The Second Life of Nick Mason (14 page)

Nobody paid any attention to the two panel trucks leaving the dry dock. Until Sean Wright and his partner, who were watching the southern perimeter of the Port District, happened to see the trucks rumbling by them. Sean’s partner, who was driving, pulled out and followed them. It was an unlikely lead, two trucks coming out of the dry dock, but better to make sure and not get reamed out
by their boss if those trucks ended up being something they shouldn’t have missed.

•   •   •

M
ason kept following McManus as he drove the lead truck down Ewing Avenue. There was a series of three bridges coming up ahead. They would drive under them—two for railroad tracks, one for the expressway. Mason could feel Finn starting to tense up and for once he was just about to tell him to calm the hell down. The words were right there on the tip of his tongue.

That’s when he noticed the car following close behind him. One of those dark-colored sedans that look plain and boring and suspicious. He watched his big side mirror for a few seconds, but it was too dark to see through the car’s windshield.

They came to the first bridge. Its façade was a low, crumbling band of concrete just inches above their heads. Everything narrowed under the bridge, with rusted-out I beams squeezing in close on either side of the trucks. Pale sodium lights made everything look like a fever dream. Mason checked the car behind him. It was too close. If he even tapped on his brakes, there’d be contact.

McManus slowed down ahead of Mason. It was too narrow for speed. One slight mistake and you’re scraping either iron or concrete or bouncing back and forth between both. They came out from under the first bridge and Mason saw the open night sky above them. The reprieve was short-lived as the second bridge loomed, even more dilapidated than the first, with a thin row of high weeds lining the tracks. The first truck was swallowed by the darkness, the sodium lights blinking and flickering now. Mason entered a second later. Another long, narrow passage, Mason holding his breath, waiting for the trucks to pass through into the open air again, already
anticipating the daylight and the highway overpass beyond. A clear road ahead of them, the traffic light beyond the last bridge already turning green. He saw it all in that moment and let himself believe that they had passed through to safety.

Then a car pulled out in front of the first truck.

There was a service road from Indianapolis Avenue, cutting in sharply to merge with Ewing. An unmarked police car pulled forward and stopped, lights flashing, and everything that happened next was preordained by the basic physics of two trucks with bad tires and bad brakes suddenly trying to stop.

The lead truck hit the car. Mason’s truck slammed into the lead truck. The car behind slammed into Mason’s truck. A haze of noise pierced Mason’s ears, and then there was a slow-motion pantomime that would have been a comedy if it didn’t include such sudden deadly force—three more unmarked cars fanning out behind the first, plainclothes officers wearing tactical vests throwing open the doors and streaming toward them. Mason saw McManus already out the open door of the truck in front of him. He was running awkwardly, his head low, on a sidewalk on the other side of the iron rail. A moment later, Eddie came running behind him. Mason saw that his door was blocked by the girders and that there’d be nowhere to go even if he could get out that way. He had to get out the other door.

That’s when the gunshots started.

He looked out the passenger’s-side window just in time to see McManus fire at the two men coming out of the car behind them. One was hit. The driver threw himself to the ground on the other side of the car.

The screams of a dying man, the truck’s windshield suddenly exploding all around him as the cops in front fired on them. Mason went down and tried to take Finn with him. He pulled down Finn’s
head and saw where the bullet had entered his skull through the left eye.

Mason pushed the door open and Finn fell to the pavement. Mason tried to pick him up, but he was already gone.

Shouts from the officers ahead of him, now using the first truck for shelter. The driver from the car behind him yelling, “Hold fire!” His partner was down. Those few seconds when every weapon was still, Mason saw his one chance to escape. Back to the open air between the bridges, a break in the concrete wall, through the brush and garbage, to a thin strip of land where the power lines were held high by their towers. The foliage had been trampled already by Eddie and McManus. Mason followed their trail to the high grass between the towers but did not see either man in the dark.

He heard more sirens in the distance. Every cop in the city would be out looking for them. He didn’t think any of them had gotten a clear look at his face. That was his only hope. There was a line of trees to his right. He went in that direction, knowing that it was east and that it would lead him farther from his home and from where his car was waiting in Murphy’s parking lot. But that was miles away and he’d have to find some way to get back there as quickly as possible. Which meant another vehicle.

