Cold Fury

by T. M. Goeglein

  As counselor-at-large, I was learning that, besides being a violent criminal organization, the Outfit was also a gossip factory that put Gina Pettagola to shame. The most hardened thugs whispered cattily about one another and to one another like a bunch of gun-toting grandmothers. If the people that mattered within the Outfit knew what Detective Smelt and Ski Mask Guy knew—that my family was gone—there’s no way the word wouldn’t have gotten around and that I, a Rispoli, would have been allowed to serve as counselor-at-large, much less exist with legs unbroken, or worse. By now, I was chillingly aware of what happened to suspected rats and their suspected rat children. Whatever knowledge or inside information that Smelt and Ski Mask Guy had gained, whatever their ultimate goal, they were not operating inside the organization. What I didn’t know was how that connection had been made; how did they learn about the existence of the notebook?

  And then I faced another equally puzzling question.

  What exactly does one wear to a Mafia sit-down?

  * * *

  I went conservative in all black—skirt, blouse, boots—and at ten until noon on an overcast Saturday stood outside an ancient skyscraper.

  CURRENCY EXCHANGE BUILDING was etched in stone over the entrance, with the year it was built, 1926.

  It was tall, thin, sooty, and smudged, its general neglect indicating that no currency had been exchanged there in a very long time.

  For fine arts class at Fep Prep, we took a tour of architecturally significant buildings in the Loop and learned that Chicago was the birthplace of the skyscraper. Structural steel allowed buildings to climb high into the sky, just as the Currency Exchange Building did, far beyond the El tracks that nearly touched the old building’s filthy façade. Many old Chicago structures had been renovated to perfection, but the one I stared at now seemed to have been forgotten. Maybe it was the building’s location—jammed into a crowded and not beautiful stretch of Wells Street between Washington and Madison with the train rumbling past, fat purple pigeons pecking at litter, and people rushing by without even seeing it. And then I realized that was the point—it was right there, hiding in plain sight—and I noticed something odd. The address of the building on one side was Forty-Three North Wells and the address on the other side was Forty-Five North Wells, but the Currency Exchange Building, squeezed between them, had no address at all.

  Yep, I thought, this has got to be the place.

  I remembered the instruction to avoid the main entrance and enter through an adjoining barbershop. It must have been an out-of-date entry in the notebook; the business next door was a shabby carryout with a pigeon-crapped awning that read PHUN HO—TO GO! I entered a cramped space with a bored-looking guy in a greasy apron staring at something Asian on TV. I tried the women’s room door but it was locked, so I approached the counter.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “May I use the restroom?”

  Without looking away from the TV, the guy threw a thumb over his shoulder.

  A sign tacked to the wall read NO PAY. NO PEE.

  A few minutes later I was in possession of a bag of egg rolls and a key. I paused, remembering being chased by cops at the North Avenue Beach House, and how I would’ve been screwed if I had chosen the women’s shower. It didn’t seem to have occurred to Joe Little, the inventor of the Capone Doors, that a woman would ever need to use one. The counter guy wasn’t watching, so I slipped into the men’s, which contained a sink and an old-time porcelain urinal. I looked closely at its faded logo—Chicago Hygienic Inc.—with the C in “Chicago” slightly raised. I wasn’t thrilled about touching it, so I used a paper towel, gave it a push, and the porcelain pissoire slid smoothly sideways, revealing a dimly lit alcove. I stepped inside, hearing the urinal thunk back into place. Before me hung a steel elevator cage that looked as if it had been hewn from black lace. It had three buttons—Up, Down, and Garage. Figuring a place called the “Bird Cage Club” had to be up, I pushed that button. Something clanked and whirred, and I rose skyward. I was almost there when I heard a thick wet cough above me, the elevator stopped, and through the cage I saw Knuckles in his Scamp.

  “Welcome to the Bird Cage Club,” he hacked. “Best views in the city.”

  I stepped into a circular room, which must have been the dome of the building. The beams were constructed of the same black, spidery steel as the elevator. The round walls, which were all glass, displayed incredible views of the Loop and far beyond, all the way to the lake. A bar clad in black leather stood against a wall, but there was no other furniture. The floor was made of white octagon tiles, and besides a large, round, raised platform in the center of the room, it contained nothing but Knuckles and me.

