One night, at a loss of what to do next, I read the words aloud, phonetically.
When the polyglot left my lips and reached my ears, a blip of memory appeared. It was a typical Sunday afternoon at our house—my grandparents and Uncle Buddy had come for lunch, which segued into dinner. It was the first time my uncle brought his girlfriend, Greta Kushchenko, who would become his harpy wife and my nightmare “aunt.” During the lunch-to-dinner break, Lou convinced me to play hide-and-seek. At age fifteen, I was too old for the game, but my brother (a science whiz) was formulating a theory of telepathic tracking—locating a person by honing in on brain energy—and I was intrigued. While he counted, I slipped into the pantry, leaving the door open a crack. Soon after, my dad and grandpa came into the kitchen. They spoke in Italian, something about the bakery, something that sounded like business, and then Uncle Buddy and Greta entered. My dad and grandpa paused as Uncle Buddy rummaged through the fridge, and then began speaking again, but differently.
I heard it in my memory—Buondiavolese.
It was lyrical and incomprehensible.
Uncle Buddy slammed the refrigerator door and said, “Knock it off, wouldja?”
Greta asked why he was upset. Uncle Buddy glared at my dad and grandpa and said, “Every time those two don’t want me to know what they’re talking about, they switch to that mumbo jumbo! It’s their personal pig Latin or something, because old Buddy’s just too stupid to understand business stuff! Right, Pop? Right, Anthony?”
“Benito . . . ,” my grandpa said softly, trying to comfort him.
“Buddy . . . ,” my dad said gently.
“Aw, screw it!” Uncle Buddy said, leaving the kitchen with Greta in tow. As the door swung shut, his voice faded, saying, “You’ll see! I’m not as dumb as you think!”
I thought about my unfortunate uncle, how he assumed that his own father and brother were excluding him from the Outfit when they were actually trying to protect him from it. He didn’t possess ghiaccio furioso (which would’ve made him valuable and therefore untouchable), and without it he was just another schlub with a gun. They were sure he would get hurt or worse, and of course “worse” happened to Uncle Buddy after all—the price he paid for pursuing ultimate power was the loss of his life. I realized then that the more time I burned trying and failing to translate “Volta,” the greater the chance that I would lose my family too. I was getting used to bitter, continuous loss. My brother had been standing in front of me at the Ferris wheel and he disappeared before my eyes.
Every new day felt like my family disappeared all over again.
I looked down at the notebook turned to “Volta,” its words scrabbling away from my comprehension like tiny black spiders. And then I glanced at the other book, my journal, and flipped it randomly toward the end, reading my own handwriting:
Somewhere in that collection of tattered and worn pages stuffed between old leather is a secret that tops all others—ultimate power that I hope will help me find and free my family.
And that’s all it took, one short paragraph written by yours truly to spark a revelation. Somewhere in that collection of tattered and worn pages—I thought the secret to ultimate power would pop from “Volta,” screaming to be found, but now I knew that nothing so valuable would be so obvious; it would be disguised and camouflaged, just like Capone Doors, those secret entrances and exits hidden by the Outfit all over Chicago. Even more important, it would be concealed in such a way that a Rispoli, and only a Rispoli, could find it. The key to unearthing that crucial nugget, I now believed, was spread throughout the notebook, scattered like golden puzzle pieces among its chapters and verse. I could never decode Buondiavolese on my own, but I was sure there were vital clues concealed in the pages, between the words, that would help me do it. I turned back to “Volta” and yawned, fighting to keep my eyes open as my chin touched my chest and consciousness receded.
Seconds later, I opened an eye to a puff of cool outside air.
It grazed my face like baby’s breath.
I opened the other eye as a scratch of footsteps moved across the floor.
