Shirley Parker looked up from her desk as Mason closed the door behind him. She had a buoyant, upswept hairstyle that had been fashionable decades ago, but was now a silvery-blue-tinted artifact. Though she was working for a dead man whose clients were unlikely to have appointments, she was immaculately dressed in a high-throated, deep-navy dress accented with a modest string of pearls. Her makeup was robust, adding an unnatural rose to her cheeks. She was a stout woman with stiff posture and disbelieving eyes, going through the motions because she didn't know what else to do.
"Yes, may I help you?" she asked.
"My name is Lou Mason," he said, as if that would be explanation enough.
"My name is Shirley Parker. I'm Mr. Cullan's secretary," she replied, not offering any more information than he had provided.
Mason wasn't certain where to start. Shirley had the look of a woman who had been the secretary for the same man for so many years, it was almost as if they were married. She would have known Cullan's secrets, helped keep them, and wouldn't easily surrender a single one.
"I'm the attorney for Wilson Bluestone."
"Yes. I know who you are." Her face gave no hint whether she cared who he was, or whether she resented him as she must have hated his client.
"I'm sorry for your loss," Mason offered. It was a clumsy gesture, and Mason regretted he hadn't been more sincere, though Shirley accepted it graciously.
"That's very kind of you."
Mason looked around, nodding. The furniture in the outer office was nearly as old as he was, though it had fewer nicks and scratches. Framed prints from a Monet exhibit hung on the walls. A stack of unread magazines sat on a corner table at the junction of a short couch and a chair.
"It must be difficult closing up a law practice under these circumstances," Mason said. "I imagine you've been going nuts trying to get clients placed with new lawyers, files transferred, and all those other things."
"Yes," was all she said in a neutral tone, not agreeing or disagreeing.
There were only a handful of papers on Shirley's desk, no more than would have come in the mail on an ordinary day. Her computer screen was on CNN's home page. The phone hadn't rung since Mason had arrived. Looking around again, Mason realized that there were no storage cabinets, no places to keep the files of clients who needed new lawyers, or the secret files about people who didn't know they needed a lawyer in the first place. Maybe, he thought, Shirley had already transferred the clients and their files, and was just coming in each day to open the mail until there was no more mail.
"It looks like you've pretty much cleaned things up. You must have already shipped out the client files," Mason said.
Shirley didn't respond. She simply sat back in her chair and waited for Mason to say something that warranted another polite acknowledgment.
Mason nodded some more as he opened the door to Cullan's private office. He was through the door before Shirley Parker could try to stop him.
"You can't go in there," she said, and was on his heels before he could turn on the light.
Cullan's office faced west, just as Mason's did, though now the sun was up far enough to light the office. Dust mites floated lazily in the shafts of sunlight, the only occupants of the office. Mason was struck by the similarity between the layout of his office and Cullan's. They both had oversize sofas. A pair of shoes and a wadded dress shirt had been abandoned beneath Cullan's, suggesting to Mason that Cullan had spent more than a few nights on the sofa. Cullan also had a refrigerator. The office was cluttered, undisturbed from the last time Cullan had left it. Papers were scattered on his desk, though Mason was confident that Shirley had removed anything confidential, leaving the rest in the empty hope that Cullan would return. The walls were covered with framed photographs of Cullan shaking hands with dignitaries and celebrities from Harry Truman to George W. Bush, from Elvis Presley to Elton John.
Shirley was standing in the doorway, her arms folded across her chest. Mason took a step toward her. She didn't back up as he flicked on the light switch by her shoulder and began a tour of Cullan's photographic souvenirs.
"Where are they, Shirley?" Mason asked.
"Where are what?"
"Your boss's secret files. The dirty pictures and other trash he collected all these years. Now don't tell me you didn't know about that, Shirley. How long did you work for Jack? Twenty years, thirty years? You had to know about the files and you had to know where he kept them."
"I'll have to ask you to leave, Mr. Mason."
"Of course you do, Shirley. That's your job even though your boss isn't here to tell you. Maybe you didn't know what he was up to. Maybe he liked you well enough not to make you an accessory to blackmail, extortion, and racketeering. All things considered, you'd be better off helping me now than answering all these questions in court, under oath."
"I don't know what you're talking about, Mr. Mason. Please leave now."
Mason stopped in front of a black-and-white photograph of an old man and a young boy. They were shaking hands in front of a barbershop, the barber's pole framed between their outstretched hands.
"Who's that?" Mason asked.
Shirley expelled an exasperated sigh. "I'm going to call the police if you don't leave now."
Mason raised his hands in protest. "Okay, I'm convinced. Just tell me who's in the picture and I'll leave. That can't be a state secret."
"Very well," she said. "The young boy is Mr. Cullan. The other gentleman is Tom Pendergast. Now please leave."
"No kidding," Mason said, taking another look at the photograph. "When was this taken? Last question, I promise."
"I'll tell you on your way out," Shirley said, and turned off the light. She followed Mason out of Cullan's office, locked the door behind them, and ushered him out into the hallway. "Nineteen forty-five," she said, and slammed the outer door tightly shut.
Mason stepped out onto the sidewalk and looked back up at the window to Cullan's office. For an instant, he thought he saw Shirley Parker lingering in the shadows, then dismissed the image as a trick of the sun against the glass and his own creeping paranoia. Sitting in his car, he turned on the engine and began a U-turn to go back south on Main. As he did so, he had a head-on view of the building across the street from Cullan's office. A barber pole was bolted to the wall of 2010 Main Street. The barbershop, and the rest of the block, was vacant, but Mason suddenly remembered it from the stories told him by his grandfather.
Tom Pendergast had run Kansas City with a velvet hammer Cullan must have envied. Mason's grandfather, Mike, had gotten his start in the wrecking business when Pendergast had given his blessing to his grandfather's plan to salvage the scrap from the construction of Bagnel Dam at the Lake of the Ozarks and sell it. Afterward, his grandfather had gone to Pendergast's office to pay his respects and a cut of the profits to Pendergast. Pendergast had accepted the gratitude but not the cash, and Mason's grandfather had been on his way. Mason's grandfather had always told his grandson how strange it was that such a powerful man who could have had an office bigger than the president's chose to do business from an office above a barbershop on Main Street.
By 1945, when the picture had been taken, Pendergast had been released from jail and his organization lay in ruins. Maybe the young Jack Cullan didn't know or care about Pendergast's background. Maybe he did and respected Pendergast for coming back to his old turf. Maybe it was pure coincidence that Cullan had shaken hands that day with the man whose career he would emulate. Mason didn't believe in coincidences or the ability of people to change their fundamental nature. Cullan's picture reminded Mason of the photograph of a youthful Bill Clinton shaking hands with his idol, President John Kennedy. He wondered whether people picked the footsteps they followed, or whether the path was already laid out.