My mind went to the memory of when he shape-shifted into Evil Grandpa, and it clicked. I sat back and continued reading.
“A boon to Capone Doors came in 1938, when the City of Chicago began to dig subway tunnels in order to supplement El trains. A far-ranging and wide-reaching system of secret tunnels already existed beneath the muddy surface of Chicago (see ‘Soldi,’ section III, page 109–113) to which Joe Little had long ago connected many Capone Doors, and it was subsequently engineered to access the subway system as well. Since that time, many an Outfit member has participated in the ultimate turnstile jump.
“Generations of Outfit members passed on the locations of Capone Doors to the next generation, but a comprehensive list was never distributed for fear that it could fall into the wrong hands on the right side of the law. As years passed, some were forgotten, others torn down, and still others built over. In Joe Little’s original blueprints, he states that ‘the key to finding a Capone Door is to imagine them everywhere, in every type of building and location, both public and private. And to train the generally unseeing eye to spot a hidden C-the button that activates the door-which will be slightly raised from the surface.’ Of course, it should be noted that this wondrous invention was named in honor of our revered founder and inspiring force, Al Capone.”
“Al Capone. A.C.,” I whispered, remembering the photo in the office of Club Molasses. I turned the page expecting to read more, but instead of the neat, blocky script, the page contained a list written in two different hands which I now recognized as my grandpa’s and great-grandpa’s. It read:
Monadnock Building, lobby, east wall
City Hall, second floor, men’s room
Edgewater Beach Hotel, Yacht Club, behind the potted palms
Green Mill Lounge, beneath the bar
Uptown National Bank, teller cage no. 5
3rd, 11th, 19th, 33rd, and 41st Ward Precinct Houses, lock-up
Henrici’s Ristorante, wine cellar
Lincoln Park Boat House, under the dock
Biograph Theater, north balcony
St. Hubert’s Grill, in the phone booth
All elevated train stations built before 1935, electrical closets
The list continued on, some locations I recognized, others I’d never heard of, but all of them surely containing (or at least at one time contained) its own personal Capone Door. I dog-eared the page so I could come back and finish, and turned to the next page. It was a new section titled “Safe Houses,” and explained how the Outfit owned dozens of hotels, homes, apartments, warehouses, and condominiums under assumed names where any member on the lam could hide out safely. This section contained a list of addresses, and I was skimming it when my eyes drooped and my chin touched my chest. I lifted the notebook and felt something odd, something hard and bumpy. I turned to the last chapter, “Volta,” flipped the pages aside, and there it was, a tarnished brass key taped to the inside back cover. I didn’t remove it, just squinted at it with heavy eyelids.
After that, I don’t remember anything until I heard a woman scream.
I jumped awake from the cot like I’d been electrified.
The notebook tumbled to the ground as the woman screamed again.
I rolled to the floor, crawled to the window, carefully pulled back the sun-streaming blinds, and looked down into the boxing ring where Ski Mask Guy was sprawled on his back, plaid rumpled suit still buttoned, tie askew. Across from him, Willy bobbed and weaved with fists cocked, ready to deliver another Sunday punch. Ski Mask Guy got to his feet and shook his head, adjusting his mask and his bulk. The lumbering goon had his back to me and was pointing at Willy while, from somewhere unseen, a woman shrilled, “Lucky punch. Okay, two lucky punches, you cockroach! For the last time, give up the girl or get ready to meet Jesus!”
Willy pushed his glasses up on his nose, spit through the ropes, and said, “Bring it, sissy boy.”
I craned my neck, looking around the gym for the woman, and then a flash of bodies drew my eyes back to the ring as Ski Mask Guy lunged like a Frankenstein monster. Willy ducked and delivered a one-two kidney punch that doubled him over, followed by a surgically precise left hook to the chin that put the freak on his back again.
Ski Mask Guy cried out in pain.
It was high-pitched and feminine.
It was the same voice I’d heard only a second ago, and it was his.
