The Second Life of Nick Mason

by Steve Hamilton

  Sandoval weaved his way through the chairs and runways until he saw a flash of light coming from the bathroom. He went around the partition and stood in the open doorway. It had been propped open with a chair. The body was lying on the floor in an awkward pose no living man ever struck, the legs tangled together and the torso half turned on its side. A lake of dark red blood had spread for three or four feet in every direction, and Sandoval could see the smooth straight line across the man’s throat. The man’s eyes were open.

  A police photographer was standing on the far side of the bathroom, his shoes covered with white fabric. He adjusted his camera setting and took another picture, blinding Sandoval with the flash.

  “Weapon?” Sandoval said.

  “In the sink,” the photographer said without looking up at him. “Don’t come in.”

  The photographer took another shot. Then another.

  Sandoval stepped away from the door, around the partition, and back into the main room. He found a young detective from Area North a few feet away, writing something on his pad.

  “Anybody see anything?” Sandoval asked him.

  “Nothing,” the detective said. “Staff said he had a whole posse with him, took over that corner over there. Four or five other black men, depending on who you ask. One white woman. But they were all gone before we got here.”

  That’s when Sandoval heard the heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. Three seconds later, a new group of men spilled out into the room like they were invading the place. A half dozen of them, all in dark suits. It was SIS.

  “What the fuck,” the young detective said. He went off to talk to the first man he could find until Sandoval saw Sergeant Bloome making his entrance.

  “SIS is taking this one,” he heard Bloome say.

  Sandoval wasn’t surprised. They take over yet another case. They stay in control.

  “Okay, Sergeant,” the detective said. “It’s all yours.”

  Sandoval watched all the other cops follow the detective down the stairs. Even the photographer. Sandoval took half a step forward. Pure physical reaction. Then he stopped himself. In that one instant, he had made his decision.

  The first time he had run into Bloome, the man had treated him like nothing more than a nuisance. The second time, he had tried to intimidate him and pump him for information.

  This was the third time, and Sandoval wasn’t leaving. It was time to face the man. He knew he couldn’t outpunch him, but maybe he could wear him down, wait for an opening. Finally get to him.

  There was only one answer to intimidation. Exposure.

  He took a breath and swallowed. Bloome spotted him and crossed the room.

  “Sandoval,” he said, “you deaf? Get the fuck out of here.”

  “I don’t take orders from SIS,” Sandoval said. “I’m still working my own case.”

  Bloome paused a moment to consider that. “Not here,” he said.

  “How come you get so nervous every time you see me, Bloome?”

  Bloome raised his eyebrows. Two other SIS detectives, both within earshot, stopped and turned to listen in.

  “Look at you,” Sandoval said. “Why are you so concerned about me? A dead SIS sergeant, then a dead major dealer, four days apart? You worried about a connection?”

  “You think you can stand there and ask me questions like I’m some goof you just picked up off the street?”

  Stay cool, Sandoval told himself. Here’s where he tries to end it in one punch. The harder he comes on, the more you lay back. That’s how you get to him.

  That’s how you drag this whole thing into the light.

  “How many homicide detectives they got in this city right now?” Bloome said. “How many hundreds of you guys are out there and your clearance rate is what, forty percent? Fifty in a good year? That’s a fucking joke, Sandoval. You guys are an embarrassment. That’s why they put us together, so they got some real cops around here who know what the fuck they’re doing. I’d let you stick around and watch if I thought you’d learn something.”

  A few more SIS officers were looking over at them. Sandoval could see it on their faces. Nobody ever talked to Bloome this way.

  “Can you believe this guy?” Bloome said, looking around at his men and smiling.

  You’re getting closer, Sandoval told himself. You can read it in his body language, the way he’s tensing up, the way he’s standing taller, like an alley cat getting ready to fight. He doesn’t know how to handle this.

  “Maybe I call your sergeant,” Bloome said. “How ’bout we call him, have him explain this to you?”

  “Why waste time with my sergeant?” Sandoval said. “Let’s go to the captain. Or maybe the chief. Let’s have Internal Affairs sit in and make it a party. Then the feds. I bet the DEA would love a look.”

  “There’s no connection between this case and the murder of Ray Jameson.”

  “Then why are you sweating?”

  Bloome stood there, looking at him. You caught him, Sandoval thought. You slipped your way through and you just fucking caught him. Now don’t let up.

  “Maybe you should call your union rep,” Sandoval said. “Lawyer up, tell them everything.”

  Bloome had a slight smile on his face. “You think you got something? You got that feeling you’ve turned up a big case? That rush?”

  Bloome took a step closer to him.

  “You’re not exactly walking around in a white suit yourself, Sandoval. Everybody knows your partner’s dirty. How long would it take me and my crew to find something on you, huh? Five minutes?”

  Sandoval held his ground.

  “This is our city,” Bloome said, looking down at him. “You should know that by now. We run it and everyone else is just a visitor.”

  “If you’re the fucking king of this city,” Sandoval said, “why are you soaking through your two-hundred-dollar shirt?”

