Lou Mason Mystery 03-Cold Truth

by Joel Goldman

  The Caprice turned north a couple of miles east of downtown, following a maze of side streets and alleys until the only thing Mason was certain of was that he wasn't in Kansas anymore. The neighborhood had its own measure of darkness, devoid of streetlights and porch lights, illuminated only by passing headlights. The few houses Mason could make out had barred or boarded doors, overgrown yards, and no candles in the windows.

  The Caprice pulled to a curb in the middle of a blacked-out street, Mason easing to a stop behind him, his passenger sitting up, tightening the grip on his gun. The driver of the Caprice walked toward Mason, a gun in one hand, his other hand behind his back, hiding something worse than the gun.

  Mason tallied his odds. His passenger was too far away to jump without getting a bullet for his trouble. The driver was three steps away, close enough for a fatal shot. Mason squeezed the steering wheel, screaming inside at the futility of dying without trying, smelling his own sweat.

  The passenger lunged at Mason as his partner reached the TR-6, jamming the barrel of his gun under Mason's chin. "Hold real still," he said, blowing dope breath in Mason's mouth. The driver stuck his gun in his belt, showing Mason the black bag he'd been hiding behind his back, shaking the bag open, pulling it over Mason's head, clotting his vision.

  The bag reeked of a medicinal scent. Mason gasped and gagged, the rough fabric against his face. His sweat turned cold as a suffocating panic swept over him. He tore at the bag, trying to rip it from his face, the dark water taking him.

  ***

  Consciousness came in painful pieces. Voices floated overhead, out of reach. Mason wanted to move, but couldn't, his head too heavy, his body too weak. Someone was playing a drum, he thought, until he recognized the internal percussion throbbing between his ears. Movement came to his arms and legs, whether by his own effort or others he couldn't tell, still struggling to open his eyes. Blinking at last in the dim light of a squalid room, knocked back by the stench of foul, dead air, he found the floor with his hands, then a wall behind him, then a hazy face in front of him.

  "You not dead," the face said.

  "Too early to tell," Mason said. "Where am I?"

  The face came into focus. It belonged to a boy sitting cross-legged on the floor, his round black face faintly familiar. "My room," the boy said.

  "Are you dead?" Mason asked.

  "Not yet," the boy said.

  "Then I guess I'm not dead yet either."

  Mason looked around, getting his bearings. The room was small, barely big enough for the mattress on the floor, a dresser missing its top drawer in one corner, a pile of dirty clothes in another, a poster of Shaq and Kobe on one wall, crumbling Sheetrock and exposed wiring on another. Black plastic trash bags were tacked around a window, shutting out the light that crept around the edges, catching dust mites.

  "You got a name?" Mason asked the boy.

  "Donnell," the boy answered.

  "You got a bathroom, Donnell?"

  The boy smiled. "You're funny," he said, offering Mason his hand, helping Mason to his feet. "Come on."

  The bathroom was in a hall outside Donnell's bedroom. There was a mirror above the sink with fluorescent lights on each side, the left side burnt out, the right side flickering like a gray candle. Donnell stood in the doorway, gazing up at Mason with unblinking eyes as if he'd made a grand discovery, finding a white man dead on the floor in his bedroom, miraculously resurrected.

  "Give me a minute," Mason told the boy, closing the door. He wasn't surprised when the toilet didn't flush or when the water ran from the sink faucet with a rusty hue. It was enough to be alive, even if he didn't know why. It was enough to be in Donnell's house, even if he didn't know where it was. And it was oddly comforting that the boy was familiar to him, even if he couldn't place him. He opened the bathroom door, pleased that Donnell was waiting for him.

  "Donnell, are there any other grown-ups here?" Donnell nodded. "Where are they?" Donnell pointed down the stairs at the end of the narrow hall. "How many?" Donnell shrugged. "You forget how to talk?" Donnell shook his head, giggling. The door to another bedroom opened and a stick-thin black woman called to the boy.

  "Donnell, what you doin'? Get outta this hall!"

  She grabbed the boy by the collar and dragged him back to his room, closing the door behind him. She leaned against the door, one hand on the knob, exhausted by the effort. A thin black dress, shapeless against her bony frame, hung on her like a sheet on a clothesline. Her eyes were dull, but Mason caught something in her look, the same familiarity he'd seen in the boy.

