Embers & Ash

by T. M. Goeglein

“I am serious,” he said, shuddering with wet eyes. “We should at least, you know, taste what drew your family into the Outfit to begin with.”

  He was right—the Rispolis’ criminal history could be distilled to the moment when Nunzio began selling molasses to Al Capone in order to make illegal whiskey. My great-grandfather’s use of ghiaccio furioso to control bootlegging thugs led to his role as counselor-at-large, and to my family’s fate, all the way down to my own misdeeds.

  The bottle was cool in my hand as I took it from Doug.

  I sloshed whiskey against glass and sipped it, feeling it burn my throat and, milliseconds later, my brain. The overall effect was like having gasoline pumped into my head and I squinted, nostrils flaring, jaw squeezed tight, trying not to puke.

  “Nice face,” he said.

  “Ugh, it’s disgusting!” I spit. “All the bloodshed . . . for that crap?”

  “On the other hand, it goes nicely with a smoke.” He lit a cigarette and took the bottle from me. “Maybe one more pop.”

  I stared at him for a moment. “What’s going on with you?”

  “W-w-what do you mean?” He choked, gagging back the booze.

  “I know what you said. Nicotine has a calming effect on PAWS. But come on—whiskey and cigarettes? You’re like a washed-up country-music star,” I said. “I don’t buy it. You’re smarter than that.”

  The smile faded from his face. “Right. I’m smart,” he said. “I analyze everything down to its most obsessive, infinitesimal detail . . .”

  “That’s part of the reason we’ve come so far. A big part.”

  “Okay, so maybe this stuff makes me feel less deliberate,” he said holding up the cigarette in one hand, the bottle in the other. “More in the moment.”

  “You can’t become something by using props,” I said. “Putting on a big hat and jumping on a horse won’t make you a cowboy. It’s illogical.”

  “I’m sick of logic. It didn’t save me from Poor Kevin or those Mister Kreamy Kone groupies or Sec-C. You saved me, remember?” he said. “I want to be fearless . . .”

  “Doug . . .”

  “. . . like you.”

  “Oh god, I’m not fearless. You know that. Far from it.”

  “But you don’t flinch. You make yourself do things, what needs to be done in a bad situation.”

  We faced each other silently. “You mean kill people?” I said.

  “No. Well, yeah, that too . . .”

  “You want to talk about fear?” I said. “I’m scared every day that I’m not making myself do it. Dead bodies have become things to jump over as I keep running.”

  “You have to survive—”

  I shook my head. “Outfit enforcers, murderers . . . they weren’t born that way. It happened to them just like it’s happening to me. They killed someone, maybe it bothered them, but they did it again, it bothered them less, and they did it again and then again, until . . .”

  “Human life doesn’t mean anything to them. They kill for money.”

  “What’s the difference?” I said. “Dead is dead, and I’m the one who did it and may have to do it again.”

  “Sara Jane—”

  “This noble-quest bullshit has taken too much of me,” I said. “All I want now is to salvage what’s left—the part of me that still believes even a justified murder is wrong. I lose that, I lose myself for good.”

  He said it again. “You have to survive.”

  “I know. If I don’t, my family won’t.” I sighed. “But I can’t do it without you, Doug. Take this the right way, okay? I can’t tell you what to do, but relying on cigarettes or booze or whatever to become fearless? It make me nervous.”

  “Like you can’t count on me?” he asked.

  “Like you’re not the logical Doug I trust my life with,” I said. “Besides, let me ask you a question. Who smokes more than anyone you know?”

  He scrunched his brow. “Dope or cigarettes?”

  “Both.”

  “Uh . . . my dad. My real dad. Always has something burning.”

  “And who has a cocktail within reach at all times?”

  “Oh my god,” he whispered. “My mom. Shit.”

  “You really want to follow those examples?”

  “Okay, you convinced me. Time to quit,” he said abruptly, dropping the cigarette into the whiskey bottle and setting it aside. He reached into his pocket and removed the lighter. “I’m keeping this, though, as a reminder.”

  “Of what?” I asked.

