Cold Fury (32 page)

My gut told me that eventually she would reenter through another door, as another person, but with the same twisted ambition to control the Outfit.

She was correct about one thing—I believe that in the twenty-first century, it would be impossible to do that without the notebook.

The official story is that the Outfit is weak, broken, and on its last legs after a long series of trials and convictions. The fact that most people believe this fantasy goes to show how well the Outfit has learned, in a hundred years of existence, to protect itself in a chameleonlike fashion by becoming invisible. The open displays of its existence—think Al Capone driving a Rolls-Royce convertible down State Street smoking hundred-dollar cigars and giving nickels to orphans—are so long gone, it’s like they never happened. The organization has wormed its way so deep into legitimate businesses that every time someone orders a latte with extra foam or downloads a movie or upgrades a phone, the Outfit gets its cut. Yes, there are still plenty of limo companies and cement companies and “gentlemen’s clubs” where the management uses “dem” and “dose” in daily conversation, but in general, the public accepts the bullshit that the Outfit has shrunk so small as to be almost nonexistent.

And then, out of nowhere, a headless, handless body stabbed sixty-six times will bob to the top of the Sanitary Canal.

A judge will commit suicide, and six hundred thousand dollars in cash will be found hidden in a shoe box under his bed.

There will be a long weekend of South Side shootings, which Chicagoans will dismiss as “drug-related gang activity” without realizing who’s actually selling the drugs, and how they use modern street gangs as their sales force.

Only the notebook explains how to access and utilize all of the forces of the Outfit. It contains the past and present of the snaking, unseen organization, and in doing so, lays out a blueprint for its future. Most important, it makes crystal clear that the Outfit is a heartless, soulless business—not a family or a club but pure, grinding commerce—and that the Boss of Bosses, the old man referred to only as Lucky, demands that every single day is business as usual. As Knuckles recently told me, my real job as counselor-at-large is not peacemaker but profit maker, since conflict, infighting, and turf wars serve only to shut down the cash-making machine. He told me that I’m at the center of everything in the Outfit because its center is the almighty dollar.

Knuckles doesn’t know that my family has been taken away.

What I’ve seen and heard as counselor-at-large, and the fact that I’ve been left alone to do the job, leads me to believe that no one else in the Outfit does either.

They don’t know that behind the papered windows of the bakery and the sign that announces a renovation in progress, the place is still and empty.

They also don’t know that the notebook exists, or that I’ll use it to tear the whole rotten Outfit apart to get my family back.

• • •

In the meantime, I had to push myself forward to Fep Prep for final exams before school let out for the summer.

The first thing Max and I talked about on Monday was Bully the Kid, how bizarre the whole butt-kicking thing had been, and when he would be out of the hospital. We were in the theater room, waiting for Doug to show up with the movie, and Max took a long look at me and said, “You sparred recently, huh?”

I thought about Poor Kevin, about the melee in the gondola and about Uncle Buddy, and turned away, stifling a crying jag. When I was sure that it had passed, I said, “Yeah. A couple of times.”

“You didn’t answer your phone all weekend.”

“Oh, yeah. It got . . . wet. I’ll get a new one soon.”

Max stared at me, looking past the bruises. “You seem different. Like something happened to you. Like . . .”

“It did, for sure.”

“. . . you met someone else?”

It was my turn to stare, and after a long pause I said, “What do you mean, else?”

Max blushed from the neckline of his shirt, up past his warm brown eyes, right to the tip of his curly hair. He swallowed thickly and said, “This has been a tough couple of months for me, Sara Jane. My parents’ divorce, my dad moving to California . . . I feel like I lost my family, you know?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”

“I mean, I totally understand if you met someone you like, and you want to . . .”

“I did meet someone, but—”

“. . . see him, or whatever. I understand, because I don’t have much to give right now. Sometimes I don’t even feel like myself. Does that make sense?” he said, searching my eyes.

It made so much sense I had nothing to say except, “Max. Have you . . . ever been to Rome?”

“Italy?”

“Yeah.”

He nodded, smiling. “Once, when I was little kid. We went as a family, traveled all over Europe. Funny you asked that, because Rome was my favorite place.”

“What’s it like?”

