Part of it, I replied, hesitating, and told him only about the part up to the plane crash.
Tyler nodded slowly with something like a look of relief, admitting that he’d never discussed how he felt about his parents’ untimely end with anyone and, well, could he—with me? We sat then, the two of us alone at the back of the jet as he spoke quietly about grief and loneliness, how deeply he missed his mom’s light sense of humor that dismissed all bad things as temporary, and his dad’s wisdom and guidance. His eyes were wet and we held hands. He tried to explain the emptiness he felt, wondering when or if it would ever fill in, and if he wanted it to. It hit so close to home that I found myself talking, too. I couldn’t tell the truth about my situation, of course, so I channeled feelings of fear and loss into the lie about my dad’s dire illness. I’d decided to go to Rome for a respite; instead, the cancelled trip became a mutual therapy session, and it felt good, even a little cleansing. Toward the end, Tyler uttered something so undeniable that it made my eyes wet, too.
“There’s nothing as permanent as the death of the people you love most,” he said quietly.
In a single sentence, he’d articulated my own worst fear.
We were at the back of the jet sitting side by side, the engines humming low and steady around us. Tyler glanced out the window and then turned to me, saying how sure he was that the VP of Muscle, Knuckles Battuta, had orchestrated his parents’ plane crash.
It sent a chill through me, a family so quickly separated by murder. “Why?” I asked.
“Power. When it comes to the chain of command in the Outfit, only Lucky sits above Money and Muscle,” he said. “The two positions are interdependent. Muscle needs Money to fund its army of enforcers and Money relies on Muscle to collect street tax, operating tax, and all other funds.”
I nodded. “I’ve settled a lot of disagreements between the two sides, as you know.”
“My dad,” Tyler said, and faltered, taking a breath. “He was younger than Knuckles, and charming—charismatic, I guess you could say. He and Knuckles were like oil and water.” Tyler was convinced that after all of the disputes between the two men over so many years, Knuckles took out his dad, hoping to exert influence over the teenaged Strozzini.
“It didn’t work out that way, huh?” I said.
Tyler shook his head and leaned in closer. “I despise Knuckles and everything he stands for as the chief enforcer,” he said in a confessional tone. “But you know what? Even more, I hate that I’m bound to the Outfit. After my parents died, Lucky made it clear that I had to become head of Money, or else. My family had served too long and knew too many secrets for me to be allowed to become a civilian.”
Tyler was chained to the organization, just like me.
Beyond that, we shared the reality of being different from everyone else in the Outfit. For me, it’s gender. For him, it’s because he’s half African American. The organization practiced its own hypocritical version of multiculturalism—members could be Italian, Greek, Jewish, whatever, as long as they were male and white. Our disparity brought us together almost as much as the loss of our families. When we were done talking, emotionally spent, he asked if I wanted to watch one of his favorite movies. Huddling together, we stared at The Shawshank Redemption, and I understood why he liked it so much. It’s all about escape.
After returning to the city, our romance, if that was what it had been, slowed and cooled—I was diverted by looking for my family, of course, and the street war had begun to rage—but the bond forged on the flight remained. I sat up on the side of the mattress now, wondering if Tyler’s feelings for me, combined with his own emotional scars, outweighed his loyalty to the Outfit—could I tell him about my family and ultimate power, and trust him to somehow help me?
The answer was a definite maybe.
But it wasn’t an absolute yes, which meant no, and I put down the phone.
It was just past midnight, Saturday surrendering to Sunday.
Doug and I now had twenty-four hours to locate the vault before returning to Fep Prep on Monday morning. Trying to fool myself to sleep, I shut my eyes and began counting in Italian—uno, due, tre—but the numbers reminded me of people.
I pictured my mother as she’d been the last time I’d seen her—smooth olive skin, silken black hair, lithe, delicate hands—but couldn’t help imagining a red stump where Juan Kone had sliced off her finger. Then I saw my dad, tall and lean with an easy smile, and purple scars on his wrists, track marks from where Juan had extracted gallons of blood—I’d never seen the wounds, but I knew he’d been experimented on, and tortured.
