Mason remembered what Quintero had said to him about what would happen if he got into trouble. Not even twenty-four hours had passed.
Mason waited a few more beats. Then he got up and left.
He stood on the sidewalk for a moment, blinded by the setting sun. The world became clear again and he went to the parking lot. He got in the Mustang, started it, put it in reverse, and pointed it at the street. A man walking by chose that moment to stop directly in front of his car, blocking the exit. He was dressed in black, head to toe, his shirt tight enough to show off his biceps. He had gold chains around his neck and a pair of screw-you mirrored sunglasses to complete the look.
“All right, auto show’s over,” Mason said out loud. He didn’t bother cranking down the window. “You got your look, now get your ass out of the way.”
The man didn’t move. Mason revved the engine.
“I will seriously run you over,” he said. “Today is not the day to fuck with me.”
The man stepped aside finally. As he barreled out of the parking lot, Mason looked up and saw the man taking off his sunglasses. He saw the man’s face for one fraction of a second. Full lips, crooked nose, hair thinning on top yet somehow the rest of it tied back in a ponytail.
Their eyes met. A spark of recognition.
Mason was a hundred yards down the street when it hit him. That was Jimmy McManus.
Mason doubled back in the black Mustang to the same parking lot. He even got out and went inside the bar, hoping that McManus really was a regular there.
The bartender was yelling something at him as he walked back into the place, but Mason didn’t hear a word. He scanned the room for McManus.
He wasn’t there.
Mason got back in the car and drove across town. Seeing that man, at least, was a wake-up call. There was no time to feel sorry for himself. He had bigger problems.
He wasn’t going to get Gina back. He had to accept that. Even seeing his own daughter was going to be a lot harder than he ever could have imagined. But he still had a deal to live up to. He still had a job to do. He had to be ready for that phone to ring even if he had no idea what would happen next.
He took out the cell phone and put it on the seat next to him. I don’t even know what the ringtone sounds like, he said to himself.
The next morning, he would find out.
9
Detective Sandoval’s hunt for Nick Mason had brought him to one of the most expensive streets in Chicago. Sandoval parked a few doors down from the town house and double-checked the address. Lincoln Park fucking West, he said to himself. With the park right across the street. The gardens, the conservatory, the zoo. A great view of Lake Michigan. This is the place. This is where Nick Mason lives now.
Sandoval remembered Mason’s last address. Or rather his last address before USP Terre Haute. It was a little shitbox in Canaryville, one of those houses they built right on top of one another with barely enough room to walk between them. Forty-third Street, if his memory was right. He’d seen it a few days after that night at the harbor. He’d just recently been partnered with Higgins back then, still getting the hang of the guy. Higgins was at the peak of his career, with a winning streak of big busts that would have made most cops insufferable. But Higgins wore his success well, with just enough self-confidence to believe he could solve any murder in the city. That’s how they ended up on the Sean Wright case. It was a “heater case,” with a mandate from the superintendent’s office. A federal agent had been killed. They needed to solve it and solve it quickly.
They started with the one dead suspect, a man from Canaryville named Finn O’Malley. A perfect name, Sandoval thought, for a mick from that part of town. O’Malley had a long record of minor incidents, some pickups on more serious charges that never went anywhere, until an aggravated assault on a police officer put him away for eighteen months. They went to O’Malley’s last-known residence and asked around. They got nothing. Sandoval was ready to take it personally, all the locals closing ranks on him. But Higgins kept his cool and dragged him back to the station and they spent a full day going through old arrest records. If they couldn’t find any known associates who also went away to prison, they could at least find some other men O’Malley might have been picked up with even if everybody eventually walked.
That’s how they came up with two more names. Eddie Callahan and Nick Mason. They’d been picked up together and then released, on two separate occasions, a few years apart. A long-standing relationship.