Flicker & Burn: A Cold Fury Novel

by T. M. Goeglein

  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.

  15

  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 Chicag
o 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.”

  He handed me the book and I looked at the page, which read:

  . . . only surviving heir is a grandson, Juan Kone, of La Plata, Argentina.

  Looking over my shoulder, Tyler said, “Does that mean anything?”

  I shivered a little as two pieces of the frustrating puzzle finally clicked, and recalled Teardrop’s words—Él no es Dios—he isn’t God. Maybe not, but it was undeniable that Irving “Ice Cream” Cohen’s grandson was angry and powerful enough to have snatched my family and sent his army of red-eyed freaks after me—and that he may have been of Argentina, but he was currently in Chicago. I was more convinced than ever that he and his creepy legion were holed up inside the old Pure Dairy Confection Company factory, and I turned to Nino the elder. “Check one more thing for me, please?” I said, straining to keep my voice steady. “A name. Weston Skarlov.”

  After a few taps and a return, he looked at the screen. “Niente. Nothing.”

  “Sounds like an alias,” Junior said. “Like ‘Jack McGurn,’ Capone’s bodyguard. You ever meet a Sicilian named McGurn?”

  I shook my head, sure now that it was a fake name and an eternal dead end. If there were no trace of him in Money’s archives, there wasn’t one, period. I thanked the Ninos, Tyler pressed the reverse C, and as we stepped back into his office, I looked at the other painting for the first time. It was of a young, pretty African American woman. She was seated, smiling warmly, with a man standing next to her, his hand on her shoulder. He looked like a younger version of Tyler’s grandfather, without the mustache, and I said, “Your mom and dad?”

  He nodded slowly. “They died in a plane crash when I was fifteen. One minute they were here, the next, gone forever. Of all the terrible things abou
t it, the worst was the simplest . . . I never got to talk to them again.” He cleared his throat and put on a small, empty smile. “It’s impossible for anyone to understand how it feels, so I never talk about it. I just try my best to remember them how they were.”

  I gazed at the painting, seeing how alive and confident his parents appeared, certain that more days lie ahead. Commiseration is such a sweet temptation—I wanted to tell Tyler everything about my family, since he was the only person on the planet who had experienced exactly what tore me apart every day. It made the connection I already felt to him as an Outfit kid even stronger, and I began to say something comforting when he pulled me close. I was suddenly in his arms, near enough to see what a perfect nose really looked like. He smelled earthy and lemony, and he smiled a little, saying nothing. I couldn’t help but smile back because it was such a movie embrace, a little ridiculous but exciting, and because being so close to him was something I’d wondered about. It was also pleasant torture since Max was in there too—in my mind, my heart, hovering over my conscience. Tyler’s lips began to move, and I froze, unsure if I was able to resist a kiss, when he said, “Remember that offer I made about taking you to Paris?”

  “It’s hard to forget.”

  He grinned, showing a major investment in dental work. “In two weeks. I have a meeting. We’ll take the StroBisCo jet.”

  “What about school?” I said, wondering why I wasn’t trying to break free. He held me firmly but with no force or pressure and I realized that was the reason—it felt comfortable, like we’d embraced a thousand times.

  “I’m in college, remember? It’s extra credit for me. Besides, we’ll go over a long weekend. You’ll only skip one day of classes.”

  “I’m skipping one now.”

  I waited, curious, but there was no kiss, only a gentle touch beneath my chin and a tease as he said, “You know what they say. After you’ve done it once, the second time is even better.” The grin that followed bordered on irresistible, reminding me that it was time to go. After a quick friend-squeeze, we stepped apart and Tyler buzzed for his assistant, who accompanied me down to the lobby. We rode in silence, Ursula smiling so hard it almost came out of the back of her head.