“That weird warning in the text message—I was worried about you. I thought you might need me . . . us,” he said, as Harry growled again.
As unnerving as their presence was, even worse was the steel briefcase on Doug’s lap. We’d agreed never to leave the notebook alone at the Bird Cage Club, and now the Russian mob’s object of desire was right here in the car with us. I wanted to scream at Doug to flee but my tongue went numb.
Vlad was staring into the backseat and spoke first.
“Briefcase.” It sounded like brif-kes, and his tone was so languid it was as if guns were aimed at his head several times a day. “Could it be the one your father told us about? Under duress, of course. I waterboarded him myself. Funny what comes out when you’re drowning on dry land.” He pretended to gag and spit, bugging his eyes, and then melted into a sly smile. “In that briefcase, there is a notebook. The notebook, yes?”
Doug said, “But I have a gun, so—” and that split second was all Vlad needed to launch himself into the backseat. The grappling was quick and ugly as he drove a fist into Doug’s startled face while Harry howled and lunged.
“Harry! Heel. Heel!” I screamed, sure Vlad would do just as bad to the little dog, or worse. Harry froze on his haunches, teeth bared, hair bristling, eyes locked on the Russian. He trusted my voice and obeyed it, despite his instinct to attack.
“Doggy is smartest one in car,” Vlad said, jammed between Harry and Doug with the .45 pointed at me. He lifted the briefcase onto his lap and said, “Look behind us. Typical, eh? Raining like hell, streets a mess, and a garbage truck just happens to break down now. No one can get past, not town cars, not Buicks . . .”
I glanced back at the hulking vehicle. It was stopped sideways, hazard lights flashing, blocking every car behind it. Large, flower-filled concrete planters ran down the middle of Michigan Avenue making it impossible to get around the garbage truck. I looked from dazed Doug to whimpering Harry, and said, “Now what?”
“Your friend just made everything easier,” Vlad said, tapping out a cokey beat on the briefcase. “We proceed to Czar Bar, where you say good-bye to your family.”
“Because you’re letting them go,” I said. “That’s the deal. Them for me.”
“Oh, sure, you hug and kiss, say, See you soon, Mommy! and we wave bye-bye,” he said, picking at his teeth. “No. We kill them. Only reason it hasn’t happened by now, we want you to watch.”
Something painful spread through me, a cancer of defeat, and I turned, placed both hands on the steering wheel, and stared through the windshield. “Your boss hates me that much,” I said.
“Drive carefully, baby, it’s wet outside. We don’t want the gun to go off and have something happen to this fool,” he said, blithely driving an elbow into Doug’s gut. As he groaned painfully, Vlad said, “At least your brother put up a fight. It took a hell of a lot more than punch to stomach to—you know—get his mind right.”
I blinked once, coming awake, and met Vlad’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Lou,” I said, as the cold blue flame began to flicker and burn.
“Very strong kid, physically, mentally, at first,” he said. “I learn techniques in Russian prison, some with fists, others with ropes, that break any man, make any man loyal to his torturer. Your brother, no—he kept fighting.” Vlad leaned forward, his breath warm on my neck. “Until I bring out the knives.”
A zing of electricity crossed my shoulders, a reminder of aspirins untaken and of how easy it would be to kill someone I hated. “You brainwashed him.”
“Washed his brain, inked his skin, and now he’s one of us,” Vlad said. “At least that’s what he thinks. It amused my boss to see how his transformation hurt your parents, how he screamed at them, spit in their faces.”
“Lou wouldn’t do that—”
“He did it, and more. But if necessary, my boss would kill him like stepping on a bug. Hey, green light,” he said, nudging me with the .45. “Anyway . . . just another dead kid on a Chicago street. Who would give a crap?”
“I would,” I hissed, jamming my foot on the gas, demanding all the power contained in the Lincoln’s V-8 engine. The back end fishtailed as the tires chewed wet pavement, and we flew ahead like a missile. I had no real plan, only to shake the gun loose from Vlad’s grip and allow the deadly voltage surging through my brain and body to take its course. We barreled onto the bridge, rain pounding the car, as I whipped the steering wheel back and forth, swerving wildly side to side.
