I found it at the bottom of a page in Uncle Jack’s scrunched hand.
A stream of legible words followed by dead space where other words had faded away forever, and then the important one—partner—followed by a name.
c o h e n f l e d b i r d c a g e c l u b t o h i s f a c t o r y w i t h p a r t n e r w e s t o n s k a r l o v . . .
I said it aloud, “Weston Skarlov.”
Nothing was recorded about his fate, which meant the Outfit had caught and killed him or—or maybe the mask he’d worn during the holdup had been enough and he’d escaped into a world of double or even triple identities. If so, maybe over the years he’d mentioned to someone where the Pure Dairy Confection Company was located. That’s what I cared about now—the factory’s address and busting its doors down—and I resolved to discover all I could about Weston Skarlov.
What I could not set aside was the massacre of innocents.
I could not ignore that Grandpa Enzo had been a merciless killer. Nunzio had to have known about it—the entire Outfit knew—which made my great-grandfather an accessory. I stared at the date again, 1956, the year Uncle Jack abandoned Chicago and his real identity forever. Like Uncle Buddy, Jack’s lack of ghiaccio furioso rendered him useless as a counselor-at-large, and thus of little value to the Outfit. His father had probably forbidden him to hold any other Outfit role in order to keep him safe, just like my grandpa had done for Uncle Buddy. My guess was that after recording the tale of his brother as a murderer and his father as complicit—seeing his family for what it really was and the horror it caused—he fled.
To my dismay, I experienced that sensation less and less each day.
Horror, and its attendant emotions, shock and revulsion, were like the classic boxing combination of two left jabs followed by a right—the more I got hit with it, the less it hurt. That didn’t mean it reduced the damage; on the contrary, one of the worst things that can happen to a fighter is the development of scar tissue, which deadens pain but also numbs comprehension of how severely she’s injured. What my grandpa did to those poor people at the Catacomb Club was burrowing into my subconscious like an infection; I just couldn’t feel it. That didn’t mean I welcomed it or, in the long run, would allow it to exist.
Being a natural-born killer, I thought, bristling with electricity, is no way to live.
11
THERE ARE FEW THINGS AS SUSPICIOUS IN THE Outfit as superlative statements.
When a gangster refers to anything—a restaurant, limo company, another hoodlum—in terms of perfection, it means something bad is brewing. In the Outfit, where yes is no and up is down, where the most mundane action such as buying a cup of coffee or reading a book causes others to doubt your motives and smell treachery, listening to unqualified praise puts everyone on alert. It signifies that the restaurant is about to be firebombed, the limo company has been infiltrated by the FBI, the praiser in question is a rat informant, and that other hoodlum, the one who is just so damn wonderful? He’s a dead man. That’s why, when Doug burst into the Bird Cage Club Saturday night bellowing, “I just had the greatest night of my life,” his superlative jubilance bouncing off the walls before the elevator arrived, my antennae went up. Harry leaped from the mattress where I’d been reading the secret pages and sprinted for the main room. I followed, feeling like a huffy parent. The only contact we’d had since Friday night were his annoyingly cheery replies to my texts (Awesome-sauce! This party rocks! Woo-hoo!). Now I watched as he stepped from the elevator—to use an old movie term, he swept off—saying, “Well hello-o-o, gorgeous! And I’m talking to me!”
I stared at Doug’s face, which was—there’s no other word for it—radiant. Only his eyes, pink at the edges, showed evidence of having been awake for a long time, and I said, “Are you . . . okay?”
He actually did a jig, a joyfully awkward shuffling thing, and lifted Harry to his face, rubbing noses. “Better than okay! I ate and talked and danced . . . Can you believe it? Me, dancing! . . . And talked and ate and talked, but most of all I made friends, Sara Jane! All kinds of friends! And everyone was just like me!”
“You mean . . . ?” I said, trying to communicate with my hands instead of saying it.
“No, no.” He grinned with rubbery cheeks. “I don’t mean overweight! Some were, but no, I mean they were on the fringe, so to speak. Loners, geeks, outliers, whatever . . . we had such similar stories! It was weird and amazing at the same time, and definitely a bonding thing! And the one trait we all completely shared? Addiction!”
“You mean drugs?”
