Embers & Ash (5 page)

“Right,” I said, leading him to a metal door with an eye slot. Long ago, an armed guard peered out from the other side demanding a password for entry. I opened it as we stepped inside, moving beneath a pyramid of wooden molasses barrels—one stacked on top of another, framing the door—and into the club. It was as cool and silent as a burial tomb. Antique slot machines stood in a corner like rows of soldiers frozen in salute. The mahogany bar stretched long and empty in front of a mirror gone cloudy with age, nearly obscuring
CLUB
MOLASSES
in curlicue script. Doug walked onto the dance floor where the letters CM were done in parquet.

“Just like old times.” He sighed. “Poor Kevin beat my face in right here.”

“And would've choked me to death, if it hadn't been for Harry.” It was puzzling how the little dog had found his way to Club Molasses, but that was far down the list on mysteries yet to be solved. “Let's get moving,” I said, hurrying toward the office. It was empty except for a desk, which I'd combed through several times—removing the drawers, nearly disassembling the entire thing—hoping for further clues to help find my family, to no avail. The Capone Door sat exposed on the opposite wall, formerly covered by the large map of Chicago.

“Hang on a sec,” Doug said. “Can we take this back to the Bird Cage Club? Sort of like an artifact? It belongs with the map, you know?”

I turned to a framed photo of Al Capone at a baseball game with Great-Grandpa Nunzio sitting nearby, trying to avoid the camera. It bore the inscription:

To N.R.—Thanks for the cookies!—Your pal, A.C.

I'd contemplated taking it the first time I saw it, but it felt like a grave robbery. Now it seemed like just another forgotten relic of my family's criminal complicity. “Whatever.” I shrugged.

“Awesome,” he said, and tried to lift it from the wall, but it didn't budge. “Hm . . . it's stuck.” He tried again, peering closer. “Along the edge. You can barely see them—hinges.” I stepped up, stared, and pulled at the opposite side of the frame, hearing a grudging
click
as the picture opened like a door. Inside, a dust-covered skeleton key hung from a hook, attached to a key chain in the shape of a pharaoh's head. I removed it carefully, turned it over, and saw a yellowed piece of paper stuck to the back. In looping handwriting recognizable as Nunzio's, it read:

Deposito segreto di Nunzio Rispoli, numero 9291-R.

Looking over my shoulder, Doug said, “Deposit-o segret-o?”

“Secret deposit of Nunzio Rispoli,” I murmured, feeling its heft in my hand. “But not a deposit box. The key is too big. I wonder . . .”

“What?”

“About a month ago, Tyler asked me to settle a dispute between Money and a young Outfit guy. A baby-faced smash-and-grabber,” I said. “Guy walks into a jewelry store, puts a gun on the owner, uses a hammer to shatter a display case, grabs all he can carry, and runs for it. Simple, but effective. Tyler figured out that his success didn't square with the cut he's required to pay the Outfit . . . the operating tax. Usually, a formal sit-down is convened with other division heads present. I expedited the process and ordered the kid to take us to his stash house.”

“‘Expedited the process'?” Doug said. “Fancy words for doing Tyler, that is, Mister Handsome, a favor. As counselor, aren't you supposed to treat everyone the same?”

“Yeah,” I said, feeling a blush creep up my neck. “But we're, you know, friends.”

“Really?” he said, lifting an eyebrow. “What kind of friends?”

“Business friends,” I said. “My point is the stash house. It's an Outfit tradition. Every member has one or two hidden around Chicago. All that dirty cash, bales of pot, bags of coke, cases of guns . . . it has to be stored somewhere. All you have to do is look at self-storage places or apartment buildings lining Lake Shore Drive, and wonder what's hidden inside. Anyway, one blip of cold fury and Baby-Face took us to his stash house.”

“Lots of bling?” Doug said.

“A small fortune. Tyler counted out the operating tax in gems.” I looked at the key again. “I can only imagine what Nunzio squirreled away, wherever this place was.”

Doug took it from my hand and stared at the Pharoah head. “This is no Troika of Outfit Influence, Sara Jane. In fact, it's no mystery at all. It's King Ramses II.”

“How do you know?”

“How do you think?” He smirked. “
The Ten Commandments,
1956, directed by Cecil B. DeMille, with Charlton Heston as an unlikely Moses, and Yul Brynner as a perfect Ramses II. See the striped headdress and steely gaze? That's him, I'm sure of it. In fact, I used to see him and his twin every Wednesday.”

