Flicker & Burn: A Cold Fury Novel (14 page)

“Every problem has a plastic solution,” she said brightly, making scissor motions with her fingers. “My dad had mine solved when I was thirteen. Custom noses are
very
L.A. No, what I meant was, you look like someone . . . an actress, from old movies. Your eyes are amazing too. They’re almost the exact same color as mine.”

“Um . . . yours are green.”

She blinked once, dramatically. “Colored contacts. I change hues like I change boyfriends. Also
very
L.A.”

“You . . . have blue eyes?” I said, feeling the words stick in my throat.

“Yeah, with the same little gold thingies as you. Another family trait, I guess.”

“Yeah. I guess,” I said, and saying so little already felt like lying to her.

“I better get inside before my mom sends out a therapeutically licensed search party,” she said. “Are you coming in?”

“Uh . . . no. I have to go.”

“Okay, so I’ll see you Tuesday?”

“Tuesday,” I said, moving toward the ladder. When we were on the ground, she smiled with sparkling teeth and hugged me again.

“Thanks for talking. I feel like I’ve known you forever.”

“Me too . . . you,” I mumbled stupidly as my brain tried to jump out of my skull. Heather possessed Rispoli blood, which carried Rispoli DNA, which created Rispoli eyes (blue with gold thingies!) and I didn’t know if that was bad, good, or meant nothing at all. She showed no signs at all of ghiaccio furioso—of experiencing the impossible-to-ignore phenomenon of cold fury—or even an awareness that it existed. Watching her enter the bakery brought to mind one of my cardinal rules. I’d learned it when I first began boxing and, not paying full attention, turned my face into an oncoming fist.

It was a lesson I knew well, considering the upcoming sit-down with Lucky that came out of left field, as well as the sneaky nature of the creatures.

The things you never see coming are the ones you’d better be most prepared for.

THAT NIGHT AS I SLEPT, MY SUBCONSCIOUS
worked on the day’s events like a curator in a museum of oddities, sifting through black ice cream trucks in green subterranean tunnels, red-eyed kidnappers with silvery hypodermic needles, hundreds of furry gray martyrs, a blue-eyed beauty (which seemed the oddest item of all), and finally, a white face made even whiter by death. Carefully, with a delicate touch, each curiosity was sorted according to the fear it had caused, threat it posed, or guilt it created.

In the morning, I awoke with a need to confess.

I’d almost had my brain invaded, so I’d had no choice but to kill the creature with my own hands. It was done in self-defense, for survival, but the problem was, well—it had been undeniably pleasurable. A wave of fear (was I becoming Nicky “Daggers” Fratelli?) and self-loathing (had I been perverted by murder?) washed over me. The idea of telling someone what I’d done seemed like a lifeline back to the world of non-killers and I rushed into the main room of the Bird Cage Club looking for Doug, but seeing only Harry lift his drowsy head from the couch. It was Monday, a school day, and I glanced at the control center’s bank of clocks, realizing that I’d be late even if I left at that moment.

Doug wasn’t at the Bird Cage Club when I’d returned the previous day, either. I’d been in no shape to write down everything that had happened, including Heather’s blue-eyed revelation, so I scribbled only a short note, left it and the laptop from the ice cream truck on the control center, and dove into unconsciousness. It had read simply:

Beware: creatures in the neighborhood. Took this from them. Tell you everything tomorrow.

Now I saw another note, this one from him, propped against a bust of Alfred Hitchcock, scrawled in red capital letters so I’d spot it among the avalanche of books and papers. Next to it sat the laptop, wired to a small black box with a row of tiny green lights flashing intermittently. So many notes between us, back and forth—normally Doug was
always
at the Bird Cage Club, and if he wasn’t, he was with me. Being separated for only three days felt like a lifetime. I knew that he had attended one of the weekly MKK fan meetings the night before and I was anxious to hear about it, thinking that perhaps he’d mentioned it in his note. I glanced at the first line:

Sara Jane! DO NOT TOUCH computer until you’ve read this note!

I backed away and sat in his desk chair on wheels, reading.