“Drugs, alcohol, food, sex, whatever! There were even some homeless people there, like, the type that get blitzed on super-cheap wine! They were awesome!” He swooned. “Seriously, it’s almost unbelievable, isn’t it? Me, making friends, and you know what?” He held up Harry like a trophy. “They like me! They really, really like me! Remember? Sally Field, when she won an Oscar for Places in the Heart.”
“Uh . . . who?”
“Guess what else? They invited me to a big get-together at a Cubs game next weekend! Mister Kreamy Kone has a party suite at Wrigley Field where they entertain VIPs!” he said, dancing with Harry and singing, “Take me out to the ball game . . .”
I stood back, inspecting him. “Doug . . . are you high?”
“You mean stoned? Wasted? Zonked? No, but I’ll tell you how I feel,” he said, smiling like an electric clown-plug was attached to his butt. Slowly, articulating for effect, he opened his mouth and the word came out.
I paused, making sure I’d heard correctly, and then said, “Don’t be offended, but . . . it sounded like you said sexy?”
“I know, right? Well, yeah, it makes me feel that way, but it’s s-e-c-c . . . Sec-C. That’s what Mister Kreamy Kone fans meant about an S-C party.”
“What the hell is it?”
“Oh so delicious and like it says online . . . miraculous! Life-changing!” he cooed, licking his lips and hugging himself. “It’s a completely organic, all-natural, appetite-suppressant ice cream that Mister Kreamy Kone is test marketing!”
“They’re going to sell an appetite suppressant out of trucks?”
“No, no . . . the trucks sell regular ice cream. Sec-C will be sold in, like, gourmet grocery stores or somewhere . . . I’m not really sure. All I know is that right now, it’s available only to a select few, like yours truly! The incredible thing is that Sec-C isn’t just for food appetites. According to a Konnoisseur . . .”
“Wait,” I said, thinking and then sounding it out. “You mean like ‘connoisseur’? Like some kind of expert, except with a ‘Kone’? That’s really nerdy.”
“Trust me, everyone there was a total nerd and outcast, in the very best way. Anyway, the Konnoisseurs host the parties, and according to them, Sec-C also suppresses overactive appetites for drugs and alcohol and obsessive habits, with tah-dah . . . no harmful side effects! So it was all of these dependent people licking and talking, and I swear I could feel it working in my brain. The more I ate, the less I thought about Munchitos, and the better I felt about me. It must be real, because the Konnoisseurs are all ex-addicts and healthy and hot.”
“Okay, great . . . but what did you learn about Mister Kreamy Kone headquarters?” I said, unable to hide my irritation. I was choking on Uncle-Jack-and-secret-pages information, not to mention the fact that I’d been whistled in by Lucky, while Doug babbled on about miracle ice cream and seductive junkies. “The trucks hunting me down, remember? The creatures attempting to steal my brain? You begged me to let you go that party . . . did you learn anything?”
“Oh, well, not this time, but . . .” And he paused, wincing at my gaze, really seeing me for the first time through his happiness cloud. His smile faded and he swallowed thickly, sweat flecking his brow. “Did . . . something happen?”
Trying for restraint and failing, I blurted out how I’d been whistled in by Lucky, the boss of bosses, and what it could possibly mean. Was he aware that my family had disappeared? Did h
e think my dad was a rat? Did he think I was a rat? I shuddered just thinking of it, especially Knuckles’s warning not to use cold fury on Lucky, which meant I would be going in there unarmed.
Doug sat slowly. “Wow. You just made my night seem really . . . frivolous.”
“Oh wait, there’s more,” I said. “Two more, in fact—Jack Richards and Weston Skarlov.” I recounted the appearance of Uncle Jack, Heather, and Annabelle, and how a slim chance existed that the old man could translate “Volta.” Doug had questions, all of which I shelved, watching his eyes widen as I explained about Ice Cream Cohen and his jaw drop at the revelation of my grandpa’s bloody crime.
“It’s connected somehow. From 1956 to the night my family disappeared until today, right up to Sec-C. I have to recopy ‘Volta,’ make some pages that Uncle Jack can actually read, and we have to track down that factory immediately. I know my family is there. So first . . .”
“Um . . . are you okay? I mean, what your grandpa did was brutal. Really . . . terrible,” he said cautiously. “I’m surprised you’re not more affected by it after, you know, what you’ve been struggling with.”
