Red, White & Dead

by Laura Caldwell

  “Mags, I’ve been suspected of murder once this year. I don’t think that’s going to happen again.”

  “I don’t know, you’ve got some crazy energy going on lately. You’ve had a lot of weird stuff happen to you.”

  We both went silent. There was no arguing with that point. Another brutal truth.

  “I can’t just leave him there,” I said. “I have to go back.”

  Maggie slumped down onto her bed, her elbows propped up behind her, and looked at me. “You realize that will only multiply the crazy-weird energy.”

  “What would you do if you were me?”

  She studied me. “If I were you, I’d go back. And if I were me, I’d go with you.”

  47

  Maggie and I left the hotel. Relative quiet reigned in the city since there was a soccer match in play, and everyone in the restaurants and bars was glued to TVs. I led Maggie through the streets, consulting a map over and over. Every time a goal was scored, a collective shout would ring through the city-Roma!-and each time it startled me, made my breath stop.

  But I made my feet continue to move. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe this.” I kept saying that mantra over and over.

  “Stop, Iz,” Maggie said gently.

  I stopped the mantra, but different words rolled out of my mouth. “I had him. Or I almost had him, and now he’s dead. Just like that.”

  Maggie eyed me.

  “In some ways I think it’s worse than losing him when I was a kid.”

  She reached out and touched my arm.

  I stopped in front of a brightly lit but empty clothing store. I waited for Maggie to say something profound, one of those things that only a best friend can say to put things straight.

  She nodded, said nothing.

  A tick, two, then three went by.

  A roar leapt out of the doorways and into the street as another goal was scored or maybe one blocked.

  Maggie still said nothing.

  I nodded back.

  We both knew there was nothing she could say.

  When we got there, the Trevi Fountain was still crowded, although less so. I guided Maggie past it, down the tiny side streets until we reached that plain doorway, the one that looked as if there was nothing behind it, certainly nothing exciting. Nothing dead.

  I turned to Maggie. “Are you ready?”

  She shrugged.

  I studied her. Eyebrows drawn together, forehead creasing, she looked more stressed than she usually did at work. And Maggie was always stressed at work.

  I touched her shoulder. “Mags, you don’t have to do this. I have to do this, but you don’t.”

  She shook her head. “I’m with you.”

  “Some vacation, huh? Getting chased through a hotel by those guys and now this?”

  In an exaggerated way, she lifted her shoulders and let them drop. “Girl, you forget that I usually represent guys who own TAR 21s, so a couple of handguns don’t freak me.”

  “What’s a TAR 21?”

  “An Israeli assault rifle. So, really, all this stuff…” She pointed, made a circle with her finger as if including all of Rome, all of Italy and everything that had happened so far. “Nah, this doesn’t faze me.”

  She was lying. We both knew it. It was one thing to represent the bad guys from the safety of a designer suit, your grandfather’s office or the heavily guarded confines of Twenty-sixth and Cal. This-this-was something different. But I was afraid to say that, to speak the truth, because I might lose her. And I didn’t know if I had enough balls to go down there, into the depths of that place, by myself. But my father-my father-was there.

  I turned, and as I’d seen Elena do, I reached up and pressed the fist-size knob at the top right of the door. Nothing happened. I tried it again. Nada.

  “She did it just like this,” I muttered.

  But maybe she’d done something else, too, or triggered the opening mechanism some other way?

  I tried again, pushing the side of my fist down with all my might.

  A soft whoosh came from the door, and then click. Just as Elena had done, I pushed opened the door with the flat of my hand, and we entered the white marble foyer. The coolness inside was a bitter contrast to the still muggy night. It felt like a tomb. Sconces flickered but barely.

  I went to the keypad and pushed the numbers and letters Elena had used. V-I-C-T-O-R-I-A 0618, and the door clicked open.

  “What was that combination?” Maggie asked.

  “My mom’s name, and the day they got married.”

  “Wow. He still loves her.”

  “Yeah.” For the first time since I’d seen the body, a crop of tears grew up from my belly, breaking through my heart, and shoved themselves into my throat. A few made their way to my eyes.

  I pushed the tears away with my fingers. They felt hot, alive. “Let’s go.”

  “What is this place?” Maggie asked as I led her through the aqueducts, sinking farther and farther into the earth.

  I told her what I’d learned from Elena.

  When I found the last gangplank, I led Maggie across it. I felt an intense sense of vertigo but ignored it completely. At the iron door at the end of the gangway, I halted. I didn’t want to see that sight again. And yet I couldn’t just stand there. I grabbed the round knocker in the middle of the door and pushed it open.

  48

  “We found her again,” La Duca announced.

  “Great.” Dez said, as if it were par for the course, as if he wasn’t completely relieved. “Where is she?”

  “Roma, but that’s all we know. Our contact who was following them seems to have dropped off, hasn’t checked in.”

  The duke kept talking. He said it didn’t appear that the McNeil girl had any plans to leave Italy anytime soon. And then he dropped a bomb. “We have information,” La Duca said, “that her father is alive.”

