The Second Life of Nick Mason

by Steve Hamilton

  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.

  He went all the way down to the south end, where men were playing beach volleyball. He looped around back under Lake Shore, past the ball fields. He stopped and watched a game of bare-handed softball—he knew it was a game that once ruled Chicago, but he didn’t think anyone played it anymore. When the game was over, he kept walking.

  I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do on a day like this, he said to himself. Or how many days like this there’s gonna be. All by myself, just waiting for that phone to ring again . . .

  As he got closer to home, he hit another row of shops, all with blue canopies outside. Pricey salons, coffee shops, wine bars. Then he came to a pet shop. There was a dog sitting there, looking out the window. To Mason, it looked like part boxer, part pit bull, part dinosaur. He was about to keep walking, but the dog looked him right in the eye and started wagging its little stumpy excuse for a tail. Mason stopped and the dog sat down, still staring at him.

  He went inside the store, feeling the instant chill of the A/C. There was a gated-off area by the front window, with separate sections for a half-dozen cats and the only dog in the shop, who now came over to Mason and did his best to body-slam the gate right out of the way.

  “Easy there, Max!”

  The voice came from the back of the store. A woman emerged from the storeroom, carrying a large bag of dog food. She put it on the counter and came over to Mason.

  “He seems to like you,” she said. She had short brown hair and brown eyes. Her cheeks were red from the summer sun. She was wearing jeans and a blue polo shirt with the name of the pet shop on one side of her chest. On the other was her name: Lauren.

  He reached over the gate and rubbed the dog’s head. The dog wagged his tail even harder.

  “What kind of dog is he?” Mason asked.

  “I’m guessing Cane Corso, mixed with something else. We don’t usually sell dogs here, but he came in as a rescue.”

  “Cane Corso? Never heard of that.”

  “Smart dog. Athletic. Obedient.”

  “If I wanted this dog . . .” Mason said.

  “I bet Max would like that very much. He’s three hundred dollars.”

  Mason looked down at the dog. Max was sitting patiently as if waiting for the next chapter in his life to begin.

  “Okay,” he said, trying to convince himself.

  “There’s a twenty-four-hour waiting period,” she said, “after we fill out all the paperwork.”

  He was already starting to feel the dog slipping away from him. Paperwork meant personal history. This might be a bad idea, he thought.

  “He likes you,” she said. “Come on over here and we’ll get started.”

  He gave the dog one more look, then followed Lauren to the counter.

  “Okay, I need your name and address,” she said, picking up a clipboard with forms attached to it.

  “Nick Mason.” He gave her the address on Lincoln Park West.

  “Wow, okay. I bet that’s quite a place.”

  “I just moved in.”

  “Where’d you move from?”

  Mason hesitated. “I’m from Canaryville.”

  “Canaryville to Lincoln Park,” she said, nodding her head. “That’s a change of scenery, I guess.”

  “Both places have lots of animals. They just keep them in the zoo up here.”

  “That’s a good one,” she said, nodding again.

  “My name is Nick. It’s nice to meet you.”

  “I’m Lauren,” she said. “What happened to your face?”

  The question surprised him. It was direct and honest and he thought carefully about how to answer. He liked her short hair and the color of her eyes. Most of all, he liked the way she stood her ground and waited to hear his explanation.

  “I got in a fight,” he said.

  “What about?”

  “Long story,” he said. “But he was a bad guy. If that matters.”

  She looked at him and considered her answer.

  “It matters.”

  “Does it matter enough that you might overlook it and let me take you to dinner?”

  “You didn’t come in here for this dog, did you?”

  “I did,” he said. “I’m taking the dog.”

  “Max.”

  “I’m taking Max. Max is going to have a great home. It’s just when I saw you, I didn’t want it to be one of those things I didn’t do but wish I did for a long time afterward.”

  She looked at him carefully like a cop considering an alibi.

  “You can come for Max tomorrow.”

  “Okay.”

  He turned and started out.

  “And you can come back for me at seven,” she said. “I’ll be here, closing the store, if you still want to get something to eat.”

  “I’d like that. I’ll see you at seven.”

  Mason went back outside into the hot sun. He was as surprised as Lauren was that he had asked her out. But it felt good to have something to look forward to that evening. This chance to connect with someone.

  He wondered what her last name was, if she’d ever been married, if she had any kids. There’d be time enough to find out. He was open for anything.

  He was still getting used to it, this thing that everybody else walking by on the street took for granted. Choice. He could go anywhere in Chicago, do anything he wanted. Until Quintero called again.

