“Is there anything else?” Doug asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “If I don’t come back, take care of Harry.”
“You have to come back,” Doug said. “We have final exams next week.”
I realized then that I hadn’t studied Italian in almost three long weeks.
I grabbed my Italian-English dictionary and looked up three words.
destino—fate
resa dei conti—reckoning
vendetta—revenge
24
BY TEN UNTIL NOON, the cool morning sky had been replaced by a sun that shone so brightly it felt like nails being driven into my head.
There was no wind, no clouds, only light and heat.
The Technicolor blue sky looked cheap and fake, and I was tense being out in broad daylight.
I paused at the entrance to Navy Pier, watching tourists come and go carrying plastic bags full of expensive junk and eating large, sweet, colorful garbage, and then moved cautiously up the boardwalk. Twice in that short walk I was overcome by paranoia so strong that I spun in a half crouch, only to see slow-moving people with cameras and fanny packs and cotton candy. I yawned with jittery nerves, my heart beat irregularly—both signs of OD’ing on adrenaline—and I paused.
I stood inside an enormous round shadow.
I shielded my eyes and looked up.
One hundred and fifty feet in the air, the Ferris wheel crept in a slow circle.
My brother Lou is twelve, and in that time he’s probably seen his favorite movie, The Third Man, a hundred times. He has the entire film memorized, but his favorite part of all is when Holly Martins encounters his friend Harry Lime, whom he believed to be dead. Instead, it turns out that Harry faked his death and has been in hiding to escape punishment for a heinous deed. Harry doesn’t feel bad or guilty about his crime; he merely considers himself an opportunist, someone who’s made the best from a bad situation (not to mention a profit). To make the point, Harry delivers a short speech contrasting the amorality of a ruling family in Italy with that of placid Swiss democracy.
Every time the scene played, Lou would recite the monologue with him.
It began “In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed . . .”
Harry delivers this lesson on criminal creativity on a Ferris wheel.
Lou regards it as a genius meeting place since it’s on earth but above it, and public but also stratospherically private. He knows that I’m all too aware of his love for that seminal scene. I climbed the steps to the platform with my heart hammering my chest and saw strolling tourists, lingering tourists, tourists gaping into the sky, but no one else. And then—
“Sara Jane.”
He was behind me, and I turned to a kid who was my brother, but not.
He was snowy pale with deep circles under his eyes, his thick black hair shaved away.
He wore clothes that were not his own, jeans too big, a pale green hospital shirt beneath a coat too heavy for such a hot day.
Without another word, he turned to enter the Ferris wheel. I followed as he handed an attendant two tickets, we boarded the gondola with its open-air windows, and the great disc made its slow turn toward the sun. By that time we were holding each other tightly and I wept into his shoulder while Lou burrowed against me making low murmuring noises that were not words, but feelings. There was a faint metallic smell to him, like old batteries, and when we parted, sitting opposite of each other, we simply stared while the wheel climbed. Finally I said, “You’re alive,” and he nodded, and I asked, “Are they?”
Lou paused, then said, “Barely.”
“Lou . . . where did you all go?”
“I don’t know. We were taken.”
“By who? The government?”
“I don’t think so. I don’t know for sure. But I have to go back.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I won’t lose you again.”
“I don’t have a choice. Right now, they don’t know I’m gone. But if I’m not where I’m supposed to be in an hour, they’ll probably kill Mom,” he said absently, looking down at the ground, and I saw deep red burn marks on the side of his skull.
“Lou,” I whispered, leaning forward and gently inspecting his head.
“They attach wires. I know they do it to Dad, too, or did, every day. I heard him screaming when they turned on the computer.” He turned to me, and in a quiet, blank tone he said, “They want something.”
“The notebook. Do you know about it, Lou?”
He nodded. “Our family, the Outfit, the notebook. It’s very valuable, you know. There’s something incredibly powerful in its pages, or so I’ve been told . . .”
“They can have it,” I said. “I’ll give it to them now, today, if they’ll let you all go.”
He gazed down at the ground again. “They don’t want it.”