“You lost me.”

He shook his head ruefully. “God . . . I used to eat a
lot.
I actually planned my bingeing by the day of the week. Wednesday was two-for-one pork-chop sandwiches with unlimited fries at Fat Sammy's on Clark Street. Statues of Ramses II and his twin stand guard outside the place next door, a big old warehouse called Reebie Storage. It has all these Egyptian symbols and one of those plaques saying it was built in 1922.”

“Then it's possible Reebie could've been a stash house for Outfit guys,” I said.

“There's one way to find out,” he said, pulling the notebook from the backpack and opening to the first chapter, “
Nostro
—Us.” It listed details, arcane and modern, about the Outfit's history, how it's organized, its known front businesses. Flipping pages, Doug said, “Let's see . . . Warehouses . . . Houses of Prostitution . . . Here it is, Stash Houses, Outfit-Approved, 1919–1932. I wonder why it ends in '32?”

“Just a guess, but that's when Capone went to jail,” I said. “The Outfit was in disarray, everyone grabbing for power. No one trusted anyone.”

“Those guys would've been fools to let each other know where their stashes were hidden,” Doug said, trailing a finger down a page. “Here it is. Reebie Storage, 2325 North Clark Street.” He looked up with a grin. “Right next to Fat Sammy's.”

“You know your junk food.”

“Knew it, past tense.”

“So if Reebie was Nunzio's stash house . . . could his stuff still be there?”

“There's a way to find out that, too,” Doug said, handing me the key.

I closed my fist around it, feeling cold metal against my skin. “It's a mystery for another day. We've got enough on our plate as it is.” He nodded, we slipped into our boots, put on our helmets, and I pushed the tiny
C
on the Capone Door. It opened with a vacuum
pop!
and I peered into darkness. Until now, it had felt like fate was perpetually against me, sitting on one side of a table with a stacked deck while I sat on the other trying to guess what cards it held. I needed one real answer that would help me save my family, and the notebook had provided it—ultimate power existed.

Turning to Doug, I said, “Ready?”

“I was born ready.” He smiled. “I've always wanted to say that.”

One step, and then another, as the door sealed behind us.

The Outfit had turned Chicago into its own personal monster by feeding it a steady diet of violence and lies.

We flicked on our helmet lights, descending into the belly of the beast.

AS WE LEFT THE SURFACE BEHIND, I THOUGHT
of the Hemingway novel we were studying in Ms. Ishikawa's class,
The Sun Also Rises.

Not down here.

We'd entered a place nearly devoid of daylight. Natural color was replaced by shades of gray, and although it was late morning, it seemed like dusk. Feeble illumination streamed through a distant sewer grate, eaten up by gloom. It's said that when people lose the ability to see, other senses grow stronger, and something like that felt true now. Sounds and smells were more intense, more present. The city's innards gurgled, hissed, and dripped while the air filled with rich earthiness one moment, human putrescence the next, the funk of chemicals after that, and then a potpourri of all three.

Our deep descent from Club Molasses ended at a rusty door.

As we moved down a stone staircase, I showed Doug the painted hands on the wall pointing the way. They'd been applied more than half a century earlier to guide fleeing Outfit members, when Joe Little created the Capone Doors and tunnels. We stood at the rusty door, feeling the rush of wind beneath it and hearing the ghoulish shriek of brakes as a train slowed to a halt on the other side. Nearly six months ago, I'd yanked open that secret entrance to a subway platform and leaped into a train car, narrowly eluding Uncle Buddy. Today, however, wasn't about escape; it was about discovery, and I pointed a flashlight into the shadows. Riveted beams rose from floor to ceiling. The wall supporting the staircase was solid brick. The other wall, before us, held only the rusty door. The rest of the musty space revealed no other way in or out.

“What now?” Doug said.

“We need a pointing hand to show us the way.”

He walked in a circle shining his flashlight up and down, and stopped, toeing at the ground. “Help me,” he said, and I joined him, kicking away a layer of silt until a hand indicated a square of metal with a recessed latch. Doug pulled on it and the door in the floor sprung open, revealing a dark pit. We looked at each other. “Ladies first,” he said.

“Thanks a lot, pal.”

“There's the top of a ladder, attached to the wall. See it?”

“Yeah, but where does it end?” I said, my flashlight beam swallowed away.

“Down there . . . somewhere.”

