The Second Life of Nick Mason (Nick Mason #1)(44)

Bloome leaned back in his chair. He didn’t say a word.

This is where you keep your mouth shut, Sandoval thought. You wait to see what happens next. Because that might tell you everything you need to know.

“I’m going to bring in two of my men,” Bloome said. “Then we can keep talking.”

I just told him I was watching someone else, Sandoval said to himself. And yet he’s not asking me who that someone is.

Because he already knows.

Bloome was startled when Sandoval stood up. This was clearly something that didn’t happen. Ever.

You don’t get up and walk out of this room before you’re told to do so.

“Detective,” Bloome said, “where the f*ck do you think you’re going?”

“I’m going back to work,” Sandoval said as he opened the door and walked through it, never looking back. He could feel a dozen eyes burning right through him as he made his way through the office and out the door.

? ? ?

It was late in the afternoon now. Mason trailed the 300 as it headed back north through Englewood. It pulled over on a street in Woodlawn and stopped at one of those rent-to-own places where you pay a little every month for furniture and electronics.

Mason watched them pay their visit to the manager, then get back in the car and take off, but this time they went to the expressway and headed downtown. They got off around the Loop and disappeared into the late-afternoon traffic. Two times, Mason thought he had lost the car but picked it back up again, until he saw it pull over in front of Morton’s Steakhouse.

A second black Chrysler 300 was already parked out front. The doors opened and a woman got out from the back. From forty yards away, Mason could see why a half-dozen other men on the street were already staring at her. She was a perfect blonde with a perfect body, right off a Stockholm runway, the kind of woman only a man like Tyron Harris could afford.

Harris greeted her with a kiss. Then the four of them—Harris, this woman, and the two bodyguards—went inside, leaving the two drivers outside in the cars.

Mason parked the car, got out, and wolfed down a Polish dog at a place down the street, from where he could still see the cars. Unsure whether to call Quintero again, he decided to finish the day with Harris first. Waiting back out in the BMW, he could picture the scene inside the restaurant—bottles of wine and waiters falling all over themselves.

When the party broke up, Harris and the woman came out on the street, followed by the bodyguards, and this time both drivers got out of the cars and met with them. Everyone stood there, nodding and bumping fists. Still all business, but a little more relaxed. Taking their cue from the boss.

The woman got in the car with Harris, along with the bodyguards. Harris’s car took off in one direction while the other car went in the opposite. Mason kept his eye on Harris’s car and followed it back to the expressway. The sun was going down. He checked the gas tank and realized he didn’t have many more miles left.

But he didn’t have to go far. They stayed in the local lanes and got off on Forty-third Street. Just a few blocks in, they stopped at an old three-story brick building surrounded by two empty lots. Harris, the woman, and the bodyguards went inside. The driver stayed in the car.

Mason stayed a block away. He didn’t want to get too close. With no other cars on the street, he’d be spotted in a second.

So this is Harris’s home, Mason thought. It didn’t look like much from the outside, but that was probably the point. There was plenty of room on the inside, and a little money could have turned it into something comfortable.

The best part of all was, Mason knew exactly where he was. He was in Fuller Park, which meant he could have gotten out, walked down past the stoneworks to the tunnel on Forty-fifth Street that would take him through the embankment and under the railroad tracks. On the other side of those tracks was Canaryville. A few more blocks and he’d be standing in front of his old house.

They called that embankment the Berlin Wall when he was growing up over there. They probably still did, because things like that don’t change. You never went through that tunnel under the Berlin Wall. You stayed where you were, surrounded by your own.

He picked up the phone and called Quintero. He heard a woman’s voice in the background, words exchanged in Spanish. Mason gave him the update. He had found Harris’s home base. But he was surrounded by bodyguards at all times. Right now, there were two men in the house with Harris and the woman. Another in the car outside, and Mason wouldn’t be surprised if that man stayed there all night.

“It’s going to be hard to get to him,” Mason said. “He’s never alone.”

“You keep watching him. You find a way.”

“Do the math,” Mason said. “Wyatt Earp couldn’t get to this guy.”

“I’ll see if I can get you some help tomorrow.”

“What are you talking about? What kind of help?”

“You’ll know it when you see it,” Quintero said. “Then you’ll get your shot.”

The call ended.

As the street went dark, Mason sat there with the phone still in his hand, watching the house of a dead man.





22




Mason’s time had run out. He would get no chance to kill today.

It was midnight. The one man was still sitting in the car on the street. From a block away, Mason saw the window open and the hot red speck of a cigarette. A blue glow flickered in one of the top-floor windows for a while, then went out. Harris and his woman were in bed. Mason pictured the two bodyguards somewhere downstairs, probably sleeping in shifts.