He didn’t know the neighborhood, so he didn’t know if there was an easy spot for stealing a car, and he didn’t have his tools with him, anyway. He hadn’t carried those tools in years. He felt exposed as he came out of the woods and started walking down the street. He passed a storefront church and a liquor store. Some of the signs were in Spanish, and the people he saw walking on the other side of the street all had darker skin. He knew he’d stand out if somebody took a close look at him. The flashing lights of a police car lit the street.
Mason stepped into a parking lot and pressed his body against the wall as it drove by.

He went down another half a block, waiting for more police cars, waiting for the helicopter to start circling around in the sky, shining down its white-hot spotlight.

He held off the thought of Finn’s dead body lying on the ground because right now it was all still in the moment and the moment was about getting the hell out of there. He saw the side door of a building open and the light spill out. A man came across the parking lot, stumbling his way to his car. He had his keys out in his right hand and he was singing something in Spanish.

Mason went right up to him, doing things the Finn way for once. You want something, you just take it, without another thought in your head. The man’s eyes went wide when he saw Mason coming at him in that parking lot.
“Sangre,”
the man said, pointing at Mason’s chest. But Mason was already on top of him before he could do anything else. The man was too drunk to put up a fight. Mason took the man’s keys and discarded the man on the ground.

He got in the car, some filthy old beater of a thing, and pulled out of the lot. When he was finally a few blocks down the street, he looked down at his chest and saw the blood. For one second he thought, I’ve been hit. Then he realized that the blood was Finn’s.

A few more police cars raced past him in the opposite direction as he made his way back to the heart of the South Side. He dumped the car a mile away from Canaryville and wiped himself off with a blanket he found in the backseat. As he walked up Halsted Street, he composed himself into something resembling a calm man taking a normal evening walk, then went in through the back door of Murphy’s and cleaned himself off in the bathroom as well as he could.

He watched the last of Finn’s blood run down the drain.

Then he got in his own car and drove home.

Gina was surprised to see him home so early. She figured he’d be out at Murphy’s until after midnight, drinking with his friends.

“I’d rather be here,” Mason said to her. “This is where I want to be.” He went into his daughter’s bedroom and sat there for a long time, watching her sleep. Then he climbed into bed with his wife and made love to her. That night would be the last time.

Now, five years and change later, Mason was sitting in his car, reliving that whole night.

The Port District was right there in front of him, glowing in the night. A turn of the head and there was the dry dock, mostly hidden in darkness.

The newspapers were still stacked in the box on the backseat. He picked them up, switched on his interior light, and paged through them. They were in reverse order, so he saw his own face on the first front page. Being led into the station, his hands cuffed behind his back.

Mason leafed through to another front-page photo, the Chicago police superintendent standing behind a microphone, telling a roomful of reporters that even though it was a federal DEA agent who was killed, today all divisions and rivalries were forgotten. Today, Sean Wright was one of them.

One more front page. The day after the bust, the trophy shot, with a line of cops standing behind a table, bags of white powder spread out in front of them. He looked at the photo closely. Something didn’t look right.

There should be more, Mason said to himself. All those hours we spent dragging the stuff off that boat, this is how much of it actually made it to the police station? Just enough for the photo op.

Mason switched off the light and sat in darkness again. He put the newspapers down and started driving, retracing their escape route. He went down Ewing, the street quiet, with everything closed up for the night.

Why did we come this way? Why didn’t we get right back onto the expressway, start making time for Detroit?

When he got to the bridges, he felt the same claustrophobic feeling as the concrete and iron closed in around him. The same cheap sodium light giving everything an otherworldly glow.

The street was empty and he was alone under the second bridge. He slowed down as he got to the exact spot. Here’s where Finn got shot. Here’s where Finn died, sitting on the seat next to him.

He came out from under the bridge, to the place where the cops were waiting for them. This exact spot. Of course. This is where they were waiting.

He stopped the car in the middle of the street, opened the door, and stepped out. He looked back at the bridges, at this perfect funnel that would bring anyone coming down that street right into your lap if you happened to be waiting
right here
.