  Or so I thought.

  I heard someone else clear his throat politely.

  I looked over at a man with his back to me, and my heart punched my chest when he turned and smiled.

  He had thick black hair and deep green eyes, skin the color of smooth copper, and thick black eyebrows that arced when he saw me. He was as tall as Max, with broad shoulders that fit perfectly into a tailored suit, and his smile was warm and confident. More surprisingly, he was barely older than me. There was something familiar about him and I couldn’t help myself, I said, “You . . . look like that actor, from that movie . . . he was a pirate, I think.”

  “You too,” he said, inspecting me with the same intensity. “Not a pirate, I mean. No, you look just like . . .”

  “A young Sophia Loren,” Knuckles said, lighting a cigar. “I noticed it right off. Except maybe around the nose area. You got a little extra real estate there, kid.”

  “Actually, you’re better looking than her,” he said with a smile, and my heart punched me again. “So you’re her? The Rispoli?”

  “Sara Jane,” I said, my tongue feeling thick and dopey.

  “Tyler,” he said, taking my hand. “Tyler Strozzini. Sorry to hear your dad is sick, but it’s cool to meet you.”

  “What kind of an Italian kid is called Tyler?” Knuckles mumbled.

  “This from a guy who derives his nickname from finger parts,” Tyler said, grinning. “The answer is, a kid who’s half Italian and half African American.” He turned to Knuckles and said, “That probably didn’t fly in your day, huh, old man?”

  “The Outfit has always been an equal opportunity organization,” Knuckles said primly. “Except for broads, of course.”

  “Sorry if I’m being rude,” I said. “But aren’t you a little young to be VP of Money for the Outfit and the CEO of StroBisCo?”

  “I’m seventeen. How old are you?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “And yet here you are.” He smiled. “How did that happen?”

  “Just . . . odd circumstances,” I said.

  “Same with me,” Tyler said. “My dad held both positions before me, and my grandfather before him. I knew I was next in line, I just didn’t think it would happen so soon. But then my parents were killed in a plane piloted by my dad. He was a really skilled flier, had logged thousands of hours. But, to use your term,” he said, shooting Knuckles a look that was unfiltered hatred, “they crashed under odd circumstances.”

  “Real tragedy,” Knuckles murmured. “Then again, your old man was even slower paying my guys than you are.” He looked at his hands, whistling and inspecting his crusty old nails.

  The bad blood between them was so thick that it smothered the conversation.

  Tyler turned to the window to cool off, and Knuckles continued his cuticle exam.

  I realized then that Tyler and I were members of an unusual and exclusive club—we were Outfit kids. Although I’d only recently learned of the organization, it was undeniable that the Outfit was woven into my personal history and DNA. Doug accepted the existence of the Outfit, and the reality of my surreal life, from a dramatic and historical perspective. But Tyler lived it. Yeah, he was cute—my heart did mini backflips when he looked at me with those green eyes—and if anyone could offer me guidance on how to live two separate lives, it was him. I
would never tell anyone that my family was missing, the danger was simply too great, but if circumstances were different, Tyler was the one person who would understand what I was going through.

  He broke the silence, saying, “So, your dad ever bring you up here?”

  “Uh . . . the Bird Cage Club, you mean? No . . . he didn’t.”

  “Kept it a secret, huh? Just like my old man used to do . . . always held something back, just in case.” He grinned slyly, showing perfect teeth, and said, “Did you even know about it? Your great-grandfather Nunzio took a hundred-year lease on it from my great-grandfather. It’s not up for another ten years or so.”

  I wondered then if my dad had even been aware of the lease; it was completely possible that Grandpa Enzo kept it from him, just like my dad had kept secrets from me. Or even that Nunzio had kept it from Enzo for some reason. I cleared my throat and said, “Not until he got sick and I stepped in as counselor-at-large. Then he told me everything about . . . everything.”

  Tyler grinned again, sadly instead of sly. “My dad never had a chance to tell me anything but the basics about the Outfit and our place in it. I didn’t even know we owned this building until after my parents died.”

