The Last witness

The story of Cullan's murder was two days old, but still front-page news. The reporter, Rachel Firestone, wrote that Cullan had been at the center of an investigation into the decision of the mayor and the Missouri Gaming Commission to approve a license for a riverboat casino called the Dream. The Dream had opened recently, docked on the Missouri River at the limestone landing where nineteenth-century fur traders had first thought to build the trading post that became Kansas City. Cullan's client, Edward Fiora, owned the Dream. Whispers that Cullan had secured the Dream's license with well-orchestrated bribes of Mayor Sunshine and of Beth Harrell, the chair of the Gaming Commission, had circulated like tabloid vapor, titillating but unproved. The reporter had dubbed the brewing scandal the "Nightmare on Dream Street."

Mason put the paper down to answer his phone. "Lou Mason," he said. When he'd first gone into solo practice, he'd answered the phone by saying, "Law Office," until one of his clients had asked to speak to Mr. Office.

"I need you downstairs," Blues said, and hung up.

Blues was Wilson Bluestone, Jr., Mason's landlord, private investigator, and more often than Mason would like, the one person Mason counted on to watch his back. Blues owned the bar on the first floor, Blues on Broadway. He never admitted to needing anything, so Mason took Blues's statement seriously.

Mason double-timed down the lavender carpeted hallway, past the art deco light fixtures spaced evenly on the wall between each office on the second floor. One office belonged to Blues, another to a PR flack, and a third to a CPA. They were all solo acts.

He bounded down the stairs at the end of the hall, bracing one hand on the wobbly rail, his feet just brushing the treads, making a final turn into the kitchen. The cold urgency in Blues's voice propelled him past the grill almost too fast to catch the greasy scent of the Reuben sandwiches cooked there the night before. A sudden burst of broken glass mixed with the crack of overturned furniture and the thick thud of a big man put down.

"Goddammit, Bluestone!" Harry Ryman shouted. Harry hated bars and Blues too much to pay an early morning social call, especially on a day that would freeze your teeth.

Mason picked up his pace, shoved aside the swinging door between the kitchen and the bar, and plunged into a frozen tableau on the edge of disaster. Blues stood in the middle of the room surrounded by Harry Ryman and another detective Mason recognized as Harry's partner, Carl Zimmerman, and a uniformed cop. The beat cop and Zimmerman were aiming their service revolvers at Blues's head. Another uniformed cop was on his knees next to a table lying on its side, surrounded by broken dishes, rubbing a growing welt on his cheek with one hand and holding a pair of handcuffs with the other.

Blues and Harry were squared off in front of each other, heavyweights waiting for the first bell. Harry's dead-eyed cop glare matched Blues's flat street stare. In a tale of the tape, it was hard to pick a favorite. Though half a foot shy of Blues's six-four, Harry had a solid, barreled girth that was tough to rock. Blues was chiseled, lithe, and deadly. Harry carried the cop-worn look of the twenty years he had on Blues.

No one moved. Steam rose off the cops' shoulders as the snow they had carried in melted in the warmth of the bar. The wind beat against the front door, rattling its frame, like someone desperate to get inside. Blues was spring-loaded, never taking his eyes from Harry's.

Mason spoke softly, as if the sound of his voice would detonate the room. "Harry?" Ryman didn't answer.

The uniformed cop on his feet was a skinny kid with droopy eyes and a puckered mouth who'd probably never drawn his gun outside the shooting range and couldn't control the tremor in his extended arms. Carl Zimmerman was a compact middleweight who held his gun as if it were a natural extension of his hand, no hesitation in his trigger finger. His dark face was a calm pool. The solidly built cop Blues had put on the floor had gotten to his feet, his block-cut face flush with embarrassment and anger, anxious to redeem himself and take on Blues again. He took a step toward Blues, and Carl Zimmerman put a hand on his shoulder and held him back.

"You're going down, Bluestone," Harry said.

"I told your boy not to put his hands on me," Blues answered.

"Officer Toland was doing his job and I'm doing mine. Don't make this worse than it already is," Ryman said.

"Harry?" Mason said again.

"This doesn't concern you, Lou," Harry answered, not taking his eyes off Blues.

"That's bullshit, Harry, and you know it," Mason said.