I watched as the giant lunkhead lay prone on the canvas, seemingly unconscious, and remembered the sugary voice from the mini-camera tape. I’d assumed there was a woman present then, too, but that high-pitched tone belonged to Ski Mask Guy, and it only made him creepier. The fact that he was not Uncle Buddy was no comfort; it only affirmed what I’d been dreading, that there really were three different people out to get me-a turncoat uncle, a faceless freak, and a corrupt cop with a stable of officers at her command. Quietly, then louder, Ski Mask Guy began to giggle girlishly, and then he leaped to his feet with alarming agility. Willy crouched, hands set, but Ski Mask Guy reached out in hyper-speed and grabbed Willy’s left arm, yanked and twisted, and I heard old bone crack.
Willy did not scream.
Instead, gritting his teeth in pain, he threw a feeble right.
Ski Mask Guy halted it in midswing and broke that arm too.
Willy, still silent, dropped to his knees, his head on his chest. “You really thought,” Ski Mask Guy said, his schoolmarm voice weirdly incongruent with his hulking form, “that a flea like you could compete with a specimen like me? I was play-acting!” He wrapped his hands around Willy’s neck and lifted the old man until only his tiptoes touched the canvas. “Okay, this is really the last warning,” Ski Mask Guy said. “Tell me where the girl is, Uncle Tom, or this face is the last one you’ll ever see!”
I was pulling open the trapdoor when I heard the “Uncle Tom” reference.
It was a filthy racial curse, something only a psycho pinhead would use.
It only made the scene in the ring that much more violent and surreal, and my mind went to the.45 in the steel briefcase.
I popped the locks and looked at it lying heavily among the stacks of cash, like some sort of sleek, dangerous reptile at rest. My hand trembled as I reached for it, with everything in me screaming that what I was doing was stupid and wrong. Then Willy screamed, the gun was in my hand, and I held onto the rope and jumped. “Hey, sock puppet,” I said as my feet hit the floor. “Let go of my friend before I. . I put another hole in that mask!” I was so racked by jitters from just holding the gun that I almost dropped it before gripping it tightly in two sweaty hands.
He turned to me while still choking Willy, whose eyes bulged and body squirmed like a fish on a hook. “Well, well. If it isn’t little Miss Kick-Me-In-The-Face!” he trilled. “Hey, does that thing squirt water or pop a little flag that says bang?”
I climbed into the ring cautiously, raised the.45 directly toward him, and he giggled girlishly. That he was amused by a gun aimed at his face only unnerved me more, and I heard my voice break as I repeated myself. “I. . I said. . let him go.”
“Hey, didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to point guns at your elders?” he said, tossing Willy aside like a sack of potatoes. The old man hit the canvas hard, groaning and turning onto his side. Ski Mask Guy faced me, cracking his knuckles and rolling his horrible head on a thick neck.
The cold blue flame kindled and flickered in my gut when I saw him move like that, like a career heavyweight preparing for battle. Nervous fear drained from my brain and body, replaced by a jarring it’s-him-or-me sense of reality as sharp as the blade of a knife. The.45 suddenly felt weightless in my hands, and I licked at my lips, knowing instinctively that lowering it meant lowering my only defense against the bulky maniac. I didn’t want to shoot him, but it was plain that Willy and I were dead unless I kept the gun squarely and confidently between us, which meant that if he took even one step. .
“Gimme that thing, you silly little. .” Ski Mask Guy squealed, lunging
like a crazed grizzly bear.
And then my finger squeezed metal just once, lightly, as the shot filled the room with an echoing blast and Ski Mask Guy grabbed his shoulder. The bullet had grazed him just enough to cut a line in his filthy suit and the skin beneath it. “You shot me,” he said, amazed, touching the surface wound and holding up bloody fingers. “I mean, you barely shot me, but you shot me! I didn’t think you had it in you!”
“It was easy,” I said, looking at him down the barrel, seeing that my hands had stopped shaking. “Easier than I thought it would be.”
“Sara Jane,” Willy said weakly from the canvas. “Don’t. .”
“Listen to Uncle Tom!” Ski Mask Guy said, his voice as shrill as fingernails on a blackboard. “Once was funny, a real lark, but remember. . guns don’t kill people! People kill people!”
