Cold Fury (24 page)

“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.

19

EVERYONE HAS A TALENT,
even the most seemingly untalented person, even if it’s something that other people wouldn’t consider particularly entertaining or useful, like performing an entire opera on a kazoo or flipping an omelet blindfolded.

My sometimes-friend Gina’s talent is gossip.

The time had come to deploy the full power of her awesome gift.

I’d asked Doug to wait twenty-four hours until he did anything crazy like hurting himself, and the time was almost up. When the bell rang at the end of first period, I was out the classroom door and down the hallway before it filled with slow-moving loud-talkers, waiting at Gina’s locker. I’d made sure to conceal my bruises beneath makeup so her full attention was on what I was about to tell her. Gina’s place in the Fep Prep firmament—Gossip Queen—makes her the be-all, end-all of the buzz, dish, and dirt, and I had a juicy morsel now that was (literally) custom made for her.

When she saw me, her incredible gossip ESP kicked in and she said, “Let me guess. Max is going to fight Billy Shniper.”

I looked around carefully and then stared at her. “No,” I said. “Doug is.”

There are few things as sweet as seeing surprise register on Gina’s face. Watching her process unexpected information is like watching a great chef experience a new flavor. “When? Where?” she said hungrily. “More importantly . . . how?”

“Don’t fool yourself,” I said. “Doug has moves.”

“Yeah, one toward a bag of Munchitos, the other toward a remote control. Seriously, Sara Jane, is this really going to happen?”

I looked around again, and said, “I swear. Today, right after school. Under the El tracks, behind Bump ‘N’ Grind. And Gina?”

“Yeah?”

“Doug’s a friend of mine, so don’t tell anyone, okay? He said that after he breaks Billy’s nose . . .”

“He said that?”

“And after he makes Billy get down on his knees and apologize like the little bitch that he is . . .”

“Doug said
that
?”

“Then he just wants to put this whole silly thing behind him and get back to concentrating on his girlfriend. The model. Who lives in Canada.” There, I thought, looking at Gina’s
O
-mouth, that should do it.

It did it all right.

By last period, the tidbit had spread from kid to kid like flu in a preschool.

Everyone seemed to know about it except Doug, who never talked to anyone.

When the last bell rang, the entire student body flooded out the doors and headed for the grassy patch beneath the El. I’d made a plan with Doug to get an espresso at Bump ‘N’ Grind after school, and he was waiting for me on the sidewalk, confused at the back pats and “good lucks” being showered on him by kids he didn’t know and had never spoken to. “What’s that all about?” he said.

“Maybe they just like you,” I said as we started walking.

“No one likes me.”

“Doug . . .”

“I know, I know,” he said, shifting his laptop from one arm to the other. “You do. But I’ve been thinking about it—I can’t stop thinking about it—and it’s not enough to . . .”

“Hey! Doug!”

I looked up at Max waiting across the street, hands on hips, angry and concerned, and I realized I’d forgotten to factor him into the plan. “Crap,” I mumbled.

“Crap what?” Doug said as we crossed the street. The mosh pit of kids crowding behind Bump ‘N’ Grind was impossible to miss. “What’s going on here?” he said.

“What the hell are you doing?” Max said, stepping in front of Doug.

“Just getting an espresso,” he said, taken aback. “Maybe a scone.”

“You’re going to
fight
Billy Shniper?” Max said.