The Second Life of Nick Mason (Nick Mason #1)(11)

It felt like one more sign. Then Eddie met Sandra. Mason got back together with Gina, and if there was still any question left, she answered it for him.

It was time to get out.

? ? ?

Mason turned thirty and he was trying to settle down, trying to stay straight. He was married to Gina by then. Adriana was four years old. Finn had been in Florida for a few years and had just recently returned to Chicago. He got picked up again on his first night back in town. Two days later, he found Nick Mason.

“Got a job for us,” he said.

“I’m out, Finn. Forget it.”

Nick had the house on Forty-third Street and he was doing whatever straight jobs he could find. Manual labor, construction, driving a delivery truck. The same kind of working-stiff jobs everyone else in their neighborhood did.

“You don’t look retired to me. You look busier than ever, getting up early every morning to drive that truck around.”

“It’s called working for a living. You should give it a try. Just once in your life.”

“You have to hear me out,” Finn said. “This is a onetime thing and then you’re set.”

“No.”

“You take care of your family. You buy a nicer house. You change your whole life.”

“I said no.”

“Don’t you get it, Nickie? This is your walkaway job. A half million dollars for one day’s work.”

That stopped Mason dead.

“Half a million split four ways,” Finn said. “There’s a shipment coming in through the harbor.”

“A shipment of what?”

“Shipment of I don’t know and I don’t care. That’s not the point. The point is, someone needs four men to unload it and then drive two trucks to Detroit. That’s all we’re doing and then taking half a million for our trouble. Hop on a bus back home and have a f*cking party.”

“Who are the four?”

“You and me and Eddie. And this other guy.”

“What other guy?”

“This guy I met in custody.”

“An ex-con.”

“He’s not an ex-con. He never went away. He was in the holding cell when I got picked up again. They had to let us both go the next morning. But we’re talking and he asks me if I knew two other good men.”

“Answer’s still no,” Mason said. “I’ve got too much to lose.”

“I know that, Nickie. You do this for them. Your family. Think of what that money could do for you guys.”

“Find somebody else.”

“Just meet him,” Finn said. “What would it hurt? Meet the man and hear what he has to say. If you don’t like it, you leave.”

Mason thought about it. “What’s this guy’s name?”

“McManus. Jimmy McManus.”

Jimmy f*cking McManus. That was the moment. Five and a half years ago. Mason could have walked away right then. He never would have met the man. He never would have made the biggest mistake of his life.

Mason wouldn’t have gone to prison. Finn wouldn’t have gone into a cheap pine box.

? ? ?

As he drove through his old neighborhood, Mason was replaying that day, and a thousand others, in his head. He was recognizing every tree and every fire hydrant. Every narrow lot with every house packed in tight with only inches between them. This place where everyone lived on top of one another, where there were no secrets, where outsiders were noticed immediately and watched until they were gone.

Mason drove down one block, threading his way through the cars that lined each side of the street. He came to a stop sign, then drove down another block. Then he was there.

Five years after leaving this house, Nick Mason was back, sitting at the wheel of a restored 1968 Mustang, a car more expensive than any car he’d ever stolen. A car more expensive than all the cars he’d ever owned himself put together. Hell, maybe more than he paid for this house back when he actually lived here.

He sat there and watched the summer day go by on his old block. A woman was walking a dog. Across the street, a little girl was riding a bicycle. She must have been about five or six. She was good at riding her bike. It made Mason remember the week Adriana learned to ride without training wheels. He looked out the car window at the exact spot where she fell. Right there. She got up and fell again in the same spot. She got back up and this time she kept going.

The ghost of his former life, right here in front of him, playing across four seasons. Hanging the Christmas lights, building a snowman. That almost level front porch that he built with his own hands.

Actually, the porch looked dead true. It had a natural stain before. Now it was painted bright white.

The front door to the house opened. A man came out onto the porch. A stranger. For one instant, Mason was already reaching for the car door, getting ready to confront the man. What are you doing in my house? Where’s my wife and daughter?

But then the man called to the girl who was riding the bike. This man had fixed his front porch and had painted it. God knows what else he’d done to the place. But he has every right, Mason said to himself, because he lives here. Because this is his house.

Mason was startled by the sudden rapping on his window. He looked up and saw a man standing there by the driver’s-side door. Mason used the old-school 1968 crank to slide his window down. When he looked up, he saw a familiar face.