Exit Strategy

by Steve Hamilton

  Sooner or later, they always go home.

  • • •

  THE ADDRESS WAS a three-story apartment building on May Street at the corner of Sixty-eighth—the heart of Englewood. As Mason and Diana walked around to the front, they saw a large mural of Derrick Rose, a former Englewood resident himself and the most popular Chicago Bull since Michael Jordan until he got traded away to the New York Knicks. The rest of the building’s exterior looked worn out by the hard Chicago weather, but the mural had been freshly repainted with Rose still in his old red and black.

  They rode up the elevator. Mason reached over and squeezed Diana’s hand. He could practically hear her heart beating in counterpoint to his own.

  No way Cole could have found out, Mason said to himself, about the deal with Sandoval.

  About me and Diana.

  No way. Not even him.

  The elevator opened and they walked down the long hallway toward the light coming from beneath the very last door. The music grew louder with each step. A thrumming bass line Mason could feel right through the floor itself shattered by the sudden wail of a saxophone. Mason knew it well, one of Cole’s favorites: Coltrane, A Love Supreme.

  Mason looked at Diana, nodded, felt for the gun in his belt just to reassure himself.

  He knocked on the door, pushed it open. Inside the apartment were a half dozen men, all black, all dressed in perfectly tailored suits that probably came from someplace like Balani’s up on Monroe Street. Brightly colored ties and pocket squares. Newly shined leather dress shoes. Mason recognized one of the men Eddie had photographed—the man Burke had called Patrick.

  As every man turned to look at Mason and Diana, an electric current seemed to crackle through the smoky air.

  The music suddenly stopped, and he stepped forward.

  Darius Cole.

  He was the same man Mason remembered, a few inches shorter than every other man in the room but with a commanding air that more than made up for it. He was dressed in an impeccable olive-green suit, tailored so perfectly it was hard to imagine that he’d been wearing jailhouse orange just hours ago.

  And that same look on his face. Calm and untroubled. How foolish it would be for any man to mistake that look for serenity, outright suicidal ignorance to mistake it for weakness. Mason could still remember Darius Cole looking as peaceful as a Buddha while ordering a fellow inmate beaten to death.

  It had been months since that last morning at the prison when Cole came to Mason’s cell one more time to give him his best wishes, telling him that even though they’d still be in touch, still be connected, he’d miss their afternoon walks around the yard when Cole would tell Mason about whatever recent book he’d read.

  And Diana … The last time Cole had seen her was twelve years ago.

  Cole gathered her into a full-body embrace. Then he stepped back and looked at her.

  “You look good,” he said, his voice low.

  Diana gave him a cautious smile. From three feet away, Mason could see her shaking.

  Hold it together, he thought, willing the words into her mind.

  “Let’s make a toast,” Cole said, moving between them and putting one hand on each person’s back. Mason looked around at the apartment as Cole led him to the table that had been turned into a makeshift bar. There was a large HD television on one wall, expensive furniture, photographs of young men on the mantel over a gas fireplace.

  “This was my mother’s place,” Cole said, answering Mason’s question before he could ask it. “Lived here her whole life, raised me and my brothers, God rest them.”

  He stopped and looked around the room like he was bringing back his whole life in that moment.

  “Sixty-eighth and May,” he said. “Never let me move her. Even with the shootings down here every night. Fifty, sixty murders every year right in this neighborhood. She said this was her home, always gonna be. So I bought the building. Made some rules, made sure everybody knew them. No drugs, no guns.”

  “Everyone’s waiting for you at the restaurant,” Diana said. Mason was glad to hear her speak, glad to hear her voice sounding normal.

  “They can keep waiting,” Cole said. “Those people are there for their own reasons. Got nothing to do with me.”

  He picked up a bottle of Krug champagne.

  “These are the people who really matter to me,” Cole said as he nodded toward the others in the room, the six men who probably went all the way back to his days on the corner, every single one of them—and now they were here to welcome back the Emperor of Englewood. “These are the people who stayed loyal from the beginning.”

  He poured two glasses and gave them to Mason and Diana. Then he poured his own.

  “To freedom,” Cole said, raising his glass. “The most priceless commodity in the world.”

  Says the man who just bought his, Mason thought as he clinked his glass against Cole’s. He kept watching Diana.

  When Cole put down his glass, he trailed two fingers of his right hand along Diana’s hip. A simple, intimate gesture that said one thing: It’s been twelve years since I’ve touched a woman.

  Mason caught her eye. Keep it together.

  “Isaiah’s mother lived downstairs,” Cole said, “until the day she died. Even after what her son did to me, I still let her stay here.”

  Cole pressed his whole hand against Diana’s hip, then slid it down the outside of her thigh, moving so slowly it was almost imperceptible.

  “Did you see that mural of Derrick Rose outside?” he continued. “He grew up right down the street, too. Used to ride his bike over to that arena, tell himself he’d be playing inside it one day. That kid was born for that team, just like any other kid around here, born into his colors. If you got enough talent, you can play a different game. But you still gotta play something.”

  Every man was listening. The only sound, as Cole stopped speaking, was the ticking of a clock on the mantel.