That’s exactly how it happened, Mason thought. All those cops had to do was sit here and wait for us. Sit here and wait for McManus to lead the trucks into the trap.

He remembered what Eddie had said to him about McManus being out of the truck before the first shots were even fired. He remembered what he had seen with his own eyes—McManus firing only at the agents behind them, never at the cops in front of them. He panicked when he saw the agents blocking his escape.

It was all stacked against them that night. Everyone involved, right down to the man who put the team together in the first place.

Mason, Eddie, Finn . . . they never had a chance.

Everything else that happened, Mason said to himself, from going to prison and losing my family to meeting Darius Cole and making this deal to come back. And everything I’ve had to do, killing one man, planning on killing another . . .

It all goes back to that one night. The night we were betrayed.

Mason had two and a half seconds to kill five men.

He had a Glock 20 in each hand, the same type of gun he’d used at the motel room. He’d never fired with his left, but the first two men had to be done together. Take out the first bodyguard, then the second. Easy shots, then move on to the drivers. Keep firing and all five men will be dead. If he does it in two and a half seconds.

Time slowed down as the bullets ripped through the two bodyguards’ chests, hearts blown apart before they even knew it was happening. Then the two drivers, each with a gun drawn from his belt and half raised when he brought his 20s together and the men were dead before their brains’ signals reached their trigger fingers.

Now it was just the fifth man, Tyron Harris, who didn’t have a gun after all, just a laptop bag that he held out in front of him like a shield. Two and a half seconds barely gone, but Mason could take his time. He could breathe and look down the sight of the one gun in his right hand. Finish his job and walk away.

But then Harris’s bag was already falling and behind it he saw the
two barrels of the sawed-off shotgun. He heard a sound and saw the flash from one barrel as it took away his hands and his guns. Another sound and another flash and his chest was gone. Just enough time left to look in Harris’s face as he heard that same sound a third time.

He opened his eyes and sat up in his bed, breathing hard. The morning sun was shining through the window.

It was a chime. A doorbell.

He got up and put some clothes on, meeting Diana just as she was coming down the stairs. It was early, but she was already dressed for work.

“Are you expecting someone?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

He went down and opened the door. Lauren was standing on the little cement porch with Max sitting patiently at her feet. As soon as he saw Mason, the dog went past him and up the stairs, into the town house.

“I had my car today, so Max and I thought we’d stop by before work,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind.”

He stood there for a moment, trying to figure out the best way to handle this.

“I thought, from the other night . . .” she said, her face starting to turn red. “I mean, we talked about me bringing him over . . . And you didn’t come to get Max yesterday, so . . .”

“Hello, whose dog is this?” It was Diana from somewhere behind him.

“This is Diana,” Mason said. “She manages the restaurant.”

Lauren looked up at Diana as she came down the stairs. “Um, hello,” she said.

Diana gave Mason a look and reached out to shake Lauren’s hand.

“This is Lauren,” Mason said. “She works at the pet store over on Grant Street.”

The two women eyed each other closely.

“I see,” Diana said with a cool smile. “And this is her dog?”

“No,” Mason said. “Max is mine.”

“That’s interesting,” Diana said. “Were you planning to tell me?”

Mason got quiet. Both women stood there, watching him.

“Can we step outside for a moment?” Mason said to Lauren. Then to Diana, “Excuse us, please.”

He guided Lauren outside to the sidewalk.

“I’m working at her restaurant,” he said. “I haven’t found a new place yet.”

“I’m sorry, Nick. I shouldn’t have come here.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said, trying to keep his voice cool and even. He’d been working so hard to follow his rule about keeping his personal life and his professional life separate, a rule that seemed more vital now than ever. Even if it was more and more impossible. Having Lauren here at the town house and, hell, having her meet Diana . . . This did not belong on the program.

“I got a lot of stuff going on today,” he said. “Would you mind looking after Max for a while longer? I don’t want to leave him here all day alone.”

“I could probably do that.”

“I’ll try to stop by your place tonight. It might be late.”

Lauren looked at him carefully. “You’re gonna call me first, right?”

“Yes,” he said. Then he went back in to collect Max, who already
seemed interested in the pool. Diana just stood there, watching him. By the time he got Max back downstairs, the garage door was open and Diana was already driving off in her BMW.

