The Second Life of Nick Mason

by Steve Hamilton

  Investigators have cited an unnamed Chicago police officer for his role in providing key evidence used to put together these indictments. That officer’s name is not being released to the public, but an anonymous spokesman stated that “the evidence shows a clear and consistent pattern of corruption, with regular cash payments made to the officers by high-level suppliers in exchange for protection against arrest and prosecution.” Those cash payments were described as ranging anywhere from $5,000 to $50,000.

  The same source states that, aside from detailed records of transactions between police officers and dealers, there were also several hours of recorded conversations. He went on to say that “these recorded conversations between various members of the SIS task force and one supplier paint a chilling portrait of police officers on the take, for sale to the highest bidder.”

  Chicago police superintendent Garry McCarthy issued the following statement:

  “I stand with Chief Rivera and Mayor Emanuel in expressing my condemnation of the actions taken by these rogue individuals and my profound disappointment in how these actions may reflect upon the more than 12,000 other members of the Chicago Police Department who perform their duties every day with integrity and honor. I want to thank the officer who came forward with information crucial to the exposure of these crimes. And I encourage all members of the force to consider this a great example to follow as we continue to work with the FBI, DEA, and our own Bureau of Internal Affairs to pursue those involved in corruption.”

  In a press conference immediately following this press release, Superintendent Garry McCarthy announced that “all SIS investigations and other related activity will immediately be suspended, pending resolution of these charges.” He went on to say that “As of now, SIS is no longer in business.”

  The District Attorney’s Office has also informed the Chicago Police Department that, as a matter of prosecutorial discretion, it would no longer rely on testimony from Sergeant Bloome or Detectives Fairley, Spiller, Harrison, Jaynes, Baylor, and Coleman. As a result, there are no open active cases involving these officers.

  No officials contacted at the United States Attorney’s Office were willing to speculate on the possible prison terms that may result from the charges leveled against these members of SIS, but the sentencing guidelines for these charges mean that, if convicted, the officers would be serving literally hundreds of years in federal prison.

  The unnamed source with access to the evidence gave his own prediction about the eventual resolution of this case:

  “We’ve had more than our share of bad cops in this town. But these guys are the worst. They’ll do more hard time than all the rest of them put together.”

  Epilogue

  Mason walked down the wet sidewalk, a dark silhouette in the rain, with a million lights all reflected in the slick streets. It was one of those nights when the air turns heavy and cold, chilling your skin no matter how many layers you wear.

  The rain kept falling. Mason was alone. As he walked, he watched the ground in front of him with haunted eyes. The eyes of a soldier who’s been to war. A man who has seen too much.

  A man who will never be the same again.

  He didn’t care that he was soaked right through his clothes. Not tonight. He kept moving until he came to the store at the end of the block, its interior lights making the windows glow in the darkness.

  Max saw him first, his tail already wagging as Mason stepped inside. Mason stood there, dripping in the doorway, his white shirt plastered against his chest.

  Lauren looked up from the counter. She was just about to close the store, already had the apology lined up for this last customer of the day. But then she saw Mason’s face.

  She caught her breath. He had a new bruise around his left eye. A scrape along his jawline. For a long moment, neither of them said a word.

  “I’m here to pick up Max,” Mason finally said. He went to the gate and put his hand down on the dog. Max kept wagging his tail.

  “You bought him,” she said. “He’s all yours.”

  “Glad you’re here. I wanted to—”

  “What’s really going on?” she said. “Just tell me that.”

  That stopped him dead.

  “Every time I see you,” she said, “you’re covered in bruises.”

  “I wish I could tell you,” he said, “but I can’t. Not right now.”

  “Then take Max and go.”

  “Lauren, listen,” he said, coming closer to her. “You’ve got every reason not to let me into your life. But I’m asking you . . .”

  He paused. He’d been so afraid of letting her in. Now he needed the right words to make her stay. But those words weren’t coming to him.

  As Lauren waited, she didn’t want to look at him, didn’t want to remember the one night they’d spent together. She’d been thinking about him way too much since then. How many times had she looked out these windows and wondered if she’d ever see him again?

  “This was a mistake,” he said at last. “I should just—”

  “Do you sell drugs? Is that where you get your money?”

  He forced a smile and shook his head. That would be an easier life, he thought.

  “So tell me the truth,” she said. “Who do you work for?”

  “I can’t answer that.”

