“What do you want?” Mason said, getting to his feet and rubbing the back of his head. McManus backed away from him.
“I’m here to settle things,” he said. “It’s like I told you last time. It’s the loose ends that hang you, Nickie boy. And you are one hell of a loose end.”
Mason took a step toward him. McManus flinched and tightened his grip on the gun, the barrel trained on Mason’s chest.
Mason had seen this man fire his gun in a blind panic while he was running away from that truck at the harbor. But this was different.
Facing a man. Ending his life. Something most men cannot do. It takes another kind of man.
A killer.
Mason knew that now.
“Go ahead. If you really have it in you.”
He looked Jimmy McManus in the eye and waited.
McManus swallowed and tightened his grip again. He raised the gun to eye level and sighted down the barrel.
Mason waited.
They say you never hear the shot that kills you, but it rang in Mason’s ears.
McManus stood there for one more moment, his neck bent at a strange new angle. Blood came running down his face, between his eyes. Then he fell forward into the pool.
Mason watched the pink swirl growing around the body as it turned clockwise in the water. Then he looked up.
Marcos Quintero stood twenty feet away, a gun in his right hand. Quintero gave Mason a slight nod of his head.
Mason stared him down for a long time before finally nodding back.
39
Chicago Sun-Times
CHICAGO COPS INDICTED IN DRUG SCANDAL
CONSPIRACY, ROBBERY, EXTORTION, KIDNAPPING, DRUG DEALING AMONG CHARGES
By Denny Kilmer, Staff Reporter
The United States Attorney’s Office unsealed an indictment today charging seven members of the Chicago Police Department, all members of the elite Special Investigations Section task force, with RICO conspiracy, robbery, racketeering, extortion, kidnapping, drug dealing, and a number of other charges. The indictments come after a five-month joint investigation by the FBI, DEA, and the Chicago Police Bureau of Internal Affairs and represent one of the biggest corruption cases in the history of the city. More suspects may be charged as the investigation continues.
The investigation may also shed light on the unsolved shooting death of SIS Sergeant Ray Jameson, as well as the deaths of SIS Detectives Walter Reagan, Jason Fowler, and John Koniczek, who were all found gunned down at the Deep Tunnel outlet in the Thornton Quarry. Those homicides have been the subject of an ongoing investigation conducted by the Illinois State Police and have generated intense media attention due to the mysterious circumstances surrounding those deaths.
The names of those officers arrested and charged are:
Sgt. Vincent Bloome, 58 years old, 29 years on force, 7 years in SIS. Det. John Fairley, 42 years old, 17 years on force, 5 years in SIS. Det. William Spiller, 35 years old, 12 years on force, 5 years in SIS. Det. Michael Harrison, 34 years old, 8 years on force, 3 years in SIS. Det. Brian Jaynes, 31 years old, 7 years on force, 2 years in SIS. Det. Hayward Baylor, 29 years old, 6 years on force, 2 years in SIS. Det. Edward Coleman, 29 years old, 5 years on force, 2 years in SIS.
The seven officers charged are all members of the Special Investigations Section, otherwise known as SIS, an elite task force of narcotics officers put together in 2009 in response to the rampant drug-related crimes plaguing the city. Those officers were given broad leeway to conduct their own investigations and reported high arrest rates in every year of the unit’s existence. Many of those arrests are now being called into question, and civilian complaints against many of these officers, including claims of illegal seizure and use of excessive force, compiled from the task force’s inception in 2009, are now coming to light.
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.”