Finally, Lou walked through my mind.
He was as pale and bruised as I’d seen him at the Ferris wheel.
Lou hooked my pinkie and said, Rispolis stick together even when we aren’t together. All or nothing, remember?
I remembered.
Nothing, neither fear nor anxiety, could stop me from looking for ultimate power.
I stood and paced the room, opening drawers, turning over loose papers, seeking—what? A sign maybe, a signal that my subterranean search wouldn’t be in vain. I pushed aside the dictionary, the journal, and stared at the old notebook. I’d been through its chapters countless times, scratching out the truth about my family, using its criminal methods to survive. Through trial and error, and sometimes luck, I’d learned that its secrets weren’t always so obviously placed, where just anyone could find them. I’d turned every one of its pages searching for information about ultimate power.
Or had I?
Rereading the final entry for the eighth chapter, “Volta,” revealed nothing new. I examined the page, hoping it was like the ones that had concealed Uncle Jack’s scribblings in Buondiavolese, but no—it was a thin, single sheet. The notebook was bound in leather while the inside back cover was overlaid with a rectangle of yellowed paper glued into place. I looked at the key’s outline and Nunzio’s faint letters, B U R G L R, using a fingernail to dig at the cover’s corner. The paper crumbled into pasty bits until a strip peeled away. Slowly, like removing a stamp from an envelope, I pulled the page free and turned it over. It was a note from Great-Grandpa Nunzio to my grandpa Enzo:
Caro Enzo,
Io sono vecchio e i miei occhi blu sono sempre così debole che non posso vedere la pagina. Presto, vostro fratello Giaccomo registrerà tutte le mie parole per me. Ma ho bisogno di scrivere questa lettera io.
Come i miei occhi si dissolve, quindi fa ghiaccio furioso. Il tuo tempo come Consigliere rapidamente si avvicina. Ho insegnato molte lezioni, ma tre richiedono ripetere.
Questa lettera è un ricordo utile ed essenziale . . .
I put it aside, lifted the Italian dictionary, and translated the entire letter until I was able to read it:
Dear Enzo,
I am old and my blue eyes are growing so weak that I can hardly see the page. Soon, your brother Giaccomo will record all of my words for me. But I need to write this letter myself.
As my sight fades, so does cold fury. Your time as counselor quickly approaches. I’ve taught you many lessons, but three bear repeating.
This letter is a helpful, essential reminder.
First, we serve the Outfit because we must; refusing to do so would endanger our family. Serve it, but never trust it.
Second, without cold fury, we have no value to the Outfit. Remember—it is a beast that eats its own.
Third, if you or the family are ever in danger, from outside the Outfit or within, resort to ultimate power. I cannot say what it is in case this book falls into the wrong hands. Only that it dwells beneath the letters on the other side of this page. I am confident you will find it, but hope that you never need it.
If you do, know this—for our family, ultimate power is freedom.
I love you,
Papa
A pleasing chill tiptoed over my shoulders as I stared
at the words. From the distant past, my great-grandfather not only affirmed the existence of ultimate power, he’d spoken of it in the context of saving his, and my, family. The description was far from specific but it was enough—more than enough—to reignite the hope I needed to begin the trip underneath the streets of Chicago.
Freedom, I thought with a shiver. Ultimate power is freedom.
I placed the notebook aside and closed my eyes.
My sleep held no dreams, but also no nightmares.
The last thing I remembered was saying thank you to Nunzio.
6
THE SUN ROSE LIKE AN ORANGE BALLOON OVER Lake Michigan, spreading morning light through the Bird Cage Club as I stared at the triangle of thumbtacks.
A tiny, momentous secret waiting to be discovered.
I wondered if my dad had left them pinned there, similar to how he’d left the steel briefcase and its contents for me to find. The .45, cash, and prepaid credit card had been placed inside to keep me safe and moving, while the notebook’s purpose was to guide me through the dangerous maze of the Outfit. If he’d left the pins in place, then he must’ve suspected that I’d need ultimate power at some point. Knowing the peril of being associated with the Outfit, three generations of Rispolis had compulsively planted clues and safeguards in case something catastrophic happened to their children.
