The phone call was awkward, phlegmy, and weird, but at least it was short.
After school I headed south on Lake Shore Drive, past the museums, past Soldier Field, doubling back in case I was being followed, and I left sunshine behind as I slid down the ramp to Lower Wacker Drive. It’s a subterranean boulevard following the same route as Upper Wacker Drive-in effect, a double-decker street designed decades ago to help regulate traffic. There’s a third level that goes even deeper underground (my dad refers to it as “Lowest Wacker Drive”) but today I stayed on the second level. Lower Wacker is punctuated with nooks and crannies, abandoned loading docks and forgotten turnarounds, while the Chicago River meanders past only a dozen feet away. A car can pull into one of those shadowy spots and disappear not only from traffic but daylight itself. I found a dark little corner, eased the Lincoln to a stop, and got out. The river inched by on the other side of a low chain-link fence-the perfect place to make a call without a chance of being seen or overheard-and I dialed the number from the notebook. It started with someone hacking on the other end, really working something out from the back of his throat, and then a voice like wet gravel said, “BabyLand.”
I rechecked the number-it was correct-and then read the password. “Uh. . Saint Valentine is a friend of mine?”
There was a pause and the voice said, “Be at the Green Mill in an hour.”
“Where’s the Green Mill?”
The answer was a wet cough with a slurp at the end, then he barked, “What, you ain’t got a map?” and hung up. I stared at the phone, which felt infected in my hand, silently thanked Al for dozens more, and whipped it into the river.
An hour later, after consulting an actual phone book, I stood in front an old-time cocktail lounge where green neon announced THE GREEN MILL. I pushed through the door and the bright afternoon was swallowed up in barroom gloom. The bar stretched from the front door all the way back and then made a sharp left and kept going. Tiny booths lined the wall, ancient sconces oozed pink light, and a bandstand stood empty at the back of the room. The bartender, bent over a newspaper, looked up at me disinterestedly and went back to the page. There were only two other people, a large broken-nose-looking guy on a stool staring hard into a glass of something brown and an old man parked at the bar in one of those golf cart-wheelchair things called a Scamp. My bet was on the broken nose, so I approached and said quietly, “Are you him?”
“No,” he said, picking up his glass. “I’m drunk.”
“Hey, Einstein,” the wet gravelly voice said. It was the old man in the Scamp, and he dipped his head at me. I walked down the bar and he said, “Take a load off.”
I climbed a barstool and looked around. “Can I be in here?”
He took a greasy fedora from his head, removed a previously lit, disgustingly chewed cigar from its band, and said, “How old are you?”
“Sixteen.”
He snapped a match and lit the turd, blowing smoke through ancient yellow teeth. “Jesus. You’re younger than the other one.”
“Which other one?”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, breaking into a coughing fit that shook his bulky frame like he was enjoying his own personal earthquake. I noticed then that he was even older than I thought, and a lot bigger. The hands he used to cover his mouth were as large as catcher’s mitts, the knuckles like red, broken walnuts. His face was mapped with a scar that began above his left eyebrow, traveled across the bridge of his nose, and ended just past his bottom lip. All in all, from the sickly pale skin to the pinkie ring the size of a meatball to the Sansabelt slacks and Velcro sneakers, he was pretty creepy to look at, much less talk to. When he’d cleared his lungs, he took another deep drag and said, “So who the hell are you and how’d you get that number?”
“It doesn’t matter where I got it,” I said, knowing I’d arrived at a make-or-break moment. Contacting the Outfit via the notebook had been a risk; if the criminal organization had suspected my dad was a rat, they might have been the cause of my family’s disappearance. I was aware that as soon I revealed my identity, I’d know what the Outfit knew, and I should be prepared to run for my life. Inhaling a deep breath, exhaling through my nose, I said, “My name is Sara Jane Rispoli and. .”
“Whoa-whoa,” he said, lifting a massive palm and squinting angrily. “Rispoli? Anthony’s kid?”
I ran my tongue over my braces, working up the nerve, and swallowed once. “I. . yeah, I am. Is. . is there a problem?”
“I’ll say there’s a problem!” he barked. “Where the hell’s your old man? I been calling and calling, and nothing! He’s supposed to broker a thing between me and Strozzini and what, he takes off on a goddamn pleasure cruise or something? Who the hell does he think he is, Mussolini? And lemme tell you something else about your dad. .”
