That’s when Ski Mask Guy materialized out of thin air, catching me with a huge open hand across the mouth that drew blood. I ducked under his fist, which swung like a wrecking ball, and answered with a perfectly aimed right that sounded like it broke his nose. He reeled and stumbled, and I took off down the sidewalk like my hair was on fire.
I was fast, but he was pissed.
He was on his feet in a flash.
I ran through the nearest open door, into the North Avenue train station, and was charging toward the platform stairs with him galloping behind me. And then, in the long second when there were only inches between my swinging ponytail and his grasping fingers, the air grates popped open and began raining rats.
Ski Mask Guy gasped and began swatting at the writhing gray bodies, while I took the opportunity to run for my life. I remembered what the notebook said about Capone Doors being located in every El station electrical closet built before 1935 and hoped this one was at least that old. I rounded a corner and spotted a door bearing the words DANGER: ELECTRIC-NO ADMITTANCE, which cracked and yielded to my very determined shoulder. I ducked inside, located a tiny C covered in grime, and leaped into the wall, followed by a gang of rodents. It wasn’t the steamy heat or pitch blackness or cobwebs adhering to my face like a second skin that sucked so badly, or even my bleeding mouth dripping over my lips that I couldn’t wipe away because the space was too tight to lift an arm.
What sucked were the rats.
Wedged between brick and mortar, I was unable to bend down.
It sucked that I couldn’t caress their hot spiky hair and wormy tails, and scratch lovingly between their triangle ears, since they had saved my butt.
For an hour I stood between two walls-in the intervening years since the Capone Door was installed, another building had been built against the station, cutting off the escape tunnel-while dozens of rats skittered and clicked over my feet. Now and then I felt a cold nose inch its way up my ankle. There was tentative nibbling at the end of my little toe and one of them squeaked, then stopped, and then started again: squeak, stop, start, repeat, for what seemed like a hundred years.
It was so narrow I could smell my own bloody breath.
Through layers of old brick, I heard the El train pass overhead.
For thirty of those minutes I listened to him out there in his creepy ski mask shuffling around, trying to figure out how I (and a crowd of rats) had disappeared in a train station closet with no windows and only one door, the same one he’d run through a few steps behind me while peeling off rats. He pushed over boxes and punched at the ceiling, got on his knees and felt along the dirty tile floor, exhaling the F-word with every girlish breath. When he was done, he sat down and crossed his arms, waiting for me to reappear. Even with a wall between us, his nauseating fuzzy pork chop odor was inescapable.
Through a pinhole, I watched him bob his foot impatiently.
Rats swirled around my feet excitedly.
They were jumpy, like my heart.
I remained motionless for another half hour, unwilling to take the chance of exposure, not after what I’d seen in Ski Mask Guy’s eyes after I broke his nose. Finally, he kicked over his chair and left the closet. When he was gone, the rats scattered too.
They departed like a herd of silent little ghosts.
They never even gave me a chance to thank them.
I emerged from the wall, bloody and dusty, but with a revelation-I would continue running blindly until I understood why I was running. Of course it was to find my family, but whatever happened to them had occurred because of the notebook. It was time to unearth the secrets that lie between those old pages and use them to my advantage. After all, as my mom drilled into my head, knowledge is power.
To do that, I had to get off the street.
I had to hide out and start reading.
I chose a ninety-first-floor apartment in the Hancock Building from the list of safe houses. It was a glass box in the sky where Lake Michigan spread out as if the whole world was submerged beneath cold blue water. I locked myself inside and began studying the notebook, but my paranoia alarm went off Thursday morning and I moved to another location, an ancient brick warehouse overgrown with ivy and weeds, surrounded by gutted cars and encircled by a rusty barbed wire fence. The windows were covered with cages and the door was a giant rolling wedge of iron that locked by dropping a metal bar into the cement floor. I appreciated the airiness of the Hancock but needed the reliability of thick brick and heavy metal-it reminded me of Windy City Gym, and Willy. When I opened the notebook in that old place, the past came roaring back to the present; alive, jumpy, and dangerous. I continued my crash course, and by the time I closed the notebook and pushed it aside, the rest of the week had passed.