  Breathe in, Mason told himself, in time with the clock. Breathe out.

  “Derrick owned this town until he got hurt. Then they trade him away because he’s damaged goods. He comes back home, now he’s wearing a different uniform. Different colors. But everybody still loves him because they know he didn’t want to leave. He would have stayed loyal to Chicago, but the owner of the team wasn’t loyal to him. So now the Englewood boy plays for New York.”

  Cole put his other hand on Diana’s hip.

  Mason watched Cole’s hands but stayed focused on his breathing.

  “I don’t own the Bulls,” Cole said. “If I did, that kid would still be playing for me. Because there’s something important I know, Nick, and that’s that loyalty works both ways. A man like McLaren, a man I trusted with my money for years … Or a man like Isaiah Wallace. As close to me as one of my brothers …”

  Cole’s grip on Diana tightened. She closed her eyes.

  Mason stopped breathing. Keep your head on, he told himself. Don’t make a move.

  “Nick,” Cole finally said, “what did I say about no guns?”

  “I didn’t know the rule,” Mason said as he took the Browning from his belt and handed it over, playing the part of the loyal soldier.

  Cole examined the gun. “Quintero didn’t give you this.”

  There’s nothing I can do now. No matter what happens next, I have no play.

  “I picked it up on my own.”

  Cole nodded and slipped the gun into his own belt. “I’m going to borrow it, if you don’t mind. Diana and I are going up to the restaurant, make our appearance.”

  That can’t happen. I have to stay with her.

  “I’ll drive you,” Mason said.

  “I have a driver,” Cole said. “You’re not a driver, you’re a killer. Isn’t that right?”

  Mason didn’t answer.

  “I asked you a question, Nick.”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “So why would you volunteer for a demotion?” Cole asked. “Is it you want to drive me or
you want to drive Diana? Have you been driving Diana around, Nick? Is that in your job description?”

  “No.”

  “No,” Cole said. “So I think you stay here … With the other killers. Diana rides with me now.”

  Diana put her champagne glass down too hard, rattling it against the table. Mason could see the raw panic in her eyes. He had to fight down the urge to pull her away from him. You do that, he told himself, you’re both dead.

  Cole nodded to the other men in the room. Two of them separated from the pack and led the way to the door, followed by Cole, one arm clinging around Diana’s waist.

  Mason caught her eye one more time.

  Stay calm, he told her in his mind. Stay strong.

  When the door closed behind them, Mason was left alone with the other four men. If they were football players, they’d be two huge offensive linemen, one solid, athletic linebacker, and one tall tight end.

  “Have a cigar while you wait,” the linebacker said, holding out a Cuban Cohiba.

  “No thank you.”

  “Man won’t smoke a celebratory cigar.” He drew out the word celebratory. “Even on the day his boss gets out of prison.”

  There was a subtle undercurrent of laughter in the room like the sound of a distant storm.

  “You know the real bitch of a thing here?”

  Mason looked at him and at each other man in turn. Four pairs of eyes all watching him. Measuring him.

  “What’s that?” Mason said.

  “We’re not allowed to kill you. But you’re gonna wish we were.”

  22

  The four men closed in around Mason, giving him no chance to get out of the room. No chance to go after Cole and Diana.

  He tried to cover his head as he took the first shot, chose the man standing between himself and the door, lowered his shoulder and drove it into the man’s chest, slamming him against the wall and rattling every picture frame in the apartment. He felt the man’s breath leave his body, grabbed him by his jacket and tried to throw him back at the other three men as he broke for the door.

  “Where you going?” a rough voice said as Mason felt two hands grabbing him by the shoulders. He turned to swing at him and took another shot right in the gut.

  Desperately, he thought back to every other time he’d been outnumbered in a fight, every lesson he’d learned on the streets.

  Keep moving, he told himself. Don’t give them an easy target.

  And whatever you do, stay on your feet.

  But another punch to the side of the head drove him down to one knee. As soon as he got his feet under him, they pushed him back into the center of the room. Surrounded him. As he turned, one man hit him from behind. He turned again. Another blow.

  He felt himself going down, braced himself as the next man came close and left himself open. Mason came up fast and drove his fist into the man’s Adam’s apple. The man clutched at his throat as Mason went for the door, but this time it was two men on him at once, one hitting him in the back of the head and the other aiming a kick at Mason’s chest. He felt something give as the shoe made contact, tried to grab the man’s belt and caught a knee in the cheekbone, making everything go white, and then another blow to the head sent him down. He tasted carpet in his mouth mixed with warm blood, and as another man lined him up for another kick, Mason rolled away from it, tried to get up, and felt a blast against his temple.

  Protect yourself, he thought as he covered his head. Stay awake.

  You have to get to Diana.

  • • •

  DETECTIVE SANDOVAL HAD THOUGHT he was one hour away from finally putting handcuffs on Darius Cole. But now he was sitting in his car somewhere in the middle of Englewood watching his night coming apart at the seams.

  Cole had just come out of the building with two of his men and the woman he kept in the town house.

  No Mason.