“That's comforting.” I lowered myself inside, my hands and feet finding the rungs. “See you on the other—” I said, as the ladder's ancient bolts pulled free and I fell, landing with a painful
thud.
The ladder clanged nearby, missing me by inches. I sat up on my elbows, seeing the circle of light from Doug's miner's helmet.

“Are you okay?” he said.

“Peachy.” I groaned. “This hole's not deep enough to kill, only wound.” I stood, brushed myself off, and looked up. “You can't jump. I got lucky but you might break something.”

“No problem!” he said. I heard the
chink
of metal on metal, the rope unfurled at my feet, and Doug shimmied down beside me.

“Very slick. What did you tie it to?”

“Did
Cliffhanger
teach you nothing? I didn't tie it, I hooked it to a steel beam.” He yanked the rope but nothing happened. Looking up, whipping his arm, he said, “It's all in the wrist,” and then, “Look out!” We leaped backward as a pointed claw hit the spot where we'd been standing.

I stared at the claw, which was attached to the end of the rope. “A grappling hook?”

“Told you. Trader Jack's has everything.”

“Way to be prepared,” I said. “Were you a Boy Scout?”

“No,” he said, stuffing the rope into the backpack, “but I liked the uniforms.”

I surveyed our surroundings, seeing a hand pointing into a tunnel in a nearby wall. “Ready?” I said.

“Lead on,” he said, as we entered the tunnel. After a few steps, he paused, saying, “Hey, how far did you drop? Ten feet?”

“Felt like it,” I said.

“Hm. I guess that's deep enough.”

“For what?”

He laid his hand on the cool, dirty tunnel ceiling above us. “Feel that.”

I did, sensing a not-so-distant vibration. “What is it?”

“Think about where we just came from. What was whizzing past behind that rusty door?” he said. “We're right under the subway.”

“Um . . . that doesn't seem safe,” I said.

“You're the one who said it might be dangerous, remember?” he said. “I sure hope Joe Little knew what he was doing when he dug these tunnels.”

“Don't hope,” I said, moving ahead, “pray.”

• • •

Darkness sucked up light like a black sponge, making the flashlights nearly useless. Traveling in single file, me in the lead, time began to evaporate, too, and I said, “How long have we been walking?”

“Either half an hour or sixteen years,” Doug said. “Can't really tell. It's like being on a treadmill with my eyes closed.”

“It's pretty tight in here, huh?”

“Yes, it's
still
pretty tight in here. Just like the other three times you said that.”

“Sorry. I don't like enclosed spaces,” I said. “Makes me tense. Feels like a tomb.” It occurred to me then that if something fatal happened, if a train fell on top of us, for example, it really would be my final resting place. With my family gone and Max in L.A., no one in the daylight world would notice I was missing. It sparked a thought, and I said, “Doug, can I ask you a question?”

“Why am I so cool?” he said. “Born that way.”

“How is it that you're able to stay at the Bird Cage Club?”

“With its lack of amenities? Without my own Jacuzzi and walk-in closet?”

“Seriously,” I said. “I know the relationship with your mom and stepdad sucks, and that your real dad is a problem—”

“He's not a problem. He's a pothead who lives in a station wagon.”

“Okay, but your mom . . . Doesn't she care that you're never home?”

“I am, rarely. I stop by to get clothes and the weekly envelope of cash she leaves for me,” he said. “But the short answer is no. Shopping and vodka are very important to her. Dougie, not so much. The only thing she ever taught me was when I was thirteen, tall enough to see over the dashboard of a car. She had this old five-speed Mercedes and she instructed me in the art of clutch, gas, and brake so I could drive her around when she was blitzed.”

“But what if something happened to you, like—”

“I don't know,” he said. “I was never a priority. It was always, ‘Stick Doug in front of the movie channel with a bag of something salty while the adults party,' or, ‘Send Doug to the multiplex with enough money to see everything twice.' And I did, and I'm lucky I did, because movies gave me more than my mom ever could.” We were quiet again, steam pipes hissing around us. “One other thing. It's so effed up,” he said.

“What?”

“Her method of parenting was out of sight, out of mind, right? But like every kid, I'd get into trouble now and then . . . busted for shoplifting a candy bar or something.”

“Shame on you.”

“I know, surprise, I'm human,” he said. “And then you should've seen her. She became super-disciplinarian, raising holy hell, watching my every move. It was sick, like . . . she did so little, it made her feel like a mom. But then after a day or so, she'd get distracted by a martini or three and I'd become invisible again.”

“Mother of the year,” I said.

“Mother-something,” he said. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot.”