The creatures had come for me, I was sure of it, and I leaped to my feet wildly, swinging the flashlight as the squeal of tiny voices filled the air and the ground moved in an undulating mass. I stood against the wall and looked down at hundreds of Great-Grandpa Nunzio’s rats, those loyal descendants of Antonio and Cleopatra, blanketing the floor. To other people with other sensibilities, a flash mob of rodents would be terrifying and repulsive; to me they were welcome family friends. Sensing a Rispoli in need of aid and comfort, they’d converged on the mausoleum to form a protective snuffling circle—but how, and from where? The limestone tomb was sealed tight to keep out moisture and nature, but here was nature in full bloom, with worm tails and glowing eyes. And then I felt the wind again, chilled and musty, and followed it across the room. The rats parted, and I stopped at a heavy marble panel on the far wall inscribed with a Latin phrase—
SILEO IN PACIS
—which translates as “Rest in Peace.” I traced a finger down the cool rock, stopped at the raised C in pacis, and gave it a push. It was slightly ajar from the rats, and now it opened fully, revealing a flight of stairs dropping into darkness. The reason for a Capone Door in the family crypt was easy to understand; it would’ve been a great place to hide booze during Prohibition or for a counselor-at-large to conduct a sit-down. The irony was that my great-grandparents and grandparents had an escape hatch at their fingertips but they weren’t going anywhere, ever. My instinct was to investigate what lurked beyond, wondering always if the next secret passageway would bring me closer to my family. I moved toward it, ready to descend, when the rats squeaked insistently, drawing my attention to their snuffling circle around the blanket. Like concerned relatives, they were urging me to rest. Flushed with weariness, I knew that what lay beyond the stairs would have to wait until another day; exhaustion and unexplored dark tunnels were a lethal combination. I shut the door tightly against the possibility of anyone or anything opening it from the other side, comforted by my newfound willingness to use the .45.
I sighed, crossed the room, and lay down, allowing myself to be surrounded by hundreds of warm, breathing bodies.
I came to the mausoleum to be near loved ones, and they’d found me.
3
MY Cs LOOK LIKE CROOKED Gs.
Most of the Ts seem like rejected Fs.
My own name is so poorly written that it reads like some kind of disgusting special of the day on an Olive Garden menu.
This is the long way of saying that after writing in my Fep Prep journal this morning (one of the bleariest Sundays ever), it’s impossible to ignore that my right hand jumps like a Richter scale needle all over the page. I held it out, comparing it to the other, which trembled even worse—not a good thing for a boxer who depends on her left hook. My eyes involuntarily wink and twitch, and a rumbling nausea with the threat of projectile puking made it impossible to eat. Also, if my fingernails could feel fear, mine lived in constant terror of my tense, gnawing teeth. After my terrifying run-in with the creatures on Friday and then spending that long, achy night in the mausoleum, I’d returned to the Bird Cage Club early Saturday morning, pulled the shades, crawled beneath a blanket, and stayed put. When I wasn’t writing, I was sleeping (flailing-twisting-muttering), and when I wasn’t asleep, I was sweating like a sumo wrestler in a sauna. At first I thought it was an emotional reaction to being attacked by gender-neutral, cherry-eyed mutants.
And then the electrical crackling began, subtly, like joy buzzers grazing my skin.
The pen jumped from my hand when rogue electrical storms broke out over my shoulders and snapped through my bones. I lay back with an arm over my face as the current zigzagged inside my body, into my brain, and settled behind my eyes, humming. There was a knock at the door as Doug entered late Sunday morning, took one look, and bit his lip. Harry backed away with his ears on his head and tail between his legs, whining.
“What?” I said weakly.
“Nothing.” He shifted uneasily. “It’s just that you look, well . . .”
“Extremely exhausted?” I croaked.
“Completely insane,” he said. “Like you’re taking a break from the straitjacket for a few minutes before you return to the padded cell.”
I sat back, wiped my forehead, and told him about my house and the bridge—how the first creature was there to snatch me, the second drowned trying to run me down, and that Teardrop turned murderous after I “killed Beauty.” And then I explained the electrical current that had possessed me, how it overrode the frozen logic of ghiaccio furioso. Each Rispoli counselor-at-large used the power of cold fury as a business tool—to resolve disputes, broker peace, and force thugs to work together—in other words, to keep the money flowing. Admittedly, there have been times while using it on a depraved mobster that I’ve been tempted to inflict some well-deserved pain. Except that it’s tough for a depraved mobster to earn enough to make his monthly Outfit payment if his arms are broken. Logic dictates that as long as he’s earning money and it’s business as usual, the Outfit will leave me—and the question of my absent father—alone.