  He said he was bringing Cole back to the restaurant … Was that a lie? Because he sure as shit has lied to me before. Sat across the table from me, told me he didn’t know anything about a dead cop, or a dead drug dealer, or two dead witnesses …

  Sandoval watched the foursome get into a black Town Car and pull out onto the street.

  If he’s not lying, that means something happened to him. So what do I do now? Stay on Cole? Or go save Mason’s ass?

  Sandoval picked up his radio transmitter, paused a moment, swore, put it back.

  I hope you’re still alive, Mason, Sandoval thought as he got out of his car and went into the building, so I can kill you myself.

  • • •

  DIANA SAT IN THE BACKSEAT of the Town Car with Darius Cole. As she looked over at him, he was staring straight ahead, showing no emotion at all.

  “Everyone will be glad to see you,” she said. Something safe. Something to get him talking.

  In her mind, all she could see was the look on Nick’s face as Cole took her away.

  “Not everyone,” Cole said, staring at her. “Some people didn’t mind me being in a prison cell three hundred miles away even if they’re pretending to be happy when I get back.”

  She felt her face flush. Felt his eyes looking right into her.

  “Well, I’m happy.”

  “What about Nick?”

  She took a beat, composed her answer. “I’m sure he is, too.”

  Cole reached forward and touched the shoulder of the man sitting in the front passenger’s seat. “You made sure Mr. Winters was invited this evening?”

  “Yes, sir,” the man said.

  “See, there’s a man right there,” Cole said to Diana. “Mr. Winters will be the first one in line, shaking my hand. Telling me how wonderful it is to see me. I reached an agreement with him before I went away and now that I’m back it’ll be interesting to see how happy he really is.”

  She listened carefully to every word he was saying. Tried to read him. But it was impossible. Always had been. Even for her, the person who was once the closest to him.

  “I didn’t expect Mr. Winters to put his whole business on hold while I was gone,” Cole said. “All I asked was that he live up to our agreement.”

  He turned to her again. “That sounds reasonable to you?”

  “Of course.”

  He nodded. “That’s all I asked for. His loyalty. For him to honor his commitment to me while I was gone.”

  She wanted to say something, but she couldn’t think of one word. As the car slowed to a stop, she looked at her door handle. For just one second. Then she brought herself back.

  Nick was right. There was nowhere to run to. Not from Cole.

  “I honored my commitment to you,” Diana said. “I stayed in that town house, ran the restaurant …”

  “That doesn’t sound like such a bad life,” Cole said. “But, then, I spent those same twelve years in a prison cell.”

  Another long beat, the only sound was the tires on the road and the wind.

  “I wasn’t questioning your loyalty,” he finally said. “But if you really want to go there, answer one question for me …”

  She waited for it.

  “How long did it take?”

  He still had the same serene look on his face, his voice calm and seemingly untroubled.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Darius.”

  “Yes you do. Just tell me when it started, Diana, I’m curious.”

  She looked down at her hands for a moment, gathering herself. The fear kept rising in her stomach, but she pushed it down. If there was one thing she knew after living with Darius Cole, it was this: You do not show him fear.

  “You were gone twelve years. Far as I knew, you were going to be gone the rest of your life.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So what did you expect me to do? Just lock myself away—”

  “Like an anchoress.”

  She looked at him. “What?”

  “An anchoress. A woman who locks herself up in a church and never leaves it for the rest
of her life. To show her devotion.”

  “I did that,” she said, “you understand? For twelve years, I had no life at all. That’s how long my devotion lasted. If you wanted more than that …”

  “I didn’t,” he said. “I’m not that cruel. Or that naïve.”

  “Then why are you …”

  She stopped herself, looked out the window. Felt an anger coming to her from somewhere she didn’t even recognize.

  I will not fall apart, she told herself. I will not let him see that.

  “You know, you collect all these people around you,” she said, willing herself to stay strong. “Doing all these things for you. And at some point, they’re going to fail. Or they’re going to rebel against you. Because what you ask, Darius, sooner or later is going to be impossible.”

  He watched her carefully, listening.

  “I don’t even know if you realize this,” she said, “but I think you want them to fail you. You want them to rebel.”

  “Is that right …”

  “You could have put Nick anywhere in the city, Darius. You could have put him back in Canaryville, for God’s sake, made him feel at home. But no. You put him fifty feet from my bedroom. What did you honestly think would happen?”

  He stayed silent for a long moment, studying her face.

  “So congratulations,” she said, “you were right. You knew it even before I did.”

  The look on his face, still composed, still unmoved, but with something new … a quiet intensity, touched with something almost like sadness … It drained her of all of her anger. The fear came back, suddenly doubled.

  Because she’d seen that face before. Had heard the silence that went along with it.

  Had seen what always came next.

  Another minute passed, the city going by in a blur through the darkened glass. Finally, the car slowed down, made a turn.

  Diana closed her eyes as Darius came around and opened the door for her. She stepped onto the pavement, reaching out to take his arm.

  She didn’t recognize where she was at first. It wasn’t Rush Street. They hadn’t come to the restaurant.

  Another long second passed, then it came to her.