“That’s your roommate,” Lauren said as she watched the car disappear down the street.

“Like I said—”

She put a hand up to stop him. “You don’t owe me any more explanation, Nick. I’ll see you later.”

She gave him a quick kiss and he could feel the hesitation even then. But then she smiled and got in the car with Max.

Mason let out a long breath and went back inside to get cleaned up for the day. A few minutes later, he was in the Camaro on his way to the restaurant. He hadn’t gotten the chance to talk to Diana about the cars, but he noticed when he got there that she had parked in back of the building again. There were no parking spots on the street, but when he went in the side lot he got the space closest to the street. Anyone coming by would see the car there.

He went inside and found her in the kitchen.

“Lauren seems like a lovely girl,” she said to him. “And Max seems like a great dog. I’m sure you’ll be very happy together.”

“How much trouble are we in?”

“You’re lucky I love dogs,” she said, handing him the keys to the BMW.

Mason left the kitchen. He was still shaking his head when he got into her car. Then he settled back in the seat and his assignment came back to him. An almost smile left his face as he started the car and headed out into the day.

When he got to Fuller Park, both of Harris’s cars were parked in front of the house. One car had spent the night there. The other must have arrived in the morning to pick up the woman. He watched
her come out and leave in that car. Harris was back to one driver and two bodyguards.

They all got in their car and left.

He followed them through the South Side again. It was a different set of businesses today, including the barbershop and the restaurant from Mason’s original list that they hadn’t hit the day before, but it was the same routine. Go in and pay a quick visit, Harris carrying his laptop. There was one laundromat where Mason could actually see in through the window. Harris sitting there at a table with the laptop open, the manager sitting down next to him. The bodyguards standing by, looking serene. Harris gave the man a hug when he stood up, then he and the bodyguards came out and got in the car and went on to the next business.

By the end of the afternoon, Mason had put in another long day of watching. He was starting to worry that they’d eventually clock him. You can only trail a man for so long, no matter how well you do it, before he turns around and takes a good look at you.

The next stop was different. They headed back north, over the river, and parked by a little coffee shop near Homan Square. The three men got out and went inside. Mason saw Harris sitting at a table with two strangers. His bodyguards were at a separate table nearby. Half an hour later, all five men came out together. Mason got his first good look at the men Harris had been meeting with. They were both wearing dark suits. One man was older and acted like he was in charge of the whole meeting. His hair was cut close, so fair it was almost white, and there was something almost paternal about the way he put his arm around Harris’s shoulders. There probably weren’t too many men around who did that.

Mason had seen enough cops in his life. These were definitely cops.

They stood outside on the sidewalk for a few minutes. Then the two cops got into a black Audi and drove away. Harris and his men kept talking for a moment. Their friendly smiles were long gone. Then they got into their car and left.

Mason followed them downtown, where they parked outside Morton’s again. Harris was clearly a creature of habit. A weakness, perhaps, but not when you travel with an army.

Quintero said I’d be getting some help, Mason thought. Whatever that means, I sure as hell haven’t seen it yet.

The same woman showed up and looked just as blond and gorgeous getting out of her car after shopping or waxing or whatever the hell someone who looks like that does all day. Harris kissed her and then they all went into the restaurant. When they came out two hours later, Mason was ready for the cars to separate again, but this time they both headed out in the same direction.

Mason pulled out behind them, tracking them through town. They passed right under the expressway. They weren’t going back to Fuller Park. They were heading west on Lake Street, into new territory. Then both cars slowed down in the right lane, turned off into a parking lot, and it all made sense.

It was a strip club.

Mason pulled in after them. He parked a row over and watched everyone leaving the cars. Harris and the woman. All of the men. They weren’t going to leave anyone sitting here in the parking lot.

A strip club meant noise and confusion and very little light except on the stage. It sure as hell meant distraction, unless these men were from some other planet. Mason stayed there in the car, his cell phone in his hand. He looked down at the screen for a long time. Finally, he called Quintero.

“They’re all at a club,” he said. “There may be an opportunity.”

“Open your trunk,” Quintero said. “Lift up the spare tire.”