Sorry I didn’t wake you for school but you were talking . . . actually, screaming (who the hell is Juan?) all night, and you only got quiet an hour or so ago. Whatever happened yesterday must have been bad—hope you’re okay. Creatures in the neighborhood? Shit! I’ll look over both shoulders. MKK get-together produced nothing useful re: factory. But it was fun! And I had some yummy Sec-C ice cream! And I was urged again by my new friends (yippee-skippee!) to attend the Cubs thing!

As for the laptop, it is definitely super freaky.

What you’re about to watch . . . I think it was created as a guide to properly getting inside your head, literally. Besides that, there’s nothing else on the hard drive—no other files, no data of any kind. I scoured it using all of my computer-nerd genius, but no luck, it’s useless. Anyway, when you’re ready, press the Return key. And then take a mental health day. You’ve earned it.

Smooches—
Doug “Mr. Popularity” Stuffins

P.S. What’s on the computer is a little disturbing but . . . remember the chauffeur!

I wheeled back and touched the Return button as streams of numbers filled the screen. Slowly, from the top down, a 3-D image began to form in lines of color, as if created by a hyperfast Etch A Sketch. It started with a fleshy yellow hue, spherical at the top, cut by ravines and highways of deep lines, anchored in the middle by what looked like the large, curved tail of a whip. While I stared, it began glowing in a cold blue tone, while tiny letters like digital ants skittered next to it. Seconds later the image began rotating, and I saw that it actually contained two parts, a left and right lobe.

Doug had been disturbingly correct.

It was a brain—my brain.

The note quivered slightly in my hand as more letters appeared.

Positive Identification of enzyme GF in subject Sara Jane Rispoli, significant source in production site: limbic system.

Months ago, during our reunion at the Ferris wheel, Lou said he’d seen financial information on a laptop attached to my dad’s head, but it was plain now that he’d been mistaken. Staring at the screen, I saw precisely what the blood sucked from my head had yielded—three-dimensional proof that someone was trying to harvest the brains of my family. Knowing it for certain felt like an icy finger drawn along my throat as I reread the blunt sentence. I had no idea what the “limbic system” was—it sounded like a painful exercise program—but “enzyme GF” obviously referred to ghiaccio furioso. As counselor-at-large, holding the gaze of some quivering Outfit thug, I marveled at the otherworldly power of cold fury. Now, considering the word
enzyme,
I was relieved that whatever caused the phenomenon was biological—that I was strictly of
this
world. It made me feel rooted and even guiltier about the death of the creature. No matter what the thing had become, it started life as someone’s baby, possibly as loved as I’d been by my parents. It was dead now, having died in a very bad way, and I was responsible. I dialed the phone, knowing what I was doing but unable or unwilling to stop.

“Hello? Sara Jane?” Max answered.

I said yes, weakly, trying to find words.

“Doug said you’re not feeling well.”

The air in my ear crackled impatiently. “I . . . did something.”

He was quiet, then said, “This weekend?”

“Yes.”

“When I was supposed to meet your family, but you blew me off by voice mail?”

Emotion clouded his voice—wounded suspicion, sniffing like a dog on the trail of what it already knew was there. I winced, realizing what an idiotic mistake I’d made by calling him, and heard the panic in my throat as I said, “Let’s talk later, after . . .”

“Why do you sound so guilty?”

“I want to tell you, but . . . I just can’t.”

“Was it a guy . . .
that
guy? Can you at least tell me that?”

I sighed and said, “I’m not sure what it was, to be honest.”

And then Max made a sound I’d never heard from him before, a snort of derision, before he said, “You don’t know
how
to be honest.”

It was like a punch in the gut, not only because it had come from him, but also because he was right. I had told him the truth about so little of my life that I had no defense—I couldn’t even make one up—and took a deep breath before saying, “Max, maybe we should talk about this in person when—”

He cut me off, saying, “I don’t get you, Sara Jane. You say one thing and do another or, like you just said, you want to tell me something but
can’t.
Why can’t you? Better yet, why won’t you meet my mom, and why haven’t you introduced me to your family? It’s not that I’m dying to meet them, but it’s strange that you just won’t do it.”

No matter how I’d tried to ignore or hide from it, the interim since Max returned from California had been a slow build to that very fact. I loved him, and love meant trust, which meant telling the other person everything. But in my twisted life,
everything
could get him killed, and I had to protect him. I sighed, saying, “I . . .”