“It’s beautiful. You’d fit right in,” he said, and smiled a little. “My mom woke me up early one morning, before dawn. She wanted to walk the streets while they were empty, and we were crossing a piazza on the Capitoline Hill when the sun began to rise. We sat on the edge of a fountain to watch, right by an old church. I’ll never forget how sunlight touched the dome and the whole city seemed . . .”

“Golden,” I whispered.

“. . . golden, like it was lit from above and below, and on all sides.” He was quiet for a second, and then said, “We should go there sometime.”

“Okay,” I said, knowing I would go with him anywhere on earth.

“By the way,” he said, pointing at my neck, “I like that a lot.”

“Thanks,” I said, touching the signet ring, which hung from a chain. “My mom gave it to me.”

“It’s showtime!” Doug said, bustling into the room, opening his new laptop.

Max stared at the bruises covering Doug’s face. “Let me guess. You sparred this weekend too.”

“What?” Doug said. “Oh, that. I got a ski mask stuck on my head.”

“Huh?” Max said.

“Long story. Okay, today we’re watching a classic film noir called
White Heat
, starring our favorite little gangster, James Cagney,” Doug said, reaching into a paper bag. Instead of a ginormous root beer and a king-sized bag of Munchitos, he took out a bottle of water and a healthy apple. “His character, Cody Jarrett, is a ruthless criminal who’s obsessed with his mother, and . . .”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Max said with a grin. “What’s with the apple?”

“Pardon me?” Doug said.

“The apple. Where’s the salty, crunchy junk and carbonated sugar water?”

Doug cleared his throat. “I’m trying to lose weight. There are things I need to be prepared for. If I’m going to live a long, healthy life, I mean.”

Max nodded and lightly punched his shoulder. “Good for you, Doug. I’m proud of you.”

Then it was Doug’s turn to blush, and he looked at Max’s hand and sighed as he turned on the movie. Toward the end, Cody Jarrett made his last stand against the police high above the ground, pacing the top of a building that looked suspiciously like the Bird Cage Club. I glanced at Doug, who winked, as Cody Jarrett screamed, “Made it, Ma! Top of the world!” right before dying in a huge, fiery explosion.

I gave Doug a WTF stare.

He mouthed back, “Ignore . . . that . . . part,” and winked again.

I looked back at Cody Jarrett as he was eaten alive by white, crackling flames. Doug’s little joke was hard to ignore, since I live at the Bird Cage Club now.

Its isolation in the clouds made it a logical and necessary decision.

Plus, I have a smart, loyal, and (somewhat) humorous sidekick and a small dog with the confidence of an angry buffalo to help guard the door.

I tried one more safe house the day after the Ferris wheel incident, an empty apartment in a three-flat on a desolate street in Lawndale, but as soon as I was locked inside, the phone rang. It was old-fashioned with a rotary dial, mounted on the wall. I lifted it and listened without saying anything. I heard movement and muffled voices but whoever held the phone was simply breathing. I hung up, paced the room, peeked out the window, and it rang again. There are few things as creepy as an old phone
brrr-ring
ing in a hollow apartment, insisting that it be answered as if it knows you’re there. I tried to ignore it but it wouldn’t stop, so I picked it up again. There was silence, and then very quietly I heard the haunting jingle-tune of an ice cream truck.

“Lou?” I said desperately. “Mom? Dad?”

The line went dead.

I hung up, stared at it for a beat, then lifted the briefcase and fled the apartment.

Maybe it had been a wrong number dialed twice or maybe it was just an eerie coincidence, but both my gut and my paranoia politely disagreed. I rode the steel elevator up to the Bird Cage Club, and I’ll stay here until the day my family is reunited at our house on Balmoral Avenue. It’s times like these, late at night when I’m studying, that I think about home most often. I can picture us there, my mother making petite, delicious ravioli, my dad trying once again to reattach the old lightning-struck weather vane to the slate roof, and Lou and Harry absorbing something obscure and intelligent on TV. I can’t see Uncle Buddy there anymore but at least I love him again, and forgive him.

This is the last entry I’ll make in my journal tonight but will continue writing in it tomorrow, and the day after that, and every day until I find my family.

I realize now that it’s much more than a school project.