  She looked down at her hands and didn’t say anything for a moment.

  “Your arrest,” she said. “I read about it. The paper said you were sentenced to twenty-five-to-life. With no chance for early parole. How can you even be here, Nick? How can you be out?”

  “It was a bad bust,” he said. “They had to release me.”

  “Bad bust meaning you weren’t there that night? Or bad bust meaning—”

  “I didn’t kill anybody, Lauren.”

  It was the truth, Mason thought. For that night, at least, it was the truth. I wasn’t a killer.

  Not then.

  Never mind the men I’ve killed since I became a “free” man.

  “The other man who was killed that night,” she said, “trying to get away . . .”

  “A friend of mine.”

  She could see it in his eyes. How much it still hurt him.

  “I’m just trying to understand,” she said. “I don’t know anything about you.”

  “I’ll never put you in danger,” he said. He wanted to believe it.

  “I don’t think you can promise that, Nick. Not the way you live.”

  It was her biggest fear, that he was involved in something terrible. Something she could never understand or accept. He hadn’t said one thing yet to make her believe anything else.

  “Whatever you think we can have,” she said, “it won’t work. You know that, right?”

  “I want to be with you, Lauren. I don’t know how else to say it. This other thing in my life . . . I’m trying to get out of it. Every single day.”

  He didn’t know how he’d ever do it, but he would keep watching, and waiting, and somehow he would find a way to get his life back.

  “Can you do that? Will you ever be out?”

  “I don’t know.”

  It was the truth. He had no idea how long it would take. Or how much his freedom would cost him if it ever came.

  “Because if you could . . .” she said. “I mean, if you really could—”

  Mason reached out and touched her hand before she could finish. He knew he was asking for too much from her. Being with him would be signing the same kind of contract that he had with Cole. With no chance to read the words. No idea what would happen from one moment to the next.

  He had no right to ask her to live a life like that. Like his.

  He took a leash from the rack and opened up the gate. Max came out into the center of the store just long enough for Mason to hook the leash to his collar. He opened the door and led th
e dog out into the rain. When he was half a block away, he heard the footsteps behind him.

  He turned and looked at her face, already wet from the rain.

  He put his arms around her and kissed her right there on the sidewalk. They walked up Grant Street together, with Max on the leash beside them. By the time they got to the town house, all three of them were soaked.

  Mason took Lauren into his bedroom and they took off their wet clothes.

  “I need you to be honest with me,” she said as she touched his chest. “You don’t have to tell me anything you can’t tell me. But no more lies.”

  He nodded his head once. Then he lifted her up in the air with both arms and put her down on the bed. They wrapped themselves together and it was better than the first time, because it wasn’t about five years of hunger waiting to be released. It was about being together and wanting to make it last.

  • • •

  Lauren woke up first. The sun was coming in through the windows of Mason’s bedroom. The storm clouds were gone. She lay there for a while, watching him sleep. Then she got up and went into the kitchen to make breakfast.

  Diana came down the stairs. She was dressed for work. Dark suit, a white shirt today. Her hair pinned up.

  “Good morning,” Diana said with that same careful, cold edge in her voice just like the first time the two women had met. With a hundred other things left unsaid.

  Lauren watched her pick up her black leather bag, then head for the stairs. There would be no breakfast, no conversation. Not even another word. Then she heard Diana’s BMW starting, the garage door opening and closing, the car accelerating down the street.

  We don’t have to be sorority sisters, Lauren thought, but as long as you still live here . . . it’s just another complication. One more thing to be worked around if we’re going to make this work.

  Maybe I’m fooling myself. This whole thing is impossible.

  But then Nick was there in the kitchen with her. He came up behind her and wrapped his arms tight around her waist.

  We have to try, she said to herself. Somewhere in the middle of this crazy mess, we have to try to find a real life.

  • • •

  They spent the rest of the day together, walking down to North Avenue Beach and the outdoor hamburger stand at Castaways, the restaurant that was built to look like a big blue steamboat. One more piece of classic Chicago, and for one fleeting moment, it made Mason think that maybe this city was big enough, and good enough, to find a new life in.

  And maybe even find a way to include Adriana in his life. Bring his daughter to this same beach, on another day, just as perfect as this one. Watch her swim and then wrap her up in a towel. Sit on the sand and watch the sun go down over the lake. He still had the soccer games twice a week. Still keeping that part of his life separate. And safe. But if I ever find a way to get my life back, he said to himself, I can have more.