“Let me guess. You want to, but you can’t.”

“Max. Please . . .”

“You know, something happened last year, right before Fep Prep let out for summer. I didn’t think much about it at the time, but now it keeps coming back to me,” he said, his voice colder and more vacant. “I’d ridden my Triumph to school. After class, when I was starting it up, that guy who dates my cousin Mandi, Walter J. Thurber, came over and started talking about motorcycles. He has an old BMW and . . . anyway, he asked if it was true that you and I were dating. We weren’t yet, not really, but . . .”

“But people saw us together,” I said, my hands trembling at the thought of being discussed. “And people like to gossip.”

“I didn’t say anything, just shrugged, which he must’ve taken as a no. Walter grinned then and said something like, ‘I kissed her once, when we were kids.’”

“So?”

“‘But that was before she turned into the invisible girl. Besides school, she was nowhere . . . no more parties, no sports, no friends. And you never see her family. It’s very weird,’” Max said, finishing Walter’s quote. “The thing is, he’s right.”

“That’s . . . a terrible thing to say . . .”

“But I didn’t mind at first because you were my kind of weird, and I was your weird, and it was cool. Now it’s not.” He was silent, and in that place in my mind where I can see what he’s doing even when I’m not with him, Max was gnawing a thumb so he didn’t utter something he’d regret. A moment later, he said, “Your problem is that you think I’m too good to be true. But you’re wrong. I get sick of bullshit just like everyone else.”

I pled with him but he cut me off.

“It’s not right,” he said, “that you ignore me, kick me aside, and don’t feel bad about it at all.”

“I do . . . ,” I said, holding back tears.

“Then tell me what you did this weekend. That’s all I’m asking.”

I paused with the truth—the whole truth—on my tongue, knowing that right now was the time to tell him everything. “The night you and I went to the dance last spring?” I said slowly. “Something . . . happened.”

The line was quiet. “What?” he asked.

“I got home and . . . well . . . ,” I said, wanting so badly to finish, to describe the horror of my trashed house and missing family, but it felt suddenly as if danger were a disease, and telling the truth would spread it to Max. “Look, I want to tell you, but . . .”

“You can’t, right?” He snorted.

“Max, please, all that matters is that . . .” And the phone went dead when he hung up on me. “I love you,” I said to no one. A long moment passed while I stared at the blank display. It went to voice mail when I called back, and I knew he’d turned off his phone; he didn’t want to hear any more.

Frankly, it pissed me off.

Max had no idea of the frantic life I endured, while the biggest tragedy in his was a girlfriend who didn’t pay him enough attention. I tried to recall what it felt like when the melodrama of being dateless sent me into a tailspin of self-pity—but it seemed surreal and embarrassing, and Max seemed like a pouty high school boy. I threw my phone aside, thinking,
Screw it . . . I was stupid to try and tell him the truth. I don’t care if I ever talk to him again,
and I was startled by the feeling. Some internal mechanism had tried to smother my feelings for Max. Maybe it was the cold blue part of my brain or a simple need for survival, but I was shedding traits that tied me to my old life, moving closer to a true Outfit existence. I desperately did not want that to happen—I didn’t want to lose the former me—but even my boyfriend was beginning to seem irrelevant, or too much of an extravagance, for the newly evolving Sara Jane.

And then I thought,
Remember the chauffeur.

I thought,
I have things to do for my family, and I must do them.

As much as it hurt, I pushed Max aside, and myself too, and flipped through the notebook, looking for unlisted phone numbers. Sometimes the best way to ignore the hard truth of present-day life is to get lost in a cobweb of dead secrets.

AFTER SEVERAL MURMURED PHONE CALLS
Monday morning, I had three afternoon appointments scheduled with three incredibly different personality types. The goal of speaking to them, however, was precisely the same: information. I twisted my hair into a ponytail and slipped into my uniform of old jeans, Cubs T-shirt, and shredded sneakers. I’d decided to travel by train rather than car—the idea of being pursued by little trucks was unbearable—which meant more exposure. I paused to strap my sap to my ankle. It felt like it might be that kind of day.