  “You’re kidding-” Dez started to say, but he halted, then corrected himself so that his words were one of an associate of the duke’s, not an employee. “When were you apprised of this?” he asked calmly.

  “A few days ago. And from what we can tell, he has been trying to sideline the System the whole time. He has been working for the antimafia office against us for all these years.”

  Dez felt remorse for a second, then embarrassment. They hadn’t even told him. “Why didn’t you mention this to me?”

  “We didn’t need to involve you.”

  Dez sat down at his desk. We didn’t need to involve you. That wasn’t good. Even though he was in Chicago, an ocean away from them, he needed to be an integral part of the business. He was the United States boss after all. He needed to be updated on all this, so he could properly wield his power. But he couldn’t tell the duke that.

  He was just starting to formulate his response when the duke spoke. And his words changed everything.

  “But we need your help now, my friend,” La Duca said, although the word friend didn’t sound particularly friendly. “But you will only be able to help us if you can do so fast.”

  49

  Immediately, we smelled the blood. A gagging sound came from Maggie’s throat. She put her hand over her mouth and stepped into the room.

  I followed her inside, unable to look at the right side of the room. Instead, I just raised my arm and pointed at the couch. “There.”

  But as I said the word, my body turned against my will, needing to see. Then I turned more fully, my eyes opening wide, blinking, because…because…

  There was no one there.

  “He was…” I said. “He was right…”

  A moment passed-a moment that seemed so long, contained the power of so much sensory information. That smell, a soft ticking of a clock on the desk, the low rumble of something-subways?-somewhere in the city, the sound of my breath coursing, jagged, in and out of my lungs, the sight of the red couch still pushed aside, of the pool of red liquid next to it.

  “Are you sure?” Maggie asked.

 
“Look.” I pointed to the blood. “Obviously, something happened. He was lying right there.”

  Maggie shook her head. “But where is he now?”

  I paced the room, my eyes wildly scanning the place, my brain scanning every memory I had, every sight I’d seen, looking for something that made sense.

  “There are drag marks over here. Elena must have had the body removed. After we saw him, when we got upstairs, she took off running.”

  “Where would she take the body?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “We have to figure out where she could be.”

  I was about to make the same response-I have no idea-but then I stopped. “I think I know.” I grabbed Maggie’s hand. “Let’s go.”

  50

  “Charlie!” the producer yelled. “That author is at the front desk. Get her and take her to the green room.”

  Charlie removed his headset and shot off his chair. He left the booth where the producers ran the radio show and made his way through the studio. Two walls of glass overlooked Michigan Avenue, right where the street met the river. The desk in the studio, in front of those windows, was massive and triangular, each side having two or three headphones and mikes, except for the host’s side, which had only one headset and a soundboard in front of it.

  The host glanced up at him, gave a half smile and kept reading a newspaper. A commercial was playing, but you couldn’t hear it in the studio, and although the guy would have to be back on air, live, going out to millions of listeners in twenty seconds, he was unfazed.

  Which never failed to amaze Charlie. The skill this guy had-hell, the skill that nearly everyone at the station had-was impressive and inspiring. Charlie had been sitting on his ass for so long in his apartment that he hadn’t seen this kind of expertise up close and personal for a long while. Sure, his mom and stepdad and Izzy were successful, but Izzy had been flaking lately, which made Charlie feel rather simpatico with her. Yet it was Izzy’s meandering in and out of jobs that made him realize he needed to get one. A real one, which he’d never had before.

  Charlie had worked during high school and college, and he’d had the dump truck gig, but since he was an adult he’d never had a truly professional job. Of course, this thing with WGN was just an internship, something a college student could probably do, but it was perfect for Charlie. He got to watch the way people worked, the way they thought, the way they prepared. He knew the host was always up early in the morning-Charlie sometimes got e-mails from the guy sent at 6 a.m.-watching the news, boiling it down into witty, passing quips that sounded like off-the-cuff opinions. Charlie observed the head producer, too, who was a master of scheduling and glad-handing. The guy had to stack the book every day with interesting people-authors, comedians, politicians, celebs, sports guys-and then make the show feel as if it had exactly the right balance. When one guest called to cancel, or when the publicist for a better guest jumped in, the producer had to juggle the whole thing, moving this guest here, rescheduling another there.

  The host dropped the corner of his newspaper. “Who do we have next?”

  “The author.” Charlie gestured in the direction of the front desk. “The one who traveled with that band, The Decker Brothers, for a year.”

  “It’s a kid’s band,” the host said, “right? They’re like six and eight years old?”

  “Eight and ten.” Charlie had been up last night reading all the press releases.

  “And this grown woman traveled with these…” The host shook his head, his voice trailing off, ending with a short sigh. Then something seemed to catch his eye, and he stared out the window onto the street.

