a utility closet at the far end of the hall.”

  He found the laser pointer wedged betw
een files on a nearby shelf, leaving it alone in the unlikely event it carried the shooter’s fingerprints. He found the hallway, turned to his right, and felt his way along the wall. Once inside the utility closet, he fumbled with the circuit breakers until he found the right one, shuddering with relief when the lights came back on.

  He ran back to the file room, nearly colliding with Lari as she made her way toward her office, ducking past her and continuing on to the front door. He relocked the dead bolt and did a slow circuit of all the offices. They were alone. He found Lari sitting behind her desk, an open bottle of scotch in her lap.

  “It’s okay,” Mason said. “He’s gone.”

  “I thought we were going to die.”

  “It was our lucky day. He just wanted to get out of here without getting caught. He shot at us to force us into the file room and out of the way, not to kill us.”

  “Well,” she said, hoisting the bottle to her lips and taking a drink. “He succeeded admirably.”

  Mason looked around. Her office, like the rest of the offices, appeared untouched. Nothing had been ransacked, no papers tossed like confetti in a wild search for something special. The computers hummed, unharmed and unhacked.

  “We must have surprised him before he could find whatever he was looking for.”

  Lari set the bottle on her desk and stood, hands on hips. She was a bit unsteady, whether from fear or booze, Mason couldn’t tell. She straightened her dress, walked across her office, and took down a painting that hid a wall safe. She spun the lock to the right, then to the left, and then back to the right. The door swung open. The small vault was empty.

  “I wouldn’t be so certain,” she said.

  THIRTY-SIX

  “What was in the safe?”

  Lari shook her head, moving slowly back to her desk, picking up the bottle of scotch as she sat down, cradling it to her bosom. “I don’t know.”

  Mason leaned over her, one hand on her bare shoulder, the other on the scotch. He gently pried her fingers from the neck of the bottle, setting it on the desk out of her reach. Her skin was warm. She leaned her cheek against his hand. She was used to fighting battles with different rules of engagement. No wounds were mortal and money forgave all sins. No one had ever shot at her.

  “Stick with me, Lari. Whoever did this is gone. If he took something from your safe, you’ve got to tell me what it was.”

  There was a framed photograph on her desk of two teenage girls, faces full of promise. She picked it up, caressing the images.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Does anyone else have the combination to the safe?”

  “I’m the only one.”

  He took the photograph from her and swiveled her chair hard around toward him, leaning in close again. “Then how could you not know what was in the safe?”

  She closed her eyes, summoning her courtroom muscle. She opened them with a glare that backed him off. Mason retreated, relieved at her recovery.

  “A client,” she began, hesitating as she assembled her answer, “gave me something to keep in my safe. I wasn’t told what it was.”

  “You didn’t ask?”

  “I only asked whether it was anything illegal, like drugs. I was assured that it wasn’t so I agreed to store it.”

  “Who was the client? Someone at Galaxy?”

  Lari folded her arms across her chest. “You know better than to ask.”

  “You’ll have to tell the cops. You might as well tell me.”

  “Who says the police have to know anything about this?”

  Mason pointed down the hall from her office. “Someone broke in here, shot at you, and stole something belonging to your client and you’re not going to report it to the police?”

  “If my client instructs me to file a burglary report, I will, though I doubt that will happen. If my client didn’t want me to know what was in my safe, I don’t expect my client will want the police to know either. As for the burglary, I’ll get a better lock. Maybe an alarm system as you suggested.”

  Mason sighed in surrender. “Have it your way. What about your files on Rockley and Keegan? I might as well have a look as long as I’m here.”

  She stood, still rocky but regaining command. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  Mason waited, taking in the view from the twenty-ninth floor. A long line of cars poured out of the Westin’s parking garage. The party was over. Cabs waited in front of the hotel. Mason pressed against the glass, wondering which one Abby was in.

  Lari returned with two manila folders, one labeled Rockley, Charles and the other Keegan, Johnny. The name of the case to which the files belonged was printed on the side of the folders—Hill v. Galaxy Gaming, Inc. She handed them to Mason, reclaiming her desk chair while he paced and skimmed the files.

  Keegan’s file was thin enough to slide under the door. It contained an employment application and two performance reviews covering the year he’d been employed at Galaxy. The details were bland. Keegan was a single, thirty-five-year-old high school graduate who’d been born in San Diego, worked his way east in a succession of bartending jobs until he landed in Kansas City. Now he was dead and there was nothing in his file that explained why or a hint of anyone who would care to know. He even left unanswered the question on his application of who to contact in the event of an emergency.