He was leaning forward in the cart with his eyes bulging and the scar a deep red. I guess I should’ve been intimidated, but instead I was relieved-the Outfit was obviously unaware that my family was gone, which meant that it wasn’t responsible for their disappearance. On the other hand, it also meant I couldn’t ask Knuckles if he knew anything about Ski Mask Guy-there was no credible way to bring up a mysterious freak assassin without raising suspicion. And then I was hit by a speck of Knuckles’s stinking hissy-fit cigar-spit, and a cool, clear anger rose up inside. It had been three years since I’d experienced the cold blue flame, but when it began dancing in my gut, it felt as if it had been burning there my whole life. It rose and rose, and I seemed to inhale it into my eyes as I locked onto his and said quietly, “Stop yelling at me, old man.”
Something changed in his face; it went pale and slack as he and I shared a stark, vivid scene of the fear that was attacking him.
I saw a metal casket without flowers in a small, cold room.
I saw his funeral with no one in attendance but his own empty corpse.
He sat back slowly and whispered, “Yeah,” with an involuntary shudder, “you’re a Rispoli.” He coughed into his fist, displaying a big, creepy hand again, and said, “Dominic Battuta. Call me Knuckles.”
The blue flame huffed out and died as fast as it had appeared, and I had no idea what made it jump or where it had gone. All I knew was that it had gotten the old man in line, and that he was looking at me now like a rabbit in the carrot patch, staring at the farmer. “I know who you are. I know you’re the VP of Muscle for the Outfit, just like your dad and grandfather before you,” I said, repeating my lesson from the notebook.
“Some things are best left in the family. You should appreciate that,” he said. “What do you need?”
I was conflicted about what I was about to do, but certain that Doug would hurt himself, or be hurt further by Billy, if I didn’t. “Intimidation,” I said quietly.
“What kind of intimidation are you looking for?”
“What kind do you offer?”
Knuckles spread his arms wide and said, “On this end, we have mild harassment. On this end, beaten senseless.”
“What’s in the middle?” I said.
“Crapping his pants.”
“Yeah, that one. And I need it done tomorrow. But look. .”
“Hang on a sec,” he said, producing a scrap of paper. He slid on a pair of half-glasses, licked a pencil tip, and scribbled, murmuring, “To. . morrow. Crapping. . pants.”
“But I don’t want you to hurt the guy. Just scare him really badly. The person I’m doing this for is an advocate of nonviolence.”
Knuckles looked over the top of his glasses. “Talking to me about nonviolence is like recommending the veggie plate to a lion.”
“You have to promise,” I said. “Just scare him.”
“Okay, fine. No kneecapping. I’ll put my scariest man on the job,” he said. “But in return, you gotta do something for me.”
“What’s that?” I said.
Knuckles sighed like a dragon, blowing cigar smoke from his nostrils. He explained how his division was engaged in a bitter dispute with the other major division, Money, about getting paid. It had grown worse in the past several months since the FBI began investigating front businesses, trying to figure out what the Outfit was doing behind all those supposedly legitimate operations. “Like this place. The Green Mill was a front for decades. Supposedly belonged to a hood called ‘Machine Gun’ Jack McGurn, but Big Al was the real owner.”
“Is that right?” I said, looking around for the Capone Door.
“Tell you one thing. Ain’t no Feds snooping around BabyLand.”
“What’s BabyLand?”
“My store. It offers everything for new parents, from clothes to furniture to them weird bags they stuff the kid into and strap to their chest.” Knuckles shook his head and said, “What kind of a man would wear that thing?”
“Kid stuff doesn’t really match your personality,” I said.
“That’s the beauty of it. The Feds look at traditional businesses. . limos, concrete, strip joints. . but who ever thinks to look behind a baby?” He sucked on the cigar like a pacifier, hacked up smoke, and said, “The problem is StroBisCo. You think it was too damn huge to be suspect, but the G-men are even peeking behind Wonder-Fluff Carmel Bars. ’Course, they ain’t gonna find nothing. The books have been cooked on StroBisCo since day one, you know what I’m saying?”
