The Second Life of Nick Mason

30

The cop caught up to Mason by the first corner. The car edged its nose in front of his Camaro and tried to ride him right off the street.

This wasn’t the usual unmarked police sedan, either. It was a Dodge Hellcat. Mason couldn’t see the face of the driver. He didn’t need to.

Swinging his car to his left, he felt the scrape on his driver’s-side door as he edged back in front of the other car. The Dan Ryan Expressway was just ahead of them, but Mason wasn’t going to head that way. If this guy didn’t have help, he’d have it pretty fucking soon and they’d be able to run Mason down if he was stupid enough to get on the open road. They’d put him into the guardrail and then shoot them both. They wouldn’t even let him get out of the car.

Mason cut the wheel, made a hard right, and then another right. Angela screamed as she was thrown against the passenger’s-side door.

“Hold on,” he said.

The two turns had Mason doubled back and heading west. He couldn’t see the car behind him, but he knew it wasn’t far away. Angela snapped her seat belt on and slid down in the seat, her eyes closed, as Mason gunned the accelerator.

I’ve got one good chance here, Mason thought as he headed toward Forty-fifth Street. The embankment came up fast and he barely slowed down as he went under the bridge. The Berlin Wall, this same boundary he’d known since he was a kid. The girders flew by, just inches from either side of the car. When he came out on the other side, he was in Canaryville. He was home. Now he had both the fastest car on the road and home-field advantage.

Mason cut down to Forty-seventh, where he’d have some room to run. He passed every car in his lane, swerving into oncoming traffic and then back, hearing a dozen different horns blaring behind him. It was late enough at night, he figured he could just barely make this work.

He looked in the rearview mirror and saw the Hellcat two blocks behind him. Its flashers were still on and some of the other cars on the road pulled over to let it pass.

I need some space, he thought, before I can start using the side streets. He went around the cars waiting at the next red light, coming so close to an oncoming truck that he felt it tick against the corner of his rear bumper. He swung back hard to the right and gunned it up Halsted. It was a good open stretch where he could really fly and he ran through two more red lights. When he looked in his mirror, he could barely see the flashing lights a few blocks behind him.

Time to show you Canaryville, he thought as he took a hard right on Pershing. He looked back to make sure he was clear, threw the car onto the first side street, then took another turn and headed down through the heart of the neighborhood. He knew the streets were narrow here. He had to be careful where he was going. One car backing out of a driveway and he’d be fucked.

But he knew which streets ran all the way through and which streets ran into dead ends. He even remembered the alleys he used as shortcuts when he was a kid.

He went down one of those alleys, working his way past the backyard garages and squeezing past a dumpster that almost blocked him dead. He finally looped all the way around and pulled into the loading dock of the old meatpacking plant that had been standing there for a century. He wedged the car in tight between two semis. Nobody would see them here. He turned off the car so that even the low, growling idle wouldn’t be heard.

He caught his breath for a moment while Angela slid up in her seat and looked out the window.

“Where are we?” she said.

“Someplace safe,” Mason said. “We’ll let them run for a while.”

“They would have killed me,” she said. “If they had found me in that house…”

Mason nodded.

She closed her eyes and put her head back against the seat. He could see her whole body shaking. Her hair seemed to glow in the near darkness.

“How did this get so fucked up?” she said. “Jordan was just trying to get me out. To get us both out.”

It wasn’t hard to imagine. The man was assigned to protect this woman. He spends that much time with her alone in a car. He smells her perfume, laughs at her jokes. She starts really talking to him. She sees something in him. Something different.

“He didn’t want to be in the life anymore,” she said. “We were going to go away together. This was our chance. That’s why I…”

She didn’t finish the thought. She didn’t have to. They both knew the parts they’d played that night.

Mason reached behind him and grabbed the black box from the backseat.

“Are you gonna tell me what that is?”

“That was Tyron’s insurance policy.”

Looking it over more carefully, Mason saw access ports along one edge, where you could plug in a power supply, and then another cord to connect it to a computer.

Or a laptop.

“He kept records of every meeting he had with those guys,” she said. “Every deal he made. Every payment.”

“It’s a backup drive,” Mason said. He pictured Harris, walking down the street with his laptop. Going from one place to the next. Doing his daily business.

“It was more than just the deals,” she said. “He had this… thing on his laptop. Whenever he was with any of them, he’d turn it on and it would record the whole conversation. Even when the laptop was closed. It’s all there.”

Mason remembered the coffee shop near Homan Square. The man in the suit, his arm around Harris’s shoulders. That conversation, whatever it was about, was stored inside this box, too.

“He thought it would protect him,” Angela said, looking down at her hands. “He thought it would protect everyone. All of his men. And me.”

Mason hefted the thing in his hand. A couple pounds of hard plastic and computer parts, whatever else was in one of these things.

And enough evidence to bring down a whole squad of dirty cops.

“You need to get out of town,” Mason said, “and never come back.”

“Take me to 2120 MLK. This guy’s gonna let me stay there for a few days, then get me out.”

No surprise, Mason thought. There will always be a man to help you when you look like that.

They waited another twenty minutes. Then Mason pulled out from the loading dock and went back up the alley. When he got to Forty-seventh, he looked up and down the street, trying to spot the Hellcat or anything else fast enough to chase him down. He made the turn and drove at normal speed, hoping to blend back in. But he was ready to run again. One flashing light and he’d gun it.

He went to MLK and found the address. He pulled over in front of the house and waited for the door to open. When he gave her the bag, she unzipped it and took a quick look at the contents. She let out a breath and nodded her head.

“See ya around,” she said as she got out quickly and went to the door of the house.

Mason watched her go inside. Then the door closed behind her.

His cell phone rang. He took it out, expecting Quintero. I got your fucking package, he was ready to say to him. Tell me where you are.

But it was Diana.

“Nick,” she said.

One word and he could already hear the fear in her voice.

“Diana, what’s going on?”

“They want to talk to you. Nick, get me out of here.”

Mason didn’t have to ask what she was talking about. He could already feel it burning a hole through the bottom of his stomach.

“Mason,” a voice said.

“Who is this?”

“This is Bloome. Bring that hard drive to me. We trade, the two of you walk away.”

Mason knew it was a lie. He wasn’t going to question it. It wouldn’t help him. It wouldn’t help Diana.

“Where are you?” Mason said.

He listened carefully as he was told exactly where to go.

“Your men are looking for my car,” Mason said. “You have to call them off.”

“Already done,” Bloome said. “No need to do this in the streets.”

“I’m on my way.”

He ended the call. Then he pulled out the M9 that Angela had given him. He checked the load. It looked like the clip had been full when she had fired it at him. So with one round in the chamber, that left him fifteen.

Fifteen shots.