Minutes later, I stepped through the Capone Door/urinal (ugh) into the men’s room at Phun Ho—To Go!
It didn’t take long after moving into the Bird Cage Club to figure out that fast food joint was an Outfit front business—it was always open, never had customers, and the counterman’s eyes perpetually glued to the TV when I used the restroom like a revolving door. I stepped onto the noontime sidewalk where worker bees hurried to lunch or rushed back with greasy paper bags. I’d used binoculars before leaving to sweep for ice cream trucks, spotted nothing, and now looked in both directions before running upstairs to the El stop. It was a glaringly hot day, with the scent of pine and asphalt rising from the tracks. A whistle sounded hoarsely as the train appeared, undulating like a steel worm, and eased to a stop. I made sure the car was safe and then rode in silence until a giant infant appeared on top of a block-long building.

Its pacifier was as big as a bathtub.

Beneath it, a pink-and-blue neon sign read
BABYLAND
.

As far as front businesses went, the one used by Knuckles Battuta, the head of the violently bloody Muscle division, was pretty brilliant.

Minutes later I pushed into a blast of air-conditioning and the soft burble of canned music alternating “B-I-N-G-O” with “Itsy Bitsy Spider.” I’d been there before and cut past cribs (traditional, oval, pneumatic), strollers (four wheels, three wheels, running), car seats, clothes, blankets, bottles, and some sort of machine with dual breast pumps (that one made me shudder). I stopped in front of a large framed poster of Charlie Chipmunk in a red sweater (but no pants—why do cartoon animals never wear bottoms?) with a big
C
in the middle. The letter was raised just enough to push. I looked around cautiously and then pressed it, and the framed poster concealing the Capone Door swung open quickly.

It shut even faster behind me.

The space was a deep, dim, cement-block room with a red-stained drain in the middle. Walls were lined with tools of the enforcement trade—clubs, whips, crowbars, knotted rope, cattle prods, bowling pins, lead pipes, acetylene torches, hammers, pliers, baseball bats, electric drills, and mysteriously (although it was one mystery I had no interest in solving), a set of brass cymbals. Something hovered in my peripheral vision, and I looked up into shadows at a hard wooden chair hanging from chains, hooked to a winch. Leather straps with padlocks were attached where wrists and ankles were bound.

It was the legendary Outfit torture device known as “the Highchair.”

Fitting, because it was a baby store.

Terrifying, because it was covered in muddy-brown stains of old dried blood.

The first time I met Knuckles here, he’d explained what happened to the unfortunate occupant by saying, “Ever swing at a piñata? It bursts open and out comes . . . well, anyway, out it comes.” I tried to ignore the Highchair during previous visits, using as much willpower as it required not to think much about what happened in this room when the door was locked.

Now the sick thing underscored the danger of my upcoming sit-down with Lucky.

Watching it twist, hearing it creak like breaking bones, my role as counselor-at-large came into gut-churning focus—the consequence of decisions I’d made in favor of some people versus others led them into that chair. The Outfit had survived for more than a century based on the brutal treatment applied to members who didn’t obey its rules; to remain alive, a thug was wise to toe the line. I wondered how I’d been so foolish. Did I really believe, when I judged someone worthy of punishment, that he received a slap on the wrist? The curtain of willing ignorance had been pulled back, and I saw flaming torches to the soles of feet, beatings with knotted ropes until a body was purple, or worst of all, strapped in and hoisted high while Knuckles and his men reached for baseball bats. There were no guns in the room, or knives, or sticks of dynamite, but I knew my rulings had ended in those methods too, and in the eyes of the law (or anyone with the stomach to look), I was as guilty as any one of Knuckles’s guys.

“C’mon, Counselor, what’s it about? I’m a busy man,” Knuckles rumbled, drawing my attention to his hulking impatience. He sat in his Scamp puffing on a stogie, sausage fingers drumming the wheelchair arms. “I got onesies to sell and knees to crack!”

I’d applied cold fury on him in the past and decided to use it now, needing to get away from this place as quickly as possible. I blinked, and when the old man’s fear of solitary death flickered between us, I asked about Weston Skarlov (he knew nothing), the Pure Dairy Confection Company (no idea where it had been located), and Ice Cream Cohen (told me what I already knew). Then, before I broke the connection, Knuckles said, “He changed his name to the way Argentinians pronounced it. Cohen to Kone.”