What I learned came off the pages like a sick whisper.
Most of it was shocking, some painful, the rest shameful.
All of it involved my family.
A realization sunk agonizingly into my consciousness like a dull needle inserted by a sadistic nurse. Something made the notebook shake-I saw that it was my own hands-as the need to scream crept up my throat and into my mouth. It gurgled like sour nausea, but when I parted my lips, all that dribbled out was a faint “Oh. . my. . God,” that didn’t sound like my voice. It was as if someone else were in the room, because there was-another me, the one I didn’t know existed until I read it in the notebook.
It told how the Rispoli clan was so deeply embedded in the Outfit that the bloody organization couldn’t operate without us.
It wasn’t an implication or a rumor. Worse, it was a secret, which is just another term for a concealed fact. It stated in black and white how three generations of men in my family aided and abetted Chicago’s (and the world’s) most psychopathic and murderous organized criminals, which made them criminals, too. If it was true, and the zillions of microscopic icicles knifing every inch of my skin said it was, then the life my parents had carefully constructed around me was a lie.
I licked my dry lips, staring at words on the page, while that other girl said it again. “Oh my God.”
There are things I wish I did not know about my long-gone great-grandfather, my dear dead little grandpa, and my own dad, whose fate is questionable.
There are facts about molasses that make me hate the sugary, syrupy substance in a completely unrealistic way.
Over and over again those wishes and that hatred interrupted my reading as I delved deeper into the notebook’s first chapter, “Nostro-Us,” which refers to the entire Chicago Outfit. Within that chapter was a section titled, “La storia della famiglia Rispoli e’ la storia del Outfit a Chicago,” meaning, “The story of the Rispoli family is the story of the Outfit in Chicago.” It was there that I learned of not only my family’s unique place in the criminal organization, but also how it all began with molasses.
Molasses, which can be easily fermented to produce alcohol.
Rum in particular, but other types of cheap booze too.
My family was the source of that sugary syrup for Chicago and beyond.
When I say source, I don’t mean plain old sales and distribution. I mean the entire supply of molasses into Chicago was controlled by Nunzio “Blue Eyes” Rispoli, my great-grandfather (who knew he had a nickname?). He opened Rispoli amp; Sons Fancy Pastries in the twenties as a front business, since bakeries required large amounts of sweet raw products like molasses and wouldn’t draw the attention of federal agents. Nunzio’s operation grew and grew until he was covertly importing thousands of gallons of the stuff from Canada as the main supplier to dozens of secret distilleries.
He was tight with the Outfit’s boss of bosses, Al Capone.
Their relationship was not founded on admiration or respect.
It was cash, tons of it, paid by Nunzio for the right to operate.
Capone ordered every illegal booze maker in town to buy precious molasses exclusively from Nunzio, and in exchange Nunzio gave Capone’s organization fifty percent of his p
rofits. Capone took half of the booze makers’ profits too-not to mention what he shook out of the thugs who delivered the liquor, the rumrunners and bootleggers. The Chicago Mafia made so much money from illegal liquor that it was able to expand its criminal operations across the country and the world. And unlike the Mafia in other large cities, the Chicago organization was multi-ethnic. There were lots of Italians at the top, but everyone-Greek, Jewish, Irish, African American, and at least one very bad English guy-was welcome, as long as they earned money. Eventually, it even rebranded itself with a business term rather than an ethnic one-the Outfit. All of this sounds innocent by today’s standards, even a little romantic, like some of the stuff I’ve watched in the Classic Movie Club. Except that if any of those booze makers disobeyed Capone and bought molasses from another source, his guys would beat, maim, blind, disfigure, or murder the offenders and their families. They pummeled people with bats and pipes and tire irons, drove them around in car trunks filled with bricks, pounded nails into their heads and feet, set fire to them, drowned, choked, stabbed, smothered, and hung them, and sometimes even mercifully shot them.
It was brutal and done with intent, the opposite of romantic or innocent.
The Outfit called it doing business.
Nunzio did business with them from the beginning of Prohibition to the end.
