The Second Life of Nick Mason

by Steve Hamilton

  “I’m gonna say this once,” Mason said. “Then I never want to see your face again. I did five years. I didn’t give you up then and I’m not gonna give you up now. As long as Eddie’s around, I’m not gonna do anything that jams him up. So you better hope he lives a long life.”

  “I’m still nervous. Why don’t you reassure me a bit more?”

  “Fuck your reassurance,” Mason said, pushing past him.

  “I’ll be seeing you,” McManus said behind his back.

  • • •

  Quintero wasn’t happy. Mason was late again.

  “Maybe you work on early for next time,” Quintero said as soon as Mason got to the park, “because this is the last time you’ll ever be late.”

  Beyond him, the same hundred sailboats were anchored out in the open water. The fog had long burned off and it was a perfect summer day in Chicago—a cloudless cobalt sky, the lake glittering in the sunlight.

  It was one of those days that feels like a gift. But here I am, Mason thought. This is how I have to spend it.

  “I got held up,” Mason said. “Not everybody’s throwing a party about me being back on the street.”

  “We got a problem?”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  “You put some clothes together, so you’re always ready,” Quintero said. “You answer the phone and by the time you hang up, you’re already out the door.”

  “Fuck that,” Mason said, looking away.

  Quintero shook his head and then pulled up the back of his shirt. For one second Mason thought he’d pushed him too far and was about to take one in the head. But it wasn’t a gun in Quintero’s hand. It was a manila envelope.

  “You may have passed your first test,” Quintero said. “With some help. This one’s gonna be harder.”

  Mason took the envelope and looked inside. There were two sheets of paper. One was a copy of a police mug shot. A black man, front and side, holding a placard with his name on it. Tyron Harris. His hair was cut tight to his head and he had a small mustache. The look on the man’s face was calm and cool like the whole experience was just a mild annoyance. On the second sheet of paper was a list of Chicago business names and addresses. Dry cleaners, liquor, electronics, and a half dozen more.

  “Harris was the man who was scheduled to meet Jameson in the motel. I don’t know where he lives, but here’s a list of some businesses. He either owns them or has a piece of them.”

  “What’s the job?”

  “Find him,” Quintero said. “Watch him.”

  Mason knew there’d be more to this job. He didn’t have to ask.

  “If you knew he was going to meet that cop in the motel room,” Mason said, “and you wanted them both, why didn’t you just wait? We could have taken them both out together.”

  I actually said that, Mason thought. This is how my mind works now.

  “Harris would have come with at least four men,” Quintero said. “Maybe five. Two men in the room with him, another on the door. One in the parking lot. Maybe one more on the street. He’s still alive because he’s careful. After what happened to his new business partner, he’ll be even more careful. Get to work finding him. Call me on my cell, let me know what’s going on with this guy.”

  Quintero took one step past him, then stopped. “One more thing,” he said. “Let me know if the piece of shit following you is a problem. Your problems are my problems.”

  “He’s nothing.”

  Quintero shook his head in disgust. “I’ll decide if it’s nothing.”

  “I’m more worried about Detective Sandoval,” Mason said.

  “How does a detective get on you that fast?”

  “It’s a personal thing. We have some history.”

  “You need to be clean when you’re doing this next job, Mason. Every minute.”

  Mason looked out at the water.

  “Now get to work,” Quintero said. Then he walked away.

  21

  Nick Mason knew that Frank Sandoval was following him because Sandoval wanted him to know. At least for today, Sandoval was making no effort to hide the surveillance, hoping it would keep Mason on edge and force him to make a mistake.

  Mason watched the blue sedan in his side-view mirror. He tried running a yellow light to lose it. He thought he was free, but then he saw it again. Or at least he thought it was the same car. It was later in the morning and there was plenty of traffic, and there were blue sedans all over the place.

  He tried to loop around a block, watching carefully behind him, but there were too many cars and he couldn’t get a clear bead on any one of them.

  That’s when he got the idea.

  He drove down Rush Street to Antonia’s. There was a car about to pull out of a parking spot right out front. The driver was taking his time getting into the car, starting it, maybe making a call on his cell phone. Mason stayed there in the street waiting him out, ignoring the honks from behind.

  When the car finally pulled out, Mason took the spot. There on the street where anyone could see it. If you were looking for Nick Mason and you happened to follow him here, you’d have no doubt in your mind that this was his car and that he must be inside the place.

  Mason went in through the front door and asked for Diana. The early-lunch crowd was just starting to sit down, so it wasn’t too busy yet. Diana came out from her office, looking a little surprised to see him there. She was wearing another dark suit, with a lavender blouse. The color looked good on her.

  “What’s going on?” she said. “Is there a problem?”

  “Where’d you park your car?”

  “In the side lot, like always.”

  “I need you to move it,” he said. “Go out and drive it down the street like you’re going somewhere. Then come back around, away from Rush Street, and park behind the restaurant.”

  “I’m a little busy. I have a restaurant to run.”

  “Just do it and I’ll let you get back to work.”