  Rockley’s file was no more illuminating, especially since he’d already seen what was in it. He took his time reviewing the meager pages so as not to raise any questions in Lari’s mind.

  He was more impressed by what wasn’t in the files than what was. There were no attorney notes, no cross-examination outlines, no cross-references to important documents or the testimony of other witnesses. The files were too clean. She had sanitized them for his review, showing him something without giving him anything. He handed the files back to her and decided to compare her view of the case to Vince Bongiovanni’s.

  “Ninety-five percent of all lawsuits settle,” Mason said. “Why didn’t this one?”

  Lari shrugged. “It should have. The case is a push. Classic he-said, she-said. The woman usually gets the benefit of the doubt, which means my clients usually pay. Bongiovanni refused to negotiate. Said it was personal. I get paid either way, so we went to trial.”

  “Ed Fiori was Bongiovanni’s and Carol’s uncle. He told me that Galaxy screwed Fiori’s estate when they bought the casino. I guess he saw Carol’s case as a chance to get even.”

  “That’s what he told me too. I could care less. It doesn’t get personal for me. So,” she asked, pointing to the personnel files, “who did it?”

  “The way you sanitized these files they don’t tell me anything. Let me see the stuff you pulled out and the rest of the files on Galaxy, and I may be able to tell you.”

  “It would be easier if I just gave you my law license and all my money instead. That’s what Galaxy will want if I violate their attorney-client privilege.”

  “Beats the hell out of a bullet in the head and a burial in the trunk of a car.”

  “I told you. No one at Galaxy knows anything about Rockley and your client. Either your client killed Rockley or he’s a victim of circumstance.”

  “You came within inches of being a victim of circumstance tonight. Next time may be different. The girls in that photograph will be proud to know that you died protecting the attorney-client privilege.”

  Color flared in her cheeks. She pointed to the photograph, then swung her finger at him. “My daughters know the battles I’ve fought to get where I am. Their father walked out on us when they were little. They understand what it’s like for a woman alone.”

  “Trust me,” Mason said, sitting on the edge of her desk, towering over her. “They won’t understand murder. Nobody does when it takes someone they love. Tell me what was in your safe.”

  Lari rose and brushed past him. She inspected the safe once more, reconfirming that the combination still worked. She ran her hand over the inside of the vault, erasing
any doubt that she had been robbed. She looked at Mason, her face pale and quivering, her courtroom bravado evaporated.

  He handed her the photograph of her daughters. Lari snapped it out of his hand, hiding it beneath her arms as she hugged her sides. She squeezed her eyes shut, cringing as if a bullet had found her, turning her head so he wouldn’t see that a tear had escaped her defenses. He put a hand on her shoulder, but she shook it off, stepping around him and gently setting the picture back on her desk, her back to him. She took a deep breath, her eyes still on her daughters.

  “A CD. I don’t know what was on it. I never listened to it.”

  A cold chill flooded Mason’s gut. “How do you know it was a recording and not data or copies of documents?”

  “I don’t, really. I just got that impression from my client. He called it a one-hit wonder.”

  Lari had been careful up to that point to refer to her client without even a gender reference. Corporate clients don’t have a gender. Lawyers typically refer to the person they deal with at the company as their client.

  Mason put his hand on her shoulder again. This time she didn’t object, leaning against him for support.

  “Tell me his name. I need something to work with. Just a name.”

  She picked up the photograph of her daughters again, cradling it in her hands. “Al Webb.”

  “When did he give it to you?”

  She turned to him, close enough that he could smell the perfume on her neck and the scotch on her breath.

  “During the hearing on Carol Hill’s case. He said he’d call me if he needed it. It hasn’t been out of the safe since then.”

  “Don’t tell him about the robbery or the shooting.”

  “I have to tell him. The CD belongs to him.”

  “Maybe not. Call me if he asks for it. We’ll figure out what to do then.”

  “I can’t do that,” she said. “He’s my client. He gave me that CD for safekeeping.”

  “He gave it to you to hide it and you almost got killed for your trouble. You can’t charge enough for that kind of work. Besides, I don’t think he’ll ask for it before the end of next week. I may have this figured out by then.”