In fact, the speakeasy he built far beneath the bakery was the Outfit’s gathering place of choice. Long after the bakery closed each day, a procession of criminals and their significant others rode the oven-elevator down to Club Molasses to drink their own illegal product and gamble away the profits they made selling it. Meanwhile, through his molasses business, my great-grandfather provided a foundation for modern organized crime in Chicago. Illegal booze financed the Outfit’s investments in prostitution (everyone is a victim), gambling (shreds souls and lives), extortion, loan-sharking, labor racketeering, and on and on, including the precursor of illegal drugs. The system of distribution, laid like railroad tracks during Prohibition-who imports, who brokers, who sells-is the same one the illegal-drug train runs on today. In the margin of the notebook, Grandpa Enzo scribbled a reflection: “The money that began with molasses was a puddle seeping toward a rivulet, the rivulet trickled toward a stream, the stream bubbled into a river, the river rushed toward the sea. And now, we are the sea. . the bottomless, churning sea.” The tone seems self-satisfied, almost proud, but at the same time overwhelmed, like it’s all too much to deal with.
Eventually it became way too much.
The Outfit extended its reach to Cuba, Hollywood, Washington D.C., and beyond.
Meanwhile, the organization in Chicago was in chaos.
Al Capone was sentenced for tax evasion in 1931 and locked away in Alcatraz penitentiary in the middle of San Francisco Bay. Among his many evil attributes, he had been a master of crime management, keeping competing interests and rogue personalities in line by sheer force of will. Among his many failings was a weakness for the spotlight. Big Al was a publicity hound, constantly showing off his expensive cars and shiny diamond stickpins, and even shinier women.
He opened soup kitchens for the poor and spent lavishly on orphans in an attempt to change his public reputation from crime lord to benefactor. In the end, all that it did was attract attention to his lifestyle. The FBI wondered how it was that a guy with so much disposable income never paid taxes, and he was quickly convicted and sent away. Upon release from prison eight years later, he retired quietly to Miami. Capone never returned to Chicago, and it was said that he’d died in Florida, but no one ever saw his dead body. Crooks around the world speculated about what had happened to his vast personal fortune, estimated at a hundred million dollars in cash. It was rumored that he hadn’t died, but instead snuck off to Italy with his money. Another rumor, scribbled in a margin, was that Capone was spotted in Chicago as late as 1951, holding secret meetings with none other than Giuseppe “Joe Little” Piccolino, the inventor of the Capone Doors.
The Outfit didn’t care what happened to him.
They were just glad he was gone.
They vowed never again to seek the spotlight and to go as far underground as possible, since publicity served only to weaken the organization.
As soon as Capone was gone, a thug with a low profile and big brain named Frank Nitti stepped into the void.
Nitti, it turned out, needed Nunzio.
During Prohibition, Nitti’s job was to distribute Nunzio’s molasses among the illegal distilleries. He was impressed-dumbfounded, really-at my tiny, gentle great-grandfather’s ability to control the smugglers, liars, and thugs who worked for him. These were bad men with small brains and short tempers, yet each one was intimidated by Nunzio, and Nitti never forgot it. By the time he took over, Prohibition had ended, liquor was legal, and the ocean of cash that flowed from illicit booze dried up. Still, the Outfit had plenty of income from all of its other businesses, both legitimate and nefarious. By 1940, Nitti realized that the time had come to restructure, and after studying several corporate models, concluded that consolidation was in order. He split the Outfit in half, with the moneymakers (sales, loan-sharking, bribery, investments, and banking) on one side, and the muscle (intimidation, beatings for hire, enforcement, collections, and executions) on the other. He knew the entire organization could be boiled down to those two divisions, since each one depended on the other-without money, they couldn’t protect their business, and without protection, they couldn’t make money. Because he was a modern man, he named himself chief executive, and appointed a vice president to each division.
Genarro “The Gent” Strozzini was the very first VP of Money, a position and title that were handed to his son, his son’s son, and on down the line.
Agosto “Gus Batters” Battuta was the first VP of Muscle, and a Battuta had been the Outfit’s chief knee-cracker ever since.
