“Yes.”
“Your friend, right? Grew up together in Canaryville. He’s the one you left behind in the truck with a bullet in his head.”
Mason took a breath. “Finn shouldn’t have been there.”
“Wrong place, wrong time, huh?”
Mason looked down at his beer.
“Did you kill that cop in the motel room last night?”
Mason looked back at him. “The fuck you talking about, Detective?”
“I know it was Cole. He’s the one who got you out, he’s the one who fucked my partner, and he’s the one who told you to kill that cop. Just nod your head if I’m getting close here.”
“If you could make a case,” Mason said, “if you had anything real, you’d arrest me. What you have is bullshit.”
The two men watched each other over the table for a moment. Then Sandoval stood up, took a few steps toward the door.
He stopped dead, then came back to the table.
“I don’t have it yet,” he said, leaning in close to Mason’s ear. “But I’m gonna work this out, Mason. Every single fucking piece of it. You, Cole, anybody else who had anything to do with you getting out. I’ll do it on my own, I don’t give a fuck. No matter who tells me to leave it alone. I promise you, I promise me, I promise my ex-partner, Sean Wright, and his whole family . . . I’m not going to sleep at night until you’re back in prison where you fucking belong. And Cole is out of business forever. You hearing me, Mason? You better get used to me because I’m gonna wake you up every fucking morning and I’m gonna put you to bed every fucking night.”
He stood up straight and gave Mason a smile.
“Enjoy your dinner.”
17
The bruises reminded Mason of what he had done in that motel room. Even on the second day, as the bruises were beginning to fade, he would replay the scene in his mind every time he looked in the mirror. He wondered if that would ever change even when the bruises were gone.
He went downstairs to the gym, put on some gloves, and worked on the heavy bag. For the last year, he’d been keeping himself in the best physical shape of his life, once he got into SHU with Cole. But, even there, his workouts had been rushed, grabbing whatever reps he could for the one hour the equipment was available. Now it felt strange for Mason to take his time and to have so many options to choose from. He didn’t get on the treadmill, and he didn’t even look at the elliptical trainer, but when he was done with the bag, he did a full-body workout with the weights, keeping everything in balance, a push for every pull—back, chest, arms, legs—all good compound movements. Deep into his head while he was doing each rep, Mason shut out everything else in the world.
Keep moving, he told himself. Don’t think. Move.
When he was done, he went outside. It was a choice he could make after five years of having no choices. A little breeze was coming in off the lake. He walked down the path, past the gardens, past the entrance to the zoo. He had a sudden ache as he walked past a father with a little girl up on his shoulders. The man was buying their tickets to the zoo, and as Mason looked at them, he couldn’t help imagining what it would feel like to spend the day here with his own daughter. Maybe she was too big to ride on his shoulders, but they could still walk down the paths and look at all of the animals. She could ask him questions and he’d do his best to answer them, just like any father would. Yes, the giraffe has a long neck so he can reach the leaves on the upper branches. He’d give everything he had. Hell, he’d seriously consider going back to prison for the rest of his sentence if he could just have one day like that with his daughter. It would be something he could take back. Something nobody could ever take away.
That brought him back to the visit he’d gotten from Sandoval the night before. The story he’d told him about Sean Wright and his young family. And the promise that he’d be putting him to bed every night and waking him up in the morning. He looked behind him, expecting to see the man twenty feet away. But there was nobody following him.
Mason walked south down the beach path, the park on one side of him and, beyond that, the soaring buildings of downtown. On the other side was sand and water. People were wading in up to their waists and screaming about how cold it was. A few brave souls were in up to their necks. A woman came out of the water, dripping wet in her bikini. I have not touched a woman in five years, Mason said to himself. That is a fact.