Free Deadlocked by Joel Goldman

address. The only other office on the floor had been vacant since the last tenant, a CPA, moved out. Mickey had quickly occupied it, referring to the offices as his rooms. The door to the CPA's office was open, the first sign he'd seen of Mickey all week.
    Mickey was in his early twenties, a skinny scammer with an engaging smile. He had a wild shock of brown hair and a patchy mouse in the cleft of his chin. He walked into the bar one day soon after it had opened and convinced Blues to rent him an office for a PR shop that had yet to see its first client. Blues traded Mickey rent for part-time bartending and pretended not to notice that Mickey lived in the one-room office.
    Mason hired Mickey as his legal assistant a couple of years ago, a title Mickey loosely interpreted to mean running the store when Mason couldn't, and covering Mason's wing when things turned ugly, Blues usually taking Mason's back. Mickey claimed that politics was his real meat and that he would one day walk the halls of the powerful, whispering in their ears, making things happen. Abby gave him a taste, landing him a spot on Josh Seeley's volunteer staff.
    "Welcome back," Mason told Mickey.
    Mickey was throwing clothes into an olive drab duffel bag. "Hey, Lou. What's up, man?"
    "The usual," Mason said. "A fight for truth and glory as our clients define it. We've got a new case. A lot to do," Mason added, pointing to the duffel bag. "You coming or going?"
    Mickey zipped the bag, hefted it onto his shoulder. "Going. Josh Seeley put me on the payroll for the rest of the campaign. Said he'd take me to D.C. if he wins. Isn't that great! I tell you, Lou, Seeley's train is pulling out of the station and I'm riding in the first car."
    Mason kept his poker face, not wanting to step on Mickey's moment, telling himself that he got by without Mickey before and would do so again.
    "When did you talk to Seeley?" Mason asked, clearing his throat instead of asking Mickey to give two weeks' notice.
    "Well, I haven't yet, not really anyway. Abby called me this morning and said she'd talked to Seeley and it's a done deal. She said Seeley wants both of us to travel with him at least through the primary. It's going to be nonstop, man. A hand-shaking, rubber-chicken-dinner, baby-kissing extravaganza."
    Mason nodded, waiting for Abby's kick in the head to stop ringing in his ears. He wondered if Abby would call to say good-bye.
    "When do you leave?"
    Mickey checked his watch. "Couple of hours. I've got to get down to the campaign office. I put the mail on your desk plus something Claire dropped off. You can hold my last check until I get back. Either that or send it to the nation's capital. Later man," he said, his kid-in-the-candy-store smile hanging off his face. He brushed past Mason, pulling the door closed and leaving Mason alone in the hall.
    Mason propped open his office door and his window, offering refuge to the bugs that flew in, a fair price for the chance of a breeze. He checked his voice mail and e-mail for a message from Abby. Nothing. That Abby had pulled strings to get Mickey his job was plain to Mason. The question was why. To get back at Mason or to protect Mickey from what she was certain lay ahead in Mason's newest case?
    Mason decided to ask her if she called to tell him she was leaving for the next two and a half weeks or forever. Whichever came first. If she didn't call, neither the question nor the answer would matter.
    He opened the dry erase board, grabbed a bottle of water from his refrigerator, and studied the names he'd written on the board the day before. The names didn't tell him anything because he didn't know enough about the people.
    Though he had watched Ryan Kowalczyk die, all he knew was that Ryan had been convicted but died claiming he was innocent. He had met Ryan's mother and Nick Byrnes. Heard and seen conflicting portraits of both. The pictures of Graham and Elizabeth Byrnes in the file Nick had given him were of good-looking, vigorous