Strozzini and Battuta were oil and water and hated each other from the beginning.
If Battuta’s guys were slow to collect a debt, then Strozzini was slow to pay Battuta’s guys, and then Battuta’s guys exercised their knuckles on Strozzini’s guys, and so on. Nitti was tempted to erase them both and start over, but he had selected them because they were so good at what they did-Strozzini could pinch a penny until it squealed, while Battuta was a born killer with no conscience-and because they commanded the loyalty of large gangs of their own. He needed to get them under control, but if he focused on one versus the other, he would lose the edge of impartiality so critical to his stature-and that’s when he thought of Nunzio. He remembered the little man’s outsized ability to control sour personalities, and while he held no real hope that Nunzio could tame Strozzini and Battuta, he thought it was at least worth a try.
The end of Prohibition ended Nunzio’s molasses business but he had made enough money to retire from the Outfit and become an actual baker, which he found that he loved. My great-grandmother, Ottorina, ran the front of the store, and with a wink and a nod, they offered a specialty: molasses cookies. Grandpa Enzo was a little kid, already working in the kitchen, and here I learned something strange. Apparently, Nunzio named it Rispoli amp; Sons, plural, because there had been another son-Grandpa Enzo had a younger brother whose name and fate are not recorded, only the fact that he existed. In any event, Nitti asked Nunzio to intercede between Strozzini and Battuta, and Nunzio agreed. Only he, Nitti, and the two men were present at the meeting. The notebook is vague on details, stating only that Strozzini and Battuta left arm in arm, professing undying loyalty to each other. Whatever Nitti witnessed was enough-from that day on, Nunzio was the Outfit’s official feud breaker and peacemaker. He took the title counselor-at-large and settled disputes at Club Molasses, which evolved from a speakeasy to a quasi courtroom.
There’s nothing written in the notebook that explains Nunzio’s methods for making hardened criminals make peace and get along. There is, however, a scrap torn from some sort of history book stapled to a page. It’s old and yellow, taped together fr
om many pieces as if someone shredded it, thought about it, and reconstructed it. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears as I read it, because I was reading about me.
“After a grueling trip, the team of researchers reached the remote Sicilian village of Buondiavolo in 1906, set among arid hills at the southernmost tip of the island, which consisted of the ancestors of an obscure tribe captured in Egypt after Alexander the Great’s troops engaged it in a skirmish. Alexander was amazed to watch the fierce, outnumbered clan fight completely without emotion. There were no battle cries or shouts of anger. Meanwhile, his troops were intimidated to the point of inaction; had Alexander not ordered reinforcements, they would have fallen one by one from sheer fright. Seeing an opportunity, he made peace with the tribal leader, the most vicious yet serene warrior among that people. Alexander was intrigued by the chief’s eyes, which were described as ‘small circles of ice lit by chips of burning gold.’ The chief spoke of how it had passed down from the Pharaoh-that the rare salts found in the precious metal were not only life-sustaining, but bestowed otherworldly powers. Producing a satchel of shining sand, he declared that only the tribal leader had the privilege to eat gold. Alexander made a show of respect for this custom, as he did toward all savages whom he conquered, and absorbed the tribe into his army, making it an elite unit, first to engage difficult enemies. The last place he sent it was Sicily to destroy rebellious Greeks, but then he died prematurely. His empire crumbled, history stumbled forward, and the tribe remained in the place that became Buondiavolo.
“Researchers found modern residents of the village to be mild and pleasant, even when aroused to anger. One team member, Dr. J. Reginald Huff, inadvertently offended a young man when he failed to remove his hat in the presence of the man’s mother. As Dr. Huff reported, ‘Smiling brightly, the lad explained precisely what he would do to my intestines with a dull fish knife if I did not right the situation. The chill blue of his eyes and serenity of his demeanor terrified me to the point where I would have doffed not only my hat, but any other article of clothing, had he so ordered.’ The team experienced it again and again-calm rage that froze a person in terror, making him utterly complacent. As Dr. Huff noted, ‘I’ve always been terribly frightened of knives. When the young man invoked a fish knife to my belly, it was as if he were reading my fear.’
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