“You mean never finding the people I love? Becoming something that I hate?” I asked matter-of-factly. “How it makes me consider killing myself before I kill someone else? Is that what you’re referring to, Doug?”
“Sara Jane . . .”
“One of the first things I told you about the notebook was that it was my guide to the past. That I couldn’t address the present until I understood the history of the Outfit and my family’s place in it,” I said. “Well, the past has collided with the present. For the moment, everything else—old history, what my grandpa did—is meaningless.”
“The death of those people at the Catacomb Club wasn’t meaningless,” he said.
“I don’t mean it that way.” I sighed. “Listen, one of your favorite movies, The Big Sleep . . .”
“Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, 1946, directed by Howard Hawks. So?”
“So, Owen Taylor, the chauffeur, dies when his car goes off a pier into the ocean, but it’s never revealed whether he was murdered or committed suicide. Why?”
“Because,” he said slowly, seeing it, “the only significance of his death is that it propels Bogart’s detective character, Philip Marlowe, forward. Why or how it occurred isn’t important.”
“All that matters for now,” I answered, “is whether Uncle Jack can translate that chapter, and how fast we can locate that factory.”
Doug nodded thoughtfully. “How do you know that your family is there, besides your gut? I’m sure it knows what it’s talking about, but still . . .”
“Teardrop showed me my mom’s finger. Why do that if she was really dead? Just show me her corpse and threaten to kill Lou next, or my dad. I believe they’re alive more than I don’t, and that they’re somewhere that’s nowhere,” I said. “It makes perfect sense it would be Outfit connected, but not part of the Outfit.”
“It sounds like you’re talking about Elzy,” Doug said, and thought for a moment, lips pursed. “Could it be her, Sara Jane? She knew a lot about the Outfit and your family. She could’ve known about Ice Cream Cohen, right?”
“Right,” I said, “or wrong. At this point, guessing if it’s Elzy is as much of a waste of time as wondering if . . .”
“If Owen Taylor was killed or he killed himself,” Doug said.
“Two someones,” I repeated. “Jack Richards and Weston Skarlov. They’re who we care about now.”
We were silent then, with Harry whining contentedly as Doug scratched between his ears. From then on, we reminded each other to stay focused by invoking a mantra—“Remember the chauffeur”—allowing the words to drive us forward.
12
ON FRIDAY EVENING, I MADE THE STARTLING discovery of an unknown great-uncle who was forgetting the past but might remember Buondiavolese; that he had a mute, pastry-chef daughter with an unmistakable (somewhat disturbing) resemblance to Uncle Buddy; and that she had a daughter who made Miss July look misshapen.
Afterward, I used them as an excuse to blow off introducing Max to my family.
I called him Sunday morning, thankfully got his voice mail, and broke the (bad for him, great for me) news. As I left the message, explaining the surprise drop-in by relatives and how their presence would dominate our household for the unforeseeable future, a warning went off in my gut—as considerate as he was, everyone, even a sweet specimen like Max, has limits. It was only natural that he’d be hurt and suspicious, but it couldn’t be helped—I was racing that deadly cosmic hourglass. Doug and I decided on a divide-and-conquer strategy to locate the factory; I’d covertly tap my sources for information while he continued on with the Sec-C weirdos. There were eat-and-greets during the week, and the Cubs party the following weekend. He was excited about—as he said—“Going undercover . . . with friends.” I made another copy of “Volta,” this one without the hidden sheets, and arranged to meet Uncle Jack and his family on Sunday morning, where I’d give him the pages and—I swallowed hard thinking about it—the keys to the bakery.
First, though, I had to puke my guts out.
Afterward, I hid the bloody pinholes on my forehead.
All of it was my own fault for not being observant.
I should’ve peered over the edge of the balcony twenty-seven floors to the ground before leaving for the bakery on Sunday morning. If so, I would’ve spotted two ice cream trucks crisscrossing the surrounding streets like a pair of determined black ants. Doug didn’t see any creatures at the party, but they must’ve followed him to the Currency Exchange Building. Other than the underground parking garage (the entrance is so well concealed that sometimes even I miss it), the only way in and out of the Bird Cage Club is a Capone Door hidden in the ground-floor carryout joint, Phun Ho—To Go! They’d probably watched Doug enter and never come out, realizing we were inside the building or nearby. They hadn’t followed him into the restaurant, but how could they? Throughout the past several months, the guy in a greasy apron never moved from his place behind the counter where he leaned, staring at a fuzzy TV. The appearance of skinny ghouls in black would’ve at least caused him to lift an eyebrow.