That stopped me. The notebook was a deadly burden but also my single strongest edge—my sole bargaining chip in a twisted reality where all lives had prices on them—and now it was worthless. “What do they want?” I asked.
Lou touched my forehead lightly. “What you have. What dad has.”
“Ghiaccio furioso,” I said slowly. “What you don’t have.”
“They don’t know that yet. That’s why I’ve been here, waiting for you every Sunday for a month. It became too dangerous. This was my last try.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I don’t either, exactly. I think they think ghiaccio furioso can control other things besides people. I saw the screen of the computer I was attached to . . . it looked like something medical, like a diagram of a brain or something. I don’t know what they’ve gotten from Dad, but they’ve gotten nothing from me, and pretty soon they’re going to realize that they never will. And then they’ll want you.” My brother looked at me impassively and said, “Run, Sara Jane. Run far away from Chicago. Leave, and don’t look back.”
“Never.”
“They know you exist, of course, but it’s as if it hasn’t occurred to them that a girl can possess ghiaccio furioso,” he said, looking absently down at the ground far below. “They assumed it was me because I’m a boy and I have blue eyes. But they’ll figure it out soon enough and by then you have to be gone.”
“No,” I said. “I’ve still got the notebook. Whatever’s in there, I’ll find it and I’ll use it. I swear to God, Lou, I won’t stop until you’re free.”
“It’s not . . . possible,” he said, his gaze widening.
“It is. It is possible,” I said. “You have to trust me.”
Lou pointed past me and shuddered. “Down there. Tell me it’s not real.”
A Ferris wheel is like a wagon wheel, its center held in place by spokes, and I turned and looked down at Poor Kevin inching up the one beneath our gondola. He climbed quickly, like a plaid, mad Spider-Man, and although his face was masked, I could tell he was grinning. There was no time to do anything but shove my little brother behind me as Poor Kevin pulled himself toward the gondola—we were halfway to the top and it swung wildly under his weight until he was inside. The metal car was built to hold six people, and he filled the entire space with the smell of rancid meat while wagging his finger at me. “You, you, you!” he squealed, and I felt Lou cower against me as Poor Kevin said, “Rodents and Ferraris and Ferris wheels . . . you’re just all over the map, aren’t you? And lookie here, if it isn’t little brother! Aren’t you gonna say hello? What’s the matter . . . rat got your tongue?”
I stared with ghiaccio furioso frigid and bubbling in my gut. “Stay back,” I hissed, but he repelled it, blinking it away while cracking his big knuckles.
“’Cause I’ll tell you something, a rat got part of mine!” he shrieked, and before he could touch us, I dropped to the floor and swept his ankles. He went down heavily on his back, the gondola careened wildly, and I knew it was all useless. The masked demon was my fate—he always had been, right from the beginning. Even as I fough
t on, I was having the type of sensory revelation that a person on her deathbed must experience seconds before she exits her body, knowing suddenly that it’s going to happen—I knew, too, even as he staggered to his feet and I peppered the evil sock puppet’s face with a flurry of rights and lefts and he took them like a giggling speed bag. I could hammer away all day, I could bite, kick, and run, but in the end he would grab my neck and squeeze me to death. And then something landed on top of us like a load of bricks. We all froze—Poor Kevin staring at the roof, me in a crouch, Lou against the wall. Poor Kevin stuck his ski mask over the edge, craning his neck this way and that, only for a pair of boots to kick him in the jaw so hard he flew across the gondola. The boots were followed by thick legs as another bulky man swung inside. “Uncle Buddy?”
“Geez, I really hate heights,” he said, his whole body shaking.
“You . . . you jumped?”
“From the gondola above,” he said, with another violent shudder. “Don’t ever do something like that.”
Poor Kevin stood shaking his head like a wet dog, and when he looked up, his crazy eyes popped crazier through the ski mask holes. “You schlub!” he cried. “It’s really you, isn’t it? Buddy Roly-Poly Rispoli! Buddy More-Cannoli Rispoli!”
“Poor Kevin,” Uncle Buddy said with a sigh.