It’s actually another important explanation of who and what the Outfit is, and someday, when I’m done with it, I’ll include it where it belongs—in the notebook.

I used to study Italian in order to prepare for the trip my parents promised me if I graduate from Fep Prep with honors. Now I study it as a survival course, since so much of the notebook is written in Italian. Somewhere in that collection of tattered and worn pages stuffed between old leather is a secret that tops all others—the ultimate secret that I hope will help me find and free my family.

Especially the last chapter, “
Volta
.”

I knew that it meant “time.”

Once I looked deeper into my Italian dictionary, I realized that it has another meaning too. So, for tonight, my three new words are:

potere
—power

interno
—inside

volta
—vault

I removed the brass key from the back cover, thumbed away tarnish, and saw “001” engraved on its face below three letters—UNB.

It hadn’t occurred to me until now that the key to ultimate power may actually be a key, and that it would open a vault.

Now, all I have to do is find it.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to start by thanking Jason Anthony at LMQ for encouraging me to write this book, and for continuously making a good story even better. I’m indebted to my editor, Stacey Barney, for her insight, patience, big brain, and deft touch. A sincere thank you to Sylvie Rabineau at RWSG for getting behind the book so enthusiastically. I owe a pair of overdue thanks to Dan Smetanka, for teaching me important stuff, and Will Klein, for fanning a flame that burns cold and blue. Michael Goeglein and Dora Goeglein, my two little tornadoes of love, inspired me each day with their displays of adrenaline and natural hug-ability. Finally, and always, endless love to Laura Goeglein, who reads like a fan and critiques like a friend.

EXCERPT FROM

cold fury 2

I PICKED UP THE MAIL,
checked the lights, and then paused, absorbing the musty air and deafening silence of my Balmoral Avenue house. Since the night my family disappeared, I’d had all of the destroyed, shredded furniture discreetly removed, and now most of the rooms stood bare. Innocuous odors become pervasive in an empty house, while normally undetectable noises
drip,
click,
and
buzz
their way to prominence. I walked room to room through the gray midday light, listening to the grandfather clock tick into the void, inhaling the stale-soap smell of the clean but dusty house. A lone sunbeam shone weakly at the bottom of the staircase and I stepped into it, feeling no warmth. The home I grew up in, stripped bare of the people I loved, crowded my heart with unbearable loneliness. With one hand on the banister, I looked into the large hall mirror, seeing my dark hair pulled into a careless ponytail, my usual attire of worn Cubs T-shirt and beater jeans hanging on my body. An aggressive nose, lip-stretching braces, and high cheekbones—my face looked back, dominated by blue eyes flecked with gold, and I noticed something missing from them. Where there had once been hope, even in the darkest moments, now there was only tired despair.

For the first time since they disappeared—the first time in my life—I felt a blip of hatred toward my parents.

True, ours was a house of brick and plaster, limestone and slate. But it was also a house of deception—a place where the people I loved most showed only one of their two faces. By omitting the truth about themselves and our family, they lied directly into mine every single day. The despair in my eyes—they put it there, and it wasn’t fair. And then the idea of fairness reminded me that no matter what they had or had not told me, no one deserved their tortured existence. The blip faded because I loved them more than I could ever hate them. I looked away from the mirror, abandoning my reflection, and creaked upstairs to the second floor.

The old Victorian has a third level, too, with exposed brick and rafters, that was used partly as a playroom when we were little, and partly for storage. My mom tosses out anything broken or past its prime, but my dad is a pack rat and has kept certain things that will never go away. A steamer trunk from Great-Grandpa Nunzio’s emigration from Sicily (as big as a bathtub) has been propped up in a corner for so long that it’s become a spider high-rise. Grandpa Enzo’s Western Flyer bicycle (blue and rusty) he used to make bakery deliveries when he was a kid is there, the metal box between its handlebars large enough to hold three cakes. My favorite item is an old wooden telephone booth from the bakery, which my dad claimed when it became obsolete. Lou and I used to play inside of it, folding its door shut and pretending to drop a dime and make phone calls. Otherwise, the third floor is stacks of boxes and ancient photo albums, all of which I’ve searched for anything that could lead me to my family, to no avail.