It had, and I was grateful for their paranoia.
In their lives and mine, someone (from Elzy and Uncle Buddy to Juan Kone and now Elzy again) was always watching, listening, or plotting. So they’d obscured facts and information and then relied upon the love we felt for one another to keep us moving toward the truth. In that way, the past six months of my life had been spent scratching at surfaces, trying to find what was hidden beneath—and here I was again, plunging into the unknown. It was enough of a reason to stare at an aspirin in the palm of my hand that morning and then put it back into the bottle. More than hope, more than luck, finding ultimate power might require a little extra power of my own.
“Spelunking anyone?” Doug said. He stood grinning in an oversized Blackhawks jersey and camouflage pants, hair mashed from sleep, holding a pair of miner’s helmets with electric lights above the brims.
“Where’d you get those?” I said.
“Snuck out last night to Trader Jack’s Survivor Emporium, down on Halsted Street. That freaky joint has everything,” he said. “Rubber knee-high boots, flashlights, rope, because you never know. Water, of course. What am I forgetting?”
“The .45, loaded this time,” I said, “and the notebook.”
“The gun, I get. There might be giant zombie rats,” he said. “But the notebook? Is there a map in it I missed? In case we want to tour Chicago’s prettiest sewers?”
“In case we don’t make it back.”
“Ri-i-ight,” he said uneasily. “Hadn’t thought about that. Guess we can’t just leave it lying around, huh?”
“Nope. Look, Doug . . . it may be pretty dangerous down there.”
“You’re telling me. The notebook said Joe Little connected the tunnels to the subway. You know how deep that is? Might be poisonous or explosive gases in the air, not to mention cave-ins. Anyway, we should be fine,” he said, smiling. “Excited?”
“Thrilled.”
“Take your aspirin this morning?”
“Yep,” I lied, using a rubber band to contain my wild hair.
“Good girl. So, where’s our entry point? Which Capone Door?”
I looked at the pins on the map, with my dad and the steel briefcase in mind. “Club Molasses. Where it all started,” I said, thinking of the speakeasy hidden deep below my family’s bakery, Rispoli & Sons Fancy Pastries.
“Are you sure? That’s way over on Taylor Street,” he said. “We’re right here in the Loop. There are a dozen old buildings nearby with Capone Doors.”
“With hundreds of people milling around,” I said. “The bakery is deserted, locked up since Uncle Jack and Annabelle left last month. Why risk being seen?”
“You’re the boss,” Doug said, putting on a miner’s helmet and striking a pose. “How do I look?”
“Like you should be in an old music video singing about the YMCA.”
He nodded, smiling. “Compliments will get you everywhere.”
• • •
Fifteen minutes later we were in the Lincoln, battered but a rocket on wheels. The window Skull Head had broken out had been replaced by a thick piece of plastic duct-taped into the empty frame. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked.
I wanted to get to Taylor Street quickly, and stepped on the gas, past a slow-moving station wagon, around a pair of buzzing scooters. As we sped beneath the El tracks on Wells Street, spraying sidewalks with leftover rainwater, the blip of a siren sounded behind us. The light turned red and I came to a halt, looking over at a police car easing next to me. My other foot hovered over the gas pedal, ready to step on it if the cop made a threatening move, but he simply pointed and mouthed the words, Slow down. I nodded agreeably. When the light was green, I drove slowly ahead, just a law-abiding teenager and her pal out for a Sunday-morning spin. The cop passed by without a glance, cut in front of me, and sped on. “Holy shit.” Doug exhaled. “What if he’d stopped us and looked through the car? The backpack’s right there, in the backseat, with a gun inside! Not to mention all the other suspicious crap, the helmets, the rope!”
“That would’ve sucked,” I said, shaking off the jumps.
“And you don’t have a license!”
“There’s lots of things I don’t have. Relax,” I said, turning onto Randolph Street.
“You’re talking to Doug ‘Ice Man’ Stuffins. I’m relaxed,” he said, thumbing at a line of sweat. “Besides, how can I not be? We’re going, like, five miles an hour.”