  “Just . . . to be myself, I guess. Something corny like that.”

  “It’s after five,” I said, glancing at my phone, and climbing out of the Cadillac with Doug behind me. “I need to check on my house. Let’s get going . . . I hate being on the street when it’s dark.”

  As we moved to leave, Doug nodded over his shoulder at the big old car. “What about that thing? What are you going to do with it?”

  I stared at the car, perfectly preserved by decades of sitting in one place. “Leave it for the next generation of Rispolis,” I said, turning out the lights and locking the door. “If there is one.”

  15

  A HALF HOUR LATER, I DROVE SLOWLY PAST THE front of my house, three stories of brick and slate set among hundred-year-old oak trees.

  The street was wet and quiet, the rain having paused while clouds gathered again. I turned into the alley, pausing at the entrance, looking for garbage trucks, utility workers. It was empty. A moving truck blocked the other end, crowding the narrow alley as a sweaty guy in overalls struggled to wheel furniture up a ramp. I stared through the windshield, seeing a familiar figure appear. It was elderly Mr. Belford, who’d lived on the street forever, tall and bent, leaning on a cane, giving instructions. Neither he nor the guy gave us a second look. I continued to the garage, pushed the button, parked inside, and closed the door. Ice cream creatures had taught me a lesson about leaving the Lincoln in front of my house.

  Making sure no one was watching, Doug and I hurried across the backyard, up the porch steps, and slipped inside. Quickly, I moved to the front hallway and punched a code into the alarm, disarming it. I’d been careful to have the mail held, pay the utilities in cash at a currency-exchange place, and leave a lamplight burning. We’d always been a reclusive family, but I couldn’t take the chance of drawing unwanted attention from nosy neighbors.

  The grandfather clock wasn’t ticking.

  I wound it and the hands came to life, continuing to mark the minutes of my family’s absence.

  My weekly routine never varied—check windows and doors, make sure nothing is leaking, the furnace is okay, and circuit breakers haven’t popped. Intellectually, I knew it was mostly unnecessary. Emotionally, the ritual assured me, as though I were preparing the house for my family’s imminent return.

  Afterward, Doug and I went into the kitchen for a glass of water.

  I leaned on the counter, looking at my mom’s cooking utensils placed just so, untouched for half a year—knives, garlic press, a well-used rolling pin. “I used to stand here and watch my mom make gnocchi, my favorite,” I said. “Her hands were really beautiful and delicate, but strong.”

  Doug said nothing, watching and listening to me.

  “She pulled her hair back when she cooked, and wore this faded blue apron,” I said. “We’d just talk, about everything. If I had a problem or an issue, something that seemed like the end of the world, she’d say this Italian phrase her mom used to say to her. Finchè c’è vita c’è speranza.”

  “Which means . . . ?”

  “Where there’s life, there’s hope,” I said. “She knew how to make me feel better.”

  “You’re talking about her like she’s dead,” he said quietly.

  “It feels that way sometimes. Like they all are.”

  “You know they’re not, Sara Jane.�
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  “Yeah, but Elzy has them,” I said. “And she hates me so damn much.”

  “You hate her, too.”

  “I think she hates me in a different way,” I said. “My brother is alive. Hers isn’t.”

  Doug nodded, and then I led him upstairs. The boards creaked beneath our feet as we climbed to the second floor, where we opened closets, pulled back the shower curtain, made sure windows were secure. I glanced into my bedroom. The posters of Jake La Motta and Roy Jones Jr., my two favorite middleweight boxers, scowled back. The shades were drawn, furniture dusty. Nothing had changed from the previous week.

  I paused outside Lou’s bedroom and turned to Doug. “Hey, do you mind giving me a minute alone?”

  “Huh? Oh, sure,” he said, turning away. “I’ll just go down the hall and . . . stare out the window.”