  Bloome waited a beat. Then he took one step closer.

  “I’m gonna take an interest in you,” Bloome said. “You don’t want that, Sandoval, because there’s one thing I know about cops. Somewhere in your life, you got a big problem. A weakness. You got people in your life you care about. I’ll get to everything, every corner of your life and everybody else around you.”

  You got him, Sandoval thought. You fucking got him.

  “I’m giving you one time-to-walk-away card,” Bloome said, stepping even closer so that the two men were just inches apart. “Because I am the last guy you want to put in a corner.”

  “Wherever you are,” Sandoval said, “you put yourself there. Now step the fuck back.” Sandoval was ready for whatever came next. One hand on your shoulder. Or two hands.

  Then probably every other SIS cop in the room.

  “What do you need?” Bloome said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You want the collar? This is a heater case, Sandoval. I’ll bring you in, make you the lead. We run it my way, but you can be the hero. They pin a medal on your chest, take your picture, give you a promotion, a nice raise. You’ll make sergeant by the end of the year.”

  Sandoval didn’t answer him. He just shook his head. He’d already said no to the hammer.

  Now he was saying no to the carrot.

  But he was walking away with something a lot better. He had his answer. Bloome had already given away his connection to Quintero. Add to that these two cases and now this attempt to essentially buy him off . . .

  If Bloome had speed-dialed Darius Cole and put him on the speakerphone, it wouldn’t have been any better.

  “You’re making a big mistake,” Bloome finally said. “I hope you’re not too attached to your career.”

  Sandoval looked him in the eye one last time.

  “Do you even fucking remember when you were a cop?”

  25

 
Among the thirty parents watching the soccer game, Nick Mason was pretty sure he was the only two-time murderer.

  He stood against the backstop again, behind the bleachers, but with the same good angle to see the entire field. He had his sunglasses on even though it was not sunny. It was a gray day, on the verge of being cold, but he couldn’t feel it. He stood there motionless, leaning against the rough wood, with his arms folded across his chest.

  He kept seeing the face he saw in that mirror in the strip club. It was the face of another man. A man he didn’t know.

  A man he didn’t want to know.

  But I would do it again in a second, Mason thought, staring across the field. Give me a thousand different chances to get out of that place, to see this nine-year-old girl running around, chasing a ball, for a few minutes every week . . .

  I would do it again. Every time.

  The game developed on the field as Nick Mason focused on one player. He kept watching his daughter even when play stopped, even when she went out for a few minutes and stood along the far sideline, cheering on her teammates.

  At halftime, some of the parents stood up to stretch or to go have a smoke somewhere far away or talk on their cell phones. Mason stayed where he was, his eyes on his daughter as she sat in the grass and talked to two other players. When the second half was about to begin, a thought struck Mason and it was enough to make him move. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He dialed Lauren at the pet store, trying to remember if showing up at her place the night before had been a definite promise or just a maybe. Either way, he wanted to see her again. He wanted to walk down the street with her and become that other person again, if only for those few hours.

  The players were running around the field again. As Mason listened to the phone ringing, he looked for his daughter and for one moment couldn’t locate her. Then he spotted her on the far corner of the field, lining up for a free kick. She sent the ball into play and it was quickly cleared and sent down to the other end of the field. Adriana stayed behind, kneeling down on the grass to tie her shoe. Everyone else followed the movement of the ball toward the other goal, but Mason couldn’t care less about who scored or didn’t score. He was the one man still watching his daughter on the opposite end of the field.

  That’s when he saw the other man standing there at the edge of the parking lot, about twenty yards away from Adriana.

  Jimmy McManus.

  He was wearing his tight jeans and muscle shirt again, with the same gold chains around his neck. It took Mason a moment to process the fact that the man was here, in this same park. And now as McManus scanned the people watching the game, his eyes settled on Mason. McManus nodded to him, then to Adriana, back to him, as if verifying that this was really his daughter. He reached his own conclusion and gave Mason a thumbs-up.

  Then McManus took out his cell phone and gave out a sharp whistle. Adriana looked up from where she was still kneeling on the grass and Mason could see a look of confusion on her face. McManus pointed his phone at her and pushed a button. He was taking her picture.

  Mason was already in motion.

  He came out from the shadow of the backstop and ran along behind the bleachers toward the parking lot. McManus put up his hands, like, what the hell is this, but then he turned and headed back into the heart of the lot. He moved fast, not exactly running, but not exactly waiting around to see what Mason was going to do to him, either.

  Mason caught up to him and grabbed him by the collar. He felt at least one of the gold chains coming apart in his hands as McManus escaped and starting running.

  McManus was already in the next row of cars over, so Mason cut through a family getting out of their minivan and heard shouts from behind him. He reached McManus just as he was fumbling with his keys, trying to open the door of his bright red Corvette. Mason got a hand on the back of his neck and drove his face into the roof of the car.

  Once.

  Twice.

  A third time.

  The noise—bone on metal—echoed across the parking lot as the blood spurted from McManus’s shattered nose. Mason spun him around and drove wicked left hooks into his ribs, the kind of punches that break bones and bruise organs, that make you bleed not out but in.

