The Second Life of Nick Mason

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.

He rode up the elevator and found the door at the end of the long hallway. The sign outside the door read Special Investigations Section. He walked into a little waiting area and told the receptionist he was there to see Bloome. She was an attractive redhead-it figured that SIS would even have the best-looking receptionist at the front desk. She told him to wait on one of the benches.

This was a secure police building-you wouldn’t even get to this floor if you weren’t a cop or else a cop was escorting you. But Sandoval still had to sit on the hard wooden bench in the little waiting area like he was an informant off the streets waiting for his meal money. He could see over the half wall into the bull pen of SIS desks, arranged in random clusters. There were a dozen officers walking back and forth between the desks or talking on the telephones. The SIS uniform seemed to be tailored suits with the jackets hanging on the backs of chairs, everyone in dress shirts and ties, a few with suspenders.

Sandoval couldn’t help but notice the energy in the room. There was a testosterone-fueled buzz that seemed to hang in the air like the static electricity before a thunderstorm.

Then Sandoval noticed the one man standing still among all the others. He had his suit jacket on and was over by the big warehouse window, looking out at the summer day.

Making Sandoval wait. Making him absorb the atmosphere of this place, where the best cops in the city did their work.

Sandoval felt his blood pressure rising until finally the man turned and came toward him. Sergeant Bloome had that same imperial walk, those cold gray eyes looking out at the world from somewhere above it. As Bloome got closer, Sandoval could see a small black band stretched across the lower two points of the silver star on his belt.

Everyone in the unit was probably wearing one, Sandoval thought. In memory of Sergeant Jameson.

“Detective Sandoval,” Bloome said, swinging out the half-wall door and holding it open. “This way.”

Sandoval followed him into the bull pen. He took a quick scan of the place, saw three different bulletin boards with photographs tacked on them. Some were mug shots, others were obviously the product of a long-range surveillance camera. All of the SIS cops were giving Sandoval the eye as he walked between their desks, measuring him, forming their own opinions of this outsider who’d been summoned here.

“We’ll talk in here,” Bloome said, leading him into an interview room. Like everything else, it was newer and cleaner than any interview room at Area Central Homicide. Bloome closed the door behind him and waited for Sandoval to sit down on one side of the table. Then Bloome sat across from him.

“I won’t waste any more of your time,” Bloome said, making it sound exactly like it was his time that was already being wasted. “One of my men heard you call in a plate today.”

“A cop calling in a plate. Go figure.”

Even seated, Bloome seemed to be looking down at Sandoval. His expression didn’t change. “Tell me why you’re interested in the driver,” he said.

This guy’s got ears everywhere, Sandoval thought. A one-minute exchange on the radio and he’s all over it. Which makes me wonder how I would have played this if I knew it would cause such a stir.

Hell, probably exactly the same way.

“You guys don’t have anything better to do? Sit around and monitor the radio all day?”

Bloome studied him carefully. “You know what we do here?” he said, nodding toward the closed door. “We’ve taken four hundred pounds of heroin off the street this year. Fuck knows how many guns on top of that. You want to come down to the evidence room and see?”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“We report directly to the supe, and we can take over any case we want. At any time.”

Sandoval had already seen it, in the motel room, when Bloome had told him SIS was taking over the investigation of Jameson’s murder. That was the rule and it came straight from the superintendent himself-if SIS takes over, you get out of the way. There is no argument, no appeal, no room for discussion. If SIS wants your case, it’s theirs.

But there’s no way I’m gonna give them Mason, Sandoval thought. Hell, it’s not even a case. It’s something more.

“The driver of that Escalade,” Sandoval said, watching Bloome’s eyes, “Marcos Quintero. You think he’s part of a case I’m working on. And you want it.”

“I don’t know anything about your caseload,” Bloome said. “But I know you homicide guys usually have your hands full. And Quintero happens to be someone who’s already on my radar.”

“How do you know him?”

Sandoval watched Bloome working over the question.

“He’s a person of interest,” Bloome finally said. “That’s all I can say.”

Sandoval took a moment. He had to decide how to play this. “I’m watching someone else,” he said, “and Quintero shows up. I wonder who he is. That’s it.”

Bloome leaned back in his chair. He didn’t say a word.