  Forget about him, he thought, and the possibility that he may call at any minute. When it happens, it happens. For now, he had the rest of a summer afternoon to kill and he didn’t want to go back to the town house and sit there by himself. He wasn’t about to go to Elmhurst again. Not yet. The next soccer game was there on the calendar, waiting for him. Another chance to see his daughter.

  For today, he had enough. One of the last things he ever thought would happen. A date for dinner with a woman not named Gina.

  18

  As Mason parked the car on Thirty-fifth Street, he remembered an old joke. What’s the difference between Bridgeport and Canaryville? People in Bridgeport take the dishes out of the sink before they piss in it.

  Bridgeport’s clo
ser to the ballpark, closer to the river. There’s a little more “diversity,” meaning it wasn’t just Irish American kids hanging out at every corner. There were Latinos and even an Asian community in this part of town. The houses were packed tight on narrow lots, just like in Canaryville, with the detached garages in back feeding out into the alleyways that run between the streets, but the houses were a little bigger and a little nicer. There were a few more neighborhood parks and a few more places to eat. Good deep-dish pizza and those breaded steak sandwiches they made here. That’s Bridgeport.

  Jokes aside, if you were honest about it, you’d have to admit it was a step up from Canaryville. You moved from there to here, you were moving in the right direction. Of course, you were still on the South Side. That was important. You move to Bridgeport, it’s not like you went too far north and started rooting for the fucking Cubs.

  There was one house in particular that Mason was looking at. One narrow, two-story much like the others on the block, although this one actually had a little fenced-in strip of grass on one side. You couldn’t just reach out from your window and borrow a cup of sugar from your next-door neighbor. Mason wasn’t totally sure he had the right place, so he was sitting out on the street. The Camaro’s engine was off but still ticking as it cooled down.

  He saw a little boy come running out from behind the house and into the little side yard. The kid was maybe three years old. Red hair and freckles. He was wearing shorts and a White Sox T-shirt, and he had a big plastic baseball bat in one hand, a plastic ball in the other.

  A few seconds later, another boy came running after him. He was an exact copy, same size, same red hair and freckles. He was also wearing a White Sox T-shirt, but a different variation. Maybe that was so people could tell them apart.

  Mason watched the two kids for a while. The one with the plastic bat was about to hit the other one when a man appeared on the scene just in time to stop him. He was still short and as solid as a fullback. He had the same coloring as the kids, even if maybe he had a little less hair than he once did. Mason knew him immediately.

  He got out of the car and shut the door. The man in the yard looked up when he heard the sound. He had the kid’s plastic bat in his hand and he dropped it when he saw Nick Mason stepping over the curb and approaching the fence.

  “Nick? Is that you?”

  Mason stood with his elbows on the top of the fence. The two boys stared up at him, sensing something in their father and not sure how to react. Eddie Callahan opened up the gate and stepped out. He grabbed Mason by the shoulders like he was verifying the man was real flesh and blood, not some kind of hallucination.

  “What the hell,” he said. “I mean, what the hell.”

  “It’s good to see you, Eddie.”

  “What are you doing here?” Eddie said, taking a quick look up and down the street. “I mean, are you out?”

  “I’m out.”

  “How did that happen?” Eddie asked, looking around again.

  “It’s a long story, Eddie. But I’m out.”

  Eddie’s eyes settled on the car. “And what the hell are you driving?”

  “A 1967 Camaro. I didn’t steal it.”

  “Stop kidding around and tell me what’s going on.” He looked back at the two boys, who were standing at the gate. “It’s okay, guys. Let’s take you inside for a minute, okay. Let’s go see Mommy.”

  He grabbed each of them by the hand and led them around back, taking one more look over his shoulder at Mason as he disappeared around the corner.

  Mason stood there waiting for a while. Longer than it should have taken Eddie to put the kids inside. Meaning Eddie’s wife was probably looking out the window at him and asking Eddie a lot of questions. She might even be calling the police, Mason thought, and it spooked him for half a second until he remembered he had nothing to worry about. From the police, at least.

  Eddie finally came back out, looking like he’d just gotten an earful. “Sandra’s a little concerned, Nick. Are you on the run?”

  “Eddie, I’m not on the run. I’m not even on parole. I’m out clean. You got nothing to worry about.”

  “Okay,” Eddie said, clearly wanting to believe him.

  “You gonna invite me in or not? Or are we gonna keep standing out here on the sidewalk?”

  “Yeah, come on,” Eddie said, opening up the gate. “Maybe in the garage? Would that be all right? We can talk there.”

  Mason shook his head and followed him. “This is the place you showed me. You told me you were thinking of buying it.”

  “This is the place,” Eddie said. “It’s got a yard, you know? Most places don’t.”