He got out of the car and opened the trunk with the phone still held to his ear. He pulled up the carpeting to expose the spare tire compartment. The tire was secured with a nut, so he had to find the tool bag in the trunk’s side compartment to loosen it. He looked both ways down the parking lot, then pulled up the tire.

There was a pair of black leather gloves. There was no gun.

What the hell, he thought. He picked up the gloves and saw the knife underneath. The blade was folded inside, but he knew one push of the button would release it. Six inches long and no doubt razor-sharp.

“Listen to me,” Quintero said. “Take a moment, get your head on straight. If you’re not focused, you’ll do something stupid. Keep your eyes open. And don’t do anything unless you have a clean exit.”

It sounded like he was reading Mason his own rules. Mason put the phone away. He stood at the back of the car for a long time, looking out at nothing. He turned down the volume in his own head until it was close to silence. His daughter’s face came to him, then a vision of her running across a soccer field. He held on to the image for a full minute. Then he started moving.

He tried the gloves on for a moment, just long enough to pick up the knife and put it in his right pocket next to the phone. He took the gloves off and slid them into his left pocket.

Mason knew that the Chicago firearm laws were a joke, with no automatic jail time even if you get caught carrying around a machine gun. But knives? They had that shit covered in this town. Nothing over two and a half inches, nothing spring-loaded, and another vaguely worded law that all but banned open carry. You can
carry a Boy Scout jackknife in your pocket, not on your belt, and that’s about it.

He paid his money at the door. A long flight of stairs led up to the main floor, with a strip of white light on each step. The music was already loud as Mason started his way up. It got louder with each step, until he reached the top and everything opened up into an airplane hangar–sized area with three runways and a half-dozen other circles of chairs, all facing dance poles. There were maybe a hundred men in the place, every race represented. Women danced on all three runways, but the more private areas were empty except for one in the far corner. Mason didn’t have to look for more than a second to see that that’s where Harris and his crew were sitting.

The music kept pounding in his ears. The lights were flashing and making everything look not quite real. Mason chose a chair near the middle of the room, facing Harris’s corner. One of the waitresses came by and bent down over him, showing plenty of skin. He ordered a Goose Island and settled in to study the room.

Threats. Witnesses. Exits.

One of the dancers drifted over and gave him a little wave. She was wearing only a G-string. That was the law. You keep the bottoms on and you can serve alcohol. Mason gave her a nod and then looked back across the room.

The club’s best dancer was on the pole over there. The men were all watching her, and Mason could see the blond woman sitting in the chair next to Harris. Her hair seemed to glow in the half darkness. He saw her smiling, the white flash of perfect teeth, sitting there on the arm of the man who seemingly owned the whole city that night. She was enjoying herself and watching the show with just as much enthusiasm as the men around her.

Mason counted the men. There were five, including Harris. The
whole crew. This night out was their big reward for standing around and looking hard all the time or else sitting in a car for hours on end, even overnight.

The dancer who had waved to Mason was on the pole closest to him now. He took out a twenty, didn’t want to stand out as the guy who just sat there and never tipped anyone. She caught his eye and came over close, getting down on her knees so Mason could slip the bill into her G-string. She blew him a kiss and went back to her pole.

The music seemed to get even louder. The lights kept flashing. Mason took a hit off his beer and then put the glass down.

This could be the night, Mason said to himself. All I need is for him to be alone. Just for a few seconds. Then I’ll get my chance to do the unthinkable for a second time. And he’ll never leave this place alive.

As he looked over again, Mason saw one of the bodyguards stand up, walk along the back wall, and disappear behind a partition. The men’s room. Two minutes, the man came back. He sat down on the other side of the woman and then Harris himself stood up. The bodyguard was halfway to his feet again when the woman put a hand on his forearm. She gestured to the dancer as if saying, No, keep him right here, put on a show for him.

The bodyguard sat back down. Harris kissed the woman and walked along the back wall alone, retracing the bodyguard’s route to the men’s room.

Mason stood up.

He made his way to the back of the room, moving slowly. His movements were all careful, perfectly thought out. Don’t move like a man on a mission. Don’t look over at the party in the corner. Keep looking at the dancers because they’re the only reason you’re here. If someone spots you, if one of them gets up to intercept you in the bathroom, you’re just a customer. A nobody.