Margaret held the bar card alongside Mason's driver's license, comparing the two signatures like a Treasury agent looking for counterfeit twenties.

"Bar card is expired," she said. "Can't take an expired bar card. You should have paid your dues," she added, and handed the bar card back to Mason.

Mason gripped the counter with both hands to keep them from Margaret's throat. He decided to appeal to her sense of reason.

"Margaret, consider what you're saying. The bar card only means that I'm a member of the Missouri bar. It's a form of identification. There's nothing in the law that requires me to belong to the bar association or even be a lawyer to visit an inmate. Now, fortunately, I am a lawyer and I have a client who's locked in a cell upstairs who is entitled to the effective representation of his chosen counsel. If he's deprived of that representation because you won't let me see him, the judge will have to dismiss the charges. Now my client happens to have been charged with murder, which most people think is a pretty serious deal. So, why don't you call the prosecuting attorney and tell him that his case is going to get dismissed because you, Margaret, are refusing to let me see my client because my bar card has expired?"

"Jeez," Margaret exhaled. "Are you a tight-ass or what? I'm just doing my job here. Pay your damn dues like everybody else."

"Trust me, Margaret. I've paid my dues. Now open up."

Mason had to pass through a series of security checks that fell one pat-down short of a body-cavity search. He was ushered into a cramped room divided by a narrow countertop that served as a table for both the lawyer and the prisoner. A reinforced double pane of glass cut the room completely in two. A circular metal screen was mounted in the glass that allowed conversation to be heard on both sides.

Mason stood, pacing in the small room until Blues entered through a door on the inmates' side. They looked at each other for a full minute. Mason saw a defiant man, ramrod straight, coal-black hair hanging raggedly over his tawny brow, piercing eyes searching Mason for good news. Blues touched his closed fist to the glass, holding it there as Mason returned the gesture.

"They're going to offer you a deal," Mason said.

"I won't take it," Blues replied.

"I know that."

"How do you know they're going to offer me a deal?"

Mason couldn't tell Blues what had happened in the parking lot. If Blues knew that taking a deal would protect Mason, he might agree to a plea bargain. Mason assumed that whoever had sent him the message was counting on his relationship with Blues as one more source of pressure that would bring this case to a quick conclusion.

"Patrick Ortiz already invited me to his office to talk about it. I turned down the invitation. Are you ready to ride this thing out?"

"All the way, Lou. I'm innocent and I'm not going to let somebody railroad me. Besides, no matter how many of them there are, you and me got them outnumbered."

Mason smiled at the vote of confidence. "Blues, this case is hot and it's going to get hotter. You watch yourself in there."

Blues chuckled. "Man, you forget one thing. All those brothers and white-trash crackers in there are afraid this crazy Indian will scalp 'em in their sleep. No one is going to fuck with me, Lou. Not more than once."

"Be cool, Blues. The case they've got against you isn't worth a shit. Don't give them one they can make in their sleep."

"I hear that," Blues answered. They touched their fists against the glass again, and Mason pushed a button signaling the guard that they had finished their meeting.

There was one message on Mason's answering machine when he got to his office. It was from his aunt Claire telling him to meet her for lunch at the Summit Street Cafe at noon. It wasn't an invitation. It was an order. His aunt Claire was not much for protocol. Mason assumed that she wanted to talk about Blues's case. If he was caught in the middle between Harry and Blues, she was caught between him and Harry. Though she wouldn't see it that way. She was one of the few people Mason knew who meant it when she said let the chips fall where they may.

Mason booted up his PC, got on-line, and went to the Kansas City Star's Web site. He searched for Rachel Firestone's articles about Jack Cullan's murder, noting that the other murders that had been reported during the same span had been covered with no fanfare and little outrage.

Kansas City knows murder. Any town that began as a river trading post called Old Possum Trot knows killing. Any town that claims Jesse James as a wayward son and commemorates the Valentine's Day Massacre at Union Station knows how to let the lead fly. Any town that has convulsed with riots and raised a generation of hopeless hard cases who expect to die before they're twenty-five knows the sweet agony of death.

Put a million and a half people-white, black, brown, yellow, rich, poor, faithful, faithless, doped, dependent, and demanding-in the rolling river country of the heart of America and they'll find endless ways to kill. Put it in the papers and on the news with candlelight vigils for the funerals of infants. Watch as TV reporters stick microphones in mourners' faces asking how does it feel? and the people will search themselves for shock while keeping a head count, a steady drumbeat of death, ahead or behind last year's pace.

But take the life of a mover and shaker, of one to whom it's not supposed to happen, someone who holds all the cards, someone who gives more dispensations than the pope and holds more markers than the devil. Well, that's showbiz. The mayor grieves the victim and denounces the guilty. The chief of police reassures an anxious community with a quick arrest, and the prosecuting attorney promises justice swift and certain.

Rachel Firestone had reported it all. Her prose was concise, her tone neutral, and her facts straight. Only the headlines above the stories announced an agenda. They painted the crime, the victim, the accused, and the supporting cast with a broad brush dipped in sensational ink to capture mind share and market share in a media-saturated world. kingpin murdered, screamed the headline in Tuesday's paper. Wednesday's lead promised police close to arrest, and Thursday's paper trumpeted ex-cop arrested for murder of political boss.

None of the stories added to Mason's knowledge of the case. He ran a search for articles on the Dream Casino, printed them, and began reading.

Missouri had been a late entrant in the sweepstakes for gambling dollars. Bible Belt morality had kept the casino interests out of the state for decades, though Kansas City had been a wide-open town from the beginning of the twentieth century through Prohibition. Gambling had flourished in speakeasies all over town, particularly along the Twelfth Street strip from Broadway to City Hall. Tom Pendergast had been the Boss in those years, running his empire of influence and muscle under the guise of a concrete business.

A coalition of clergy, political reformers, and the IRS had brought Pendergast down, and Kansas City had settled into a long quiet period struggling with its lingering reputation as a cow town and unable to compete with the temptations offered on a grander scale by bigger cities.

The gaming people had seen opportunity beneath the blanket of conservatism that lay between the Missouri River on the western border of the state and the Mississippi River that marked the eastern boundary. They sold the Missouri legislature on a scam that would have shamed even Professor Harold Hill with its Music Man audacity.

Riverboat cruises reminiscent of Mark Twain's paddleboats were promised. Two-hour cruises with five hundred-dollar loss limits assured that no one would lose the rent money. Funding programs for problem gamblers was good citizenship. Committing the tax revenue from the casinos to education sealed the deal. The legislature doubled down and took the bet, offering the voters an amendment to the state's constitution legalizing riverboat gambling on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. The voters couldn't wait to cash in.