  I can have everything.

  As they were walking back to the town house, Mason stole a quick look at his new cell phone. He’d thrown the old one away, but, of course, it could never be that easy to break the connection. He had a replacement the next day and now it was right here in his pocket to remind him. I can think anything I want, he realized, but it all gets obliterated with the simple sound of this phone ringing.

  It could be five weeks. It could be five days. Hell, it could be five minutes.

  This is the dreamworld, he thought. This seemingly normal life, walking down this sidewalk with this woman at my side. When the phone rings, I’ll open my eyes and see my real life again.

  I’ll go right back to that waking nightmare.

  He put the phone away, but Lauren caught the look on his face. Neither of them said a word about it, but it hung in the air between them for the rest of the day.

  They had dinner together that night and made love again in his bed. They watched a movie on the big television, wrapped up on the couch, pretending to be a normal couple on a normal night.

  The phone sat on the table, just a few feet away. It stayed silent. But they both knew it was there.

  • • •

  After midnight, Mason woke up and felt for her beside him. She was gone.

  He got up and went outside and found her sitting by the pool. She was wrapped up in his robe, curled up in a chair, looking up at the night sky. She took his hand and stood up. He kissed her, then sat in the chair and pulled her down to him. He held on to her, the warmth of her body holding off the chill of the night air.

  He looked up at the same stars until she finally spoke.

  “What’s going to happen next?” she said.

  He didn’t answer. He knew he’d have to tell her someday. Everything he’d done. This man he killed with a gun, this one with a knife. God knows what else he’d have to do between today and that day. He wouldn’t be able to keep it all inside him forever.

  But for tonight, there was nothing he could say to her. He had to keep doing his job, whatever he was told to do next. He had to follow every order until he finally saw his chance to get out. Until then, letting her into his world would mean making her a part of it.

  He wasn’t ready to do that.

  Not yet.

  • • •

  They were having lunch at a place on Addison Street the next day, sitting at a table outside. Mason looked across the street and saw the black Escalade parked there. The driver’s-side window slid down and he saw Quintero’s face.

  “Who is that?” Lauren said, following his eyes. She saw the man sitting in the vehicle, saw the tattoos and the sunglasses and the easy way he rested his arm across the steering wheel. Watching them and not caring if they noticed.

  Then he took off his sunglasses and nodded to her. She swallowed hard and looked away. Mason stared at the man and thought about what this could mean for them. He knows we’re together, Mason said to himself. He followed us all the way up here to her neighborhood. He knows she’s in my life now.

  “He’s part of this,” she said. My first glimpse into this other life, she thought. This other life that touches both of us.

  This other life that will begin again, at any moment.

  “Yes,” Mason said, keeping his promise to her. No more lies.

  • • •

  When Lauren woke up the next morning, she lay next to Mason and traced her finger along the lines on his face, memorizing him. Thinking about the bet she’d made on this man. That he was a good man in a bad situation. That all of the uncertainty and all of the wondering were a price worth paying to be with him.

  Then the phone rang.

  Nick’s eyes opened. He looked at her first, then he sat up and grabbed the phone off the night table. He sat with his back to her as he listened, never saying a word. When the call was done, he put the phone down.

  She sat up in the bed. “Nick . . .”

  He got up, still silent, and put his clothes on.

  She wrapped the covers around herself and watched every movement he made. This is it, she said to herself, the moment I’ve been dreading. I can’t ask him where he’s going or what he’ll have to do. All I can do is wonder how long he’ll be gone and what new scars he’ll have when he comes back.

  If he comes back at all.

  Mason came over and kissed her. He stood there for a long time, looking down at her in the bed.

  He checked his watch.

  “I have to go to work,” he said.

  Then he was gone.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I want to thank Shane Salerno for believing in me and for doing more than any one person could ever be asked to do to make this new series a reality. Thanks, also, to Edward Tsai, Don Winslow, and everyone associated with The Story Factory.

  I’m grateful to Ivan Held, Sara Minnich, and everyone else at G. P. Putnam’s Sons.

  Thanks
to Chicago police detective John Campbell for all of the technical assistance. And continuing thanks to Bill Keller and Frank Hayes.

  And, as always, I couldn’t do anything at all without Julia, my wife and best friend, and Nicholas and Antonia, who both amaze me more and more with each passing day.

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