“Slow down, bitch!” Vlad screamed, digging a hand into my neck and screaming again at the painful electrical current coursing through me, biting and burning his fingers. I craned my neck at him, seeing the blue glow of my eyes reflect from his suddenly pale face, and grinned like a Sicilian demon from hell. Somehow the Russian had managed to hold on to the .45. But a guardrail ran along the side of the bridge and I yanked the steering wheel, hitting the railing hard, metal on metal shrieking, throwing Vlad, Doug, and Harry against one another, and then I did it again.
There was no traction beneath the tires, not even a skid, only a frenzied slide.
The street was too wet, the car too heavy, the speed too intense.
The Lincoln did not bounce from the guardrail but seemed to stick to it, and then the earth began to turn as we went up and over the side of the bridge.
There was a short period of silence, a tiny sliver of floating peace like when astronauts bounce around a space capsule, and then—a deafening impact as two tons of Detroit steel collided with cold river water. We’d flipped in the air and come down with the wheels beneath us, water rising over the hood, and then the doors, rushing into the car and sinking us so quickly it was like being on a roller coaster going over the highest hill.
The convertible top ballooned outward and was torn off in a brown liquid rush. I removed my seat belt and pushed away from the car as a cloud of bubbling suction pulled the Lincoln to the river floor. I dug at the water, seeing quivering light above the river’s surface, and broke through, spitting mud and sucking air. Curtains of rain swept over me. I splashed and quivered in the current, hair plastered to my face, and then began paddling anxiously in a circle—
Where’s Doug?! Where’s Harry?!
—and spotted Vlad swimming toward me with one arm. He was so close I could see his wild brown eyes—he’d lost the crimson contacts—as he pushed against the water, grunted while he lifted the briefcase in an overhand motion, and hit me in the head.
It was a sledgehammer blow, snuffing out the world.
I sank beneath the waves inhaling water, comforted by the dark weightlessness, and then panicked, clawing my way back to the surface. With fiery pain rippling from my skull, and weary from fighting the river, it was all I could do to hold on to consciousness and watch Vlad prepare to hit me again, realizing that I wouldn’t survive another blow, when something tore from the water—black homicidal eyes, flaring nostrils, sharp, snapping teeth—and Harry flung himself into Vlad’s face. Canine snarls mixed with human screams, and I bobbed helplessly, peering through the downpour at the little dog’s head wildly twisting from side to side. Vlad went under, pulling Harry with him, a cascade of silent bubbles rose up, and then both of them popped to the surface with Vlad screeching in Russian, and then in English, “Devil dog! You took my nose!”
“Harry!” I screamed. “Get away from him! Please, Harry!”
“Goddamn demon!” Vlad bellowed. They were thrashing and biting, and I pushed myself toward them as their heads bobbed and then sunk rapidly beneath the waves.
Beneath the waves!
Where’s Doug?!
I turned, and turned again, filled with panicky adrenaline, searching the face of the river, spotted a slime of rising motor oil, and dove for it. I opened my eyes as I descended, unable to see farther than my hand, but there—the hulking shadow of the Lincoln was impossible to miss, looking as if it were park
ed on the river floor! I pulled toward it, feeling my way through to the backseat, touching Doug’s hair that was like a waving mass of seaweed. Drawing closer, lungs burning, I saw his leg wedged beneath the front seat. I held his ankle in both hands and yanked with all my strength, doing math in my feverish brain—How long had he been under, two minutes, four, was he already dead?—until the leg came free and his body slowly rose toward me. I hooked the back of his shirt and tried to pull but he was too heavy, we were too deep.
The old raincoat was wedged in the backseat.
I grabbed it, looped it tightly around Doug’s wrist, and burrowed madly through brown water toward the surface, counting each jerk of the raincoat, and at ten broke into the rain, literally eating the air. With one arm beneath Doug, the other pulling toward the weedy shore, I tried not to feel his motionless chest. We came aground on a muddy spit just feet from part of the bridge’s foundation. His face was ashen, eyes open and staring at nothing, lines of greenish liquid snaking from his nostrils.
My head jerked up at a commotion on the other side of the river.