I nodded, wondering who’d added “Mister Kreamy,” and asked a final question.

“The old Catacomb Club job?” Knuckles whispered, quivering. “No, none of our guys pulled it. But there was a survivor, some bimbo who had her ear blown off and played dead while the shooter kicked bodies, putting bullets into chests that dared to heave. She identified Enzo as the gunman.”

I commanded him to doze off, forget the conversation, and above all to change his adult diaper when he woke. Afterward, I rode the train all the way to Pulaski Avenue, where smokestacks belch brown sugar and the air smells like a cupcake bonfire, and entered the headquarters of one of the largest companies in Chicago. StroBisCo was a gleaming corporate temple to all things fatty. There were no giant babies or elderly enforcers in wheelchairs; it was sleek brushed metal, cool frosted glass, speedy silent elevators, and cold executive stares. The only password required was “Sara Jane Rispoli to see Tyler Strozzini.” A receptionist flicked her cool gaze over my informal appearance before hissing into a headset and pointing me to a couch. Instead, I crossed the lobby to a display of captioned photos. It was a visual timeline of the corporation’s growth from the humble Strozzini Biscuit Company to the current behemoth pumping out belly-busting junk food for worldwide consumption. Of course, the real function of StroBisCo is as the primary money laundry for the Outfit’s filthy cash. Dirty dollars go into its accounts, exchanged for others with different serial numbers, and return to the Outfit (as the packaging says)
New and Improved!
Because the money laundry is so important, and because it’s a family-owned business, a Strozzini has been the VP of Money for generations. That didn’t mean StroBisCo wasn’t proud of its place in food history; a photo of its first big seller in 1927, the Wonderfluff Caramel Bar, was displayed with a caption describing its significance in terms of penicillin or fire.

“Ms. Rispoli?”

A young woman with a gaze so chilly she looked like an icicle in Prada beckoned from a private elevator. Tyler’s assistant clicked on a perma-smile as we whooshed skyward, stopped, and the doors opened to a vast office. The furnishings were modern, thin, and Danish (like the assistant). Two enormous oil paintings dominated opposing walls. The rest of the space was ceiling-to-floor windows, with the widest view behind the desk, spreading over the StroBisCo plant. It was a panorama of factory buildings, smokestacks, eighteen-wheelers, and in the midst of it all, the enormous StroBisCo sign that was a Chicago landmark. Behind it, a jet inched noiselessly through the hot sky.

“That’ll be all, Ursula.”

I turned to Tyler behind me, grinning like a cat with a secret. He was dressed entirely in black—shoes, pants, shirt, and sport coat—which only made his copper skin seem creamier, his green eyes greener. He crossed his arms, sat lightly on the edge of his desk, and said, “Like what you see?”

“What’s not to like?”

“I agree,” he said, with a look both seductive and intimidating; I was being appraised while plans were formed for my acquisition. I touched the
T
pendant Max had given me, imagining his reaction if he could see me now, alone with the eighteen-year-old CEO of StroBisCo. “It’s cool that you stopped by,” he said. “I’ve only asked you to, what, a billion times?”

I looked around and dropped my voice. “Is it safe to talk here?”

“Ah. Business. Too bad,” Tyler said with disappointment. “Of course. The office is everything-proofed. Shoot.”

I told him that I was gathering information for an impending, confidential sit-down, and asked what he—Chicago’s leading purveyor of junk food—knew about Mister Kreamy Kone. I asked without cold fury. So far, whatever was between us—simple flirtation or a deeper attraction—had proven strong enough that I’d never deployed it on Tyler. A single arched eyebrow betrayed his curiosity, but his reply was quick. He didn’t know much, since MKK was tiny and local and StroBisCo was huge and multinational. I told him it was connected to an old Outfit front business called the Pure Dairy Confection Company, but he drew a blank. “Outfit rumors and anecdotes, I’m your man.” He smiled. “But a nuts-and-bolts fact like that is clerical data. I’m the wrong guy to ask.”

“Who’s the right guy?”