  "Varonda? Is that you?" Mason asked.

  "I didn't think you'd remember me," she said. "Be better if you forgot."

  "It hasn't been that long," Mason said. "What, nine, ten months? You were charged with possession with the intent to sell. I got you into a diversion program. Donnell was in court with you. That's why I recognized him."

  "He's a good boy, but he don't mind me like he should."

  "It's hard for a kid to stay in a dark room. Why does he have to stay in there?"

  "Only safe place in a crack house like this," she said, looking over Mason's shoulder.

  Mason heard footsteps on the stairs as she spoke. He turned in time to see the passenger from the Caprice standing at the top of the stairs, his gun pointed at him again.

  "Thought you was never wakin' up," the man said.

  "Was I supposed to?" Mason asked.

  "Don't matter to me," the man said. "Varonda, you know him?"

  "He was my lawyer. Got me into that diversion program."

  The man laughed. "You done got diverted all right, girl. Straight back to the fuckin' street sellin' your ass for a rock."

  Mason remembered Varonda. She carried twenty more pounds and a glimmer of hope when he negotiated the diversion deal. She was on the edge then, having spent time on the street, but not too much time to get off. Since then, she'd gone back, hustling for crack, wasting her body until there was little left to hold or hustle.

  "Fuck you, Tyrone," she said, joining Donnell in his room, shutting out the rest of the world as she slammed the door.

  "So, Tyrone, what do you say you and me go out to the ballpark and catch the Royals," Mason said.

  "Only thing you gonna catch is this," Tyrone said, waving his gun at Mason.

  "If you were going to shoot me, you would have done that last night," Mason said. "Tell Centurion I want to talk to him. We'll work something out."

  "Don't know no Centurion," Tyrone said.

  "Fine. You don't know him. I do. Give me a phone and I'll call him."

  "Don't got no phone and you ain't callin' nobody. Get your ass on downstairs," he said, motioning Mason to go first.

  The driver of the Caprice waited at the bottom of the stairs, leading Mason like a slow-moving target with a shotgun wedged under his arm, aiming Mason toward a straight-backed chair in the middle of the front room. A couch littered with remnants of fast food was shoved against the wall opposite a wide picture window covered with a slender sheet of plywood. A whiskey-colored, shorthaired mutt, its ribs riding hard against its skin, burrowed its nose into the cushions, digging for a meal.

  Tyrone grabbed a roll of duct tape and a length of rope from the couch, the dog snapping at him.

  "Tyrone," the driver said, "quit playin' with that dog. We don't got all day."

  "Easy, Richie," Tyrone said to the driver. "I ain't playin' with your dog. That bitch is a killer."

  "Just smack that dog, it bites you. That's the way I trained it," Richie said, pointing the shotgun at the dog. Mason took advantage, wheeling, grabbing the shotgun. Richie rammed the barrel into Mason's gut, breaking Mason's hold. "Settle down, man!" Richie said. "You're gonna get all this you can handle soon enough," he added, prodding Mason with the shotgun, backing him into the chair. Tyrone clamped Mason by the shoulder, planting him on the seat. At least, Mason thought, he knew their names.

  "Tyrone, Richie," Mason said as Tyrone looped the rope
around his ankles and the legs of the chair, binding his upper arms at his sides with duct tape, his hands free but helpless. "Give me a clue here. You want something. You need something. Tell me what it is and we'll work it out."

  They didn't answer. Tyrone disappeared while Richie kept the shotgun a dismembering distance from Mason's chest.

  "Fellas, be reasonable," Mason said, fighting to keep his voice a notch below pleading. They had to want something, and he was ready to give it to them if they would only tell him what it was. It was hard to bargain with people who acted like they didn't hear you. "Tell Centurion that I don't care what he's doing at Sanctuary. It's none of my business."

  Tyrone came back carrying a can of sterno, a bag of white powder, a syringe, and a lighter. He tapped out a measure of powder into a small cup made of tinfoil, added a liquid from a plastic tube in his shirt pocket, and stirred the mixture with his finger. Setting the tinfoil on a three-legged stand, he lit the sterno, slipping the flame beneath the tin foil.

