Chapter 59 The Vultures' Ball

• The Drake Hotel's Grand Ballroom blazed like heaven's own spotlight before them. Crystal chandeliers raining light on Chicago's finest vultures dressed in their Sunday best. White-jacketed waiters glided between round tables draped in cream silk, silver trays balanced with champagne flutes that caught light like stars. Some fancy orchestra arrangement filled the air - the kind of music that reminded you just how poor you really were.
• They glided past like royalty, leaving the press pack yapping at their heels. Mason's eyes did what they always did - catalog every face, every movement, every potential threat. Chicago's elite played their parts in this elaborate dance of power. Politicians flashing those trademark smiles that promised everything and delivered nothing but heartache. Society women dripping diamonds that could've fed half the South Side for a year. Real estate kings sharing jokes with judges, probably plotting which neighborhood to gentrify next. Judge Martinez holding court near the windows, Commissioner Burke laughing too loud at someone's joke, bankers and business titans acted like they'd never heard the word 'protection money,' let alone paid it.
• Press vultures circled the entrance, their cameras ready to immortalize whoever's Bentley or Rolls pulled up next. Their flashbulbs turned the marble foyer into something between a disco and the gates of hell.