On the bridge, all-encompassing voltage had nullified good judgment.
Cold fury should’ve reminded me that the creature was more valuable alive than dead. But the electricity radiated its own logic, the inhuman rationality of murder, and caving in Teardrop’s face felt natural. Anyone else would’ve interrupted as soon as I’d uttered “ice cream creature” and “electricity in my brain,” but Doug was formed by thousands of movies that made the unbelievable completely believable. Throughout the summer, as we tried to unlock “Volta,” I schooled him in all things Outfit—its corporate structure, virtual invisibility while remaining integrated in every aspect of Chicago where there’s a buck to be made, and my expanding role as counselor-at-large. For his part, Doug explained how cruddy his home life was, with a mom more concerned with vodka and his lawyer stepfather than Doug, and a dad who basically smoked dope and ignored him; he moved into the Bird Cage Club with no protest from anyone. He also confessed that helping me had sparked a sense of self-worth, and that the quest to find my family had become his own. “That means everything to me,” I told him. “But eventually you’ll have to find something or someone that’s all your own.”
“Someone?” he said, opening his arms, displaying a XXL chunkiness. His face was a series of concentric circles, from tiny, round eyes to a pudgy piglet nose to multiple chins, while his hair had a fuzzy mushroom quality to it. He snorted and said, “Who the hell would want me, besides the manufacturers of big-boy jeans?”
Doug is impossible to BS and harder on himself than any bully or best friend could be. He eats right and exercises for a few weeks, but then he faces yet another existential crisis that seizes his attention, derails his diet, and sends him back to Munchitos. Is he gay or not gay? Does he hate his boozy mom or love her? Is The Godfather the greatest film ever or is it Citizen Kane? Ironically, the fact that he’s so obsessive is why he’s devoted to my cause. As I’ve learned, he’s precisely the person to have on my side—smart, loyal, and thoroughly courageous. That’s why he could listen analytically, steeple his fingers, and say, “You were flooded with electricity after believing your family was dead. But in reality, you don’t know if they’re dead or not.”
“No,” I said. “But there was a moment when I was sure they were, and that the creatures were responsible. Right before cold fury kicks in, I feel scared or threatened, but this was different. It wasn’t a terrible thing that might happen to my family . . . it absolutely had happened. My love for them morphed into something murderous. It was like, if I loved my dad, mom, and Lou, then I owed it to them to kill the creature.”
“The subconscious is quite a little taskmaster. It can really drive you nuts.”
“That’s the second time you’ve mentioned mental instability . . .”
“Relax. I don’t think you’re crazy. I think you’re going to the next level.”
“Next level? Doug, look at me,” I said with shaking hands and a twitchy gaze, perspiring like a melting ice cube. I peeled hair from my face and said, “Does this look like the next level of anything other than pneumonia? I feel like I’m shorting out.”
“Or maybe you’re coming online,” he said. “Like, say this is a by-product or even an evolution of cold fury. It feels related, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah. It does.” Instinctively I knew cold fury had to be activated for the electricity to flow. The scary part was that in the grip of the raging ions, I needed to kill Teardrop; I’d savored the sensation and felt diminished when it faded. Recalling it now, I licked my lips, wanting to experience it again, while Doug’s mouth moved silently.
“What . . . what did you say?” I asked, blinking through the haze.
“I said for your own safety, we should try to understand whatever the hell’s bouncing around inside you. Let’s try an experiment. See if we can kick-start it.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not sure it’s safe.”
“Who said science was safe?” He smiled.
Ten minutes later, I sat in a chair in the middle of the Bird Cage Club’s main room—a round, high-ceiling space encircled by floor-to-ceiling windows that make up the twenty-seventh floor dome of the Currency Exchange Building. When it was a speakeasy long ago, it had been furnished with a bandstand and bar, cocktail tables, roulette tables, and other games of chance. Now the vast room was mostly empty except for a heavy bag I punish daily, a couch where Doug sleeps (with Harry wrapped at his feet), and a large, round platform that looks like the part of a lamp into which a light bulb is screwed—which is exactly what it is, on an oversized scale. During Prohibition, the club signaled to its clientele that it was open for business by flashing a beacon across Chicago. Doug found a bulb at a theatrical prop store that actually fit, but the old fixture still didn’t work.