“How could you let Max go?”

It caught me off guard, slowing my step. “Being around me was too dangerous for him. I had no choice. You know that.”

“What I meant was, how were you strong enough to let go of someone who loves you?” he said. “I can't imagine having the courage to give that up.”

“There was cowardice in it, too. I was scared what he'd think about me, the things I'd done. I hated letting him go.” I sighed. “But then, I hate a lot about myself.”

“You do what you have to do,” he said quietly.

“Doesn't make it right.” We fell silent, trudging ahead, until I said, “What about your hockey player?”

“The lunkhead hadn't even seen
Citizen Kane.
We were doomed from date one,” he said. “Your turn again. Spill it. What kind of friend is Tyler?”

“I'm not sure. I know he likes me . . . and it feels good. I trust him, at least a little.”

“Remember
The Godfather.
Trust only your
consigliere,
” Doug said. “For the record, that's me.”

“What I meant was, Tyler and I operate in the same world. We understand it,” I said. “But it doesn't mean we like it.”

“How do you know he doesn't like it?”

“I just know.”

“Gut feeling?”

“We talk. We text. Okay?”

“Okeydokey,” he said. “Just watch your step.”

“Speaking of—is the ground getting muddy?”

“Definitely sticky . . . goopy,” he said.

I felt bricks scrape my helmet, the walls press against my shoulders. “Either I'm growing,” I said, “or it's getting smaller in here.”

“I was worried about this,” Doug said. “Settling.”

“What do you mean?”

“All those books on the control center you never read? They explain how Chicago is built on mud and clay,” he said, touching the wall. “Bricks are missing. The earth is seeping in. This tunnel's probably settling, sinking.”

“What if it
settles
on top of us?”

Doug was quiet a moment. “Just keep moving.”

The space narrowed more with each step, pushing down from the top, rising up from below. Doug was correct—the ceiling was sinking while wet dirt crumbled in from the sides, filling the floor. I stumbled, reached out to steady myself, and started a small avalanche of bricks and mortar. Overhead, a groaning noise sounded as a shower of grit rained down on our helmets. We froze, waiting for the whole thing to collapse on top of us. When it didn't, I said, “My bad.”

“Do
not
do that again,” Doug said.

“Guaranteed,” I said, pushing on.

Soon it was difficult to walk upright—we were bent over like two question marks in the dark—and it was all I could do not to scream at the sense of being buried alive. The cold, wormy smell of soil enveloped us as the ceiling pressed down and the path beneath us pushed upward, and then it was so tight the only way to continue was by crawling through the muck.

Doug said what we were both thinking. “We could . . . we might get stuck. We should go back.”

“To what?” I answered, spitting mud. “This is it, my last chance.” When he didn't reply, I said, “Doug? Are you having a panic attack?”

“I'm too scared to panic,” he said quietly.

I felt it then, a faint breeze blowing from just ahead. I squinted, seeing an actual light at the end of the tunnel—a horizontal half-moon shape, all that was left of the top of the tunnel exit. “Keep moving,” I said, pulling forward on my belly, ten more feet, then five, and then using both hands to dig away a larger opening through the half-moon. When it was just wide enough, I wiggled out, sliding face-first down a steep mound of dirt to a concrete floor below. I rolled onto my back, never so happy to be reclining in filth. Doug squeezed out using his elbows, slipping down next to me, saying, “Thank
god
I lost weight!” Rising woozily, he yanked the backpack from the crevice and looked around. “Where are we?”

“Sort of like where we started,” I said, nodding at a ladder bolted to the wall. Next to it, a painted hand pointed toward a high ledge. “There's another tunnel up there.”

“Let's get the hell out of here.”

“If the ladder holds,” I said.

“We have the grappling hook. If that doesn't work, I'll sprout wings and fly our asses away from this muddy death pit,” Doug said.

I pulled on the ladder but it didn't budge. We ascended to the ledge and hesitated before the tunnel entrance. The darkness was impenetrable; it was impossible to tell if the ceiling and walls were intact.

“Are we really going in there? Again?” Doug said with a shudder.

“Once, when I was first learning to box, I dropped my guard and got punched in the face so hard I saw stars,” I said. “My trainer, Willy, said it was the dumbest thing he'd ever seen. Made me promise to remember one of his rules of the ring.”

“What's that?” Doug said.

“‘Never do the same dumb thing twice.'” With a sigh, I said, “Forgive me, Willy,” and stepped inside the tunnel.