“Oh, how I’ve longed for the day when I could tear your arms from your body and beat you retarded with them!” Poor Kevin bleated. “I mean, more retarded! I dreamed about it when I was in the hospital!”
“You mean the nuthouse,” Uncle Buddy said.
“Nuthouse, loony bin, cracker shack, you name it, I escaped it, and now here we are, just me and the Rispoli three! It’s gonna be fun, like killing rats!” Poor Kevin squealed, breaking into a sick little jig.
“I don’t understand,” I whispered to Uncle Buddy.
“After you left the house, I picked up your trail and followed you,” he said grimly, staring at Poor Kevin. “I wanted that damn notebook so badly. It’s all I wanted. And then I saw him.”
“Buddy-Buddy, two-by-four, can’t fit through the bakery door!” Poor Kevin sang in his schoolmarm falsetto.
“My brother would never forgive me if I let him hurt you,” Uncle Buddy said. “And I could use some forgiveness.”
“Buddy-Buddy, two-by-four, I’ll use your ass to mop the floor!”
“Yeah, you mopped the floor, all right, you mutant!” Uncle Buddy barked. “And if it wasn’t done the way I wanted it done, I made you mop it again!”
Poor Kevin stopped dancing. In fact, it was first time that I ever saw him stand completely still. “Oh yeah, well . . . you’re fat,” he said.
“What’s he doing?” Lou said. “He’s only making him madder.”
“Uncle Buddy,” I hissed, but he ignored me, moving carefully toward the door of the gondola.
“You rolled dough for shit, too, you know that?” Uncle Buddy said. “You screwed it up every time, and every time I had to go back and make it right.”
“Not . . . every time,” Poor Kevin said.
“Absolutely the worst baker I ever met . . . even worse than your old man! All the paisani on the block knew it, and they all laughed at you behind your back.”
“Not . . . everyone,” Poor Kevin said, and he was moving again, his big body twitching under the plaid suit like it was crammed full of small, angry animals.
“Hey, kids, you know the only thing this freak ever baked that was worth a damn?” Uncle Buddy pointed at him and guffawed. “His face!”
Poor Kevin stood bristling, the ski mask moving on his neck like a bobble-head, and he shrieked like a pig in heat and charged. My uncle went into a crouch, and then at the last minute dropped to the floor and snagged Poor Kevin’s ankle. The freak stumbled to the door of the gondola and it popped open. He was half in, half out, making circles with his arms and squealing, and I couldn’t help myself—it was instinct—I grabbed him by the greasy suit coat and pulled him back inside.
“Sara Jane, no,” Uncle Buddy said slowly. “You shouldn’t have . . .” But he didn’t finish his sentence because Poor Kevin kicked him in the mouth. Uncle Buddy rolled, spitting blood as the maniac tried to stomp his head, but Lou leaped from the wall, pushing him off balance. Poor Kevin backhanded my little brother, and he spun like a bleeding top into my arms. I set him gently on the bench and turned to my uncle, who was displaying his primary talent as a boxer, taking blow after blow from Poor Kevin that would have dropped a lesser man.
“Hey!” I screamed. Poor Kevin twisted his neck, and I broke the cardinal rule of boxing, sucker-punching him with everything I had.
The maniac’s neck twisted back and Uncle Buddy pounded him with a right.
When Poor Kevin’s head came back into view, I threw my left hook so hard that it knocked the ski mask from his head. In that long moment, I gasped at the flaming red R pressed into the gooey meat-lump that was his face. He made a slow pirouette—revealing scars like old bacon across his throat, skin holes where there should have been ears, and two lidless eyes as black as burned tar—just before he went down. I saw the terrible disfigurement that had driven him insane, and for a split second, I felt more than a twinge of sympathy for Poor Kevin.
My uncle stood back as if it were all over, but I’d been in similar situations with the masked freak before. Our gondola was almost at the top of the arc, and I was warning him to be careful when Poor Kevin jumped to his feet, grabbed Uncle Buddy in a headlock, kicked open the door, and flipped him out. Uncle Buddy grabbed the edge of the gondola and held on with both hands, his feet bicycling air. Poor Kevin leaned on his knees looking down at him and shrieked, “Spring’s almost over and summer’s too damn hot . . . but at least you’ll have a nice fall!”
