The Second Life of Nick Mason Read Online Free PDF Page A

you?”
    She looked outside and shrugged. “I don’t even think about them anymore.”
    “He could have put me anywhere,” Mason said. “Why here? So you can keep an eye on me? Is that part of your job?”
    “Maybe it’s part of
your
job to keep an eye on
me
.” She gathered up her purse, took out her keys, and went down the stairs.

4
    After five years without a visit or a phone call, Nick Mason didn’t even know if the life he’d left behind would still be there, but he had to try.
    He went through the clothes in his room and put on a black sports coat over his jeans and white dress shirt. When he went down to the garage, he found the keys to the Mustang in the ignition. He hadn’t driven a car in five years. He opened the garage, put it in reverse, backed out into the street. Then he headed south.
    If you grow up in Chicago, you know it’s a city of neighborhoods, a great patchwork of separate communities, spreading out in three directions from the shores of Lake Michigan. Each neighborhood has its own rhythm, its own way of life, and its own food—from the deep-dish pizza in Streeterville to the pierogies in Avondale to the fried rattlesnake in La Villita.
    And if you grow up in what they officially call New City, like Nick Mason did, you know it’s really two separate neighborhoods in one: Back of the Yards and Canaryville. Back of the Yards is where youfind the kids with the Polish last names, the grandchildren of the men who worked as meatpackers in the Union Stock Yards. On the other side of that is Canaryville. That’s where you find the Irish kids. Like Eddie Callahan. Or Finn O’Malley. Or a half-Irish, half-whatever kid named Nick Mason.
    Of the three, Eddie was the smartest. He was a short, redheaded kid with freckles, built as solid as a fullback. Surprisingly fast when he had to be. He didn’t always talk like a kid from Canaryville. He even had both parents at home most of the time.
    Finn was tall and underfed, with a haunted look in his eyes that made him irresistible to some girls and unsettling to everyone else. His mother worked at the corner grocery, and his father was usually either missing or sitting at one of the bars on Halsted Street.
    Nick’s mother lived in one tiny apartment after another and sometimes relied on charity from St. Gabriel’s. He had a vague memory of some men who’d come by to see her, but he couldn’t remember any single man as his father no matter how hard he tried. It bothered him sometimes, but then he’d think, what the hell, it’s probably just some local loser who may or may not be kicking around anymore. Sometimes he’d even wonder what would happen if he met an older man at the bar and saw enough resemblance in the face to make the connection. He honestly didn’t know what would happen next, but it probably wouldn’t be good.
    A year older, Finn was the first one of the three to get drunk, the first to get laid, the first to steal a car. He was the first to get picked up by the police and held in a cell until his mother could get off work and come pick him up.
    When Nick and Eddie followed Finn into the auto theft business, they discovered that they had a real talent for it. Something thatFinn would never have. They were a lot more careful, for one thing. They were more patient. They knew to walk away if everything wasn’t right. Once they had that part figured, the rest was easy. It wasn’t like breaking into people’s houses. It wasn’t that kind of personal invasion. It was just cold metal on wheels.
    Eddie, in particular, got good at the technical side of car theft. He’d read the electrical diagrams on some of the models so he’d know where to find the wires to the main fuse, the ignition circuit, and the starter motor. Once you’ve got those three wires pulled out from the wiring harness and cut, you’re in business.
    It didn’t take Nick and Eddie long to find the people who would buy the cars from them. If you did a clean job, and