“Where’s my family?” I said. “Tell me now, or I guarantee that next time my aim will be much better.”
“I’ll make you a deal,” he said, backing away, holding up his hands like a TV bad guy. “Gimme that old notebook and I’ll tell you the whole amazing story, beginning to end, with no commercials! I swear on a stack of Bibles as tall as the Willis Tower!”
I stared at his thick, jumpy body, his facial muscles undulating crazily under the knit mask, and said, “You’re lying. You won’t tell me shit.”
“Quite possibly, but you’ll n-e-e-ver know if you kill me!”
“True,” I said, wanting so badly for this nightmare to end, for the terrible freak not to exist. I stepped forward, close enough to smell rancid meat, and put the barrel of the gun in his face. “Maybe I’ll never know,” I said. “But maybe I don’t care anymore.”
“No, Sara Jane!” Willy called. “Please. .”
The tone of Willy’s voice-more desperate than angry-gave me just enough pause for Ski Mask Guy to go up and over the ropes like it was Cirque du Soleil, hit the gym floor like a ton of bricks on two feet, and run for the exit. I watched him go, watched him bow dramatically at the door, and heard his falsetto echo up the stairs as he cried, “Next time, Sara Jane! Oh, how my heart beats for next ti-i-i-me!” I looked at the gun in my hand, feeling nothing but bitter regret at my inability to use it, and then dropped it and went to Willy, who was suffering on his back. After I guided him to his apartment, I told him as much as I thought he should know about the notebook-that it, and not me, was what everyone was after, and that it was valuable and I was disposable.
When I was done, Willy said, “Get me a cigarette.” I rose, removed one from the battered tin box, put it between his lips, and lit it. He inhaled and exhaled a couple of times, and then said, “That’s all I need. Put it out.”
I crushed it in a coffee cup, saying, “Those things will kill you.”
“At least it would be a slower death than if crazy man did it,” he said. “Or you, with that gun.”
“He hurt my family.”
“You know that for sure?”
“I know for sure he hurt you.”
Willy nodded and cleared his throat. “I never told you how my daughter died.”
“You just said cars and alcohol.”
Willy nodded again, pursing his lips. “What I didn’t mention was that I was driving the car she was in when she died. And that the alcohol was in me.”
“Oh. . Willy. .”
“See, I killed my own daughter, Sara Jane. I was drunk and shouldn’t have been behind the wheel of a car, but she trusted me. She died and I lived, and I will never understand how the universe got it so wrong.” His eyes were wet behind his glasses but his voice was steady. “Yes, it was an accident. But all those drinks I had weren’t. I didn’t intend to kill my daughter but I did, and I loved her more than life, and still. . still the stain won’t ever wash out.”
“Willy,” I said, laying a hand on his shoulder.
“Listen to me and listen good,” he said. “You don’t want that cancer on your soul. I know your life is upside down and there are some very bad people after you. But the real fight now is your brain versus your heart, doing what you know is right versus what you feel must be done. Killing someone, especially when it’s on purpose. .” His words drifted off. He cleared his throat again and said, “Don’t do that to yourself, girl. Promise me you won’t.”
“Willy, we need to call a doctor. .”
“Promise,” he said, fixing a gaze on me that shone with remorse.
“Okay,” I said. “I promise.”
Afterward I got him as comfortable as possible and then called an ambulance. When I saw that he had drifted off, I slipped out of the apartment, shimmied up to the Crow’s Nest, and grabbed the briefcase. I checked its contents-money, credit card, and of course the notebook-and remembered the gun. On my way across the gym, I climbed inside the ring and retrieved it, and then paused only long enough to scribble some words on a few pieces of paper. I opened the apartment door so the EMT people would see Willy, left behind the bloody, shorn shirt I borrowed from them, and hurried back toward the gym exit. I stopped every so often to post one of the pieces of paper, each of which bore an arrow and read Guy with broken arms this way.
I climbed in the Lincoln and started the engine, hearing approaching sirens.
I was leaking tears, wondering if I’d ever see Willy again.
I wondered if I’d be able to look him in the eye if I ever broke my promise.