  When she left, he sat down at the bar and waited. The bartender asked him if he wanted anything. Mason said no, knowing today was a good day to stay sharp. He had the envelope folded up in his back pocket, so he took it out, unfolded the sheets of paper, and memorized the man’s face again. Then he read down the list of businesses and addresses, trying to place them all on a city map inside his head.

  It took Diana a few minutes longer than he would have figured, but that was probably a good thing. A sign that she knew how to do things all the way and not take any shortcuts. She came back into the dining room from the kitchen.

  “Are you going to tell me what this is about?”

  “I need your keys,” Mason said. “And if somebody comes in looking for me, call my cell. Don’t tell them I’m out.”

  She gave him a look. “Yeah, no kidding. I’ll tell them you’re in back doing something. Or in the office making a call that’ll take a while. Stall them. Give you a call. You can decide if you need to get back here.”

  “And I was thinking it was an original idea . . .”

  He took the keys from her and went out the back door to the little alley behind the restaurant. Her black BMW M5 was waiting there. Cole must have a thing for black cars, he thought. Or maybe she bought this herself. Who knows.

  He got in and started it up. He pulled onto the side street and headed west, away from Rush Street. He stayed on the secondary roads for a while, then worked his way south. Most of the addresses on the list were on the South Side, so Mason knew he’d have no problem finding them.

  He had the list on the seat next to him. While waiting at the bar, he’d put numbers next to each address. Go here first, then here, then here. Being smart about making one big loop through the South Side. No doubling back. No wasted effort.

  He started in Avalon Park. The address turned out to be a restaurant. One Heart
was a world away from Antonia’s, a small place on the corner that seemed to specialize in fast Caribbean food. Busy, the height of the lunch hour, people were lined up outside the door. Must be some damned good jerk chicken in there. Mason was getting hungry. But there was no way he was getting out of the car. A white man in a BMW would get noticed and be remembered.

  Mason watched the people going in and out of the place. He watched the cars going by on the street. Then he pulled away from the curb and went to the next address.

  It was a barbershop, just a few streets away. It was one of those places that served as the center of the neighborhood. Two chairs, both occupied, two barbers in white shirts, snapping scissors, talking, listening. A half-dozen other chairs lined the wall and front window. Men sat waiting, flipping through magazines, shooting the shit. Other men stopped in to say a word or two, then continued on their way down the street. Mason sat there for a while and watched the place.

  He moved on to a liquor store down in Roseland. It was busy in the way that all liquor stores are busy. Mason parked outside and started to wonder if he was doing this the right way. But he didn’t think he could walk into any of these places and start asking questions.

  Mason drove to Washington Heights and found a small grocery store. One of those places where you can buy everything, right down to the overpriced toilet paper, because you don’t have a car and you don’t feel like lugging a bunch of shopping bags on the bus. He didn’t even bother parking and watching the place. He saw a McDonald’s down the street and hit the drive-thru.

  He decided to hit the first address last. It was on his way back north, anyway. When he crossed into Englewood, he started to think about Darius Cole and the stories the man had told him about growing up here, getting his start on a corner.

  He found the laundromat. Right out of Cole’s own life story, his first experience taking drug money to be made clean. Be a hell of a thing, Mason thought, if this was even the exact same place.

  He could see it all happening through the windows, slightly fogged by the heat from the machines—a dozen young mothers, some grandmothers, sitting around waiting for their laundry, while their little kids ran laps around the place.

  Then he saw the car.

  The Chrysler 300—black, immaculately clean—was one of those boxy luxury sedans that looked like an old-school Cadillac. It was parked half a block down the street. Mason couldn’t see inside the car. He was too far away and the windows had too much tint. But he thought he could make out the vague shadow of a driver sitting at the wheel.

  That’s his car, Mason said to himself. It’s gotta be. So Tyron Harris can’t be far away.

  • • •

  Detective Frank Sandoval sat in his car on the opposite side of Rush Street, looking across the traffic at the black Camaro parked outside the restaurant. He looked down at the pad on the seat next to him on which he’d written down the license plate number for the Escalade he’d seen at the park. He’d watched the man who met Mason at the fountain walk back to the vehicle and had just enough time to get the plate before picking up the tail on Mason.

  He grabbed his radio and called in the number. Dispatch came back with an owner named Marcos Quintero. No warrants, no recent arrests. His record showed a gang affiliation with the West Side La Raza many years ago but no recent contact with the police.

  Sandoval signed off and sat there for a while, thinking about how a gangbanger goes that long without even getting picked up. You don’t leave that gang, Sandoval said to himself. La Raza is for life.

  He watched the traffic go by. Watched the Camaro sitting there empty and his whole day circling around the drain. Then he got a call on the radio.

  He picked up the transmitter, frowning with confusion. He knew he’d be transferring to the day shift soon, a fresh start for him after the business with his partner, but for now he was still officially on afternoons. So he had no idea who could be looking for him.

  “Detective Sandoval, you’re wanted at Homan,” the dispatcher said. “See Sergeant Bloome at SIS.”