“Sara . . . Jane . . . ,” Uncle Buddy gasped.
“And don’t forget to look back! These two will be right behind you!”
“Sara Jane,” Uncle Buddy said, “now!”
I was about to break my promise to Willy.
There would be a stain on my soul, and I suddenly did not care in the least.
I got a running start and pushed Poor Kevin out the door.
There was the whoosh of his body as it was sucked into the sky, it was silent, and then the gondola creaked and tipped precariously. Someone screamed somewhere far below. We’d reached the very top of the Ferris wheel’s arc as I looked out at Poor Kevin holding on to Uncle Buddy’s ankles, both of them swaying like an enormous pendulum. I scrambled for my uncle, screaming, “Hold on! I’ll pull you up!”
“Oh yes, please do, hero girl!” Poor Kevin shrieked. “Because when he comes up, I come up! Pull me in, kick me out again, and I’ll just keep coming back! I’ll never stop and . . . I . . . mean . . . never!”
Uncle Buddy looked at me with a decision already made, his eyes crystal clear as he said, “Tell your dad for me . . . your mom . . . tell them . . .”
“Uncle Buddy! No!”
He didn’t make a sound as he let go.
Poor Kevin screamed like a girl all the way to the concrete.
It wasn’t a Mack truck, but it would do.
I pulled Lou to me, holding him tightly, feeling the Ferris wheel beginning its descent. He moved away slowly and looked over the edge, and I did too, at the crowd of ant people forming around the two twisted, leaking bodies. I saw Lou’s head move and I followed his gaze past the scene to the curb. Even from a hundred feet in the air I could hear the haunting jingle of the little black ice cream truck. Without looking at me, he said, “We have a friend inside, Sara Jane. One friend. She brought me here, and now she has to take me back.”
“No,” I said, feeling my chest cloud with tears. “Please.”
“Do you want me to tell Mom and Dad anything?” he said.
The relief that my family was alive was smothered by a deathly feeling of isolation—that I was not yet among them and no one was safe. “Tell them . . . tell them that they shouldn’t have done this to us, goddamn it,” I s
aid, with water springing from my eyes. “It’s their fault, all of it, because they didn’t tell us anything . . . they didn’t warn us, or tell us who we really are. And please, Lou . . . please . . . tell them that I love them.” My brother nodded, and maybe it was what had been done to him with the wires, or maybe because he was only twelve years old and it was all too much for him, but besides a bleeding nose, his face remained as pale and impassive as it had been since we met. Sirens cut the air and I saw how near to the ground we were. “Don’t give up on me,” I said. “Whatever happens, I’m going to save you. Remember . . . I have the notebook.”
The Ferris wheel was twenty feet from the ground, then five feet, and then Lou blinked as if seeing me for the first time. The corner of his mouth rose in a small smile and he extended a pinkie. “All or nothing,” he said quietly. “Right?”
I hooked mine with his and said, “All or nothing,” and felt him slip something into my hand. It was cold and hard, and I stared down at my mom’s gold signet ring with the Rispoli R winking up from sharp little diamonds. When I looked up, Lou was gone. The door swung lazily and I leaped free of the gondola, cutting quickly through the crowd before any badges or uniforms reached me. When I was far enough away, I stopped and looked for my brother, but it was as if he never existed.
Except that he did.
My mom, my dad—they all existed in this time, somewhere in this town full of secrets and lies.
To be alive is sometimes to kill and I knew now that I was capable of it, and so much more.
25
I AM CONVINCED that there are other types of Capone Doors all over the world—secret black holes where people exit one life and enter another and, when the time’s right, reappear somewhere else. Some of these doors possess an actual physical form, like the ones I travel throughout Chicago, while others may be legal loopholes, or cracks in the system, or unenforced laws. For example, the notebook outlines several simple methods for obtaining false ID documents—birth certificates, social security cards, driver’s licenses, passports, even library cards—and in effect, these are Capone Doors too, since they allow a person to travel through the world undercover.
Cold Fury Page 24