  I entered my brother’s room, seeing the made bed, the poster of Albert Einstein sticking out his tongue, the books carefully arranged on shelves, and I thought of people who’d lost a loved one at war—how they preserved the dead soldier’s room as if he were still alive. I sat in the desk chair, using my foot to turn in a lazy circle, staring at book titles—Venice: Art & Architecture; Man and His Symbols; Mineral Deposits of South Africa; Training a Recalcitrant Dog. My little brother was the smartest kid I’d ever known, his interests wide and varying, his brain bursting with knowledge. I looked at a thin volume, its spine reading Geometrics of Bridge Building.

  Its bookmark, a faded strip of newspaper, caught my attention.

  I pulled the book from the shelf and opened it to the page.

  Instead of typeset words, it was filled with Lou’s handwriting.

  He’d been keeping a journal of his own, hidden behind a title he knew no one would reach for. The bookmark was a slim article, headlined: TWO REPUTED MEMBERS OF CHICAGO OUTFIT FOUND SLAIN IN FACTORY. The story was vague. I didn’t recognize the names of the dead men. I put the slip of paper aside and paused; reading the journal would be an invasion of Lou’s privacy, but the fact that he’d been reading about the Outfit drew me in. I turned to the first page. Lou had scribbled the date in the corner—a little over a year ago. Flipping forward, I saw that he’d made entries every couple of weeks, some covering several pages, others just a paragraph or two. Turning back, I read the very first sentence:

  My father is a criminal.

  “Oh, Lou . . . ,” I said, knowing how much it must’ve hurt him to write those words.

  The pages told a tale of discovery of the worst kind—from secret to secret, leading to a heartbreaking conclusion. It opened with a slow afternoon at the bakery. Lou had been hanging around with Grandpa Enzo (Lou loved working at the bakery) when my grandfather employed the rule of all food-preparation businesses—in the absence of customers, clean the place. While Grandpa polished display cases in the front of the store, Lou mopped the kitchen, washed pots and pans, and then turned his attention to Vulcan, the huge iron oven. We’d each been warned since forever never to go near it, but the oven wasn’t being used and Lou was being his usual proactive self.

  If he hadn’t done such a thorough job, actually climbing inside, he may never have found the little red button.

  It was only minutes later that my inquisitive brother realized Vulcan was an elevator.

  At the time, he said nothing to anyone; it was his nature to investigate first and ask questions later.

  After a few days, he snuck into the bakery when it was closed and rode down to Club Molasses, taking Harry with him for protection. Knowing Chicago history as he did, he recognized a speakeasy when he saw it. Club Molasses was full of artifacts of our family’s criminal history, from the old wall map to the Ferrari and more. Still telling no one, he did exhaustive research on the Outfit, piecing together scraps of information about Nunzio and Enzo that finally led him to a confrontation with our dad. As the journal progressed closer to the present, it was clear that my dad had confessed much to him, but not all. There was no mention of the notebook or ultimate power, but Lou was acutely aware of cold fury, the role of counselor-at-large, and another fact that chilled my blood.

  In precise script, he’d written:

  The Outfit rewards disloyalty with death.

  There were other phrases of his that pierced my heart with their familiarity:

  If he weren’t my dad, I’d hate him for what he’s capable of, and what he’s done.

  And:

  Parents, grandparents, Uncle Buddy . . . liars of the worst sort. “I love you,” to your face . . . and a knife in your back.

  And:

  They’ve betrayed my sister by not telling her what she possesses.

  “Why didn’t you tell me, Lou?” I said. The answer wasn’t in the pages. Maybe my parents had made him promise not to; maybe my dad had confessed to Lou what Uncle Buddy alluded to, that he was planning to make a deal with the Feds to become an informant; maybe Lou was waiting until he formulated a plan to fix a situation that seemed intractable. As I neared the end of the journal, my feelings turned with the pages—from shock at their existence to dismay that he’d withheld the information from me to pure empathy. I knew what it felt like, assembling piece by piece a puzzle that, in the end, created a shameful picture of our family.

  “Sara Jane . . . ,” Doug said from the hallway.

  “Just a second,” I answered, turning to Lou’s final entry, made two weeks before Juan Kone kidnapped my family:

  When the truth comes out, Sara Jane will despise the Outfit as much as I do. She’s strong, and unafraid . . . a fighter. She’ll never serve it as counselor-at-large, no matter what happens.