  “It’s not enough you set us all up at the harbor,” he said as he grabbed him by the throat and pulled him back upright, “now you’re taking fucking pictures of my daughter?”

  The next punch folded McManus right in half and he slid down the side of the Corvette. Mason was pulling him to his feet again when he heard the voice behind him ordering him to freeze. He ignored the voice and kept hitting McManus until he felt a great weight knocking him down from behind and then his hands being twisted behind his back and locked tight in cuffs.

  Mason lay there on the ground for another few minutes, catching his breath, until he looked up and saw Gina’s face among the crowd of people who had gathered in the lot.

  He didn’t see Adriana. Just Gina, and her face told him everything he needed to know about what she was feeling.

  I was just protecting her. He tried to say it loud. I was just protecting our daughter. But she couldn’t hear him.

  Then he was lifted up from the ground, put in the back of the squad car, and taken away.

  26

  It had taken a week for Nick Mason to be back between three concrete walls and a set of metal bars.

  The walls of the holding cell at the Elmhurst Police Station had just been painted buff green. And the stainless-steel sink and toilet were immaculately clean. The bench he was sitting on had a pad thick enough to sleep on. It was probably the nicest cell Mason had ever seen.

  But it was still a cell.

  He looked at his hands, still red and swollen, especially the right hand, where the knuckles were scraped raw. He knew he had hit McManus at least three or four times with that hand. Maybe the car, maybe the ground.

  His hands hurt, but there was something else, too. This feeling he had that maybe beating the shit out of McManus wasn’t a smart idea, but at least it was his idea. For the first time since getting out, he had committed an act of violence because he had wanted to, not because he’d been told to. It belonged to him and nobody else.

  That was the moment. Sitting there in that cell, looking at his hands. That’s when Nick Mason started to wonder if he could stop being a fucking windup robot and start taking back control over his own life.

  He heard footsteps in the hallway. But it wasn’t the Elmhurst officer coming to release him. It was Detective Sandoval.

  Mason sat up straight on the bench but didn’t say a word.

  “I heard they brought you in,” Sandoval said.

  Sandoval dragged the one folding chair from the narrow hallway between the cells and the outer wall, sat down, and looked at Mason.

  “There was an off-duty at the game,” Sandoval said. “He stopped you before you killed that guy.”

  Mason didn’t respond.

  “They’re gonna give you a warning about calling the police next time. Then you’ll be out of here. But I asked them to hold you a minute so we could talk.”

  This is just what I fucking need, Mason thought.

  “A dead sergeant in that motel room. And then Tyron Harris last night. You’ve been busy.”

  Mason stayed silent.

  “So now I got you,” Sandoval said. “I got Cole. I got your buddy Marcos Quintero. Ex–La Raza. How long’s he been working for Cole? You gotta have some protection to get out of that life. Or did Cole just buy them out?”

  Mason leaned his back against the concrete wall.

  “I got your housemate, Diana Rivelli, who runs Cole’s restaurant. I hope you’re watching yourself. Cole finds out you’re fucking her, he’s not gonna be happy.”

  Mason shook his head at that one.

  This guy wants Cole, Mas
on thought. More than me, more than Quintero, more than everyone in the world who works for him. Or ever will. Cole is at the top of the pyramid and this detective will kill himself trying to get to him.

  He might arrest ten other people on the way. They’ll promote him and give him a medal and take his picture with the mayor.

  But he’ll never be satisfied until he gets to Cole.

  “I put all that together on my own,” Sandoval said. “What do you think a whole elite task force of cops could find out?”

  “Are we about done here?” Mason said.

  “Did you hear what I just said? You ever hear of a group of cops called SIS? They got put together a few years ago to go after dealers. They can do anything they want, Mason. They make big numbers, so nobody gives a fuck. They’re walking around with a god card, courtesy of the mayor and the police superintendent. Drag some guy out of his car, beat the shit out of him, take his money, take his drugs. Bust down somebody’s door without a warrant? Nobody cares.”

  “This is Chicago,” Mason said. “What else is new?”

  “They’ve been together for seven years,” Sandoval said. “What do you think that means?”

  Mason looked up at him.

  “They made that bust at the harbor,” Sandoval said. “That was SIS.”

  Mason’s grip tightened on the edge of the bench. He flashed back to the cars pulling out in front of the trucks. Not regular patrol cars. These cars were unmarked.

  “Is that a big surprise? Soon as they got put together, you don’t think Cole was smart enough to buy these guys out? It was a business arrangement, Mason. Goes on for years, until it finally goes to shit. And that’s where you came in.”

  Mason kept squeezing the bench pad tight, thinking about what this man was saying to him.

  “You know what the most dangerous thing in the world is, Mason? A dirty cop. Nobody’s watching him. Nobody can touch him. He can do whatever the fuck he wants. You got a dirty cop in your life, you got a big problem. But you know what’s even worse than a dirty cop? A whole fucking squad of them.”