  “You own the entire building?”

  Tyler nodded. “It was the original front for Money. My great-grandfather had the brilliant idea of letting the working people of Chicago launder the Outfit’s profits, so he opened currency exchanges all over the city. Filthy dollars were traded for sparkling new greenbacks, one utility bill, money order, and city sticker at a time.”

  “There’s a currency exchange on every block,” I said.

  “The money laundry was consolidated under StroBisCo in the seventies,” he said. “Currency exchanges are a still a rip-off, though.”

  “Remember me, kids?” Knuckles said through a haze of smoke. “We gonna deal or not?”

  “So where do you go to school?” Tyler asked.

  “Fepinsky Prep. How about you?”

  “Newton Minow Academy. I graduate next month.”

  “Cool, you must be excited. Where are you going to college?”

  “Hello? Anyone?” Knuckles said.

  “Local . . . University of Chicago. Majoring in economics,” Tyler said. “Gotta mind the family business.”

  “Makes sense,” I said. “I haven’t even started thinking about college yet.”

  “Do you want to go away?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Won’t your boyfriend be upset?” he asked, smiling again.

  “What the hell’s going on here?” Knuckles demanded.

  “Boyfriend?” I said, thinking of the dance where Max and I didn’t dance, of the movie we didn’t see together, and worst of all, how he called me his (ugh) friend on the phone at the Commodore Hotel. “I guess . . . I’m not really seeing anyone. Officially,” I said.

  “Me neither,” he said with a grin. “Not officially.”

  “Enough!” Knuckles thundered, bringing down a catcher’s mitt on the edge of the Scamp hard enough to split metal. “Are we gonna resolve this thing or not?”

  “What?” Tyler said, still looking at me. “Oh, you mean the payroll thing? Uh, what do you think, Sara Jane?”

  I shrugged and said, “I think Knuckles is right. You should pay his guys.”

  “Okay,” Tyler said. “I will.”

  “Huh?” Knuckles said. “You will?”

  Tyler turned to Knuckles and said, “The counselor-at-large says yes, so yes.”

  And then we talked for a little while longer, Tyler explaining how the big round empty thing in the floor used to hold an enormous lightbulb that could be seen for miles from the top of the building, how the Bird Cage Club had been one of Chicago’s most popular speakeasies during Prohibition—and then he asked if he could call me sometime.

  I was unable to explain that not much was happening between Max and me, but that I hoped it would. My heart definitely belonged to Max—still, I’d be lying to say that Tyler’s attention hadn’t gotten to me a little. It felt strangely good to be known as Sara Jane Rispoli, Outfit Somebody, rather than Fep Prep Nobody, and to be attractive to a guy who looked like Tyler Strozzini. I guess that’s why I hesitated; instead of telling him that calling me probably wasn’t a good idea, I explained that I was between phones, which was true. Tyler winked and said no problem, that getting in touch with untouchables was his specialty.

  Something occurred to me, hearing that word—untouchables.

  I couldn’t remain in the warehouse safe house forever; metal cages on the windows aside, if someone really wanted to get his hands on me, it wouldn’t be impossible. I thought then of how tough it had been to reach the Bird Cage Club—without knowledge of Capone Doors, it would’ve been impossible—and that twenty-seven floors in the air with only one way in and out made it the perfect hideout. I tried on my own smile and said, “By the way, my dad . . . he wondered if you had an extra set of keys by any chance? He misplaced his.”

  “For you,” Tyler said, rummaging his pocket, coming up with a key chain, and removing one key, “anything.” As I took it from him, he held my hand and gave it the same kind of squeeze Max had. “By the way,” he said, nodding toward Knuckles but holding my gaze, “ignore what the senior citizen said about your nose. It’s perfect.” And then he turned and climbed on the elevator, waved as the doors closed, and my heart ached a little.

  “Beware,” Knuckles said, relighting the cigar. “He’s a sneaky little bastard. He’ll use anyone and anything to get a leg up.”

  “In what way?”

  “In every way. That’s why he’s so good at his job.” He exhaled smoke through his nostrils, smiled like a corpse, and said, “You’re about to become a very busy girl. When this gets around the Outfit, how you convinced Money to come across with my payroll? Thugs will be lining up for you to settle their disputes with that gift of yours.”