  I stared at the words, thinking, I’m sorry, Lou. I had no choice.

  “Sara Jane,” Doug called again, his voice urgent.

  “You won’t believe what I found,” I said, carrying the book down the hallway.

  “How many Russians does it take to write a parking ticket?” he asked, his face drawn as he looked into the street below. It sounded like a bad joke but his tone was ice cold. I pushed hair from my face, following his gaze through the window. A white SUV was parked at the curb, its door bearing the words CHICAGO PARKING AUTHORITY. Three men in khaki uniforms prowled the sidewalks, two on one side of the street, the third on the other. They almost looked legitimate, but the goggles on their faces and tattoos creeping up their necks told a different story. I couldn’t help but think they resembled nesting dolls—small, medium, and large versions of a bodybuilder type with a blond crew cut. Small and Medium peered through car windows while Large looked up and down the street, and then stared at my house.

  “Did they follow us?” Doug asked.

  “Maybe. Or maybe they cruise the house every day and got lucky.”

  “Let’s call the cops. Scare them off,” he said, backing away from the window.

  I stepped away, too, shaking my head. “Elzy used to be Detective Smelt, remember? She might still have people planted on the force.”

  “So what then?” he asked.

  “We make a break for it,” I said. “Drive like hell.” I moved back to the window, peeked outside, and—the SUV was gone. I looked up and down the street, and Doug did the same.

  “But what if they’re still out there?” he asked in a shallow voice.

  “They are still out there,” I said. “Now it’s matter of who’s faster, them or us.” He took the lighter from a pocket, gave it a nervous click, and I led him downstairs, into the front hallway. Right there, behind drawn window shades, a shadow moved across the front porch. It had to be Large, and he was, way over six feet tall and half as wide.

  “Oh my god . . . ,” Doug whispered.

  I faced him with a finger to my lips, nodded toward the kitchen, and realized I was alone. Turning back, I saw him planted to the floor like a statue, eyes wide and jaw quivering. I motioned at him urgently to follow but he shook his he
ad stiffly, mouthing, Panic attack. Sidling up to him, I murmured, “Doug, you have to move!”

  “Can’t. So scared . . . legs don’t work . . .” He gasped. “Freeze . . . response.”

  I threw his arm over my shoulder and tried to drag-walk him, but he lurched into me. Stumbling sideways, we hit a small table and I watched a vase tip back, forth, back, before shattering on the floor, the noise echoing through the house, and—

  Boom!

  —Large hit the front door like a wrecking ball as I screamed, “Doug! Move!”—

  Boom!

  —trying to yank him along, but he was deadweight, and—

  Boom!

  —the door splintered, Large kicked it open, staring at us. There was a pause, a grin, and he charged like a blond bull in a china shop. I shoved Doug out of the way and spun for the kitchen but Large was too fast, hurtling down the hallway and throwing a huge fist at the back of my head. It was like being hit by a two-by-four, pain exploding through my skull, the force throwing me against the counter. I saw a knife, reached for it, and lifted the rolling pin instead, swinging it blindly as I turned. There was a double crunch! of goggles and nose, and I swung again, connecting to Large’s Adam’s apple. He gurgled, grasped at his neck, eyes bulging, and I used the rolling pin like a mini–baseball bat against his jaw, the hard, solid crack! dropping him to the floor. I stood over him, sucking air, and when I was sure he was out, I shouted to Doug. He staggered into the kitchen, moving awkwardly, but moving.

  “We have to go. Now,” I said.

  He nodded dizzily.

  I stared into the backyard. It was surrounded on all sides by a high wooden fence, constructed by my dad for maximum privacy, and the garage at the back had an alley running behind it. We counted to three and rushed across the lawn, through the garage door. I peeked out of a grimy window at the moving truck, which hadn’t budged, and crossed the garage to another smudged pane of glass. The front of the white vehicle was a few feet away, idling in the alley with Small at the wheel. I couldn’t tell if Medium was beside him, but the fence had prevented them from seeing us enter the garage.