Instead, they patrolled the blocks, waiting for me to appear.
Normally I would’ve used high-powered binoculars to scan the blocks below before leaving the Bird Cage Club, but I was preoccupied with secret pages and bakery keys. Now I tugged my hair into a ponytail, pulled on a pair of Fep Prep sweatpants and one of Max’s Triumph Motorcycle T-shirts I’d stolen, and hurried for the elevator with the copied pages of “Volta.” My finger was extended, about to press the button, when I froze. But it wasn’t paranoia or even simple caution that stopped me.
It was Heather.
I was sure she’d appear as shiny and fresh as if she’d spent hours prepping for a Cover Girl photo shoot, and even more distressing, she’d have done nothing more than yawned once and rolled out of bed. She was that kind of a chick—deep green eyes, shimmering blond hair, bee-stung lips—so naturally gorgeous that the whole package seemed phony. But it wasn’t, and I was suddenly acutely aware of my hair, clothes, and (lack of) makeup. It’s that dynamic shared by girls when it comes to judging one another’s appearance—a wicked combination of being inspected and categorized based on, say, a pair of shoes, shade of hair color, or a purse, combined with a sort of sisterhood-charitableness that sought out the other person’s “positive feature,” like slim ankles, or good workout clothes, or the right application of lipstick. This emotional sweet-and-sour can be off-putting for someone like me, who puts almost zero effort into how I look.
Around Heather, however, my self-consciousness flared like a wildfire.
The truth was that I wanted her to like me as much as I liked her.
I walked into the bathroom, stared into the mirror, and didn’t even bother sighing. At certain angles, my nose looks like an oversized Mr. Potato Head accessory. The light behind my eyes was dull
and my hair was a nest of tangles that even the laziest rat would avoid. I tried doing something to it with a brush, but it fought me, like trying to comb a Venus flytrap, and I gave up and dug out makeup that had sat unused since the spring dance. I had no good idea what I was doing, with the result somewhere between demented raccoon and Cirque du Soleil reject. I looked at the clown-vampire staring back, wiped my face clean, and thought, Screw it, glamour’s not my thing . . . why fool myself? I was built for action. To chase, and to escape.
Apparently, I was fooling myself about that too.
Only minutes later I was trapped on Lower Wacker Drive.
I’d pulled from the parking garage beneath the Currency Exchange Building onto Wells Street, empty on a weekend morning, with my mind tipping from Uncle Jack to the impending sit-down with Lucky—only four short days away, Thursday at noon! A tremor of unease went through me just thinking about it. It wasn’t the fear of the unknown; on the contrary, it was the fear of the known, since, as counselor-at-large, I was acutely aware of what could happen if Lucky believed that my family had fled to the Feds. I drove slowly, considering the death-by-tire-iron-or-blowtorch possibilities as Frank Sinatra came whistling in my ear.
An ice cream truck blasted into me like a heat-seeking missile an instant later.
The Lincoln spun in a smoking circle while I grasped for consciousness, knowing I was done for if I passed out. With all of my strength I yanked the steering wheel and jammed the gas pedal, hopped the sidewalk, blasted a mailbox to kingdom come, and bumped back onto Wells Street. An El train rumbling on tracks overhead interrupted dazzling sunshine as the Lincoln shrieked metallically and I raced away, leaving the ice cream truck in the dust. I was hyperalert for another truck, which, if I hadn’t cranked the wheel, would’ve hit me head-on. It was obvious the creatures had returned to the crush-or-kill strategy of capture. They were behind me now, the one that had attacked, the other I’d avoided, as we hurtled into the concrete guts of Chicago. Lower Wacker Drive descends so deep belowground that city lights dim and noise fades away. Even at noon, when the sun is high, headlights pop on as loading docks and forgotten alleyways fly by.
Flicker & Burn: A Cold Fury Novel Page 13