“Uh, yeah. . for sure,” I said as casually as possible, as if I knew what he was talking about. Fortunately for me, he kept talking, and what I heard was amazing. Everyone on the planet had heard of StroBisCo, since it churned out a majority of the population’s junk food. What no one on the planet knew, except for a select few criminal Chicagoans, was that the gigantic corporation was also the Outfit’s most important front business. Its complex of factories on the West Side went on for miles, the smokestacks belching out the afterburn of thousands of conveyor-belt crackers, cookies, doughnuts, and anything else that can be packed with sodium or injected with sugar. Its most famous snack is the Wonder-Fluff Carmel Bar, which my dad says contains so many additives that it causes teeth to fall out. According to Knuckles, besides promoting world obesity, StroBisCo was also a massive money-laundering operation for the Outfit-dirty dollars went in one door, were shaked and baked, and came out another door perfectly clean and untraceable. The VP of Money was also the CEO of StroBisCo. In order to avoid suspicion, he was withholding all payments to Outfit members until the Feds quit poring over false payroll ledgers and doctored expenditure sheets.
“VP of Money,” I said, remembering what I’d learned from the notebook. “Last name Strozzini?”
Knuckles nodded. “My grandfather hated his great-grandfather, and my father hated his grandfather, and I hate him. I haven’t been able to pay my guys in a month, and they’re the ones out there doing the heavy lifting and leg breaking.”
“But doesn’t it make sense? I mean, if the FBI is paying that much attention. .”
“Ah, it’s all BS. Strozzini is holding on to that money just to screw with me. The mutual animosity between the Battuta and Strozzini clans is legendary,” Knuckles said, with something like pride. He went on to say how my dad was scheduled to sit down with both men to resolve the situation, and asked me to urge my dad to fulfill his duty as counselor-at-large and do the deal.
“I can’t. He’s. . not well.”
“He’s on a cruise, ain’t he, kid?”
“He’s not well,” I said quietly, locking onto his rheumy eyes while narrowing mine threateningly, as if I could call up the blue flame at will. “In fact, he’s so ill we had to close the bakery temporarily.”
Knuckles blinked heavily, whispering, “Sorry to hear it. Give him my best.” A moment later and a shade paler, he said, “How about you?”
“Me what?”
“Do what your dad does, what Enzo the Baker used to do,” he said. “Sit down with me and Strozzini, use your gift or whatever it is, and get my guys paid.”
“No, I couldn’t. What if he doesn’t listen to me?”
“He might not. Doing business with broads isn’t exactly an Outfit tradition. On the other hand, you got the Rispoli thing in spades with the eyes.” He shivered.
“I don’t know. .”
“Okeydoke,” he said, revving the Scamp. “Well, good luck to that nonviolent pal of yours. He’ll be fine. Maybe.” He touched his hat and rolled toward the door.
“Wait,” I sighed. “Okay, I’ll do it. But I can’t guarantee anything.”
Knuckles buzzed in reverse and greeted me with a nauseating display of cigar-stained teeth that was, in theory, a smile. “Club Molasses, right? When?”
“Uh. . no, not there. My uncle Buddy is doing some odds and ends at the bakery while it’s closed. You know, painting and, uh. . mopping.”
“Buddy Rispoli,” Knuckles said with a chuckle. “What a schlub.”
After all that had happened, the dismissive way he said it affected me strangely-it actually made me a little sad for my uncle. “Why do you say that?” I asked.
“Listen, kid, no offense, okay? Buddy’s not a bad guy, he’s just not your dad. Frankly, I never seen such a wannabe in all my life. The guy should stick to mixing batter or rolling dough or whatever it is he does. His own pop, Enzo the Baker, didn’t even trust him enough to tell him that Club Molasses existed under his own fat feet!” Knuckles guffawed, and then wiped his eyes. “Naw, the Outfit ain’t for him.”
“Who’s it for?”
“A Rispoli like you. Hell, you’d be perfect if you weren’t a girl,” he said with a wink. “Now then, how about the Bird Cage Club?”
I remembered it from the notebook; it was the other place guarded by Nunzio’s rats. “Fine. Where is it?”
“Come on, kid, I ain’t got time for this. You know where it is.”
“Right. Of course,” I said, making a mental note to read up on it.
We talked details a while longer-what I wanted him to do tomorrow, and whom to do it to, when the meeting with Strozzini would occur-and then Knuckles held out a catcher’s mitt and showed me those teeth again. “So we got a deal?” he said.
“Deal,” I said.
I shook a hand that had busted many bones over the decades.
Those bones were smaller pieces of shattered lives.
I had just agreed to be a part of that sick process, and it broke my heart.