  That was the thing. I hadn’t used the ghiaccio furioso. I used another power I didn’t even know I had, and it made me blush thinking about it. I said, “No way. It’s not my responsibility.”

  “Whose is it? Your dad’s, who’s inconveniently under the weather? Or on a cruise? Or perhaps,” he said, squinting suspiciously, “somewhere else?”

  “I told you, he’s ill.”

  “I know, I know . . . so ill you had to close the bakery,” he said in the same mocking tone he’d used to call Tyler’s parents’ death a “real tragedy.” Knuckles leaned over the handlebars of the Scamp and said, “I just want to remind you that we all have a boss . . . me, Strozzini, and your dad. And not just any boss . . . the boss of bosses. If your dad’s duties go unfulfilled, you can bet Lucky will start asking questions.”

  I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me—of course there had to be someone in charge of the Outfit, its CEO, just like Frank Nitti had been so long ago. I swallowed thickly and said, “Remind me again why he’s called Lucky?”

  “You’ll know if you meet him. Thing is, you don’t want to meet him. The rare instances when Lucky himself whistles someone in is when the old man has serious questions,” Knuckles said, leaning forward in his Scamp. “And woe be it to the poor S.O.B. who doesn’t have the right answers.”

  Maybe Knuckles knew something and maybe he didn’t, but I understood his meaning clearly—if business did not proceed as usual, the Outfit would make it its business to find out why. And if it turned out that my dad really had gone to the Feds, I wouldn’t be able to run fast enough or far enough to save my own life. I stared at the old man who had been around forever, who went back so far in the Outfit that he had known Nunzio. I was sure he was full of answers to the questions I was dying to ask—like, for example, why had Nunzio taken out a hundred-year lease on the Bird Cage Club? But I couldn’t—I had to pretend I knew everything.

  “Yeah, okay, I can handle it,” I said, remembering my dad’s words from long ago. “I can handle anything.”

  “I have no doubt,” Knuckles s
aid. “That’s why I need another favor. A couple animals that work for me, both first-rate knee-crackers, are about to kill each other over a broad. I can’t afford to lose either, so you gotta talk to them, set them straight.”

  “Okay,” I said, thinking of Detective Smelt. “Then I need a favor from you.”

  “Una mano lava l’altra. One hand washes the other,” Knuckles said with a grin and extended a catcher’s mitt. “You know, kid, we work well together.”

  “I guess we do,” I said.

  We shook on it and, to misquote one of Doug’s favorite movies, Casablanca, it looked like the beginning of an ugly friendship.

  22

  THERE ARE TWO TYPES of people in the world: those who enjoy eating barbecued ribs and those who are turned off by gnawing on pig bones covered in goop.

  The Twin Anchors Restaurant & Tavern has a long, storied history of serving the former. Pork ribs have been its bread and butter for eighty years, including the period during Prohibition when it was a speakeasy, providing patrons with Chicago-made moonshine in soda pop bottles. Decades ago, Frank Sinatra loved the joint, as did every notable Outfit member, and sometimes they found themselves at the same table with him, and sometimes Grandpa Enzo was at that table too. Remembering that it was Detective Smelt’s hangout of choice, plus her possible Outfit connections, led me back to the notebook, where I learned all of this and more. Apparently, Grandpa Enzo even bought a piece of the business from its owner, someone named Roberto, whose last name isn’t supplied. It doesn’t tell what happened next, only that my grandpa eventually sold his piece, and that was that.

  The notebook mentions that the Twin Anchors has a Capone Door.

  Hopefully I wouldn’t need it.

  Hopefully Detective Smelt wouldn’t be the she-devil I suspected she was.

  I pushed through the entrance without the gun, armed only with ghiaccio furioso and a determination to use it on her just as I had Uncle Buddy. It was a cozy place with a cheery bar and Sinatra murmuring from the jukebox, and although I’d never met the detective, I spotted her immediately at a round leather booth in the corner. She wasn’t a she-devil, but she was a ghost, or a zombie, and she looked up at me and smiled.