There were shrill calls for help as Vlad was hauled onto the dock of Wendella boat tours. He bent at the knees, face streaming blood and water, and then rose and scanned the river until he saw me kneeling next to Doug’s limp form. Even from that distance, it was evident something was wrong with his face, as if a small, nasty explosion had occurred beneath his eyes. Two men tried to help but Vlad shoved them away, lifted the briefcase with one hand and a middle finger at me with the other, and pushed through the crowd. I watched him jerkily climb a flight of steps toward Michigan Avenue; if I scrambled up the embankment to the walkway above, it would be possible to catch him. I could use cold fury not only to get the notebook but also to try to save my family.
The choice was stark—Doug, or the notebook and Vlad.
I leaned over my friend and used what I’d learned in first-aid class at Fep Prep, clearing his mouth of as much gunk as possible. Hands trembling, I tilted his head, held his nose shut, and began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. There was no response, just me pushing air down his throat, and I paused, saying, “Come on, Doug! Not like this!” and resumed, breathing for him until he kicked and bucked, and I rolled him on his side as he vomited river water, gasped, puked once more, and drew in a huge gulp of air. I sat him up and held him in place like a big, awkward baby until he was breathing on his own. Kneeling next to him, pushing the rain from my face, I said, “Doug . . . thank god . . . you were . . . I mean, you almost . . .”
He quaked with a full-body shiver, blinked at me, and turned his head slowly. “Where’s Harry?” he mumbled.
“Harry?” I said, looking out over the water. It was an expanse of gray ripples, swallowing up and smoothing over all signs of a crime scene. “He saved me,” I said, feeling my throat tighten. “Harry saved my life, again.”
“But . . . where is he?” Doug tried to stand but failed, his hands sinking into mud, eyes desperately sweeping the river.
“Vlad tried to kill me. Harry attacked him . . . they went under . . . Vlad came up . . .”
Doug looked at me with his face twisted in disbelief. “You—you let him go? You didn’t go back for him?”
“I went back for you.”
He looked through me, and then back at the river. “Oh,” he said, biting at his bottom lip. “That’s . . . too bad, because . . .”
“Doug,” I said, touching his shoulder, but he shrugged me off weakly.
“. . . because, you know, I love him,” he whispered, eyes shimmering with tears. “Harry’s my friend. He doesn’t care what I look like, or who I am, and . . . I think he loves me, too. I think so.” He spread a muddy hand over his face. “Yeah, he did. Harry loved me,” and he spoke other soft words that melted from his lips, mixing with tears.
Gratitude and guilt spiked my heart. Lou had rescued the little dog from a pound, using slow, kind patience to tame a wild nature spawned through mistreatment. The Italian greyhound took on aspects of my brother’s personality—intelligence, fierce loyalty—and losing him was like losing Lou again. There was nothing I could say to make Doug or myself feel better, so I didn’t. I kneeled, looking into the water until sirens cut the air, and then helped Doug up the embankment to the walkway. I hurried him onto Lower Wacker Drive where we wouldn’t be seen; he moved as if sleepwalking, stealing glances at the river as we walked deeper into the Loop toward the Bird Cage Club.
I didn’t look back, not once.
Harry was gone and we had to keep moving.
We could sit around forever hoping someone we loved would come back from the dead. But the only thing we’d probably get from that was dead ourselves.
19
THE RAIN STOPPED FOR GOOD ON FRIDAY while lingering clouds bumped and swirled in the early-morning sky.
It was a day filled with reflection of the worst kind.
Doug sat on the couch wrapped in a blanket, bruised and sighing. He’d slipped Harry’s dog collar around his wrist, vowing to never remove it. The ghost of our little friend permeated the place. Just as Eskimos can identify different types of snow, there are multiple variations of silence. The Bird Cage Club rang with the absence of soft whining demands to be petted, the tap-shoe sound of claws crossing the floor, and barks of joy at being fed snacks. Harry was gone, but he was all around us.
