Mason obviously isn’t home with Susan, and he didn’t come to my place, so I reluctantly head north to drive by Deborah’s. I know Mason could be anywhere, and I could have paged him, but a phone call isn’t going to be enough to get O’Connor’s ideas out of my head. I have to see for myself.
My heart sinks when I turn onto Fred’s street and see a squad out in front of the house. At least it isn’t the Navigator. I slow down enough to get a look inside the house’s bay window, but the drapes are drawn. I park in front of the squad, jump out, and peek into its window instead. A pack of Benson & Hedges sticks out of a drink holder on the driver’s side door. Flagherty is the only one I know who smokes those cheap ones. It must be him. I go back to my car and hope I can get out of there quietly.
From Fred’s house, I head for the station. I drive south on Damen through a Hispanic neighborhood. Every time I take this route, I think about MariCarmen Matias. She was a good girl in a bad neighborhood, and I had hoped she’d beat the system. She was filling out an application to UIC’s nursing school when I questioned her about her brother, Javier, a small-time gangbanger we busted dealing heroin. MariCarmen wouldn’t talk; she didn’t want trouble. Trouble turned out to be her brother’s friend, Cid. Cid got MariCarmen hooked on him, and on heroin too. The next time I saw her, her bright eyes were glazed, and nursing school was as far from her mind as her swollen belly. She was too caught up in getting high to even notice she was pregnant.
The last time I saw MariCarmen, she was lying on this street, passed out and bleeding everywhere. Cid told her if she could handle heroin withdrawal for a few days, she’d reduce her tolerance for the drug and get a better high. He didn’t tell her that her unborn baby couldn’t endure withdrawal. On her way to get a fix, she spontaneously aborted the baby, right here on the street. MariCarmen survived, but I wouldn’t call that beating the system.
I make a left on Addison and bring my mind back to the present. I am aware of my surroundings. I can recall each block’s details, and mentally check off the order of things. I know this route better than I know myself. Though I guess that’s not saying much at this point.
I shouldn’t be letting O’Connor sway me. I never had much luck with relationship advice from people I respected; I don’t know why I’m interested in what some guy off the street thinks about Mason. I mean, I’m perfectly capable of ruining my own relationships.
O’Connor could be trying to trick me. He could have been twisting his facts, trying to get me to crack. Still, I wish I knew why he’s after Mason.
When I get to the station, the Navigator is parked outside. I hope Mason is in there working on my case. Maybe he already knows about Trovic, and he’s got a new lead. Maybe he found Birdie and got him to talk. Or maybe he doesn’t have any leads, and he’s tying up loose ends so everyone can get on with their lives, including the two of us. Together. In Miami. I’ll bet the tickets are sitting in the front seat of the Navigator. I’m just being impatient.
Or maybe O’Connor is on to something and Mason hasn’t been looking for Trovic; he’s been stringing me along, hoping the whole thing will go away. Hoping I’ll give up, and O’Connor will too. Of course I would believe him; I believed him when he promised he was leaving Susan. More than once.
Now I’m the one twisting facts. Mason wouldn’t lie to me. He wouldn’t waste his time. Why should he? I could walk, and so could he. I’m not his wife. O’Connor should be bugging Susan. Maybe, though, O’Connor’s pursuing me because I’m the one Mason loves. I’m the one who can hurt him. I just wonder why O’Connor wants to.
An hour goes by before Mason leaves the station. I’ve talked myself into and out of both his complete guilt and his total innocence, and I’m probably giving him too much credit in either case. I’ve given it too much thought, which is why, when he gets to his SUV, I jump out of my car and announce, “Marko Trovic is dead.”
“I know,” Mason says. “I just got the wire report.” He looks around for possible witnesses. “You shouldn’t be here.”
I’ve been sitting in my car long enough to know no one’s around, but I don’t want to push it, so I keep my distance.
“Mason, you have to tell me what’s going on. I found out Trovic was working for Fred. And Trovic was killed before Fred. O’Connor came to see me, and he tried to pollute my head with this conspiracy theory that’s crazier than me accusing a ghost of murder. You’re right about him; he’ll take down the whole district if he can. And he wants to start with you.”
“I told you,” Mason says simply. Doesn’t this worry him?
“What are we going to do?” I ask.
Mason opens the door to his Navigator. “You,” he says, “are going to go home and wait for me.” He stands behind the SUV’s door, shielding the smile he can’t hide from anyone who might be looking besides me. “I’m busy right now. I’m in the middle of a murder. And a divorce.”
I was right: Those were divorce papers I saw. Susan is finally out of the picture and I am going to Miami. I want to jump from where I’m standing into his arms and let him spin me around until I’m dizzy, but I play it cool since O’Connor is the one who told me about the trip. Mason reaches for something inside the SUV. I wait for him to hand me my ticket out of here.
Instead, he comes out with a pair of gloves. For himself.
“There are some details that need to be ironed out in Florida.”
“In Florida,” I echo like an accusation, which it is, because at that moment it occurs to me that Mason got the tickets before he knew Trovic was dead. Or, he knew Trovic was dead and didn’t tell me. And, he didn’t invite me to Miami.
Just then the front door to the station swings open and Paul comes hustling down the steps toward us.
Mason says, quickly, “I can explain everything but I can’t do it now.”
“Who’s going with you?” I ask, hoping for a quick “You.”
“We’ll talk later” is what I think he says instead, through tight lips.
“What?”
“I said I think you’d better go.” Mason raises his voice and it probably sounds pretty stern to Paul.
“There a problem?” Paul asks.
“No. She knows she’s not supposed to be here. She’s going home.” By the way he says it, I’m guessing I’m supposed to meet him there. “Let’s go, Flanigan,” Mason says, and slams the door to the Navigator. Mason pulls on his gloves, one at a time, without so much as a glance at me. Paul obediently joins him, and I’m still standing there when they hop into the adjacent squad and drive away.