  Mason looked around at the thin strip of grass running down the lot line. Just wide enough, maybe, to drive a car down. But Eddie was right, most houses in this neighborhood didn’t even have this much.

  “Bridgeport,” Mason said. “You actually moved out of Canaryville.”

  “Yeah, everybody’s not all up in your business here. We really needed a fresh start. I mean, you know . . .”

  Eddie cleared his throat and let that thought die in the air.

  “What are your kids’ names?”

  Eddie stopped and looked him. “Yeah, they were born when you were . . . I mean, it’s Gregory and Jeffrey.”

  “They seem like great kids.”

  “They’re a big handful.”

  Eddie opened up the door to the garage and stepped inside, taking a quick look back at the house.

  “Eddie, listen, I don’t want to get you in trouble here. If Sandra doesn’t want me here . . .”

  “No, no, it’s cool. Come on in and sit down. I got it all set up in here. Sandra calls it my man cave.”

  Mason stepped inside the garage and saw worktables along both walls. The tabletops were crowded with computer consoles and laptops. One table seemed to be set aside as Eddie’s personal desk, with a nice computer monitor, keyboard, mouse, the whole works. A leather office chair was situated in front of it.

  “This is what I do,” Eddie said. “I fix them, I sell them. It’s been pretty busy.”

  “I’m not surprised. You were always good with the technical stuff.” Meaning hot-wiring cars and disabling alarms.

  There was a tall safe set in the corner of the garage. Mason went over and tried the handle. It was locked up tight.

  “I got a couple of rifles in there,” Eddie said. “I still get to the range when I can, but too much other stuff going on, you know?”

  Eddie rolled the office chair over to Mason. He pulled out a folding chair and set it up. Then he went to the little mini-fridge in the corner, opened the door, and took out two cans of Half Acre beer.

  “You want one of these?”

  “Sure.”

  Eddie gave him the can and sat down on the folding chair. Mason looked down at the man for a moment before sitting.

  “Eddie . . .”

  “Yeah, Nick?”

  “You can relax now.”

  “I’m sorry, man.” Eddie slinked down in his chair like somebody had taken half the air out of him. “I just don’t know what to think. You show up like this, when you’re not supposed to be out for another twenty years . . .”

  “There was a problem with the arrest.”

  “I’ve heard of shit like that happening,” Eddie said. “But I never thought—”

  “Let’s get this out of the way,” Mason said, cutting him short. “I went away and you didn’t.”

  “I know, man.” Eddie looked at the garage floor.

  “That’s the way it happened. You wouldn’t have given me up if it was you.”

  “I wouldn’t have,” Eddie said, looking back up at him. Mason could feel him grabbing onto this idea like a drowning man grabbing a lifeline. “I would have done the same thing, I swear.”

  “Okay, then, we’r
e good.”

  “But I should have come to see you,” Eddie said. “I was worried they would see my name and, I don’t know, try to keep me there.”

  Mason took a hit off his beer. You feel really bad, he said to himself. And yet if I was still down there, you’d still be sitting here in Bridgeport, not coming down to pay me a visit. So you wouldn’t have felt that bad.

  “It’s okay,” Mason said. “You’re married. You got kids. You gotta move on.”

  “I was gonna come. Really, I was. But Sandra, she just . . .”

  She just wouldn’t let it happen, Mason thought. I get it. The same woman who even now is making us sit out here in the garage instead of coming into the house. I should go in there, find her in her bedroom with both her kids hugged tight to her chest, tell her I just got done doing five years in a federal penitentiary and would have done a lot more. I never said a word about your husband being involved. Not one fucking word.

  “So I heard about Gina,” Eddie said. “I mean, I don’t know if you’ve seen her yet. You knew she got remarried?”

  “I heard,” Mason said, trying to hide how much it still hurt.

  He’d been keeping his cool. But it was getting to be a bit too much. He held on tight to his beer can and counted to three.

  That “code” that Cole said he saw in Mason—all that bushido honor and bushido loyalty—maybe it really was a rare thing after all.

  “I’m sorry, man,” Eddie said. “It must feel like I forgot all about you in there. I really didn’t. Every day, I thought about you in there and me out here.”

  Mason was quiet.

  “We grew up together,” Eddie said. “How many times did you save my ass, even before you went away? I should have been a better friend. After what you did for me.”

  “I said forget it.”

  “I’m turning this into a fucking soap opera, I’m sorry. Come on, let’s drink to something, okay? You’re out of prison.” Eddie raised his beer. “To getting out. To freedom.”

  Mason raised his halfheartedly. The two cans clicked together. Mason wasn’t so sure what they were drinking to. Whatever he had now, it wasn’t really freedom. Like Quintero had said, it’s mobility.