I lay on my mattress staring at the ceiling, suffering the loss of the notebook as well. My hope was that it had become waterlogged and unintelligible; if not, Elzy was surely scouring it for the secret to ultimate power. It was there, in the final chapter, “Volta,” handwritten decades earlier in Buondiavolese, an obscure form of Sicilian, by my uncle Jack. He had translated it for me, but in a fit of rage and ignorance, his daughter, Annabelle, destroyed his work. If Uncle Jack hadn’t recorded the Troika of Outfit Influence in his screenplay The Weeping Mafioso, I would never have discovered the vault made of gold bricks. The problem now was that my dad was one of the few people in the world who read and spoke Buondiavolese; Uncle Buddy once confronted him about it in my presence, referring to it as a secret language shared by my dad and Grandpa Enzo. I assumed that my dad had denied knowing the secret to ultimate power, but now Elzy had proof of its existence, and would use every torturous method available to force my poor dad to translate “Volta.”
Gingerly, I touched the painful spots on my neck where Vlad’s fingerprints were burned into my skin; in electrifying him, even that short burst, I’d inflicted the same damage on myself. It hurt all the way to the bone. I sat up slowly, grimacing with the effort, and shook an aspirin from a bottle. I turned the pill in my hand and considered swallowing it dry; after the previous day, I wasn’t sure I’d ever go near water again. The sensation of drowning had invaded my dreams, and a text I’d received from Tyler minutes earlier brought back that stifling feeling:
Are u okay? Heard Red attacked out of the blue. Let me know u r safe.
—which meant news of the incident had leaked back to the Outfit. Tyler’s ‘out of the blue’ comment assured me, at least a little, that Lucky had told the truth—only the old man, Peek-a-Boo and me had known about the trade. But the text meant my failure to lead Lucky’s handpicked men to the Russians had reached him, as well. I had no idea what the repercussions would be other than swift and unpleasant. I was about to text Tyler back when my phone rang. I put the aspirin aside and looked at the familiar number flashing on the screen—Knuckles. I lifted the phone, expecting him to try to coax information out of me, and said, “Don’t ask about the bridge.”
“Came at you when you weren’t looking, huh?” he said gravely. “Well, forget that for now. We got other fish to fry.”
I paused, bit my lip. “What do you mean?”
“Ed Debevic . . . has left the building.”
The room was perfectly still, but somewhere Outfit tectonics shifted. Lucky was dead less than a day after our sit-down, an
d all his power and secret plots were gone with him. It meant my fiasco on the bridge was gone, too, or at least on a back burner until the succession of a new boss.
At the other end, Knuckles sucked on a cigar and hacked like an old dragon. “Are you aware of your responsibility? What happens next?” he asked carefully.
“Yeah. Looks like I have an important choice to make.”
Knuckles cleared his throat. “According to the rules, you have to name Ed Debevic’s replacement in precisely one week, at an Outfit-wide sit-down,” he said. “All members will be present, from the lowest pickpocket and pimp all the way to the top.”
“Next Friday,” I said quietly.
“Take the Gray Line subway train from Lawrence Avenue. Be in the station at 5:03 p.m. on the nose. Not 5:02, not 5:04. It’ll take you to the meeting place.”
“Wait, you said ‘subway,’ but the Lawrence Avenue stop is for an elevated train,” I said. “Besides, Chicago doesn’t even have a Gray Line subway.”
“Chicago doesn’t. But the Outfit does,” Knuckles replied.
I could almost hear him biting his tobacco-covered tongue, wanting to ask why I didn’t know that, and hadn’t my poor, sick dad told me about it? Apparently cold fury still held him in check. Instead, when he spoke, his tone was ingratiating, or more accurately, ass-kissing. “You know I’ve always respected you,” he growled sweetly. “Hey, come due piselli in un baccello, eh? Don’t we work together like two peas in a pod?”
“Oh, sure,” I said. “I wake each day wondering what new joy my trusted colleague—by that, I mean you—will add to my life.”
“Ha-ha!” He fake-laughed. “You’re a kidder. By the way, speaking of kids, the last thing you want to do is select one for a man’s job. Your other choice, that smooth-talking pretty boy, is a treacherous little turd. I’ve said it before and will say it again, he’ll flash his pearly whites while cutting your throat.”
Embers & Ash Page 15