I don’t resist the urge to stop at the liquor store but I only buy a pack of smokes, some gum, and a Coke. I have to have my wits about me when Mason shows up.
I know it’s terrible, because I should be concerned about O’Connor and Trovic and Miami, but all I can think about is the divorce. Mason is finally going through with it. A week ago I would have told him I wasn’t ready, but after everything that’s happened, I don’t want to keep our feelings a secret for another minute. I’ve questioned Mason’s every move since Fred died, and he’s always answered. I’ve been assuming the worst, and he keeps proving me wrong. And despite all my doubts, he still has faith in me. In us. I should have it, too.
I turn on the TV and half-watch a rerun of Double Indemnity. Fred MacMurray is falling for Barbara Stanwyk and her anklet while he’s trying to sell her insurance. MacMurray helps hatch a plot to kill Stanwyk’s rich husband so she can collect on his policy. She assures MacMurray they’re in it together, “straight on down the line.” MacMurray follows through, even though he knows better.
We all know better.
The last thing I remember is MacMurray’s boss complaining about the little man inside him that’s giving him a sick feeling about the blonde. I know exactly what he means.
I’m asleep on the couch when my phone rings. I reach around in the dark for the cordless.
“Mason?” Assuming he’s calling to say he’s on his way.
“I think we should talk,” a woman says on the other end.
“Who is this?” I say, but I know. It’s Susan Imes.
“Meet me at Clark and Devon. Stacks ’n’ Steaks. Back booth. Half hour.” She hangs up.
I don’t think she’s hungry for pancakes.
I pull into the parking lot of Stacks ’n’ Steaks, a neon, twenty-four-hour restaurant that looks like it was transplanted from Atlantic City. The bus stop on the front sidewalk is unusually crowded for this time of night, and I have to walk around some homeless people who loiter outside like moths around a lightbulb.
Inside, I walk past a group of drunk kids. One of them has her head down on the table, already regretting too many kamikazes. The waitress looks like she’s been here since breakfast; I don’t think she’s expecting a tip from the kids, or anyone else.
Susan sits in a back booth, staring out at the street. The neon lights around the window steal her previous glow and amplify the circles around her eyes. She doesn’t greet me when I arrive.
“I hate the city,” she says. “Its filth.”
“I doubt you came here to talk about cleaning up the streets,” I say.
I look out the window, thinking I’ll see whatever litter she’s referring to. I do a double take when I think I see that long-haired Serbian kid who scratched my car. I slide across the cracked vinyl seat to get a better look, but he disappears around the corner before I can make a positive ID. I’m left staring at a big bearded homeless guy who carries all his belongings in a collection of plastic Dominick’s bags. He’s having a really intense conversation with nobody.
“You didn’t exactly pick the best part of town,” I tell Susan.
The waitress comes over, serves Susan a cup of tea, and waits for me to say something.
“Coffee. Thanks.”
“I can hear Mason,” Susan says to me.
“What?”
“You sound just like him.”
I don’t know if I’m supposed to thank her or what, so I let her do all the talking.
“I want to ask you something,” she says, as she dunks her tea bag wearily. “Do you think you’re the only one? ‘We’ll get out of this place. We’ll get away from all this. When I get the money.’ You think I haven’t heard that before?”
The waitress brings my coffee, saving me a response. We both acknowledge her politely. It seems kind of wrong, two grown women talking so calmly about the one man they love, like there was a solution to be found over coffee at a breakfast joint in the middle of the night.
“This has happened before,” she says. “We’ve been through it. What Mason’s not telling you, and what I want you to know, is that I know. Everything. And I think you should know that you’re only going to get yourself in trouble. Like Fred.”
To that, I must respond.
“You don’t know anything about Fred.”
“Maybe I don’t. Not as an officer, anyway. I can’t say I know anything about the way a person would act in the midst of a police situation—”
“You obviously have an opinion about it.” I saw her sympathy card.
“I’m sorry Fred is gone.”
I don’t want to, but I believe her.
“I did not come here to fight,” she says. “I am speaking to you as a woman. As a human being. And I am asking you to stay away from my husband.”
“He’s really leaving you this time.” I try not to smile.
Then Susan smiles. Not vindictively; rather, it is the smile of someone who is right.
“I know Mason better than anybody,” she says. “And this”—she holds up her wedding ring—“may not mean anything to him. Or to you. But this”—she pulls that envelope from her handbag—“must mean something.”
She opens the lip of the envelope: plane tickets. So they weren’t divorce papers, and my name isn’t on one of them. Then why was she so upset at their house earlier?
“We’re going to look at property,” she says. “Mason went down nearly a month ago to research a new housing development.”
That’s where he went when we were supposed to go to Vegas? Looking at homes in Florida?
“Why did you call me here, if you’re so secure?” I’m annoyed by her confidence.
“Because if I were in your shoes, I’d want the truth.” She takes the tea bag from her mug and takes a sip.
“Which is?”
“Mason and I will also be going to Miami to see my mother. To tell her I’m having a baby.”
What do I say to that? That’s impossible?
“That’s impossible,” I say.
“Unfair, you may think, but not impossible.”
“Mason loves me,” I insist. I feel like a kid arguing over the outcome of a board game, because the result is the same, no matter who cheated.
“No one loves anyone on purpose,” she says. The words sting, because now I can hear Mason. “It’s time someone told you the truth, Sam. Marko Trovic is not a killer. Fred is not a hero. And my husband is not yours. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have proof,” I say, offering to play the board game again.
“Friendly fire,” she says and gets up. “That’s all it was. You’d best be advised to keep it friendly.”
Susan puts a few dollars on the table and leaves me there. Stunned.