been one of Chicago’s most popular speakeasies during Prohibition-and then he asked if he could call me sometime.
I was unable to explain that not much was happening between Max and me, but that I hoped it would. My heart definitely belonged to Max-still, I’d be lying to say that Tyler’s attention hadn’t gotten to me a little. It felt strangely good to be known as Sara Jane Rispoli, Outfit Somebody, rather than Fep Prep Nobody, and to be attractive to a guy who looked like Tyler Strozzini. I guess that’s why I hesitated; instead of telling him that calling me probably wasn’t a good idea, I explained that I was between phones, which was true. Tyler winked and said no problem, that getting in touch with untouchables was his specialty.
Something occurred to me, hearing that word-untouchables.
I couldn’t remain in the warehouse safe house forever; metal cages on the windows aside, if someone really wanted to get his hands on me, it wouldn’t be impossible. I thought then of how tough it had been to reach the Bird Cage Club-without knowledge of Capone Doors, it would’ve been impossible-and that twenty-seven floors in the air with only one way in and out made it the perfect hideout. I tried on my own smile and said, “By the way, my dad. . he wondered if you had an extra set of keys by any chance? He misplaced his.”
“For you,” Tyler said, rummaging his pocket, coming up with a key chain, and removing one key, “anything.” As I took it from him, he held my hand and gave it the same kind of squeeze Max had. “By the way,” he said, nodding toward Knuckles but holding my gaze, “ignore what the senior citizen said about your nose. It’s perfect.” And then he turned and climbed on the elevator, waved as the doors closed, and my heart ached a little.
“Beware,” Knuckles said, relighting the cigar. “He’s a sneaky little bastard. He’ll use anyone and anything to get a leg up.”
“In what way?”
“In every way. That’s why he’s so good at his job.” He exhaled smoke through his nostrils, smiled like a corpse, and said, “You’re about to become a very busy girl. When this gets around the Outfit, how you convinced Money to come across with my payroll? Thugs will be lining up for you to settle their disputes with that gift of yours.”
That was the thing. I hadn’t used the ghiaccio furioso. I used another power I didn’t even know I had, and it made me blush thinking about it. I said, “No way. It’s not my responsibility.”
“Whose is it? Your dad’s, who’s inconveniently under the weather? Or on a cruise? Or perhaps,” he said, squinting suspiciously, “somewhere else?”
“I told you, he’s ill.”
“I know, I know. . so ill you had to close the bakery,” he said in the same mocking tone he’d used to call Tyler’s parents’ death a “real tragedy.” Knuckles leaned over the handlebars of the Scamp and said, “I just want to remind you that we all have a boss. . me, Strozzini, and your dad. And not just any boss. . the boss of bosses. If your dad’s duties go unfulfilled, you can bet Lucky will start asking questions.”
I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me-of course there had to be someone in charge of the Outfit, its CEO, just like Frank Nitti had been so long ago. I swallowed thickly and said, “Remind me again why he’s called Lucky?”
“You’ll know if you meet him. Thing is, you don’t want to meet him. The rare instances when Lucky himself whistles someone in is when the old man has serious questions,” Knuckles said, leaning forward in his Scamp. “And woe be it to the poor S.O.B. who doesn’t have the right answers.”
Maybe Knuckles knew something and maybe he didn’t, but I understood his meaning clearly-if business did not proceed as usual, the Outfit would make it its business to find out why. And if it turned out that my dad really had gone to the Feds, I wouldn’t be able to run fast enough or far enough to save my own life. I stared at the old man who had been around forever, who went back so far in the Outfit that he had known Nunzio. I was sure he was full of answers to the questions I was dying to ask-like, for example, why had Nunzio taken out a hundred-year lease on the Bird Cage Club? But I couldn’t-I had to pretend I knew everything.
“Yeah, okay, I can handle it,” I said, remembering my dad’s words from long ago. “I can handle anything.”
“I have no doubt,” Knuckles said. “That’s why I need another favor. A couple animals that work for me, both first-rate knee-crackers, are about to kill each other over a broad. I can’t afford to lose either, so you gotta talk to them, set them straight.”
“Okay,” I said, thinking of Detective Smelt. “Then I need a favor from you.”
“
“I guess we do,” I said.
We shook on it and, to misquote one of Doug’s favorite movies,
22
There are two types of people in the world: those who enjoy eating barbecued ribs and those who are turned off by gnawing on pig bones covered in goop.
The Twin Anchors Restaurant amp; Tavern has a long, storied history of serving the former. Pork ribs have been its bread and butter for eighty years, including the period during Prohibition when it was a speakeasy, providing patrons with Chicago-made moonshine in soda pop bottles. Decades ago, Frank Sinatra loved the joint, as did every notable Outfit member, and sometimes they found themselves at the same table with him, and sometimes Grandpa Enzo was at that table too. Remembering that it was Detective Smelt’s hangout of choice, plus her possible Outfit connections, led me back to the notebook, where I learned all of this and more. Apparently, Grandpa Enzo even bought a piece of the business from its owner, someone named Roberto, whose last name isn’t supplied. It doesn’t tell what happened next, only that my grandpa eventually sold his piece, and that was that.
The notebook mentions that the Twin Anchors has a Capone Door.
Hopefully I wouldn’t need it.
Hopefully Detective Smelt wouldn’t be the she-devil I suspected she was.
I pushed through the entrance without the gun, armed only with ghiaccio furioso and a determination to use it on her just as I had Uncle Buddy. It was a cozy place with a cheery bar and Sinatra murmuring from the jukebox, and although I’d never met the detective, I spotted her immediately at a round leather booth in the corner. She wasn’t a she-devil, but she was a ghost, or a zombie, and she looked up at me and smiled.
“Sara Jane,” she said in that unmistakable voice, a piercing combination of West Side Chicago and a phlegmatic lion.
“Elzy?” I said to my dead nanny, because, despite the black beehive that had been replaced by a henna buzz cut, and despite the retro-mod wardrobe that had been replaced by no-nonsense detective wear, she still wore the cat’s-eye glasses, and it was still her. I approached slowly, sensing movement bristling around me, her people ready to pounce if I did. “It’s not possible. I went to your funeral.”
“You went to the funeral of an empty casket,” she said. “Have a seat. You want a Coke or something?”
I sat heavily, staring, until I managed to say, “Do my parents know?”
“That I didn’t die? Of course not, that would have ruined it.”
“Ruined what?” I said.
“Me taking over the Outfit. That’s why I need the notebook,” Elzy said, sipping something brown with cherries in it.
I paused, watching her lick her lips with a pointed little tongue. “You know about the notebook?” I asked.
“I know about a lot of things I’m not supposed to know. But for heaven’s sake, be patient, we’ve got some catching up to do,” she said with a wink. “Personally, I’m an expert at being patient. I waited years for the opportunity to take over the Outfit, and then your grandpa Enzo provided it by dying. Or, I should say, your dad provided it, by being himself. Brains, tenacity, DNA-Anthony Rispoli had everything it took to eventually become boss of the whole Outfit. The problem is that he had too much.” She pointed a finger, saying, “He had you and your