  "Hey, guys. Get real," Mason said, seeing his future in the barrel of the syringe, not the barrel of the shotgun.

  Tyrone peeled off another strip of duct tape, grabbed Mason's left wrist, taping it to the side of the chair, flicking the large vein in the center of Mason's arm, rubbing the surrounding skin and raising the vein to the surface like a swollen blue ribbon. Tyrone dipped the syringe in the tinfoil, and drew the plunger back, filling the barrel, squirting a drop onto the floor to be certain the needle was ready.

  Mason lunged, bucking the chair into Tyrone. "Goddammit! Give me a chance! It's the ledger! I made a copy. I'll get it for you."

  It was all Mason could think of, but they ignored him, going about the business of killing him without threat or explanation. Tyrone tore off another piece of masking tape, trying to press it against Mason's mouth as Mason spat at him, whiplashing his head to avoid Tyrone's grasp.

  The dog bounded off the sofa, nipping at Tyrone. Tyrone cursed and swiped at the dog as Mason bucked one more time, knocking the chair over. The dog was straddling Mason, Richie grabbing it by the scruff of the neck, escalating the game from dog play to dogfight as the mutt bit Richie's hand, drawing blood and fury. Tyrone was laughing, a giddy screech.

  Richie clubbed the dog with the butt of the shotgun. The dog yelped, springing at Richie's trigger hand, the shotgun errupting, catching Tyrone in the gut, blowing him onto the couch, dropping the loaded syringe next to Mason. Richie howled as the dog kept ripping his hand. When he dropped the shotgun, Mason scooted to pick it up, cradling it in the crook of his arm, aiming at Richie.

  "Get out or I'll kill you!" Mason shouted. Richie finally broke the dog's grip, clutching his ruined hand to his belly. "Run while you can!" Mason said.

  "Varonda!" Mason yelled. "It's okay. It's over. Help me! Varonda!"

  Varonda crept down the stairs, Donnell on her hip, hugging her waist. She tiptoed past the whimpering dog, spitting on Tyrone's body.

  Donnell sat down next to Mason. "You not dead yet," he said.

  Chapter 21

  "The practice of law is not about the pursuit of justice," a professor of Mason's once told him. "The practice of law is about the economic resolution of disputes. Justice is too elusive for mere mortals."

  Mason thought about his law professor's cynical admonition as he stood next to the open back end of an ambulance. A paramedic wiped blood and brains off him while two others carried Tyrone's body out of the house. Centurion's resolution of his dispute with Mason had run into another harsh reality of the marketplace. Good help is hard to find.

  Donnell was in a squad car, crying for his mother, who sat in another car, handcuffed and trembling. Mason couldn't tell if she was shaking because of the shooting or because she needed a rock. He knew it would be a long time before Donnell saw his mother again, longer still before he understood why.

  Samantha Greer came toward him from the house, stripping latex gloves from her hands. Two detectives offered her a preliminary report on the neighbors, and she dismissed them with a not-now wave, bearing down on Mason, who checked the inside of the ambulance for cover.

  She gave the thumb to the paramedic and pointed her forefinger at Mason like a switchblade. "Not one smart-ass remark, not one excuse, not one goddamn lie, or I'll tie you back up in that chair myself, so help me God, Lou!"

  "That doesn't leave me much room, does it?" Mason said.

  "Do not push me, Lou. I mean it!" she said. "I've got a dead body, a strung-out hooker, and a little boy using blood for finger paints. What in the hell are you mixed up in?"

  "What day is it?"

  A red tide rose in Samantha's face and she raised a hand, more to stop herself than him.

  "I'm not kidding," Mason said. "I don't know what day it is for sure."

  "It's Sunday, my day off, except when my ex-boyfriend gets a front-row seat at a homicide. How could you not know what day it is?"

  "I was on my way home last night when I was car-jacked. The dead guy's name is Tyrone. He and his partner, a white guy named Richie, grabbed me at 18th and Grand. They were driving a beat-up Caprice. Tyrone jumped in my car and made me follow the Caprice. They put a bag over my head that was laced with some kind of drug, and I was out until today. When I came around, they strapped me to the chair and were about to needle me to death. The dog saved my life."

