Mason grinned at Fiora and tossed the disk to him. "This one is blank. Bring me the hard drive and a desktop computer. Mickey will check out the hard drive. If everything is on it but your records, Mickey will get you the real disk."

Fiora chuckled. "Careful you don't hit on sixteen and go bust, Mason."

He left Mason and Mickey in his office. Mason picked up the deck of cards Fiora had been using and looked at Mickey.

"Gin rummy. A buck a point," Mason told him. "I'll charge your losses as an advance against your salary."

"That's really generous of you, Lou. I haven't played cards since I was a kid. You'll have to remind me of the rules."

Mason sat down in the chair Fiora had been using and motioned Mickey to the one across the table, all the time wondering how many scams Mickey could run at one time. "Am I about to get cleaned out?"

"Right down to your socks, boss," Mickey said. "Deal."

By the time Fiora and Manzerio returned an hour later, Mason was down 250 dollars. They watched as Mickey shuffled the cards as if he'd been born with them in his hands, fanning them, making bridges, palming top cards, bottom cards, and marking the corners of other cards with his thumbnail.

"Hey, kid," Fiora told him, "you get tired of working for this stiff, I got a place for you at one of our tables."

"He can't quit," Mason said. "He's got to give me a chance to win my money back."

"Those words are the secret of my success," Fiora told him. "That, and never trusting anybody, especially a schmuck lawyer who thinks he can come into my place and flimflam me like I was a refugee from a Shriners convention."

Mason matched Fiora's sudden intensity with his own self-righteousness. "I told you the disk was blank and that I'd get you the real one. I'm not trying to con you."

"Then you are a dumber cocksucker than I gave you credit for." Fiora stuck his hand out to Manzerio, who gave him a stack of papers. "Tony took another tour of your office. Seems you forgot to mention the copy of my bank records you printed out, you stupid fuck! I ought to have Tony beat you right up to the limit!"

Fiora's face turned purple as he bit off each word, casting flecks of spittle like confetti at a parade. Mason hung his head sheepishly, letting Fiora's outburst pass.

"Well, what the fuck do you have to tell me now, Rabbi Bullshit?" Fiora demanded.

"Look, I'm sorry," Mason began. "I'm out of my league here. It was my insurance policy, but that's it. You've got everything now. Let's finish our business and I'll get out of here."

"You'll be carried out of here! Why should I trade you anything but your fucking life?"

"Because you don't kill people, that's why. You said so yourself. I've got to have my files back or I'm out of business. You need your files back or you're out of business. It's not very complicated."

Fiora's natural color slowly seeped back into his face as he rolled the papers into a cylinder and thumped it against his palm. "Don't fuck with me, Mason. I'm telling you, don't fuck with me. You got that, Rabbi?" he asked, smacking the side of Mason's head with the rolled papers.

Mason grabbed Fiora's wrist and pulled his arm down to the table. Fiora winced, as much in shock as in pain. Manzerio took a step toward Mason, who released his grip. Fiora yanked his wrist from Mason's hand while motioning Manzerio to stay where he was with his other.

"I got it, Ed," Mason said so softly that Manzerio couldn't hear him. "Now you get this. You hit me again, and you can spend the rest of your fucking life wondering who's going to end up with that disk."

Fiora held Mason's sharp stare and quietly answered him. "You got balls, Mason. I give you that," Fiora told him. "I give you that. Tony," he said in a street-loud voice, "have that four-eyed geek bring the computer in here. Let's get this over with."

A short time later, Mickey booted up the computer and searched the hard drive for its contents. "It's got everything but the bank records, boss," he told Mason. "You want me to remove the hard drive?"

Mason said, "Give Fiora our other disk first, and let him see what's on it."

Mickey untucked his shirt and reached behind his back, where he had taped the disk. He popped it into the computer and stood back as Fiora's bank accounts flashed across the screen.

"Good enough?" Mason asked.

"Good enough," Fiora said. "You can pull the hard drive out. Tony, give the kid the tools."

Mason said, "I'm glad we were able to work this out."

"Don't press your luck," Fiora told him.

"There is one other thing," Mason said.

"It better not be another disk."

"It's not. It's a favor. The one you said you owed me."

Fiora pulled at his chin until Mason thought he would pull it off. "Mason, you are too much. You bust my balls on this bank account shit, and then you got even more balls to ask me for a favor."

"I saved your life last night. That was a favor. This was business. You owe me the favor."

Fiora sighed, trapped by his own curious ethics. "What is it?"

"I want my client released on bail."

"Sorry, I can't do it."

"I don't believe you. You're wired into the prosecutor's office. That's how you knew they were going to offer Blues a plea bargain. Hell, it may have been your idea to begin with. I think I may know who has Cullan's files. I can't get to them myself and it's just as risky for you. Blues can get them. If there's nothing in your file that links you to Cullan's murder, you can have it. No copies and no questions. My client is innocent. I need those files to prove it."

"You aren't asking for much, are you?" Fiora asked him.

"I need an edge, I take it," Mason said. "The assistant prosecutor and I are meeting with Judge Carter on Monday morning at eight o'clock. I want Blues released on bail before ten. Make it happen."

Chapter Thirty

Mickey said, "That was extremely cool, Lou."

They had just pulled away from the curb at the casino, and Mickey was practically high-fiving himself as he fiddled with the radio, looking for some celebration tunes.

"Maybe. I just conspired with Ed Fiora to improperly influence an elected official to get Blues out on bail. Fiora probably has the whole thing on audio and videotape. That doesn't sound so cool to me."

"Then why did you make the play?"

"It's the only one I had."

"That's bad public relations, man."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Mason asked him.

"Let me tell you a story, Lou. I was conceived on the Fourth of July under a lucky star. My mother, Libby, spotted it over my father's shoulder from the backseat of his ragtop Firebird."

"I like the car better than the story," Mason interrupted.

"Chill and pay attention. My mother said the star was Altair and that it was found in the wing of the constellation Aquila the Eagle. Aquila was the mythical bird who helped Jupiter crush the Titans and seize control of the universe."

"So you're Aquila and I'm Jupiter?"

"You tell me. Anyway, Altair was a shepherd in love with another star, Vega, who was stranded on the western side of the Milky Way. Once a year, on the seventh night of the seventh moon, the lovers united across the heavens."

"So are you the son of a shepherd or the son of a star?"

"Libby was always a little vague about whether Altair started out as an eagle's wing and ended up a shepherd or vice versa. I figured he was an early cross-dresser, kind of a mythological Ru Paul."

"No doubt the kind of role model that made you what you are today," Mason said.

"My mother told me the story the first time I asked about my father. I may have been a kid, but I knew the difference between an answer and a story. So I asked again. She told me I had two choices. Either my mother got knocked up in the backseat of a Firebird on a hot July night sticky enough to melt bugs together, and my father, who had great shoulders but no spine, ran out on us. Or I was conceived under a lucky star and I was destined for great deeds and greater love."