  • • •

  Mason waited about ten minutes before three men came out of the laundromat. The two men on either side were big enough to remind Mason of Darius Cole’s prison bodyguards. Both wore black T-shirts. One man had black track pants on, the other baggy blue jeans.

  The man in the middle was Tyron Harris. Mason could see that in a second without having to pull out the mug shot. Dwarfed by the other two men, he wore a white summer dress shirt, untucked, over gray dress pants. He had a laptop bag looped over his shoulder.

  This is the man I’m going to kill, Mason thought. It surprised him how easily he could say that to himself. But it was a cold, simple fact. Tyron Harris was walking down the street with no idea that his life was already over.

  It would be good to know why he’s the target, Mason said to himself. Do a little detective work on my own, for my own benefit, maybe start to figure out how many others are on the list.

  They went to the car and one of the two big men got in the backseat with Harris. The other big man-got in front on the passenger’s side. The car pulled out onto the street. Mason waited a few moments, then pulled out and did a U-turn. He stayed a half block behind as they drove south.

  When they arrived at the mini-grocery in Washington Heights, Mason figured he was about to see the same loop in reverse. He waited and watched while Harris and the two big men went inside. Harris was still carrying his laptop bag. He walked with an easy, confident manner like a man who owned things. Which was probably true in this case. The other men were all business, looking up and down the street for anything resembling a threat.

  They stayed only a few minutes. When they came out, Mason took a good look at the first bodyguard. The way his shirt hung off his body, that slight bulge on the right side. There was an automatic in that man’s belt.

  Mason couldn’t get a good sight line on the second man yet. He’d have to wait for the next stop.

  The car was pulling out into traffic and Mason was about to follow when he happened to see the manager come out of the grocery. Black, rail-thin, with receding white hair, he pulled out a cigarette and stood there, breathing in the hot air from the street. He lit the cigarette and his hand shook as he took his first drag of smoke.

  The car headed down toward Roseland. Mason was guessing they were headed down to the liquor store, but instead they hit another laundromat. As they got out of the car this time, Mason finally got a clear look at the second bodyguard and the large crease running all the way down from his shirt into the left leg of his pants.

  Fuck me, he said to himself. That’s a sawed-off shotgun.

  The two men stayed on either side of Harris, who apparently never let go of that laptop bag. He was a twenty-first-century entrepreneur, and from everything Cole had told Mason about Harris’s history, it was clear to Mason that this man Harris was following the exact same blueprint, right down to the bodyguards. Get yourself in legitimate businesses that turn over a lot of cash. Build your base. Start with the places you know, the neighborhoods where you’re welcome. Then expand from there.

  He was starting to understand why this man was a target.

  The only surprise was why Harris was being driven around and doing much of this collection work himself. It seemed like something you’d let your men do for you. Maybe he didn’t trust them enough. Maybe he was just that kind of man, hands-on all the way.

  Or maybe there was something else going on here. Maybe he was getting back out on the streets, trying to find out if anybody was hearing things.

  As he settled in behind the car again, Mason called Quintero.

  “I expected to hear from you already,” Quintero said.

  “Took a while to find him,” Mason said. “Now I’m tailing him.”

  “You see your shot yet?”

  “You’re fucking kidding me
, right? He’s got two bodyguards with him at all times, both armed. One with a sawed-off. There’s a third man in the car. He might have a fucking bazooka, for all I know.”

  “Keep watching him,” Quintero said.

  Then the call ended.

  Mason flipped the phone onto the seat and kept driving.

  He was back on familiar ground. Sitting in a car, keeping his eyes open. Waiting. Watching. Not getting bored because boredom distracts you. It’s all part of what you do when you’re setting up a job.

  Only now, the job was killing a man. And the waiting and watching were all about the angles. About the numbers. He knew he’d have to take out the shotgun first. That left the other man with the automatic. If you’re lucky enough to get them both, then the third man steps out of the car. Or Harris could be carrying himself. Something small and light. Be a big surprise if he wasn’t.

  There’s no shot here, Mason told himself. Not unless I can get him alone.

  • • •

  The Homan Square police facility, or simply “Homan” to every cop in the city, was once a Sears warehouse. It was renovated in the nineties, along with the rest of the old Sears headquarters, and it was the biggest police building in the city, a redbrick fortress that housed all of the Bureau of Organized Crime units—Narcotics, Vice, Gang Enforcement, Asset Forfeiture—as well as Forensics and the Evidence and Recovered Property Section. Sandoval had been there many times, but usually just to drop off evidence, either for storage until a court date or else to be sent out to the Illinois State Police lab.

  It made perfect sense that SIS would be stationed in this building, where they could draw from the best narcotics detectives just downstairs or even other OCD units, if they found a strong enough candidate. SIS had their office on the top floor, of course, with the big windows on the east side of the building, facing downtown.

  Few Chicago cops ever got the chance to see this place. Today was Sandoval’s chance, but it didn’t make him feel lucky.