  Samantha shook her head, hands on her hips. "Right. I suppose the dog's mother was Lassie."

  "I don't think this dog had a mother," Mason said. "Richie hit the dog with the butt of the shotgun and the dog attacked him. The shotgun went off and Tyrone took the hit. The dog was on Richie and when he dropped the shotgun, I was able to get it and Richie took off."

  "You were tied to a chair lying on your back!"

  "I'm a very good scooter when someone is trying to kill me," Mason said.

  "And I'm supposed to believe they picked you at random as part of a new urban sport?"

  "I don't know why they picked me. They didn't take my money. They didn't ask me for anything. They just did it."

  "Well, since they wouldn't tell you what they wanted, what did you tell them? You must have offered them something. No one, especially you, sits politely waiting to be called on while the bad boys are getting ready to kill you. You begged or bargained. What did you think they wanted?"

  Mason realized Samantha was right. They had interrogated him with silence, letting his fear of dying do the talking. "Best guess, they were working for Centurion Johnson. Jordan Hackett took something from Centurion. I gave it back, but I kept a copy. I told them I would give them the copy. Apparently, that wasn't good enough for Centurion."

  "Did you see Centurion Johnson during your escapade?"

  "No."

  "Did they mention his name?"

  "Actually, the only one who ever talked to me said he didn't know Centurion."

  "Why would they deny it if they were going to kill you? Isn't that when they tell you everything so you don't die of curiosity?"

  "Bad manners, I guess," Mason said.

  "What did Jordan take?"

  "A ledger book containing names, initials, dates, and amounts of money. I couldn't figure out what it meant."

  "Did Centurion tell you that's what she took from him?"

  Mason hit his first speed bump. "No, but that's what he wanted."

  "Who told you that?"

  "Terry Nix, the social worker at Sanctuary. I set the meeting up with Centurion for the downtown library. Nix showed up and I gave him the ledger. I was on my way home when they grabbed me."

  "Did Nix mention Centurion's name?"

  "No."

  "What did he say was in the ledger?"

  "The names of donors to Sanctuary," Mason answered, feeling the stupid stick whack him in the back of the head.

  "Let me get this straight, Lou. You gave Terry Nix a ledger of donors that Centurion Johnson didn't ask for, then you get car-jacked by two freaks that won't tell you why they are going to kill you and deny kno
wing Centurion Johnson. Then, when one of the freaks get dead, you want me to go arrest Centurion Johnson. Is that about it?"

  "Not good enough, huh?"

  "Duh!" she said, looking him over from head to toe, satisfying herself that he was still in one piece. "Throw away your clothes. Blood never comes out."

  "That's it? End of investigation?" Mason asked.

  "No, Lou. End of interrogation, beginning of investigation. You said you made a copy of the ledger. That's why they snatched you. I want the copy."

  "Well, yeah," Mason said, feeling a lot less clever. "But I offered to give it to them and they weren't interested."

  Samantha said, "If you're right about Centurion and the ledger, they were interested. Once you told them you had a copy, it was okay to kill you. Now Centurion will go after the copy and anyone else who has seen it. Care to give me a list?"

  "Mickey Shanahan has the only copy. I'll drop it off this afternoon."

  "You don't have a car, remember. I'll take you. Just tell me where."

  "Daphne's B&B," he told her.

  Samantha pursed her lips and nodded. "Perfect," she said. "Just perfect."

  Mason's body clock had kicked into a twilight time zone the moment Richie dropped the black bag over his head. Waiting for Samantha to finish buttoning up the murder scene, he tried to reset his clock beginning with the last time he'd eaten. At first, he thought that had been lunch the day before until he remembered that lunch had been a "soup sandwich" in the rain with Centurion. When he couldn't remember the meal or the menu, his stomach growled, telling him to skip the details and feed it now. When Samantha finally pointed him toward her car, he was a little wobbly. Dried blood and day-old sweat gave him a slaughterhouse aura.

  "You really should consider corporate law," Samantha told him as she lowered all the windows in her car and turned the air-conditioning on high. "It's easier on your wardrobe."

  "Lower class of clientele," Mason answered. "I'm starved. Drive through the first fast-food you find."

  "Why not. A dose of quarter-pounder breath will make you irresistible," Samantha said.