  Charlie followed his gaze. Outside was the usual collection of tourists, some trying to take pictures of the studio through the glass, others cupping their faces around it to see inside. Sometimes people stood and waved until the hosts would wave back, even though they were live. Sometimes the people outside brought signs and jumped around with them until the host read them out loud, and hearing their signs read through the speakers on the street, the people would jump higher and cheer.

  But today, there was something else going on. Two guys dressed in Cubs jerseys and baseball caps were staggering around outside, sort of tussling with each other.

  “Drunk,” the host said fondly. Charlie heard he was a recovering alcoholic.

  One of them, a big guy with tattoos up and down both sides of his neck, threw the little one against the glass, and it made a huge bam sound. It looked like a fight, but then both of the guys just laughed. They turned to the glass and pressed themselves against it, pounding with their fists as if someone could open the glass and let them in.

  The producer stuck his head out of the booth. “Charlie! Go control those idiots!”

  Charlie hustled to the door. He was about to leave the studio when the host spoke up again. “Get the guest first. Make sure she knows we’re a little delayed.”

  “But what about those guys…” Charlie pointed out the window where the two men were now doing some kind of cheer. The one with the tattoos on his neck threw his head back and looked as if he was howling. The other one cupped his hand and peered inside the glass then started banging on it again.

  The host just rolled his eyes. “Guest first, then bozos. Hurry.”

  Charlie rushed from the studio and ran down the hallway, past the executive offices to the front desk. He greeted the author and hurried her to the green room, which wasn’t green at all but brown, and strongly resembled someone’s rec room basement from a few decades ago. The author looked around with big eyes and pronounced it “Great!” Charlie’s producer said she was a first-timer and would be a little nervous.

  “We’re just about ready for you,” Charlie said, “but we’re running a little late.”

  “Sure, sure!” she chirped.

  He turned and took off down the hall, past the reception desk and outside. It was a crisp, almost cool June day. The heat didn’t really blast Chicago until July. Charlie jogged through the plaza toward the street and the men.

  When he reached them, they didn’t look at him. They were too busy banging on the glass.

  “Hey, guys,” Charlie said in a loud voice, raising his hand in a sort of surrender gesture so they wouldn’t think he was being aggressive. The truth was, Charlie didn’t even know how to be aggressive. “Hey, guys,” he said, “we’ve got to stop that.” He thought the “we” was a nice touch.

  The one with the tattoos on his neck turned to him. “What do you mean?” Now here was a guy who knew how to be aggressive.

  Charlie looked at the tattoos. He never could understand what counted as art-or body art-to some people. The tattoos were all gruesome little images surrounding one big red tattoo-a large A with a circle around it.

  “Guys,” Charlie said, “I have to ask you guys to stop.” He thought of how the producer was always talking about appreciation of listeners, so he went on. “We’re really glad you’re our fans, and we’re glad you’re here, but we just need to…”

  They still weren’t listening. The little guy looked as if he was about to drop his pants and moon the studio. Charlie took a step closer. He’d have to control this situation or he’d lose his job. And even though this job didn’t pay a dime, he liked it. Really liked it.

  So he took another step closer to the men, raising his hands higher in surrender. “Dudes, seriously, you got to stop knocking on the window. Why don’t I get you some T-shirts? Some hats maybe…” His words trailed off. The guy with the tattoos looked at him, and he didn’t seem drunk or even aggressive anymore. He was calm and focused, and he looked as if he recognized Charlie.

  Both guys darted toward him, grabbing Charlie around the neck and dragging him to a stairway that led down onto Lower Wacker. Charlie fought against them, but they were powerfully strong, and so was the scent. What was that he smelled? Charlie realized then that they were pushing a cloth over his mouth and nose, and it smelled intense. But just as quick the smell went away. A
nd so did the rest of Charlie’s world.

  51

  The Trevi piazza still held a bunch of tourists who didn’t care about the soccer match. Maggie pushed through them, and then I took the lead, dodging past one beautiful church after another and eventually heading down the Corso.

  “Where are we going?” Maggie asked.

  “I remembered something Elena said. I know where she might be.”

  “Where?”

  “Palazzo Colonna.”

  “The gallery where she works? It’s closed.”

  “She keeps a private office there that she said she uses when she needs to escape or to think. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me earlier.”

  When we reached the gallery, the tiny side street was mostly dark except for a café up the street, its outside tables empty.

  I buzzed at the door of the Palazzo Colonna. No one answered. I looked up at the windows. There were three windows that I figured would have been in the anteroom just before the galleria, then a few high windows in the galleria itself, and finally two others at the tail end. All were dark.

  “Doesn’t look like she’s here,” Maggie said.

  “Maybe not, but there’s a chance. If I could just figure out…” In my mind, I followed Elena through the galleria, into Princess Isabelle’s apartment, to the far side of the room-twisting and then pushing the pink dress-and into Elena’s office, a hidden one, just like my father’s. I heard Elena saying, This is where I come to escape, to think.

  I led Maggie down the tiny street, explaining about the location of the office. “I think once you get through the galleria and the apartment, the office is on this side…” I pointed up at the stretch of building. “There were two windows. They were high up in the room and small.”