“Let’s start with him,” he said, gesturing at one of the paintings. It was an oil portrait of an elegant man in a tailored pin-striped suit of another era. He had a regal bearing, with steely hair slicked back and a trimmed mustache beneath a hawkish nose. His square jaw jutted forward, challenging the world, but it was his eyes that stopped me; they were the same ocean green as Tyler’s. “My grandfather, Genarro ‘the Gent’ Strozzini. The first VP of Money for the Outfit. Also, the founder of the Strozzini Biscuit Company and inventor of the Wonderfluff Caramel Bar,” he said, nodding at the painting where his grandfather held one of the candy bars, presenting it to the viewer.

I moved closer and said, “It looks so real. Even the wrapper.”

“Good eye,” Tyler said, and pressed the painted
C
in the word
Caramel.

The painting rose smoothly, revealing a hidden room. Tinted glass lights hung from the ceiling, giving the space a faint rosy glow. Rows of bulging file cabinets competed with high shelves lined with accounting ledgers, some reachable only by rolling ladder, while TVs tuned to financial news networks flashed silently from the corners. The room had a sweet smell—candy—and three distinct sounds: the pecking of keyboards, the whirr of adding machines, and the murmur of Mozart. In the center were two mahogany desks with cherubs carved into their corners, each occupied by basically the same guy, except that one was about ninety years old and the other around seventy. They wore sober vests, currency-green bowties, and thick glasses, and each had their hair parted in the middle. Besides computers and calculators, the desks were polluted with crumpled receipts, unsigned checks, piles of cash, and Wonderfluff wrappers. I inhaled deeply, realizing that besides candy, the room was perfumed with money.

I turned to the wall that had closed behind us. “Cool Capone Door.”

“Classic, right? Like something out of an old movie. It was installed in 1960—”

A hoarse “ahem” interrupted Tyler.

Music from
The Marriage of Figaro
rode the air while the men stared at me as if seeing a polka-dotted unicorn. Tyler said, “Nino Rota and Nino Junior . . . Money’s accountants, bookkeepers, and archivists. Guys, meet . . .”

“Sara Jane Rispoli,” the elder Nino said, his voice like a thumbnail on sandpaper.

“Counselor-at-large,” Junior said in a younger, no less grating rasp.

“A broad in the Outfit,” Nino said. “A goddamn broad . . . how can it be?”

I was about to blink once, hard, and explain
exactly
how it could be when Junior bit into a Wonderfluff bar and said with a full mouth, “Ma coulda been in the Outfit.”

“Your ma
shoulda
been in the Outfit,” Nino croaked, taking the candy from his senior-citizen son, biting it, handing it back. “God bless her, she was tough as nails.”

“Tough as shit,” Junior affirmed, crossing himself.

“Tough as nails made of shit! Disgusting but true!” The old man chortled. He lifted the pop-bottle glasses, wiped his eyes, and looked at Tyler. “What do you need, boss?” Anything they had on the Pure Dairy Confection Company, Tyler replied, as Nino’s fingers danced over a keypad. He stared at the screen and said, “Shelf A-six, row eleven, volume fifty-six, pages sixty-six through seventy-one. Get moving, kid.”

I thought he meant me, but Junior was already hustling up a rolling ladder, glasses on his forehead as he inspected and pulled free a ledger. He flipped to the pages, made a disappointed sound with his teeth, and said, “Sorry, boss. It’s a blackout.”

“What does that mean?”

“Censored,” Tyler said. “Covered up, so it can’t be read.”

“There’s only one person in the Outfit who can issue that order,” Nino said.

I looked at Tyler and said, “You mean . . . ,” and silently mouthed the rest.

“Yeah, the Boss, Lucky. You can say it, the old man’s not Lord Voldemort.” He grinned. “It happens all the time for reasons that are, obviously, unclear. Some detail, a name or address or something that he wants to keep secret.”

My mind raced wondering what it could’ve been and if it was something that would’ve helped me, but I remained cautiously silent. Lucky was the Boss; he could do whatever he wanted, and woe to the mope who questioned his decisions, especially around other loyal Outfit members.

Tyler said, “I guess there’s nothing here to help you.”

“Maybe a little something,” Junior said, looking up from the ledger. “The back of page seventy-one. It was skipped.” He clambered down, saying, “A few words.”