estimated that upwards of a thousand Capone Doors had been concealed in as many locations, and that despite the ongoing teardown and reconstruction of the city, many remained functional.
“It’s important to note that only the Outfit, Chicago’s venerable underworld institution, has Capone Doors; no other city than Chicago, and no other criminal organization than the Outfit, had the foresight. Because of technological marvels like these, Outfit members were the actual ‘untouchables.’
“Officially, Capone Doors are designated as escape hatches, but during Prohibition (1919–1933) the doors were instrumental in the Outfit’s domination of bootlegging and rum-running, used to import and export alcohol without detection or interference. After Prohibition was repealed, Capone Doors continued their usefulness as conduits to secret casinos and illegal sports books, as white slavery highways and sneak-thievery pathways and as rush-hour avoiders. The ownership of and access to Capone Doors was at the heart of the bloody Battuta-Strozzini Turf War of the 1970s (see ‘
I paused, sitting up a little.
I reread the last few lines, picturing my small, gentle, smiling grandpa.
My mind went to the memory of when he shape-shifted into Evil Grandpa, and it clicked. I sat back and continued reading.
“A boon to Capone Doors came in 1938, when the City of Chicago began to dig subway tunnels in order to supplement El trains. A far-ranging and wide-reaching system of secret tunnels already existed beneath the muddy surface of Chicago (see ‘
“Generations of Outfit members passed on the locations of Capone Doors to the next generation, but a comprehensive list was never distributed for fear that it could fall into the wrong hands on the right side of the law. As years passed, some were forgotten, others torn down, and still others built over. In Joe Little’s original blueprints, he states that ‘the key to finding a Capone Door is to imagine them everywhere, in every type of building and location, both public and private. And to train the generally unseeing eye to spot a hidden
“Al Capone. A.C.,” I whispered, remembering the photo in the office of Club Molasses. I turned the page expecting to read more, but instead of the neat, blocky script, the page contained a list written in two different hands which I now recognized as my grandpa’s and great-grandpa’s. It read:
The list continued on, some locations I recognized, others I’d never heard of, but all of them surely containing (or at least at one time contained) its own personal Capone Door. I dog-eared the page so I could come back and finish, and turned to the next page. It was a new section titled “Safe Houses,” and explained how the Outfit owned dozens of hotels, homes, apartments, warehouses, and condominiums under assumed names where any member on the lam could hide out safely. This section contained a list of addresses, and I was skimming it when my eyes drooped and my chin touched my chest. I lifted the notebook and felt something odd, something hard and bumpy. I turned to the last chapter, “
After that, I don’t remember anything until I heard a woman scream.
I jumped awake from the cot like I’d been electrified.
The notebook tumbled to the ground as the woman screamed again.
I rolled to the floor, crawled to the window, carefully pulled back the sun-streaming blinds, and looked down into the boxing ring where Ski Mask Guy was sprawled on his back, plaid rumpled suit still buttoned, tie askew. Across from him, Willy bobbed and weaved with fists cocked, ready to deliver another Sunday punch. Ski Mask Guy got to his feet and shook his head, adjusting his mask and his bulk. The lumbering goon had his back to me and was pointing at Willy while, from somewhere unseen, a woman shrilled, “Lucky punch. Okay,
Willy pushed his glasses up on his nose, spit through the ropes, and said, “Bring it, sissy boy.”
I craned my neck, looking around the gym for the woman, and then a flash of bodies drew my eyes back to the ring as Ski Mask Guy lunged like a Frankenstein monster. Willy ducked and delivered a one-two kidney punch that doubled him over, followed by a surgically precise left hook to the chin that put the freak on his back again.
Ski Mask Guy cried out in pain.
It was high-pitched and feminine.
It was the same voice I’d heard only a second ago, and it was his.
I watched as the giant lunkhead lay prone on the canvas, seemingly unconscious, and remembered the sugary voice from the mini-camera tape. I’d assumed there was a woman present then, too, but that high-pitched tone belonged to Ski Mask Guy, and it only made him creepier. The fact that he was not Uncle Buddy was no comfort; it only affirmed what I’d been dreading, that there really were three different people out to get me-a turncoat uncle, a faceless freak, and a corrupt cop with a stable of officers at her command. Quietly, then louder, Ski Mask Guy began to giggle girlishly, and then he leaped to his feet with alarming agility. Willy crouched, hands set, but Ski Mask Guy reached out in hyper-speed and grabbed Willy’s left arm, yanked and twisted, and I heard old bone crack.
Willy did not scream.
Instead, gritting his teeth in pain, he threw a feeble right.
Ski Mask Guy halted it in midswing and broke that arm too.
Willy, still silent, dropped to his knees, his head on his chest. “You really thought,” Ski Mask Guy said, his schoolmarm voice weirdly incongruent with his hulking form, “that a flea like you could compete with a specimen like me? I was play-acting!” He wrapped his hands around Willy’s neck and lifted the old man until only his tiptoes touched the canvas. “Okay, this is
I was pulling open the trapdoor when I heard the “Uncle Tom” reference.
It was a filthy racial curse, something only a psycho pinhead would use.
It only made the scene in the ring that much more violent and surreal, and my mind went to the.45 in the steel briefcase.
I popped the locks and looked at it lying heavily among the stacks of cash, like some sort of sleek, dangerous reptile at rest. My hand trembled as I reached for it, with everything in me screaming that what I was doing was stupid and wrong. Then Willy screamed, the gun was in my hand, and I held onto the rope and jumped. “Hey, sock puppet,” I said as my feet hit the floor. “Let go of my friend before I. . I put another hole in that mask!” I was so racked by jitters from just holding the gun that I almost dropped it before gripping it tightly in two sweaty hands.
He turned to me while still choking Willy, whose eyes bulged and body squirmed like a fish on a hook. “Well, well. If it isn’t little Miss Kick-Me-In-The-Face!” he trilled. “Hey, does that thing squirt water or pop a little flag that