This is where you keep your mouth shut, Sandoval thought. You wait to see what happens next. Because that might tell you everything you need to know.

“I’m going to bring in two of my men,” Bloome said. “Then we can keep talking.”

I just told him I was watching someone else, Sandoval said to himself. And yet he’s not asking me who that someone is.

Because he already knows.

Bloome was startled when Sandoval stood up. This was clearly something that didn’t happen. Ever.

You don’t get up and walk out of this room before you’re told to do so.

“Detective,” Bloome said, “where the fuck do you think you’re going?”

“I’m going back to work,” Sandoval said as he opened the door and walked through it, never looking back. He could feel a dozen eyes burning right through him as he made his way through the office and out the door.

It was late in the afternoon now. Mason trailed the 300 as it headed back north through Englewood. It pulled over on a street in Woodlawn and stopped at one of those rent-to-own places where you pay a little every month for furniture and electronics.

Mason watched them pay their visit to the manager, then get back in the car and take off, but this time they went to the expressway and headed downtown. They got off around the Loop and disappeared into the late-afternoon traffic. Two times, Mason thought he had lost the car but picked it back up again, until he saw it pull over in front of Morton’s Steakhouse.

A second black Chrysler 300 was already parked out front. The doors opened and a woman got out from the back. From forty yards away, Mason could see why a half-dozen other men on the street were already staring at her. She was a perfect blonde with a perfect body, right off a Stockholm runway, the kind of woman only a man like Tyron Harris could afford.

Harris greeted her with a kiss. Then the four of them-Harris, this woman, and the two bodyguards-went inside, leaving the two drivers outside in the cars.

Mason parked the car, got out, and wolfed down a Polish dog at a place down the street, from where he could still see the cars. Unsure whether to call Quintero again, he decided to finish the day with Harris first. Waiting back out in the BMW, he could picture the scene inside the restaurant-bottles of wine and waiters falling all over themselves.

When the party broke up, Harris and the woman came out on the street, followed by the bodyguards, and this time both drivers got out of the cars and met with them. Everyone stood there, nodding and bumping fists. Still all business, but a little more relaxed. Taking their cue from the boss.

The woman got in the car with Harris, along with the bodyguards. Harris’s car took off in one direction while the other car went in the opposite. Mason kept his eye on Harris’s car and followed it back to the expressway. The sun was going down. He checked the gas tank and realized he didn’t have many more miles left.

But he didn’t have to go far. They stayed in the local lanes and got off on Forty-third Street. Just a few blocks in, they stopped at an old three-story brick building surrounded by two empty lots. Harris, the woman, and the bodyguards went inside. The driver stayed in the car.

Mason stayed a block away. He didn’t want to get too close. With no other cars on the street, he’d be spotted in a second.

So this is Harris’s home, Mason thought. It didn’t look like much from the outside, but that was probably the point. There was plenty of room on the inside, and a little money could have turned it into something comfortable.

The best part of all was, Mason knew exactly where he was. He was in Fuller Park, which meant he could have gotten out, walked down past the stoneworks to the tunnel on Forty-fifth Street that would take him through the embankment and under the railroad tracks. On the other side of those tracks was Canaryville. A few more blocks and he’d be standing in front of his old house.

They called that embankment the Berlin Wall when he was growing up over there. They probably still did, because things like that don’t change. You never went through that tunnel under the Berlin Wall. You stayed where you were, surrounded by your own.

He picked up the phone and called Quintero. He heard a woman’s voice in the background, words exchanged in Spanish. Mason gave him the update. He had found Harris’s home base. But he was surrounded by bodyguards at all times. Right now, there were two men in the house with Harris and the woman. Another in the car outside, and Mason wouldn’t be surprised if that man stayed there all night.

“It’s going to be hard to get to him,” Mason said. “He’s never alone.”

“You keep watching him. You find a way.”

“Do the math,” Mason said. “Wyatt Earp couldn’t get to this guy.”

“I’ll see if I can get you some help tomorrow.”

“What are you talking about? What kind of help?”

“You’ll know it when you see it,” Quintero said. “Then you’ll get your shot.”

The call ended.

As the street went dark, Mason sat there with the phone still in his hand, watching the house of a dead man.