Also, there’s the control center.
It began with a scarred dining room table rescued from a Dumpster. Doug covered it with computers humming with every conceivable tracking software, every accoutrement to aid in the collection and dissemination of information. I added reference books on Chicago history, crime, and architecture. The wall-sized city map with its mysterious stickpins had come from Club Molasses, my family’s other speakeasy located deep below Rispoli & Sons Fancy Pastries, and now hung behind the control center, showing the city as a long, thin jigsaw puzzle of neighborhoods. It was there, high above the city, where Doug and I stared at screens, books, and maps, hoping that secrets would reveal themselves and help lead to my family.
The Bird Cage Club had once been a secret itself, known only to a select few.
It was hard to believe that I lived there.
Sometimes I awoke not knowing where I was and had to remind myself I’d been hiding out in the old club for months. The small, mahogany-paneled room where I slept revealed itself during the first week without my family, when I’d tried to fix a loose sconce. I gave the lamp a tug and a wall moved, revealing a hidden room complete with a dusty rolltop desk, cracked leather chair, and a tall floor safe. Every speakeasy had a secret office where the owners could skim cash in peace; this one, with walls of bulletproof steel and a private bathroom outfitted in gold fixtures, is where I dropped a mattress.
Now and then I try to picture what the Bird Cage Club was like ninety years ago.
I see tough guys in tuxedos, flappers in shiny dresses and glassy beads.
I hear the squeal and bop of a jazz band punctuated by the jingle of slot machines.
It was Tyler Strozzini, the Outfit’s VP of Money and owner of the Currency Exchange Building, who told me that, in addition to the Bird Cage Club (our family has a hundred-year lease on the twenty-seventh floor) and Club Molasses, there had been hundreds of other speakeasies all over Chicago owned by all types of Outfit members. Tyler’s eighteen and about to start college. A
s VP of Money, and with me serving as counselor-at-large, we work-flirt, flirt-work on a regular basis. I know about his revolving door of girlfriends (he makes a point to tell me) and he knows about my boyfriend, Max Kissberg—especially how Max spent the summer in California. Every time we meet to resolve Outfit disputes, Tyler flashes a perfect smile, leans over, and whispers, “What guy would leave his girlfriend, especially one who looks like you, alone and lonely for the entire summer?”
I always answer with a slow smile that (as I’ve learned) melts Tyler’s natural cool, if only for a split second. “A guy who knows that his girlfriend loves him.”
“Love?” Tyler chuckled. “Okay, but remember, love makes you weak.” It was during our most recent sit-down that he looked around the Bird Cage Club and said, “Nunzio had a real talent for speakeasies, I’ll give him that.”
“Yeah, this place and Club Molasses must’ve been awesome back in the day,” I said, scribbling the Outfit decision in the ledger. I’d resolved an issue between Muscle and Money, in favor of Muscle. Old Knuckles Battuta, VP of Muscle, buzzed away victorious in his Scamp, chortling with crusty teeth at Tyler; there was no love lost between them. Tyler was resentful, which put him in a needling, know-it-all mood. Outfit guys always try to show how “inside” the organization they are by demonstrating superior knowledge of its secrets and history (somehow they all had a grandfather who’d been best buds with their god, Al Capone), and Tyler was no exception.
“Most of the other speaks weren’t so high class,” he said, pinning his green eyes on mine. “Pretty creepy stuff went down in some of them. But of course, you’re aware of that.”
“Oh . . . sure,” I said, always careful to pretend I knew just as much as he did.
“Like for instance . . . ,” he said slyly, pausing a beat too long so that it was impossible for me to look away from his chiseled face, his smooth, copper colored skin, “the Catacomb Club.”
Flicker & Burn: A Cold Fury Novel Page 3