He was right. We’d come up behind a street-cleaning truck taking its time, weaving toward the sidewalk, back into the lane, scrubbing the pavement. Watching it slosh through the avenue, an alarm went off in my gut. “Weird,” I said quietly.
“What? That the city is actually cleaning a street?”
“No. That it’s happening the day after a huge storm,” I said, picturing its driver in crimson goggles.
“Maybe they’re saving money. Using water that’s already there,” he said.
“On a Sunday? Does the city even work on Sunday?”
“Gee, I don’t know, Sara Jane . . . let me check my city utilities handbook,” he said sarcastically, as a horn began to blare behind us. Doug looked through the back window. “Careful. That idiot is trying to pass.” Seconds later, a rusty van swung out and then screeched to a halt next to us as the street cleaner wove back into the lane, blocking its path. I looked over at a stringy guy in a White Sox cap and at the side of the van, which read, A-1 HOME PLUMBING—YOU BREAK IT, WE SNAKE IT! His eyes were wild as he screamed muffled obscenities through the windshield. When the truck moved, the van roared past. A hand jutted from the truck’s cab giving the stringy guy a one-finger salute.
“My turn,” I said, and hurried past the street cleaning truck, too.
The driver was chewing a cigar, back at work. He wore nothing over his eyes and didn’t even look our way, much less flip us off. I exhaled, relieved, and continued down Randolph. A few blocks later, traffic grew heavier, beginning to slow. I changed lanes, impatient to keep moving, and glanced in the rearview mirror.
Somehow, the rusty van was directly behind us now.
I’d been too preoccupied with cops and street cleaners.
Keeping my eyes on the mirror, I watched the stringy guy at the wheel slide something over his face. “Doug,” I said, trying to remain calm, “I need the gun.”
“What? Why?” he asked, brow furrowed.
“The van behind us . . .”
He turned, staring, and swallowed hard. “Is it one of them? A Russian?”
/> I nodded. “The gun.”
“It’s in the backseat, in the backpack!” he said.
“Go get it, please . . . now,” I said. Without pause, he climbed over the seat and began tugging at the backpack.
“I can’t . . . get it . . . open,” he said, breathing heavily. “My hands . . .”
“Are you okay?!”
“Panic . . . attack. Hands are . . . shaking too badly . . .”
I was in the left lane; a gap appeared in the right and I called, “Hang on!” twisting the steering wheel, jumping ahead with the van on my bumper. I flew toward a side street and made a screaming right as Doug tumbled onto the floor of the backseat with a yelp. The side street was deserted and I treated it like a racetrack, peeling rubber. “Grab the gun, Doug!” I said, looking back at him.
“I’m trying . . . to get up,” he grunted. “You’re . . . going too fast . . .”
A flash caught the corner of my eye, and I turned, staring through the windshield at a woman pushing a stroller through the crosswalk. I hit the brakes, stopping inches from her as the van came to a skidding halt, nearly smashing into me. The woman, face and body frozen, now gathered herself, shooting daggers as she continued across the street. When she reached the sidewalk, the van pulled around next to me.
The stringy guy leaned across the passenger seat wearing normal sunglasses.
It was his turn to flip someone off—me—as he sped away.
“He’s . . . gone,” I said, leaning my head on the steering wheel, catching my breath. “The guy was just a plumber. He wasn’t chasing us. He was just . . . in a hurry.”
“God almighty,” Doug said, giving up the struggle to right himself and lying back on the floor. “That was nerve-racking . . .”
“Can you breathe?”
“Yeah, I’m fine now. The panic, like, evaporates when the danger passes—”
Out of nowhere, the buzzing of giant mosquitoes cut off his words.
I looked up at a guy on a delivery scooter stopped in front of the car several feet ahead, facing us, and around at his partner, parked on another scooter the same distance behind. The drivers each wore T-shirts—one bearing the image of a pizza, the other a taco—helmets, and crimson goggles. The pizza guy in front straddled his scooter, leveling a short-barreled shotgun, while the taco guy jumped off his machine and hustled toward us, popping a clip into a handgun.
Embers & Ash Page 4