15
I'm not certain, but I assume that the life of a fugitive doesn’t normally go from sleeping in bloody head bandages on an army cot above a sweat-stinking boxing gym to being saluted by a doorman in epaulets before settling into a four-star hotel suite, gliding from a steam shower Jacuzzi to a warm, enveloping spot between two-thousand-thread-count Egyptian sheets on a bed large enough to host a square dance.
But it did.
I had the notebook to thank.
I couldn’t believe it was real until sushi rolled in on a silver cart.
According to the notebook, the hotel I was in-the Commodore, across the street from Lake Michigan-had been secretly owned and operated by the Outfit for seventy years. I’d randomly selected it from the list of safe houses, closing my eyes and pointing at the page. There was a phone number and scribbled instructions next to it-make the call, ask for the manager, and say “Al sent me.” Afterward, all I had to do was show up and I would be treated like a VIP, no names taken and no questions asked. When I arrived and repeated the line to the doorman-“Al sent me”-he saluted, said my room was ready, and noted that the Lincoln would be at the curb each morning, ready to go. He looked me over from head to toe and politely enquired whether there was anything else I needed. I said no, but asked his name just in case.
“Al,” he said with a wink. “Just like everybody else around here.”
And then I was riding a silent, private elevator.
The key was in the door; the room was vast and smelled like roses.
It was after the three-course room service was demolished and my stomach was aching with satisfaction that the extreme quiet and stillness of the place set in. It was a stark contrast to the past three days. I threw the robe on a chair and lay on my back in silk PJs staring at the ceiling as my beaten body took on the composition of a jellyfish, adhering to the wondrous bed beneath it. My mind, which had existed in a constant state of jumpy alertness, downshifted to a low gear, and my hand inched toward a remote control. The enormous flat screen flicked on, and I heard familiar zither music. I turned my head and saw shadows flash against the walls of a black-and-white, bombed-out Vienna, and smiled-it was Lou’s favorite movie, The Third Man. It felt like an omen-whether a good or sinister one, I can’t say-just that it made me feel my little brother was nearby. I closed my eyes and let the music fill my lungs.
Zing-zing-zing.
Tinkle-zing-zing.
Thoughts of Lou moved me closer to my grinning, lanky dad with a permanent five-o’clock shadow and flour on his shoes.
Zing-zing-zing.
Tinkle-zin
g-zing.
Memories of my dad hugging my mom in the kitchen until she pushes him away, giggling and smoothing her skirt as I enter the room, her face lighting up, so happy to see me, and she opens her arms and I’m right where I want to be, in her embrace. Her arms folded around me, and I smelled her rose-oil perfume and soft dark hair. It was sweet and sorrowful because we were together; I also knew I was asleep and dreaming, but we were together, and asleep, and then I was pitching weightlessly over the edge of a cool blue waterfall, not caring if I ever touched the bottom. Falling, normally terrifying, was a relief. It felt so good that I never wanted to wake up, but I did, because my mom woke me. I felt her delicate hand brush my cheek and opened my eyes without lifting my head from the pillow. She was sitting in the chair across from me, and I said, “Mom. You’re alive. .”
She smiled. “I’m with your dad and Lou, Sara Jane, and we need you.”
“I need you, too. All of you. But I can’t find you.”
“You can’t stop now. You’ve come so far in such a short time.”
“I’m tired, Mom.” I yawned. “Too tired to go on.”
“But darling,” she said, her smile fading, “if you don’t look for us, who will?”
“So tired. .” My eyelids fluttered.
“Sara Jane,” she said, and the urgency in her normally calm speech forced my attention. “If you don’t look for us,” she said, folding herself into the chair across from me, “we may never be found.”
“Okay, Mom, okay,” I said through another yawn. “I’ll keep looking. I just need to sleep first, okay?”
Her smile returned. “You’re such a strong girl. .”
Behind her words, another voice warned, “That’s a nice girl, that. But she ought to go careful in Vienna. .”
My mom said, “But you have to be careful in Chicago. .”
The voice returned. “Everybody ought to go careful in a city like this.”
“Everybody,” my mom said, brushing my cheek again, “has to be careful in a city like this.”
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